richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion
THE GOD HYPOTHESIS 71longer based on the principle of mediocrity; they are informed bydirect evidence. The spectroscope, nemesis of Comte's positivism,strikes again. Our telescopes are scarcely powerful enough to seeplanets around other stars directly. But the position of a star is perturbedby the gravitational pull of its planets as they whirl aroundit, and spectroscopes can pick up the Doppler shifts in the star'sspectrum, at least in cases where the perturbing planet is large.Mostly using this method, at the time of writing we now know of170 extra-solar planets orbiting 147 stars, 44 but the figure willcertainly have increased by the time you read this book. So far, theyare bulky 'Jupiters', because only Jupiters are large enough toperturb their stars into the zone of detectability of present-dayspectroscopes.We have at least quantitatively improved our estimate of onepreviously shrouded term of the Drake Equation. This permits asignificant, if still moderate, easing of our agnosticism about thefinal value yielded by the equation. We must still be agnostic aboutlife on other worlds - but a little bit less agnostic, because we arejust that bit less ignorant. Science can chip away at agnosticism, ina way that Huxley bent over backwards to deny for the special caseof God. I am arguing that, notwithstanding the polite abstinence ofHuxley, Gould and many others, the God question is not inprinciple and forever outside the remit of science. As with thenature of the stars, contra Comte, and as with the likelihood of lifein orbit around them, science can make at least probabilisticinroads into the territory of agnosticism.My definition of the God Hypothesis included the words 'superhuman'and 'supernatural'. To clarify the difference, imagine that aSETI radio telescope actually did pick up a signal from outer spacewhich showed, unequivocally, that we are not alone. It is a nontrivialquestion, by the way, what kind of signal would convince usof its intelligent origin. A good approach is to turn the questionaround. What should we intelligently do in order to advertise ourpresence to extraterrestrial listeners? Rhythmic pulses wouldn't doit. Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the radio astronomer who first discoveredthe pulsar in 1967, was moved by the precision of its 1.33-secondperiodicity to name it, tongue in cheek, the LGM (Little GreenMen) signal. She later found a second pulsar, elsewhere in the sky
72 T H E G O D D E LUS1 O Nand of different periodicity, which pretty much disposed of theLGM hypothesis. Metronomic rhythms can be generated by manynon-intelligent phenomena, from swaying branches to drippingwater, from time lags in self-regulating feedback loops to spinningand orbiting celestial bodies. More than a thousand pulsars havenow been found in our galaxy, and it is generally accepted that eachone is a spinning neutron star emitting radio energy that sweepsaround like a lighthouse beam. It is amazing to think of a starrotating on a timescale of seconds (imagine if each of our dayslasted 1.33 seconds instead of 24 hours), but just about everythingwe know of neutron stars is amazing. The point is that the pulsarphenomenon is now understood as a product of simple physics, notintelligence.Nothing simply rhythmic, then, would announce our intelligentpresence to the waiting universe. Prime numbers are oftenmentioned as the recipe of choice, since it is difficult to think of apurely physical process that could generate them. Whether bydetecting prime numbers or by some other means, imagine thatSETI does come up with unequivocal evidence of extraterrestrialintelligence, followed, perhaps, by a massive transmission ofknowledge and wisdom, along the science-fiction lines of FredHoyle's A for Andromeda or Carl Sagan's Contact. How should werespond? A pardonable reaction would be something akin toworship, for any civilization capable of broadcasting a signal oversuch an immense distance is likely to be greatly superior to ours.Even if that civilization is not more advanced than ours at the timeof transmission, the enormous distance between us entitles us tocalculate that they must be millennia ahead of us by the time themessage reaches us (unless they have driven themselves extinct,which is not unlikely).Whether we ever get to know about them or not, there are veryprobably alien civilizations that are superhuman, to the point ofbeing god-like in ways that exceed anything a theologian couldpossibly imagine. Their technical achievements would seem assupernatural to us as ours would seem to a Dark Age peasant transportedto the twenty-first century. Imagine his response to a laptopcomputer, a mobile telephone, a hydrogen bomb or a jumbo jet. AsArthur C. Clarke put it, in his Third Law: 'Any sufficiently
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72 T H E G O D D E LUS1 O N
and of different periodicity, which pretty much disposed of the
LGM hypothesis. Metronomic rhythms can be generated by many
non-intelligent phenomena, from swaying branches to dripping
water, from time lags in self-regulating feedback loops to spinning
and orbiting celestial bodies. More than a thousand pulsars have
now been found in our galaxy, and it is generally accepted that each
one is a spinning neutron star emitting radio energy that sweeps
around like a lighthouse beam. It is amazing to think of a star
rotating on a timescale of seconds (imagine if each of our days
lasted 1.33 seconds instead of 24 hours), but just about everything
we know of neutron stars is amazing. The point is that the pulsar
phenomenon is now understood as a product of simple physics, not
intelligence.
Nothing simply rhythmic, then, would announce our intelligent
presence to the waiting universe. Prime numbers are often
mentioned as the recipe of choice, since it is difficult to think of a
purely physical process that could generate them. Whether by
detecting prime numbers or by some other means, imagine that
SETI does come up with unequivocal evidence of extraterrestrial
intelligence, followed, perhaps, by a massive transmission of
knowledge and wisdom, along the science-fiction lines of Fred
Hoyle's A for Andromeda or Carl Sagan's Contact. How should we
respond? A pardonable reaction would be something akin to
worship, for any civilization capable of broadcasting a signal over
such an immense distance is likely to be greatly superior to ours.
Even if that civilization is not more advanced than ours at the time
of transmission, the enormous distance between us entitles us to
calculate that they must be millennia ahead of us by the time the
message reaches us (unless they have driven themselves extinct,
which is not unlikely).
Whether we ever get to know about them or not, there are very
probably alien civilizations that are superhuman, to the point of
being god-like in ways that exceed anything a theologian could
possibly imagine. Their technical achievements would seem as
supernatural to us as ours would seem to a Dark Age peasant transported
to the twenty-first century. Imagine his response to a laptop
computer, a mobile telephone, a hydrogen bomb or a jumbo jet. As
Arthur C. Clarke put it, in his Third Law: 'Any sufficiently
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