When God retires from heaven

Men used to believe that distinct laws governed the heavenly bodies and the earthly objects .The motion of the planets followed different rules than the motion of a catapulted stone. The genius of Issac Newton changed this view forever. Gravity, the first universal force discovered, follows the same inverse square law in heaven as on earth. Much of modern theoretical physics strive to unify all the interactions, and to reduce all matter to the composition of elementary particles. Modern science no longer separates the celestial realm from the terrestrial regime; the same laws apply to both.

This new affinity for unity between celestial and terrestrial affairs may be sound so far as the immutable laws of physics is concerned, but it can be dangerously misguiding when it comes to the search for extraterrestrial life. Most of astrobiology searches not for life but for life as we know it on earth: carbon-based, water-dependent forms that amazingly share the same genetic material. Yet the life on earth is nothing more than a historical accident, in that it happened to have evolved in a water world and in the temperature range where proteins and nucleic acids dissolve in water. It could happen differently in a different environment. On a much colder planet, for example, liquid carbon dioxide or sulfur dioxide can provide life's matrix that water is on earth.

Whenever a new paradigm sweeps away the old, it is often adopted beyond its proven applicability. The unification of the celestial and terrestrial phenomena, successful as it has been in the laws of motion, has yet to find any evidential support in the discipline of biology. Until then, it may be beneficial to keep an open mind, and regard life in the heaven as something different than that on this earth.