From: salem@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Bruce Salem)
Subject: Re: Are we privileged observers?
Keywords: universe,earth, paradox
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: 19 Aug 92 03:21:45 GMT

julian@fraser.sfu.ca (Julian Shillcock) writes:

>I get irritated with people who 
>bluster that we do not occupy a privileged place in the universe.
>The sun is an ordinary star, etc, etc. As far as we know WE (the Earth
>that is not humans) are the ONLY place with life. Period. Until we find 
>evidence otherwise we should not build our science on "might-bes":

	Suppose you are right, there are facts that suggest that life
is a commonplace, but suppose you are right in being overly cautious
about this conclusion, then there is no information. What is the
decision left up to? Is Man special in Creation or not? What this
decision is left to is preconception, or at least prejudice, and
what is the source of the prejudice and can we discuss it here or
not? Why is it necessary for Man to be so special? You might begin
an exploration of assumptions by answering that.

	Having given you the benefit of the doubt. let me restate
the issue in terms of a political ideology not unlike what happens
to dominate the Republican Party this week, or at least the movers
and shakers on the Platform Committee. It is that having been taught
that man is Goddammed special as a corner stone of one's religious
training that if one is committed to certian political and social
theories as one might hold as a Creationist that one had better
make moot any findings that denigrate this cherished belief.

	Now having said that, go study the history of Man's
view of the Cosmos, and you find a tendency to move our residence
away from the action to a place totally nondescript, and make us
of the most common stuff of the universe, asside from Helium, the
most common elements. Make us not radically different from other
life forms of our planet, and allow for events that may not be
individually rare at all in the universe as stepping stones for
life. Though they be exceedingly unlikely everywhere to lead to
life, the universe is a very big place, and they may have come
to pass in many other places. The problem is that the universe IS
a very big place and the few decades that we have been announcing
our presence and looking for alian life is not long enough to have
brought results. This is an argument. Your attitude toward it is
more due to your way of looking at the glass half empty or full and
its source is most interesting.

>there are a hell of a lot of things that might be true in the universe,
>but science is not science fiction.
>Science explains what we can observe not what we cannot. 

	But it tells us how to explore the unknown, how to probe
the unknown, and how to frame and ask questions. None of this is
passive but an active quest, and you are telling us not to quest?
Why, is the possible result too frightening?
         
	I know that we should not coufuse speculation with fact.
I know that we don't know for sure that E.T. exists, but your
quickness to junp on the negative side of the question means that
you shrink from the possibility and suggests that you have some
other reason to presuppose that it isn't so.

>julian

Bruce Salem

Newsgroups: talk.origins