The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery

by Guillermo Gonzalez, Jay W. Richards

Overview

Earth. The Final Frontier

Contrary to popular belief, Earth is not an insignificant blip on the universe’s radar. Our world proves anything but average in Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards’ The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery.

But what exactly does Earth bring to the table? How does it prove its worth among numerous planets and constellations in the vastness of the Milky Way? In The Privileged Planet, you’ll learn about the world’s:

life-sustaining capabilities
water and its miraculous makeup
protection by the planetary giants

And how our planet came into existence in the first place.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781596987074
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	03/01/2004
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	446,344
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Jay W. Richards, Ph.D., is director of the DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, and executive editor of The Stream. The author or editor of more than a dozen books, he has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs.

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Introduction xvii

Section 1 Our Local Environment

Chapter 1 Wonderful Eclipses 1

Chapter 2 At Home on a Data Recorder 21

Chapter 3 Peering Down 45

Chapter 4 Peering Up 65

Chapter 5 The Pale Blue Dot in Relief 81

Chapter 6 Our Helpful Neighbors 103

Section 2 The Broader Universe

Chapter 7 Star Probes 119

Chapter 8 Our Galactic Habitat 143

Chapter 9 Our Place in Cosmic Time 169

Chapter 10 A Universe Fine-Tuned for Life and Discovery 195

Section 3 Implications

Chapter 11 The Revisionist History of the Copernican Revolution 221

Chapter 12 The Copernican Principle 247

Chapter 13 The Anthropic Disclaimer 259

Chapter 14 SETI and the Unraveling of the Copernican Principle 275

Chapter 15 A Universe Designed for Discovery 293

Chapter 16 The Skeptical Rejoinder 313

Conclusion: Reading the Book of Nature 331

Appendix A The Revised Drake Equation 337

Appendix B What about Panspermia? 343

Notes 347

Acknowledgments 413

Figure Credits 415

Index 417

Editorial Reviews

A movement known as "intelligent design" has emerged in recent years to counter evolution theories that hold that the design of the universe is random. Critics have dubbed this the "new creationism," since many in the movement correlates the intelligent designer with the Judeo-Christian God. Gonzalez and Richards now take the defense of intelligent design one step further. By assessing the elements that compose our planet, they argue, we can tell that it was designed for multicellular organic life. The presence of carbon, oxygen and water in the right proportions makes it possible for organic life to exist; and this combination of minerals and chemical elements exists only on Earth. Moreover, they argue, we can measure the ways that Earth became habitable. Thus, tree rings, stomata on leaves, skeletons in deep ocean sediments and pollen in lake sediments help us to measure how life on Earth developed by design. In addition, the authors contend, the universe itself is designed for discovery ("Mankind is unusually well-positioned to decipher the cosmos. Were we merely lucky in this regard?" No, the authors respond), and because the Earth is habitable we can use it as a measure of the uninhabitability of other planets. "The myriad conditions that make a region habitable are the best overall places for discovering the universe in its smallest and largest expressions." Overall, the authors (Gonzalez is an assistant research professor of astronomy and physics at Iowa State, Richards has a doctorate from Princeton Theological Seminary) provide a reasoned case for intelligent design, but it's important to note that the vast majority of scientists reject the intelligent design argument, and this book is unlikely to persuade many to change their minds. B&w photos. (Mar. 8) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly