Seth Shostak, host of the NPR radio science show, Are We Alone?, speaks on why Americans believe in extraterrestrials at a panel discussion Tuesday afternoon in Jordan Hall of Science at Notre Dame. Shostak is an astrophysicist at the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute. (Tribune Photo/GREG SWIERCZ)
Story Created:
Sep 10, 2009 at 3:12 AM EDT
Story Updated:
Sep 10, 2009 at 8:54 AM EDT
SOUTH BEND -- There’s a good chance there are more living things in this universe than just us. The trouble is finding them.
A panel of four specialists met for a discussion on extraterrestrials Tuesday at the University of Notre Dame, mostly addressing the possibility of extraterrestrials and humans’ fascination with life “out there.”
Seth Shostak, host of “Are We Alone?” on National Public Radio and senior astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI), opened the discussion.
Michael Crowe, philosophy of science professor; Kenneth Filchak from the department of biological sciences; and Philip J. Sakimoto, former NASA scientist, completed the panel. Matthew Dowd, liberal science professor, moderated.
Shostak explained that the major reasons many scientists believe there is life on other planets is largely because there is “simply a lot of habitat, a lot of real estate.”
He explained that maybe a half to two-thirds of all stars have planets.
“And planets are like kittens; they come in litters,” he said, estimating there are as many planets as grains of sand on the Earth.
“But this is the only one with life?” he asked the crowd. “This is fundamentally why we think there might be life out there.”
Life on Earth “could be an enormous accident,” he said, but suggested that instead intelligent life is an evolutionary survival tactic and happens on many planets.
Sakimoto reminded the audience that though extraterrestrial life might be present in the universe, we have yet to find it.
