On Wed, 30 Jun 1999 20:58:26 -0400 (EDT), Marcio Pie wrote:
MP>Let me first point out that I would be the first person to be very happy
>if the sorts of things that Gonzales advocates really give support to the
>idea that our sun is unique.
>
>However, it seems to me that the sorts of evidence that he provides are
>not very convincing:
>
>(1) All the evidence are provided ad hoc, and not through a
>hypothetical-deductive method. Probably he could find features that make
>Andromeda look like a very unique star too.
That would be a bit difficult-"Andromeda" is a *galaxy* not a star!
MP>All he has to do is to
>disregard all the features that Andromeda has in common with other stars
>and consider them unimportant. (this is a procedure similar to the one
>used by some people to find "hidden codes" in the bible)
Disagree. The following characteristics that Gonzalez mentioned about the
Sun are "exceptional" among observed stars, and he provides sound
*reasons* why they "made it possible for intelligent life to emerge on
Earth".
These characteristics are not "ad hoc" but are *essential* to intelligent life
as we know it, whether on Earth, a planet circling a star in the Andromeda
galaxy, or any planet elsewhere in the universe:
1. "The Sun is a single star whereas most stars are in multiple systems...
stable planetary orbits such as the Earth's are much more likely around
single stars like the Sun."
2. "It is among the most massive 10 per cent of stars in its
neighbourhood... For a massive star with inhabitable planets that are
relatively far away, stellar flare-ups would be little threat to the planets."
3. "It also has 50 per cent more heavy elements than other stars of its age
and type, and about a third of the variation in brightness...Heavy elements
are essential to make planets like Earth, and a star with a stable light output
is essential for life."
4. "The most unusual aspects of the Sun concern its orbit around the centre
of the Galaxy...Its orbit is significantly less elliptical than that of other stars
of its age and type, and hardly inclined at all to the Galactic plane...As for
the orbit of the Sun, its circularity prevents it plunging into the inner
Galaxy where life-threatening supernovae are more common. And its small
inclination to the Galactic plane prevents abrupt crossings of the plane that
would stir up the Sun's Oort Cloud and bombard the Earth with comets. "
3. "...the Sun is orbiting very close to the "corotation radius" for the
Galaxy--the place at which the angular speed of the spiral pattern matches
that of the stars...By being near the Galaxy's corotation radius, the Sun
avoids crossing the spiral arms too often, an event that would expose it to
supernovae, which are more common there...Because life-bearing stars
have to be close to the corotation radius, that rules out more than 95 per
cent of stars in the Galaxy in one fell swoop."
MP>(2) It is not clear to me how those features that he presented as evidence
>of the uniqueness of the sun actually affect the probability of the
>evolution of life. On the contrary, it seems to me that all of them occur
>in a much larger time scale.
Gonzalez is not so much arguing about "life" but "intelligent life." It is
possible to imagine that if life could ever get going (assuming for the sake
of argument that it was fully naturalistic) on a planet subject to regular
"stellar flare-ups", comets bombardments, and "life-threatening
supernovae", that very hardy bacteria might survive but not much else!
Indeed, it is hard to see how even bacteria could survive such conditions!
Apart from stellar flare-ups which would strip away the ozone layer and
cause the surface of the Earth to be sterilised by UV rays, bombardments
by comets (depending on their size) could liquefy the Earth to a depth of
several kilometres, and/or boil away the oceans and atmosphere, and nearby
supernovae would finish of the job by lethal cosmic radiation.
MP>(3) My last point has to do with the anthropic principle. Isn't it curious
>that the anthropic principle is used as one of the most strong arguments
>for the existence of God by christian cosmologists BUT not by christian
>evolutionists?
If this is referring to the design argument, then it is most definitely *not*
"the anthropic principle"! The AP is a *naturalistic* argument which basically
says that `the reason that we observe the universe appears to be so fine-tuned
for life is because we would not be here to observe it if it wasn't.'
The design argument (which is not necessarily Christian) is the complete
*opposite* of the AP and says that: `the reason that the universe appears to
be so fine-tuned for life is because an Intelligent Designer made it that way."
MP>It looks like, once we get to biological evolution,
>contingency takes over, and a mechanism that appeared to be deterministic
>now is driven by chance? Does God now change the probability of events in
>our favor?
This represents a confusion of terms that misunderstands the full implications
of ID! ID is not something that is grafted on to "biological evolution" but as
*replacement* of same.
If there *is* a Intelligent Designer who has pre-arranged the universe, the
sun, the planets, the moon and the Earth to be just right for life on Earth,
and then that Intelligent Designer created life on that Earth and then
developed it over time by the regular infusion of new information, then the
right term to use for all this intelligently designed activity is *creation*
(ie. mediate creation) not "biological evolution"!
Indeed, if there *is* such an Intelligent Designer, then there really are no
such things as "biological evolution", "contingency", "deterministic...
mechanisms" and "chance." To the extent these terms are dependent on
materialistic-naturalistic ways of thinking, they would be *illusory*!
"New wine cannot be put in old wine-skins" (Mt 9:17). The implications of
ID are *radical* and sweep away all materialistic-naturalistic ways of
thinking as so much mental cobwebs:
"Phillip Johnson's idea of revolution is not, then, a struggle to control one
corner of the ivory tower. He is playing for all the marbles for the
governing paradigm of the entire thinking world." (Stafford T., "The
Making of a Revolution", Christianity Today, Vol. 41, No. 14, December
8, 1997. http://www.arn.org/johnson/revolution.htm).
Steve
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"It takes a while to realize that the 'thousands' of intermediates being
referred to have no obvious relevance to the origin of lions and jellyfish and
things. Most of them are simply varieties of a particular kind of creature,
artificially arranged in a certain order to demonstrate Darwinism at work,
and then rearranged every time a new discovery casts doubt upon the
arrangement." (Hitching F., "The Neck of the Giraffe: Or Where Darwin
Went Wrong," Pan: London UK, 1982, p27)
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