Creationist Wisdom #109: SETI

We’ve already written a few articles about the possibility of alien life. For example: Vatican Conference on Aliens, and Darwin, Evolution, and Alien Life

The topic is endlessly fascinating, and the most amusing moments come when we observe creationist attempts to deal with the subject. Creationists are incompetent at understanding life on this world, so it’s not surprising that they fail totally when the subject shifts to life elsewhere. We’ve written about their ravings before. For example: Creationism & Life on Other Worlds, and also Roswell Conference: UFOs, Aliens, & Creationism.

But for pure entertainment, we can always count on Answers in Genesis (AIG), one of the major sources of creationist wisdom. They have a very brief article on alien life at their website. It appears in their latest weekly news summary: News to Note, January 30, 2010. That’s the feature where they bring us “news from the biblical viewpoint.”

If you click over there and scroll down to the fourth item, you’ll find AIG’s reaction to something written by the BBC: Why hasn’t ET made contact yet?

The BBC article is a good, general-interest piece about SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and about Frank Drake, creator of the Drake equation, once known as the Green Bank Equation. They wrote about Drake because he’s attending the same conference we recently discussed here: Extraterrestrials, Darwin, and the UN.

Read the BBC article for their report of what Drake had to say. Then you can skip most of AIG’s article, which is their attempt to explain what Drake said. Now let’s jump right to AIG’s final paragraph — their criticism of the whole SETI endeavor:

The search for extraterrestrial life (whether intelligent or simple) is thoroughly entwined with evolutionary ideas. For example, the values used in the Drake equation are based on beliefs about how long it took life to evolve on earth, how long it took for “intelligence” to evolve here, etc. Thus, the values are based more on dogma than on data — as is the entire search for alien life.

What are people like that going to do when life is discovered out there? Or when it’s created in the lab? Both are inevitable, and either may occur at any time.

Creationist reactions to other scientific discoveries give us some clues: (a) denial, (b) mention Piltdown Man and allege fraud, (c) claim that whatever is found is impossible and must be the miraculous work of their magical mystery designer, (d) claim that it’s always been part of their scriptural knowledge, (e) mention Neanderthal Man, and attribute it to the Tower of Babel, or (f) blame it on the devil.

Creationists sometimes demonstrate a limited capacity for imagination, so It’s possible that they’ll conjure up some other Oogity Boogity response; but whatever their reaction is, it’ll be both wrong and amusing.

[Related post: See Ken Ham Says There’s No Extraterrestrial Life.]

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.


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12 responses to “Creationist Wisdom #109: SETI

  1. When life is manufactured in the lab, there will be two reactions:

    “They didn’t create life from nothing, but used pre-existing materials.”

    “This didn’t happen by accident, but required intelligent, purposeful design.”

  2. Yeah, get your own dirt! (Wildly funny creationist joke.)

  3. It’s been a pretty good show out here in the country. No clouds or lights to get in the way. In fact it might have been a little too bright.

  4. Whoops wrong topic. How did I get here? Sigh…

  5. How did I get here?

    In a stroke of amazing coincidence, that is also the most frequently heard sentiment uttered by Creationsists who inadvertently wander into a science class.

  6. Albanaeon, I don’t have an easy way to move comments, so if it matters to you, do a cut-n-paste to the right thread. Otherwise, just leave it.

  7. Fundamentalist creationists often maintain that evolution is “just a theory”. I agree. A theory in science is the best overall explanation for the known evidence. Creationism has no evidence and explains nothing.

  8. Answers in Genesis can always be counted on for laughs.

    They are a bottomless pit of creationist stupidity.

  9. Sigh, just leave it…

    For this thread though, I am looking forward to the hijinks that should occur from either ET or Science wrought life. Personally, my bets on microbes on Mars being first. Any others?

  10. Albanaeon says: “Personally, my bets on microbes on Mars being first. Any others?”

    Maybe something on a meteorite.

  11. If we fail to find some form of life on Mars, the next site for exploration would have to be Europa.

    If the IDists ever get off their collective fat ass a real system of identifying intelligent design would come in handy for discovering life not like our own.

  12. I am betting on scientists finding a light signature from an extrasolar planet that will only be explicable by the presence of life.

    Mars is a possibility, Europa less so, IMNSHO.