Years ago, filmmaker Stephen Spielberg made a big splash with his blockbuster hit E.T. – an abbreviation for the term extraterrestrial. It was about an endearing creature from a distant planet who finds its way into the life and heart of a boy. Spielberg’s romp into sci-fi land was all for fun and not to be taken seriously. Or so it would seem.
Come to find out, the federal government and private citizens have spent millions of dollars over the decades to answer one question. Is there life on other planets? One privately funded group called Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), based at UC Berkeley, has thrown in the towel. Recently, the group announced that they were “going into hibernation”. Here is a quote from SETI. “Scientifically, they (volunteers) have reached a point of diminishing returns; basically, they analyzed all the data they need for now.”
For over 20 years, with the help of 20 million volunteers, and the use of radio telescope, E.T. remains silent. Not one peep from outer space. Science is rapidly learning that life on other planets (even primitive forms) is impossible. Decades ago, it was believed that, given the vastness of the universe, you could bet the farm that E.T. and his cousins existed. Scientists believed that only two conditions were needed for life to exist. A star like our sun must be at the center of a solar system and a planet must be a certain distance from the sun. Quaint idea.
Over the years, scientists have discovered condition after condition necessary for organisms to spring into life. Eric Metaxas wrote about this in his book Is Atheism Dead?
Every time another condition was discovered that was necessary for life, it mathematically reduced the number of planets down until the conditions mounted so high that the number of planets that might support life was winnowed down to almost nothing.
So here we are back at square one. Earth is an exquisitely designed planet of infinite complexity. To believe that it all happened by a random throw of the dice is to defy logic and science.