Uncommon Descent Contest 4: Can we save physics by dumping the Copernican principle? – Winner announced
| June 22, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
The question is here. It looks at “Does Dark Energy Really Exist? Or does Earth occupy a very unusual place in the universe?” by physicist Timothy Clifton and astrophysicist Pedro G. Ferreira, who argue just that: If we give up the Copernican principle, we do not need dark energy to explain the composition of the universe.(Scientific American, March 23, 2009)
The winning entry is by KeithDP:
I liked it because he made a number of pertinent points that less often raised than they should be:
- “The problem with the principle is how do you define special?” The fact that Earth is the only known home of life should cause it to be classified as special, at least for now.
- “Unlike the multiverse, the theory [re the existence or necessity of dark energy] is testable and efforts are underway to confirm or dismiss it.” Indeed. Consider the upcoming SNO+ experiment in Sudbury, Canada, whose awesome facilities I toured recently – which aims to trap a particle of dark matter. That would be a good beginning.
- ” … will we also discover that Earth’s place in the centre of a vast cosmic void is another necessary precondition for life?” That too would be useful, because we could revise current estimates of where to look for life. Too many estimates have been Drake equation-style “choose your own parameters.” Fun, sure, but science fiction.
So KeithDP needs to provide me with a current postal address at [email protected] to receive his free copy of the Privileged Planet DVD.
I will shortly judge Question 5: Darwinian fairy tales: Why middle-aged men have shiny scalps: “What is the down side for serious Darwinists to just cutting the “evolutionary psychology” psychodrama loose, and focusing on what real science can say about evolution?”
Now here is KeithDP’s entry:
Copernicus’ modest proposition was that the solar system is heliocentric and not geocentric. Centuries later came the Copernican principle: the idea that Earth does not occupy any special position in the universe. In the last few decades this principle has been expanded to include the idea that there is nothing special about humans or the Earth. This idea is often called the Copernican principle of mediocrity. In recent years some astronomers have taken the idea further still and have popularized the notion that there is nothing special about our universe, as it is just one among an infinite number of other universes: a multiverse. Although no evidence supports the theory, and as it is not testable no evidence is ever likely to, it is considered the natural and ultimate culmination of the Copernican principle.The problem with the principle is how do you define special? In the Rare Earth hypothesis, scientists Ward and Brownlee identify no less than a dozen factors that make complex life possible on Earth. In their view these factors make the Earth, if not special, than certainly very rare. Astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez goes further and identifies factors that make the Earth particularly suitable for scientific discovery. In his view the Earth is more than a rare planet; it is a privileged one. Recently some astronomers have questioned the standard model of the universe that holds that at least 70% of the universe is composed of mystery material. They propose this material is unnecessary if we ignore the Copernican principle and assume instead that the Earth lies at or near the centre of a vast cosmic void with far lower density than other regions of space.
Unlike the multiverse, the theory is testable and efforts are underway to confirm or dismiss it. Considering what we have learned about what makes the Earth’s particular location in the solar system and in the galaxy especially suitable for life, will we also discover that Earth’s place in the centre of a vast cosmic void is another necessary precondition for life?
Do we have further need of the Copernican principle? Or is it instead merely a personal philosophical position about humanity’s place? Does it tell us more about the belief system of those who hold it than it does about the universe?
40 Responses to Uncommon Descent Contest 4: Can we save physics by dumping the Copernican principle? – Winner announced
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bornagain77 (24-25) [off-topic]:
My statement was entirely correct. Self-replicating autocatalytic sets of RNA molecules exist. I said nothing about how they came into existence.
Would you like to bet money on whether the overall complexity of autocatalytic self-replicators will be reduced substantially in the next five years? I will wager big bucks that larger autocatalytic sets of much simpler RNA molecules will be discovered within ten years.
This reminds me of the good ol’ ARN days, when Sal Cordova was utterly sure that the specified complexity of a universal computer was far beyond Dembski’s bound of 500 bits for entirely naturalistic processes. That is, Roger Penrose had not figured out how to encode a particular kind of universal computer in fewer than 5,000 bits, and Sal took this to mean that any universal computer required intelligent design. Then I informed Sal that a universal computer had been encoded in well under 400 bits. And Stephen Wolfram argues that universal computation is actually much simpler than that.
I trust you see the close analogy to what you and I are discussing here. Do you really want to make much ado of the complexity of the RNA molecules in the “proof of principle” study of Lincoln and Joyce? We’ve seen just the beginning of a new line of research. The elements of the autocatalytic set are going to get much simpler.
PaulBurnett,
“Here’s some involvement by the Discovery Institute: “We will also pursue possible legal assistance in response to resistance to the integration of design theory into public school science curricula.” – The Discovery Institute’s ‘Wedge Strategy’”
Paul, I appreciate this, but this is not what I asked for. What I asked was: ““Do you have any knowledge of a case where the Discovery Institute was involved in or supported an effort to require the teaching of ID in public schools?”
This ain’t it. All this is is talking about strategy, which apparently the DI abandoned because perhaps they didn’t think it was a good strategy. So besides talking about it, do you have examples where the Discovery Institute actually was involved in a concerted effort to force the teaching of ID in public schools?
Sorry, perhaps I didn’t make that clear, so it’s entirely my fault.
TM your words seem to drip with self-assured smugness as well as arrogance, which is quite interesting since you never addressed the clear problem of information generation presented by upright. Have you solved this problem?
As cbass commented on another thread:
“The scientists were able to facilitate the quasi-spontaneous creation of ribonucleotides, similarly to the famous Urey-Miller experiment so many years ago. Granted, a ribonucleotide is a more complex molecule than an amino acid, but, essentially, the scientists have succeeded in creating a couple of letters of the biological alphabet (in a “thermodynamically uphill” environment). What they need to do now is create the remaining letters, and then show how these letters were able to attach themselves together to form long chains of RNA, and arrange themselves in a specific order to encode information for creating specific proteins, and instructions to assemble the proteins into cells, tissues, organs, systems, and finally, complete phenotypes.
http://www.uncommondescent.com...../#comments
Nice Peer Reviews Upright:
I especially liked this closing statement in
“The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity David L. Abel”
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.g.....id=2662469
To focus the scientific community’s attention on its own tendencies toward overzealous metaphysical imagination bordering on “wish-fulfillment,” we propose the following readily falsifiable null hypothesis, and invite rigorous experimental attempts to falsify it:
“Physicodynamics cannot spontaneously traverse The Cybernetic Cut [9]: physicodynamics alone cannot organize itself into formally functional systems requiring algorithmic optimization, computational halting, and circuit integration.”
So TM do you want to bet “big” money on that Null hypothesis being falsified?
PaulBurnett,
“And surely you will admit the Discovery Institute’s involvement in a certain “biology” text, “Of Pandas and People,” the writing of which involved several Fellows of the Discovery institute.”
No, I’m afraid I will not admit that one either. The DI simply published a book about ID for use in public and/or private schools. Let’s not forget, Pual, that this country has many private schools, where it is legal to teach ID alongside evolution. The DI published a book that would enhance that teaching. That public schools also picked up on this text does not necessarily show that the DI supported any kind of requirement whatsoever.
Now I will grant you, and there is some evidence even from the Dover trial transcripts, that the DI sent copies of the book to school districts and school boards unsolicited. However, this is not a reflection that they were attempting to “require” (and that’s the key word here) the teaching of ID in public schools.
There is a difference. Lots of publishing companies send copies of their works to school boards. It is common practice. Why shouldn’t the Discovery Institute do the same?
PaulBurnett,
Sorry, I have to clarify. I’m not saying that the evidence is not out there. It’s just that I don’t believe you have produced it here. I’m open to the possibility that there is evidence for this, and if that is the case, then I don’t support it, and it is not the Discovery Intsitute’s current policy based on what they currently have posted on their website.
CannuckianYankee (#33) wrote: “What I asked was: ““Do you have any knowledge of a case where the Discovery Institute was involved in or supported an effort to require the teaching of ID in public schools?”
…and in (#36): “…it is not the Discovery Intsitute’s current policy based on what they currently have posted on their website.”
My understanding is that the Discovery Institute has worked with a number of states’ (Missouri, Alabama, Iowa, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Mississippi, others) pro-creationism legislators to enact “Academic Freedom Act” bills (see http://www.academicfreedompetition.com/freedom.php) which support “…presenting scientific information pertaining to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution.” – which everybody understands opens the door for intelligent design.
Please let me know where on the Discovery Institute’s website a policy is posted saying they are stopping this meddling.
bornagain [still off-topic],
There is absolutely nothing smug or arrogant in saying that the first solution to a problem is almost never the most simple solution that will be discovered. The very fact that Lincoln and Joyce improved their system considerably with a limited amount of directed evolution suggests strongly that further improvement is to come.
The stunning arrogance is on the parts of those who pretend to establish by empirical science answers to ultimate questions of origins, biological and cosmological. The neo-atheist and the IDist are twin sons of different mothers. My stance is that we need to bring down all the priests of science. Science is grossly overvalued as a way of knowing in our culture.
No one is going to establish scientifically how life actually originated. There is no fossil evidence. We have no time machine. The experiments we do today apply to the earth of four billion years ago only under the assumption that physics was then as it is now.
The best mainstream OOL researchers can do is to establish plausible mechanisms of abiogenesis. The best IDers can do is to advertise that the mainstream researchers have failed.
Upright BiPed (29):
Sorry to be slow responding — got sick.
Indeed. You first appeared here at UD, I believe, to lay into Steve Fuller. You seemed like a player in the ID movement. You subsequently stated that it was Michael Denton who got you interested in ID. You are more likely to refer to agency and mind than to intelligence. You post over and over about the design manifest in the genetic code. You told my anima that some of her observations on the philosophy of science were straight out of the textbook. Hmm.
Want me to work at giving a detailed account of how painfully bad Trevors and Abel are in their remarks about information and computation? Put your real name in a white box out on the home page, and get the exchange moving. I also have some choice remarks about grotesque parodies of falsification — especially Abel’s million-dollar prize. I will not comment on details of biochemistry because, unlike the hoary twain, I make strong statements only in areas I have studied. (Trevors and Abel haven’t even made it through Chapter 1 of the standard text on algorithmic information theory, Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications.)
BTW, I had already read both papers. I excluded Trevors and Abel from my chapter on ID for Design by Evolution because I thought their work was quite weak. The recent tirade by Abel is the most putrid mass of word salad I have ever choked down. I do have to admit, however, that the reference list — all the stuff that Abel rants against, whether he understands it or not — is very good.
Tom Englishhttp://BoundedTheoretics.com
http://BoundedTheoretics.com