It's Tuesday, February the 17th, 2026, and this is the Daily Article podcast from Denison Forum.

Today's daily article is written by cultural theologian, Dr. Jim Denison.

I'm Chris Elkins' narrator.

Note, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, a noted civil rights icon who worked alongside Dr. Martin Luther

King Jr., died early this morning.

I plan to respond to his passing and its significance in tomorrow's daily article.

Former President Barack Obama generated headlines when he was asked by podcaster Brian

Tyler Cohen about the existence of aliens and

said, they're real. Then Mr. Obama added, but I haven't seen them. They're not being kept at

Area 51. There is no underground facility unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they

hit it from the president of the United States.

Hearing about his remarks, I wondered if the president was referencing factual information of which

he was aware that the rest of us are not. It turns out he was not. Mr. Obama issued a clarification

the next day. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good

that there's life out there. But the distance between the solar systems are so great that the

chances we've been visited by aliens are low and I saw no evidence during my presidency that

extraterrestrials have made contact with us. End quote.

If you believe aliens exist, you'll focus on the odds or good part of his explanation.

If you don't believe aliens exist, you'll focus on the no evidence part.

In other words, we tend to believe what we believe and interpret the facts accordingly.

This is a fact of enormous relevance to the challenges we face today. It is unusual when a book about science and faith draw endorsements

from some of the leading scientists and theorists in our world, but that's the case with

...