[On SETI - the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence] If God created man by setting in motion a four-billion-year process of evolution — a possible divine explanation for the origin of life — this would suggest that God, elsewhere in the cosmos, would be constrained by approximately the same natural limitations that appear to constrain life. If it turns out that the underlying chemistry of life requires conditions at least approximating those found on Earth, then divine interventions and guidance aimed at nurturing life would employ principles little different from those being investigated by science; they would not be fundamentally at odds with science, as the current debate over creationism tends to assume.
One puzzling aspect of interviewing SETI scientists, unusually forward-thinking men and women probing a question of profound spiritual significance, was that not one of them speculated about such matters.
- “Are We Alone?” by Gregg Easterbrook (The Atlantic Monthly, August 1988)
