BECAUSE IF WE ARE ALONE...:

Radio Silence: Still Searching for Wisdom in the Sky (Regis Nicoll, Salvo)

Early on, SETI was viewed by mainstream scientists in much the same light as they saw UFOlogy. But that attitude has been changing in recent decades, as researchers have increasingly wrestled with one of science’s most maddening mysteries: the origin of life.

When Charles Darwin published his account of life’s diversity in 1859, he did not account for its origin; that is, he didn’t explain how matter “went live” in the chemical stew of early earth. His theory of evolution started with a simple, pre-existent life form, from which all the others descended. One hundred and fifty years hence, the origin of life remains one of nature’s most tightly held secrets.

Over the last few decades, discoveries about the complexity of life and about the host of delicately balanced conditions required to make it possible have led researchers to conclude that there are just two possibilities: Either (1) planet earth is a fluke of nature in a universe that is otherwise hostile to life; or (2) earth is only one of many life-friendly habitats in a universe brimming with life.

The problem for proponents of option 1 is that, in order to keep a Director off the set, the “fluke of nature” explanation needs a device to render it less fluky. Currently, the most popular of these is the “multiverse” theory, which posits an infinite number of cosmoses, which results in an infinite number of worlds, thus ensuring that every possible permutation of physical constants is actualized somewhere. But since such contrivances are frowned upon in respectable scientific circles, a growing number of researchers are plumping for the “life-friendly” cosmos. Astro-biologist Paul Davies is one.

Davies is a curious fellow. According to an April 2010 article in www.sciencemag.org, he believes there is a “deep life principle” embedded in the cosmos, making it intrinsically habitable. He believes this, not because there is any supporting evidence for it, but because he is “more comfortable” with this idea than with the alternative. At the same time, he acknowledges that SETI is nothing less than a search for “wisdom in the sky.”

Consider this stirring appeal, which the chairman emeritus of the SETI Institute, Frank Drake, put on the institute’s website:

Ponder these questions for a moment: Would the discovery of an older cultural civilization out there inspire us to find new ways to survive our increasingly uncertain technological adolescence? Might it be the discovery of a distant civilization and our common cosmic origins that finally drives home the message of the bond among all humans? Might the revelation that we are not alone, but one species in a universe of possibilities, alter the course of human history forever?

The messianic hope is clear: If we could but find ET and tap into his vast warehouse of knowledge, we would escape our current trajectory of certain doom and join the brotherhood of being propagating throughout the universe from cosmic shore to cosmic shore. ET will save us from ourselves . . . if only we can find him. The good news is that you can help, with that tax-deductible donation.

...the way we behave matters.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 8, 2010 3:48 PM