Evolutionists: Life Evolved Somewhere Else in the Universe

Last week we reported on the supposed “mounting” evidence for extraterrestrial life, but this week BBC News’s Alex Hudson candidly asks, “[I]f extra-terrestrial life forms are abundant in the Universe . . . why have they not been in contact?” (We covered a similar story in January.)

“[I]f extra-terrestrial life forms are abundant in the Universe . . . why have they not been in contact?”

The puzzle is outright mind-bending for evolutionists, whose estimates of earth-like planets in our galaxy (and the universe as a whole) continue to grow, buttressed by steady discoveries of new exoplanets. But all the while those listening to the stars for alien communications have endured the so-called “great silence”—a cosmic dial tone, as it were.

For instance, a famous mathematics equation developed by astronomer Frank Drake in 1961 predicted that there should be some 10,000 alien civilizations able to communicate with humans. But in a half-century of listening and searching for signs of ET, even saying that no evidence has been found might be too charitable.

Granted, those who believe in extraterrestrial life point to reasonable—albeit hard-to-falsify—difficulties in the search for extraterrestrial life. It might be that humans are more technologically advanced than other societies: that is, aliens can’t yet communicate with us. Or, by contrast, perhaps most civilizations inevitably destroy themselves once reaching a certain level of technology—meaning the aliens we could actually talk to no longer exist. Some scientists simply argue that we haven’t done enough searching yet, although this does not explain why advanced alien civilizations—if they indeed are out there—wouldn’t have done more to contact us directly at some point in human history.

Thankfully, the article points out that “the simplest answer to Fermi’s Paradox [why we can’t find ET despite the predictions] is that there is no intelligent life to search for so none has been found.” Hudson also reports the view that

[t]he human race is either an accidental blip in the Universe or we are special and the conditions we evolved in were unique. The Rare Earth hypothesis argues that because of the intricate design and infrastructure of our planet, the amount of coincidences and circumstances that must occur together make life almost impossible.

That claim neatly sidesteps the possibility of divine creation, although the word “design” betrays his evolutionary intentions. Meanwhile, comments from Drake reveal the evolutionary, atheistic motivation that is driving the search for extraterrestrial intelligence:

It’s probably the most important question there is. What does it mean to be a human being? What is our future? Are there other creatures like us? What have they become? What can evolution produce? How far can it go? It will all come out of learning of extra-terrestrials and this will certainly enrich our lives like nothing else could.

The consequences for the evolutionary worldview of not finding extraterrestrial life are far more severe than the consequences for the creation worldview of finding extraterrestrial life. But until we’ve explored the whole of the universe, evolutionists can hold onto hope even if ET hasn’t turned up yet—their faith in evolution overpowering the scientific evidence.