The Scientific case against Extraterrestrials
Are we arrogant to think we're the only intelligent life?
NOTE: This article includes some exerpts and/or summaries from Daniel O'Connor's book " Only Man Bears his Image".
7 fallacies of alien belief
- The impossibility of other planets even sustaining life.
- Unattainability trumps Innumerable opportunities
- Abuse of evolutionary theory: Jumping from a "1 in 9,000,000 chance of life developing over 4 billion years" to a certainty
- The impossibility of another LUCA: Chance and sufficient time can never generate life
- Falsifiability: No criteria are conceded which would tamp down alien belief
- Plenitude: The enlightenment's scientific error and theological heresy that spawned modern alien belief
- The fact of infinitude of the universe: Early death knell for alien belief
The impossibility of other planets even sustaining life
Confusing a few necessary factors for life and all of what's sufficient
The unique characteristics of earth and the sun
Here is a summary of the conclusions of hundreds of pages of data amassed by Peter Ward (paleontologist) and Donald Brownlee (astronomer) authors of "Rare Earth".
View the characteristics of Earth
- A planet that exists in a favorable part of the right kind of galaxy, where significant amounts of heavy elements are available and sterilizing radiation sources are located far away.
- An orbit around a star that has a long lifetime (billions of years) but does not give off too much ultraviolet radiation.
- An orbital distance that allows liquid water to exist at or near the planet’s surface.
- An orbital distance that is far enough away to prevent the planet from becoming tidally locked to its host star.
- An orbit that is stable around its host star over cosmic timescales.
- A planetary tilt that allows for seasonal atmospheric changes to be mild, not severe.
- A solar system that includes gas giants capable of preventing debris from polluting the inner solar system, reducing the odds of major cosmic impacts and subsequent mass extinctions.
- A planetary mass large enough to both retain an atmosphere and allow for liquid oceans.
- A moon large enough to help stabilize the tilt of the planet’s axis.
- A molten planetary core that generates a significant global magnetic field, largely protecting the surface from solar radiation.
- The presence of oxygen, and the right amount of oxygen, at the right time for complex life to utilize it.
- The presence of plate tectonics, which build up land masses, create diverse ecosystems, cycle carbon into and out of the atmosphere, prevent a runaway greenhouse effect, and help stabilize the surface temperature worldwide.
The odds there is another planet that could sustains life?
Modern man has evaluated 5000 planets, and not more than a couple of them have one or two characteristics necessary to sustain life. Astrophysicist, Dr. Hugh Ross identified 153 conditions necessary to sustain life. Atmosphere is just one of those factors. To sustain life, each and every one of those conditions would be necessary simultaneously, not just one condition like say, atmosphere. The random chance of those conditions coming together are 10^-194. The maximum number of planets is estimated to be 10^-22. That is a 10^172 chance of those conditions being met. That is 1 chance in 100 trillion, trillion,trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion , trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion that even such a planet could exist.
In short, the argument "look at all the planets, there must be intelligent life out there" produces a statistic of zero in scientific terms.
It's unattainable, having lots of opportunities is irrelevant
Erasure of impossibility with quantity
A main argument for aliens goes something like this
With all the trillions of stars and galaxies its a statistical guarantee that there is a planet capable of hosting life, having life, having rational life and advanced civilization.
This person might also assert that if a monkey had enough time, it could type Hamlet. Hamlet is 140,000 characters. For each letter there is a 1/26 chance. That gives us odds of 1/26^140,000 which is statistically equal to zero.
As long as we are dealing with a finite universe, which we are, a statistical value of zero when factored into anything is zero.
Abuse of evolutionary theory: Jumping from "1 in 9,000,000 over 4 billion years" to a "certainty"
Dr Michael Crowe, professor Emeritus at U of Notre Dame was an advocate of Darwinism, and yet he cannot reconcile Darwinianism with the development of aliens. He says:
Darwinian theory is, except in the broadest sense, predictive. Consequently, it cannot generate detailed predictions of the direction evolution will take in a given population.
The odds there is life elsewhere?
Assuming there is a planet that could sustain life, there would actually have to be life on the planet, not just the potential for it. Its impossible to assign a statistic to this as we have not found one other planet that does contain life.
The odds there is intelligent life elsewhere?
In addition to the impossible odds of there being life on that planet, what are the odds that the life would be intelligent? If you compare all the species of life on earth against the ratio of human (rational intelligent beings), we add another impossible variable. There are around 9 million types of life on earth. Only one of them is intelligent and does not operate only on instinct. So that would add another variable 1/9,000,000 to the already impossible stats above.
Chance and sufficient time can never generate life
The Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) is the first live cell. The chances of that first living cell being created are zero. This first living cell is a masterpiece in design with an indescribably precise arrangement.
The chances that humans would be born on earth is zero.
ET promoters might say
"yes but here we are, with those same odds, so why not elsewhere?"
The bottom line is that the chances that we were created by random events is zero. We are not a product of chance but rather of choice. God created us.
Some ET promoters, including Jimmy Akin say,
"well God created us we and He created aliens also."
If God created aliens and God gave us the Bible, and God knew we were going to have to face this, then he would not have created a Bible that would need to be abandoned in order to sustain the "discovery" or "disclosure" of aliens.
Then we'd need to abandon the Bible, which is exactly what ET promoters are proposing. This takes us to the logical explanation for ET phenomenon, demonic deception.
Falsifiability: No criteria are conceded which would disprove alien belief
A criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability. ET belief has nothing testable.
75 years of abductions and sightings and not one object
Demons have trouble materializing physical objects. They can produce experiences, electronic disruptions, and optical illusions quite asily, to which any exorcist will attest. They are not so good at manifesting physical evidences.
This is a better explanation for the abduction experieinces which never provide a shred of physical evidence, but nevertheless, leave the abductees with a genuine experience
NOTE: This article is a work in progress. More to come. Check back for final edits in a few weeks.