wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (10/22/84)
Here's a posting on "The Anthropic Principle" from net.astro; it describes a currently-being-discussed topic in cosmology that should be of interest to the net.origins debate. Could this be considered in some manner as science trying to embrace creationism, in a perhaps diffuse and wary form? Anyway, here it is, for your delectation and enjoyment (or not, as the case may be...): Path: brl-tgr!seismo!ut-sally!utastro!dipper From: dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) Subject: StarDate: October 21 The Anthropic Principle Date: 21 Oct 84 06:00:20 GMT Some cosmologists are wondering whether our universe came into being just so people could. More -- right after this. October 21 The Anthropic Principle Cosmologists are astronomers who study the whole universe. They wonder how the universe came into being -- and where it's going from here. A question in cosmology today is, why IS our universe the way we observe it to be? One answer -- which has been debated by cosmologists over the last decade -- may be that the universe evolved the way it did just so people could come along later -- to turn around and observe the universe. In other words, maybe consciousness is central to the universe. This idea even has a name in cosmology -- it's called the anthropic principle, which just means a principle relating to people. The anthropic principle came about when cosmologists began wondering how the orderly structure of our universe could have evolved from the chaos of the Big Bang -- the primordial explosion thought to have marked the birth of the universe. The anthropic principle can be stated in a mild way -- saying that if the universe were any different, we wouldn't be here to observe it. If, for example, the universe expanded outward from the Big Bang at a different rate -- or if the strength of gravity were slightly altered -- then intelligent life couldn't have evolved. Or the anthropic principle can be stated in a strong way -- perhaps intelligent life is a natural result of the universe -- that people are in fact the universe observing itself. So that's the anthropic principle -- the idea that people are necessary to the universe. And if this all sounds more like philosophy than astronomy -- well, many astronomers think so too. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1983, 1984 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin