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291 basis for determining the coming of the seasons, vital information for timing the crucial activities of the agricultural and pastoral year. In many cases, this knowledge was confined to religious authorities, enhancing their power. The fewer the gate-keepers, the more power they had.” One can imagine scientific priesthoods that decide what the rest of us should know about messages from the skies. They also might send private communications to the other civilization without consulting anyone else. We cannot assume that the search for extraterrestrials is immune from the ancient motivations of egoism, power, and greed. Decisions that could affect the welfare of the human species might be made by small, non- representative elites. Into this void of knowledge boldly steps the doctrine of outside assistance, of either a religious or an extraterrestrial flavor. Tabs Daind 190762 Many of those most enthusiastic about SETI hope that contact will bring us solutions to our current problems. Optimists tend to assume universal problems with universal solutions, rather than the unique problems of individual societies and the solutions tailored to fit them. Most of the problems that we want solved, such as population growth, food shortages, energy supplies, dwindling resources, and environmental degradation, may be peculiar to our level of technological civilization. They also may be peculiar to our period of history. Alien advice is unlikely to meet our unique needs at this precise moment, argued Baird, unless the more advanced civilization sent messages appropriate for multiple levels in a hierarchy.” Some forms of advice that we seek may be specific to our species. Con- sider one of the most popular categories: medical techniques. Our hope that extraterrestrials will send us cures for human diseases such as cancer rests on unlikely assumptions: either alien biology is enough like ours to make their information useful to us, or they have detailed knowledge of see Liat. a. human biology. There is a practical communications problem as well. In the remote contact scenario, it could take decades or centuries to ask the aliens to clarify their meaning and get a reply. By then, we might have moved far beyond the problems of the moment. Some SETI scientists have recognized that we should not look to contact as a cosmic cure for the problems of Earth. By implication, we must solve those problems ourselves rather than expect guidance from the sky. Their Knowledge Will Solve Our Problems Their Knowledge Will Solve Our Problems —John Baird, 1987