There’s an interesting article on the Perseverance Mars mission over at Evolution News and Science Today (for those not in the know . . . EN is one of the the media wings of the Discovery Institute, the leading institute in Intelligent Design):
They seem to think the mission is a waste of time and effort because they think life could not have started on Mars. They have concluded that abiogenesis is nearly impossible, so no life on Mars. They also act as if finding life elsewhere in the galaxy would be a minor discovery not really worth any mention.
There’s also a greater than zero probability natural abiogenesis actually happened on Mars and that some early biological seed material was carried to Earth on meteorites blasted from the Martian surface. Discovering evidence of such an occurrence would thrown the literal Genesis ID-Creationists into a conniption fit.
I’m not sure he doesn’t have half a point (or at least some small fraction). I don’t know how likely this probe is to find evidence of life, nor do I think this is necessarily the primary goal of the mission. However, finding life is the kind of thing that makes the general public excited and so will maintain support for such a costly endeavour, as opposed to some abstruse finding regarding the chemical composition of some of the dust on the planet’s surface.
If so, then no life on Earth either. Unless Earth life was created by a Genetic Organism Designer. Who could have also created life on Mars. So there may be life there too.
It never ceases to amaze me how the Cdesignproponentsists get away with publishing arguments which disintegrate in less than ten seconds.
I never understood why ID proponents aren’t big supporters of missions like this. I mean on ID, life is really easy to create. Why not try to look for it elsewhere?
The article demonstrates why ID isn’t science, IMO. If you think that God created life in some undetectable way then why even go into the lab or explore? When you already have a conclusion the real danger is discovering new things.
