Intelligent Design the Future: Heddle on Sagan: Billions and Billions of Errors

April 10, 2006 | Bad Science | By: Mark VandeWettering

Today’s rant on the subject of Intelligent Design is going to be a little difficult to follow, so try to stick with me. Today, on the blog, Intelligent Design the Future, Jonathan Witt reports on “physicist” David Heddle’s critique of the late astronomer Carl Sagan. Actually, you can’t really call it a critique: it’s basically the assertion that Carl Sagan was never right about anything. Heddle comments:

Recent astronomical data have again demonstrated that few scientists have simultaneously achieved such widespread acclaim while consistently being wrong as the late Carl Sagan.

In the area of popular science, I don’t know much that he wrote or said that was correct.

The problem (aside from its obvious vagueness) is the part that we don’t know: how much of Sagan’s writings on popular science has Sagan Heddle actually read?

Heddle’s vita (updated at Heddle’s request) suggests that for the last fifteen years at least, his publications have all been in the field of scientific software, not the most illustrious physics resume you might actually find.  shows him to be a collaborator on a large number of papers on particle physics.  You can check out some of Sagan’s achievements via his wikipedia entry, and decide for yourself who might be best qualified to speak for the world of exobiology in astronomy.

The one criticism that Heddle makes against Sagan is:

Sagan was wrong, wrong, wrong. The earth is in a privileged location (not just for life as we know it, but for any kind of complex life imaginable), as discussed quite convincingly by Gonzalez and Richards in the Privileged Planet.

But there is the problem: The Privileged Planet isn’t convincing in the least. Their reasoning is basically that the earth occupies a fairly uncommon part of the galaxy, a part which happens to be reasonably quiet astronomically. No recent supernovas. Relatively few life extinguishing collisions. Not too close to the radiation centers at the galactic core. Isn’t it amazing, that we find ourselves in such a friendly place?

Does everyone spot the problem with this argument?

If you win the lottery, people might interview you and ask what is it about you that enabled you to win. You might think that you deserved it, or that “God told you to pick the numbers”, or that your lucky rabbits foot enabled you to win. But if you didn’t win, nobody would be around to ask the question, because nobody cares what all the losers did. Similarly, it is not at all surprising that we find ourselves orbiting a particularly boring star in the most boring part of the galaxy. If we didn’t, we would have been exterminated a long time ago, and wouldn’t have the metabolism necessary to ask the question. We didn’t evolve around a random star: we evolved around a star where life could evolve. Therefore, it really isn’t evidence of anything when we find that these places are uncommon.

You’d think this would be relatively easy to figure out.

Oh, and incidently, if you’d like to claim that intelligent design and religion are completely different, surf on over to Heddle’s personal blog and read what things he feels strongly enough to post about, and then see if you can maintain a straight face.
[tags]Intelligent Design,Sagan,Jonathan Witt,David Heddle[/tags]

Comments

Comment from mneptok
Time 4/10/2006 at 9:41 pm

The problem (aside from its obvious vagueness) is the part that we don’t know: how much of Sagan’s writings on popular science has Sagan actually read?

One would imagine “all.” Unless you meant, “…how much of Sagan’s writings on popular science has Heddle actually read?”

😉

Editors’s note: Sigh.  Thanks for the correction.

Comment from David Heddle
Time 4/11/2006 at 3:24 am

If you are going to criticize me based on my vita, at least use one that is more recent than 1998.

Here: http://fbyg.org/vita_nodetails.pdf

Editor’s note: I will update the link in the original posting.   Perhaps you should update the web copy as well, as it is the fourth link that Google comes up with when I search for your name.    I’m curious though: was this the strongest rebuttal you could summon against the points I raised? 

Comment from David Heddle
Time 4/11/2006 at 10:48 am

I don’t have time to make a detailed rebuttal to everyone who takes exception with what I write. I will say this: you have somewhat lumped me with the ID movement—but I don’t write or comment on classic biological ID, about which I am ambivalent. I am interested only in cosmological ID, or the fine-tuning type arguments. Secondly, I do not hesitate to name the intelligent designer as the God of the bible, so again I am not in the ID mainstream. I do not fit the ID caricature.

Your argument:

“We didn’t evolve around a random star: we evolved around a star where life could evolve. Therefore, it really isn’t evidence of anything when we find that these places are uncommon.”

is very typical–along the lines of “since we are here, the probability that we are in a habitable part of the cosmos is one.”

It is an argument that assumes your opponents are idiots–which you probably do in fact assume. It is very similar to an anti-evolution zealot going to Panda’s Thumb and arguing “what good is half an eye?” as if that will cause all evolutionists to say, “gee, I never thought of that.”

Editor’s note: It’s actually the fine tuning argument which assumes that the audience is populated solely by idiots.   We don’t use the mud puddles tight fit to the hole it fills as evidence of its design, no matter how unlikely the particular hole happens to be.   However unlikely our particular planet is, it is reasonably well suited for the evolution of life, so its altogether unsurprising that we find ourselves evolving on it.  Even if our planet was unique in its life-sustaining attributes in the entire universe, it is not evidence of fine tuning, anymore than the the mud puddle is fine tuned to the shape of the hole.

Comment from mneptok
Time 4/12/2006 at 12:40 am

The ability for a species to claim it lives in an inhabitable part of the universe is a sine qua non.

The arrogance is assuming that since we can survive in this part of the universe, then this part of the universe is the only habitable area.

First, I don’t think any astrophysicist worth their salt is going to claim that they have investigated the entire universe (never mind our own galaxy) and found no place where oxygen-breathing carbon-based life forms can exist besides Earth.

Second, the assumption that all life is fundamentally like ours (e.g. oxygen-breathing carbon-based) is hubris.

The fact is that not one person alive, or who has lived, has a sufficient understanding of the complexity of life and the vastness of space to claim that we must be alone because of an in situ reason.

Comment from David Heddle
Time 4/12/2006 at 2:31 am

mneptok,

A common answer that sounds right, but has problems when one faces the reality of chemistry.

Most scientists agree that the ability to create large molecules to store information is essential to complex life. Only three elements offer the possibility to function as a basis: Boron, Silicon, and Carbon, with Carbon being (by far) the best.

Secondly, chemistry requires a solvent. The best solvent known is water.

Third, radiation breaks down matter more or less indiscriminately.

This is just a sketch, but it shows why many scientists of all stripes believe that carbon based life in low radiation envrionment in the presence of liquid water is where complex life will be found.

It is not arrogance, but chemistry.

(And I didn’t claim we were alone.)

Comment from Mark
Time 4/12/2006 at 8:23 am

Let’s try this from a different angle: you seem to be claiming that the comparative rarity of the conditions that we find on the Earth and its position in the solar system are evidence that supports “design”. But isn’t one of the hallmarks of design “economy”? Why does your omnipotent, all powerful being create so much empty hostile space just to provide a few (and, according your original argument, exceedingly rare) safe havens for life?

When biological ID “scientists” are confronted with this dilemma (why so many beetles, why parasitic wasps, why…) they retreat publically into claiming that “we aren’t trying to identify the designer” all the while winking and nodding to their fundamentalist supporters. Is that going to be your take? Can science tell us nothing about the intelligent designer? If so, then isn’t the most rational approach to just admit that the notion isn’t scientific at all?

Comment from David Heddle
Time 4/12/2006 at 9:37 am

Actually, the mere existence of stars and planets, which depends on the extreme fine tuning of the cosmological constant, is what I would claim as the best evidence for design. The vastness of the universe reflects the physical laws that God chose to govern it—there is a lot of physics that I’ll gloss over but given the laws that govern our universe it takes a big universe to make it habitable anywhere. The laws are incompatible with a universe that say, just consisted of our galaxy. In other words, and very roughly speaking, once God chose gravitation to move the planets around, he was “stuck” with elliptical orbits. Once he chose an inflationary big bang to get things started, we were destined for a vast universe that was mostly uninhabitable—in fact mostly empty. It is not that there is no good reason for the vastness.

By the way, I don’t claim ID is scientific. Of course, for the same reason (no falsifiability) the other explanations of the fine tuning (explanations that involve multiple universes) are just as unscientific.

Comment from Mark
Time 4/12/2006 at 11:10 am

It’s amazing to me whenever anyone tries to make these kind of arguments with a straight face. We get lines of thought like “God is omnipotent” -> “God chose to create natural laws with particular constants in place” -> “If he would have made different choices, life would be impossible”. Where you end up is in direct contradiction to where you began: if God is omnipotent, then nothing is impossible. If anything is impossible, then God isn’t omnipotent.

I’m also amused by the idea that you consider stars and planets to be “evidence for design”, even though ID isn’t scientific. Just what does the term “evidence” mean in this context?

Comment from David Heddle
Time 4/12/2006 at 11:21 am

Mark,

I am not saying God could not have created a different kind of universe, I am saying he didn’t. Why? I don’t know.

The fine tuning is evidence for design the same exact way it is evidence for multiple universes. We are presented with something (fine tuning) that is so arresting that it demands an explanation. There is no science that explains it. You may choose either multiple universes or design. Either choice is unscientific. Both claim to explain the evidence (fine tuning).

Comment from chris
Time 1/18/2009 at 7:59 pm

David:

Question: Can you enlighten me as to when scientists became aware of the fine tuning of the universe. Was this before or after Sagan was around. If he was around, what was his comment on it? Thanks!

Chris.