Are We Alone? The Ultimate Answer...

NASA image

Are we alone in the universe? It's a frequent question asked these days in excited, enthusiastic science articles about our universe. Does intelligent life exist out there somewhere?

SETI would like to know. NASA would like to know. Now that thousands of planets have been discovered orbiting distant stars, scientists and engineers are working to launch bigger and better telescopes to sense evidence of life on some of these worlds.

What is intelligent life? The most perfect example of an Earth-like planet is Earth itself. Does intelligent life exist there?

Here on Earth, the most intelligent species is assumed to be homo sapiens - human beings.

Throughout history, humans have been busy killing other humans because they have a different religious faith.

Today, they abuse and kill people because they're female.

Because they're a different race.

Or a different nationality.

Because they want to seize control of precious resources.

They kill each other in order to sell addictive poisons to other human beings.

In the modern world, they lie to each other day and night, to make money.

They break the law and hurt people every chance they get to make money.

Greed and self-interest rule most areas of human civilization.

Humans wildly promote myriad forms of superstition.

They abhor the truth and are drawn to escapist nonsense.

Humans are willfully polluting the oceans, threatening the food chain.

They're destroying huge areas of forests that used to pump oxygen into the atmosphere, thinking there will be no negative consequence.

They're polluting the air we breathe.

They're pushing animal and plant species into extinction.

They're altering the climate without remorse.

Human beings are slowly but relentlessly rendering the only home they'll ever have - planet Earth - unfit for human life.

They dream of being a multi-world species in case they ruin the precious world they already have, when there are no such worlds to go to - and if there were, no way to get there.

So I have to ask, is this what we mean by intelligent life?

Were the dinosaurs an example of intelligent life? Is this the kind of intelligence we hope to find on distant worlds? Millions of years before there were human beings, dinosaurs dominated the planet. The only reason mammals, and eventually humans, were able to evolve and exist today is because of a freak accident. 65 million years ago a mile-wide asteroid crashed into the Earth and wiped out all the dinosaurs along with 75% of all plant and animal species. If this asteroid had missed, perhaps the dinosaurs would still reign today, and humans wouldn't have evolved.

I wouldn't be writing this post on my blog.

Intelligent human beings have been on the planet for only about 100,000 years - a blink of an eye in Earth history. Science as we know it has existed only about 500 years. We could easily render Earth unfit for human life, and that would be the end of that brief story.

If this is what is meant by intelligent life, then maybe it doesn't mean much to find it elsewhere in our galaxy. Or if it does exist, then maybe intelligent life isn't such a wonderful thing. Maybe intelligence as humans think of it is like a sinister virus.

So if the question is, "Are we alone?" Maybe the honest, realistic answer is, "What difference does it make?" Or "Who cares?"

What are we going to do? Commit shocking amounts of the world's resources to build a starship that will take thousands of years to travel unimaginable distances to find out?

If the surviving generations of these space explorers were ever able to return to Earth to deliver the answer, likely they would find a ruined planet with no human beings living on it.

"Are we alone in the universe?" It's the wrong question.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2014. Building Personal Strength .

The Search for Intelligent Life - On Earth

The idea that there is intelligent life on other planets is so compelling that millions of people still believe in UFOs, in spite of common sense, their ability to reason and evidence to the contrary. This enduring interest has inspired thousands of science fiction novels and movies, the hugely popular television drama X-Files and more recently a reality TV show called UFO Hunters.

According to their mission statement, the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestial Intelligence) Institute was founded to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe. The Institute comprises 3 centers, the Center for SETI Research, the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, and the Center for Education and Public Outreach.

Goodness.

In all probability intelligent life does exist somewhere "out there," or once existed elsewhere in the universe. But the size and scale of the universe is so vast that the human mind can't comprehend it. Maybe that's why so many people think it's practical and realistic for alien species to "make contact" with each other.

I've written about this before. It's not practical, and it's not realistic. A thousand years ago, earth was in the "Dark Ages." Can you imagine what life on earth will be like a thousand years from now? If we launched a spacecraft that can travel 10 times the speed of the fastest space craft ever launched, that ship would still be on its way a thousand years from now. Or another space craft built 200 years from now would have passed it up. Or by then no one would care about life on other planets anymore.

It's too far to go.

A more urgent question: Is there intelligent life on Earth?

NASA photo

4.6 billion years ago. the earth formed from the debris of our star's birth. But single-cell life didn't appear on this planet until a billion years later. And it took another 2 billion years after that for these underwater cells to pump enough oxygen into our atmosphere to support life as we know it.

Multi-celled creatures didn't appear until 600 million years ago. Reptiles appeared 300 million years ago and dominated the planet for nearly 250 million years.

It wasn't until 50 millions years ago, after the dinosaurs were extinct, that large mammals came to dominate the planet. The first non-gorilla, non-chimpanzee humanoid creatures appeared 7 million years ago. But the first distinctly intelligent humanoids, the cro-magnons, didn't appear until 50,000 years ago.

Would you call them intelligent life? You could, even though they had no agriculture, no wheels, no written language, no commerce and no civilization.

These aspects of human culture weren't introduced until about 6,000 years ago.

The modern religions that exist today didn't get their start until about 2.500 years ago.

And humans didn't create the first printed book until 600 years ago. One of the first books to be printed was the Holy Bible. In it is this verse: "The Earth is firmly fixed; it shall not be moved." -Psalms 104:5

Back then, when humans gazed at the night sky, they didn't see "the universe." They saw "the heavens." They didn't know that our world is a tiny, insignificant speck of rock circling around one of the roughly 100 billion stars in our galaxy, which is one of untold billions of galaxies in the universe. Instead, they believed that everything visible in the night sky circled around the earth, that our world was the center of the entire universe.

It's not their fault. Science hadn't produced evidence to the contrary.

In fact, 600 years ago science was in its infancy. One of the great early scientists of that time, Galileo Galilei, had studied the stars carefully and concluded that Copernicus was correct, that the earth rotated around the sun. By teaching these facts, he dared to contradict this Bible scripture.

Image from Wikimedia Commons

In 1633 the Catholic Church tried him for the crime of heresy. They threatened him with torture if he didn't recant. Knowing that the church had burned mathematician and astronomer Giordano Bruno at the stake for the same crime, Galileo complied. As punishment, he was confined to house arrest and not allowed to leave or receive visitors for the rest of his life.

Are we there yet? Does this qualify as intelligent life?

In the year 2010, this same church still exists, more powerful than ever. Well over 90% of the 6 billion people alive on the planet still believe in an unseen deity who created everything, still worship and affirm the teachings of an establish religion, and still look at the night sky and see "the heavens."

In South Carolina, Kansas, Texas and elsewhere, conservative Christians are actively pushing to get the teachings of the Bible into school science courses.

Are we there yet? Do we qualify as intelligent life? If a life form can be both irrational and intelligent, then yes. But if so, how long has this kind of intelligent life existed on earth, really? The most generous estimate possible: only .000001% of the history of the planet.

And if you look at it realistically, we have a long way to go. Because the issue isn't whether intelligent life exists on Earth, is it? The earth is teeming with life. Even an amoeba may be said to have a primitive form of intelligence. The real question is, how intelligent?


It seems to me that nurturing intelligent life on our own planet is far, far more urgent than trying to discover it somewhere else.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

Sobering Thoughts about Time Travel and Life Decisions

I have a Ph.D. in English from Duke University. Studying there some 35 years ago was a peak experience. The learning was intense, and it changed my life. Today, I use the research, reasoning, writing and editing skills I refined there to great advantage in my work. Also, thanks to that education, I have an acutely sensitive appreciation for the arts and literature, which greatly adds to my enjoyment of life.

Still, I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like had I chosen to study psychology instead of English. In my late 20s, I was equally fascinated with both areas. I sometimes wonder if a psychology degree would have served my current work at least as well, if not better.

I have no regrets, however. I don't indulge in time-machine fantasies such as, "If only I could go back in time and change what I did in graduate school..."

I've been watching the History Channel "The Universe" series on DVD, and of course they have a segment on time travel. I trust they decided to deal with this topic because of the public's fascination for it. The segment addresses the question, "Is time travel possible?" The producers did an excellent job of maintaining the suspense of this question while laying out the theoretical possibilities along with the technical impracticalities. The unstated conclusion: Time travel as we know it will never happen. No human being will ever travel back in time to change something about the past.

For those of you who indulge in regret or "if only" fantasies, let me tell you something. Say you could go back in time and correct an event that you considered a horrible mistake. The consequences in the future would not be as subtle and benevolent as you imagine. The changes would be radical and shocking. Everything that happens has consequences. And those consequences have consequences, involving countless other people as the consequences expand into the future.

If I could go back in time and get a Ph.D. in psychology instead of English, I wouldn't be sitting here in my office in the Texas Hill Country with my wife and cats. No, everything about my life would be different. I can't even imagine where I would be or what I would be doing or even if my different life would be a happy one. I might even be dead right now. And much about the world around me would be different, too. The number of new consequences that would cascade from that one small change in the past is staggering. It's a scary thought.

Well, not really scary, because it's impossible.

So consider this:

1. Be aware that your present moment is the result of untold influences that are the product of uncountable chains of consequences triggered by actions in the distant past. There never was any such thing as "destiny." You've always lived in a world of where you and other people do things that affect your life.

2. Be mindful and appreciate your present moment. It's what you have. Don't wish that it were different. Relish it.

3. Rather than indulge in regret, learn from what happens to you.

4. Give thought to your decisions going forward. Respect the fact that your actions will have consequences in the real world. More than you'll ever know.

I hope you can use these thoughts to make your journey a little more productive and satisfying, though I suppose they're a little "heavy." I guess I never would have written a blog post like this if I hadn't gotten that Ph.D. in English so many years ago....

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use this photo purchased from istockphoto.com)

The Universe - A Gift to Myself

Something I say a lot: "If you're thinking about giving me a gift, please don't wait until my birthday to give it to me."

Corollary - When I see something I really want, I buy it. (If I can afford it.) I don't wait for someone to give it to me as a present. Consequently I'm a hard person to buy a present for. Sorry 'bout that.

My most recent gift to myself was Blu-Ray DVD sets of Seasons 1 through 4 of "The Universe," produced by The History Channel.

I suppose this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but for me this is heavily spiritual stuff, the equivalent of listening to a sermon or studying holy scripture. I started with Episode 1 of Season 1. Amazingly cool information about our very own star, The Sun. It showers us with energy, enabling life. But at the same time, it showers us with energy that can kill us all, except that we're protected by our planet's robust electro-magnetic field. 

This is going to be quite a ride. Over 40 episodes, all in super-high-definition on the big screen. And by the time I get through the whole series, I'll need to start over, because I'm not taking notes. Just drinking it in. All this mind-boggling perspective about our place in the universe. Lots of stuff to think about when I look up at the Texas Hill Country night sky.

I sincerely wish you an equivalent joyful experience. Get it while you still can.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .  (Disclosure: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products or services that I have mentioned.)

Cosmic Calculations

We spend a lot more money exploring outer space than we spend exploring our oceans. What we learn about the cosmos may be fascinating, but it has little impact on our lives. By contrast, human life depends on healthy oceans. And we know so little about the oceans, which may be why we overfish, pollute and upset the balance of life, creating massive dead zones.

The public at large lets this happen. One reason is that people have a hard time thinking rationally about the universe, because the scale is so enormous. So instead, they think about it romantically. Even scientists in the space industry say things like, “It is mankind’s destiny to travel to the stars.”

Well, I’ve been working my calculator, and I’d like to ground this concept a little bit.

The nearest star is 4 light years (nearly six trillion miles) away. That means that it would take a beam of light, which travels at 67 million miles per hour, four years to reach the nearest star.

NASA photo

We all know that no spacecraft can travel that fast. The fastest velocities on record were achieved by accelerating a craft around the sun – about 150,000 miles per hour. That speed would get us to the nearest star in about 1,800 years.

But let’s say that at some future time, we develop a spacecraft that can propel a manned crew at the speed of 1,000,000 miles per hour. Traveling at that ungodly speed, a crew could go from Earth to the moon in about 15 minutes. Or from Earth to Mars in about a day. Now we’re talking!

Hopefully no space matter would hit our ship, because at that speed even an asteroid as tiny as a grain of sand would create an explosive impact. But let’s assume that somehow a safe journey is assured. At that amazing speed it would take our brave crew over 267 years to arrive at the nearest star.

Correction. The crew would have died of old age a couple centuries before that. The great-great-great-great grandchildren of the original crew would be in charge of the craft as it arrived at the nearest star. And for what? To do what?

But let’s not get into that.

Because back on Earth, a lot would have changed. Quite possibly human culture would no longer care about the purpose of the now-ancient mission. In the worst case, humans would have spoiled the oceans and atmosphere, killing themselves off along with most other species.

In the best case, reason and vision would have prevailed, and civilization would have flourished. So imagine that one hundred years after launch, a second space craft began a journey to the same star at a much higher speed, say 5 million miles per hour. The newer craft would catch up with the first one half-way to the star—rendering the original mission a pointless one.

Today, nations around the globe fret about diminishing resources. So what should our priorities be? Humankind may be destined to explore and learn, but which frontier should be the higher priority? Our planet, or outer space?

Will Science Discover Earth?

In the science news the other day was this headline: “Astronomers Spy 32 New Exoplanets, Galaxy Packed with 'Super-Earths.'” That brings the total of confirmed planet discoveries to 400. The European Southern Observatory made the discoveries using a technology called the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, or HARPS. The smallest planet in the group was five times the size of Earth.

Most of the time, I’m out of step with the conventional wisdom, a fact that hasn’t bothered me for a long time. So I’ll ask: this may be news, but why is there so much interest in planets outside our solar system? Why this research? Because we have the technology? Because we can?

Aside from the usual scientific curiosity about the true nature of the universe, what drives this effort is the possibility that there may be intelligent life on other planets. That’s what grabs people’s attention. That’s what captures the imagination, gets people excited and gets budgets approved. Scientists fan the flames of this interest by claiming that there may be millions of earth-like planets throughout our galaxy.

Even if this were true—and I certainly doubt it—there are a few things they always fail to mention.

First, a planet identical to earth in size and orbit is no guarantee at all that intelligent life exists there. Single-celled life appeared on earth after a billion and a half years—a momentous event. But life didn’t evolve into multi-celled creatures until another billion and a half years later. This all-important change happened because of an extraordinary event—a thick layer of ice covered the entire planet. This killed off nearly all the single-celled creatures. The only survivors were mutants that had greater resilience—the first multi-celled creatures. The existence of these new species pumped oxygen into the atmosphere, slowly changing it to the air mixture we enjoy today. If that global glaciation hadn’t occurred, there might still be only single-celled life forms on Earth today.

This was just one of many chance events that changed the course of Earth’s history. Another was the large asteroid that struck Earth about 65 million years ago, causing the death of most species, including all the dinosaurs. A few small mammals species somehow survived and flourished, and we evolved from these creatures. Without this random catastrophe, humans would not exist today.

So by chance, Intelligent life did happen on our planet. But how long has it existed? What defines “intelligent”? Well, humans developed writing about 6,000 years ago, but to be generous, let’s go back about 100,000 years to the early Neanderthals. Even though they probably had no spoken language and their mentality was more like that of animals, we’ll say that intelligent life has been on this planet for that entire period. That means that Earth has had no intelligent life for 99.99% of its 4.5 billion-year existence.

And then there is the matter of what form intelligent alien life could take. Conditioned by Hollywood, we imagine human-like creatures with pairs of eyes and ears, walking upright, grasping with hands similar to our own. The truth would be nothing like that. Intelligent life could take any form at all to survive on an alien planet. If intelligent life exists out there, it will have evolved in a different atmosphere, a different gravity, and under vastly different conditions. The words “culture,” “values,” and “intelligence” would certainly seem strange when applied to such creatures, they will be so unlike us.

Contrary to the popular view, I believe that if intelligent life does exist beyond our solar system, it would not make sense to reach out and make contact with it. I think of the Aztecs, who encountered the alien Spanish, fellow human beings who arrived on their shores over 500 years ago. The Spanish nearly destroyed them all. But not with their weapons. With their germs.

And of course we couldn’t reach out to it. It’s too far to go.

So to me, all this effort to seek life on alien worlds is ridiculously romantic. It’s a dead-end, unworthy goal. From a practical, realistic perspective, as a culture we should ask ourselves how much more of this kind of science we want to pay for. When can we just say, yes, there probably is intelligent life out there somewhere, but we are never, ever going to communicate with it.

SPIRITUALITY - My Relation to the Universe

Today is Tuesday. Tuesday evenings I search the science channels for programs about Earth, the planets, and the cosmos. These reminders of the awesome mystery and wonder of the universe stimulate my spirituality.

Enjoy...