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Fine tuning

ID Foundations, 20: Caught between the Moon and New York City . . . the Privileged Planet thesis

Yesterday, News put up a post on the mysterious origins of the moon, invoking a classic song on being caught between the Moon and New York City. (Niwrad added a post here on the multiverse that is also worth seeing. Kindly bear in mind this earlier ID Foundations post on fine tuning.) Mahuna aptly comments: “As the number of steps increases, the likelihood of a particular sequence decreases.” OK, so Earth is not merely “very improbable”. It’s very VERY very improbable. I don’t see this as a problem for Earth, which I think we can prove actually exists. I do see it causing a problem for all those “Earth 2″ exo-planets, of which we can subtract 99% (or something) based Read More ›

VIDEO: Guillermo Gonzalez lectures at UC Davis on the Privileged Planet thesis

WK has pointed out a vid sequence at YouTube, in which Dr Gonzalez lays out a good summary of the privileged planet thesis. Here is the start: [youtube inUlX0oWHbw] WK (what, you haven’t bookmarked and speed-dialled this blog yet? tut, tut!  . . . ) summarises on points of significance for reflection: What is the Copernican Principle? Is the Earth’s suitability for hosting life rare in the universe? Does the Earth have to be the center of the universe to be special? How similar to the Earth does a planet have to be to support life? What is the definition of life? What are the three minimal requirements for life of any kind? Requirement 1: A molecule that can store Read More ›

The ghost of William Paley says his piece in reply to Darwin and successors, on the commonly dismissed “watch found in the field” argument

Over at the KF blog, we have recently been entertaining some ghosts from our civilisation’s past, who are concerned about its present and now sadly likely future in light of the sad history recorded in Acts 27, of a sea voyage to Rome gone disastrously wrong because the voyagers were manipulated into venturing back out at Fair Havens, when they ought to have been wintering. That is, while democracy is obviously better than realistic alternatives, there is nothing sacred or necessarily sound and wise about majority rule (even when minorities are heard out, respected and protected — as seems increasingly to be fading away . . . ), especially when the majority view has been manipulated by agenda driven interests. Read More ›

ID Foundations, 17a: Footnotes on Conservation of Information, search across a space of possibilities, Active Information, Universal Plausibility/ Probability Bounds, guided search, drifting/ growing target zones/ islands of function, Kolmogorov complexity, etc.

(previous, here) There has been a recent flurry of web commentary on design theory concepts linked to the concept of functionally specific, complex organisation and/or associated information (FSCO/I) introduced across the 1970’s into the 1980’s  by Orgel and Wicken et al. (As is documented here.) This flurry seems to be connected to the announcement of an upcoming book by Meyer — it looks like attempts are being made to dismiss it before it comes out, through what has recently been tagged, “noviews.” (Criticising, usually harshly, what one has not read, by way of a substitute for a genuine book review.) It will help to focus for a moment on the just linked ENV article, in which ID thinker William Dembski Read More ›

VIDEO: Dr Guillermo Gonzalez surveys and briefly, simply explains several fine tuning cases behind the cosmological design inference

Dr Gonzalez — the Astrophysicist half of the Privileged Planet team — recently presented this lecture in which he surveys and briefly, simply explains several key fine tuning cases: [youtube M39BKwtUAyA#!] Again, useful food for thought. END PS: For more on fine tuning, cf VJT’s recent post on a new form of the inference here, and an introductory one from some time ago, here. (Note, onward linked materials.)

Is Atheism Rationally Justifiable?

First, I’d like to thank Mr. Arrington for granting me posting privileges.  I consider it quite an honor, and I hope this post (and any future posts) warrants this trust. Second, the following is an argument I think will help us to focus on a fundamental issue that lies behind ever so many of the debates here at Uncommon Descent, and elsewhere.  That is, is the sort of implicit or even explicit atheism that is so often built in on the ground floor of a “scientific” mindset truly rationally justifiable? Such cannot be assumed, it needs to be shown. I’ll begin by defining some terms for the sake of this argument: Definition of God (for the purpose of this thread): Read More ›