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The Mis-anthropic Principle
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11871 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1987 |
2,831 Words |
| Author
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Gerald Feinberg
Gerald Feinberg is professor of physics at Columbia University
and the author of Solid Clues. |
The anthropic principle purports to be a way of understanding certain otherwise puzzling features of the natural world, especially those involving large, dimensionless numbers, such as the ratio of the strengths of electric and gravitational forces among subatomic particles. It is also advertised as casting new light on the relation of mankind to the universe. In reality, it accomplishes none of those things. Reasoning of the type involved in the anthropic principle leads to explanations that are of no value to science. Instead, such reasoning only diverts talented people from the real work of science, the forging of chains of understanding among observed natural phenomena on the basis of general laws.
Anthropic arguments
What is the structure of a typical anthropic argument? A scientist asks why we find the ratio of the strengths of electric and gravitational forces to be a very large number (10^40), which is also approximately equal to the age of the universe, expressed in atomic units of time. It is correctly pointed out by the anthropist that this ratio of forces plays an important role in determining the rate at which stars emit energy, and therefore the lifetime of stars. If the ratio of forces were any different, then stars would live either much shorter or much longer lives. But the existence of human scientists requires that stars have lived long enough that the heavy elements that our bodies contain could be formed, and not too long that we became extinct. Therefore, concludes the anthropist, the existence of the scientist who asks the question is itself the explanation forces is the same large number as the age of the universe in atomic units.
Philosophical criticisms of anthropic reasoning
This type of reasoning is similar to an imaginary explanation for the fact that the earth has an oxygen atmosphere, whereas other known planets do not. Since human beings live on Earth, and we require an oxygen atmosphere to live, our existence here accounts for the presence of large amounts of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere. In each of these arguments, two facts that are already known are found to be related, and this relation is cited as an explanation for one of the facts.
However in neither case does the "explanation" satisfy our scientific curiosity or even elementary common sense. One would like a physical theory about the ratio of forces which, based on some simple assumptions, allows the inference that it has the observed
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