The Secret Of Life Does Not Lie

In The 1990s I Began To Study The Prospects That Life Could Spread From Mars To Earth Or Maybe Earth To Mars And That Maybe Life Began On Mars And Came To Earth, And That Idea Seemed To Have A Lot Of Traction And Is Now Accepted As Very Plausible.

In Spite Of The Fact That Religion Looks Backward To Revealed Truth While Science Looks Forward To New Vistas And Discoveries, Both Activities Produce A Sense Of Awe And A Curious Mixture Of Humility And Arrogance In Their Practitioners. All Great Scientists Are Inspired By The Subtlety And Beauty Of The Natural World That They Are Seeking To Understand. Each New Subatomic Particle, Every Unexpected Object, Produces Delight And Wonderment. In Constructing Their Theories, Physicists Are Frequently Guided By Arcane Concepts Of Elegance In The Belief That The Universe Is Intrinsically Beautiful.

Clearly, Some Creative Thinking Is Badly Needed If Humans Are To Have A Future Beyond Earth. Returning To The Moon May Be Worthy And Attainable, But It Fails To Capture The Public's Imagination. What Does Get People Excited Is The Prospect Of A Mission To Mars.

Man-made Computers Are Limited In Their Performance By Finite Processing Speed And Memory. So, Too, The Cosmic Computer Is Limited In Power By Its Age And The Finite Speed Of Light.

For Me, Science Is Already Fantastical Enough. Unlocking The Secrets Of Nature With Fundamental Physics Or Cosmology Or Astrobiology Leads You Into A Wonderland Compared With Which Beliefs In Things Like Alien Abductions Pale Into Insignificance.