John, Fantastically informative and considered. I admit I have neither read the book nor seen the movie, so my comments are based entirely on your description. Kudos for the effort. I was wondering however...Since the "anthropic principle" is wholly an attempt to scientifically support creationism, does that not turn the book to supporting ID? Your lucid and thoughtful analysis of the book and its voluminous scientific tidbits only supports the contention that they seek to bury their real intentions under so much "evidence" that the reader/watcher do not really know what is being said. Rather like a subliminal message. The anthropic principle is ID in a slightly different form, and one which has already been scientifically rejected. For those out there who may not have heard the term, it is the proposal that all of the physical laws in the universe seem to be specifically fine tuned to support life as we know it, giving the appearance of design. Of course, natural selection and evolution argue the exact opposite, i.e. life evolved to suit the pre-existing physical laws. Also, since they are intentionally trying to rile up(or counter) those who follow the "Copernican principle", does it not follow that they are trying to support the reverse(or some version of the reverse)? The reverse is an earth centered universe(geocentrism) in which we are afforded a special observational perspective on the universe, since we are at its exact center, and the universe rotates around us and not vice versa. Please forgive the run-on sentence. The "Copernican principle" is such a fighting term, because it eliminates the plausibility of any scientific theory that requires a special point of view or perspective. Intelligent design requires such a perspective, and must find a way around the Copernican principle or ultimately fail like all the other special-perspective theories throughout history. Mark Janzen Registrar/Collections Manager Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection Wichita State University (316)978-5850 John Stoke <[log in to unmask]> Sent by: Museum To discussion list [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask] cc SE.LSOFT.COM> Subject Smithsonian / ID Movie (I read the 06/04/2005 07:45 book) AM Please respond to Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask] SE.LSOFT.COM> I tried to post these comments on Thursday, and again on Friday, but I think we were having server problems. Perhaps this one will take... ************************** Dear Colleagues, My institution, which is the science and operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope, appropriately requires that the communication of personal opinion be identified as such, and as not representative of views held or endorsed by the institution or its governors or sponsors. I hereby so declare, and suspect that this message will testify to the wisdom of that regulation! A good number of months ago while in a bookstore I spotted a book in the astronomy section entitled "The Privileged Planet." (This is the book upon which the movie under discussion is based.) One of the first things I do when a book intrigues me is to see whether its dust jacket contains an endorsement from anyone I know. I found these two: "This thoughtful, delightfully contrarian book will rile up those who believe the 'Copernican principle' is an essential philosophical component of modern science. Is our universe designedly congenial to intelligent, observable life? Passionate advocates for the search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) will find much to ponder in this carefully documented analysis." - Owen Gingrich, Harvard- Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and "Impressively researched and lucidly written, The Privileged Planet will surely rattle if not dislodge a pet assumption held by many interpreters of modern science: the so-called Copernican Principle (which isn't actually very Copernican!). But Gonzalez and Richards' argument, though controversial, is so carefully and moderately presented that any reasonable critique of it must itself address the astonishing evidence which has for so long somehow escaped our notice. I therefore expect this book to renew - and to raise to a new level - the whole scientific and philosophical debate about earth's cosmic significance. It is a high class piece of work that deserves the widest possible audience" - Dennis Danielson, Professor of English, University of British Columbia. Owen Gingrich is a respected historian of astronomy (and please note his affiliation with a scholarly component of the Smithsonian Institution) and has given invited talks to our science staff as part of our academic colloquia series. Dennis Danielson is the editor of an acclaimed anthology of cosmological writings entitled "The Book of the Cosmos." He was an invited lunchtime speaker at an American Astronomical Society a few years ago, and subsequently was an invited colloquium speaker here for a talk entitled "The Great Copernican Cliché," a presentation that generated a more spirited discussion afterwards than most that I have experienced here. When (still in the bookstore) I flipped through the book I found hundreds of citations from the scientific literature, respected journals such as the Astronomical Journal, the Astrophysical Journal, and so on. Since this promised to be the kind of science-related book that I enjoy the most, one that endeavors to synthesize data and advance an interesting point of view supported by that data (in this instance, the point of view that there really is something special about the earth), and since one of the co-authors is a bona-fide university research astronomer (I didn't know much about the Discovery Institute and its co- author), I bought it and read it. I read a lot of astronomy books and I found this one to be more thought-provoking than many. The attributions by Gingrich and Danielson were, on the whole, accurate; the book is written in a humble tone and gives the reader a lot to ponder. It's a rather gentle presentation of ideas and I found the modesty and near-tentativeness of the authors' tone ingratiating. I didn't detect anything that struck me as particularly sinister or anti-science (there were no appeals to the Bible, no appeals to god-of-the-gaps miracles), although the book does promote a view that is certainly not in line with fashionable philosophical worldviews within academia. I did not find the arguments overwhelmingly convincing -- it's more of a door-opener to some new ideas -- but they certainly did cause me to consider the difference between well-entrenched assumptions in cosmology and conclusions supported by data. There were literally dozens of moments in which I found myself reacting "Hmm. hadn't thought of that before." (Example: Could the fact that spiral galaxies have observed radial metalicity gradients across their disks mean that there are galactic 'habitable zones' (places where the proportion of heavier elements enables the development of life) akin to the 'habitable zones' thought to exist around stars (places where the temperature and thermal stability are conducive to life)? Interesting idea.) The book does not deal (at least not to my recollection) with the biological "Intelligent Design" dispute, but is more an advancement of a point of view with respect to the 'anthropic principle' in cosmology, and it could be considered an extension and expansion of arguments put forth by Ward and Brownlee in their book "Rare Earth." Perhaps one could think of the book's subject as being a 'cousin' to ID in that, like ID, it argues for the notion that intention or purpose could be inferred from characteristics of nature. Overall I'd say that the book deals with the kind of questions that resonate greatly with the public: "OK, you've collected lots of data, now tell me: What does it all mean?" Perhaps it could be said to straddle the line between physics and metaphysics. I enjoy books like that, even if I don't necessarily settle into agreement with an author's position. I would like to think that science museums could be venues for interesting discussions about 'what the data mean, or might mean.' So long as a discussion is clearly identified as such, and properly distinguished from the data itself, it could provide an invigorating reminder of one of the reasons science is done. I have not seen the video, and don't have any plans to, but I do have a hard time imagining how the elaborated arguments in the book could be reduced to that format. The book's force depends on the gradual accumulation of a lot of individually small ideas and observations and I don't see a short video doing that nearly as well. (But of course I could be wrong, having not seen it.) Sincerely, John Stoke John M. Stoke Manager, Informal Science Education E/PO Lead, The James Webb Space Telescope Office of Public Outreach Space Telescope Science Institute 3700 San Martin Drive Baltimore MD 21218 USA Tel +1 410 338 4394 Fax +1 410 338 4579 [log in to unmask] http://hubblesource.stsci.edu http://jwstsite.stsci.edu/ ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). 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