Occam's razor can still be applied here, although perhaps not in the strictest sense of the definition. It is still better to choose a solution to a problem with fewer assumptions.

We have very intelligent people working on this problem. We should not just sit on our couches twiddling our thumbs waiting for aliens to come and solve all of our problems.

Very well, let's apply Occam's Razor. Let's begin by taking your explanation B and expanding it to list all the assumptions and entities you so conveniently left out when you prepped the battlefield in your favor. Your version of B is:

B. Rigorous searching through all known chemical compounds through virtual screening discovers many potential candidates which bind to many different HIV proteins (protease, integrase, gp120, gp41, etc.)

Your B implies the following assumptions:

1. one of the chemical compounds we know of binds to HIV proteins
2. the software we use to model the binding will actually do the job
3. a myriad of unknown and uncontrolled home computers owned and operated by less than technically trained people (i.e. amateurs and wanabees) will not miss the compound we seek
4. the results are not being tampered with by malicious hackers on a relatively open and unsecure network with a million entry points
5. WCG's servers have not been compromised by hackers smarter than them
6. we are actually running the software mentioned in #2 above and not balancing ledgers for banks and businesses around the world

Ooops! Your B has 6 assumptions whereas my A has only 4. Are you sure we should apply Occam's Razor? (yes, I claim A to be mine, because you dumped it on me and also because it seems to be winning now )

I also submit that there may be thousands of planets supporting alien life. That would increase the chance of finding aliens.



But we are not sitting on couches waiting. We ARE crunching FAAH (presumably) and we ARE actively seeking aliens. Seems to me both methods have much the same chance for success if you apply Occam's Razor.

An interesting discussion. Basic research versus applied research.Hmmmmmm. Both have something going in their favor. With basic research, the results you get may not necessarily be the ones for which you looking or expected, but may nevertheless be important for an entirely unexpected reason. Applied research tends to be more focused with a more well defined goal. Perhaps quicker to get to its goal, but with less chance for a purely serendipitous finding.

Cheers

Sgt.Joe

Minnesota Crunchers

Esoteric17,

Claiming you could win but just cannot be bothered is the coward's way of admitting defeat. There are far more gracious ways to say you're wrong and bow out.

I will give you this... I honestly don't know which approach has the best chance of giving us a cure for AIDS and I don't know of any way to decide which has the better chance. I really can't trust my intuition on such matters anymore because I know how often my intuition has been wrong in the past.

It has always been my belief that Occam's Razor tells us which hypothesis we should investigate first (because it is the more likely to prove correct) but it never rules out any hypothesis. Only testing can tell us which explanation is true. Quite often investigation shows the simpler explanation just isn't correct. Occam's Razor is a guide not a proof.

I believe Sgt. Joe has shed some light on this issue too. Crunching FAAH is applied research with a single goal whereas SETI is serendipitous. I have heard the crunching SETI does not only searches for intelligent signals from the heavens, it sort of "pre-crunches" the data in a way that sets it up nicely for investigations that look for phenomena other than aliens. I think I am not describing what I mean as well as others could. Maybe someone who has actually crunched a few SETI units could do a better job explaining the serendipity in SETI's work. Sgt. Joe, or anyone else, the soapbox is all yours if you have something further to add.

David, expunge carl.h's points and account or petition court for a restraining order. Please.

Edit: added please.