THE SETICon 2 CONFERENCE

The SETICon II science conference which was held at Santa Clara, Calif., last week was attended by a large gathering of scientists, prominent persons and other interested people. The meeting mainly focused on the topic of alien intelligent life and getting in contact with it.  The delegates pinned much hope on NASA's Kepler Mission which is aimed at finding extra terrestrial life.

During its discussion someone raised an interesting question.' If any extra terrestrial life comes to earth will it affect our religious belief ?'
 Would the various religious Heads find it difficult to explain God in front someone from  an Heavenly body?

It would be a nice situation but no one living now is unlikely to see a situation like that, since by the time the Kepler covers a distance of mere one light year, our earth would have gone through tens of thousands of years and a light year is not even a peanut-distance in the vast expanses of outer space.  Any way practical or not the question is pregnant with meaning.

A majority of scientists  generally feel uneasy on hearing the word 'God' and during the discussion someone said that no God was required to kick start the Universe 13.75  Billion light years ago and that  laws of Physics alone were needed to do it. The scientists 'discover' Laws of physics and they are least bothered as to who put them there to discover.  

He said further  " I do not know who created the laws, let's leave it at that and start from the laws themselves ". The scientists are like that whenever they are confronted  with  a question they cannot answer, they duck with a ' none of your business' like answer.

The statement that 'no God required to kick-start the Universe 13.75 Billion light years ago' itself can become wrong later. At present a Gamma-ray burst spotted 13 Billion light years away is the farthest and oldest astronomical object found.  There might be objects beyond it and if more powerful telescopes detect them one day, the time of beginning might be pushed farther back.  Similarly the term  'kick start the universe' is also questionable as there is always a nagging thought as to what was it before the 'beginning'.


The science, which made significant development only in last century, actually knows very little about the universe both in its macro level and micro level. The expensive and arduous Neutrino experiments are  aimed at finding the sub-atomic particle which gives Mass to an Atom as science is still ignorant about the fundamental nature of an atom, the primary building block of the universe. In fact when science cracks open a mystery  another puzzle appears connected with it. 

 There were scientists who implicitly believed that earth was flat.  While no one can question their stature as scientists, their finding was proved wrong later when science progressed. Similarly the present scientists too might or might not be proved wrong later on and they should always consider that possibility when talking stubbornly. In other words, it would be safe for them to be humble when talking subjects  like Universe,Time,Space etc.

The meeting ended with a positive note that Kepler is progressing through the space without hitch and more and more planets are added to the list of possible habitat of Aliens.



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Images: Google