The Eerie Silence: Are We Alone In

Science Is About Explaining The World, And Religion Is About Interpreting It. There Shouldn't Be Any Conflict.

The Anthropic Principle Is An Unfortunate Name As It Implies Something About Humanity.

The Language Of Chemistry Simply Does Not Mesh With That Of Biology. Chemistry Is About Substances And How They React, Whereas Biology Appeals To Concepts Such As Information And Organisation. Informational Narratives Permeate Biology.

What We Want Is Another Sample Of Life, Which Is Not On Our Tree Of Life At All. All Life That We've Studied So Far On Earth Belongs To The Same Tree. We Share Genes With Mushrooms And Oak Trees And Fish And Bacteria That Live In Volcanic Vents And So On That It's All The Same Life Descended From A Common Origin. What We Want Is A Second Tree Of Life. We Want Alien Life, Alien Not Necessarily In The Sense Of Having Come From Space, But Alien In The Sense Of Belonging To A Different Tree Altogether. That Is What We're Looking For, "life 2.0."

In Time, [a Martian] Colony Would Grow To The Point Of Being Self- Sustaining. When This Stage Was Reached, Humanity Would Have A Precious Insurance Policy Against Catastrophe At Home. During The Next Millennium There Is A Significant Chance That Civilization On Earth Will Be Destroyed By An Asteroid, A Killer Plague Or A Global War. A Martian Colony Could Keep The Flame Of Civilization And Culture Alive Until Earth Could Be Reverse-colonized From Mars.