James Le Fanu: Why Us? (The limitations of science)

by David Turell , Friday, July 03, 2009, 17:24 (5620 days ago) @ John Clinch
edited by unknown, Friday, July 03, 2009, 18:17

I have no doubt that Earth is an extremely rare jewel. - I agree completely, and you are right. That is the issue.
 
> - life - is made probable by the sheer volume of possible environments that could potentially give rise to it throughout the Cosmos. - This I doubt. Rare Earth is very exact in describing all of the Earth's attributes that allow life on this planet: i.e., Most solar systems will not have such a planet, since the solar system must be iron/nickel rich, and it appears that few are. Also the solar system must be in the outer 'habitable portion' of its galaxy. "Privileged Planet" (I've not read it) makes much of this because it allows us to study the universe through a 'thin' portion of the galaxy, and then infers 'God did it". I find that a weak argument.
 
> We KNOW this is a life-producing Universe because we're here, on this pale blue dot in the blackness. The anthropic principle (a much misunderstood notion, it seems to me) reminds us of that. - That is why I don't consider the anthropic principal worth much. your first sentense is more to the point.
 
> What I'd be interested in exploring is what conclusion you would draw if it were firmly established that this was the only life-producing planet and whether that conclusion would alter if the opposite were proved - i.e. that (as I suspect) the Universe is teeming with life. It seems to me that, either way, we find ourselves in a life-producing Universe. - If the Universe is teeming with life, how come SETI hasn't had a result? I base my conclusions on a belief that life is rare and may be confined to Earth only. Now, if life is common through the universe that would be evidence for atheism, as it would tell us that origin of life is an easy step. And that is my major 'thinking point'. I think that inorganic chemicals forming life is a HIGHLY IMPROBABLE step. And I use probabilites as a major contributor to my thinking, despite Matt's objections.
 
> Whether chance or miraculous intervention occurs once or a million times seems to me to be irrelevant to the argument as to whether there is, or may be, a god. It's a blind alley. - Therefore, I don't accept your final statement above. Highly improbable events are not a blind alley. I follow John Leslie's reasoning (Universes), as there can be no other conclusion: "that God is real and/or there exist a vastly many, very varied universes",(despite George's objectons to Leslie), and we are in the lucky one. Multiverse theory is pie in the sky, based on unproven string/membrae theory, cannot be tested, and wishful thinking by atheists. We can only know this one universe we are in out close to its event horizon, and we are now at 300,000 years post Big Bang (working backward as we do). We pick up the background radiation and its temperature. We might get right to the edge(?) but space-time is curved. We are not going to go outside, if there is an outside. Read Smolin and Woit objecting to string theory.