June 6: Pseudoscience

Although most fields can be easily defined as a science or a pseudoscience, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is an interesting case.

Today in STEM in Society class we discussed pseudoscience. Despite the wide range of pseudosciences, they all have common properties:

• they seem like science with a systematic theory
• they claim to be science
• unscientific in a fundamental way

Next, we split into groups to discuss an interesting case: the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). My team included Luke K, Samuel K, Derek Ahn, and Yejoon Ham. This exercise taught me how to work more effectively as a team. We used the following websites:

• A Primer on SETI at the SETI Institute
• New Model Predicts That We're Probably the Only Advanced Civilization in the Observable Universe - Universe Today
• SETI scientists begin huge new hunt for intelligent aliens | Space
• Technosignatures and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence | News | Astrobiology (nasa.gov)

My team concluded that SETI is a pseudoscience because it has all the properties of a pseudoscience.

The first two properties can easily be seen in SETI. The process of sending radio waves seems scientific. They also claim to be a science in their primer. Whether SETI is unscientific is harder to prove. However, SETI's unfalsifiability and use of scientific buzzwords prove that they are unscientific. SETI claims that space is so large that there must be intelligent life somewhere. They use this claim to justify exploring space. However, space is so large that they could never find any life. SETI uses this as a justification for why we should continue exploring space instead of the opposite. This logic makes SETI's claim unfalsifiable since they can always claim that there is more of the universe to explore. We don't know if intelligent life would use radio. SETI also uses scientific buzzwords to hide their false science. In their primer, SETI emphasizes the wide range of wavelengths they send or the size of their radio telescopes. Here is a picture from the SETI primer:

They emphasize these flashy buzzwords instead of improving the technology they use to find intelligent life. As a result, SETI is not accepted by the scientific community. Only twelve scientists worldwide are engaged with SETI and they even lost funding from the US government and NASA. As you can see SETI is pseudoscientific. To improve its scientific status, SETI would have to stop relying on buzzwords and improve its methods of contacting intelligent life. They would also have to be more transparent about the likelihood of finding aliens.