Coffee!! Have you been blessed, brother?

_{Denyse O'Leary

February 22, 2011

Extraterrestrial life}

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Apparently you have, … if you are not designed.

Over at MSNBC.com, Alan Boyle asked yesterday,

What would happen if we found out that we are not alone in the universe? Or, on the flip side, what would happen if we decided that we really were alone? Experts provided updated answers to those age-old questions, from a scientific as well as a religious angle, during a Sunday session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting. But one of the most intriguing questions had more of a personal spin: What would you ask E.T. if you had the chance?

Well, what would you ask, readers?

And, as for what would happen if we decided that we really were alone? Glad someone wondered. The underlying cultural assumption has always been that SETI searches will be rewarded, insofar as we can’t be important enough to be alone. For one thing, it would imply that we are unique. Sounds too much like religion.

Still, someone bit on the question:

Suppose the search for extraterrestrial intelligence continues for a century … and no messages are received.

Let’s see, some predictions first: When the truth sinks in, science fiction takes a huge nosedive in sales and, to rescue itself, gets reclassified as fantasy. SETI folds. NASA scales back the rhetoric at media events on astrobiology and loses funding for same. After all, no one really cares about extraterrestrial bacteria, even if they are out there. They won’t pay taxes for that for long, will they? No,They are the ones we have been waiting for.

Senior astronomer Howard Smith, the biter, took the occasion to introduce his misanthropic principle:

That term plays off the widely cited anthropic principle — the idea that Earth appears to be so suited for life as we know it not necessarily because God made it that way, but simply because we wouldn’t be around to see it if it wasn’t.The way Smith sees it, the misanthropic principle is a good thing. The view that we alone are responsible for our zone of the cosmos should make us feel “blessed,” and more careful about not spoiling the good thing we’ve got here.

“The misanthropic principle is joyous,” Smith said. “We should rejoice in our good fortune.”

So rejoice, brother. You can get a religious message out of anything or its opposite.

Comments

An update--this from the above Web site: "One of the largest designs recorded appeared at Milk Hill, in Wiltshire, it measured over 900ft in diameter and the design was made from 409 circles all arranged in a circular spiral. The 409 circles circles in the formation ranged in size from 70ft down to about a foot in diameter." Now you tell me how anyone, even a team of people, could have created such a formation, perfectly symmetrical, with each of the six spiral arms containing 68 circles in a complex pattern a perfect copy of each of the others with no mistakes in the dark in the space of at most 5 hours with no lights and leaving no trace of their presence having been there. I say anyone who believes that these formations are created by humans is in major denial.Bruce David_{February 23, 2011
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PaV: I am a proponent of ID, actually, and it is clear to me beyond any doubt that the crop circles were produced by some kind of intelligence. It is amazing to me, in fact, that a few people have attempted to propose that they are the result of natural causes. This idea hasn't gotten much purchase, however. The question, however, is "What intelligence?" If you believe that crop circles are hoaxes, you have not looked into them deeply with an open mind. The issue has been clouded by a few "skeptic" zealots who occasionally produce corp circle hoaxes, but they are easy to tell from the real thing if you examine them closely. Here are some facts: 1. Most crop circles are produced overnight in England during the months of July and August, which limits the time availble to make them to between 3 and 5 hours, and in the dark. 2. They are complex and mathematically precise (and usually striking and beautiful). Some of them are huge, covering at least 1000 square yards and containing over 100 separate elements in precise mathematical relationship to each other. 3. They appear several times a week somewhere in England during "crop circle season". 4. Although tram lines usually run through them, they often contain elements that are separate from the rest of the diagram and the tram lines, and there are never signs of human movement (footprints, trampled crop, etc) leading to them. 5. "Doug and Dave", a couple of retired men famously claimed that they had produced all the circles around the year 2000. Most of the so called skeptics took their preposterous story at face value. However, the circles keep appearing, year after year, even though one of the pair has died and the other is in his 70's. 6. The crop is laid down without damaging it, except that the nodes of the stalks are swelled and elongated, and each stalk is bent precisely at one of the nodes. On some occasions, the crop was laid down in layers, with the underlying layer pointing in one direction and the layer above in another. 7. There are usually measurable chemical and hydrological differences between the soil inside the circles and that of the surrounding field. 8. When a crop circle diagram contains circular elements, they are sometimes actually ellipses, meaning they could not have been produced using a rope tied to a stake, as the hoaxers claim they have done in creating them. I have only listed some of the evidence. You can find more on the Web and in books on the subject. You really have only to look at these complex, stunning, and beautiful creations to realize that it is simply not possible for humans to produce them in the dark and in the time period in which they appear. You can see a photographic record of them over the last couple of decades at www.temporarytemples.co.uk.Bruce David_{February 23, 2011
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Bruce: From what I understand, crop circles are nothing but hoaxes. Now, if you happen to be anti-ID, please notice, on the other hand, that you have no way of knowing how these circles are formed, yet you attribute intelligence to them. Likewise, you're imputing agency to something/someone outside of natural laws, and simply because you see design. Does this cause you to come up short a bit?PaV_{February 22, 2011
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I believe that we have been receiving messages from aliens for some time. They're called crop circles, and they appear all over the world, but mainly in England. If you look at them carefully and objectively, (there are many books and Web sites that cover them), including their shapes, their size and complexity, the biophysical effects on the crops themselves, and other measurable physical effects in and around them, it is quite clear that there is no known human technology that could produce them, particularly in the space of time in which they appear.Bruce David_{February 22, 2011
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I found the two questions a bit limiting. Is there some reason why we might "discover" that we are not alone, but only "decide" that we are? Can't we also discover that we are alone? Is there something that Alan Boyle doesn't want science to discover? Could it be, that the way the question was worded reveals a bias against science discovering we are alone (which would be philosophically unappealing to some)and the author simply cannot bear the thought? Then, rather than admit science can discover our world is unique, just relegate such a proposition to the (lower) ststus of something we just arbitrarily "decide" ?? Maybe I'm reading more into this than is really there, but would this kind of denialism be surprising coming from a materialist?Alan Boyle, are you a materialist?Bantay_{February 22, 2011
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Christians---and all believers---are accused of "inventing" God. He is beyond our experience. We're just making Him up, we're told. But talk about "invention", it is the materialists who have "invented" aliens. They reject God. Then they feel lonely; so they "invent" aliens. Now, tell me, isn't it a lot easier to look at the world we live in, to see the amazing complexity that is present in life, the amazing diversity, colors, and majesty of our world and say: "There must be a God", than it is to say, from out of nowhere, that life "must" exist elsewhere in the universe. After all, it's a probability. Just think of all the stars, all the planets. Surely somewhere else has the ripe conditions for life (even though no one dares explain how life originated here). But the probability of the DNA that codes for ONE protein has a probability that is beyond astronomical. And, yet, this probabilistic argument means nothing to the materialists. So they invent little green men from Mars. How rational!!!PaV_{February 22, 2011
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