Proxima Centauri, Part II: The Facepalmening
It will not surprise those of you who listened to my interview on Catholic Idaho to know that I was once an evangelical Protestant. It may, however, surprise you–given my great love of science and science fiction–to learn that I shared similar views with your standard, garden-variety evangelical about cosmology. In a label, I was a Young-Earth Creationist. That in itself is a story for another day (and perhaps a much longer story than can be contained by a single post!), but the heart of the matter is that when I came to my slow, reasoned return to Mother Church, the douse in the Tiber did more than reshape my theological understanding; it gave me a whole new perspective across all areas of my life, including my understanding of the balance of faith and reason and the very nature of the universe.
In my former creationist days, I voraciously read the tracts and articles of Answers in Genesis, hoping to find some smoking gun or clever argument to entirely discount modern science once and for all. While Dr. Michael Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box was fairly compelling to a layman, it took my conscious ignorance of its many reasoned detractors for it to maintain its potency. Ultimately, I was never able to find a single book that actually provided a compelling case that held up under scrutiny–but again, that is a story for another day!
I bring up Answers in Genesis (hereafter AiG) because of a humorous coincidence. Google Now, intuiting that I have great interest for “exoplanet” (as it so ungrammatically articulated it), brought a recent article on AiG to my attention regarding the discovery of Proxima Centauri B–an event I briefly addressed in a previous post. I read it with a bemused smile until I reached the final paragraph, at which time I knew I absolutely had to write something, anything to bring to my (admittedly-tiny) audience my frustrations about this article and this philosophy in general. In brief? This article is the perfect synopsis of why the world thinks Christians ignore scientific truth.
I will address the article, found on the AiG website here, in a series of responses after a block quote citing the relevant passages.
“The impetus for the search for exoplanets is to find planets on which life is possible.”
Certainly that is partially true; NASA’s page about the James Webb Space Telescope points to studying the “formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth” as one of its stated goals. However, there is something to be said for knowledge for the sake of knowledge here. As the article correctly states, thirty years ago we didn’t know of a single extrasolar planet, and now we have confirmed upwards of 3,500, with many more to come as the analysis of the data from Kepler continues to reveal new worlds. Is that not laudable in itself? But this is a digression from the real problem with this article.
“The vast majority of extrasolar planet discoveries clearly are hostile to life.”
Well, yes, insofar as we can tell from our distant perch. The way I read this generalization implies that the exoplanets we’ve found are those which could potentially support life, but are faulty in some way. The truth is, our current methods of discovering exoplanets biases the discoveries heavily towards gas giants, massive planets large enough to block a measurable amount of light from their parent stars or to tug the stars by their gravity enough to be observable from Earth. Once the next generation of ground- and space-based telescopes are operational, however, expect the number of Earth-sized or super-Earth-sized exoplanets to skyrocket. But again, this is honestly a nitpick with his tone that I would have likely overlooked had I been more friendly towards the site at the outset.
“What qualifies an extrasolar planet as being earth-like and hence a possible haven for life?”…
This is where start to see the foreshadowing of the author’s argument. I think it is important to note what the actual press releases and articles (in reputable sources, mind, not the hoo-rah cheerleader rags) state about the discovery. Take the ESO’s article, for instance. The scientists have said that their analysis shows the planet is likely 1) within the habitable zone, which is defined as the region around a star where the temperature on the surface would be sufficient for water to exist in liquid form, and 2) potentially is a rocky, rather than gaseous body. This article, among others, cautions that the planet is likely tidally-locked, is likely pummeled by radiation from its parent star due to its close proximity, and has a year of about 11.2 Earth days. In other words, this ain’t Earth, and this ain’t anything close to Earth. But it is, however, both the closest exoplanet we’ve ever found, and (likely) a rocky, Earth-sized body, which is absolutely fascinating in and of itself.
Dr. Faulkner at AiG, however, takes an intensely negative perspective on the discovery. The main body of the article is him essentially trash-talking Proxima Centauri b. Geez, buddy, what did the poor little guy ever do to you? To him, it seems almost silly to get excited about this planet: the atmosphere is likely stripped away due to a lack of a magnetic field, dampened by tidal-locking (true); the radiation of the sun would probably murder anything on it (true); tidal-locking means the temperatures would be aggressively hot or horrendously cold depending on which side of the planet you were on (true). Nothing said here was false, but it seems almost baffling to find someone react so negatively about such an exciting, monumental discovery–until you read the next paragraph and it all makes sense.
“Evolutionists understandably are excited each time an extrasolar planet, such as Proxima Centauri b, shows any possibility of being earth-like. In their worldview, there is nothing special about the earth, because if the earth is special, that suggests design. Therefore, the vast majority of evolutionists assume that there must be many earth-like planets, with life abounding in many places. However, it doesn’t take very long to realize that each of these supposed earth-like planets have severe problems that reveal that they are anything but earth-like. What do biblical creationists expect? In the creation account of Genesis 1, we see God taking great care to create a world for man’s habitation. This is explicitly restated in Isaiah 45:18. From this we conclude that the earth truly is unique and that there are no earth-like planets. We find that the best science available agrees with this.”
Hooooo boy. Lucy, we’ve got some unpackin’ to do. First, two quick points, then back to the quote-response format.
Evolutionists. That’s a broad term for a diverse group of “anyone who disagrees with me,” ain’t it? But sure, we’ll roll with it, if that’s what you want.
Nothing special about the earth. I assume he’s referring to the mediocrity principle, which states that the evolution of life on earth, the formation of our solar system, and the other phenomenon that we have ourselves experienced here on Earth are typical throughout the galaxy. Wikipedia calls it a heuristic and a philosophical notion, but it is important to note that not all “evolutionists” base their perspective about the universe on this or similar (Copernican et al) principles. For instance, there are a good number of “evolutionists” that ascribe value to the Rare Earth Hypothesis, many of whom are not theists or Christians at all. To these scientists, looking at the data, they come to the conclusion that the conditions necessary for the Earth to exist, or our particular solar system to form, and life itself to take the form that it has, is so vanishingly rare that Earth may well be one of a handful or even the only example in all of the cosmos. There are those, of course, who disagree, like Sagan, Hawking, Drake, and many others, but that is the whole joy of scientific inquiry: things aren’t settled until they’re settled, and even then new discoveries can arise that turn old understandings upside down. It’s exciting, really; but please ignore that and accept Dr. Faulkner’s blanket statement that scientists cannot abide uniqueness because it suggests design.
“However, it doesn’t take very long to realize that each of these supposed earth-like planets have severe problems that reveal that they are anything but earth-like.”
Of the handful we’ve found, Dr. Faulkner. In a tiny sliver of the sky, probed by a single satellite and a handful of ground-based telescopes in a mere few decades, with significant limitations on the size of bodies we can discover. This attitude is akin to an explorer sailing a few miles away from shore, looking through his spyglass, and saying, “Well, it’s water all the way, obviously. No point in looking any more at this stage.” It is impossible to make any sort of reasoned prediction about the prevalence of Earth-like planets without more data; if it were, we wouldn’t have the Rare Earth v. Mediocrity Principle debate at all, it would be settled one way or the other. But it gets worse from here.
“What do biblical creationists expect? In the creation account of Genesis 1, we see God taking great care to create a world for man’s habitation.”
He also took great care to make a universe, I’d point out. And God inspired the authors to write the Bible for our road to salvation; it doesn’t make sense for Him to take the time to discuss the Wootles of Snerpa IV, if they exist. I’d note that the Bible speaks very sparingly of angels too, but it doesn’t make them any less a fully-fleshed (fully-spirited?) and important part of His creation.
This is explicitly restated in Isaiah 45:18. From this we conclude that the earth truly is unique and that there are no earth-like planets. We find that the best science available agrees with this.
Woah there, Dr. Faulkner. Talk about leaping to conclusions. This is his proof text for the assumption of all assumptions, Isaiah 45:18:
For thus says the Lord,
who created the heavens
(he is God!),
who formed the earth and made it
(he established it;
he did not create it a chaos,
he formed it to be inhabited!):
“I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I’ve wracked my brain to even represent this logic, but I’m coming up short.
1) God created the heavens.
2) God created the earth to be inhabited.
∴ There can be no earth-like planets.
Yeah, see, just not working. Okay, I’ll try not to be so facetious. I’m no logician, nor am I a philosopher, so I’d love a good explanation of the exact logical fallacy here (post in the comments!). The terms of his argument are just so unrelated that it’s hard to even point to a single fallacy to explain it. It makes no sense to use the passage from Isaiah to conclude that the Earth is unique; all that passage says is that God made the Earth to be inhabited. It says nothing about its uniqueness, and does not address any other planet (this is a major, systemic problem with AiG, trying to use the Bible like it’s a science textbook, but we’ll pass over that for now; for the sake of argument we’ll go from their starting premises). Dr. Faulkner is taking a single case, the Earth, and making a blanket assumption about all planets in the entire universe when 1) we haven’t seen even the barest fraction of them, and 2) the Bible doesn’t talk about them!
At the end of the day, it’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing because the Church nurtured and grew the sciences to lead us to a better understanding of the Creator. However, because of articles and authors like this, people around the world see faith as somehow intrinsically opposed to scientific inquiry, and set up this modern farce of Faith v. Science we see played out in countless movies, shows, debates, and discussions. To the Catholic, true faith and true scientific knowledge cannot be incompatible, because scientific truth, theological truth, and historical truth are all Truth, and there is but one Truth. Our job is to find it, and whether it be through careful contemplation of the sacred mysteries of God to long days staring into the microscope or telescope, each new discovery–including Proxima Centauri b–has value precisely because it broadens our knowledge of this universe, and, in a tiny but important way, gives us new insight into its Creator.
