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From: Steven L. Wilson Sr <Ndunlks@aol.com>
Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 00:48:13 EDT
Fwd Date: Thu, 06 May 1999 08:05:40 -0400
Subject: Search for Planets: Eureka a Planet! So What?


The Search for Planets: Eureka a Planet! - So What?

7.08 a.m. ET (1108 GMT) May 5, 1999 By Dr. Jean-Marc Perelmuter

Imagine this: The Pope, Giordano Bruno, and Freud are sitting
around watching television. As the news comes on, they learn
that planets have been detected outside of our solar system.
What would they say?

Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake precisely for predicting
these discoveries, and more. In his writings, he claims the
luminous pinheads in the night-sky are in fact suns like ours,
that planets circle these faraway suns and that intelligent
beings inhabit them. This was in 1600 AD.

Had he made his claims four hundred years later, Bruno wouldn't
be orbiting the Earth in a thin cirrus of ash. Not because his
ideas have become popular, but because religion has had to adapt
to the evidences of science.

A literal reading of the Bible, for example, would place the
Earth at the center of the universe with the sun going around
it. Astronomical observations have shown that it is our planet
that is orbiting the sun, which itself is one of over 200
billion stars in a galaxy among millions. The Vatican has bent
to the facts and acknowledged the Earth is indeed orbiting the
sun: since October 31, 1992, we are no longer the center of the
universe =97 at least not gravitationally.

With the detection of extrasolar planets, however, the
possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial life is growing more
real and religious dogma are once again challenged. The maxims
that man is made in the image of God and that man has dominion
over all creatures that inhabit the world seem questioned by the
possibility of radically different life. As Giordano Bruno once
asked, should God be multiplied on all planets, or forsaken on
ours?

On the other hand, if intelligent life was proved to exist only
on Earth, one couldn't help but wonder whether humanity is
indeed special. It's all a matter of probability, and being
special shouldn't depend on the rolling of dice. After all, one
could ask the same thing of lottery winners.


NASA

Perhaps the more palpable implications of extrasolar life are
sociological and cultural rather than spiritual. This may
explain the success of a TV series such as Star Trek. Racism,
ethnocentrism, gender bias, miracles =97 they are all translated
into outer space, in the future, and most especially in relation
to extraterrestrial beings. Science is enshrined in a species
called Vulcan whose members feel no emotion and base their
actions on logic alone. Violence and instinct are symbolized by
the Klingons, a species of warriors.

While the original series did not enshrine the spiritual in an
alien species, newer versions of Star Trek do. In Star Trek
Voyager, one of the characters meditates into a dream state
where he experiences visions. In Deep Space Nine, an
extraterrestrial religion is worshipped. The message is clear:
humanity must lose its special status as a superior creation but
in return gains a level of cultural maturity anthropologists
could only dream of.

Another show, the X-Files, taps into the underlying social theme
of faith versus reason. What matters here isn't resolution as
much as conflict. And it centers around the debate on whether
intelligent extraterrestrials exist and visit us.

"And that's the other sing," shouts Freud from his armchair.
"Vhy should zey be intelligent?"

The Pope and Giordano Bruno stop bickering and stare at the
psychotherapist as if he were from another planet.

"That's right," Freud goes on. "And you make zem zo powerful!
ever vonder vhy?"

"Why?" ask the other two.

"It's all in your minds," he replies. "Sink about it. Who is
all-powerful?"

"God?" says the Pope.

"Nein."

"Scientists?" ventures Bruno.

"Of course, nein. Your parents! Ze search for intelligent
extraterrestrials is in reality ze search for an authority
figure."

Giordano Bruno is on the verge of tears.

"So that's why we search for extrasolar planets and life?"

"Nein, nein," says Freud, "that's vhy you search for intelligent
extraterrestrials. The search for extrasolar planets and plain
alien life is a different matter. Fear."

"Of God?" asks the Pope.

"Of being alone," says Freud. "Existentialism. Ze fear of being
ze captain of your own ship =97 Didn't you read Sartre?"


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