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We Are Alone in the Universe

5.25.00
Who's Responsible for Columbine?

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The Political Prosecution of Linda Tripp

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The Rehnquist Court vs. The New Deal

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The Luckiest Politician In America?

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The Wacky, Left Coast Campaign

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Applying the Standard To Clinton

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Oust Clinton From the Legal Profession

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Judge-Made Taxes

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Scalia & Thomas: Leaders of the Court

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Anarchy For Me, Not For Thee

5/25/00 1:05 p.m.
We Are Alone in the Universe
And we feel fine.

By John Farrell, writer and video producer in Boston

ad news for NR Star Trek fans: There's no one out there! Well, no Klingons anyway — or Romulans, or Vulcans. On the other hand, there are likely to be pools of hidden microbes littering various rocky planets and gas giants (astronomers' name for large planets like Jupiter, although Congressional Democrats like Dick Gephardt and Maxine Waters come to mind). But where's the fun in that? Can you meld with a microbe? Engage in humorous banter about the nature of logic with a prokaryote?

Trekkies may remember Dr. McCoy's famous monologue to Captain Kirk during Balance of Terror. This episode was a science-fiction remake of the classic Clark Gable submarine movie Run Silent, Run Deep. As usual, Kirk pushes himself (and the audience) too hard and the good ol' doctor shows up with his typical dime's worth of humanitarian advice: "Jim, in this galaxy, there's a mathematical probability of three million Earth-type planets...and in all of that, maybe more, only one of each and every one of us. Don't destroy the one named Kirk." I'm mangling the quote, but you get the general idea: Individuals are unique.

I still get inspired when I see that scene, but it turns out...it's not true! In fact, it's not even close. Turns out there may not be any Earth-type planets out there. According to the fascinating new book, Rare Earth, by astronomer Donald Brownlee and paleontologist Peter Ward, both of University of Washington, it's lucky enough that we're here, let alone Klingons, Wookies, or other shamelessly anthropocentric aliens waiting beyond the Solar System.

Briefly, Ward and Brownlee argue that new data about our solar system and the systems beyond it drastically lower the odds that complex life could have evolved elsewhere. By complex, the authors mean anything as basic as a slug. Various uncommon factors — the sun's unusual stability, the moon's salutary effect in regulating the seasons, the presence of metals throughout the solar system, the work of plate tectonics on earth all contribute to the wonderful happenstance of complex life here. I've listed only a few of the aspects covered by the authors of this excellent book; the absence of any one of these aspects would rule out the possibility of complex life surviving.

For years the optimistic mathematical 'probability' that there are millions of Earth-type planets out there, capable of supporting intelligent life, engaged the popular imagination, even before Star Trek. According to Ward and Brownlee, this probability was always considered shaky by scientists who questioned its assumptions. It should come as no surprise, by the way, that one of the scientists responsible for deriving this probability was the late Carl Sagan — he of the nuclear-winter "theory", the overbearing novel (and movie) Contact, and other fantasies.

The good news: Because of earth's rarity, we're more special than we thought, and many scientists even admit it.

Of course, it's unfair to generalize that scientists look at humans and the earth the way the media often paint them as doing: i.e., coldly dismissing our planet as just an average little rock around an average little star. Many scientists appreciate the contingency of the earth's place in the universe, and often give vent to their impatience with bloodless stereotypes of their work. Author/scientists Paul Davies, Richard Dawkins, and Stephen Jay Gould are examples.

The idea that there's nothing special about earth is even referred to as the Principle of Mediocrity, one which popular science journalism tells us has supposedly guided scientists since the time of Copernicus. Truthfully, the idea that mediocrity has anything to do with our place in the world is probably better attributed to philosophers (Bertrand Russell and T.H. Huxley come to mind). Copernicus himself wasn't thinking about the world's mediocrity. And perhaps the old Polish cleric can rest easy in his grave now, since all he was thinking about when he wrote his theory was cutting down the number of assumptions involved in figuring out how the planets move and how to simplify predictions of their motion.

But, getting back to Dr. McCoy's argument: Is his point about the individual's uniqueness any less poignant if there aren't millions of Earth-type planets out there with millions of zworfs, tribbles, thubgumpers and other aliens? After all, there are about 6 billion people here on this rock. Do we need to have a universe littered with other civilizations to accentuate the uniqueness of every earthling?

I hope not. It might be lonelier for us would-be spacefarers now, but look at the bright side. We can colonize any planet we want, with no resistance from anything other than microbes, and not worry whether the locals will object to our constructing low-gravity baseball diamonds, and mining for new minerals, wherever we land.

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