Customer Reviews

The Anthropic Principle - New DVD - Outstanding Primer on Intelligent Design

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I heard about this years ago and spent more than a little time trying to track down a copy -- with no success. (Why the BBC drops so many of their productions I will never understand. They also did a great piece on one of my heroes, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, that appears to have also quietly dissappeared.) Anyway, I was thrilled to get my hands on a copy and find that is completely lives up to its reputation. As a Christian who is active in apologetics, this has quickly become one of my favorite tools. Note: I took away a star only because some people may be put off a bit by the datedness of the interviewees (it was produced in 1988). It is not so much their ideas (which are still extremely relevant) but their appearances! Proves the old maxim that great intelligence and an acute sense of style (check out the haircuts) don't necesarrily go hand-in-hand!)

I've just watched and it's brilliant viewing. It's very very thought provoking. Please remove the Intelligent Design tag from this DVD listing though. It has absolutely nothing to do with 'Intelligent Design'. This is an explanation of a scientific theory that puts the observer in a very special place. This does not necessarily suggest a God, and it absolutely certainly could never be used to somehow give scientific reasoning to any human religion. Fantasy is fantasy. Science is science.

I originally saw this 20 odd years ago. It was produced Horizon on BBC TVv in the UK where I live. It made quite an impression on me
It certainly makes you think. The universe certainly is strange and it raises some quite profound implications.

But why did the sellers have to add the tag to this ? - An Intelligent design primer ? Probably because they have a religious bias. That is someones 'opinion' NOT the title.
This is a SCIENCE type video. And yes after watching it you may conclude lots of things. But please don't add the 'intelligent design' b******t tag to this.

In an infinite universe there are infinite possibilities.

The Anthropic Principle is Intelligent Design writ large. Usually Creationists/ID proponents confine themselves to evolutionary Biology. Not so the scientists interviewed for this documentary. These are Professors of Physics, Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics.

After summarizing the history of astronomy and cosmology since Copernicus in about 2 minutes and, given the sterile mathematical depiction of such a pointless Universe, the "destiny" of human beings is described as "tatty." To call human life "tatty" because in the vast scale of the Universe we are insignificant is to underscore a meaningless point. It also denies the basic inherent value of human life regardless of the size of the Universe. But such a pejorative judgement based on the sheer scope of the Universe is precisely what the Anthropists intend to overturn. And in so doing restore to man his priviliged pre-Copernican status, a special creature at the very center of things. Mathematics, of course, cannot place a value on human existence. And so try as they might, these professors cannot make mathematics render up any meaning about the place of humanity in the cosmos. Most grating, however, is the fact that while they employ mathematics to demonstrate the meaninglessness of human existence, they also employ it to demonstrate that the Universe "must" be as it is in order to produce human life. That is called having one's cake and eating it.

Instead they resort to the ploy of ascribing intentionality to the Universe. These professors seem unaware that they are merely projecting human will and intention onto the impersonal physical processes of the Universe. Paul Davies, for instance, observes the "linkage" between the emergence of the human being and the size of the Universe and concludes that this precise size was required for life and therefore the Universe was purposefully designed and administered to allow for the conditions that allow for life. Which is more a belief than a scientifically provable hypothesis.

The basic Anthropic question is, "How important is mankind in the scheme of things?" But it is worth noting that the "scheme" is merely our construct, and mankind's importance even more so. There is no grand universal scheme in which we are vital participants. Other than this Earth, there is no grand scheme of things in which we might be important. As most astronomers and cosmologists believe that the Universe is teeming with life, it makes no sense to bemoan our current state of isolation or seeming lack of importance in the vast scheme of the Universe.

The underlying presumption of the Anthropists is that the Universe has a reason to be and that reason is human existence. The Anthropists make what they consider hay with the basic physical "constants" that allow for the formation of stable particles, etc. Using mathematics to defend the idea that there is an "order" and, indeed, a reason for the Universe to be (and be as it is), Prof. Sciama of Cambridge notes that if any of these numerical values were even slighly different, Poof! no Universe. But, so what. Maybe this Universe is just the metaphorical roll of the dice. Maybe there have been an infinite number of universes and this one happened to turn out this way. If there is a continuous cycle of birth and death (Big Bang/Big Crunch), then it is incredibly good fortune to be alive. "God" may not play dice with this Universe, but who is to say "he" didn't roll the dice with others that didn't work out quite as neatly. The "what if" is irrelevant in constructing an argument about the reasons why this Universe is as it is. It simply is that way. To posit, even implicitly, a purposeful designer who constructed the Univese as the reason for existence is to leap into theist speculation.

There are, according to this presentation, a number of subtle variations on the Anthropic Principle. The most extreme being the Participatory Principle which asserts that "It would be observers who bring the Universe into existence." This might also be characterized as participatory solopsism since without human observers there would be no Universe. This position is little more than an elaboration on the old conundrum: if there is no observer and a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound. According to eminent physicist John Wheeler the answer is no. And further, based on the ideas of quantum physics and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, the forest itself doesn't exist without a human observing it.

One of the resident experts on the Anthropic Principle is Prof. David Deutsch of Oxford who is a proponent of the Final Anthropic Principle. Deutsch makes Arthur C. Clarke and Olaf Stapledon look like rank amateurs in his description of men like gods who are "destined" to spread across the vast reaches of space, know all there is to know, control all the known powers and, apparently, end up at the resturaunt at the end of the universe.

Finally, the documentary displays a quote from Fred Hoyle (he of the steady state Universe theory), to wit: that the stars in this Universe were "deliberately designed" to allow for the conditions conducive to the development of life. Which rather begs the question.

All-in-all, the Anthropic Principle is the attempt to cast modern cosmology into a medieval frame of mind wherein humans are quite literally the cause, the raison d'etre for which the Universe exists. We have a place in the scheme of things because without us not only would the Universe be pointless, but without a cause. The Universe, apparently, has a purpose and that purpose is us.