Are we alone in the universe?
WASHINGTON — Huge excitement. Two Earth-size planets found orbiting a sun-like star less than a thousand light-years away. This comes two weeks after the stunning announcement of another planet orbiting another star at precisely the right distance—within the so-called “habitable zone” that is not too hot and not too cold—to allow for liquid water and therefore possible life.
Unfortunately, the planets of the right size are too close to their sun, and thus too scorching hot, to permit Earth-like life. And the Goldilocks planet in the habitable zone is too large. At 2.4 times the size of Earth, it is likely gaseous, like Jupiter. No earthlings there. But it’s only a matter of time—perhaps a year or two, estimates one astronomer—before we find the right one of the right size in the right place.
And at just the right time. As the romance of manned space exploration has waned, the drive today is to find our living, thinking counterparts in the universe. For all the excitement, however, the search betrays a profound melancholy—a lonely species in a merciless universe anxiously awaits an answering voice amid utter silence.
That silence is maddening. Not just because it compounds our feeling of cosmic isolation. But because it makes no sense. As we inevitably find more and more exo-planets where intelligent life can exist, why have we found no evidence—no signals, no radio waves—that intelligent life does exist?
It’s called the Fermi Paradox, after the great physicist who once asked “Where is everybody?” Or as was once elaborated: “All our logic, all our anti-isocentrism, assures us that we are not unique—that they must be there. And yet we do not see them.”
How many of them should there be? Modern satellite data suggest the number should be very high. So why the silence? Carl Sagan (among others) thought that the answer is to be found, tragically, in the high probability that advanced civilizations destroy themselves.
In other words, this silent universe is conveying not a flattering lesson about our uniqueness but a tragic story about our destiny. It is telling us that intelligence may be the most cursed faculty in the entire universe—an endowment not just ultimately fatal but, on the scale of cosmic time, near instantly so.
This is not mere theory. Look around. On the very same day that astronomers rejoiced at the discovery of the two Earth-size planets, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity urged two leading scientific journals not to publish details of lab experiments that just created a lethal and highly transmittable form of bird flu virus, lest that fateful knowledge fall into the wrong hands.
Wrong hands, human hands. This is not just the age of holy terror, but also the threshold of an age of hyper-proliferation. Nuclear weapons in the hands of half-mad tyrants (North Korea) and radical apocalypticists (Iran) are just the beginning. Lethal biologic agents may soon find their way into the hands of those for whom genocidal pandemics loosed upon infidels are the royal road to redemption.
And forget the psychopaths: Why, just 17 years after Homo sapiens discovered atomic power, those most stable and sober states, the United States and the Soviet Union, came within inches of mutual annihilation.
Rather than despair, however, let’s put the most hopeful face on the cosmic silence and on humanity’s own short, already baleful history with its new Promethean powers: Intelligence is a capacity so godlike, so protean that it must be contained and disciplined. This is the work of politics—understood as the ordering of society and the regulation of power to permit human flourishing while simultaneously restraining the most Hobbesian human instincts.
There could be no greater irony: For all the sublimity of art, physics, music, mathematics and other manifestations of human genius, everything depends on the mundane, frustrating, often debased vocation known as politics (and its most exacting subspecialty—statecraft). Because if we don’t get politics right, everything else risks extinction.
We grow justly weary of our politics. But we must remember this: Politics—in all their grubby, grasping, corrupt, contemptible manifestations—are sovereign in human affairs. Everything ultimately rests upon them.
Fairly or not, politics are the driver of history. They will determine whether we will live long enough to be heard one day. Out there. By them, the few—the only—who got it right.
Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for the Washington Post. His email address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.
Jan 5, 2012 at 7:24 a.m.
Suggest removal
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...
Jan 3, 2012 at 6:09 p.m.
Suggest removal
Very well said Support Local Racing. Everyone is entitled to their religious beliefs. It is a free country, believe what you want to believe. Why do religious zealots feel the need to impose psuedo science on others to validate their religious beliefs?
Jan 3, 2012 at 3:06 p.m.
Suggest removal
And, billnewbie, don't impose comparisons at the expense of proportion and magnitude.
Jan 3, 2012 at 12:26 p.m.
Suggest removal
Science is based on fact, while religion is based on faith. They are not interchangeable, nor are they interoperable. Faith does not belong in science anymore than facts belong in religion.
.
It seems perfectly valid to me, that someone could "believe" something to be true, despite scientific evidence to the contrary. Just don't tell me you "know" this to be true, since that would be mixing faith and fact.
Jan 2, 2012 at 9:05 a.m.
Suggest removal
billnewbie, as you monitor this thread, I prophesize that you don't have the emotional and intellectual wherewithal to respond, or respond substantially, to my and foolonthehill's and TaxPayer2's responses to your extremely vapid comment on this thread.
billnewbie, surely, on your way to stumbling toward that degree you're so inappropriately proud of that you eventually got from that alleged institution of higher-learning that you pointlessly attended even you would have become familiar with the idea that intelligence requires that you not only identify similarities between things but distinctions as well.
Note, that in my post that I made it a point to mention that the vast distances between suns and planets make it difficult to determine if there is life in other parts of the universe. And, you should also pay attention to the fact that since there is life on this planet it is reasonable to speculate that there may be life of some kind on other planets. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the Drake Equation.
You should also note, in case you've forgotten, that your alleged god is supposed to be everywhere all the time sans the problem of vast distances. See the difference? God is supposed to be everywhere at the same time and there are vast distances between planets and suns. Further, as pointed out to you before, none of your so-called personal or biblical "evidence" would hold up in any forum where certainty was required. It's all in your head. And that special inner-world you've created for yourself is an accurate measure of your alienation from reality.
Jan 1, 2012 at 4:10 p.m.
Suggest removal
Well said, Fool.
Jan 1, 2012 at 6:52 a.m.
Suggest removal
Yes, we are alone. Which is very good for United States.
Jan 1, 2012 at 6:28 a.m.
Suggest removal
Billnewbie: Please give your oft-repeated "evidence" straw man argument a permanent rest. Second-order hearsay is not considered "evidence" in any scientific endeavor or court of law. Especially when such "evidence" requires one to disregard all known science in order to accept. Show me tangible evidence akin to fossils and DNA, along with a rational theory that predicts the discovery of such tangible evidence (e.g. evolution) and I will show you one very attentive listener. Yes sir, it really IS that simple. :-)
Dec 31, 2011 at 5:14 p.m.
Suggest removal
theirs a difference between worrying and thinking . worrying to me, means expecting bad out of something you know has happened or expect to happen . Thinking is taking in all the possibilities of what could be . I dont believe any one is worried about it, yet !
Dec 31, 2011 at 4:29 p.m.
Suggest removal
The real question is why does it matter to any of us? I don't know about any of you but I am quite happy being where I am and who I am. So what if there is another planet with life form, why worry about it? All the money spent on Mars rovers and other things are for what exactly? What can I use that info for? We are all here for a period of time and have plenty of more important things to worry about, mostly things you yourselves can control.
Dec 31, 2011 at 3:26 p.m.
Suggest removal
""To simply dismiss the possibility of anything is an ignorant view of closed-minded people. New things are learned every day that were previously thought impossible."" That was agreat statement!! Only if we could have that type of thinking in politics!!:)
Dec 31, 2011 at 2:36 p.m.
Suggest removal
The problem is the human centric measuring stick we employ that gives rise to the "are we alone" question. Humans have not be around long with respect to a 13 billion year old universe. The distances are so vast between star systems where other life may exist that our primitive and puny technology has not detected other life forms.
*
It should not come to us as a surprise that we do not have an answer to that question. Krauthammer poses a more interesting twist on the basic question: will we be around long enough to get an answer to "are we alone"?
Dec 31, 2011 at 1:15 p.m.
Suggest removal
Please explain how evolution could make you a monkey's uncle.
Q: Are We Not Men?
Dec 31, 2011 at 12:37 p.m.
Suggest removal
There is not a missing link problem. There are plenty of intermediate fossils found that trace H. sapiens back. Interestingly, DNA evidence also provides a link to the relatedness of many modern species, including humans. The remarkable thing is that we have so many links indicating the relatedness of all life on our little planet.
Dec 31, 2011 at 7:31 a.m.
Suggest removal
If you believe in God or a creator, why create a huge universe for just one place to have life? If you believe life just happened, the stuff of life is everywhere in the universe, so life should be everywhere.
I assume the cloaking device statement was sarcasm, even though they do exist today.
Why is absence of the missing link between humans and other species missing, just because we have not found it yet, or because it does not exist?
Are we alone, maybe, is there other life, maybe, did we evolve, maybe, were we created, maybe.
To simply dismiss the possibility of anything is an ignorant view of closed-minded people. New things are learned every day that were previously thought impossible.
I was taught that atoms are made of particles in school, now they are composed of wavefunctions. Maybe they are both wrong. The human need to have concrete answers clouds our vision to see what really is.
Dec 30, 2011 at 11:36 p.m.
Suggest removal
We are Not Alone !
Dec 30, 2011 at 11:03 p.m.
Suggest removal
And out of every planet in the universe that probably does have life similar to ours, WE are the lucky ones to be blessed by the presence of the one and only son of God.
These are the reasons I struggle with faith, and they are also the reasons I cannot believe that the Bible is in any form the word of any God.
Dec 30, 2011 at 10:17 p.m.
Suggest removal
Isn't it funny how "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" when the subject is intelligent alien life, but when the subject is God, well, that's different! We don't have to actually have any evidence of alien life to be sure there at least could be some. But since there is no evidence of God (at least none that some will accept), that proves there is no God.
It must be nice to have such flexible standards, eh Gazettefan?
Dec 30, 2011 at 1:41 p.m.
Suggest removal
True SuperDave. And the spaces between solar system, galaxies, and galaxy clusters are so great as to make knowledge of life elsewhere very difficult.
Dec 30, 2011 at 1:09 p.m.
Suggest removal
Perhaps we do not possess the sensor technology to detect other forms of life. "Is that a cloaked ship?"
Dec 30, 2011 at 10:16 a.m.
Suggest removal
Perhaps the reason we haven't found intelligent life elsewhere is obvious - it's very rare, and the universe is very large.
Dec 30, 2011 at 9:39 a.m.
Suggest removal
"I'm no monkeys uncle" That is correct. You are his cousin.
Dec 30, 2011 at 9:16 a.m.
Suggest removal
We are located where the least action occurs in our universe.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Dec 30, 2011 at 8:51 a.m.
Suggest removal
Old......, tell yourself that the next time you're eating a banana while scratching yourself.
Dec 30, 2011 at 7:32 a.m.
Suggest removal
There is abudant evidence that we are not alone right here on earth. Forget your pre-programed lunatic respose to such things and the evidence is there. We are not some happy accident of the false theory of evolution. I'm no monkeys uncle.
Before you post a comment, consider this:
Note: GazetteXtra.com does not condone or review every comment. Read more in our User Policy AgreementPost Comment
Commenting requires registration.