Posted on 01/05/2005 7:18:54 AM PST by PatrickHenry
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> Everybody be nice.
Yeah. That'll happen.
This is an article that goes against the Creationist idea that the chances of the laws of nature just happening to allow life are a bazillion to one against. This article will thus make some people unhappy.
Things are fine tuned by tuners. Piano tuners tune pianos. God tunes universes. Etc, etc.
Yes, that may happen. But if we can get people to think, then it's worth while. Actually learning something is a bonus.
I am no creationist, but this article does not make an anti creationist point. The author states that we don't know the conditions for life to originate. They are still guessing.
No they can't.
All astronomers can truthfully say is what conditions are necessary for life on this planet. No one has any idea of under what conditions life may occur on other planets.
Hey, just yesterday
someone posted this advice
in another thread:
"It would also be useful to learn what science is: The scientific method"
Some physicists believe this is true.
In other words, this is metaphysical speculation, not science.
That popped out at me. A lot of "believing" with absolutely no basis in fact. I believe I will go jump in my Mercedes SUV now and go to lunch. I don't own one, but if I believe enough, that should put it out in the company lot by lunch time.
> this article does not make an anti creationist point
Welll... yes and no.
* In a general sense, no: Be there one universe,a billion or a dozen, a god may or may not ahve been responsible for settign things off.
* On the other hand, a recent Creationist tactic has been to use some bogus mathematical slight of hand to "prove" that the chances of the natural laws of our universe being such that they are consistent with life are ten-to-the-power-of-a-bajillion. However, this article poitns out two flaws with that:
1: With the possibility of other universes (likely an infitinte number), the math is no longer any good. Given an infinite set, the chances of somethign happening become quite good.
2: OK, so the natural laws are consistent with us. So? That doesn;t mean that the universe was created so that we could be; it could jsut as easily mean that we are simply the sort of life possible in this kind of universe.
> this is metaphysical speculation...
Based on current physics. The Many-Worlds hypothesis answers a lot of the confusion of quantum mechanics.
Life of a kind of which we are ignorant may develop under other conditions.
A historical discussion of The Anthropic Principle is available here.
I hope the link works. Sometimes when I post from this archive, the links fail.
Yes, so it seems. But it's interesting to read what very intelligent, very educated people speculate about.
[I preface my remarks by stating that I do not believe in fine-tuning problems. Apparent fine-tuning indicates, to me, physical principles that have yet to be discovered. I make these remarks under the assumption that fine tuning does exist, and requires an explanation.]
I go farther than the quote above. Some of the cosmic parameters may vary over space. One Big Bang may be enough to explain everything, once the anthropic principle is applied.
A couple of years ago, there was a story about a cosmological measurement that indicated a change in the electromagnetic fine structure constant (alpha) by one part in 105, over the last 12 billion years. This was widely reported as indicating that the speed of light had slowed down by a tiny, tiny fraction over that period of time. Subsequent measurements showed that the fine structure constant had not changed at all, and the matter was forgotten.
But what if both sets of measurements were correct? The subsequent measurements were of a different set of objects in different directions. The first measurement was in a particular direction. But the distant quasars under consideration are not only being observed at a very ancient time: they also lie a very large distance away. What if the first measurement--assume it's correct--indicated not a variation in the fine structure constant over time, but over space?
"So what," you might say. "The quasar lies at the edge of our universe. From here to the edge of the universe there is only a tiny variation in that one constant. That's not enough to change the physics appreciably, so the anthropic principle gets you nothing. What works here will also work there." You'd be right, but only to a point.
We now know that space, with all its attendant galaxies, stars, nebulae and planets, extends far beyond our "Hubble volume", i.e. what we can see. Gigantically far beyond. The reason we can't see farther is because of the finite speed of light plus the Hubble expansion of the universe: things beyond the most distant quasars are receding from us faster than light. We will never see them, but we can demonstrate that something is out there.
What if the universal constants vary over space, and what if the "wavelength" of that variation is large compared to our Hubble volume? I can point to the "erroneous" measurements, and make a case that that's so. In Hubble volumes well beyond our own, the physics might be very different. Most of the volumes would be completely sterile. But far beyond them, there might be Hubble volumes with a very different physics from what we enjoy here, but which nevertheless allow for complexity, and perhaps even intelligence. Beings who evolve in such a garden spot will look out into the universe, and judge that the cosmic parameters were especially balanced, crafted by a cosmic genius just for them.
Is a hypothesis an answer or just another unanswered question?
The link works. Bookmarked for a later read (yeah, like I'm gonna find the time ...)
Last night, I casually drifted through a thread devoted to global earth changes resulting from the Indonesian earthquake. The posted article referenced comments by several scientists indicating the poles have shifted by as much as 1-inch, and that Sumatra may have moved horizontally 100+ feet to the southwest. There was also a suggestion that Sumatra has been uplifted by some number of feet.
The follow-up remarks made by posters were astonishing, and ranged from the simplistic, "I don't believe it" to far more caustic and ill-tempered comments denigrating both the ongoing investigations and scientists in general.
Given the current anti-science, anti-fact climate within FR, it is highly doubtful that posters to this current thread will engage in any more lofty discussion. Nevertheless, thank you Patrick for posting this information.
Speculative tubeworms may wonder how human beings exist in the cold vacuum of the Earth's surface. (Were tubeworms able to speculate.)
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