New data from remote telescope Kepler and a yet to be deployed star shade has put blinders on scientists so they can't see that the great scientific hope - the discovery of life on other planets - is quickly fading.
Depicted: a star shade deployed in front of a remote robotic telescope to provide a man made eclipse to make viewing exoplanets possible.

With a new year comes renewed hope in many endeavors. 2015 is no different.  Among materialist scientists (those adhering to philosophical materialism - thus  rejecting anything exists beyond the material world), hopes are high that researchers will find an  earth like "exoplanet" - a planet that orbits a sun other than our own. As space.com's Mike Wall¹ reports:

This week, astronomers announced that NASA's Kepler space telescope had discovered eight more relatively small planets that may be capable of hosting life as we know it, describing two of the new finds as the most Earth-like alien worlds known.

Mission scientists also announced 554 new unconfirmed Kepler "planet candidates" on Tuesday (Jan. 6); six of these potential worlds orbit sunlike stars, are close to Earth-size and are possibly habitable. [10 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life]

The excitement is heightened as researchers prepare to launch a sun shade - a man made device to eclipse a star in front of a remote telescope like Kepler in the next decade -  allowing it, and them, to see faint planets that would otherwise be invisible due to the glare coming from the star. But why the excitement? And why the insatiable desire to find earth like planets? Simply put, scientists are rushing head long to find the Great Scientific Hope.

The Great Scientific Hope
For materialist scientists, there is no greater hope than to find life on a planet other than earth. For them, it would be the vindication of their materialist  theories that try to explain the origins of the universe and of life apart from a non-material, all powerful, miracle working God. Christians and others have been loudly and persistently proclaiming that the universe and life on earth are no mere accidents; they are the deliberate, calculated works of a super intelligent God who purposefully created them. And for a number of decades now creationists and intelligent design advocates have been producing persuasive evidence to back up their claims. To materialist scientists, such proclamations are anathema, and the evidence is looked upon with disdain. But they have a serious problem: they've been unable to refute such claims with evidence; because neither evolution nor the big bang are testable via the scientific method. They are not repeatable, observable, testable events. So scientists have long sought proof positive that their theories - portions of which contradict well established scientific laws² - are true.

One of the best evidences that life has been created on earth as the Bible says, is the lack of life anywhere else in the universe. Though predicted by evolutionary theory, no life has ever been detected anywhere else in the universe - ever. Even after 50 years of SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) searching the skies for signs of life, scientists have come up empty. Not a single sign of life anywhere in this great big universe. This simple fact, like a thorn in their side, has long galled scientists, because if things are as they say - the universe is 13.7 billion years old, and their are hundreds of billions of planets as they've now determined, there should be life somewhere else. Yet they have not found any evidence of life anywhere - thus they are left firmly imprisoned in the Fermi Paradox, wondering "where is everyone?".

The Great White Hope
This lack of life anywhere else has led to a desperation similar to that which produced the search for "The Great White Hope" that took place in the U.S. early in the twentieth century.  That search came about as a result of the racism that was still rampant in the U.S. despite the fact that slaves had been freed by president Lincoln's emancipation proclamation. Though legally free, black Americans were not still not regarded as equal to white Americans; and many white Americans firmly believed blacks should be kept in their place. This was no more true than in the world of Boxing, where at the turn of the twentieth century, James Jeffries reigned supreme as the heavy weight champion from 1899 to 1905, relinquishing the title only when he retired - undefeated. At the same time a black champion was making his presence known: Jack Johnson. His recurring challenge - a chance at the title. Jefferies had consistently refused to give him that chance, stating "The title will never go to a black man if I can help it."³ But Johnson did get his chance and took the title by soundly defeating the 1908 title holder Canadian Tommy Burns. (A knock out of Burns was prevented only by officials stopping the fight.)  For the first time, a black man held the title of heavy weight champion of the world. This prompted the search for what was dubbed "The Great White Hope" - that hope being that they could find a white man that could take the title back from Johnson.

There are two parallels worthy of note here:

1. Both searches are based on false premises.

- The Great White Hope - was a search based on the false premise that blacks are inferior to whites and need to be kept in their place - which was away from polite white society. 

- The Great Scientific Hope - is a search based on the false premise that evolution is true and therefore there must be life on other planets. (Note: This same desire to verify evolution via circular reasoning has also spurred the search for a LUCA - Last Universal Common Ancestor. For more on that see GULO and Other Irrational Atheist Arguments, Part 1.)

2. Both searches are based on repulsive concepts

- The world has recognized how repulsive is the racism that fueled the search for the Great White Hope. I need say no more.

- The world has yet to recognize how repulsive are the evolutionary theories - be it of life or origins of the universe - that fuel the Great Scientific Hope for life on another planet. Does it offend you that I make comparison between the repulsiveness of racism and evolution? Consider it then, from the perspective of the creator. Are we not outraged when people steal our ideas and intellectual property? Do we not have copyright and other laws that outlaw that? Should the creator be any less offended when the glories of what he has created is given to the idols of evolution? I will let him testify for himself:

I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.
Isaiah 42.2

Every claim that "evolution did this" or "nature evolved that" is a direct affront to the creator of the universe. And he will not put up with it indefinitely:

By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.
Isaiah 45.23

Are evolutionary claims a big deal? It's a big enough deal that God has sworn by himself  that one day everyone, including every atheist and every materialistic scientist will acknowledge and confess the truth - and bow before him.  That truth is of course Jesus is that creator, and it is he before whom they will bow.⁴ The first question is whether they do it before or after they leave this earth and see him face to face.  The second and equally as important questions is will they follow where science truly points, or will they follow their religion of evolution? I hope they have the courage to seriously consider the evidence, and not fall to irrational responses and dodging the questions as I point out in the article Atheists - Too Afraid to Answer.

Where the Evidence Points

To return to our topic of life on other planets, it has become increasingly obvious to even casual observers (meaning non-scientists) that life on other planets is a quickly fading pipe dream of scientists. In a recent article, author Eric Metaxas notes in the Wall Street Journal:

"... that the rumors of God’s death were premature. More amazing is that the relatively recent case for his existence comes from a surprising place—science itself."⁵

It's not enough, by the way, to find a planet that meets two or three criteria as they have been doing, like being in the "Goldilocks zone" (not too close to the star, not too far - to get the right amount of energy from the star) or having liquid water available - not just a barren rocky landscape, and being the right size.  Regarding the requirements to support life on a planet Metaxas notes:

"Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart"⁶

Taking just 122 of those factors Christian scientist Hugh Ross calculated the probability of finding a planet meeting all 122 parameters.  That chance is:
                 10 ^-160 (One in 10 followed by 159 zeros)

Divide that by the maximum number of planets in the universe which he calculates to be 10²² and you get: 10^-138 , or as he puts it:

"Much less than 1 chance in 10¹³⁸  (thousand trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion) exists that even one such planet would occur anywhere in the universe."⁷

And that's just to find a suitable planet that can sustain life - not just one that superficially looks like earth. Then, once you find a suitable planet, somehow you must still have an origin to life.  Scientists still have no answer to that. Since they refuse to acknowledge God they have no idea how life originated. To make matters worse, they must continue to defy the law of biogenesis which states that life comes only from life; they must necessarily believe that life can come from inanimate molecules - which no one has ever witnessed.

 The Fading Hope

Perhaps it's because of the obvious impossibilities there's an increasing air of desperation mixed in with their hope.  Astronomer Michelle Thaller expresses it well:

"Now we know planets are so common - there are hundreds of billions of them - so there must be an environment out there that's suitable for life. It simply has to exist."⁸

It simply "has to exist?" Why? Probability? No probability - when all things are considered - is against them.  No, it's because they need it to exist to salvage their evidence contradicting theories. In passing, the idea that life simply has to be out there - because that's what simply what happens is not a new idea. It goes back at least to  biochemist Christian de Duve (1917-2013), a Nobelist (1974), who argued that "... life is an obligatory manifestation of matter, bound to arise where conditions are appropriate."⁹

So even though the evidence of the impossibility of life spontaneously generating is clear, and the conditions required to support that life rare, the religion of materialist scientists - evolution - will simply not allow them to draw the proper conclusions from it: life from evolution is impossible. And thus the Great Scientific Hope goes on, aided by the newest scientific toy - the sun shade. In the coming years, expect to see spectacular  pictures of far away worlds once the sun shade is deployed. But don't hold your breath for pictures of far away life. That lies squarely in the domain of God, and he has not indicated he has placed physical life anywhere, but here on earth.

Duane Caldwell | posted 1/9/2015

Notes

1  Mike Wall, Search for the First True Alien Earth Heats Up, space.com, 1/7/2015
http://www.space.com/28190-alien-earths-search-kepler-mission.html
back

2.Various parts of both the Big Bang theory and the theory of evolution contradict known laws of science. For instance - the first event of the big bang - the singularity that explodes into existence - contradicts the laws of causality and the law of conservation of energy. Darwinian evolution contradicts the law of biogenesis; and the known fact that mutations, almost exclusively destroy good design and typically remove information - and they don't add information; yet additional Information is required for the types of changes Darwinian theorist are trying to explain with the theory.
back

3. James Jeffries referenced from Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, Documentary, 2004
back

4. Jesus as creator - John 1.1-4; 14
All will bow before Jesus Php 2.9-10
back

5. Eric Metaxas, Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God,
The Wall Street Journal, 12/25/2014
http://www.wsj.com/articles/eric-metaxas-science-increasingly-makes-the-case-for-god-1419544568
back

6. Metaxis, Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God
back

7. Ross, Hugh essay Why I believe in the Miracle of Divine Creation in Why I am A Christian,
Baker Books, 2001, p. 141
Note: I take Ross to task for including evolutionary time frames and processes in his theology in Time to End the In-House Debate, but that's not in view here; here we're just interested in his calculations. Likewise, I question some of the factors he includes, but his number is good for a rough estimate.
back

8. Michelle Thaller, referenced from Alien Planet Earths, Documentary, 2014
back

9. Denyse O'Leary, Does Nature Just "Naturally" Produce Life? 2/9/2014
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/02/does_nature_jus081891.html
back

Sun Shade image - Alien Planet Earths, Documentary, 2014