$100,000,000 Evolutionary Madness!
Nasa plans to spend $100m over ten years scanning the skies with the latest in radio telescopes to see if they can contact any intelligent civilisations, The Independent reported on 29th September 1992. What is it which leads the scientists to think that they might be successful and that it is worth spending all that money to find out? The report says:
-
`There are no hard facts - but much circumstantial evidence. Earth is an
average planet circling a normal star, at just the right distance for life
to be comfortable. Our star, the Sun, is one of 200 billion in our galaxy.
The chemicals of life - carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen - are among
the most common in the cosmos, stardust from long-dead stars.
`Astronomers can try to put numbers into this picture. Thirty years ago, Frank Drake - one of the pioneers of Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (Seti) - devised an equation that sought to quantify the number of intelligent civilisations in our galaxy, taking in factors such as the number of stars with planets, and the number of planets on which intelligent life is likely to have evolved.
`Today, the Drake Equation is still the best guide we have to the number of extra-terrestrial civilisations - but that number depends on estimating the different factors involved. Pessimists come up with an answer of just one civilisation - US. But most astronomers believe that the evidence points to millions. And some of them may be trying to contact us.
`...But suppose the quest goes on for a hundred, a thousand, a million years and finds nothing? Astronomers are reluctant to admit that Earth could be the only inhabited planet in the universe. "But if we searched that long and found nothing - knowing there were suitable planets - we'd be at a crossroads," said one Seti researcher. "Maybe we'd realise there's something that science isn't telling us," '
Second, at the time of writing scientists have not yet confirmed one star with planets going around it let alone the millions they suppose are there. They use an equation drawn up by a man who was totally committed to the notion that extra-terrestrial intelligence exists and that it is worth trying to find it. His scientific objectivity on this topic must be in serious doubt! It does not seem to have occurred to them that he may just have loaded the factors involved in his equation in favour of what he hopes to find! Faith, after all, is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Drake worked out `the number of planets on which intelligent life is likely to have evolved'. He accepted evolution as a fact, of course.
Finally, though they are going to spend 10 years and $100,000,000 trying to find out, they admit that they may just think that science is not telling them the truth after a thousand, or maybe a million years of looking. There's nothing like having an open mind and delving into the facts in the search for truth, is there? In a television interview about the project on 12th October, a scientist gave away the real, but hidden agenda. He said that once they have probed and found other life we would know if there really is a God. He firmly believed that there is other life and, by implication, he believes that there is no God and hopes to prove it - This is an atheistic project to prove Christians wrong! He showed his lack of understanding in that should other life be found it would in no way prove that God does not exist but simply that He has created far more than we ever realised. I will predict, however, that it will be ten, years of wasted effort and a wicked waste of money, to find nothing. They will come up with front-page making `proof' quite a few times over the period - to keep their sponsors happy - only to have to print small, inside-page retractions from time-to-time which most will fail to notice. This is their normal way of working and I do not foresee this experiment succeeding or being any different.
Graham Fisher. (1992)
