SETI On Steroids

I don't doubt there are a lot of galaxies, with a lot of stars, and a lot of earth-like planets. Yep, there sure are.

But why the sudden push to find intelligent life in the universe when we can't even find it here?

http://connecticut.cbslocal.com/2014/07/15/nasa-humans-will-prove-we-are-not-alone-in-the-universe-within-20-years/

Before you get all blurry-eyed about the infinite possibilities, consider this:

In 1950, while working at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Enrico Fermi had a casual conversation while walking to lunch with colleagues Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller and Herbert York. The men discussed a recent spate of UFO reports and an Alan Dunn cartoon facetiously blaming the disappearance of municipal trashcans on marauding aliens. They then had a more serious discussion regarding the chances of humans observing faster-than-light travel by some material object within the next ten years. Teller thinks Fermi directed the question at him, asking "Edward, what do you think? How probable is it that within the next ten years we shall have clear evidence of a material object moving faster than light?" Teller answered one in a million. Teller remembers Fermi said, "This is much too low. The probability is more like ten percent" [the probability of a 'Fermi miracle']. Konopinski did not remember the exact numbers "except that they changed rapidly as Edward and Fermi bounced arguments off each other."

The conversation shifted to other subjects, until during lunch Fermi suddenly exclaimed, "Where are they?" (alternatively, "Where is everybody?"). Teller remembers, "The result of his question was general laughter because of the strange fact that in spite of Fermi’s question coming from the clear blue, everybody around the table seemed to understand at once that he was talking about extraterrestrial life."

Edward Teller further remembers, "I do not believe that much came of this conversation, except perhaps a statement that the distances to the next location of living beings may be very great and that, indeed, as far as our galaxy is concerned, we are living somewhere in the sticks, far removed from the metropolitan area of the galactic center." Herbert York recollects that Fermi then made a series of rapid calculations using estimated figures. (Fermi was known for his ability to make good estimates from first principles and minimal data, see Fermi problem.) York writes that Enrico Fermi "followed up with a series of calculations on the probability of earthlike planets, the probability of life given an earth, the probability of humans given life, the likely rise and duration of high technology, and so on. He concluded on the basis of such calculations that we ought to have been visited long ago and many times over." If so, Fermi anticipated and pre-dated many of the elements that went into the Drake equation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

Good point, Enrico. If they're so numerous, then where are they? And why the rush to find them now, when we've spent the past 67 years (at least) persuading everyone that UFOs don't exist?

My guess is that if any life is found anywhere that does not fit the Biblical creation story, it will be used to discredit the Bible and the concept of a creator G-d. Hopefully, G-d will not hold this against us ... at least those of us who still believe.

See also my previous post on the topic of "intelligent design":

http://sainthoward.blogspot.com/2012/12/intelligent-design.html