“… suppose you are dragged before a firing squad of 100 trained marksmen, all of them with rifles aimed at your heart, to be executed. The command is given; you hear the deafening sound of the guns. And you observe that you are still alive, that all of the 100 marksmen missed! Now while it is true that”
5. You should not be surprised that you do not observe that you are dead,
nonetheless it is equally true that
6. You should be surprised that you do observe that you are alive.
Since the firing squad's missing you altogether is extremely improbable, the surprise expressed in (6) is wholly appropriate, though you are not surprised that you do not observe that you are dead, since if you were dead you could not observe it. Similarly, while we should not be surprised that we do not observe features of the universe which are incompatible with our existence, it is nevertheless true that
7. We should he surprised that we do observe features of the universe which are compatible with our existence,
in view of the enormous improbability, demonstrated repeatedly by Barrow and Tipler, that the universe should possess such features.
The reason the falsity of (7) does not follow from (3) is that subimplication fails for first order predicate calculus. For (3) may he schematized as
3'. ~S: (x) ([Fx × ~Cx] É ~Ox)
where S: is an operator expressing 'we should he surprised that', F is 'is a feature of the universe', C is 'is compatible with our existence', and O is 'is observed by us'. And (7) may he schematized as
7'. S: ($x) ([Fx × Cx] × Ox)
It is clear that the object of surprise in (7') is not equivalent to the object of surprise in (3'); therefore the truth of (3') does not entail the negation of (7').
Therefore, the attempt of the Anthropic Philosophy to stave off our surprise at the basic features of the universe fails. It does not after all follow from WAP that our surprise at the basic features of universe is unwarranted or inappropriate and that they do not therefore cry out for explanation. But which features of the universe should thus surprise us?-those which are necessary conditions of our existence and which seem extremely improbable or whose coincidence seems extremely improbable. Thus, we should amend (7) to read
7*. We should be surprised that we do observe basic features of the universe which individually or collectively are excessively improbable and are necessary conditions of our own existence.
Against (7*), both the WAP and the Anthropic Philosophy are impotent. But which features are these specifically? Read Barrow and Tipler's book. Once this central fallacy is removed, their volume becomes for the design argument in the twentieth century what Paley's Natural Theology was in the nineteenth, viz., a compendium of the data of contemporary science which point to a design in nature inexplicable in natural terms and therefore pointing to the Divine Designer. - William Lane Craig
An amusing but weak analogy. To be a good analogy, we should have no direct experience of having been dragged before the firing squad. So say we drank ourselves to oblivion the previous night, woke to find ourselves looking out at 100 trained marksmen lying dead, and had to figure out how we got there. We could certainly hypothesize we'd been dragged out to be shot, and they all missed and fell dead instead. If we believed that, we would indeed be surprised. But it's more likely we'd come up with a completely different explanation of events. Surprise only comes when we expect one occurence and experience another. But we did not exist at a time when it was possible to expect that we would not evolve.
So yeah, if the Angel Gabriel appeared in my office tomorrow morning, said hey guess what Gerry, evolution really is all nonsense and the creationists were right, then I'd be surprised.