A Bewildered Listener

We seem, as a culture, to be gradually disqualifying certain academic pursuits in precisely the wrong order. First to go was the Science of sciences -- philosophy. It has been wholeheartedly cast out of the realm of proper academia and is now viewed as a trivial pursuit for use in poetry, in axioms on the sides of coffee cups, and on The View. Shortly thereafter, the sciences of humanities were derailed then sidelined -- still pursued, yes, but rather condescendingly. And now, science proper has become so self-righteous and puffed up that it has begun to dismantle itself. See the following:

I, of course, am no physicist, but I believe that many dimwits would be able to see the problems in what I heard this morning on PRI (NPR). The program host was interviewing various scientists about everything from time travel to space shuttles to science fiction. Lastly, a British professor was interviewed about the so-called anthropic principle.

The idea was presented as the fact that every single physical law that we encounter in the universe is completely tuned for human existence, and that all the history of the universe has fashioned itself for the perfect developement of life -- specifically human life. As the professor pointed out, the standard scientific answer for this bizarre coinky-dink is the weak anthropic principle, i.e., "That's just the way it is. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be here." The professor pointed out that this is no answer at all.

Ah, I though, here's a man who is not afraid to recognize the glaring truth of the universe.

Wrong.

What followed was a half hour of the most absurdly weird set of hypotheses on the origins of the anthropic principle might be. It came down to three answers.

First, the professor flew in the face of all logic and decided to change the rules of the argument to suit the outcome as he viewed it. This also, I think, requires some sketchy math. If you view the way the universe is as a matter of odds, then our universe is a one in quadrillions phenomenon. Quadrillions, in fact, are much to small of numbers. It possibly extends beyond where human numbers can quantify. So how can we fix this? Let's up the number of entries. If we make a quadrillion entries, then we're bound to have a perfect universe in there somehow. In short the professor claims that there are possibly trillions and trillions of universes out there, and we just happen to be the one that meshes with life. This is nothing but fantasy. We can pull any hypothesis out of thin air, and it becomes an exciting scientific theory. But the glaring truth on the face of things should be suppressed.

The second theory was even more ridiculous. The quantam theory is that essentially, these are fluid, changeable physical laws, and there is clear intentionality in the universe. Therefore, we can only assume that humans develop to such a point that someday, in the future, they will figure out how to manipulate space and time, and establish the origins of their own universe. ?????????

And then, the last theory is the pure theory of compulsion. That something in the universe drives itself to life. And that's all there is to it. This one teeters on the brink of intelligent design, and the host asked the professor if God fit into the picture, to which the professor replied that many might believe so, but that would be unscientific, and purely religious.

I wonder, what is so unscientific about that? And what is so scientific about science?

The professor also engaged in one of the most frustrating of logical contradictions. He said that if there was something scientific behind Intelligent Design (as opposed to his theories, which I suppose are just bursting with evidence) then it would be no problem. But apparently, we know there is no science in intelligent design. It's religion.

This is along the lines of saying that we'll believe O.J. was the killer the day that we see some hard evidence. The prosocutor brings out the DNA samples. Oh, we say, that can't be O.J.'s DNA -- he wasn't there, remember?