[2006/02/16] Alien Engineering: Is It Intelligent Design?
요약: SETI 연구소는 최근에 Alien Engineering 이라 불리는 두 편의 시리즈를 방송하였다. 핵심적인 SETI 과학자인 Seth Shostak과 Frank Drake는 한 가지 "가상 실험"을 제안한다. 만일 외계인 우주선이 사막에 떨어져서 인간이 발견하였다면 우리는 그들의 공학기술로부터 무엇을 배울 수 있을까? 왜 그런 모양으로 만들었고 지구의 대기와 중력과 관섬을 없애고 빛보다 빠르게 움직이는지를 배울 것이다. 훌륭한 물리학자, 천문학자 그리고 공학자들이 UFO기술의 비밀을 밝혀낼 것이다. 더 나아가 우주의 비밀도 발견할 것이다. SETI 연구원들은 지적 설계진영과 거리를 두면서도 ID에서 하는 이야기와 동일한 이야기를 하고 있다.
Alien Engineering: Is It Intelligent Design? 02/16/2006 The SETI Institute finished airing a 2-part series on the History Engineering called Alien Engineering (it will be rebroadcast on Feb. 18). The series, featuring SETI Institute scientists Seth Shostak and Frank Drake, asks the following questions:
Prepare for an exercise in imagination. Suppose that an alien spacecraft crashed in the desert and we humans recovered it. What could we learn from its engineers? Using data gleaned from years of UFO sightings, we recreate a typical ship using cutting—edge animation, discover why aliens choose the craft shapes they do, learn how they overcome the effects of Earth’s atmosphere, defy gravity, cancel inertia, and travel faster than the speed of light! Our experts—reverse engineers—show us what’s “under the hood” of alien craft.... With the help of leading physicists, astronomers, and engineers, we’ll decipher UFO technology: inertia cancellers, antigravity devices, wormhole excavators, teletransporters, antimatter reactors and laser weapons. And, maybe in the process, discover the secrets of the universe... through “Alien Engineering.” (Emphasis added in all quotes.)
If this exercise in imagination belongs on the History Channel, it is history that hasn’t been written yet. But it does lead to an interesting follow-up question that the producers (Workaholic Productions) may not have imagined. If an alien found human engineering on Mars (e.g., the Mars Exploration Rovers), or on Titan (the Huygens Probe), or on Eros (the NEAR spacecraft) or on the moon, would they be able to reverse-engineer these and learn about us? Would they be able to detect products of intelligence and deduce that these objects had not evolved from the surrounding materials by chance?
SETI devotees hate it when we use their logic against them. Seth & Frank are poles apart from intelligent design people, but look at what they are saying. They are claiming that we could reverse-engineer products we have never seen, produced by minds we have never known, and are not sure even exist. They are absolutely certain that if alien craft landed on Earth, we would recognize them as designed. We would learn a lot about the designers, and we sure would not assume that random starstuff was able to assemble a craft that could travel faster than the speed of light and defy gravity. The organization of the parts for function would not only convince us that they were products of intelligence (remember the I in SETI), but would astound us and arouse admiration of the designers, even if we knew nothing about them. So why is William Paley a has-been? Sounds like they should hire his modern counterparts, like Michael Behe. Write in if you watched this program and noticed any hint of this reasoning that could be used to show the legitimacy of intelligent design in science.
[2006/02/16] Alien Engineering: Is It Intelligent Design?
