George, your error is not a non sequitur so much as a petitio principi, i.e., begging the question. You are assuming that living organisms developed from non-living matter. But the anthropic principle can be maintained by those like myself who believe that God created a universe fit for life and then created the first life forms supernaturally. Until you can provide a plausible scenario for OOL, including a plausible scenario for the appearance of the information in the simplest conceivable organism, your assumption remains just that, an assumption.
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: george murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
To: robert rogland <robert.rogland@worldnet.att.net>
Cc: Glenn Morton <glenn.morton@btinternet.com>; Asa@Calvin. Edu <asa@calvin.edu>
Date: Monday, January 21, 2002 9:29 AM
Subject: Re: Flawed anthro views of RTB
robert rogland wrote:
Sorry, George, but I just don't follow your logic. Could you explain for me
why, IF intelligent life hasn't evolved by natural processes, THEN these
[astronomical data cited in support of the anthropic principle] are just
coincidences. Your assertion seems like a non sequitur to me.
The significance of the "coincidences" - & the reason they're called "anthropic" - is that if they didn't hold then intelligent life (i.e., anthropoi) wouldn't have been able to develop. The strengths of the strong & weak interactions has to be such as to allow carbon to be produced in stellar cores, the dimensionality of space has to be such as to allow there to be nerve networks, the universe has to be old enough for there to be time for evolution, &c. If we didn't evolve then the coincidences are just that. They don't have any consequences. As arguments for a creator they'd be in the same category as finding a circle in the digits of pi in Sagan's Contact.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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