SETI: Horton hears a what?



(Photo by Ikiwana)

According to Life’s Little Mysteries, one of life’s big mysteries is whether we’re alone in the universe.  In other words, does extraterrestrial intelligent life exist?

Since 1985, the SETI Institute has attempted to answer that question.  According to the website, its mission is “to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe.”  This next part of the SETI mission statement sounds very much like a religious calling:  We believe we are conducting the most profound search in human history – to know our

beginnings and our place among the stars. 

SETI scientists are not necessarily thumbing through Genesis for these answers.  They have instead been

searching for extraterrestrial technological signals.  This requires some pretty advanced technology of our own.  It also requires a belief in the theory that, given the right materials and enough time, life will develop elsewhere as it did on Earth.

This latter theory, however, is currently being chipped away at.  A recent statistical answer to the “Are we

alone in the universe?” question is a less-than-enthusiastic “Well, maybe…”  According to Natalie Wolchover of Life’s Little Mysteries, SETI scientists may have been barking up the wrong equation all these years.  The SETI-utilized Drake Equation, which is based upon the reasoning that “the same fundamental laws apply to the entire universe,” is being challenged by “a statistical method called Bayesian

reasoning.”  This reasoning says that just because life evolved rather quickly on Earth doesn’t necessarily mean that it evolved just as quickly (or even at all) elsewhere.  It simply means that it may (or may not) have.

This certainly has the potential to knock the “ET” right out of SETI’s middle.  However, it also has the potential to put God back on center stage.  After all, if the existence of life is that statistically unpredictable, then perhaps an unseen hand has rolled the dice in our favor.

After all, if an elephant can converse with a microscopic mayor, then pretty much anything’s possible within our miraculous universe…

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horton_Hears_a_Who!

http://www.seti.org/page.aspx?pid=234

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43886985/ns/technology_and_science-science/

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0101.htm

Coypright July 29, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved