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| Ross Perot with an alien |
“Intelligent life in the universe? Guaranteed. Intelligent life in our galaxy? So overwhelmingly likely that I’d give you almost any odds you’d like.” – Paul Horowitz Ph.d (Harvard physics professor, founder of SETI)
I’d take that bet.
How can we speculate so blindly about the universe? Sure, intelligent life may be out there, but why should the likelihood be so high? There is no hard evidence to support the theory of intelligent extraterrestrial life. The supposition of aliens is akin to a belief in deities. A mythology sold as vaguely scientific, when in fact it’s nothing more than a vehicle for profit-making.
I realize that our universe is a massive collection of galaxies too numerous to count, and that they are composed of the same elements and structures as our galaxy. However, the vastness of the universe alone provides no support for the theory of intelligent extraterrestrial life. There is no known relationship between the measure of space and the likelihood of intelligent life (other than this simple one: the entire size of the universe = one occurrence of intelligent life). However, there is empirical evidence that the property of uniqueness exists all over the place in the universe.
Imagine an individual human as an analogy for intelligent life on earth. The human looks around and sees other humans, composed of the same matter as him/her, and with many similar properties. Would it be logical for this human to assume that on earth somewhere there must be more humans who have all of the exact same properties as them? No. The presupposition of extraterrestrial intelligence is the assumption of the presence of many unique things. It isn’t logical, and it goes against our understanding of the nature of the universe.
I have a prediction. Stories about UFOs, Klingons, and little green men will continue to provide great fodder for the entertainment industry. Organizations like SETI will continue to receive funding. Yet we will never, in any way shape or form, ever, come close to making any sort of discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence until the very distant future when we ourselves have traveled across the universe and met up with different alien versions of our own offspring.
NOTE: There is evidence that the building blocks of life may have existed on Mars or elsewhere in our solar system. These pieces of our own evolutionary puzzle in no way support the theory of intelligent life arising independently elsewhere in the universe.