In 1959, while I was serving as a faculty member at a certain well-known Midwest university, a noted astronomer visited our school to tell us about his current research project. He was director of a search designed to detect signs of life in other parts of the universe. Nothing has been found but he was very optimistic about the eventual success of his search. For over fifty years, astronomers have searched the rest of the universe out there for some sign of life, certain it is out there in some form. Despite the failure of their searching efforts so far, most astronomers seem to be unable to accept the idea that we may be it, all alone in this vast universe. Are we? The possibility of existence of life, out there in the universe, has both theological and scientific implications. Most thinkers focus on this question as a scientific question so we will consider that aspect first.
It seems that most astronomers today believe life exists in some form out there in the rest of the universe. They ask, “How could it be otherwise in a universe so huge as this one?” So, large amounts of money and time has been expended on the search for extra-terrestrial life, AKA, Aliens out there, potential visitors to earth in the near future. Some believe we have already been visited. It is probable that the search will continue indefinitely despite our failure to find any evidence of the existence of life anywhere other than planet earth, as of this day. I believe, after years with no evidence to support their belief it is irrational to continue such expensive search efforts.
Many refuse to believe we humans are that special. Many simplistic, probability arguments have been given to prove extra terrestrial life must exist in some other solar systems in one of those distant galaxies. The same kind of arguments can be given to prove that somewhere, eventually, a chimpanzee typing randomly on a typewriter keys, or word processor, will write a copy of the current Brittanica Encyclopedia. The probability of that is about the same. That hasn’t happened either. Well, given enough time it is sure to happen, some might tell us. Should we send out search parties looking for that chimp? We know one is out there somewhere. Don’t we? Sure we do.
Scientists affirm that life on earth is very special. We have been planted just the right distance from a sun that is just the right size. Water is plentiful on earth but not on any other planet in our solar system. There are many other parameters that are miraculously just the right value. Small differences in our environment could destroy life or make it impossible for life to ever exist on earth at all. The probability that all of the necessary precise conditions for life are present somewhere elsewhere in the universe has been estimated by Astro-biologists and astronomers. Such calculations are purely speculative, using numbers with unknown values. We cannot compute accurately the desired probability. The best probability arguments simply confirm that the probability of existence of life somewhere else in the universe is very, very small, practically zero. Epsilon. Zilch. The scientific conclusion following from these calculations is that existence of extra-terrestrial life is very unlikely. That conclusion has been confirmed so far by the negative results of our expensive searches of the visible universe. Finding life somewhere, sometime is theoretically possible but extremely unlikely. Despite the infinitesimal value of the probability the fruitless effort continues.
Whether life exists at some place beyond the 14 billion light year radius of our visible universe we will never know. If such life does exist it wouldn’t matter to us. Our sun has an expected lifetime of about 5 billion years. Suppose life exists on a planet billions of light years away from earth. Life will cease to exist on earth long before such life could be detected and contacted, if that ever happens. Our world will come to an end before that time, also. What happens then is known only to God, who is eternal. We will no longer exist in that distant future to communicate with anyone. It is not good science to continue such futile efforts. The time and money would be better spent on other scientific work. So why do we continue? There are psychological reasons with roots reaching back into our primitive beginnings as humans.
There is reason to believe our primitive, cave-men ancestors, also believed they were not alone in the universe. They viewed a much smaller world, with no knowledge of stars, galaxies and star clusters or even the other planets in our solar system. The sun was just a bright light in the sky. It is probable they never thought at all about the size of the world, small or huge. So they would never have considered the possibility of life on other planets, near or far. But they believed they were not alone in this world.
Instead of our scientific reasons, very early in our human existence the feeling that other beings of some kind must be out there somewhere began to be experienced within. This led those humans to begin to believe in a spirit world; a different kind of existence, not necessarily in a different location way out there. Their invisible spirit world was around them right here on earth. They believed the Spirit beings were powerful and could be dangerous, so they prayed to these spirits and made sacrifices to appease them. So our ancestors, a hundred thousand years ago, also did not believe they were alone in the world. Our strong belief in life out there, somewhere in the universe, is motivated by the same emotions, rooted deep in our psyches, that motivated our ancient ancestors to create a world of spirit beings; not our extra-terrestrial aliens. This was the motivation for the first religions.
Modern scientifically minded people, who do not believe in a spirit world, satisfy their belief in existence of other living beings by concluding there must be other extraterrestrial beings, possibly like us, living in other parts of the universe. Because our universe is so incredibly huge these believers argue there must exist other planets like ours somewhere in this vast universe where life has evolved just as happened on earth. This provides a solution to the “other beings out there” psychological problem for the scientist. Please note these other extraterrestrial beings, fond to scientists, are also invisible. None have been seen or detected in any way by anyone. Despite popular belief, I don’t believe we have been visited by the aliens so popular with science fiction writers. I have never been given any scientific proof of the existence of these aliens. UFOs prove nothing about existence of aliens.
The people like Christians and Jews who believe in the existence of God and angels and other spirit beings can not prove their God exists. So nonbelievers conclude that spirit being we call God is imaginary. But it is equally true , those who prefer to believe in the existence of real biological life somewhere out there on other planets can not produce any proof of the existence of any other beings living on another distant planet, despite their searching. So until that living proof can be found, the hoped for life, extraterrestrial beings, somewhere else in the universe, must be treated as imaginary. Scientifically speaking, such beings do not exist in our physical universe. It is fundamental to scientific thinking that something that cannot be detected, observed and measurable must be regarded as unreal. At most, the Aliens found in science fiction stories are only an interesting idea, waiting to be verified.
The belief in God and the spirit world, and the belief in existence of life in other parts of the universe, are alike a consequence of some deep down yearning, a part of our psychological makeup. No proof of truth of either belief can be given. As humans we refuse to accept the thought that we are all alone in the universe. That belief is so powerful it overwhelms reason that tells us there is nothing out there. For some of us this is expressed by belief in God and angels in another spiritual world. For others this leads them to belief in unknown living beings somewhere else in the physical universe. There is no scientific evidence of truth in either belief. We have only our beliefs to freely accept or deny without proof.
Until hard evidence of the existence of living beings somewhere else in the universe other than the earth, belief in that idea cannot be marked as true . Either the evidence of life will be found or it will not be found. There is nothing in between. Search as mightily as we try that will probably never happen. The results of our searches tell us it is highly unlikely the desired life will be found on a “nearby” unknown planet less than a million light years distant from earth. The desired evidence must be more distant.
Scientific evidence, acceptable by all researchers, of existence of God and other spiritual beings will probably never be found either. But Christians do have other kinds of evidence acceptable to all Christians that God does exist. There are reasons for their belief in God. Belief in God is not a wild, irrational idea as some atheists believe. Christians believe a spiritual world exists, but not located as a physical place somewhere in our physical universe. We call that heaven, the home of God and his angels.
Our physical universe is embedded in that larger spiritual world that is infinite and eternal. Evidence of that has been known for thousands of years. Creation of the world we see around us cannot be explained any other way. All scientific efforts to explain how and why the universe and all within it came into existence have failed. If God does not exist, the Creation itself is incomprehensible. Big Bang theories do not solve that problem. Creation from nothing without God, spontaneously, does not make sense scientifically, or otherwise. If you do not believe in God then it follows that you cannot believe there was a moment of Creation. The brilliant Greek philosopher, Aristotle, would have agreed with you. Aristotle believed the universe has always existed with no beginning.
Origin of life on earth cannot be explained scientifically. Attempts have been made, but all have been unsatisfactory. We are here, but science cannot explain why and how. The theory of evolution only describes how life has changed, evolved, over the billions of years of existence of life forms on earth. Evolution has nothing to say about the beginning of that first life form. Chemists and geneticists try to explain how life can form out of inorganic matter but no acceptable such explanation has been found. In fact, by the eighteenth century, scientists believed they had established as a biological fact that life only comes from life. Life cannot form spontaneously from dirt or any other non living matter. Experiments had verified the truth of that.
If life exists on any other planet it had to be placed there. So some astro-biologists believe life was brought here from some extraterrestrial source of life forms that have never been found; possibly by comets or meteorites. A very strange idea with no scientific basis. But without God all such life is impossible. Christians know that God is the source of all life. So it follows, by reason, that God placed the first life on earth. Even the Genesis story tells us the first life forms were plants and animals. Humans came later. God seeded life with simple life forms. Then evolution began to operate and life evolved from the simplest life to humans. Darwin had nothing to say about the origin of the first life forms on earth. His theory began after life had already appeared on earth. Existence of life, as we know it, is in and of itself evidence of the existence of God.
We do have strong, plausibility reasons for our belief in God.
So the search for life beyond earth, out there in the universe is motivated by human psychology, not scientific curiosity alone. People feel this deep need for other humans. If no person can be found we use animals, our pets, as substitutes. That ancient poet-author of Genesis tells us, after creating the first man, God realized one man living all alone in the Garden of Eden would not be good. He needed a companion.
The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
God began by giving him a choice of animals as helper and companion.
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found.
After examining this option, God decided an animal would not be enough. So in the Genesis story we read how he created Eve to be a lifelong companion and helper for his new creature, Adam. That is not a scientific explanation. It is a religious explanation. This was the way an ancient poet describes the fact that both male and female beings were created as the first human life. Then he gave these beings the power to create other beings like them and told them to populate the earth. Even a perfect man would not be happy living alone on the earth in a perfect place.
We were created to be social beings. We realize that we need each other. We were created that way by our Creator. Without other humans we begin to have a feeling, sometimes painful, we call loneliness. This too is behind our yearning to find other beings like us on other planets. To be alone in the universe seems much worse that being alone in a large city like New York or in a small settlement in Wyoming, surrounded by empty stretches of nothing but dirt and rocks.
But, for Christians, loneliness is not such a problem when we are temporarily separated from other people. We know God is there with us. We have no need to believe in other living beings coming to visit from other worlds in the universe. Our first need is to learn how to live in peace with, and love our neighbors, right here on earth. We have horrible problems caused by our inability to live peacefully with the other humans we see near us every day. Why would we want aliens coming to earth? Jesus taught us how to live well with those other people living around us now, but his wise teachings are ignored by most of us. Until we learn to live as loving children of God, let us hope other alien beings like us are not discovered, ready to join us on this troubled planet we call home. Let us thank God for the living beings he has given us and ask God to show us how to live peaceably with other terrestrial beings like us.
(Copyright 2012 Benjamin F. Plybon. All rights reserved.)
I have written novels on the subject. The novels, The Kaleidoscope Effect and Alone?, view the question from two directions, the former being most likely, that extraterrestrials will find us first, and that we will eventually become extraterrestrials long before our Sun consumes the Earth.
Yes, we have a psychological need to explore and to repair all of our psychological problems before we attempt to travel to the stars, perhaps within two hundred years from now.
As an atheist, I find that most of religion is not based in wonderment about the universe and its possibilities, but on a basic fear of the unknown (only defined by gods––a single God is relatively new phenomenon in the fear factor that created the gods) and death. Thus the simple explanations and rituals that go back to early tribal culture appease the masses and keep them under control.
I look to the universe with wonderment and don't view human discovery of it in terms of the few years we have left this planet since we landed on the moon. There's much more to learn and if by some infinitesimal chance extraterrestrial life discovers us the next thousand years, it will be wonderful and have nothing to do with God.
Ron