STRENGTH IN NUMBERS
Carl Sagan became famous for the term "billions and billions." In fact, that was the title of his last book. It's a phrase that can send chills down your spine when you think about its implications.
Sagan was referring to the number of stars in the galaxy. He was fond of pointing out that with so many galaxies, filled with so many stars, and with so many planets zipping around those, odds are that somewhere there are little sets of eyes peering out into space trying see if they are alone. Einstein once said that "God doesn't shoot dice." Sagan would disagree.
The debate over whether there is other life in the universe is not unique to the 20th century. It is documented as far back as ancient Greece and, in fact, probably goes back much, much farther.
The difference between then and now is that we are, as Dr. Arroway points out in the film version of Contact, just now at the point in our history where we have the capability to find the answer. Sagan put it more eloquently in the original novel: "This is the first moment in human history when it's possible to search for the inhabitants of other worlds." This makes the question all the more tantalizing.
But it is a difficult question. It is a multi-generational project and one that is not for the impatient. Critics of SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) often ask why, if we've been looking for so many years now, have we not found anything. To them, the fact that messages aren't pouring in means that no one is out there. Absence of evidence, however, is not evidence of absence. We just have to bide our time. Continuing the above excerpt from Contact, Sagan goes on to explain:
"If we fail, we've calibrated something of the rarity and preciousness of life on our planet—a fact, if it is one, very much worth knowing. And if we succeed, we'll have changed the history of our species, broken the shackles of provincialism."
I think that's worth the wait.
DIAL "I" FOR INTELLIGENCE
The "I" in SETI is the real crux of the matter. In the year 2000, I think that most people would concede that there is, without a doubt, other life of some sort somewhere in the universe. This is not the real question. The real question is whether or not there is other intelligent life in the universe. Contact makes a great case for it and paints a fairly realistic scenario of how we might meet our first little green man.
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