Cosmology and the mediocrity principle

[otseng]

The mediocrity principle is the philosophical notion that "if an item is drawn at random from one of several sets or categories, it's likelier to come from the most numerous category than from any one of the less numerous categories" (Kukla 2009).[1] The principle has been taken to suggest that there is nothing very unusual about the evolution of the Solar System, the Earth, humans, or any one nation. It is a heuristic in the vein of the Copernican principle, and is sometimes used as a philosophical statement about the place of humanity. The idea is to assume mediocrity, rather than starting with the assumption that a phenomenon is special, privileged or exceptional.[2][3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediocrity_principle

Current cosmology assumes that the mediocrity principle is true. Our solar system, the earth, and humans are not special. But, is this assumption true? Why or why not?

[otseng]

So what? It shows that everything doesn't revolve around the earth. Therefore there is no reason to believe that the earth is the "center of creation".

So then you have not provided any evidence that Galileo discovered to show that heliocentrism is true.

The first real evidence that heliocentrism was true came hundreds of years after Galileo when instruments were accurate enough to detect stellar parallax.

He also showed the Jupiter has moons that revolve around it. We take that for granted today because we know that the universe isn't Earth-centered. But back in the days of Galileo that would be considered blaspheme.

It wasn't considered blasphemy, unless you want to say it was blasphemy against the Greeks.

Galileo didn't need to prove that the Sun was the center of the Solar System. All he had do to was show that the Earth is not. And he did that.

Tycho Brahe had already developed a model where everything did not immediately revolve around the earth. So, this was not really anything new.

He did discover other moons that did not revolve around the earth. Again, this by itself does not mean the earth is not in the center.

I never made any claim that life "must" exist elsewhere. I simply claim that based on everything we currently know about life and the universe there is absolutely no reason to think that it wouldn't.

If there's no reason to think that there would not be life elsewhere, then wouldn't there be life elsewhere?

You try to claim that it's too improbably, but where is your data to back up that claim?

Like I said before, I can provide that if we want to get into it.

But what we do know is that life doesn't require anything special.

That's wishful thinking that's contrary to decades of origin of life research.

So why shouldn't there be other life in the universal soup?

Soup? What do you mean by that?

Also, why would a God create such a vast universe if his only intent was to create humans on earth?

If you want to use the scale of the universe as evidence, it actually points to us being near the center of the size scale.

Assuming the universe is at least 10^24 m in size. Assuming subatomic particles are 10^-15 m to 10^-35 m in size. (Source)

The middle of that would be 10^4.5 to 10^-5.5 m. Humans would fall near the middle of this scale range.

For you to claim that the odds of life coming around are very remote is a bogus claim on your behalf. You have absolutely no data whatsoever to back up that claim.

It would take a long time to detail all the problems of origin of life. This is a field that has been in active research for many decades. The main result of all the research is discovering more and more problems that have to be overcome for life to originate naturalistically. If you wish, we can go over those problems that have been discovered.

I don't need to go there. And neither do you.

OK, I offered to present them, but since you don't want to go there, we don't need to.

And where is such an argument going anyway? If we ever get back to the Bible the very same absurdities and contradictions are still going to exist in the Bible no matter what. And I would still reject the Bible for those very same reasons.

Look, you are the only one here raising the issue about the Bible and the Biblical God. I'm not even arguing for that. Like I said, the most I'm arguing for is theism.

Where is my argument going that the origin of life is practically impossible and that odds are that there is no life elsewhere? It confirms that the principle of mediocrity is false.

[otseng]

It could be an infinite Euclidean universe or a finite torus universe, whatever.

If the universe expanded from a finite amount of matter/energy a finite period of time ago, it's safe to say that it cannot currently be a universe of infinite size.

As for it being a finite torus, I've already provided evidence that the universe is measured to be flat. Even if it was a torus that wrapped around itself. What would it be wrapping itself in? It must be some higher dimension. So, an extra dimension is required to be postulated for a torus.

Only if mass was "launched" from the starting point in concentrations proportional to its speed. That is to say, the faster the matter sent, the more other matter was sent at that same speed to account for the necessary mass to fill up the increasing vastness of more distant areas.

This amount of mass would be larger and larger for each successive "layer" sent outward, until at some point it just stops because that's the edge of the universe.

It'd be a pretty arbitrary setup if you ask me.

Yes, I'd agree that'd be pretty arbitrary. That's why I believe the universe is not homogeneous.

Could you explain again why it is that moving matter coalesces slower than stationary matter?

I'm not saying that it has to. But, I'm just suggesting that in the flat Euclidean space scenario, it can be possible for things in the center to coalesce first.

The event horizon is sustained by the mass of the black hole. Take its mass away and the event horizon will evaporate.

Yes.

It's actually theorized that black holes do evaporate naturally, by the way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

Yes, but I doubt it can account for the origin of the universe if the Euclidean model is true.

[Divine Insight]

So what? It shows that everything doesn't revolve around the earth. Therefore there is no reason to believe that the earth is the "center of creation".

So then you have not provided any evidence that Galileo discovered to show that heliocentrism is true.

The first real evidence that heliocentrism was true came hundreds of years after Galileo when instruments were accurate enough to detect stellar parallax.

But you are arguing for something that is totally irrelevant. Heliocentricism is not the issue. The issue is whether or not the Earth was at the center of "creation". Not whether the Sun is at the center of creation. In fact, we now know that even though the earth revolves around the sun the entire solar system itself holds not special place in the universe. In fact, it doesn't even hold a special place within the Milky Way Galaxy.

So the idea is that that Heliocentricism needed to be proved, but rather all that needed to be shown is that the earth is not the center of creation. And Galileo did indeed show that.

He also showed the Jupiter has moons that revolve around it. We take that for granted today because we know that the universe isn't Earth-centered. But back in the days of Galileo that would be considered blaspheme.

It wasn't considered blasphemy, unless you want to say it was blasphemy against the Greeks.

Are you attempting to suggest that the Roman Catholic Church has no problem with Galileo?

Galileo didn't need to prove that the Sun was the center of the Solar System. All he had do to was show that the Earth is not. And he did that.

Tycho Brahe had already developed a model where everything did not immediately revolve around the earth. So, this was not really anything new.

He did discover other moons that did not revolve around the earth. Again, this by itself does not mean the earth is not in the center.

It certainly shows that everything does not revolve around the earth. And that was a shock to the theists of the time.

After all, if we see other objects orbiting other "planets" then clearly this brings into question the idea of the earth being the "Center of Creation". Obviously these other planets are central to their moons, etc. And of course, back in those days no one had a clue that the stars were actually just other solar systems not unlike our own.

How long do you continue to cling to the idea that the Earth is the center of creation when we are surrounded by billions of other solar system?

Never mind that the earth isn't even the center of our solar system. Even if it was, but now we would know that there are many other solar systems so that would negate the importance of the earth even if it was at the center of our solar system. But clearly is isn't.

To argue that the earth is special today in light of what we actually know about the cosmos is absolute absurd. I can't believe that you're even bothering to go down this road.

I never made any claim that life "must" exist elsewhere. I simply claim that based on everything we currently know about life and the universe there is absolutely no reason to think that it wouldn't.

If there's no reason to think that there would not be life elsewhere, then wouldn't there be life elsewhere?

I imagine that there is. But that's still not the same as saying that it "must" be there. It is possible that abiogenesis is extremely rare. Buy even if it did only occur once in an entire universe doesn't mean that there "must be" a creator.

On the contrary, all that would mean is that life is quite difficult to get started. I don't think we have any evidence that life is that hard to get started. On the contrary I think we actually have evidence that suggests otherwise.

You try to claim that it's too improbably, but where is your data to back up that claim?

Like I said before, I can provide that if we want to get into it.

No you cannot. We simply have no clue how often abiogensis might have occurred in the universe. If you actually believe that you can provide data to make a statement about then, then clearly you don't even remotely understand the problem.

No human being, or entire group of scientists, or anyone on Planet Earth has access to data to show how probably or improbable life abiogenesis might be.

What you can do is point to arguments made by individuals or groups of individuals who are trying to argue their preferred outcome. But that is not "data". All that amounts to is opinionated arguments. And if they are arguing that abiogenesis is highly improbable they are probably theistic creationists who are heavily biased for that particular conclusion.

But what we do know is that life doesn't require anything special.

That's wishful thinking that's contrary to decades of origin of life research.

It's not wishful thinking at all. On the contrary, unless you can point to some special ingredient in biological animals (especially in humans) that is not merely a combination of the natural known elements, then you are the one who is guilty of "wishful thinking" to proclaim that life needs anything more than this.

So why shouldn't there be other life in the universal soup?

Soup? What do you mean by that?

That's a term many cosmologist often use to refer to the natural chemical make up of the universe. Carl Sagan used this term quite often but I don't know if he was the first to coin it.

The universe is clearly made up of the same chemical elements throughout. And pretty much in roughly the same proportions. This is because the universe at large is most hydrogen and helium, and the heavier elements are made within start at known rates and then spewed into the space around them in pretty much the same proportions. It all follows from the laws of physics of nucleosynthesis.

So that's what I mean when I say that the soup of the universe is pretty much the same in all galaxies. There's nothing special about the soup we evolved from.

Also, why would a God create such a vast universe if his only intent was to create humans on earth?

If you want to use the scale of the universe as evidence, it actually points to us being near the center of the size scale.

No it doesn't. We can only speak of the scale of the universe that we can visually see. That reference point necessarily places us in the "center" of that field of vision. But we have no reason to believe that the universe ends at the limit of our vision.

Assuming the universe is at least 10^24 m in size. Assuming subatomic particles are 10^-15 m to 10^-35 m in size. (Source)

The middle of that would be 10^4.5 to 10^-5.5 m. Humans would fall near the middle of this scale range.

We have no clue how big the universe might actually be. The size of the universe you are giving is only the size of the observable universe. Again, that's just an illusion bought about by our horizon of vision.

Where is my argument going that the origin of life is practically impossible and that odds are that there is no life elsewhere? It confirms that the principle of mediocrity is false.

But you haven't made a case for either of those.

You haven't shown that the origin of life is "practically impossible", nor have you shown "that the odds are that there is no life elsewhere".

You haven't made a convincing case for either one of these.

And as far as I'm concerned it would be impossible for you to even make a case for either of these claims. You are trying to make a case for things that simply are not yet scientifically known.

We, as humans, do not yet possess the required information to determine the final answers to those questions. Therefore any "case" you make can be nothing more than an opinion.

And on that count it's my opinion that there are plenty of reasons to believe that abiogensis can occur in a universe like ours. The fact that we have already discovered that life evolved from very simple organisms to far more complex organism over billions of years already points in that direction. So abiogenesis is the most likely case for that reason alone.

The claim that the odds are that there is no life elsewhere is a totally bogus claim. I personally believe precisely the opposite. I believe that life is most likely quite abundant in the universe. Your claim that the odds are that there is no life elsewhere is nothing by an opinion. What do you base those odds on?

I based my opinion that life is most likely abundant in the universe on the simple fact that we're here and we evolved out of the same 'chemical soup' that exists all throughout the universe.

And let's face it, you have a biased motivation for your views, because you are arguing to "theism".

I do not have a biased motivation. I am not arguing for atheism. On the contrary, I'm totally open to a mystical or spiritual essence to reality. But why should that make Humans or Earth "all-important"?

You are arguing for far more than just theism. You are arguing for an extremely "Human-Centric" theism. You are basically arguing for human arrogance. That humans are somehow the epitome of all of creation.

I don't by that for second.

Even if their is a God surely that God can do far better than humans. If anything we're just a stepping stone in an evolutionary process that is ultimately headed for something far superior to humans. And why bother creating such a vast universe just to create a bunch of egotistical self-important humans who think they are the epitome of creation?

Especially if we're going to then consider Christian theology where the vast majority of those will then be cast into a state of eternal punishment.

I don't need to be an atheist to reject absurd mythologies.

[FarWanderer]

It could be an infinite Euclidean universe or a finite torus universe, whatever.

If the universe expanded from a finite amount of matter/energy a finite period of time ago, it's safe to say that it cannot currently be a universe of infinite size.

True, but your "if" is based off an assumption I've not agreed with. The topic of whether matter/energy is infinite has yet to even been discussed before now.

As for it being a finite torus, I've already provided evidence that the universe is measured to be flat. Even if it was a torus that wrapped around itself. What would it be wrapping itself in?

Itself? Didn't you just say that?

It must be some higher dimension. So, an extra dimension is required to be postulated for a torus.

I'm not sure that's even true.

And if it were true then so what? We already know that space-time curves from gravity, so is another dimension really a stretch? Apparently the math fits beautifully for an eleven dimensional world (which is the basis for String Theory's popularity).

And on the other hand, how is positing an entity "outside" of time and space that is still causally effective somehow less of a jump than an extra dimension or 8?

Heck, are the two views even that different, fundamentally speaking? Both are simply extensions beyond the 4d space-time we know. Personally, I think there is something more than the 4d space-time world too. The difference between you and me in this regard is that I'm not pretending to have any special knowledge about it.

Only if mass was "launched" from the starting point in concentrations proportional to its speed. That is to say, the faster the matter sent, the more other matter was sent at that same speed to account for the necessary mass to fill up the increasing vastness of more distant areas.

This amount of mass would be larger and larger for each successive "layer" sent outward, until at some point it just stops because that's the edge of the universe.

It'd be a pretty arbitrary setup if you ask me.

Yes, I'd agree that'd be pretty arbitrary. That's why I believe the universe is not homogeneous.

Belief noted.

Scientific studies have determined the known universe to be statistically homogeneous on large scales. What gives?

Could you explain again why it is that moving matter coalesces slower than stationary matter?

I'm not saying that it has to. But, I'm just suggesting that in the flat Euclidean space scenario, it can be possible for things in the center to coalesce first.

Then the way I see it, you're argument amounts to:

"The center is a special location therefore there is a higher probability that things will coalesce there first."

Which is a complete non-sequitur, as I've been saying from the beginning. Instead of arguing off of vague personal interpretations of the implications of being "special", how about we talk about evidence? Don't you have some heavy elements to explain?

The event horizon is sustained by the mass of the black hole. Take its mass away and the event horizon will evaporate.

Yes.

It's actually theorized that black holes do evaporate naturally, by the way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

Yes, but I doubt it can account for the origin of the universe if the Euclidean model is true.

What's your point? That the universe had a cause? Maybe it did, I don't know. I'll say this though: Reality, holistically speaking, is necessarily causeless (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the concept of causality doesn't apply to it).

I take it you intend to somehow tie this black hole stuff in with the age of the Earth and stars...?

[otseng]

In fact, we now know that even though the earth revolves around the sun the entire solar system itself holds not special place in the universe. In fact, it doesn't even hold a special place within the Milky Way Galaxy.

Yes, I agree with these two points. I'm not arguing the earth is in the center of the solar system or in the center of the Milky Way.

So the idea is that that Heliocentricism needed to be proved, but rather all that needed to be shown is that the earth is not the center of creation. And Galileo did indeed show that.

You keep claiming this, but you haven't shown any evidence that Galileo presented that the earth was not in the center of the universe. Yes, he discovered the phases of Venus and the moons of Jupiter. These did upend assumptions made by the Greeks of the heavens, but it did not show that the earth was not at the center.

He also showed the Jupiter has moons that revolve around it. We take that for granted today because we know that the universe isn't Earth-centered. But back in the days of Galileo that would be considered blaspheme.

It wasn't considered blasphemy, unless you want to say it was blasphemy against the Greeks.

Are you attempting to suggest that the Roman Catholic Church has no problem with Galileo?

I'm referring to Jupiter having moons. Was he condemned for that?

As for Galileo having problems with the RCC, yes, he had problems. But, it was more than simply believing in heliocentrism. His main problem was in how he presented it.

It certainly shows that everything does not revolve around the earth. And that was a shock to the theists of the time.

You completely side-stepped Brahe. Galileo was not the first to propose things that did not revolve the earth. Brahe had already done that.

After all, if we see other objects orbiting other "planets" then clearly this brings into question the idea of the earth being the "Center of Creation". Obviously these other planets are central to their moons, etc.

Of course. Where did I ever say that everything is revolving around the earth?

How long do you continue to cling to the idea that the Earth is the center of creation when we are surrounded by billions of other solar system?

Until someone can produce counter-evidence to my evidence.

To argue that the earth is special today in light of what we actually know about the cosmos is absolute absurd.

I don't think it's absurd if that's what the evidence points to. So far, I've presented two ideas on why the earth is special:
1. Sentient life only exists on earth
2. We are near the center of the universe

The field of astrobiology also reveals that our planet is special in terms of being hospitable for life. We are discovering that it is rare for a planet to have the right conditions for life.

Buy even if it did only occur once in an entire universe doesn't mean that there "must be" a creator.

If we were the only life in the entire universe, you would not find that peculiar?

I don't think we have any evidence that life is that hard to get started.

There's plenty of evidence, but you don't want for us to get into all that evidence.

No human being, or entire group of scientists, or anyone on Planet Earth has access to data to show how probably or improbable life abiogenesis might be.

You are discounting the findings of origin of life scientists?

What you can do is point to arguments made by individuals or groups of individuals who are trying to argue their preferred outcome.

Who are you referring to? What are their preferred outcomes?

But what we do know is that life doesn't require anything special.

That's wishful thinking that's contrary to decades of origin of life research.

It's not wishful thinking at all.

OK, if it's not wishful thinking, please produce evidence that life doesn't require anything special.

So why shouldn't there be other life in the universal soup?

Soup? What do you mean by that?

That's a term many cosmologist often use to refer to the natural chemical make up of the universe.

If you're just referring to chemical elements, it doesn't offer much of any explanation. Everything material is made up of chemical elements. If there's an implication that some sort of prebiotic soup can cause life to arise, then that's also wishful thinking.

No it doesn't. We can only speak of the scale of the universe that we can visually see. That reference point necessarily places us in the "center" of that field of vision. But we have no reason to believe that the universe ends at the limit of our vision.

Unless one posits ways for things to move faster than the speed of light, then it can't be much larger than the estimate I gave.

We have no clue how big the universe might actually be. The size of the universe you are giving is only the size of the observable universe. Again, that's just an illusion bought about by our horizon of vision.

You have no clue how big the actual universe is, but you do know that it is much bigger than the observable universe?

You haven't shown that the origin of life is "practically impossible", nor have you shown "that the odds are that there is no life elsewhere".

You haven't made a convincing case for either one of these.

Right, I haven't made a case for this yet. But, you said, "I don't need to go there. And neither do you."

You can't complain to me about not making a case if you said we don't need to go there.

We, as humans, do not yet possess the required information to determine the final answers to those questions.

I'm not providing "final" answers. I'm providing arguments based on what we currently know.

The fact that we have already discovered that life evolved from very simple organisms to far more complex organism over billions of years already points in that direction.

It is not a fact. At most, it can be called a theory, if that.

I based my opinion that life is most likely abundant in the universe on the simple fact that we're here and we evolved out of the same 'chemical soup' that exists all throughout the universe.

You have yet to define what is "chemical soup". If you just mean chemical elements, it's not offering much of an argument. Of course everything that is material is made up of chemical elements. Also, just because we're here doesn't demonstrate that evolution is true.

And let's face it, you have a biased motivation for your views, because you are arguing to "theism".

Everyone is biased, but it doesn't matter much in debates. What matters are evidence and logic.

I do not have a biased motivation.

Sorry, you not an unbiased debater. There are no unbiased debaters.

You are arguing for far more than just theism. You are arguing for an extremely "Human-Centric" theism.

True, I'm not arguing for some alien-centric theism.

That humans are somehow the epitome of all of creation.

If the principle of mediocrity is false, then, yes, it would point to humans being special in all of creation.

[otseng]

The topic of whether matter/energy is infinite has yet to even been discussed before now.

I thought it was a pretty safe assumption to make. Do you believe that matter/energy is infinite? Do you also believe that the universe had no beginning? If so, why?

And on the other hand, how is positing an entity "outside" of time and space that is still causally effective somehow less of a jump than an extra dimension or 8?

Not saying whether it's less or more of a jump. Just pointing out that things outside of our universe needs to be posited (whether it is God or extra dimensions).

The difference between you and me in this regard is that I'm not pretending to have any special knowledge about it.

I'm not arguing for any "special knowledge" about things outside our universe right now. Things we know can only be deduced by evidence we see in our universe.

Scientific studies have determined the known universe to be statistically homogeneous on large scales. What gives?

Please present those studies that the universe is homogeneous.

"The center is a special location therefore there is a higher probability that things will coalesce there first."

Which is a complete non-sequitur, as I've been saying from the beginning.

Yes, I have no further evidence that things in the center will actually coalesce first.

At this point, if all the matter was in a black hole, there is nowhere to go without a supernatural explanation for all the matter to escape the black hole.

Reality, holistically speaking, is necessarily causeless (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the concept of causality doesn't apply to it).

Don't know what you mean by this.

I take it you intend to somehow tie this black hole stuff in with the age of the Earth and stars...?

I was going to mention it, but decided it's not pertinent to this thread.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 96 by otseng]

Nothing outside of the Universe needs to be posited.

Similarly, if you had a film that merely existed, the fact that if you interpreted it frame by frame it might seem to have a beginning doesn't necessitate any more than the actual film.

[FarWanderer]

The topic of whether matter/energy is infinite has yet to even been discussed before now.

I thought it was a pretty safe assumption to make. Do you believe that matter/energy is infinite?

I don't know. Honestly, I suspect that the dichotomy somehow doesn't even apply. I'm a big fan of Kant's antinomies.

Do you also believe that the universe had no beginning? If so, why?

Depends what you mean by "beginning". And what you mean by "universe".

And on the other hand, how is positing an entity "outside" of time and space that is still causally effective somehow less of a jump than an extra dimension or 8?

Not saying whether it's less or more of a jump. Just pointing out that things outside of our universe needs to be posited (whether it is God or extra dimensions).

And I was just pointing out that's the best you can do, even granting certain assumptions.

Scientific studies have determined the known universe to be statistically homogeneous on large scales. What gives?

Please present those studies that the universe is homogeneous.

Wikipedia's page on the cosmological principle says so. Under "justification". You can follow the citation link if you like.

Generally, though, I find the claim scattered throughout scientific webpages as though it's so well-established that it doesn't need citation. This make sense to me, as it shouldn't require special experiments to get informative results, just measurements and comparasons of regional matter densities. A ton of work, to be sure, but anyone could do it.

In any case, "The Earth is at the center of a universe created by conventional explosion as opposed to metric expansion" is actually a testable claim. We'd expect that the closer to Earth, the greater the heat and matter density. To my knowledge there are no studies indicating that this is the case, and it's not for lack of trying.

"The center is a special location therefore there is a higher probability that things will coalesce there first."

Which is a complete non-sequitur, as I've been saying from the beginning.

Yes, I have no further evidence that things in the center will actually coalesce first.

I am disappointed and, to be honest, perturbed. I didn't come here to argue about the mediocrity principle and I believe I made myself absolultey clear about that.

At this point, if all the matter was in a black hole, there is nowhere to go without a supernatural explanation for all the matter to escape the black hole.

So all this is just a variation of the cosmological argument? More disappointment.

Reality, holistically speaking, is necessarily causeless (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the concept of causality doesn't apply to it).

Don't know what you mean by this.

Reality as a whole (meaning the universe plus God or anything else) was not caused.

[otseng]

The topic of whether matter/energy is infinite has yet to even been discussed before now.

I thought it was a pretty safe assumption to make. Do you believe that matter/energy is infinite?

I don't know. Honestly, I suspect that the dichotomy somehow doesn't even apply. I'm a big fan of Kant's antinomies.

I'm not sure why you then brought up that infinite matter/energy has yet to be discussed.

Do you also believe that the universe had no beginning? If so, why?

Depends what you mean by "beginning". And what you mean by "universe".

Universe is all material things within our space-time.

Wikipedia's page on the cosmological principle says so. Under "justification". You can follow the citation link if you like.

You mean this one?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_principle

It says:

"In modern physical cosmology, the cosmological principle is an axiom that embodies the working assumption or premise that the distribution of matter in the universe is homogeneous and isotropic when viewed on a large enough scale, since the forces are expected to act uniformly throughout the universe, and should, therefore, produce no observable irregularities in the large scale structuring over the course of evolution of the matter field that was initially laid down by the Big Bang."

It says that homogeneity is an assumption or premise.

The only evidence that it presents is the CMBR. Yes, it is isotropic, but that does not necessarily mean the universe is homogeneous.

We'd expect that the closer to Earth, the greater the heat and matter density.

How so?

I am disappointed and, to be honest, perturbed. I didn't come here to argue about the mediocrity principle and I believe I made myself absolultey clear about that.

Well, refuting the mediocrity principle was the starting point, which then leads to arguing for the earth being near/at the center of the universe. There's no way to get to that point without arguing about the mediocrity principle. Then I believe it's a reasonable assumption that things in the center would coalesce first before things that are moving away. I can't prove that point, but I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption.

A word about the origin of heavy elements. I'm not positing that the heavy elements on earth came from a stellar nucleosynthesis. Though it's a possibility that could've happened, there's no evidence that is how heavy elements are found on earth. What evidence is there that our solar system is the result of a supernova explosion? I'm not sure what is the explanation, but since a supernatural force is required to escape a black hole, a supernatural force could also have formed the heavy elements.

Reality as a whole (meaning the universe plus God or anything else) was not caused.

I would agree that something must be uncaused, or else there is an infinite regress.

[Divine Insight]

To argue that the earth is special today in light of what we actually know about the cosmos is absolute absurd.

I don't think it's absurd if that's what the evidence points to. So far, I've presented two ideas on why the earth is special:
1. Sentient life only exists on earth
2. We are near the center of the universe

We don't know that either one of these claims are true. I've already pointed out the fact that we are simply not in a position to know whether the first claim could be true or not. Certainly as a "claim" is as false as can be because there is no valid reason to be making the claim. So it's certainly a false claim in that sense, even if it accidentally turned out to be true. And we may never even be able to determine that.

The second claim is totally bogus. What makes you say that we are near the center of the universe? There is absolutely no evidence to back up that claim.

The field of astrobiology also reveals that our planet is special in terms of being hospitable for life. We are discovering that it is rare for a planet to have the right conditions for life.

And once again this is a false claim. We have no clue how rare or how abundant life may be in the universe. To make claims like that with our current knowledge of the universe is dishonest. Pure and simple.

We have absolutely no reason to believe that an earth-like Solar System and planet can't be commonplace in every galaxy. Even if there were only one earth-like planet in each galaxies that would be a total of over 100 billion earth-like planets just in the observable universe. That may seem rare from some perspectives, but actually that would be extremely common. In fact if there is life on every single galaxy it's fair to say that the universe is teeming with life.

This would be true even if every other galaxy contained life. That would still be a universe where life is extremely common. You couldn't say that life is rare in the universe until you get down to life being only on maybe one out of every ten galaxies, then you could start saying that life in the universe is rare. But even that wouldn't be quite a bit of life.

Buy even if it did only occur once in an entire universe doesn't mean that there "must be" a creator.

If we were the only life in the entire universe, you would not find that peculiar?

I'm not sure I would use the term "peculiar". I think I would settle for "rare".

There are chemical elements that are extreme rare in the universe. Being rare doesn't imply anything more than that.

I don't think we have any evidence that life is that hard to get started.

There's plenty of evidence, but you don't want for us to get into all that evidence.

I don't believe there is. The so-called "evidence" that life is hard to get started is based entirely on speculation at this point. Speculations being made almost entirely by people who favor creationism. We simply won't know how hard it is to get life started until we discover how it actually did start.

Actually I'm in total disagreement with your claim here anyway. There are many hypotheses being offered for possible ways that life might have gotten started. If it was as difficult as you claim then there wouldn't be so many hypotheses.

I even have some ideas of my own on how life may have gotten started. In fact, if my ideas are correct then life on other planets may be far more like life on earth than we ever dreamed possible. Most biologists and physicists actually believe that life on other planets may be entirely different form life on earth. They are allowing that it may not even be based on DNA. However, I think DNA is a likely candidate to be the foundation of life even on other planets. Of course, it will evolve into different types of creatures, but if they are actually based on DNA they should still be quite similar. And that wouldn't surprise me at all.

No human being, or entire group of scientists, or anyone on Planet Earth has access to data to show how probably or improbable life abiogenesis might be.

You are discounting the findings of origin of life scientists?

I'm not discounting them at all. The fact of the matter is that they don't yet know the answer. Science has shown over the centuries that things always seem more difficult before we figure them out than afterward. Usually after we discover the secrets of nature we end up saying, "Of course that's the way it would have been". But that's after the fact.

By the way, science is still in its infancy. Modern science is barely a few hundred years old. In fact, truly modern science is actually less than 100 years old. We've only just begun. You're acting like we should have been able to figure it all out by know. That's just unrealistic. I'm actually amazed that we have figured out as much as we have about the universe.

What you can do is point to arguments made by individuals or groups of individuals who are trying to argue their preferred outcome.

Who are you referring to? What are their preferred outcomes?

I'm referring to creationists who prefer to believe that life requires a creator.

Modern secular science does not believe that these problems are as insurmountable as you are attempting to argue for. Serious modern scientists are NOT throwing their hands up in the air proclaiming that abiogenesis is simply too difficult it must have been a miracle. They aren't doing that at all. On the contrary most of them are very confident that these secrets will be understood in due time.

But what we do know is that life doesn't require anything special.

That's wishful thinking that's contrary to decades of origin of life research.

It's not wishful thinking at all.

OK, if it's not wishful thinking, please produce evidence that life doesn't require anything special.

I don't need to. I you are the one who is making the claim that life requires something "special", you are the one who needs to make a case for that along with an explanation of what you are calling "special".

You'd also need to show that life requires something more than just the chemistry it's made of. And I wish you the very best of luck with that.

Moreover over, if you could show that I would be very interested in hearing the details on that. I would also like to see your evidence to back up this hypothesis.

You would basically need to show that something else exists in all living things besides just the common atoms that make up the universe.

In fact, Otseng if you could actually do that you would be a household name and you would be a proud winner of a Nobel Prize for sure.

So why do I need to argue against something when you have nothing to argue against?

I can't disprove your fantasies. It's up to you prove that they aren't just fantasies.

So why shouldn't there be other life in the universal soup?

Soup? What do you mean by that?

That's a term many cosmologist often use to refer to the natural chemical make up of the universe.

If you're just referring to chemical elements, it doesn't offer much of any explanation. Everything material is made up of chemical elements. If there's an implication that some sort of prebiotic soup can cause life to arise, then that's also wishful thinking.

What else could it have been?

Your only alternative if to have a magical Santa Claus God creating life using nothing more than the chemical elements and combining them in natural ways.

Why the need for the Santa Clause God then?

If the chemistry of life is natural, then it probably arose naturally.

Your greatest argument to the contrary seems to be nothing more than the mere fact that you seem to think this would be impossible. But that's nothing more than wishful thinking on your part.

Besides, think about it, if you're going to imagine a Santa Claus God who doesn't things using magic, then why not just imagine that he's smart enough to create a universe that can evolve on its own into living creature.

The whole Santa Claus God scenario doesn't even make any sense.

Why would a omnipotent God who can do anything create a universe that he needs to sit down and babysit? Why not just create a universe that can evolve into life automatically?

The whole argument that "There must be a God" who created life in the universe is truly a bogus argument. If you're going to make an argument for a God why not just say "God did it" and be done with it. No logical arguments would even be necessary.

If you have to explain God using logic then it's not much of a God.

No it doesn't. We can only speak of the scale of the universe that we can visually see. That reference point necessarily places us in the "center" of that field of vision. But we have no reason to believe that the universe ends at the limit of our vision.

Unless one posits ways for things to move faster than the speed of light, then it can't be much larger than the estimate I gave.

The universe can expand faster than the speed of light. The restriction of the speed of light is only for things moving through the universe.

We have no clue how big the universe might actually be. The size of the universe you are giving is only the size of the observable universe. Again, that's just an illusion bought about by our horizon of vision.

You have no clue how big the actual universe is, but you do know that it is much bigger than the observable universe?

There is no reason to believe that just because we have a limit to how far we can see that the universe must stop there. Moreover, if that were true then we would indeed need to be right smack dab in the dead center of the universe. That would be an extremely human-centric universe.

Do you honestly believe that some God created an entire universe just so humans can argue about religion?

You haven't shown that the origin of life is "practically impossible", nor have you shown "that the odds are that there is no life elsewhere".

You haven't made a convincing case for either one of these.

Right, I haven't made a case for this yet. But, you said, "I don't need to go there. And neither do you."

You can't complain to me about not making a case if you said we don't need to go there.

You keep denying that you are ultimately arguing for the Biblical God. There is no need to get into all these scientific arguments to show the the Bible is nonsense. On the contrary it's far easier to show that the Bible is nonsense if you just focus on looking at the Bible.

We, as humans, do not yet possess the required information to determine the final answers to those questions.

I'm not providing "final" answers. I'm providing arguments based on what we currently know.

But what we "Currently Know" is insufficient for jumping to the conclusion that you are trying to jump to. The universe is simply far too huge to verify the conclusions that you want to jump to.

This would be like you claiming that demons must be the cause of disease back before medicine was refined enough to know better.

Using arguments based on what we "Currently Know" is dishonest when it comes to these deep cosmological questions because we simply don't know the answers to these questions yet. Just because we don't currently know the answers doesn't mean that they answers are what you claim them to be.

IMHO, that whole approach is actually "dishonest" apologetics is what it amounts to.

The fact that we have already discovered that life evolved from very simple organisms to far more complex organism over billions of years already points in that direction.

It is not a fact. At most, it can be called a theory, if that.

Well, we disagree on this obviously. Evolution is not just a theory. There is a theory called "Evolution" which is the explanation of how life evolved. But then there is also the overwhelming evidence of evolution. And there is also the knowledge of DNA and genetics and precisely how evolution works.

I claim that "At most, it can be called a theory, if that", is once again, IMHO extremely dishonest religious apologetics.

Life evolved from very simplistic life forms to very complex life forms on planet earth. The evidence is overwhelming. To say that it's "Just a theory" is false. That dishonest religious propaganda.

You may have personally bought into that yourself, but it's false none the less.

The evidence is overwhelming.

I based my opinion that life is most likely abundant in the universe on the simple fact that we're here and we evolved out of the same 'chemical soup' that exists all throughout the universe.

You have yet to define what is "chemical soup". If you just mean chemical elements, it's not offering much of an argument. Of course everything that is material is made up of chemical elements. Also, just because we're here doesn't demonstrate that evolution is true.

You're right, "Just because we're here doesn't demonstrate that evolution is true".

However, the process, the genetic mechanisms, the human genome, the fossil record, physics, chemistry, and biology all show precisely how evolution works, and why it works. We even see it working today in bacteria and insects. The fact that things can evolve is actually a problem in medicine an agriculture. It's also been a positive thing for agriculture as well. We couldn't have the domesticated plants and animals we have today if evolution were nor real.

Not only do we have abundant proof that evolution works but we've actually been using evolution in our favor for millennia.

Evolution is a fact of life. If you're still arguing that one it's no wonder that you still believe in a Santa Claus God.

And let's face it, you have a biased motivation for your views, because you are arguing to "theism".

Everyone is biased, but it doesn't matter much in debates. What matters are evidence and logic.

Science has already won these debates. No one in modern science is debating evolution. The only people who are complaining about it are religious fanatics. And even the Supreme court ruled their "Creationism" as being unscientific.

There are no legitimate arguments against evolution. It's only the Abrahamic religious people who argue against it. And even the Catholic Church gave up on that. The Catholic Church concedes to evolution. They know better than to argue against something that has been proven to be true beyond any reasonable doubt.

I do not have a biased motivation.

Sorry, you not an unbiased debater. There are no unbiased debaters.

Ok, you got me on that one. I am biased in favor of TRUTH and REASON.

Sorry, I keep forgetting that this counts as a bias.

You are arguing for far more than just theism. You are arguing for an extremely "Human-Centric" theism.

True, I'm not arguing for some alien-centric theism.

But that even requires that you think humans are even more special than animals.

Why should that be?

That humans are somehow the epitome of all of creation.

If the principle of mediocrity is false, then, yes, it would point to humans being special in all of creation.

Well, there's no reason to believe that the principle of mediocrity is false.

And to be perfectly honest with you if there exist a God who actually created humans he didn't do a very good job at all. If he's a designer God he a very lousy designer.

In fact, if you're talking about the Biblical Picture just look at the woman he designed for Adam. He certainly didn't do a very good job there according to the Bible. Why didn't he design a woman like Mother Mary as Adam's helpmate?

Talk about the principle of mediocrity. The Biblical God is about as mediocre as a God can possibly be. So you'd need to keep that principle alive to support the Biblical stories anyway.