Take Us To Your Leader
Via the UK Daily Mail, I learn of another round in the debate about space aliens : A group of astronomers are pushing back on humanity's preoccupation with communicating with aliens beyond our galaxy, warning that alien contact could result in 'the end of all life on earth,' physicist and science writer Mark Buchanan wrote in a recent Washington Post op-ed. I think the last time I brought up space aliens here, it was to cite Fr Sam, the smartest man I've ever met, who spoke in a homily about a question he raised in a session with seminarians: if we encounter space aliens, should we offer them baptism? This is all a reminder to me that there's no real science or philosophy in the current talk about life on other planets. Fr Sam has this right. Nobody else does. I was watching a TV show about the European Space Agency's Mars rover mission, which made the point that the agency is spending a billion euros to send a new-model rover to Mars for the...