Either you think that SETI is a worthwhile undertaking, in which case they're doing the Lord's work, or you think it's a complete waste of time. I think they're laboring in the right vineyard. Recent books have declared extraterrestrial intelligence to be extremely rare. In the Universe, geologist Peter D. Ward and astronomer Donald Brownlee write that the universe has many dead zones in which life is highly unlikely to exist. But while the search for aliens occupies the lives of SETI Institute scientists, the institute makes no claims to knowing if there is, in fact, anyone out there.
Science is capable of asking the question and trying to do the experiments to find the answer.
Dr. Jill Tartar, demonstrating the power of a new search method. The SETI institute was founded in 1984 as a nonprofit corporation, and in 1985 NASA awarded the institute a contract to play a major role in a search being performed by the space agency. However, in 1994 a budget-conscious Congress cut funding for the NASA SETI program. The SETI Institute, which had become reliant on public funds, was suddenly in crisis. It was really pretty devastating.