This seminar is hosted by the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology

Summary: Is SETI a waste of time or humanity's most important task? An astrobiologist's perspective: Professor Cirkovic discusses arguments for and against the Search For Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Project; focusing in particular on the validity of palaeontologist George G. Simpson’s criticisms in the light of recent developments in astrobiology (Simpson famously claimed SETI represented “a gamble of the most adverse odds in scientific history”).

Speaker: Professor Milan M. Cirkovic, Research Professor, Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade and Associate Professor, Department of Physics, University of Novi Sad

Biography: Milan M. Cirkovic is a Research Professor at the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade, (Serbia) and an Associate Professor at the Department of Physics, University of Novi Sad (Serbia). His primary research interests are in the fields of astrobiology (Galactic Habitable Zone, anthropic principles, SETI studies, catastrophic episodes in the history of life), astrophysical cosmology (baryonic dark matter, future of the universe), as well as philosophy of science (risk analysis, observation selection effects, epistemology).