*Chuck Nelson, a career law enforcement official, has shared his thoughts with Creation Digest viewers previously.  He offers unique insight and viewpoints on a subject that fascinates all.

WLJ

WE ARE NOT ALONE! RECENT SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES PROVIDE POWERFUL EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL LIFE, BUT...

By: Chuck Nelson*

THE SEARCH FOR EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE

Are we human beings alone in an otherwise lifeless universe? Could there be another intelligent life form somewhere in the vast expanse of the universe? It seems this question has haunted mankind throughout history but the answer has only been discoverable in empirical or scientific terms in recent years.

The question, "Are we alone?" with all of the secondary questions it engenders, is what drove scientists some 40 years ago to establish the SETI Project. SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, was funded through NASA until 1993 when Congress cut SETI funding. SETI funds may have been cut but interest in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence remained strong so the SETI Institute was established and the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence continues under private funding.  Over the years, many millions of public, and now private, dollars have been spent on the search. The search continues and the SETI Institute has recently announced plans for a new, 25 million dollar, radio telescope project that will help them scan the universe for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence. 

SETI scientists don't look through telescopes to try to observe extra-terrestrials; they use radio telescope technology.  Unlike conventional telescopes that collect light to produce images, radio telescopes collect radio signals from the invisible portion of the electro-magnetic spectrum. In essence, SETI is eavesdropping on our universe to see if we have neighbors who are generating radio signals.  Many celestial objects and structures emit radio signals that generate a rather noisy background of "static" though which SETI must search for radio signals from an intelligent source. Just as radio signals generated on earth by radio and television sources are radiating some 100 light years into space at this point, it is reasonable to assume that, if there is intelligent life on other planets, they would be generating similar radio signals which could be detected on earth with sensitive listening systems. 

IDENTIFYING AN UNSEEN INTELLIGENT SOURCE

You might be asking yourself how SETI researchers would expect to be able to detect a radio signal from an unseen intelligent source in the midst of all that cosmic background noise? The answer is relatively simple and is derived from basic information theory. The underlying principle is that information only comes from an intelligent source. We are all quite used to detecting the difference between natural and intelligently derived objects or information. Natural occurring or random radio signals do not contain or carry intelligently derived information.

Intelligently derived information or objects manifest an information content or structure that is distinct from the medium itself and from natural or random sources.  For example, anyone who hears the simple Morse Code signal for "SOS" against a background of static will immediately recognize that the signal is originating from an unseen intelligent source and that the radio signals contain an urgent information content. An Archaeologist usually has no trouble distinguishing hieroglyphics etched into a stone from random natural markings and stains. An arrowhead is easily distinguished from an unworked piece of flint or obsidian and a pottery shard from a rock. The difference is found in the information that has been imposed on or infused into the object by an external intelligent source.

One more example will help illustrate how information is separate from the medium on which it is imposed and distinguishable when intelligently derived. We are all used to seeing rocks distributed randomly on a hillside.  However, if we see the rocks on a hillside arranged so as to spell out "GOT MILK?," we would immediately recognize that a message that is not inherent in the medium (rocks) has been imposed on the rocks and that the message originated from an intelligent source apart from the rocks. This information content can be measured, mathematically quantified and statistically analyzed by assessing the number of instructions required to produce the object or information. In this way, the ability to distinguish between intelligent and unintelligent or natural origins, something we all do rather well intuitively, can be reduced to empirical mathematical analysis.

Mathematical or statistical analysis is made possible by the fact that the more complex a message or system is, the more instructions are required to produce the message or object. Random radio signals, events or objects require relatively few instructions to produce but complex systems require many more instructions to produce. Some objects or signals have repeating patterns that are based on the inherent properties of the material of which they consist or the method by which they are produced.  However, repeating patterns have far less complexity than intelligently originated objects or messages. For instance a crystal might appear more complex than a sandstone rock and the rapid repeating radio signal from a pulsar may appear more complex than random background radio noises from outer space. However, this type of limited complexity is specified by the molecular or physical structure of the source, not by imposed intelligence.

The intelligent origin of objects, systems or messages is determined not by complexity itself. Natural processes through naturally derived repeating patterns can produce some relatively complex systems or objects. Examples would include, pulsars, crystals, tree ring patterns, patterns in sand, waves and clouds, etc.  The intelligent origin of an object, system or message, is demonstrated, not just by complexity but also by something called "specified" complexity. 

The message, "GOT MILK?" which was imposed on the rocks on the hillside is based on specified complexity and can therefore be traced to an intelligent source. The position of each rock must have been specified in order to form letters of the alphabet and each of the 7 letters has a 1 in 26 chance of appearing in the correct (specified) sequence and then there is the matter of the spacing between words and then the meaning of the words, and then the question mark and it's meaning, etc. It is soon obvious and mathematically demonstrable that the message "GOT MILK?" is intelligently derived because it manifests information that is both complex and specified. Random processes, natural or otherwise, do not produce specified complexity.

EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE DISCOVERED

While SETI researchers have scanned the heavens for signs of intelligent life for some 40 years without success, we can be assured that the search will continue. As long as the burning "are we alone" question remains unanswered, the search will continue and mankind will continue to put his fiscal and technological resources into the effort. 

The SETI effort notwithstanding, there is a small but growing voice in the scientific community that's saying, "Wait a minute, we've found it... we have found empirical evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligence." Interestingly, the extra-terrestrial intelligence was not found in outer-space, it was found in "inner-space." While SETI researchers have been looking to outer-space, the evidence for extra-terrestrial intelligence was found on earth... by scientists who were looking through microscopes rather than telescopes.

What is this evidence that is causing a growing number of scientists to proclaim the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence? The answer was under our noses all the time, it's just that science didn't have the technology to "see" it until new tools and research methods allowed scientists to look deep within the structure of living cells. Living cells, even the simplest among them, are chocked full of specified complexity and irreducibly complex components and systems.

Molecular biologist, Michael Behe illustrates both irreducible and specified complexity in his popular book, "DARWIN'S BLACK BOX." Behe demonstrates how Darwinian as well as other theories of naturalistic evolution are incapable of explaining or producing the information content and complexity found in living systems. Many other scientists are making the same observations and coming to the same conclusion.

The information content of DNA is massive and without precedence in the natural world. The information in DNA is used to construct and maintain living organisms as well as every cell and cellular component.  It can only reasonably be compared to the information found in written human language.  The incredible highly specified complexity of living organisms does not arise from the inherent properties of its' biological molecules or their atomic components.  Just as the information content of a book is not inherent in the ink with which it was written, the information content of DNA is imposed on, rather than inherent in, its molecular components.

Contrary to the popular evolutionary paradigm, mutational changes in DNA do not produce specified complexity. Mutational innovations introduced into DNA have been found to be either neutral or information reducing in nature. Mutations, whether occurring in nature or induced in the laboratory, have never been found to produce a net gain in the functional information content of DNA or to produce functional specified complexity. Mutations generally produce mutants with less genetic information than existed prior to the mutation. It has been demonstrated over and over again in the laboratory and in our everyday experience that one cannot achieve significant gains in the information content of the genome or a computer program, which is a code of similar complexity, by randomly introducing, subtracting or jumbling data components. 

Mutations are the random altering of data components in DNA. Random alterations destroy what exists, rather than evolve it into a better system.  Accordingly, it is not surprising that not many good books have been produced from an explosion in a print shop and rocks have yet to spell "GOT MILK?" by accident. 

The human genome, or the genetic information required to construct a human being from molecules to man, contains enough information to build a library of 10,000 books. This massive amount of information is captured in miniaturize form and stored in the DNA which is found in the nucleus of almost every one of our cells. This DNA library does not consist of random bits of data or letters and numbers but "books" with information and complex instructions on how to build the whole as well as every part of a human being with all of the complex structures and systems required to maintain life. When we find mutations or errors in the printing of these DNA books, they are known by the diseases and defects they produce rather than the evolutionary advancements generated.

It defies logic as well as experience to imagine that randomly pressing the buttons on a word processor would produce a library of 10,000 books or that random processes such as mutations, would produce the specified complexity found in the genome of any living organism.

And so it is, that observational, experimental and mathematical analysis of the very basis of life as found in the information content of DNA, requires an intelligent source external to the atomic and molecular components.  Random naturalistic processes cannot generate this kind of information. Mankind, using the best technology in the best laboratories on earth has been unable to produce life.  It is, therefore, reasonable to conclude that the intelligence found in the structure and essence of living organisms did not originate here and is extra-terrestrial in origin. The creator is unobserved but we marvel at his intelligent design. 

CAN SCIENCE FIND THE WRONG ANSWER?

Why is it, you may ask, that researchers who look for intelligence in outer-space are considered main-stream scientists while scientists who find objective evidence of intelligent design in living organisms are marginalized or considered religious zealots or non-scientific? How could it be that it is OK to look for unseen extra-terrestrial intelligence in outer space but it is somehow un-scientific to find evidence of creative intelligence in inner space?  Is it possible to look in the "wrong" place for answers and to find the "wrong" answer to an age old question?   

The answer, unfortunately, is an unqualified "yes." In our scientific community and the popular media today, there is a wrong place to look and a wrong answer to find when it comes to origins.  According to the current rules of scientific political correctness, the right place to look for origin of life answers, whether in outer space or on earth, is where the answer will be "naturalistic." It really doesn't matter too much where you look as long as you are looking for a naturalistic answer or you arrive at a naturalistic conclusion. In today's "scientific" economy, if you claim to have evidence that little green men evolved naturalistically on some distant planet, you will be given greater credibility than if you claim to have found evidence of intelligent design in DNA. If you claim to have evidence of intelligent design, which requires an intelligent designer, you will be substantially marginalized and ignored by the current scientific community and popular media.

So what exactly is popular science and the media looking for in the matter of origins?  The answer, surprisingly, is philosophical, not scientific. The dominant scientific community today, along with the media, has married science to the philosophical concept of naturalism or materialism. This, philosophical naturalism, is almost equated with science today. Philosophical naturalism, in its essence, is the belief that the origin of the universe and life within it is wholly explainable in terms of the natural and unguided properties inherent in matter and energy. 

An extreme version of this paradigm is philosophical materialism that would maintain that only matter or matter and energy exists and there is no such thing as God or any supernatural entity apart from matter.  A somewhat less rigid version of philosophical naturalism makes room for God or a supernatural entity but maintains that he has nothing to do with the physical world or creation. You can have your god, in this version of naturalism, but he must stay on the spiritual side of the fence and never interfere with the physical universe where the 'real world' is.

As Phillip Johnson, an eloquent spokesman for the intelligent design movement, has said, "A successful argument is not one that convinces everybody because that never happens, but one that captures the terms of the debate and places opponents on the defensive." (1). Clearly, Mr. Johnson is correct in the case of philosophical naturalism. 

Some time ago, the terms of the origin of life debate were captured by the philosophical naturalists and materialists and today those scientists and individuals who propose a non-natural origins scenario, such as creation or intelligent design, find their arguments and evidences disqualified by the definition of science rather than the weight of their evidence. Perhaps, someday, the terms of the debate will shift to more neutral grounds but until that day, the philosophical naturalists and their allies in the popular media will promulgate their naturalistic philosophy while advocates of creation and intelligent design accumulate their evidences and push for the day of their fair hearing.

1.   The Creationist and the Socialbiologist: Two Stories about Iliberal Education, By  Philip Johnson:  www.arn.org

2.    Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information.  By William Dembski.  www.arn.org

1/19/02