As this month’s ET went to press, yet another ‘alien-life’ claim was made by space scientists in California. Pictures of Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, taken by Galileo space probe in February, reveal iced-over seas. The presence of liquid water on Europa, combined with the heat provided by volcanic activity, leads them to believe that life is present under the ice.
Richard Terrile, a planetary scientist, claims that there must be organic sediments at the bottom of Europa’s oceans and asserts that, ‘On earth, these same ingredients in a million years gave presence to life.’
This is nothing more than wild speculation based on the assumption that life evolved on earth by chemical reaction without God’s creative activity. When stripped bare, the reasoning goes as follows:
- Life arose accidentally on earth by random chemical reaction.
- This occurred in seas of liquid water.
- There is liquid water on Europa.
- Therefore, life must have arisen on Europa.
- The existence of life on Europa substantiates the claim that life evolves by chance where-ever the conditions are right.
- Therefore life on earth arose by chance, not by creation.
The bankruptcy of such logic is plain. It begins with an assumption of evolution and proceeds to ‘prove’ that evolution happened; that is, it employs an entirely circular argument. Furthermore, enormous leaps of faith are involved. No one knows, scientifically speaking, where or how life started on earth and the claims made with such confidence remain scientifically unsubstantiated. Even if we accept the evolutionary scenario, it does not follow that life has arisen on Europa just because the ‘right conditions’ may exist there. Why, then, do normally responsible scientists make such far-out claims? They are certainly not scientific.
