Paul Horowitzis an American physicist and electrical engineer, known primarily for his work in electronics design, as well as for his role in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence... (wikipedia)
We've done two decades of radio searches and haven't found anything. We just thought we'd try something different.
This new search apparatus performs one trillion measurements per second and expands by 100,000-fold the sky coverage of our previous optical search.
This is the world's largest garbage can, that's for sure.
It's really a light bucket. It won't take pretty pictures.
If I were a betting man, I'd bet radio would work before light. But we've done that for 20 years, and we haven't explored much with light.
It seems to be overwhelmingly likely that there is life out there and eventually we will make contract. And when contact is made, it will be the end of Earth's cultural evolution. It will be the greatest discovery in the history of humankind.
It's overwhelmingly likely that life exists on other planets.
Imagine how foolish you would feel if you didn't try only because someone said you're a lunatic.