Panspermia

There’s an interesting article over at Bloomberg by Tyler Cowen about a recent uptick in the number of UFO sightings among military people. I’m not going to go into any detail about that, because you can read it for yourself, but I did want to make a comment about the idea at the end of the article. “Panspermia” it’s called, which is the idea that life on earth is a result of it having been planted here by aliens. Maybe even aliens who were like Johnny Appleseed, planting life here and yon across the cosmos. So maybe they’re coming back to see how their planting went, or maybe the results of other seeds planted on other planets are coming here in hopes of finding their fellow plants. (If they are looking for intelligent life, let’s hope they land in Washington, D.C. because they will think the whole experiment an abject failure.

But anyhow, the interesting thing to me about this whole panspermia idea is that it is the ultimate kicking down the road of the can. “Let’s not admit the possibility that life on earth was created by God, so let’s invent someone else to have seeded the earth. Where did they come from? Probably someone seeded them!” I made up that last sentence. The people I have read who advocate for panspermia have all avoided the idea of where those alien races started. (I’m sure there are advocates of this notion who have worked out a reason/first cause, I just haven’t happened to have read it.)

Anyway, it’s an interesting idea, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a good one. It kind of reminds me of the two guards in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who keep offering alternatives to their mandate when it’s really quite simple: don’t let the prince leave the room.