Life Out There?

I love these kinds of stories. Every time a new lump of extra-terrestrial rock is found they start going on about how it might hold life. Or might once have held What a housing development on another planet might look likelife. Or might one day hold life.

This time they have made up an even better story. The rock in question, they tell us, was blasted off a planet when its star exploded. Somehow or other – in the minds of these astronomers – this automatically brings up the possibility of life having existed on it at some point past, present, or future. Even though no life has ever been found in order to give such a conclusion any plausibility.

I’ve come to the conclusion there are two types of astronomer. The first kind discovers new things. The second kind makes up stories about new things.

If you ever watch some of those silly “documentaries” on the Discovery Channel – the ones that insist on trying to make astronomy glamorous – you see repeated low-quality animations of what life “may look like”, even though there is no chance of us ever finding out, and only a slightly better chance of there being any life out there at all (and by “slightly better” I mean the astronomers’ premise that life must exist out there somewhere and since you can’t prove it doesn’t, then you’re left with the “fact” that is does.

And they criticise those who blindly believe in any sort of god.

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