For all those that don’t know, some time ago a planet was found in the sweet spot. A planet that could possible hold life. It was named Gliese 581D. Everyone got excited, everyone jumped up and down, and then it faded into the back of the internet.

Some time later Nasa reportedly found 55 potential planets in the habitable zone and 5 really really good candidates. Suffice to say, there’s likely a bunch of earth’s out there.

So, was Dvice just milking it when it reported that this one is confirmed to be habitable? Is it true?

In a phrase, how they hell do they know? A computer model. The same bad guys that are going to take over the world in fifty years want us to get on a space ship and travel 20 light years away, find nothing, and come back.

All kidding aside, basically some guys in France ran some computer models and predicted that, yes indeed, Gliese 581d is Habitable. They didn’t look at it, they didn’t analyze the atmosphere, they didn’t do any super special test. They just asked a computer.

Sorry, I don’t think that counts. The only way to really confirm if the planet is habitable is to look at the planet, get some information on atmosphere, etc. How exactly can they tell it has liquid water at all? The model said so? Computer models really only as good as the people that programed them.

My vote is, Dvice jumped the penguin, landed on the next penguin, and impaled their asses on a nice pointy beak. I really hope it hurt Dvice, I really do.

Granted, I am no where near as smart as Mr. Hawking, but if a species that has advanced enough to be able to travel the stars to another planet, do we really have to be afraid of them? The technology to do that, and the technology to support that, has to be such that anything they can do, they can do on their own. They would see us as ants on an ant hill.

Now, sure, they could choose to squash us, but again, any species that has advanced that far has had to learn a few things. I would hope one of those is how to get things down with out breaking out the magnifying glass and burning some bugs on the ground.

We also know now that planets like this one are probably all over the place, as is water and organic molecules. So, we don’t have anything that they could want. Hell, they found a planet with diamond mountains. We don’t have anything that can compete with that. What, are they gonna come here for the dim sum?

No, Mr. Hawking, I think any advanced species would only be curious about us. Maybe laugh a bit that we haven’t figured out how to charge our flux capacitor’s, even though we learned how in 1985. They may even throw us a bone or two. And a bone from a million year old species is bound to be mighty tasty.

The other thing Mr. Hawking said recently, today I think, was that there is no god and that the idea of an after life is a fairy tale. Well, way to really turn a bright day into a bummer Mr. Math.

I happen to agree that most religions are just wrong. I don’t believe any god is that concerned with us to give one of us enough strength to tear down a building, but not enough to get a hair cut. I think most are just ways that ancient man tried to explain the world they were living in.

However, that isn’t to say I do believe that there is no life after death. Not because I think the Ghosthunters found a jacket pulling entity on Halloween. But because of a quantum experiment that shows that consciousness has something to do with the universe.

I simply can’t get away from that one. Do a double slit experiment, get your minds out of the gutter, one with a camera observing the slit and one experiment without, and you’ll get different results. The act of trying to observe the particles of light change the nature of the light. That’s just scary to me. It means that this universe is somewhat dependent on our consciousness.

Now, of course that doesn’t mean you get to live after death. But I think it’s a strong suggestion that you might just be able to.

Mr. Hawking’s third point I do agree with. Life your life the utmost. Do as much as you can, don’t be afraid of anything and attack life. You have no guarantee that you’ll get to the Singularity event or that you’ll survive death. So might as well boogie woogie while you still can. I’m off to the party!

There are record freezes around the USA and the UK for the winter of 2010. It’s COLD. CNN has Little Rock Arkansas getting as cold as 10 degrees in this article. That’s freakin cold. Here in the nation’s capital it’s quite chilly as well though not down to those temperatures. And I hear that it’s not going to change any time soon. So what is really going on here?

Lets set some records straight first. I don’t want to be called ‘a nut job tea party wacko who thinks that global warming is a bunch of hooey…hey look there’s Russia’ kinda person. I am not a Republican in any way shape or form. That said, I’d like to point out a few facts.

1. We are putting out a lot of carbon into the atmosphere. This is just true. If you look at cars, all that smoke they spew, that goes up into the atmosphere. Just watch it, it happens.

2. Carbon is a greenhouse gas. So, if there is more of it up there it gets hotter. Simple enough.

3. It has gotten approximately 1 degree hotter over the last hundred years.

Wait, what? Well that settles it then. Global warming is real, right? I mean, if it has gotten hotter, even by 1 degree, then that is Global Warming. Well, not so fast. The argument between those who are not nutso is in fact is global warming happening because of humans, not just is it getting hotter. The earth is getting hotter, albeit by a small amount, but it is.

Here’s why it’s very easy to get confused on this subject. We know we’re putting carbon up there. An interesting fact is that oceans and trees are eating more carbon in recent years, a fact that is acknowledge by all sides. A recent report from the university of Bristol in the UK that carbon levels in the atmosphere are not increasing. We are experiencing mild summers and brutal winters in the last few years. And not to mention the climategate email disaster of recent memory.

All that adds up to a very murky picture for us laymen in the world. So, in a bid not to sound like a teaparty/birther idiot, please excuse us for not jumping on the bandwagon. There are two competing web sites that I look at weekly now. One, http://www.skepticalscience.com/ is filled with data supporting the idea that humans are making the earth hotter and we are in for some trouble. The website http://www.worldclimatereport.com/ is more middle of the road. They are pointing out that, yes global warming has occurred but lets take a closer look at the data to see just what this really means. One of the biggest and most confusing points on these sites is that skeptical science reports that oceans are getting warming while world climate report showed a study was done indicating they are getting cooler. Confusing to say the least.

Really, at the end of the day, doesn’t it come down to common sense? We put tons of a greenhouse gas into the atmosphere and its going to have an effect. No one can dispute that. The effect may be that trees get bigger or the ocean absorbs more carbon. Or the effect may be that the earth gets hotter as more gas gets trapped. Bottom line, one degree in one hundred years is nothing something to get worked up about.

That all said, someone please tell me how Global Warming is causing it to be freezing outside?

First, a few facts. In the Milky Way galaxy there are around 250 billion stars. The Fermi paradox states that if you do some neat math, 1 in 1 million stars that are rocky worlds, 1 in 1 million of those, etc etc, several times over, there would have to be thousands of intelligent species in the universe. The big question is, where are they all. Current astronomical observations, with newer and newer equipment, tend to suggest that rocky worlds in the habitable zone of solar systems are very very common. We havent’ found any, but what we have found are gas giants that are, according to current solar system development theory, supposed to be very common. And we are finding them every where we look. So if we are finding rare planets, it stands to reason that we’ll be finding a ton of the not so rare kind.

Ok, on to the reasons why we haven’t heard from anyone up there.

The first possibility, we are the first creatures to evolve an develop the technological ability to investigate the universe. We are the first to be able to use a telescope basically. The universe is around 14 billion years old, give or take a few. The earth is around 4 billion years old, give or take a few. We are not new to the universe. I tend to agree with the article here actually. Earth doesn’t seem to be particularly different or unique. We are seem to be randomly thrown into the timescale of the universe. For this to be true, intelligent life capable of making themselves known in the universe must be VERY VERY rare.

The second possibility, there are many species in the universe but they are undetectable to us. This one I have an issue with. The article seems to say that this is not a very likely possibility. The reason it states is why would all advanced civilizations choose to not be visible or choose to advance in such a way as to make them invisible. Well, here’s the issue. Even if there were hundreds of thousands of civilizations in the Milky Way, there are 250 BILLION stars up there! We haven’t looked at every single star yet. We haven’t analyzed every single signal yet. We are really only looking and analyzing radio waves. We sure can’t see sky scrapes out there just yet, though it would be cool one day if we could.  We have only been around broadcasting radio waves for less than 100 years. We could very well have looked at a star recently that is not broadcasting any signals now, but will be in 50 years when they invent radio technology. We actually have had a “WOW” signal once, detected by SETI decades ago. We were not able to detect it again, it was in an empty area of space. A spaceship perhaps? Who knows. The point here is, just because there may be thousands of technologically advanced races up there, doesn’t mean they are all at the same level of technology as we are. They could be eons ahead of us or they could be building their pyramids. In fact, given the amount of stars, and all other factors, it’s hard to believe another race is at the same level as us. Just remember Archimedes. Just a few slick thinking people that would have seen his steam engine, would have turned it into an industrial revolution and we would be two thousand years more technically advanced than we are now.

Their third possibility is there is a cosmic road block and all species eventually die out. Not much you can say on this one. We are the first species we know about to get as far as we have. The next 50 years may say hydrogen reactors in every car and garage bio geneticists that can whip you up a custom made virus in no time. So sure, we may all blow our selves up, but it stands to reason using the same logic as the Fermi paradox that one or two races would get by this “cosmic roadblock” and would likly be actively looking for others to help them get through it. What else would that have to do?

So that’s their logic. I mostly disagree with number 2. Number 3 is their catch all wild card. Number 1 is just silly.

My fourth possibility. There are thousands of aliens up there, we are in a corner of the universe where they have a ‘look don’t contact’ agenda. It would explain the thousands of reputed sightings some from very credible sources. Basically, they know about us, won’t let us see them and are already here waiting for us to get warp speed so Picard can beam into Obama’s oval office and talk to him about a federation.

And the final possibility? It’s the obvious one of course, there really is a God.

The link to the original article is below.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/10/could-a-18-gigayear-technology-gap-exist-a-galaxy-classic.html

What is global warming anyway?

Not to sound like a smart ass, but in a nut shell, it has to do with the globe getting warmer. But, in more detail, it has to do with the earth’s warming due to human intervention. How could we possibly warm the earth? We pump out a good deal of chemicals and greenhouse gases that result in an atmosphere with more carbon dioxide in it than should be. As a result, the Earth will hold in too much heat, causing world wide temperatures to go up, hence global warming. Ok, simple enough. But is it really real?

This is a tough question and where the likes of Al Gore wage war on the premise that it’s absolutely real. According to Al Gore, and others, the earth is going to heat up and heat up fast.  So much so the Governor of California is working on legislation such that California will have to begin to prepare for rising oceans and how it will effect coastal areas. In fact, just about everyone you talk to these days say it’s real, it’s happening, it’s a fact, global warming is going to kill us all.

Well, i’m not the type to just believe something because everyone else is, and you shouldn’t be either. So, when browsing my favorite news sites I stumbled upon the heading of “The world has never seen such freezing heat“. Odd I thought, clicking it revealed a story wherein one of the institutes responsible for the data proving global warming to be real stated that October of 2008 was the hottest on record. But, this was a rather odd statement since several areas throughout the world were reporting record cold temperatures and snow storms. Upon further review, the data was completely wrong. The temperatures for the previous month were carried over to October. October was judged based on September’s temperatures, a normally hotter month.

Suffice to say, the anti-global warming enthusiasts shouted this fact with renewed vigor. And yes, there are anti-global warming advocates. They claim that 2007 was not in fact the hottest year on record but rather it was in the 1930′s. They claim that most of the global warming spiel is being generated by a few leading scientists and their data is mostly flawed.

Ok, so what now? There are those that say it’s real and those that say that the data being used to judge is flawed. And yes, the data was 100% wrong for October. Where does that leave us? The average joe who knows to know if he should prepare for beach front property in DC suburbs.

Relax – the end is not near

Ok, so the reason I wanted to post about this was not to take a side in the global warming debate. I do not know if it’s really happening. This summer was mild, this winter so far is colder, from my perspective it’s not getting warming year over year. Simple.

What I do find interesting is how most people take one side or the other. Well, if the data is flawed, how can they know what side to take? The central idea is somewhat sound, it makes sense that if we, human civilization, put out greenhouse gases then a greenhouse effect is likely. But, are we really putting out so much that it could effect the global atmosphere? Some say no. Some say yes. Mostly the argue with one another.

My point here, don’t get caught up taking sides over something that some would say is still not proven to be true. If you think there is enough evidence, fair enough, but don’t stop questioning that evidence. For decades doctors would tell us that eating eggs gave people high cholesterol, until the evidence changed. Now they say global warming is as real as the sun. Is it? The neat thing about science is it’s ok when you change your mind. New evidence, new findings, new techniques to challenge the status quo, all good things for science.

Article about global warming data being wrong: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/16/do1610.xml

Article refuting the above article: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/mountains-and-molehills/

Read about the Govenor of California’s orders about rising sea’s here: http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/11/15/schwarzenegger-orders-california-to-prepare-for-sea-level-rise/

Their central argument, one of two actually, and i’ve posted about this before, is the concept of “irreduciable complexity”. Now, this idea isn’t without merit. Darwin himself talked about this concept and if ever found would refute his theory. The problem is, you’re not going to find it. Not ever. Stop looking. Lets look at why.

What is irreducible complexity? It is, simply put, the idea that some part of an organism didn’t come from anything else. A fish has fins, leaves the ocean, evolves into a land creature and grows arms. The idea is that every appendage, organ, you name it, evolved from some other organ or appendage. For the IR arguer, it’s like finding the bar on a mouse trap somewhere in nature. It could only ever be to kill mice, it had no previous purpose and was therefore designed to do this task. One big example are fish in the deep sea that have grown appendages, some are luminescent, and can attract other fish close. Some have argued that this appendage could never have been anything but what it is. But this is really shallow thinking and there are many examples of how these types of appendages can develop.

Ok, so, now we know what it means, why is it so foolish? For starters, if you believe in evolution, the theory is right now. It’s in direct contrast and assumes a creator is, at varying times in history, interfering with an organism and adding bits and pieces as he, or she, sees fit. Just doesn’t work at all with evolution in any way shape or form.

Of course, that’s expected. No self respecting evolutionist or scientists would add to a theory the disclaimer “this theory subject to change by unknown entity at any given time”. And lets look at those that believe in God. Surely it makes sense for them? Not really. Lets accept as fact that God created the universe. It’s a pretty well known fact that God isn’t about walking around town waving a flag and giving autographs. This deity keeps a low profile. He wants to be believed in, not chosen because you’re afraid of his authority.

So what is IR really saying? It’s saying, lets find those places where God messed up. Lets find those examples in life where God had to create some part directly out of scratch. Where he couldn’t wait for evolution, which even the catholic church agress is real, to run it’s course. Excuse me? God makes mistake? Rather insulting I think. God creates this magnificent universe, builds into the capacity for self explanation, and some would be smart guy says he messed up somewhere.

There has never been one example of IR every found. Not one. It is a poor argument. And what baffles my mind is, there’s a really good one out there that no one even knows about.

Ever wonder why atoms are the way they are? Why the sun burns hydrogen the way it does? Why gravity is the strength it is? Why all the physical laws that exist are set to such exact levels? And what else is even more peculiar, if even one of all those rules and laws were off by even a fraction of a percent, life wouldn’t be possible.

Yes, I typed that correctly. Our universe is perfectly setup to support life. If gravity was a bit stronger, even just a bit, life wouldn’t be possible as objects would attract each other more. If the sun burned hydrogen more, only a fraction of a percent more, it would burn all the fuel faster, in a few million years, and life wouldn’t have time to evolve. There are countless examples of this, if protons were slightly heavier, life wouldn’t be possible. Our universe is just oddly setup to favor life. So much so that scientists can’t ignore it. And honestly, this is the big hurdle. If there is no reasonable, logical explanation for why there are so many little things that are required for life in our universe, then what is the only conclusion? No one dares say, not even me. The most logical scientific reason? There are an infinite number of universes and we happen to be the one that supports life. Yes, that is the most accepted reason.

So, why when you have such a reasonable, logical point, would you bother with something like irreducible complexity? I can’t answer that. No idea honestly. The point I make is there are oddities to our universe that one could argue suggest some intelligence went into the design. But the theory known as Intelligent Design, is not at all smart. Spend your time looking at what we do really know and make your conclusions based on that, not so fairy tale of irreducible complexity. You’d have more luck finding fairies.

Article on our universe’s favorability to life: http://discovermagazine.com/2008/dec/10-sciences-alternative-to-an-intelligent-creator/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=

So, on that note, lets make sure we all know what Atheism means. It does not unilaterally mean that those who are Atheists necessarily believe that god does not exist. The oxford dictionary definition for Atheism is very direct, the belief that God does not exist. However, that is a rather simplistic definition for a very complicated position and in fact, there are two distinct positions that Atheists can hold.

Many believe that Atheism is the absence of belief in the existence of gods. Simply put, they choose not to believe in what religions say. But, they are not going the next step and saying that God/gods do not exist. They simply, and very scientifically state, we do not accept your assertion. There is no proof. There is no evidence. Therefore we do not accept your statement that God exists. They do not then make the next step and say “we also say emphatically that god does NOT exist”.

The second position is of course the stronger of the two. They go ahead and state that god in any form doesn’t exist. Those are two separate and very distinct positions. One of them is a belief. One of them is good healthy scientific reasoning.

To say that you do not belief in the assertions of a religious order is a very valid position to hold. I myself do not believe in any of the statements of the Church of Scientology. Not one. Nor do I believe any tenants of the ancient Norse, Roman, Greek or Egyptian religions. Though the last four are very cool, I simply don’t believe in them. Does that make me an atheist? Partially, yes. But the definition for Atheism is very broad. It leaves no room for uncertainty. It doesn’t say ‘absense of belief for one god’ but rather all gods.

But those that hold to the oxford definition, to them I say you are simply wrong. Or rather, you have a belief system. Like it or not, you believe that God does not exist.  It is virtually impossible to ever say something does not exist from a scientific viewpoint. Just not possible. So, if you hold the ‘belief’ that god does not exist then you have a belief system and not a scientific view. I believe one is called “weak atheist” and the other “strong atheist”. To me, one is called scientific and one hypocritical.

Does it really make sense to have a belief system wherein you are stating that another belief system is wrong? I find it to be hypocritical.

Now, I’m sure all the Atheists who read this will be up and arms. And if I have mis-spoken or presented something in error, by all means state it. The point of this posting is simply to attempt to better define the Atheist view. And to try to show some light on a very difficult topic. The term atheism really has lots of meanings when you talk to different people. Add in agnosticism, a term coined by a Professor Huxley in 1876, to largely mean those that believe there is no proof either way for the existence of a deity, and you’ve got a real mess on your hands.

I try to make things simple. To boil down all the arguments to the most simplist of levels. Either you believe God does exist, believe he doesn’t exist, refute the assertion of one or the other while making no statement yourself, or simply throw your hands up in despair I don’t know please leave me alone about it.

The point here is, dont’ assume you know what someone believes just because they say they are an Atheist. They may be stating they are based on one of two possible definitions or some other definition that may exist. Question them, find out what they really believe, and then have your discussion.

It’s long known that philosophers have been debating this topic for many years. Part of this debate is the concept of free will, do we have it or not. I am not going into the philosophical arguments of determinism. That has been widely covered by philosophers and websites of both eastern and western traditions. What I find to be most curious is the astronomical argument in favor of it.

Now, I may be speaking a bit out of school here. I’m not astronomer or philosopher. And whereas the implications of one argument having anything to do with the other are great, I am making no assertions that the two disciplines are in anyway arguing for or against the other’s position.

That said, this is what the astronomers are talking about. It all goes back to the double-slit experiment and a man named John Archibald Wheeler. In a nut shell, after a photon of light passes through a double split, a researcher can change how the particle was detected. You really can’t boil down a scientific theory to one sentence and have it hold water, for an in-depth write up of it look here.

What this has to do with determinism is this. I recently read another article, which I have been desperately trying to find again on the Internet, where two scientists propose a test of this proposition. Again, this is really a growth from an idea from Wheeler. A double slit experiment on an astronomical scale.  Basically, take two very large telescopes and conduct this experiment with light emitted from another star.

The basic argument here is the path of the particle to the telescope is already determined when the light left the star in the first place. It already knew which telescope was going to detect it. It was determined.

Now, I’m sure I’ve gotten some of the above points incorrect. I’m no scientist. I am sure of the end result of the experiments, I am not sure of the exact nature of the experiments. The end result is, if true, the workings of the universe were all determined to occur in a very set way.

What does this mean? In a nut shell, it means the universe is pre-determined to act out it’s life from start to finish. What’s astounding to me is that this may very well be a scientifically provable position. What would the implications of that be to religion and our place in the universe? All sorts of questions ranging from Free Will to Atheism come under fire.

I am waiting on bated breath to see what may come of such experiments. Whether or not this turns out to be true could radically redefine our understanding of the world. The “final theory” or theory of everything that scientists have long been seeking, many think that string theory is a candidate, may one day show that determinism is part of our universe.

I am often reminded of one my favorite quotes from Peter O’Toole in a 1985 movie called Creator where he said, “it’s said that once science peers over the great mountain of mystery, it will find religion has been sitting there all along”. I don’t know if that will be true, and I’m not a religious person, but it’s something to think about.

Read about determinism in philosophy here: http://www.mb-soft.com/believe/text/determin.htm
Read about determinism in science here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/

Before I do, in the interest of full disclosure. I am a scientific thinking agnostic. Nuff said.

Evolution

What is evolution anyway? Is it the principle belief of evolution that God does not exist? What? No? Well what does it have to do with God anyway? Nothing you say? Then why all the hubbub?

Evolution is the change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift. So, really, it’s how life works. We see this in day to day life. Animals can change to the environment. They do change, they must change. They change mostly in relation to food supplies and weather. We can see that in us. If we didn’t change based on diet, people wouldn’t look so different. We’ve even been able to manipulate this. Chicken farmers were able to make chickens have bigger breasts through cross breeding. The biological form is malleable. It can be molded and crafted to fit it’s surroundings.

We see this on a species level as well. Animals when moved to a new environment or diet, will change to fit that environment. That’s evolution. That’s it. It’s not a matter of God doesn’t exist. It’s a question of how life deals with the world around it. Some people do take this to explain how life can to be out of nothing. It may very well be how it did come out of nothing. But then, does that mean there is no God? Why should it exactly? All it would mean is this is how life formed. Well, we know how stars form, does that mean there is no God? No, it means we know how stars form.

All evolution will ever tell us is how life changes to fit it’s environment. That’s it. Nothing more. If there is anyone using it to prove God doesn’t exist, you’re wrong. So, what about creationists? They must be right then, right? Nope, they are even worse.

Creationism

Creationists believe that God is in control of everything. That he snapped his fingers, over the course of six days, and all life came to be. Ok, well, I suppose he could have done that. Technically speaking, it is defined as the doctrine that matter and all things were created, substantially as they now exist, by an omnipotent Creator, and not gradually evolved or developed.

There’s no question that if there is a God, he could do that. I mean, being omnipotent means you get to do whatever you want. But does that really make a lot of sense? God’s central point, to me, seems to be this whole pesky matter of faith. You have to have faith to believe in him or you just don’t cut it. Well, does it really make a whole lot of sense for a God to provide some means to prove his existence? I mean, if I were creating a universe, and I wanted the future people of it to choose me through faith, wouldn’t I build into that universe the mechanisms for self-explanation?

If any one piece of evidence existed that God is real, the whole faith thing goes out the window, doesn’t it? Sounds like it to me. Doesn’t the bible even say in Genesis, “let the earth bring forth the fish of the sea and foul of the air”? Almost sounds evolutionist to me.  Why couldn’t he just have snapped his fingers, created the big bang, and let everything else unfold on it’s own? Would make more sense if you wanted those that would come to have faith, wouldn’t it?

Intelligent Design

Briefly on this topic, you’re wrong. And arrogant. How can you think an omnipotent entity would make a mistake? The principle idea here is irreducible complexity. Irreducible complexity is the notion that there is some biological form out there, might be part of a larger organism, that can’t have evolved from anything else. It must have been created with the specific task of doing what it does. These guys say that a God did create everything, that evolution is going on, but that there was an intelligent designer. That point may very well be true. But to think that entity screwed up and left some irreducibly complex thing laying around for some moron to find? Are you kidding? If God does exist I don’t want to be you when it comes to meet him.

Conclusion

The reason I wrote this is simple. Creationist’s and Evolutionist spend too much time, even if it is only ten minutes, arguing about things that really just don’t matter to the chief pursuit. Evolution may very well be the method that God uses to keep life going. Why not? That would mean that evolution is a creationists science. It doesn’t try to say there is no God. So really, why keep this argument going when both halves can live quite comfortably next to each other? You can have an evolving world and a God. They actually fit quite nicely together.

I recently read an article on ABC about why people believe in impossible things. One of those things was why people believe aliens are coming to the earth. That made me think for a moment. How exactly does this author know that that is an impossible thing? One of them was that people believe in the impossible fact that aliens have come to the planet earth. He is assuming two key points. First, that life does not exist anywhere else in the universe and two, that we can never go faster than the speed of life. The first question, some argue, has already been answered by some martian rocks showing what looks like bacteria, though this is not an accepted fact. The second point is clearly wrong. Scientists today think that with enough energy you can go faster than the speed of light, or rather, you can bend space to make it appear you are going faster when you really aren’t. There are several main stream scientists that are even today stating we should begin taking all these claims of aliens and UFO sightings more seriously and that the possibility is not zero.

So why did some scientist, Lewis Wolpert, say that it was impossible? He’s not even an astrophysicists, merely a biologist, what does he know about travelling faster than the speed of light? Nothing. Why does he think that? He’s, in my opinion, a skeptic.

Just who are skeptic’s anyway? How about the chief skeptics of the bunch, Atheists? Are they taking a scientific view of things? No. Not in my opinion. What I hate more than anything are those people that use science as an excuse to disprove something. Lets say someone comes up with a theory, they test their theory but the test fails, does this mean their theory is invaild and wrong? No, it means they couldn’t prove it. Not proving something does not mean that you have proven that theory as false, it means you have not proven it as true. Failing one does not prove the other. And yet, this is what most people use as proof that God does not exist, that aliens are completely impossible and that every thing that has never been proven must not exist.

This is absolutly not a scientific approach. Atheists believe in something. They believe God does not exist. That is a belief. It is not a scientific proof. I defy any scientist on the planet to prove through testing and verifiable theory that God does not exist, they can’t. And yet so many believe that to be true.  I defy any biologist to prove that aliens have never visited earth. They can’t. There is no way to prove, through a testable and verifiable means, that an intelligent alien life form ever visited the earth.

Being skeptical is actually fine and healthy, as long as you do not let it grow to a belief. If someone presents a theory, we should be skeptical if that theory is true. We shoud test it, prove it, again and again. Even though thousands of UFO sighting have been disproven as hoaxes that is not proof that UFO’s do not exist. It is proof that thousands of people are a-holes and like to waste peoples time.

As I said before, I believe in science. Pure science. The honest quest for knowledge through verifiable means. However, not everything in this universe, at this time, can be verified to be true or not true. There are some things that are simply beyond the boundry of science. We can never prove absolutly that intelligent life does not exist somewhere else in the universe. The only way we could is to send space ships to every single planet, moon, asteroid and solar system out there. That’s not going to happen. Science is very very good at proving something to be true. It really isn’t so good at proving something not to be true. God is one such subject that really science just can’t touch. 95% of the worlds population believe in a higher power in one form or another. So, either we’re all delusional or there is something out there. Regardless, no one can ever proof that it is not true.

So, to all those skeptic’s in the world, chill out. The onus is on all those saying that God does exist to prove it. However, as soon as you claim he does not exist, the onus is now on you to prove that he does not exist. Ok, what about the spaghetti monster argument. If 100 people claim to have seen a giant spaghetti monster, does that mean it can never be disproven? Of course it can. How? As soon as someone says they made it up, it’s disproven.

Oh boy, now I’ve done it. What about those people that made up God 5,000 years ago? Same thing isn’t it? Well, techincally, I would agree with you. If that were the only fact, a primitive technological society needing some explanation to the existance of life, came up with dieties, Gods, then I would agree. But, the simple fact that 95% of people believe, that many people claim to have a connection on some level, can’t simply be ignored. And yes, I know that that can be argued to be some facet of human psychology. And there are counter arguments to that counter argument. But, this isn’t meant to be a prove or disprove God post. It’s an anti-skeptic post. And it’s a long one.

The point of all this is simple. Not proving something to be true does not prove it to be untrue. It just proves it’s not true. Science has no comment on anything it can not prove. It’s defacto comment is really just “no comment”. Claiming whatever it is does not exist is simply wrong to do without a scientific study.

Read the article about people believing impossible things here: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=5817998
Read a scientists view on alien life existing here: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1343196.htm
Read about faster than light travel here: http://www.usd.edu/phys/courses/phys300/gallery2/dave/dave.htm and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light