The Case for a Creator - Lee Strobel [88]
That sparked a related issue. Scientists have dreamed of terra-forming a planet like Mars, essentially making over its environment to create a planet that’s more conducive to settlement by humans. “Would that be very difficult?” I asked.
“Absolutely. From the magnetic field to plate tectonics to the carbon dioxide cycle—ongoing life depends on a variety of very complicated interactions with the planet,” he said.
Richards jumped in. “People generally think that because they plant a seed and it grows that it’s easy to create the right environment for life, but that’s misleading,” he said. “A good example is the hermetically sealed biosphere that some people constructed in Arizona several years ago. They thought it would be relatively easy to create a self-contained environment conducive to life, but they had a devil of a time trying to make it work.”
“But life can also exist in some terribly harsh conditions,” I pointed out. “For instance, there are life forms that live off of deep-sea thermal vents. They don’t seem to need oxygen or any particular support from the broader environment.”
“On the contrary,” Gonzalez said, “the only things down there that don’t need oxygen are some microorganisms that breathe methane. But larger organisms, which need to regulate their metabolism, are invariably oxygen-breathers. The oxygen comes from surface life and marine algae. The oxygen gets mixed in with the ocean and transported into deep waters. So those organisms are very directly tied to the surface and the overall ecosystem of the planet.”
Astounded by the Earth’s fine-tuned physical, chemical, and biological interrelationships, some writers have gone so far as to liken our biosphere to a “superorganism” that is quite literally alive. In fact, James Lovelock’s pantheistic Gaia Hypothesis even seeks to deify our planet. However, Gonzalez and Richards said it’s unnecessary to go that far.
“Despite these admittedly incredible interrelationships, there’s nothing that requires anyone to see the Earth itself as being an organism, especially a god or goddess,” Richards said.
Then he turned to an image quite familiar to those who see the earmarks of design in Earth’s complex and interconnected machinery. “That’s sort of like deifying a watch because of its amazing properties,” he said, “rather than looking beyond the watch to the one who made it.”
THE HOSTILE WORLD OF M13
I granted the point that only certain kinds of planetary environments can play host to life. On the other hand, the universe is salted with trillions of stars, with countless terrestrial bodies undoubtedly revolving around them. Surely the mathematical odds favor many stars spawning Earth-like habitats—a point that argues against the idea that Earth is special and therefore designed.
But while my untrained eyes see each star as having equal potential to preside over a civilization-bearing solar system, I was soon to learn differently as I pursued questions concerning the conditions that are necessary for life to flourish.
I turned toward Gonzalez. “As we look out at the billions of stars that constitute our Milky Way galaxy,” I said, “can’t we logically assume that planets teeming with life are strewn all over the place?”
“No,” he said unequivocally, “that’s not a logical assumption based on the evidence. Along with Don Brownlee and Peter Ward of the University of Washington, I developed a concept called the Galactic Habitable Zone—that is, a zone in the galaxy where habitable planets might be possible. You see, you just can’t form a habitable planet anywhere; there’s a large number of threats to life as you go from place to place.”
My mind flashed back to when Drake and Sagan beamed their message to the large concentration of stars called globular