A simple twist of fate; or waiting for the UFOs

What's behind the yearning to make contact with extraterrestrial beings? What's really going on with this desire to make contact with life forms beyond our planet? We might assume it's some kind of projection, but it's not clear of what.

Quotes and comments;

1. "If I had to bet – and this is now beyond science – I would say that intelligent, technological critters are rare in the Milky Way galaxy. The evidence mounts. We Homo sapiens didn’t arise until some quirk of environment on the East African savannah – so quirky that the hominid paleontologists still can’t tell us why the australopithecines somehow evolved big brains and had dexterity that could play piano concertos, and things that make no real honest sense in terms of Darwinian evolution.'' [1.]

- Marcy calls the source of humanity a 'quirk' in the environment. (I suppose he would say the same of the origin of life.) This then is the alternative to creation; a quirk. What then does quirk mean? One definition is; 'An unpredictable or unaccountable act or event; a vagary: a quirk of fate.'

This would seem to admit that life on earth can't be predicted from (a prediction from) a materialist model of the universe; i.e. isn't a prediction from physics. (I'm reminded, again, of the idea the ancient Greek philosophers had, of life being attributable to a 'swerve' in the fall of atoms. i.e. ''we have no idea.'')

I note that Marcy admits speculating about intelligent life forms in space is beyond science. (This would seem to be an admission that the grand theory of evolution doesn't qualify as science.) My question then is this; if the basis of Darwinian evolution theory isn't scientific, how can the theory itself be scientific? i.e. how can evolution be a fact, if its foundation isn't a fact? i.e. until we get confirmation of life forms outside our solar system, there's no way evolution can be called a fact. A solitary example can't prove anything.

- Waiting for evidence life on earth originated by blind chance is as hopeless as waiting for the UFOs. [2.]

2. ''We humans came across braininess because of something weird that happened on the East African savannah. And we can’t imagine whether that’s a common or rare thing."

- Well, if this something only happened once, I guess it's fair to say it was pretty friggin' weird! (One meaning of weird by the way is supernatural.) [3.]

This idea some 'quirk' of the environment can somehow create libraries of new information is a pretense of e. theory that I find extremely unconvincing. I've never seen a credible explanation of how this miracle could have happened. We might also ask why it never happened to the dinosaurs? Didn't they experience 'quirks' in the environment? Why didn't they get big brains?

Notes;
1. Planets a-Plenty, but Are They Lively? Creation/Evolution Headlines 02/02/2011
Feb 02, 2011 — 'The Kepler spacecraft has found over 1,235 planets so far (Space.com), 54 in their star’s habitable zone, and some Earth-size or smaller. Science media are having a field day reporting the discoveries, portraying them with artist imaginations, licking their chops at the possibility of life in outer space.
- 'Before the latest Kepler tally was announced, one of the leading planet hunters gave his thoughts in an interview on Space.com . Geoff Marcy had participated in finding more planets than anyone else.'
2. Waiting for the UFOs - Graham Parker
"Now is that a light in sky or just a spark in my heart?"
3. Weird; Of, relating to, or suggestive of the preternatural or supernatural. [AHD]
4. In earlier times, the word yearn often had the meaning of grief, or of suffering. I wonder if so many people yearn to make contact with aliens because of a sense of loss.