Profile: Christopher J Harrod. MSc (hons).

Personal background
I am a New Zealand Mainframe System Computer Programmer, based in Wellington. I trained as a bacterial ecologist, but found computers (my second love) paid better. I am a fan of Carl Sagan's work and ideas, and it was both a pleasure and an honour to take an active part in SETI.

Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
It is a rare and exciting opportunity to take part in useful scientific research as a lay person. SETI is a project that asks some of the most profound questions of an research being performed today - By seeking life outside the Earth, we are giving ourselves the opportunity to re-examine ourselves from a novel standpoint.

Like the Apollo 8 astronauts who had to orbit the moon to photograph "Earth rise", and thereby remind us that we live on a spaceship (Earth) ourselves, SETI allows us to question the significance of our existance - is there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? If so, what are the ramifications for religion? For history? Or are we alone, unique and special?

I for one favour the search for other life, and any attempts to attract its attention. Humanity can hide, but it cannot run. If we make no attempt to contact other species, there is no guarantee that they will not find us anyway. We may as well put our best foot forward and see what happens.

NASA research suggests that the development of life on the surface of a cooling planet (provided it is in the "life zone" of a star, and the planet is of the corect size and composition) may be as inevitable (and perhaps as mechanical) as the production of an atmosphere.

So there may be many worlds where there is life.

Intelligent life is likely to be more rare.
However, the number of candidate planets is vast.
So the chance of there being intelligent life in the universe is high.
This idea is encapsulated in the famous Drake equation.

For example see:

http://www.msnbc.com/modules/drake/default.asp
http://www.airynothing.com/smackerels/DrakeEquation.html

In addition I am interested in the Gaea Hypothesis of Professor Jim Lovelock, how it might distort Drakes calculations.
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