Scientists discovered a planet 20.5 light years away from Earth that they believe may be similar to Earth, and thus hospitable for life. The planet (Gliese 581c) is slightly larger than Earth, and has a climate similar to our own. Scientists speculate that there may be water on the planet as well. This is a significant find, because until now, scientists have never found another planet like Earth. Interestingly, the author of the news in UK’s The Daily Mail wrote, “This remarkable discovery appears to confirm the suspicions of most astronomers that the universe is swarming with Earth-like worlds.”
People who want to believe in evolution and extraterrestrial life seem to jump on anything that bolsters their faith, this being no exception. How does finding one planet, 20.5 light years away, confirm that the universe is “swarming” with Earth-like planets hospitable to life? For one, the article makes it very clear that scientists know very little about this planet yet, including whether it contains water or rock. Second, this is the only potential Earth-like planet we have found, so how can it be scientific confirmation that the universe is swarming with them? This is an exaggerated claim. We should not be surprised at this, however. The church of Darwin requires that its followers believe in evolution whether it be supported by evidence or not. Most Darwinian claims are exaggerations extrapolated from scant evidence open to multiple interpretations.
See Stephen Jones’ post on the topic for reasons to doubt the claim that Gliese 581c is similar to Earth.
Thinking to Believe 
April 26, 2007 at 6:17 am
I agree. The PR should have said “supports” rather than “confirms” the expert view, held by most astronomers, that the universe is filled with planets capable of sustaining life. But the number of planets doesn’t really matter.
If two people flip a coin to see who gets $1 million, and one of the two wins, it’s luck and the winner will likely acknowledge this.
Similarly, if a lottery for $1 million is held with 10 billion players and one person – let’s call him Larry – is randomly chosen the winner, that is also luck. But the winner of the lottery will likely say that it couldn’t have happened by chance, the odds of him winning being so very small, so God must have been behind it. (And yet, the odds of one of those people getting a winning ticket couldn’t have been higher – fully 100%.)
If Larry learns that he wasn’t in fact alone, and there’s another person who also scored a winning ticket (or half the people got winning tickets), that will make him feel that his selection was “less chance.” But his selection was no more or less luck than it had been before.
LikeLike
April 26, 2007 at 2:47 pm
I’m not so sure that most astronomers believe life is on other planets. Those who do, hold this view as a blind-faith commitment because there is absolutely no evidence for it. Not even all materialists hold this sort of faith. I would venture to say that most scientists, recognizing how unlikely it is in our universe that that life come from non-life (we have no scientific reason to believe this could even have happened on Earth, other than the fact that philosophical materialism requires it), don’t believe life exists on other planets. Or if it does, only a few.
The only evidence so far that supports such a hope is this new planet, and that’s not much too go on considering how little we know about it. It’s not clear that it can even support life, yet alone that it contains life. So to believe that there are many planets out there containing life is a huge faith-commitment, not science.
I’m not sure what your lottery analogy has to do with the post.
LikeLike