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

by David Turell , Friday, August 07, 2009, 00:56 (5376 days ago) @ John Clinch

By the way, in your post, I'm not sure you have used the expression "anthropic principle" correctly. The anthropic principle says nothing about the frequency of the appearance of life, merely how we come to be observers in an observable universe. - 
 I think you are correct as some people view Carter's principal. John Leslie takes a good portion of his book, Universes, discussing 'weak', 'superweak' and 'strong' versions of the principle. I've never thought much of it except mental masterbation. Leslie quotes Brandon Carter as regretting using the term 'anthropic' at all, as certainly other animals, elephants, dogs, dinosaurs can also be observers, but not at the level of scientists as humans are. I know that we humans are a major part of the principal, but life has to be permitted for evolution to occur for 'us' to finally appear. And that is the way I view it. It is a tautology, at any rate.