Posted on 05/12/2014 6:52:52 AM PDT by Heartlander
Waltham's argument is based on the notion that the environmental conditions for complex life, including a stable temperature and climate, which he describes in the case of the Earth as being "almost too good to be true,"2 depend on a set of wildly improbable contingencies. These start with our good fortune in having a "Goldilocks Moon" -- i.e., a moon with just the right properties to stabilize the Earth's orbit and axial tilt over billions of years -- ensuring that the climate remains bio-friendly over a sufficiently long period of time to allow for the origin and evolution of complex intelligent life forms. As he points out,3 "We must be living on a planet suitable for intelligent life even if such worlds are extraordinarily rare and peculiar." He claims that the only explanation we need to explain our infinite good fortune is anthropic selection or observer bias. And he concludes that given the probably extreme rarity of Goldilocks planets, "We are looking at the most severe case of observational bias in the history of science"4 (my emphasis).
Of course not all researchers agree that habitable worlds will be as rare as Waltham argues. For an example of the contrary view, which is probably the majority view among astrophysicists, see James Kasting's excellent How to Find a Habitable Planet.5But even if we accept for the sake of argument his notion that Lucky Earths are fantastically rare, dependent on a vastly improbable chain of unique contingent cosmical and planetary events "which got us through the past four billion years by the skin of our teeth"; even if we accept his postulate of their necessity for intelligent observers to evolve (but see caveat below), they are in themselves not sufficient. It is only because of an extraordinary non-contingent bio-fitness in the main constituents of the atmosphere and hydrosphere that the four-billion-year saga turned out so successfully. The fact is that the day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year, eon-to-eon constancy in the Earth's mean temperature and climatic constancy has a very great deal to do with the non-contingent fitness of many of the core constituents that make up the Earth's hydrosphere and atmosphere.
Water is the prime example. Unless the various physical and chemical properties of water (particularly its thermal properties) were almost exactly as they are, there would be no Hadley cells, trade winds, oceanic currents6; no transfer of heat from the tropics to higher latitude to moderate the climate in both the tropics and the higher latitudes; no thermohaline circulation to mix and refresh the oceans7; no cold trap to prevent the loss of hydrogen to space and the consequent evaporation of the oceans8; no water cycle to erode and recycle (in conjunction with the tectonic cycle) the minerals of the hydrosphere and crust, refreshing and maintaining the elemental constancy of the world's oceans. No matter how fortuitous the Earth-Moon system or the configuration of the solar system, without the extraordinary fitness of the thermal and other physical properties of water -- its viscosity, solvation properties and so forth -- no rocky planet anywhere in the cosmos, no matter how "lucky," would be capable of sustaining a carbon-based biosphere.9
Stick just with the fitness of water for the tectonic system, a system without which we would certainly not be here and whose intricate design and fitness for life as it exists on Earth is critically dependent on the properties of water in so many ways. As Marcia Bornjerud comments on the tectonic system in her book Reading the Rocks10:
All parts of the fabrication and recycling process are cleverly linked and powered largely by water. The destruction of ocean crust via subduction leads to the formation of continental crust through water-facilitated melting. The destruction of continental crust via water-driven erosion ultimately replenishes the mantle for the next round of ocean crust production. Efficient, sustainable, robust, and elegant, the system would win top honors in an industrial design competition. [My emphasis.]
And again:11
Earth's unrivalled stability and clemency can be attributed to the ways in which the planet maintains communication and exchange between its interior and exterior. And in almost every one of these transactions, water is involved as emissary, diplomat, shipper, or provocateur.
Moreover it is not just the material properties of water that must be almost exactly as they are if the tectonic machine is to function. The properties of all the other major constituents of the Earth's crustal rocks must also be almost exactly what they are.12
And for warm-blooded, air-breathing (oxygen-utilizing) beings such as ourselves, there are other non-contingent elements of fitness that have made possible our thriving on planet Earth and that are genuine universals. There is the cooling effect of the evaporation of water, the attenuation of the reactivity of oxygen at ambient temperatures, the fact that the gases of the atmosphere let through just the right light for photosynthesis and the generation of oxygen while at the same time absorbing all the harmful EM radiation on either side of the visual window. Commenting on the narrowness of this crucial window, the Encyclopaedia Britannica remarks13: "Considering the importance of visible sunlight for all aspects of terrestrial life, one cannot help being awed by the dramatically narrow window in the atmospheric absorption...and in the absorption spectrum of water" (my emphasis).
Whatever role good fortune (contingent events such as acquiring a Goldilocks Moon) may have played in conferring long-term climatic stability on our home planet, there is not the slightest element of contingency in the unique bio-fitness of the chemical and physical properties of the constituents of rocky planets, which have also played a critical role in climatic stability and without which we would certainly not be here. Nor is there the slightest contingency in those elements of bio-fitness that underlie our own existence as advanced air-breathing intelligent observers. These non-contingent elements of fitness are genuine universals and will work their magic on any Earth-like planet throughout the cosmos. They give every impression of design for life and have nothing to do with observer bias.
Editor's note: Dr. Denton is a biochemist and Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture. His work, including his books Evolution: A Theory in Crisis and Nature's Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe, has had a critical impact on the debate over Darwinian evolution. His thinking will form the subject of an upcoming documentary, Privileged Species.
Well, it’s a bit early for popcorn, but a big mug of delicious coffee and a couple of oatmeal cookies might suffice. This thread should be hugh and series entertainment. I have it on good authority that God The Creator has a sense of humour.
And all this time I thought the science was settled.
Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards, “The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery”
Yeah. Just look around...
I’m leaning toward the way Bernard Haisch explains it all ... The Creator made a Universe in which things can happen spontaneously, but that doesn’t mean the same Creator is barred from touching the materials. Well, that’s sort of paraphrasing Haisch, but you get the picture.
I do indeed get the picture.
Many improbable occurrences conspired to create Earth's human-friendly design, and they would indeed be puzzling if ours were the only solar system in the universe. But today we know of hundreds of other solar systems, and few doubt that there exist countless more among the billions of stars in our galaxy. Planets of all sorts exist, and obviously, when the beings on a planet that supports life examine the world around them, they are bound to find that their environment satisfies the conditions they require to exist.
It is possible to turn that last statement into a scientific principle: The fact of our being restricts the characteristics of the kind of environment in which we find ourselves. For example, if we did not know the distance from the Earth to the sun, the fact that beings like us exist would allow us to put bounds on how small or great the Earth-sun separation could be. We need liquid water to exist, and if the Earth were too close, it would all boil off; if it were too far, it would freeze. That principle is called the "weak" anthropic principle
Note, that Mr Hawking has committed a logical fallacy here, and his defense against the evidence for God do to fine tuning is invalid. If I must point it out myself let me know, but I leave it as an exercise.
The chances are remote because of the vast distances involved. A message received from "out there" might have been sent tens or hundreds of millions of years ago, and the civilization that sent it might be long gone. Even the nearest neighbors' exchange of messages would likely be received by another generation.
Yes, God created it all, but we are not capable of understanding Him fully. And six thousand years give or take just does not seem to add up with provable facts. But we are told that a day with God is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day. That was written when the concept of millions and billions (let alone light years) was inconceivable to us.
Also, why is the cosmological constant 120 orders of magnitude smaller than we expect from QM? According to an old argument by Weinberg, there simply wouldn't be any observers in the universe if the cosmological constant were even three orders of magnitude larger than it is now.
They refer to “observational bias”, implying that we’re faulty in our interpretation of the “perfectness” of earth for life, because there aren’t any observers anywhere else on planets that aren’t perfect for life.
Still doesn’t explain why the conditions that are necessary for life “just happen to coincide” with those conditions necessary for exploring our universe. The two are unrelated other than they do coincide, and the conditions necessary for life are not inherently necessary for exploration.
We could have an opaque atmosphere, for one.
I find it heartening that statisticians put the odds of the universe happening by accident, along with the odds of the Earth happening to be here (by chance) in this position in this galaxy, in this orbit, with this moon, as well as the odds of DNA happening by accident; on the same plane as the odds of Jesus fulfilling in excess of 60+ Old Testament Bible Prophecies.
Jesus fulfilling Bible Prophecy: 10^157th power.
Odds of the Earth being in this solar system etc... 10^139
Odds of DNA/Human Life 10^236
The estimated number of electrons in the universe is around 10/79th power
Designer ping!
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