In the summer of 1965, NASA's Mariner 4 sent us the first close up pictures of the surface of Mars. [1] Humanity had confirmation that there was no budding civilizations on our nearby red neighbor as early science fiction films might have led us to believe. In reality it was nothing but barren cold desert, not that it was any less beautiful than we might have imagined. However there has been much excitement for the last one hundred years or so at the possibility of finding life in the universe, and nowhere has the search been more intense than Mars. This planet is closer to Earth in terms of climate than any other large celestial body in this solar system. So the thinking goes, the closer to Earth, the more likely there is liquid water which is required by all known forms of life.
For the last 5 years NASA and ESA's Mars bound spacecraft have detected what might be underground liquid lakes on the mysterious planet. In 2018 the ESA's Mars express orbiter detected what appeared to be a large body of water with ground penetrating radar. [2] The possible lake was located near the south pole of Mars, and if it was truly liquid it would have to be very salty because of the temperature, perhaps too salty for Earth life to be able to tolerate.
Of course the secular scientific community was very excited, similar subglacial lakes on Earth contain microbial life. But this was just the beginning of the story, in 2020 the ESA compiled data taken over the last several years and discovered three more potential bodies of water near the original making the total now four possible lakes. [3] Then again in 2021 NASA decided to take a look at the radar scans in more depth and discovered dozens more of these types of reflections, which may also be liquid water. [4] It seems strange that the secular community would be so interested in what might amount to muddy puddles on Earth, however the implications for the theory of evolution and naturalist belief would be incredible. Newer scans and studies on the data have revealed that the water may actually just be clay, but only further research and data sampling will reveal the truth.
Naturalist and evolutionist type thinking encompasses more than just the origin of new species, it is also believed by secular scientists that natural processes can create life from nonliving chemicals. This hypothetical process known today as abiogenesis. A major problem with the idea of abiogenesis is the complete lack of observable and repeatable data in the laboratory. Non-living substances have never been observed, through any known natural forces or laws, to create living cells, DNA, information, nucleotides, carbohydrates, lipids, or the extremely complex protein machinery necessary for known forms of life. [5] The only known supposed evidence of life forming on its own has made its way into nearly every biology textbook in the world, known famously as the Miller-Urey experiment. This experiment was the closest that naturalists have been able to get in the laboratory to the creation of life using only natural processes. [5] However they were only able to create amino acids, no where near the unbelievably complex protein machinery that even the most basic cells require to function. [6] And the amino acids produce by Miller and Urey were both left and right handed, whereas all known life only uses left handed amino acids. Although proteins are made of amino acids, these are merely the building blocks. It would be the same as creating metals using naturals processes, and them claiming that this is evidence for those same natural processes can create complex machinery. In reality an intelligent agent would have to operate on the basic materials to create anything complex like life or machinery.
Although there is nothing repeatable, testable, or observable for the creation of life from natural processes, again known formally as abiogenesis, the belief that it is possible remains strong in the secular scientific community. The scientific method requires evidence for a hypothesis to attain the status of theory, however abiogenesis is not repeatable, testable, or observable so really it does not meet the basic requirements for a scientific theory. Scientists should remain skeptical of hypothesis and even theories, however anything that supports naturalism seems to gets a free pass in the modern scientific community for reasons that are currently unknown.
An example of this biased status can be seen in the search for life on Mars in our modern times. Although abiogenesis has never been observed in the laboratory, secular naturalists remain very hopeful that it may be occurring on other planets as they believe it happened on the early Earth. Not only does abiogenesis have a biased status in the secular scientific community, it is also a major problem for naturalism and evolution in general. The complete lack of observed alien life in the universe, which is predicted by naturalism and Darwinian-type thinking, is missing. All meteorites and planets observed have been found to be completely devoid of any signs of life. This problem even has a name, known as the Fermi Paradox. [7] This paradox has had many explanations proposed, but none have been accepted by the secular scientific community. You can even see an example of the Fermi Paradox problem in the various Star Trek TV shows, as the aliens refuse to contact humanity until they achieved warp travel. This show was written by Gene Roddenberry, a staunch Darwinist, atheist, and naturalist. But perhaps the explanation given in the show, like all the proposed explanations, seem more than just a little to convenient.
The theory of intelligent design has a much simpler explanation to the Fermi Paradox, that life will only exists on planets where a higher intelligence has acted upon the basic building blocks. [8] Not only does the theory of intelligent design already give a simpler and more elegant explanation for the Fermi Paradox than naturalists today propose, but abiogenesis itself has already been discredited by another long standing law in biology. In 1864 the famous French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur announced his latest and life changing empirical discovery to the world by uttering the Latin phrase ,"Omne vivum ex vivo!" which translates to "all life is from life." This was the first formulation of what is known today as the law of biogenesis, which states that life cannot spontaneously arise, but must come from other living cells. [9] This was a big change, because it was a common belief in ancient times that life could arise spontaneously from non-living matter.
Even in the face of a known and established biological law and the theory of intelligent design, abiogenesis is still somehow enjoying a prominent position in scientific research. According the creation researchers the law of biogenesis is scriptural, and God is the source of life in the Book of Genesis, and of course God is the original living being that life on Earth came from. It may be that many leading scientists today are biased against what the Bible told us from the very beginning. Although the Bible does not speak directly about the possibility of alien life in the universe, it does seem to suggest that there are no aliens. During the creation week, the Earth was made before the other planets and stars, which suggests that it was special. [10] If God made life on the other planets, does that mean they are not as important as human life?
There are other theological problems created by the existence of aliens. If aliens live on other planets, then likely they also die as we do. If they die they will need some form of redemption, so perhaps they should become Christians? If the thought of aliens coming to Jesus sounds bizarre to you, you are not alone. The Pope made a statement about aliens in the news, which confused many Catholics, but who can blame them? Pope Francis said during a homily that he would baptize any Martians if they came to Earth. [11] No doubt this statement came as the result of Pope Francis ignoring the teaching of the Bible on creation, and instead accepting evolutionary doctrine. Although we do not know for sure about the existence of alien life, it seems as if the Bible and the evidence we do strong indications that there is no life physical life in the universe outside of Earth.
References
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mariner-4
Roberto Orosei et al., “Radar Evidence of Subglacial Liquid Water on Mars,” Science, Reports, first release (July 25, 2018): 1–9, doi:10.1126/science.aar7268.
Khuller, A. R., & Plaut, J. J. (2021). Characteristics of the basal interface of the Martian South Polar Layered Deposits. Geophysical Research Letters, 48, e2021GL093631. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093631
James Tour, “Time Out,” Inference: International Review of Science 4, no. 4 (July 2019), https://inference-review.com/article/time-out.
Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution
Woodward, Avlin (September 21, 2019). "A winner of this year's Nobel prize in physics is convinced we'll detect alien life in 100 years. Here are 13 reasons why we haven't made contact yet". Insider Inc.
JEFFREY P. TOMKINS, PH.D. The Impossibility of Life's Evolutionary Beginnings. ACTS & FACTS. ICR.ORG.
https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cphl/history/articles/pasteur.htm
Genesis 1:14 The Hebrew word for stars includes planets in our solar system, likely meaning the planets of other stars were made at this time as well. Hebrew - AKEK Strong's Concordance 3556.
https://time.com/99616/for-pope-francis-its-about-more-than-martians/
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