For I will prove that the earth does have motion, that it surpasses the moon in brightness, and that it is not the sump where the universe's filth and ephemera collect.

 

 

                                                                 Carl Sagan

 

 

Galileo and Carl Sagan offer us two contrary points of view in which to consider our place in the universe.  Galileo believed earth was magnificently bright and that being in motion around the sun, instead of fixed in the center of the cosmos, elevated its status.  Galileo's viewpoint was optimistic; our planet is special and we count for something.  Carl Sagan called earth a "pale blue dot".  Alone in infinite darkness, earth is but a penlight with a dead battery and there is no purpose served by praying for a new battery.  Carl Sagan's viewpoint is pessimistic; our planet is quite ordinary and we are Darwinian machines that must save ourselves. 

 

Despite the myth taught to us as fact in schools and textbooks, the earth-centered cosmology believed prior to Copernicus did not mean that earth was thought to be the most important place in the universe.  Earth was not the regal center of the universe, it was the dirty basement or as Galileo described it, the sump.  Earth was the everchanging, blemished home of a sinful mankind while the sun, planets and stars in the heavens that revolved around earth were immutable and pristine.  Why has this falsehood gained wide acceptance?  Maybe because society's elites, the recorders of history, considered the people back then as being medieval rubes clinging to their God and pitchforks.

 

Percival Lowell said, "[Man] merely typifies in an imperfect way what is going on elsewhere, and what, to a mathematical certainty, is in some corner of the cosmos indefinitely excelled."  Lowell took the incorrect observations of canals on Mars and wrote a book describing a Martian society of grander scale than that of humans.  Today, science is still trying to extrapolate (microbial) alien life from flimsy observations.  Lowell's quote captures the spirit of the Copernican Principle or, more descriptively, the Principle of Mediocrity.

 

The Copernican Principle is the belief that earth and its biosphere, including humans, are ordinary, mediocre occurrences in the cosmos.  The cosmos is populated with approximately the same compositions of elements and energy throughout, governed by the same physical laws, and therefore habitable planets with life will have evolved elsewhere.  Adherents of the principle believe there was no blueprint used to create the universe and there was no template used to create the human form.

 

The Copernican Principle is the prevailing attitude in science and western society.  Science spends millions of dollars annually searching for life on other planets.  There is the SETI project that samples the radiation spectrum from space hoping to discover intelligent modulation of the radiation.  There are space probes designed specifically to discover the chemistry of life on Mars.  The scientific attitude is such that consideration is given to life on earth having been seeded by extraterrestrial sources, an idea known as panspermia.  The Principle of Mediocrity has also influenced government non-space programs.  If there is nothing sacred or at least special about human life and humans merely typify what is going on elsewhere, then it is much easier to terminate human life in utero or on life support.

 

So far, science has not discovered any extraterrestrial lifeforms or even any habitable planets.  SETI hasn't found the first broadcast from an alien intelligence even though the incredibly faint cosmic background radiation produced by the birth pangs of the universe over 14 billion years ago has been detected.  If there is intelligent life with comparable technologies to ours elsewhere in the Milk Way, they are not speaking to us.  The only planetary systems discovered so far do not look similar to our solar system, and appear to be poor candidates for supporting life.  Maybe, we are not so common after all.

 

Despite the attitude of most scientists, scientific discovery is pointing to an architect having designed the universe using an elegant blueprint beyond our imagining.  The cosmos is finely tuned to foster life.  If the electron's charge had been slightly weaker or slightly stronger, life could not have existed as we know it.  Hydrogen bonding in the helical DNA strands of a human chromosome is strong enough to maintain chromosomal integrity but weak enough to be "unzipped" by special proteins, when necessary.  The packaging of energy into specific units (quanta) during emission or absorption on atomic scales is necessary for the creation of carbon and oxygen in stars.  Had atoms been able to emit or absorb energy at any nonspecific amount rather than specific "packaged" amounts, there would not be enough carbon or oxygen in the cosmos to produce life.  The force of gravity had to be strong enough to counter the forces of cosmic expansion or matter in the universe would have never coalesced into galaxies.  The universe would have expanded forever and never created anything more complex than a helium atom.  But, too strong a force of gravity and the universe would have collapsed upon itself.

 

Our "pale blue dot" is an exceptional planet orbiting a special star.  No other planet has been discovered to have plate tectonics (the movement of earth's upper crust).  Plate tectonics creates a carbon cycle in which carbon having been deposited and locked up in the crust by dead lifeforms is released again for use in the biosphere when the crust is pushed down into the hot magma.  Plate tectonics helps to make earth habitable.  Also, earth has a strong magnetic field that creates a protective forcefield. The magnetosphere protects life from lethal solar radiation and cosmic rays.  Earth not only lies in the habitable zone of our solar system, it also lies in the optimum habitable zone of the Milky Way galaxy, which happens to be a spiral galaxy - the best type of galaxy for life we know of.

 

The moon is a gift to earth's lifeforms.  No other planet in the solar system has such a comparatively large moon.  The large moon of earth  increases earth's habitability by providing earth, among other things, with a highly stable axial tilt.  Axial tilt is the angle formed between a planet's axis of rotation and its orbital plane.  Over epochs, earth's axial tilt varys by approximately 2.5 degrees with an average axial tilt of about 23 degrees.  Mars, on the other hand, has an axial tilt that varies between 15 and 45 degrees.  To understand how earth's axial tilt affects its habitability, let's imagine that earth's tilt was 90 degrees.  Earth's axis of rotation would then be parallel to its orbital plane.  Under such a condition, there would be a point in earth's orbit when the north pole would be pointing straight at the sun and the northern hemisphere would be continuously exposed to solar radiation for weeks and weeks on end.  While the northern hemisphere would be cooking under constant exposure to the sun, the southern hemisphere would be in a dark deep freeze.  When the earth was on the opposite side of this point in its orbit the situation would be reversed.  The southern hemisphere would be cooking and the northern hemisphere freezing.  Such a situation could probably not support any life more complex than lichens.  While an axial tilt of 90 degrees is extreme and may not be possible, a tilt of 45 degrees such as Mars sometimes has would also be extremely damaging to the earth's biosphere.

 

Darwinian evolution is another myth being taught as fact.  There is simply no way that Darwinian evolution can account for the myriad of irreducibly complex systems found in lifeforms.  An irreducibly complex system is a set of components acting as a functional unit in which should any component be missing or badly damaged, the unit stops functioning.  Michael Behe, a proponent of intelligent design, uses the common mousetrap as a simple example of an irreducibly complex system.  In order to function, the mousetrap has to have a base, spring, hammer, catch and holding-bar.

 

Suppose astronauts land on Mars in 2050 and on their first walk on the Martian surface they find a mousetrap.  This Martian mousetrap is typical except for having a rectangular base made of a crytalline rock instead of wood.  The astronaut who found the Martian mousetrap arms it, then triggers it and the hammer pops his glove.  Scientists back on earth become ecstatic.  They have their first proof for alien life!  Later, back on earth, the base is discovered to have the dimensions of 1 X 4 X 9, the base's width is 4 times its thickness and its length is 9 times its thickness.  The dimensions are the squares of the first 3 prime numbers!  Scientists name the mousetrap the "Minimon", short for miniature monolith.

 

Some scientists wonder why the Martian mousetrap proves there is or was extraterrestrial life?  Why couldn't the mousetrap have evolved?  After all, it is simply crystalline rock and metal.  And crystals are known to grow over millenia into complex geometric shapes.  Or perhaps, volcanic activity or violent Martian wind storms created the mousetrap.  "No," say the majority of scientists "the mousetrap shows elegant design and purpose."  This is said even though a Martian mouse hasn't been discovered. 

 

A philosophical question that underlies this "tall tale" is why would scientists see intelligent design in simple mechanical devices and not see it in a human cell containing microcellular structures of extreme complexity and harmonious interdependence in form and function?  Why can they not see that the mammalian eye and the human blood-clotting system, just two irreducibly complex systems, could not have evolved in a millenially slow step by step evolutionary process?  The answer may take us back to the Copernican Principle and its bias against belief in a creative agent or God - or perhaps adherents of the principle have eyes but do not see.