SETI public: exoplanets, a new era

• Previous message: James Brown: "SETI public: Remote SETI Update"

I know that we have all been following the news for a long time, and it is
not surprise to most of us that there are in fact exoplanets in existence. We
have known this for a long time. Even simple probability theory would have an
enlightened thinker knowing this fact for at least a few hundred years now,
if not thousands.
 
I am referring to the new photographs of exoplanets.
 
But this is truly the beginning of a new era. One which will, eventually,
lead to the discovery of an earth like planet somewhere. I would again fall on
statistics as the strongest argument for this eventuality. (I.E. If an earth
planet happened here, then it must have happened any number of times wherever
there are similar circumstances).
 
When I sit back and think and prognosticate about the deep future, I think
that there will be the most amazing discoveries made, and then we will look
back at the people in the olden times and say "how could they have been so
narrow-minded?" What we would think now as the most amazing bits of human
knowledge, will be mundane in the future.
 
I then I sit back and follow the process of knowledge moving from the
amazing to the mundane. And I realize how quickly this can happen. Knowledge can
become mundane overnight. (This happens via the news, and explains why I am a
news junkie). This happens despite the fact that this is truly the start of a
new era. Everybody is just moving along, doing their own thing, going to work,
 going to bed, etc. But overnight, the world has changed. We now have
photographic evidence of exoplanets.
 
Now, hopefully, the groundwork will be laid for more and more powerful
telescopes, that will eventually image an earthlike, watery planet somewhere.
 
And then we will have to go there.
 
John Marcus

• Previous message: James Brown: "SETI public: Remote SETI Update"

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