An extension of his Privileged Planet hypothesis:
As outlined in the book The Privileged Planet, by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards, the Earth is not only fine-tuned for life, but is also well-designed to allow us to make scientific discoveries. A new BIO-Complexity paper by Guillermo Gonzalez, “The Solar System: Favored for Space Travel,” extends privileged planet arguments to our ability to travel in space. Gonzalez previously summarized some of his arguments here, but it’s worth outlining some of his arguments.
Evolution News, “Guillermo Gonzalez Extends “Privileged Planet” Arguments to Space Travel” at Evolution News and Science Today:
Here’s the paper.
Abstract: Here, we compare Earth to the most common type of exoplanet, the super-Earth, with respect to interplanetary space travel. The typical super-Earth should have higher gravity and atmospheric pressure at its surface. These factors pose significant challenges to rocket launches and to reentering spacecraft. In addition, the Solar System is compared to exoplanetary systems with respect to interstellar travel. It is easier to launch an interstellar spacecraft from a planet in the circumstellar habitable zone of the Sun than from planets in the circumstellar habitable zones of less massive stars. In the larger context of the Milky Way galaxy, our Solar System is in the best location to initiate interstellar missions. In summary, we here confirm and expand upon recent studies that argue that the Earth and the Solar System are rare in the degree to which they facilitate space exploration. (open access) More.
Why don’t we concentrate on exploring Mars? It’s there, we’ve sent probes there, it’s at least possible that there is or has been life there — if only life swatched from Earth during the early, loosely formed state of the planets. But anyway, exploration beats speculation.
2020-05-16
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The purpose of settling the moon and other planets should have nothing to do with the search for life. Exploration and settlement should be about preparation for the eventual impact of something natural. There will be another Carrington Event and most of the planet is unprepared for what will happen. A massive rock will eventually hit us again. Yellowstone will erupt.
There are any number of things that can happen, which already have. The moon, Mars, upper atmosphere of Venus gives us something to reach easily and start to expand from there.
BR, I need to get back to solar system colonisation as part of the answer to pop bomb linked despair, which is getting a pandemic boost. KF
Given the current state of science and technology, I doubt we have the capacity to transport and sustain more than a few dozen people on the Moon or Mars. Anything more will require a huge investment of money and other resources, all of which would have to be taken way from other, more immediate needs here on Earth. I doubt that the world’s population would be prepared to endure such privations so that a lucky few get to travel to Mars.
One of my favorite films of all time is 2001: A Space Odyssey but I can’t help looking at the giant space station in Earth orbit and wondering what it would cost to lift all that materiel from Earth and construct it in space. It is far bigger than the International Space Station which itself pushed the boundaries of what we were willing and able to spend on such a project.
I would love us to be able to colonize the Solar System but it’s not going to be quick or easy or cheap.
Sev, I think that is an issue of perspective. I contend that opening up solar system colonisation is the real challenge of this century. Further given the idea of a self replicating, sustainable core tech base, that is not unconnected to transforming development here on dear oldTerra. KF
The underlying issue that is so interesting about Dr. Gonzalez’s overall thesis is that he holds that the Earth’s position is ‘privileged’ in the universe. As Jay Richards put it,
This is in direct contradiction to the underlying thesis of Atheistic Naturalism. As Stephen Hawking put it,
In fact, this Atheistic belief that the earth, and humanity, are insignificant and have no privileged position in the universe is referred to as the Copernican Principle and/or the Principle of Mediocrity.
Yet, directly contrary to this supposed ‘working assumption’ in science of ‘Mediocrity’ for both the earth and humans, it is now established, (from our best theories in science no less), that the earth and humanity are far more ‘privileged’ in this universe that is presupposed under Atheistic Naturalism.
For instance, anomalies in the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR), (anomalies that were recently discovered by the WMAP and Planck telescopes), ‘strangely’ line up with the earth and solar system,
At the 13:55 minute mark of this following video, Max Tegmark, an atheist who specializes in this area of study, finally admits, post Planck 2013, that the CMBR anomalies do indeed line up with the earth and solar system
Here is an excellent clip from “The Principle” that explains these ‘anomalies’ in the CMBR that line up with the earth and solar system in an easy to understand manner.
Moreover, due to the ‘insane coincidence’ of the flatness of the universe being fine-tuned to within one part to the 10^57, we find that “These tiny temperature variations correspond to the largest scale structures of the observable universe.”
And indeed we now find that Radio Astronomy now reveals a surprising rotational coincidence for Earth in relation to the quasar and radio galaxy distributions in the universe:
Thus, and again directly contrary to the presumptions of atheists, far from the temperature variations in the CMBR being a product of randomness as they presuppose, the temperature variations in the CMBR correspond to the ‘largest scale structures of the observable universe’ and that these ‘largest scale structures of the observable universe’ reveal “a surprising rotational coincidence for Earth”. Moreover, we were only able to discover this correlation between the tiny temperature variation in the CMB and the largest scale structures in the universe via the ‘insane coincidence’ of the universe being fine-tuned to at least 1 in 10^57 as measured for its flatness.
In other words, the “tiny temperature variations” in the CMBR, (from the large scale structures in the universe, to the earth and solar system themselves), reveal teleology, (i.e. a goal directed purpose, a plan), that specifically included the earth from the start. ,,, The earth, from what our best science can now tell us, is not some random cosmic fluke as atheists had presupposed.
On top of all that, in the following paper, (building off the work of Dr. Gonzalez in the ‘Privileged Planet’), Robin Collins found that photons coming from the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) are ‘such as to maximize the intensity of the CMB as observed by typical observers.’
To further empirically establish humanity’s centrality in the universe in particular, in the following video physicist Neil Turok states that ““So we can go from 10 to the plus 25 to 10 to the minus 35. Now where are we? Well the size of a living cell is about 10 to the minus 5. Which is halfway between the two. In mathematical terms, we say it is the geometric mean. We live in the middle between the largest scale in physics,,, and the tiniest scale [in physics].”
The following interactive graph, gives very similar ‘rough ballpark’ figures, of 10 ^27 and 10-35, to Dr. Turok’s figures.
Whereas Dr. William Demski, in the following graph, gives a more precise figure of 8.8 x 10^26 M for the observable universe’s diameter, and 1.6 x 10^-35 for the Planck length which is the smallest length possible.
Dr. Dembski’s more precise interactive graph points out that the smallest scale visible to the human eye (as well as the size of a human egg) is at 10^-4 meters, which ‘just so happens’ to be directly in the exponential center, and/or geometric mean, of all possible sizes of our physical reality. This is very interesting for the limits to human vision (as well as the size of the human egg) could have, theoretically, been at very different positions rather than directly in the exponential middle and/or the geometric mean. Needless to say, this empirical finding directly challenges, if not directly refutes, the assumption of the Copernican Principle.
Moreover, on top of all that, in Quantum Mechanics we find that it is the measurement itself that gives each observer a privileged frame of reference in the universe. As the following article states, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”,,,
Likewise, the following violation of Leggett’s inequality stressed the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.
Moreover, this recent 2019 experimental confirmation of the “Wigner’s Friend” thought experiment established that “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”.
Because of such experiments as these from quantum mechanics, Richard Conn Henry, who is Professor of Physics at John Hopkins University, stated “It is more than 80 years since the discovery of quantum mechanics gave us the most fundamental insight ever into our nature: the overturning of the Copernican Revolution, and the restoration of us human beings to centrality in the Universe.”
Besides these experiments from Quantum Mechanics directly overturning the Copernican Principle, General Relativity itself also overturns the Copernican principle,
And as Fred Hoyle stated, (in regards to General Relativity), “Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is ‘right’ and the Ptolemaic theory ‘wrong’ in any meaningful physical sense.”
And as even Einstein himself stated, “The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either CS could be used with equal justification. The two sentences: “the sun is at rest and the earth moves” or “the sun moves and the earth is at rest” would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different CS.”
In fact, as far as empirical science itself is concerned, in the 4 dimensional spacetime of Einstein’s General Relativity, we find that each 3-Dimensional point in the universe is central to the expansion of the universe,,,
,,, and since any 3-Dimensional point can be considered central in the expanding 4-Dimensional space time of General Relativity, then, as the following articles make clear, it is now left completely open to whomever is making a model of the universe to decide for themselves what is to be considered central in the universe,,,
Even individual people, as the following article makes clear, can be considered to be central in the universe according to the four-dimensional space-time of General Relativity,,,
,,, In fact, when Einstein first formulated both Special and General relativity, he gave a hypothetical observer a privileged frame of reference in which to make measurements in the universe.
Thus, completely contrary to the ‘Mediocrity’ presumption of Atheistic Naturalism, both the earth and humanity, as far as our best theories in science can tell us, are not nearly as insignificant in the universe as Atheists have falsely presupposed via the Copernican Principle.
Of final note, allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned,,,, (Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Max Planck, to name a few of the Christian founders),,, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands (with the closing of the free will loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between quantum mechanics and general relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”.
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