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E-Letter responses to:

books:
Michael Shermer
ASTROBIOLOGY: Deities for Atheists
Science 2006; 311: 1244 [Summary] [Full text] [PDF]
*E-Letters: Submit a response to this article

Published E-Letter responses:

[Read E-Letter] Sufficiently Simple
David R. Johnson   (22 March 2006)

Sufficiently Simple 22 March 2006
Top
David R. Johnson,
Scientist
Genexpression.com

Respond to this E-Letter:
Re: Sufficiently Simple

 In his Book Review, Michael Shermer gives us his "last law": "Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God," acknowledging Arthur C. Clarke’s original: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Unfortunately, these intriguing phrases are merely tautologies. They hinge on the term "sufficiently advanced" without asking what the extraterrestrial has done to warrant such a description.

Presumably, he means that they need to have advanced sufficiently to make something (appear) miraculous or, in the original, magical. Hence, Shermer’s law reduces to: The more god-like, the more like a god. Not catchy, nor facile.

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