The Great Scheme of Things

From an article on MSNBC.com today:

TOPEKA, Kan. - Risking the kind of nationwide ridicule it faced six years ago, the Kansas Board of Education approved new public-school science standards Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution.

The 6-4 vote was a victory for “intelligent design” advocates who helped draft the standards. Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power.

Well, here's a very different take on "intelligent design," an essay I wrote at the end of 1998:

The Great Scheme of Things
12/31/98

Life is not as it seems. Our role as humans is completely different from what we imagine it to be in our daily lives. Read and see. The evidence is compelling.

There is a very real possibility that life on Earth was seeded by an outside intelligence about 4.5 billion years ago. When Watson and Crick discovered the nature of DNA in 1953, they were surprised that every living thing on Earth shared the same genetic code. In a world that contained such a variety of life, why was there no variation? If life itself was a random occurrence, then why was the code that determined it so inflexible?

When a manned mission reaches Mars early in the next millennium, it may discover evidence of primitive lifeforms. What if the genetic code of those lifeforms matches the DNA of life on Earth? The possibility of there being two identical genetic codes on two separate and distinct planets is tiny. Wouldn't that confirm that life on Earth and elsewhere in our solar system was not the result of random events but rather was a deliberate act by an outside intelligence billions of years ago?

Flash forward to the present, and life on Earth has evolved to the point where humans have developed the intelligence and tools to control almost every aspect of their environments. The evolution of intelligent beings on Earth has reached its peak. Many would agree that life as we know it is actually in decline. Our increasing population and consumptive lifestyles are taxing Earth's resources to the breaking point.

Is the UFO and alien abduction phenomenon a psychological outgrowth of modern life and the media? Or does it have a basis in reality? According to David Jacobs, author of The Threat, UFOs and alien abductions are very real. He has interviewed hundreds of people who believe they have had encounters with extraterrestrial intelligence. They report having eggs and sperm taken from their bodies, being shown alien-human hybrid children, and being told that they will have important roles to play in the future.

People who believe what these abductees are saying postulate that the aliens are trying to rejuvenate their dying species with our genetic material or that they are here to help us through this difficult period in human history. Jacobs postulates that the aliens' intentions are not at all benevolent. He says that as they are, the aliens can only live on Earth for short periods of time before they need to return to a controlled environment. Their purpose in hybridizing is to combine their characteristics with ours to create an alien being that can exist comfortably on Earth and also appear to be human. When they succeed, they will be ready to colonize.

The aliens are not interested in us. They want our planet. We are merely the catalyst that will allow them to claim the Earth for themselves. Wouldn't it be the ultimate irony if these aliens represented the same civilization that seeded life on Earth in the first place?

When the abductees asked the aliens what the future held for humankind, they were told that there is no future for humankind but that those who assisted them would be allowed to live. When the abductees asked the aliens when this would happen, they were told soon, within the next few years. If this is true, then it paints a pretty bleak picture of the future. Perhaps the aliens are planning their own millennium celebration.

What, if anything, can be done? Not much. First of all, most people will not believe that the Earth is being taken over by aliens until they see it on the evening news. By then, anything that could have been done would be too late. Secondly, we are obviously dealing with an intelligence far beyond our own. What could we possibly do that would stop the process and not be countered by the aliens?

It is humbling to think that our place in the great scheme of things might ultimately prove to be merely as the intermediary for another civilization's development.