NASA has spent hundreds of millions of dollars scanning every minute portion of the sky with radio telescopes. Its goal is to locate signals coming to earth from extraterrestrial life forms. Although NASA has backed off on these efforts, private funds are still being solicited in order to continue the search. How would we identify a signal as coming from an intelligent source? It would have to consist of a complex pattern with occasionally repeated segments which could not be generated by a formula or a natural cause.
An example of a repeated complex pattern is any human language. The carrier of the sequence could be as varied as ink on paper, electro-magnetic signals in space, sound through air, or smoke signals in the sky. Whenever and wherever such a pattern is found it is proof of an intelligent originator. This is why a pilot flying over a deserted beach could immediately recognize a message for help spelled out in the alignment of rocks on the beach even if he did not know the language in which the message was formed. The pattern itself would be immediately recognizable as having an intelligent source.
The series of simple repeated patterns emitted by rapidly rotating stars (quasars) is not evidence of intelligence because the sequence is too regular and contains no information. Random non-repeating patterns are merely noise and are also not evidence of intelligent origin. It is only when there is a complex pattern with occasionally repeated segments that an intelligent originator must have been involved. If such a pattern coming from outer space were to be discovered; it would be proof that we are not alone in our universe.
The primary motivation for the effort to find this pattern coming from a source outside of our solar system is philosophic and not scientific. If evidence of other life forms was found; it would be heralded as proof that life had developed elsewhere. In other words, given the right conditions... life could pop up anywhere. Yet, there is not a single shred of evidence that life exists anywhere else in the physical universe. Since the effort is philosophically rather than scientifically motivated, negative results seldom change the motivation or beliefs of the experimenters.
The same individuals who are willing to spend millions of taxpayer dollars in an effort to find such a pattern in electromagnetic signals from space are unwilling to acknowledge that the same type of complex pattern, found in all living cells, came from an intelligent source. In our search for intelligent extra-terrestrial life, why don’t we take our eyes off the telescope and put them on the microscope? Inside every living organism is a marvelous blueprint for life known as the DNA molecule. Guess what this organic molecule contains? A complex pattern with occasionally repeated segments which could not be generated by a formula or a natural cause! This is the same type of evidence which scientists would immediately accept as proof of intelligent origin - if it was found coming from outer space.
Why isn’t the coded sequence of the DNA molecule heralded as evidence of intelligent origin? Can it be that many scientists are blind to the evidence for supernatural design because they have been trained to believe that an intelligent, creator God cannot be considered? Does peer pressure from the scientific community stop the open acknowledgment of this obvious evidence for the divine origin of biological life? Furthermore, as knowledge of our universe increases, do we have more or less reason to believe in its supernatural origin?
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