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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!genrad!wjh12!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!wmartin
From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Can you call "The Anthropic Principle" a form of creationism?
Message-ID: <5410@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 22-Oct-84 11:15:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.5410
Posted: Mon Oct 22 11:15:53 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Oct-84 06:00:32 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 51

Here's a posting on "The Anthropic Principle" from net.astro; it describes
a currently-being-discussed topic in cosmology that should be of interest
to the net.origins debate. Could this be considered in some manner as
science trying to embrace creationism, in a perhaps diffuse and wary form?
Anyway, here it is, for your delectation and enjoyment (or not, as the case
may be...):

Path: brl-tgr!seismo!ut-sally!utastro!dipper
From: dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd)
Subject: StarDate: October 21 The Anthropic Principle
Date: 21 Oct 84 06:00:20 GMT

Some cosmologists are wondering whether our universe came into being
just so people could.  More -- right after this.

October 21  The Anthropic Principle

Cosmologists are astronomers who study the whole universe.  They wonder
how the universe came into being -- and where it's going from here.

A question in cosmology today is, why IS our universe the way we
observe it to be?  One answer -- which has been debated by cosmologists
over the last decade -- may be that the universe evolved the way it did
just so people could come along later -- to turn around and observe the
universe.  In other words, maybe consciousness is central to the
universe.

This idea even has a name in cosmology -- it's called the anthropic
principle, which just means a principle relating to people.

The anthropic principle came about when cosmologists began wondering
how the orderly structure of our universe could have evolved from the
chaos of the Big Bang -- the primordial explosion thought to have
marked the birth of the universe.

The anthropic principle can be stated in a mild way -- saying that if
the universe were any different, we wouldn't be here to observe it.
If, for example, the universe expanded outward from the Big Bang at a
different rate -- or if the strength of gravity were slightly altered
-- then intelligent life couldn't have evolved.  Or the anthropic
principle can be stated in a strong way -- perhaps intelligent life is
a natural result of the universe -- that people are in fact the
universe observing itself.

So that's the anthropic principle -- the idea that people are necessary
to the universe.  And if this all sounds more like philosophy than
astronomy -- well, many astronomers think so too.

Script by Deborah Byrd.

(c) Copyright 1983, 1984 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin