Fwd: Re: historical trajectory

I sent this offline to Mervin, when I had intended to send it to the list. I am
currently reading The Privileged Planet and Rare Earth. I'd welcome discussion
of these two books on the list.

--- Bill Hamilton <williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 08:46:22 -0800 (PST)
> From: Bill Hamilton <williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: historical trajectory
> To: Mervin Bitikofer <mrb22667@kansas.net>
>
> Read "Rare earth" by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, also "The privilieged
> planet" by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards. Both books make the claim
> that
> complex life is very rare in the universe. Guillermo Gonzales is a professor
> of
> astronomy at Iowa State University and an ASA member. I wish we could entice
> him to join this list.
>
> --- Mervin Bitikofer <mrb22667@kansas.net> wrote:
>
> > Last night at K-State, Dr. Robert Kirshner - an astrophysicist from
> > Harvard, gave a delightful presentation of the recent history of
> > cosmology to a lay audience. At one point he made a comment which spurs
> > this further reflection for me. He said something to the effect --
> > science now finds any propositions perverse or distasteful which would
> > accord special status to us or our corner of the universe. - a kind of
> > Einstein's equivalency principle philosophically extended if you will.
> >
> > A significant source of triumphalist feelings for scientific thinkers
> > over the last centuries has been the ongoing and successful dethronement
> > of our "special status" feelings. First the earth isn't the center,
> > then our sun isn't even the center, then our galaxy is but one of many,
> > then Einstein tells us there is no center, and so forth. This makes up
> > an impressive trajectory for which we should be excused if we found any
> > deviation from it to be scientifically (and now philosophically) jarring.
> >
> > While this was at one time considered a hostile trajectory to church
> > doctrine, we have long accepted how misreadings were read into scripture
> > to support erroneous cosmologies. Now we can easily site other
> > passages "What is man that you are mindful of him?" that fit more
> > nicely with this current trajectory. But how does this assumed
> > philosophy shape our predictions?
> >
> > One obvious way shows up in our science fiction. There is very little
> > interstellar science fiction which does not have our galaxy peopled with
> > other sentient beings - for good reasons. If we could somehow look at
> > the rest of the universe and observe conclusively that we are ALONE,
> > then this would be an extremely jarring end to this historical
> > trajectory. Or even if we weren't the only life - but just the only
> > recognizably sentient life, that would still be jarring. So our culture
> > seems to have a fairly firm faith that we just "can't" be alone. It
> > would be at odds the philosophy that now seems so familiar to us - we
> > are nothing special. And this assumption is conveniently safe-guarded
> > by the impossibility of ever proving this negation. If our abundant
> > 'Trekian interstellar bioscape' fails to materialize, the expanding
> > hugeness of the universe provides a fairly plausible explanation.
> > Nevertheless, most theologians (I think) already feel defensive about
> > the last few centuries and so wisely try not to read a committal
> > position on this into the Bible. And I would agree that the lesson for
> > us was necessary and well learned. It seems absurd (especially in
> > hindsight) to have used scriptures thus.
> >
> > What are any of your thoughts on how long this trajectory holds or if it
> > will ever stop? Do we hold out any well-grounded defiance of this
> > pattern in spiritual terms? Or is science just delivering some much
> > needed lessons about anthropocentric arrogance?
> >
> > --merv
> >
> >
>
>
> Bill Hamilton
> William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
> 586.986.1474 (work) 248.652.4148 (home) 248.303.8651 (mobile)
> "...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31
>
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Bill Hamilton
William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
586.986.1474 (work) 248.652.4148 (home) 248.303.8651 (mobile)
"...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31

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Received on Thu Jan 26 13:43:17 2006