How should we communicate with extraterrestrials if we make direct contact with some distant species? Well, that’s not going to happen (you can read this article for my reasons why), but questions like that were recently discussed during an event sponsored by Harvard’s Mind Brain Behavior Interfaculty Initiative. Why are scientists such as those who participated in this discussion so sure we will someday encounter alien life?
It’s because of their evolutionary worldview! In the popular science article linked above, one scientist, who believes we should take the search for ET more seriously, states, “We know that stars formed before the sun by billions of years. We know that they have planets like the Earth around them, so the environment that we have is not rare.”
Now, he doesn’t “know” stars are billions of years old—he assumes that based on his evolutionary assumptions and against evidence to the contrary. He also doesn’t “know” earthlike planets exist to make our environment “not rare.” So-called “earthlike” planets are only vaguely earthlike, and nothing even close to earth—which is perfectly suited for life—has been discovered. He makes such statements, not because of the observational evidence but because of his evolutionary worldview.
If the universe is billions of years old, as he believes, then life must have evolved somewhere else in the universe.
You see, if the universe is billions of years old, as he believes, then life must have evolved somewhere else in the universe. Earth can’t be special! It’s just one of many planets that happened to have conditions suitable for life. Given the vastness and supposed age of the universe, life must have evolved somewhere else. That’s why he says:
[H]umans must try to conquer their sense that they are at “the pinnacle of creation” and instead understand that they are instead likely “somewhere in the middle of the distribution of intelligences in the Milky Way galaxy.”
But he’s wrong! Because he starts with the wrong foundation of man’s ideas, he comes to wrong conclusions about the world around us. When we look to God’s Word, we get the true history of the universe. According to God’s Word, God created everything (including all the stars and exoplanets) in just six days, a few thousand years ago. He formed earth—not countless numbers of exoplanets—to be inhabited (Isaiah 45:18), and it’s to earth that he sent his Son to die for mankind’s sin.
By the way, do you think these scientists would be prepared to discuss looking for evidence there’s a Creator behind life and the universe? No, because they reject that idea outright regardless of the evidence.
“For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)
This item was discussed today on Answers News with cohosts Patricia Engler, Robb Webb, and Tim Chaffey. Answers News is our twice-weekly news program filmed live before a studio audience and broadcast on my Facebook page and the Answers in Genesis Facebook page. We also covered the following topics:
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Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken
This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.
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