This is sort of a rhetorical question but here goes, does it pay to search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI)?

Of course it pays, what an amazing discovery it would be to find a signal from another world, right? What could be a bigger game-changer in human existence when/if we do find intelligent (or any life) out there? Imagine the implications in our thought, education, policies, and religion! I'm anything but an expert but I do think there is some validity in the famous Drake Equation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation) which is basically the statistical likelihood based on many values placed into an equation to life existing somewhere else in our galaxy.

Wouldn't we have to be rather egotistical to believe the we're the only "ones" out there? Based on the principle of mediocrity, there is nothing THAT special about earth, that is, unless you include specific religious faiths. If we take a step back though, and just examine actual evidence, there are clear-cut reasons we have life on earth; orbiting within the "habitable zone" of our star, being the biggest reason. Plate tectonics being another which gives the earth recycling properties that assist in temperature regulation. Still others, our atmosphere and magnetosphere. There are ~300 billion stars in our galaxy and it is widely accepted that there are close to the same number of galaxies. If we are fair, we won't multiply those numbers together to get an idea of how many planets could have life. Most galaxies aren't as big as our Milky Way, most planets don't lie in the habitable zone of their stars, etc. Regardless though, we're talking about a number (sextillion) with 21 zeros after it. Given those numbers, it is hard to believe there isn't some other forms life out there. Great, we just need to find it. Well, now the real problems arise....read more