In this month’s Scientific American, a book is reviewed in which yet another scientist makes a complete fool of himself by referring to
[…] the perplexing fact that many basic features of the physical universe seem tailor-made to produce life.
Every time someone comes up with this amazing fallacy I want to weep and wail. Enough already!
The author quoted, Paul Davies, is not the first one to contemplate with wonder how all the features and the parameters that make up our universe are so well-suited for the development of (intelligent) life. Anyone with a scientific background – and most people without one – can see for themselves that intelligent life is very comfortable in the little niche that is our universe.
But please don’t tell me this is a perplexing fact!
Humans, as intelligent beings, arose from the general circumstances in which we still exist today. Those circumstances facilitated our evolution into the intelligence that enables us to contemplate those circumstances. If those circumstances hadn’t existed, intelligence wouldn’t have arisen, and we wouldn’t have been around to contemplate anything. So the fact that we, as intelligent beings, exist at all guarantees that the circumstances we contemplate are well-suited for intelligent life.
Life arose, be it somewhere in interstellar space or in the primeval soup of the Earth’s early days, as a result of atoms combining randomly into complex molecules that turned out to have the ability to replicate and self-perpetuate. Those molecules escaped entropy, imposed order on chaos, and became the DNA of the first life forms. The circumstances in which this all happened were well-suited for the emergence of life. Of course they were. If anything less self-perpetuating would have arisen, it wouldn’t have self-perpetuated, and life would not have resulted. So the fact that life exists at all guarantees that the circumstances we contemplate were well-suited for the emergence of life.
Our universe grew from the Big Bang (if we follow conventional cosmological theory) and coalesced into subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, stars and planets because the parameters of the universe, like gravity, strong and weak force, and all the others, had the right values for this to happen. The circumstances were well-suited for the emergence of energy and matter as we know it. Of course they were. If the parameters had been off, it would not have happened, and we would not be here to contemplate it all. So the fact that the universe as we know it exists at all guarantees that the circumstances we contemplate were well-suited for it.
Far from deserving perplexity, the fact that many basic features of the physical universe seem tailor-made to produce life deserves a heart-felt “Doh!” Which is not to say that these basic features don’t deserve close study; of course they do, because they teach us what we want and need to know about the universe, life, and intelligence.
But puh-lease, get over the perplexity of it all!
