Post #4049191

2026-07-23 23:44 UTC

There's a dismal sort of "anthropic" rationale for dismissing the idea that there's life anywhere else in #space other than Earth (if this IS Earth =) which goes something like this: very slight changes in such physical properties as the mass of the Sun or the range of chemical compositions found in the Solar System MAY, according to #software simulations which might very well be written by #programmers who can copy equations into software without the faintest idea of what they actually mean, have led to an alternate Earth devoid of life. Therefore, life exists nowhere but here. We're the lucky ones. If life exists elsewhere, so the rationale goes, it's got to have basically the same parameters as ours and here's where Dick Dawkins got really cute one day--he said that it's obvious the forms of Earth's biological evolution are optimal. (cont'd)

Replies (1)

@mxchara@seattle.pink 2026-07-23 23:48

I mean...they exist here, therefore they're optimal. No, really, that's what Dick Dawkins, god of #biology, actually once tweeted on this subject. Of course I tried to challenge him; of course he merely clammed up again. Dawkins is tetchy about being an Internet "character" these days, mocked endlessly for his intellectual bankruptcy while sticking hard to the dignity that becomes an Oxbridge don. By his lights, he doesn't answer to anyone but himself anyway. But that circularity is intrinsic to the "anthropic principle". It seeks to argue that merely because we can observe ourselves and our environment, these things must be necessary not merely to our lives but to all life. Surely it's impossible that any life could have a different biochemistry than Earth life, right? (cont'd)

Open ##4049367