Amazing, all these accidents just happening at the same time in the same place for no reason at all. Or at least that’s the official story. Also note this vid on the probabilities of a single molecule forming by chance.
Fine tuning
Ring-like structure in early solar system proposed to explain the inner rocky planets
One team of researchers doesn’t think Jupiter has been doing all the heavy lifting.
Crime scene investigator Warner J. Wallace vs. Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot (insignificant Earth)
Is it true that Earth is insignificant? What is the pattern of the evidence? Wallace investigates.
ID prevents dementia
Hugh Ross: I put together a 90-minute talk, much of it based on scientific discoveries published only weeks and months earlier, showing how amazingly designed Earth is for global human civilization. Several attendees told me that it was the most interesting talk they had ever heard.
Why animals are not round, Part II
More data from this rapidly emerging and revolutionary new field, featuring ground-thudding insights. With coffee. 😉
At New Scientist: Our puny human brains can’t imagine alien life
Not true! We humans more or less invented the whole idea of aliens. Without us, they probably wouldn’t exist even as a story. Just think: There would be no market for ET tales, films, and trade goods except for us humans. Don’t believe me? Try to get clams or termites interested in ET and see what happens…
Sabine Hossenfelder on why the Anthropic Principle is controversial
It’s controversial because it is sometimes used to support the idea of a multiverse. Otherwise, it should be common sense to assume that a venue in which we exist must feature conditions that allow for that. But the multiverse does not need logic, evidence, or science.
So then maybe we ARE privileged observers
Researcher: “Our analysis is data-driven but supports the theoretical proposal due to Christos Tsagas (University of Thessaloniki) that acceleration may be inferred when we are not Copernican observers, as is usually assumed, but are embedded in a local bulk flow shared by nearby galaxies, as is, indeed, observed. This is unexpected in the standard cosmological model, and the reason for such a flow remains unexplained.
Factors for fine-tuning for life, intelligent life, listed
Life, 140 factors; intelligent life: 402 factors
Has the universe really stopped making sense?
Or is it just not giving some people the answers they want?
A Darwin snark for a new Nobelist
If one is just looking for something to be snarky about, it is best not to engage with any serious issues. In that case, puffing popular Darwinism at every opportunity is the best choice available. There’s sure no Nobel for that.
Are the “redundant” particles of the universe evidence of fine-tuning?
Rob Sheldon: Despite McMaster U. thinking this odd, and believing (hoping?) for a failure of the Standard Model, I see this as a necessary means of storing the information in the hot Big Bang, and demonstrating the ultimate fine-tuning of the cosmos.
What elements of fine-tuning of our universe (vs. the multiverse) would pass this test of science truth?
Ethan Siegel: Even the most successful scientific theories imaginable will, by their very nature, have a limited range of validity. But we can theorize whatever we like, and when a new theory meets the following three criteria…
Is finding extraterrestrial life inevitable and does it prove the existence of God?
Hugh Ross: The discovery of life in another planetary system would indicate another instance of such divine intervention, meaning our universe would contain not just one origin-of-life miracle, but two.
Fine-tuning of the universe should be taught in school
Listening to Bill Nye scream “I suck,” one can’t help thinking that believing that we live in a meaningless universe may be a mental health hazard.