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A common pop-culture assertion is that if there are intelligent extraterrestrials then Christianity is ruined. The idea is that such a discovery would disprove the Bible. Is that true? We asked astro-chemist Karin Oberg to give us her view.
Cy Kellett:
Would discovering aliens disprove Christianity? Dr. Karin Oberg is next.
Cy Kellett:
Hello, and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers podcast for living, understanding, and defending your Catholic faith. I’m Cy Kellett, your host. And when you go to the movies as a Christian person, do you ever feel like maybe in the movies or even in what you watch on TV, there’s a little bit of prejudice against Christians? I don’t know. Maybe I’m alone in this, but it seems to me that there’s often a lot of soft bigotry and some of it not so soft as far as we Christians go. And when I watched the 2011 Hollywood blockbuster movie, Paul, about an alien, a wisecracking alien that makes his way to earth, I had the strong sense of, “Oh man, that is just such a sour and ugly depiction of Christians.” And one of the things that’s in that depiction of Christians is that, well, Christianity would be undermined if we were to discover alien life. Here’s a little bit of the movie.
Speaker 2:
[inaudible 00:01:02].
Speaker 3:
Hey, look who’s awake.
Speaker 2:
Demon! Demon!
Speaker 4:
We’re sorry. Okay. We’re sorry. We’re not going to hurt you, I promise. And we’ll let you go just as soon as we can.
Speaker 2:
You’ve been deceived by an agent of Satan himself. He’s evil.
Speaker 3:
I’m sitting right here. Come on.
Speaker 4:
No, no, he’s not evil. He’s just a bit rude. We’re trying to help him get home. He’s from another world.
Speaker 2:
There’s only one world, our world, the world that our God the Father created.
Speaker 3:
Hey, if it makes you feel any better, my existence only disproves traditional notions of the Abrahamic Judeo-Christian God, as well as all one world theology. That’s all I meant.
Speaker 2:
(singing).
Speaker 3:
What’s with you people?
Cy Kellett:
So, that’s the movie. Maybe I’m using the word bigotry, maybe that’s too strong a thing to talk about a movie that portrays its only Christian character as a hysterical moron and everyone else around her as intelligent and well-reasoned. Maybe bigotry is too strong a word. You decide on that. But what about the central claim made by the wisecracking alien, Paul, that his existence, the existence of intelligent life in this universe that is not human, disproves Abrahamic religions, disproves the idea that God is the maker of all things? Well, we decided to ask a professor of astronomy about just that fact, and so we said, “Well, let’s go to our friend Karin Oberg.”
Cy Kellett:
She’s a full professor of astronomy at a little place called Harvard University. Her specialty is in astrochemistry, and her research aims to uncover how chemical processes affect the outcome of planet formation, especially the chemical habitability of nascent planets. A lot of people working on the same stuff. I mean, okay, it’s common ground. Dr. Oberg’s research is in astrochemistry, it’s been recognized by the Sloan Fellowship, a Packard’s Fellowship, the Newton Lacy Pierce award, and the American Astronomical Society. So, she knows what she’s talking about, and we asked her, because she’s also a Catholic woman, does the possibility, or would the reality of discovering extraterrestrial, intelligent life undermine our Christian faith?
Cy Kellett:
Dr. Karin Oberg from Harvard University, thank you so much for being with us.
Karin Oberg:
It’s pleasure to be here.
Cy Kellett:
Love getting to talk about science with you, a confession, and maybe I am not in the minority on this, I get most of my science from movies so I’m going to start with a question from a movie for you.
Karin Oberg:
Okay.
Cy Kellett:
We’re going to talk a bit about extraterrestrial life, a topic which the movies cover regularly, and I want to just share a little bit of dialogue with you from a movie in 2011 called Paul. It was about an extraterrestrial. It was a comedy. Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen, Kristin Wiig starred in it. Okay. So, in this movie, Kristen Wiig plays a Christian woman, and Paul plays an alien, and they meet. And at the moment they meet, or during the course of their first meeting, the woman, the Christian woman, says, “There’s only one world, our world, the world that our God the Father created.” By the way, it’s funny when she says it. It’s not funny when I say it. And Paul, the alien, responds, “My existence only disproves traditional notions of the Abrahamic Judeo-Christian God, as well as all one world theologies.”
Cy Kellett:
I remember seeing the movie and thinking, “I don’t think that the alien is correct about that. I don’t think his theology is very good.” And so, that’s where I want to begin today. At some point, by the time we’re done, I would like to address whether the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence would disprove all Abrahamic Judeo-Christian religion, as well as all one world theologies. Okay? This is the basic premise.
Karin Oberg:
Okay. And I guess I shouldn’t do any spoilers or what I think [inaudible 00:04:47]?
Cy Kellett:
No, no spoilers yet. We’re going to work our way through this in a scientific way. You’re a world-class scientist, and these are world-class movie stars. We are not going to waste the tension of this moment. Have you seen the movie, Paul, by the way?
Karin Oberg:
I have not, so I was a bit nervous about where you were going with that.
Cy Kellett:
It’s a comedy about an alien. Okay. That’s all you really need to know. But first of all, I guess a couple of questions. One, would it be two separate questions to ask you, is it possible that there is extraterrestrial life, and is it possible that there’s extraterrestrial intelligent life? And I don’t mean just two separate questions, but those are two types of questions. Would that be correct?
Karin Oberg:
I think that is correct, and I think both from a scientific and a theological point of view. So, I think it is good to discuss them somewhat separately, though, of course, if you don’t think that we can have any extraterrestrial life, then the second question becomes somewhat superfluous. But I think, yes, they are separate issues.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. So, one of them, in the natural order of things, are you among the people… Like you study the chemistry of stars and planets, planets that are far, far away from us, I assume, by looking at colors that come to you through a telescope. Is that basically how you do it?
Karin Oberg:
That is basically how we do it.
Cy Kellett:
It’s amazing that you can do that. But is there something that you could look at and say, “This suggests life on that planet,” because the life would produce things that would produce colors in your telescope?
Karin Oberg:
That’s right. So, one of the things that astronomers are… We haven’t really been able to do it yet, but that we are preparing to do in the coming decade, is to look for light coming from these planets that we can associate with specific molecules. So, in our atmosphere, we have things like oxygen and methane, which emits and absorbs light of specific colors, which are, in our case, closely associated with us being a living planet. So, there’s similar things that we would be looking for towards other planets that he could connect to life.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. So, you would see the light of a star hitting a planet, and then that light would come to you, and then the way that that light came, you’d go, “Hey, there’s oxygen on that planet”?
Karin Oberg:
That’s right. So, one of the prime ways that we detect exoplanets is that as the planet passes in front of the star, it absorbs some of the light from the star, and dependent on what’s in the atmosphere of the planet, it will absorb more or less at different colors or wavelengths as we look at a star like through the spectrum of colors.
Cy Kellett:
And these things are hundreds or thousands of light years away from us, and you can do this?
Karin Oberg:
That’s right. Well, the closest one is actually rather close. We’re talking about a few to tens of light years. So, the most nearby exoplanet we know of these only about four light years away, which is pretty neat.
Cy Kellett:
Really?
Karin Oberg:
Yeah, no, there are…. And that’s basically because all stars have exoplanets, which is awesome. But the ones that are our best targets are, let’s say, 10 light years away. There’ll be also [inaudible 00:07:58] the ones that are much, much further away.
Cy Kellett:
Wow. Okay. So, all stars have exoplanets, so you’re not going to find stars… That means just, I don’t know what Carl Sagan would say, but probably billions and billions of stars just in our galaxy. I mean, planets, I mean.
Karin Oberg:
Yeah, no, that’s right. So, we have a few hundred billion stars in our galaxy, we probably have at least the same number of planets, so that’s a lot of planets.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. And so, why do you think that, like, for example, living things would produce oxygen? What’s the premise there?
Karin Oberg:
Yeah. So, this is sort of a complex question because even life on earth didn’t produce oxygen until rather recently, so in the last half to one billion years ago, it’s at different levels.
Cy Kellett:
The early earth, or the first life on earth, is bacterial probably. Right?
Karin Oberg:
Even something less complex than that [crosstalk 00:08:56].
Cy Kellett:
And it didn’t produce oxygen?
Karin Oberg:
It did not produce oxygen.
Cy Kellett:
Okay.
Karin Oberg:
So, it’s not like if you don’t see oxygen, you know there’s not life there, but if you see a combination of something like oxygen and methane, that would be very difficult to produce without life. So, this is the kind of game that astronomers play that we try to think through, what are the molecules that different kinds of lifeforms could produce? And then what kind of molecules can a dead planet produce? And then what kind of molecules can we observe? And then we take those three different pieces of information to try to estimate, “Okay, if we see these two molecules, what’s the likelihood that this is a living planet, versus a dead planet?” But it’s not that it’s straightforward, often yes or no, it’s going to be a probability question most of the time.
Cy Kellett:
But what an exciting probability if you started to see oxygen and methane together, you’d say, “Well, the chances are something’s alive there.”
Karin Oberg:
Absolutely. And at that point, I think you go to the government and you try to convince them to build us a bigger telescope so we can then start [crosstalk 00:10:04] probability to something that’s more certain [crosstalk 00:10:08].
Cy Kellett:
I like how it immediately becomes a government program in that event. Very good. I hope you do get that. So, again, I get most of my science for movies, but my understanding is the nearest star to us with a planet on it is Klingon, so if you were to see methane and oxygen there, you would say there’s definitely some kind of Klingon life there?Is that correct?
Karin Oberg:
Of course.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. You went along with me. Okay. Fair enough. All Right. So, as a Catholic woman and a scientist, you have certain intellectual commitments. Would any of those intellectual commitments be disturbed by finding oxygen and methane on a planet far, far from us?
Karin Oberg:
No. Or even in a planet… I mean, this is, I guess, a slight side note, there could be life elsewhere in our solar system. There are many places we have not looked in our solar system that have potentially habitable environments. And the very short answer is no. I think to go back to your initial quote from the movie, I think where potential conflict could arise is the understanding of creation and how it’s described in Genesis, especially, but also in other places in the Old Testament, and the very earth=centric view of the [inaudible 00:11:32] creation that is described. There are no aliens being mentioned in the Old or New Testament.
Karin Oberg:
But [inaudible 00:11:40] I don’t see how this would be more of a problem than the fact that there are other planets that we have discovered even in the solar system [inaudible 00:11:48] tend to not be mentioned. I think that creation is more expensive and more interesting than either we could imagine or [inaudible 00:11:59] at the time that scripture was written down. I don’t think that counts against God. I think, if anything, that is another thing to be grateful for that brings glory to God.
Cy Kellett:
But you wouldn’t know if there was intelligent life on that planet. But here’s the thing. You get a lot of this on PBS, on Nova and stuff about, “Well, there’s so many planets and so many stars,” this is a very common argument, “there has to be life on some of them. And because there’s so many, that means there has to be intelligent life like us.” Not physically like us, but with an intelligence comparable to ours or of the sort of ours, not animal intelligence, but a human level… “There has to be,” that’s the argument. What do you make of that argument?
Karin Oberg:
Well, so there are a couple of problems, I think, with that argument, starting with the very basic assumption that just because there are many opportunities for life to originate in other places, even if it’s difficult for life to originate, we don’t know how life originated here on earth exactly so we don’t know what the probabilities of a dead planet becoming and living one is. That’s one. But then the argument is, well, if there are many planets out there, then there must be life, but that’s an implicitly mixed argument that we know what the probabilities are of a dead planet turning into living one and that it’s, let’s say, more than one in a billion. Now, I happen to think that it’s more than one in a billion because that’s [inaudible 00:13:34] how many habitable planets there are. But we don’t know that. That is a scientific hypothesis at this point. It’s not the scientific theory or a law of nature or anything. It is an idea that I support but I don’t know.
Cy Kellett:
Well, let’s say the probability of just life assembling, or flowering, or however you… What would be the proper metaphor, I don’t know. But let’s say the probability was one in a million on planets exactly like earth, so if you get planets just like us, in the same zone and same gravity, the chance is one in a million life would form, that’s still a really good chance, right?
Karin Oberg:
That’s a really a good chance. At that point, I think we would expect at least a few thousand planets in the galaxy that had light. So, the galaxy is large so it would be far apart, but you would still have quite a few living planets. And the second assumption then that is made in this argument is that you’re always go from something like bacteria life to intelligent animals.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Given enough time.
Karin Oberg:
That is not obvious. So, here on earth, we have, basically, bacteria… So, origins of life happened fairly quickly, within half a billion, which on a planet timescale is not too long. But then it took up to three billion years for that bacterial life to become multicellular, so just for things to come [inaudible 00:15:05] one cell.
Cy Kellett:
So, that almost makes it seem like it’s harder to go from being single cell to multicell than it is to go from being a dead planet to a living planet.
Karin Oberg:
Maybe. That is very possible. And since we only have one data point, we don’t know if it’s were we early in making that transition from one cell to many? Were we late? Were we typical? So, that’s something that, of course, if we detect life elsewhere, would be more easy to say something about, but that’s also unknown, like how quickly on average you get the transition. And once that happened, it just exploded here on earth. Right? You very rapidly develop all these different kinds of animals, and you seem to progress towards intelligent animals. It takes another 500 million years maybe, but you’re going towards intelligent animals [inaudible 00:15:58].
Cy Kellett:
Once you have multicellular life.
Karin Oberg:
[inaudible 00:16:00]. I think on our planet, that seems to have happened.
Cy Kellett:
Okay.
Karin Oberg:
[inaudible 00:16:05]. So, then the question is, is an intelligent animal and a rational animal the same thing? And I guess here, if you talk to someone from a secular point of view, they would say, it’s just between a dolphin, a chimpanzee, and us, those are just some… It’s a question of difference in degree, nothing kind. But us Catholics, we believe that there is a difference in kind that our biological forefathers who were biologically human were not philosophically or theologically human until they had their rational soul infused, and that [crosstalk 00:16:44] different.
Cy Kellett:
There’s also a scientific argument, isn’t there, that there’s a difference in kind? I mean, you can make certain basic observations like a human child just do nothing basically and it’ll learn to talk in 18 months. And a chimpanzee, it’ll take you years to get that thing to make 10 signs, years of training to make it… Obviously, there’s a difference there.
Karin Oberg:
I think that’s correct. And I think, also, there’s some very interesting historical evidence that you had about a radical breaking point. So, we had homo sapiens around for about a million years or so, so our biological ancestors, but around 100,000 years ago, give or take 50,000 years, something quite radical happened in the culture of these early humans in terms of their toolmaking, in terms of cave paintings, and things like that. It’s, of course, to think about that is now we have what we would recognize as humans who are in-souled, who are creative, who have intellect and will and all that. So, yes, I think there is just both common sense and scientific arguments that there is a difference in kind in addition to a faith statement.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. So, the human would say that’s… The human. I beg your pardon. The Catholic. I don’t mean to say that non-Catholics are non-humans. I just got confused for a second. But the Catholic would say, and I think the traditional even Aristotelian would say, well, that difference is a difference in spirit, in soul, and there’s such a thing as a rational soul and there’s such a thing as an animal soul or a plant soul. And we have rational souls. So, now I forget where I was going to ask you as a scientist, but I suppose, as a scientist, you can’t talk that way, or you don’t talk that way.
Karin Oberg:
It’s not the common way in the contemporary academic world to talk. I actually think it is a useful way, at least a sort of a, I don’t know, where you would draw a boundary between science or not, but I think it is useful to have as a working hypothesis that something rather radical happened to the culture of homo sapiens around [inaudible 00:19:18]. Otherwise, it’s going to be very difficult to explain this as a slow evolutionary trajectory and why the other kind of human humans that were around at the time, so I’m thinking Neanderthals and the like, why they didn’t make the same kind of trajectory. Something was different [crosstalk 00:19:36].
Cy Kellett:
So, something was different in that it was a radical departure, but it was also different in that what these new humans were able to do was radically different from what any other animal was ever able to do, as evidenced by the fact that I’m talking to you via a computer right now.
Karin Oberg:
Exactly. Exactly. And [inaudible 00:19:55] when people talk about intelligent extraterrestrials, to tie back to that, what they are already talking about are rational extraterrestrials. They’re talking about, if someone can build a spaceship, they have a rational soul. I think that is a fair statement.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Okay. So, if someone can build a spaceship, they have a rational soul. So, now we get back to the movie, Paul, a seminal work in cinematic history, and the claim by the character, Paul, and I’ll read it to you again, what Paul had to say. “My existence,” now he’s talking about being a rational creature that is not a human, “disproves traditional notions of Abrahamic Judeo-Christian God, as well as all one world theologies.” I assume all one world theologies means, like you said, the person who’s refusing to say there’s any life on any other planet, I think he’s probably correct that. But does it disprove the God of Abraham Judeo-Christianity?
Karin Oberg:
No, I do not see where the logic or that argument, how that would flow. I mean, he says even like the one world part, I would say would have to be with the important caveat that even in Genesis from the very beginning, it’s not just earth, it’s heaven on earth. We have extraterrestrial beings in the form of angels from the very beginning that they’re interacting with humans. So, the idea that there are other created, intelligent [inaudible 00:21:27] rational souls, in some sense, that is actually already incorporated within orthodox Christian theology. So, yes, I actually don’t think there’s anything where the creation, or the understanding of creation or God’s relationship with creation, that is problematic. I think there’s one possible objection that people have raised, which is, well, it seems to say in Genesis, and I think this is correct, that humans are created in the image of God as the pinnacle of creation. And creation is subject to humans in some important way. And if there are other aliens out there, how do you bring that into that image that humans are the pinnacle of creation?
Karin Oberg:
I don’t think that would be too problematic if we consider any being that spans the chasm of the biological and the spiritual, like these rational animals, is what’s being described, which I think… I mean, [inaudible 00:22:42] I think that’s the point, what is it to be created in the image and likeness of God, it’s not-
Cy Kellett:
Is to be rational.
Karin Oberg:
It is to be rational, in this case a rational animal. I mean, I think [crosstalk 00:22:52] pinnacle of… Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Is to be rational and to be pinnacle of the created order is to be this rational animal [inaudible 00:23:01].
Cy Kellett:
And so, the scriptural description of the human as the pinnacle of creation would apply to anybody who could build a spaceship or anybody who could do roughly what we do, because they’re the same type of creature we are?
Karin Oberg:
I think that’s at least a possible interpretation. So, I think that part, I think, without too much mystery, or one could think… I think for Christians, that there is the puzzles and the real problems come when considering the incarnation, and how we are saved through the incarnation. That’s where I think there are many more question marks and I think theologically more murky how you would think through that. But I think for the creation part, I think we already have a framework within which to think through that.
Cy Kellett:
So, you’re not saying like as a scientist and a Catholic, you’re not saying, “There’s no problems here. There’s no intellectual problems.” So, it is fair to say, “Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff to work through if we discover alien intelligence.”
Karin Oberg:
Yes. I think that is correct. Extraterrestrial life, non-intelligent, I think we would just celebrate the wonders of creation. That would be what I think most Catholics and all the Catholic scientists that I know would feel. But extraterrestrial intelligent life, if it exists, I think that would be more puzzling how that fits into salvation history.
Cy Kellett:
However, we would not say that this is… I guess this is one distinction that a Catholic would make from the normal secular way of thinking about evolution, we would not say that higher intelligence evolved somewhere else the same way it evolved here, because we don’t actually believe that the rational soul is a product of evolution, that our bodies are, but not that rational soul. Is that right?
Karin Oberg:
That’s right. So, from a Catholic point of view, if we ever do encounter extraterrestrial intelligence, life, or rational life to be more precise, I think the one thing we came to certain of is that they have been created directly by God. And that should be, I think, some comfort.
Cy Kellett:
Right. Yes. Okay. But that also changes the whole possibility of creating a probability, however, because when you talk about non-intelligent bacterial, plant, animal life, you’re talking about certain probabilities of what will nature do, but with a rational soul, there is no probability
Karin Oberg:
That’s right. So, I think when we’re talking about bacteria life, we can think about that’s a scientific question. I think even like intelligent animals, think our homo sapiens forefathers before they were in-souled with a rational soul, that is a scientific question. But what God chose us to do and how often he chooses to give a rational soul to a body that can accept it in a fitting way, then we’re in very murky territory when we try to assign probabilities to the will of God. Which I still, I would never put the number on it, but people can still speculate though how they understand God’s creative powers and his interaction with humans, things he would like to do, but you would not want to put a number on that.
Cy Kellett:
So, in a certain sense, if we found life, that was non-intelligent, that would tell us a great deal about nature and something about God. But if we found intelligent life, that would tell us something really important about God that we don’t currently know.
Karin Oberg:
I think it would reveal some other aspect of him. I mean, I think probably the main thing it would reveal, though, is actually by communicating with that alien people and how God revealed himself to them under the assumption that he has. Right? I’m not sure if it is certain that we would have some new fact about God if he chose to in-soul another alien race.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. So, if I could, I do want to nail you down just a little bit on something, and I want people to know, you’re going to be talking about this with a whole bunch of other Catholic scientists. The Society of Catholic Scientists is having a big conference on non-human intelligence, as a matter of fact, in June. I don’t remember where it is. Do you remember where it is?
Karin Oberg:
In Washington DC.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, in Washington DC. Oh, that’s right. So you can get that telescope money. Okay. Good move. Good move. So, first of all, I think that’s wonderful that a large group of Catholic scientists are going to get together and talk about non-human intelligence because it does break down what I think is kind of a prejudice against Christians, like, “Oh, if we ever found another intelligence, it would just blow your little world to smithereens,” and to say, “No, it wouldn’t.”
Karin Oberg:
That is absolutely right. I should say, though, as a caveat, that because of the puzzles when it comes to the incarnation and how an extraterrestrial intelligent being would fit into that story, there are quite a few Catholic scientists who think that there aren’t any rational extraterrestrials. And [inaudible 00:28:36] think not now, but think that is the most likely, in light of this possible… like real theological issues when it comes to incarnation.
Cy Kellett:
Well, I have to say I’m among them. It always has seemed to me that the incarnation is a clue into the central importance of the human person, but I don’t say that as a great theologian because I’ve never been a great theologian. I don’t know. The intuition that you get from the incarnation is, “Oh, something so special is going on here, it doesn’t just go on over and over again in other places.”
Karin Oberg:
I have the same intuition, but I’m not sure that that would completely rule out that you have extraterrestrial rational life, even if we accept that intuition as being true. One could imagine other extraterrestrial races that either haven’t fallen or who are saved through the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity as Jesus Christ of Nazareth. In both cases, more puzzles, which is why I think many share your intuition. But one thing I would say is, it seems often to be the… So, how God works, that he starts with a very small and insignificant group of people, or even a single person, and then saves through them, so I don’t think we can rule out that somehow an incarnation here on earth could have also salvific power in other places.
Cy Kellett:
Wonderfully said. Yeah, you think about Abraham himself or about the Jewish people, a small person, a small nation being called to save everyone.
Karin Oberg:
Yep. And not because they’re especially great, typically, but God chooses [inaudible 00:30:25] seems to be how he works out our salvation.
Cy Kellett:
He seems to like to use the smallest tool to do the biggest jobs.
Karin Oberg:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. A little baby Jesus saved us all. The other thing I wanted to be clear about, though, is that you do have… It seems to me listening to you, you think we’re going to find life on other planets.
Karin Oberg:
I think we are going to find life. When it comes to rational life, I am quite agnostic, but when it comes to non-rational life, so think something akin to terrestrial bacteria, I think so. And I would say it comes from a couple of different, like two converging trajectories. One is I think we are starting to get some understanding of how life could have originated here on earth and how it could have… It’s looking to me more and more like will figure out the natural process to turn chemistry into biology, which is quite puzzling on its own that that could happen.
Karin Oberg:
But that, to me, suggests it’s going to turn out to be a natural process. And if you have that on the one hand, then you do have this wealth of planets, some them that looks quite similar to the earth, I don’t think it’s going to be a one in a million, I think it’s going to be smaller than that. But I do want to emphasize, I said, think or maybe sometimes hope this is not the certainty. We don’t know. We don’t yet know how life originated here on earth. That is still an open question, but it is a scientific question we can use the tools of science to try to address.
Cy Kellett:
But that transition from the chemical to the biological is so complex and, in a sense, unlikely that you think it’s even less than one in a million.
Karin Oberg:
No. I’m hoping that it’s actually going to be much more common than that.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, more common. I see. Okay.
Karin Oberg:
Because if it’s one in a million, we’re not going to find it in my lifetime.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. And you won’t get your telescope.
Karin Oberg:
Exactly. So, it is a big puzzle how chemistry was self-organized to form biological structure, something that we could start recognizing as life. It’s not something that could happen randomly as we typically understand random, just throw the dice and you hope that molecules are combined in a way that eventually gets you towards the cell. There would have to be something built into the loss of chemistry that pushes you towards that transition, I think is one way to see it. Now, people do not like to talk about-
Cy Kellett:
Design?
Karin Oberg:
[inaudible 00:33:15] in some sense randomness, nor divine intervention. It is still a natural process. But it would imply that there is some [inaudible 00:33:25] nature that we are yet trying to figure out when it comes to chemistry and how chemistry develops over time if the right conditions are present.
Cy Kellett:
I think I know who put that law in nature, but just saying that as a Christian, not as a scientist. Dr. Karin Oberg, thank you for all your wonderful work that you do there at Harvard exploring the world for us and letting us know these things. And thank you for letting me make you, a trained scientist, interact with a pretend alien in the course of this interview.
Karin Oberg:
Well, it was really my pleasure. Thank you so much.
Cy Kellett:
Thank you.
Cy Kellett:
I love talking with Dr. Karin Oberg. I hope we’ll get her to come back. I want to just tell you how petty I am. I actually saw the movie Paul in the movie theaters 10 years ago when it came out, and I’ve been waiting to talk to a Harvard astronomer to debunk the movie all that time. I waited 10 years to get back at these people. That is what we call petty Christianity. I thought it was very subtle what she had to say, and I hope that you found it compelling. Jesus is God, God created the world, God loves you, God loves me. None of this stuff is ever going to go away. There’s nothing that’s ever going to debunk it. Certainly no scientific advance or historic discovery, like even the discovery of ancient alien.. or excuse me, of alien intelligence of an extraterrestrial sort. But I think there are theological questions that we would have to answer about that, and it’s very helpful to start talking about those things now.
Hey, if you want to email us, maybe suggest a future episode. Maybe you saw a movie like in 1935 that’s still sticking in your craw and you want to let us know about it, send us an email, focus@catholic.com. That’s where you can send it, focus@catholic.com. We’d love to hear from you. Also, don’t forget to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast, Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever else. If you subscribe, you’ll be notified when new episodes are available, and maybe you give us that five star review or a couple of nice words, that way other people will find the podcast and we’ll grow.
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