Technology=Intelligence?

Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. We might be most familiar with this organization through the movie Contact starring Jody Foster. Looking for intelligent life on other planets, in other galaxies is SETI’s mission.

I heard an NPR interview with Jill Tarter on the program Science Friday/Talk of the Nation. She is the chair of SETI. In the interview she made a statement that made me guffaw. “Technology is our proxy for intelligence. Technological civilizations survive for a very long time. It may take 100,000 years for a signal to reach Earth but if they were there to send the signal, they’re probably still there.”

Since I was driving I had to carefully control my reaction but I did laugh, hysterically perhaps. While I understand the basis of her statement I question the logic of it.

In the short time humans have been on this planet we have managed to destroy life forms, land masses, pollute waterways, over-populate and exploit resources to the point where future life is questionable. Was she suggesting that other life forms might be more intelligent and survived with their technology without destroying their planet? If that’s the case, I want to meet them…as long as they are friendly and helpful. Mean aliens need to stay away.

Maybe her ET’s could teach us how to care for our planet and use our technologies wisely instead of the highly destructive ways we use them now….drilling for oil miles below the surface of the ocean, injecting toxic chemicals into the Earth to eek out natural gas and pollute the water-table, strip mining, mountain-top removal mining….and on and on.

Does technology equal intelligence? I haven’t seen evidence of that on this planet.

(Please note: I did not take the photos of the ET’s).