Bible Science Forum

Life in the universe is rare, so rare in fact, I would wager that sentient life is only found on planet Earth. For nearly 50 years the collection of telescopes and scientists under the umbrella name of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) have searched among the wavelengths of a myriad stars in search of a radio signal, any signal, from intelligent life. But have they detected any? Apart from detecting the odd microwave oven in their own establishment,¹ no is the answer.

In 2013 Space.com headlines with “Alien Life May Be Rare Across the Universe“² but on July 23, 2015 NASA announced the discovery of Earth 2.0 with a headline on Space.com of “NASA Finds Closest Earth Twin Yet in Haul of 500 Alien Planets.”³

It is all over the news with a host of pictures of Earth 2.0. But wait, they are only artists’ conceptions.”⁴  One such drawing is reproduced above.

The report is that NASA found a near twin to Earth named Kepler-452b. It orbits its sun every 385 days, is 60 per cent larger in diameter than Earth, has a mass probably 5 times that of Earth and is located about 1,400 light years away. It’s a big deal! But why?

The news.com.au reports⁴ that NASA has an answer to this question: “Are we alone in the universe?” saying,

“We’re taking one small step in answering that question today.”

And with that, astronomers hunting for another Earth announced they have found what may be the closest match yet, a potentially rocky planet circling its star at the same distance as the Earth orbits the Sun, NASA said overnight.

“Until about 20-years ago, we didn’t know the answer to that. Now we have a definitive answer.”

A definitive answer to the question about whether or not humans are the only sentient life in the Universe? Have they found any form of life at all? Radio signal from them? Well, no. That would be overstating it. The article only reports that NASA has found a similar planet to Earth.⁴

“This is about the closest twin to Earth 2.0 that we’ve found so far, and I really emphasise so far.”

Not only is this planet squarely in the Goldilocks zone — where life could exist because it is neither too hot nor too cold to support liquid water — its star looks like an older cousin of our Sun, the US space agency said.

But no life. The planet resides in a region distant from its parent star that could support liquid water. Of course the idea is that life evolved from a bunch of biochemistry in some hot rocks or sea spray or something 3.8 billion years ago on Earth, so why not all over the Galaxy? Well there are a lot of good reasons. It needs a Creator, an Intelligent Designer. Life is not just a random fluke. Now even professor Stephen Hawking is getting behind a new big search (they must be really frustrated at coming up nix for so long).⁵

But here now, it is sufficient that I reproduce the following article, written by Eric Metaxas, originally published in the Wall Street Journal, December 25, 2014, then in World News in The Australian, Monday, December 29, 2014. It attracted 2600 COMMENTS. However, it would appear that Mr Metaxas is a big bang /theistic evolutionist believer like John Lennox. I have not read anything else he has written and so I cannot endorse his position except the following arguments he makes for the miraculous nature of life in the Universe having arisen from the Mind of the Creator. (My emphases added.)

Science turns to God as universe (cosmos) appears to be ultimate miracle

In 1966 Time magazine ran a cover story asking: Is God Dead? Many have accepted the cultural narrative that he’s obsolete–that as science progresses, there is less need for a “God” to explain the universe. Yet it turns out that the rumors of God’s death were premature. More amazing is that the relatively recent case for his existence comes from a surprising place—science itself.

Here’s the story: The same year Time featured the now-famous headline, the astronomer Carl Sagan announced that there were two important criteria for a planet to support life: The right kind of star, and a planet the right distance from that star. Given the roughly octillion—1 followed by 24 zeros—planets in the universe, there should have been about septillion—1 followed by 21 zeros—planets capable of supporting life.

With such spectacular odds, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a large, expensive collection of private and publicly funded projects launched in the 1960s, was sure to turn up something soon. Scientists listened with a vast radio telescopic network for signals that resembled coded intelligence and were not merely random. But as years passed, the silence from the rest of the universe was deafening. Congress defunded SETI in 1993, but the search continues with private funds. As of 2014, researches have discovered precisely bubkis—0 followed by nothing.

What happened? As our knowledge of the universe increased, it became clear that there were far more factors necessary for life than Sagan supposed. His two parameters grew to 10 and then 20 and then 50, and so the number of potentially life-supporting planets decreased accordingly. The number dropped to a few thousand planets and kept on plummeting.

Even SETI proponents acknowledged the problem. Peter Schenkel wrote in a 2006 piece for Skeptical Inquirer magazine: “In light of new findings and insights, it seems appropriate to put excessive euphoria to rest . . . . We should quietly admit that the early estimates . . . may no longer be tenable.”

As factors continued to be discovered, the number of possible planets hit zero, and kept going. In other words, the odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting life, including this one. Probability said that even we shouldn’t be here.

Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart. Without a massive planet like Jupiter nearby, whose gravity will draw away asteroids, a thousand times as many would hit Earth’s surface. The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing.

Yet here we are, not only existing, but talking about existing. What can account for it? Can every one of those many parameters have been perfect by accident? At what point is it fair to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces? Doesn’t assuming that an intelligence created these perfect conditions require far less faith than believing that a life-sustaining Earth just happened to beat the inconceivable odds to come into being?

There’s more. The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp.

Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all “just happened” defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?

Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who coined the term “big bang,” said that his atheism was “greatly shaken” at these developments. He later wrote that “a common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology . . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

Theoretical physicist Paul Davies has said that “the appearance of design is overwhelming” and Oxford professor Dr. John Lennox has said “the more we get to know about our universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a Creator . . . gains in credibility as the best explanation of why we are here.”

The greatest miracle of all time, without any close seconds, is the universe. It is the miracle of all miracles, one that ineluctably [inevitably] points with the combined brightness of every star to something—or Someone—beyond itself.

References

1. Nadia Drake, Rogue Microwave Ovens Are the Culprits Behind Mysterious Radio Signals, Phenomena: No place like home, National Geographic, April 10, 2015.
2. Miriam Kramer, Alien Life May Be Rare Across the Universe, Space.com, March 11, 2013.
3. Mike Wall, NASA Finds Closest Earth Twin Yet in Haul of 500 Alien Planets, Space.com, July 23, 2015.
4. NASA discovers Earth’s bigger, older cousin, Kepler 452b, http://www.news.com.au, July 24, 2015.
5. Stephen Hawking launches $100m search for alien life beyond solar system, The Guardian, July 21, 2015.

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Related Reading

1. 8 Reasons Why Evolution is Foolish
2. The Lecture: 8 Reasons why evolution is foolish
3. Cosmic evolution–Myth or fact?
4. Soft squishy tissue in 80 million year old dinosaur bones

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Recommended Reading

• Book: Apocalypse Now: On the Revelation of Jesus Christ
• Book: Merchants of Death: Global Oligarchs and Their War On Humanity

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