As a senior in high school, when asked which career field I was planning to prepare for, I often said, “bio-astro-physics.” Where did I ever get that idea? Well, I liked my high school courses in biology and physics, and I had a 4” reflector telescope that influenced me to feel I had some skill in astronomy. In addition, I was caught up in the exciting space race between America and the USSR. So, why not pick a career that included all of my interests? Perhaps the thing that influenced me the most was the 1960s common assumption that a high school student with superior grades and interest could be successful in just about any career that they chose.
It did not take long for reality to set in as a two-year university excursion in physics quickly contradicted the assumption. I was able to recover by switching my education to engineering a field more in tune with my temperament and aptitude.
Another thing I learned was that anti-God universities have a tendency to promote study for things with little or no inherent value or practicality, if they can get paid to do so. I am not here talking about “basket weaving” or “sandbox,” the imaginary fields that students often jokingly use to belittle the classes of those outside their own chosen field. No, I am talking about things like astrobiology.
The definition in my college Webster’s Dictionary defined astrobiology as, “the branch of biology that investigates the existence of living organisms on planets other than earth.” The common definition for biology is, “the science that deals with plants and animals,” or even more simply, “the study of life.”
In the mid-sixties I found that there were few, if any, career choices in astrobiology for the simple reason that there was nothing to study. The field was without its main subject since there was not a speck of evidence of extraterrestrial life anywhere except in science fiction books and movies.
This all changed by the mid-70s when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) made it part of their mission statement to look for life in space. Billions upon billions of dollars have been spent by America alone on space exploration since then, fueled in part by the idea that looking for life outside earth was a worthy scientific objective. Many new technologies have grown out of this space exploration, and much new knowledge about the universe has been gained for sure. So, I do not have any problem with space exploration as such. The problem is that astrobiology, as originally and logically defined, still does not have a subject.
Nevertheless, we are training more and more astrobiologists with each passing year. How does this work? How can we justify educating so many people to study something for which there is not a scintilla of evidence?
The answer is that it is done the same way and for the same reasons that we train our evolutionary biologists. There is no real scientific evidence for macroevolution, but that does not stop people by the millions believing the stories that have been made up to try to prove its existence. Courses and careers in evolutionary biology are common in most universities. This is all based on a naturalistic paradigm or worldview that will not consider any alternative no matter what the evidence indicates. The foundational idea is that there is no God or God is irrelevant and that, by definition, science cannot consider God.
In the figure below is what is termed as the path for a career in astrobiology. What I find most interesting about this figure is that the inherent expectation is that a person must first be indoctrinated into the existence of astrobiology before there is any need for the introduction of college-level courses in order for one to become an astrobiologist. One must be a true believer in the beginning, then universities will gladly take one’s money to study basic science fields like physics, chemistry, biology, geology, or astronomy. After those studies one can be defined to be on the path to astrobiology.
Figure from: https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/career-path-suggestions/
This philosophy can also be seen in more current definitions for astrobiology such as the following: “Astrobiology, also called exobiology or xenobiology, a multidisciplinary field dealing with the nature, existence, and search for extraterrestrial life (life beyond Earth). Astrobiology encompasses areas of biology, astronomy, and geology. Although no compelling evidence of extraterrestrial life has yet been found, the possibility that biota might be a common feature of the universe has been strengthened by the discovery of extrasolar planets (planets around other stars), by the strong suspicion that several moons of Jupiter and Saturn might have vast reserves of liquid water, and by the existence of microorganisms called extremophiles that are tolerant of environmental extremes.”*
Let’s look at what is being said here and make some observations:
- There is no compelling evidence for extraterrestrial life yet found.
- Notice the use of the wiggle-words “possibility,” “might,” and “suspicion.”
These sorts of words always weaken any scientific statement. - In reality astrobiologists have never studied extraterrestrial life. They have done the only thing possible to them and that is they have looked for it.
- The common assumption of water being the only requirement for life is incorrect. Water is needed for life as we know it, but water is not the only requirement. Consider design, information, viability etc.
- The driving force for astrobiology is the evolutionary assumption that life spontaneously generated and then evolved on earth, and so it must have done the same thing on other planets too.
- Astrobiology has to be interdisciplinary because there is nothing to study inside its own defining discipline.
The conclusion we can make then is that astrobiology is either an unsubstantiated philosophical construct similar to evolution, or it is just a component part of the larger philosophical idea of evolution itself. In the sense of being an actual field of science studying life outside the planet earth, it still has nothing to study.
Perhaps we can compare astrobiologists to 16th century explorers like Ponce de Leon who reportedly searched for the fountain of youth. We all know that this search will remain forever elusive no matter the advances of medicine and cryogenic research. God has provided sinful man with only one path to everlasting life, and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. We can be sure it will not come from any magic elixir, future medical advances, or contact with extraterrestrials on some remote planet in the universe.
J.D. Mitchell
*Definition by: Seth Shostak, SETI Institute, Mountain View, CA, Author of Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life and numerous other professional papers and popular articles, at: https://www.britannica.com/science/astrobiology.
