{"id":735,"date":"2010-06-07T23:26:07","date_gmt":"2010-06-07T23:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/life-on-titan-there-are-positive-signs.html"},"modified":"2010-06-07T23:26:07","modified_gmt":"2010-06-07T23:26:07","slug":"life-on-titan-there-are-positive-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/life-on-titan-there-are-positive-signs.html","title":{"rendered":"Life on Titan? There are positive signs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now this is interesting: scientists report data coming from the Cassini space probe indicating that there might<\/i> be some form of life on Titan<\/a>, a moon of Saturn. Maggie Koerth-Baker is cautiously optimistic<\/a>. Excerpt:<\/p>\n

\nThis is the kind of research that easily sets hearts aflutter and space nerds to making high-pitched happy squealing sounds, so let’s knock out one basic thing right off the bat: Nobody has discovered alien life. We have not found E.T. This is only a test of the emergency high-pitched happy squealing system.
\nThat said, it probably wouldn’t be remiss to clap your hands delightedly, like a little girl. As I said, nobody has found alien life, but they did find the sort of evidence that might suggest alien life is down there on the surface of Titan, waiting to be found. It’s a little like walking up to a house and finding the front door open, and, inside, a T.V. stand that’s missing a T.V. It’s reasonable to assume the house might have been burglarized, but there are also other plausible explanations and you don’t have enough evidence to know one way or the other.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If there are creatures on Titan, I bet they’ll be glad to know that cheesy artist Thomas Kinkade’s company has done gone bankrupt.<\/a>
\nUPDATE:<\/b> In response to a reader’s request, here’s a link to an eye-opening blog entry by Joe Carter<\/a>, who points out (with evidence) that before he became a shlockosaurus, KInkade was a really talented artist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now this is interesting: scientists report data coming from the Cassini space probe indicating that there might be some form of life on Titan, a moon of Saturn. Maggie Koerth-Baker is cautiously optimistic. Excerpt: This is the kind of research that easily sets hearts aflutter and space nerds to making high-pitched happy squealing sounds, so…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"yoast_head":"\nLife on Titan? There are positive signs - Rod Dreher<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/life-on-titan-there-are-positive-signs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Life on Titan? There are positive signs - Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Now this is interesting: scientists report data coming from the Cassini space probe indicating that there might be some form of life on Titan, a moon of Saturn. Maggie Koerth-Baker is cautiously optimistic. 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