Day 3: Pseudoscience

Is SETI Science or Pseudoscience?

What is SETI?

SETI stands for Search of Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It is a private search mainly testing different technological methods with the end goal of gathering evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence whether its through microwaves or improving their technology to search farther.

Discussion:

This discussion was a complete mind boggler; I switched sides twice hearing everybody out. I initially believed it to be pseudoscience, then switched to science, then again back to pseudoscience. I believed it to be pseudoscience on my own due to the fact that the broad claim of "aliens might exist" is unfalsifiable. However, I switched once I heard that technology may just be limiting us and our abilities to falsify or prove this claim; I believed that the process of creating and modifying new technology WAS in fact science.

However, once again I was convinced when another person in class mentioned how testing the actual technology could never be a fair scientific trial. It is impossible to come to conclusions and record observations on the effectiveness of new SETI technology/communication methods due to the fact that the universe is ultimately infinite. In other words, when a new technology/method does not work during a certain period of time, it does not mean that that technology is ineffective due to the fact that the universe is infinite and there could potentially be an infinite observation time. (Ex. "Maybe our microwave technology will work if it travels further!")

How can SETI be more scientific?

I believe that SETI could be more scientific by collecting data and material from space and determining whether or not there is evidence of a life rather than looking for evidence of communication. By collecting data there may be some theories formed that could drive their search, rather than blindly hoping something or someone receives SETI signals. I also believe that their must be more observational methods whether its through developing breakthrough technology to retrieve more data in the form of in depth photos or something on a similar observable level.

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Day 7: Are Animals People?

If you do not meet all the criteria for personhood, does that mean you are not a person? A person could be capable of a certain criteria more than another criteria and still be a person. If a person lacks a certain criteria like morality, they could still be highly sentient or highly reasonable. I think 'matching the criteria' is a spectrum. For example, a being that we consider would normally consider capable of personhood (such as a human) can be born uncapable or weaker in a certain criteria, but that does not inherently make them not a person. The idea of these criteria is a blanket term, and the term 'personhood' itself is broad and nonrestrictive.

Day 11: Dr. Schuman

Guest Speaker: Dr. Schuman Today we got firsthand experience in creating data for a machine learning activity. We visited a site where we were able to feed information through series of pictures of either a facial expression, a hand signal, or certain objects. With this information, our machine was able to learn what traits were associated with certain items through an accumulation of mathematical formulas. Additionally we also got to play with an app that learned from other people's drawings and was able to complete our drawings and portray certain prompts (such as dog, cat, mermaid, lighthouse etc). Overall it was an engaging experience that allowed us to learn about machine learning data and experience collecting data ourselves. Pictured: Training Data of My Classmate

GSSE Blog Daily: Katie Lam

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