Recently, a Scientific American article titled “The Search for Extraterrestrial Life as We Don’t Know It” reflected on the continued search for life across the universe. Not long ago, the search had been for life as we know it on Earth: carbon-based lifeforms, oxygen, DNA, and RNA.   

Today, the search has expanded. After all, what if life takes other forms elsewhere?  

In 2016, one group of thinkers offered a new focus for the search for life: complexity. Journalist Sarah Scoles described it this way: “[I]f you come across a fleet of 747s on Mars, you might not know where they came from, but you know they’re unlikely to be random.” That idea became the foundation for a NASA funded group, Laboratory for Agnostic Biosignatures, who look for forms of life in the universe.  

The group may claim to be “agnostic,” but complexity points to design, and design points to a Mind. Maybe they will find Life (with a capital L) after all.