E.T. born out of human loneliness

Jennifer Etsitty Arizona Daily Wildcat Christopher Impey, UA professor of astronomy, prepares for his lecture entitled "Are We Alone?" on the possibility of life on other planets yesterday in his office at Steward Observatory. Impey debunks the idea that alien life exists since there is no real evidence.

Impey enthralled a crowd of nearly 200 last night in Steward Observatory, throwing "the hard light of science" on the subject of life in the universe.

The scientific answer to the question "are we alone?" is "absolutely and definitely that we don't know," Impey said.

He said the notion we may be unique in our kind of intelligence is a more plausible option than the popular belief that there are aliens "whipping people out of wheat fields in Kansas, strangling their brains and dumping them back in a 7-11 three days later."

Given what we know about the universe, Impey said it is extremely unlikely that humans will achieve contact with other intelligent forms of life.

He addressed the popular belief in the existence of intelligent alien life in sociological terms.

"Conception of life in the universe has crystallized around our own loneliness," said Impey. "It's hard being a human on this planet."

He said human attempts to contact alien life have been scientifically unsound. Scientists pursuing this endeavor have made presumptions about the nature of life and the universe that are absurdly unjustified, Impey said.

Scientists on a quest for intelligent creatures assume that only planets near stars will produce life, that certain temperatures must be maintained and that living organisms will resemble humans in recognizable ways.

Life exists in striking conditions. Even on our own planet, there are beings that thrive deep in the ocean without using any energy from the sun, Impey said. All life needs is energy and a way of crushing chemicals together. It is unreasonable to assume that life needs "a shining star" to spur its development, he said.

"It isn't just a science fiction fantasy to wonder whether life needs to be a wet process - a biological process," Impey said.

He went on to discredit a traditional view that life evolves toward greater complexity, peaking out at human-like intelligence. He cited anaerobic bacteria as the best adapted life forms on the planet.

"It's enormous hubris for us to believe that evolution, not only on Earth, but in the universe, has aimed at us - at human brains and opposable thumbs," Impey said.

If scientists conducted an experiment, beginning with primeval earth-like conditions, intelligent life as we know it probably would not evolve, Impey said.

When seeking alien life, perhaps the most important point to consider is the probability of an alien civilization developing technology. He said dolphins, with their large brains, complex language and sophisticated interactions only differ from humans in their lack of technology.

Scientists cannot not infer that the development of intelligence corresponds to technological advances.

"There is no natural reason that we should assume that any species anywhere in the universe uses radio telescopes for communication," Impey said.

Given the irrationality of such attempts to speak to alien races, he wondered why serious scientists engage in such "flights of fancy."

Impey suggested that humans are unhappy and turn to aliens as they do to religious figures for help. Impey cited the alien from 1982's "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" as an obvious Christ figure.

He called attempts to communicate with other planets using digital messages and pictograms describing life on earth "messages in a bottle, thrown out into the cosmos."

Ben Zura, a creative writing freshman attending Impey's lecture, said he believes aliens have tried to contact us. He said Impey opened his eyes about the potential nature of life in the universe.

"I did tend to think of life being on a planet around a star," Zura said. "There are almost unlimited possibilities."

Sarah Spivack can be reached via e-mail at Sarah.Spivack@wildcat.arizona.edu.