Best guess: Paul Allen's Telescope Array won't find any aliens: because there are no aliens to find

If you want to talk about the ultimate broadband communications over distances, you would have to cite radio telescopes that are tuned in to listen to signals from alien civilizations.

Last week at someplace called Hat Creek, Calif., Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen attended the unveiling and activation of the Allen Telescope Array, a planned collection of 350 radio dishes. The initial 42 radio dishes

Paul Allen, who mostly funded this enterprise, said in part that:

"As now deployed and with plenty of room for growth in the future, the telescope can fulfill a multitude of uses, including broad radio sky surveys and the search for evidence of extraterrestrial technology."

While I salute Paul's inquiring spirit and his willingness to invest in his curiousities, I truly believe these radio dishes won't find any aliens. Why? Because my best guess is there are no aliens to find.

Why do I, a lifelong astronomy buff and a telescope owner, dare to say this?

I happen to ascribe to what some call the "rare earth" theory. Oversimplified, the rare earth theory holds that whether by natural processes or design, so many favorable but against-the-odds circumstances had to occur for sentient life to arise on Earth that such parallel occurences elsewhere have been extremely unlikely.

And that's just sentient life. That's not even encountering the rise of species with the urge to communicate, and that has dodged enough celestial and self-inflicted bombs and bullets enabling them to last long enough to develop and use radio astronomy.

If you buy into my brand of the "rare earth" argument, consider this. Even if there were aliens, how do we know they would give a rip about talking to outworlders? Maybe they would be non-technical civilizations more concerned with their own affairs. Aren't we being a bit patronizing by automatically assuming that aliens are out there, looking to add to their big cosmic IM Buddy List?

Owing far more to the scientific than theological, my main point then, is that the odds are "astronomically" against Paul Allen's radio telescopes finding anything.

I'm pretty sure there are living microbes on other orbs, but the untold thousands of revs the legacy microbes on our orb had to get through to develop into you and me, are just too intricate a collective process that IMHO rules out the possibility that the Allen Telescope Array will find any alien civilizations.

Now, I'd like to learn what you think.

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