Privileged Planet: comparing solar systems (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, February 03, 2016, 13:04 (3216 days ago) @ David Turell

David's comment: Our Earth is very different and very special, and it looks like our solar system is quite unusual, which fits the pattern that life needs a very special place to develop. The Earth is two-thirds of the way out on the second spiral arm, a quiet place in the Milky Way without too much radiation or explosions.-dhw: Definitely different, definitely special. It makes you wonder why in heaven your God had to make all those billions of ordinary, same-old, non-special solar systems that don't seem to do anything for anyone. (Apparently they're all there for our sake, though only he knows why.) Or maybe...maybe...we just got lucky...-DAVID: Like debating the design of the retina as 'unfortunately backwards', we find it is better that way. Perhaps we will discover why the universe is necessarily built like it is. You are a good second guesser.-You may as well say perhaps we will discover that God exists. Or perhaps we will discover that life can generate itself. Such “perhapses” are neither rational nor scientific. I am not second-guessing. You begin with the premise that God exists, and therefore there has to be a divine reason for everything you see. I begin with what I see, and look for reasons. The fact that I am extremely short-sighted does not mean that I should stop looking, or that there are divine reasons for me to find!