Of course the problem with this statement is "intelligent life _as we know it_". You are ignoring any possibility that there are other forms of intelligent life possible. Nor have you shown that these are "essential" elements.
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!
SJ: Indeed, it is hard to see how even bacteria could survive such conditions!
Again, you are limiting yourself to your imagination about a specific life form.
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."
And absent any evidence of the designer, which one do you think is the better scientific explanation of these two?
SJ :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"!
True. Too bad that there is little scientific evidence of such. ID is just another attempt to introduce religion into science. If ID had anything new to add it would at least be interesting to watch but all it has to add is a God of the Gaps in a new outfit.