We are “fine-tuned”

Phillip Plait, in his new book, Death from the Skies! makes a very succinct comment about life, evolution and fine-tuning:

“Earth seems marvellously tuned to support life, but that’s an illusion: we are the ones who are in fact tuned by evolution, as are all the other forms of life on, below, and above the Earth’s surface. As the Earth has changed over the eons, so has life. It seems almost inevitable that, once life first got its start on Earth, it would flourish.”

This is surely a much better attitude than the one usually pushed at us by those who cling to magical answers and ancient myths. Surely its the ultimate in narcissism to believe that the whole entire universe is “fine-tuned” just to ensure the existence on our species.

Much simpler to see us as being “fine-tuned,” by our very evolution and development, to fit into an existing universe.

By the way Death from the Skies! is a great read.

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