11.12.10
The Goldilocks Enigma
Paul Davies in The Goldilocks Enigma asks, Why does the universe seem so well-suited to life? Is this not really the answer to its own question: the transition from Big History to Universal History is effected by this ‘fine-tuning’ emerging in the Big Bang itself. Physics itself, although physicists are reluctant to admit it, gives us a hint of the mechanism beyond natural selection. This insight has been confused by metaphysical design arguments. But the empirical basis for a consideration of evolutionary directionality, beyond random evolution, is there…
I am often puzzled by the way that the clue to the answer to many questions, not least those of evolution, provoke instead paranoia in physicists who jump six feet off the ground in terror at the apparent teleology of life.
Peter Kinnon said,
November 13, 2010 at 1:01 am
Your observation is right on the mark. The absence of the slightest hint of teleology is a deeply entrenched dogma for almost all those in the current scientific establishment.
Supposedly rational individuals wriggle and squirm, inventing the most extravagant hypotheses to avoid the strong patterns which are staring them in the face.
In actuality the most convincing evidence for directionality is not in the values of the universal constant but is to be found way “downstream” within the chemistry which their “fine-tuning” uniquely enables.
The wider aspects of evolutionary processes and their directionality are the subject of my newly published work “The Goldilocks Effect”.
(This title, by the was not derived from Paul Davies’s book, which I discovered only after publication. As I suspected from other books of his that I have read it is a fairly pedestrian recapitulation of the extensive general literature based around the four constants and in no way overlaps my own.)
Please go to my website:
http://www.unusual-perspectives.net
There you will find more info on “The Goldilocks Effect” My email address will be found there as a graphic and if you contact me I will send you a free copy as a celebration of having found intelligent life among the blogs.
Meanwhile, my first book, “Unusual Perspectives” is available for free download. You will find Chapters 10 and 11 the most directly relevant to this topic.
nemo said,
November 13, 2010 at 3:48 pm
You should keep posting on your book: sounds relevant to this blog.
Darwiniana » Booknotes: The Goldilocks Effect said,
November 13, 2010 at 3:50 pm
[...] Comment on Goldilocks Enigma Peter Kinnon said, [...]