Reverse logic

[comana]

I first heard that same argument in a speech by the late (and dearly missed) Douglas Adams:

"early man has a moment to reflect and he thinks to himself, 'well, this is an interesting world that I find myself in' and then he asks himself a very treacherous question...'So who made this then?' Who made this? -- you can see why it's a treacherous question. Early man thinks, 'Well, because there's only one sort of being I know about who makes things, whoever made all this must therefore be a much bigger, much more powerful and necessarily invisible, one of me- and because I tend to be the strong one who does all the stuff, he's probably male'. And so we have the idea of a god.

Then, because when we make things we do it with the intention of doing something with them, early man asks himself , 'If he made it, what did he make it for?' Now the real trap springs, because early man is thinking, 'This world fits me very well. Here are all these things that support me and feed me and look after me; yes, this world fits me nicely' and he reaches the inescapable conclusion that whoever made it, made it for him.

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in--an interesting hole I find myself in--fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact, it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for."

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]full speech can be found on a blog here: http://www.toomuchsexy.org/adams/[/font]

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]-wowbagger (sees most things half full of cr@p )[/font]


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Douglas Adams was the greatest! I use this story all the time.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Ah... Hmm... I think the ID argument is a little different from what you're taking it.

ID isn't an argument. Also, that what the OP shoots down looks more like the fine-tunig "argument." Anyway

I believe the argument goes something like the chances for life ANYWHERE in the universe are so extremely small, that earth is about the only legitimate chance there is.

Aha. And quite obviously this means that the universe apparantly is not designed to accomodate life. It is actually quite hostile to it. In most places. How anyone can claim this as designed - they make it even "intelligently" - or fine-tuned for life is beyond me.

And it looks like you agree with the probability being so extremely small. So the ID folks think this is evidence that earth wasn't a chance happening, but a designed occurence for this one instance. But I don't know of or haven't read any ID folks (well, perhaps some folks on here, but you read some of everything here) claiming that the entire universe was designed for life in many places. That would be a pretty ridiculous claim. The analogy I've heard is like someone winning the lottery 100 times in a row.

Just think that the 100 times in a row make up less than (1-0.9999999999999999999999)*100 % of your lottery playing.

If that happened, then we would naturally think it was rigged.

I'd rather think it was rigged if the universe would actually look more designed to life. But it does not seem so. It rather seems to be quite unimportant.

And then, on top of that, there is still the argument from the OP. Oh, look how perfectly this bathtub is shaped to hold that drop of water, isn't it amazing ...

 

[funyun]

“This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, its still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise.”
--Douglas Adams

 

[funyun]

Blast, you beat me to it.

 

[mepalmer3]

“This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, its still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise.”
--Douglas Adams

I think it's telling at how poor this analogy is in that we see millions of puddles everyday, but we only have found 1 place where we know life to exist. But regardless, I don't wish to diminish your admiration for the fellow.

 

[Svt4Him]

And if we do find some kind of life on mars?

Then we will have to come to the conclusion that life is much more diverse and common then we have thought.

The ID’ers are basing their “observations” on the lack of acquired evidence. Being we have no idea how common life is in the universe. It is our own ego saying that “the glass was made for us” instead of understanding maybe we have “evolved” to fit the glass.

And if we don't find some kind of life on mars? And no, I'm not basing my 'observations' on the lack of evidence. So I still fail to see how one analogy, which is a weak analogy at best, totally disproves ID or Creation. Who made the glass? That's what I'd like to know.

 

[Stormy]

Earl

You said.... Obviously we know that when you poor a drink in a glass, it adjusts it's 'shape' to fit the glass perfectly.

Now do me a favor and take the intelligent being away from your statement.

You would forever have an empty glass.

And why would there even be a glass? What purpose would it serve?

The whole world is about Intelligence. The atheist thrives on intelligence. So why is it then so hard to imagine that Intelligence is alive... is real... and has always been.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

The whole world is about Intelligence. The atheist thrives on intelligence. So why is it then so hard to imagine that Intelligence is alive... is real... and has always been.

Where?

 

[Beastt]

Where?

Of course you already know what her response will be.

...wait for it....

 

[Earl Presto]

Earl

You said.... Obviously we know that when you poor a drink in a glass, it adjusts it's 'shape' to fit the glass perfectly.

Now do me a favor and take the intelligent being away from your statement.

You would forever have an empty glass.

And why would there even be a glass? What purpose would it serve?

The whole world is about Intelligence. The atheist thrives on intelligence. So why is it then so hard to imagine that Intelligence is alive... is real... and has always been.

Thanks Stormy, good post

My point wasn't so much to proove or disproove ID, but to point out a flaw in reasoning, which is that the circumstances of the solarsystem etc 'proove' intelligent design. For all i know God left his swiss cheese unattended for a week too long, and as a result we're now typing these messages.

The only example of life on any planet we have so far is what we have here on earth. We don't have the statistics which would indicate just how 'unique' earth really is.

 

[joebudda]

And if we don't find some kind of life on mars? And no, I'm not basing my 'observations' on the lack of evidence. So I still fail to see how one analogy, which is a weak analogy at best, totally disproves ID or Creation. Who made the glass? That's what I'd like to know.

If we don’t find life on mars then that is one planet we can say doesn’t have life.

The logic flaw that you are not seeing must be because you are looking through it. It is not that the analogy disproves anything. It is showing how this “backward logic” creates illogical answers.

 

[wardpossy]

early man has a moment to reflect and he thinks to himself, 'well, this is an interesting world that I find myself in' and then he asks himself a very treacherous question...'So who made this then?' Who made this? -- you can see why it's a treacherous question. Early man thinks, 'Well, because there's only one sort of being I know about who makes things, whoever made all this must therefore be a much bigger, much more powerful and necessarily invisible, one of me- and because I tend to be the strong one who does all the stuff, he's probably male'. And so we have the idea of a god.

Then, because when we make things we do it with the intention of doing something with them, early man asks himself , 'If he made it, what did he make it for?' Now the real trap springs, because early man is thinking, 'This world fits me very well. Here are all these things that support me and feed me and look after me; yes, this world fits me nicely' and he reaches the inescapable conclusion that whoever made it, made it for him.

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in--an interesting hole I find myself in--fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact, it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for."

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]full speech can be found on a blog here: http://www.toomuchsexy.org/adams/[/font]
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[funyun]

I think it's telling at how poor this analogy is in that we see millions of puddles everyday, but we only have found 1 place where we know life to exist. But regardless, I don't wish to diminish your admiration for the fellow.

I don't know about you, but I don't see millions of holes everyday. Humanity hasn't seen millions of holes either, we've only seen a few closely-spaced ones. And the reasons we know water fills ours is because ours isn't full of little cracks that seep down into the ground further. At the moment we are working hard to look for puddles in holes like Mars and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. This isn't even including all the trillions upon trillions upon trillions of holes very, very far from us, which might or might not have cracks. Why say we've only found one hole with a puddle, when we've barely just started looking for more?

You're the puddle exactly, who knows, just knows for certain, that it's special, without even looking for other puddles. You've reached a conclusion before you've even asked the question.

Anyway, the hole is actually supposed to be the universe, not individual planets. I think the point of the argument was lost on you.

But rest assured, the analogy is apt.

 

[ScottishJohn]

I don't think this is a good analogy, I'm not saying the Christians have any 'great' arguments to support our view...

What we need is an eye witness!

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

I've never heard any bit of science claiming that the universe was infinite in size.

That is pretty basic General Relativity.
It isn't necessarily infinate, but that is one sol'n of the equations and it appears to be the one that fits the observations.

Christian argument: Earth and it's surroundings were uniquely designed to support life as we know it. (glass fits the drink)

Counter-argument: Life as we know it is a more or less logical result of the circumstances as we know it on earth. (drink fits the glass)

As stated we would then expect life in almost every environment.

I've read (very briefly) of a couple of non-carbon based life chemistries that may work, as it is we don't know enough to really make a solid statement.

As for physical environment ... given the number of galaxies and number of stars in the galaxies it seems pretty likely that there are at least a few earth like planets out there.

The one thing that does pique my interest is the set of physical constants that led to the creation of a universe that primarily consists of matter and that has survived as long as it has.

In that sense the odds of this particular glass being made are very low and the odds of life coming about in any other glass are (as far as we know) very low.

Make of that what you will.