The Privileged Planet

I finished watching a challenging video that discusses why the earth is situated in a rare area of our galaxy where life could be sustained. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmIc42oRjm8. If our solar system was much closer to the centre of the galaxy we would be obliterated by a nova or a black hole. Much further out from the centre, and there would be a paucity of heavy elements that we need. Iron for example. Without the molten iron at the earth’s core, we wouldn’t have the magnetic field that fends off killer radiation. We are also located between a couple of spiral arms instead of in one of them. Good thing because being in them would be lethal to us.  

The video points out that this best place for life to be sustained also happens to be the best place to observe the universe and how it works. For example, the sun is 400 times as wide as the moon and also 400 times as far from the earth as the moon is. This means that when the moon eclipses the sun, it covers the sun perfectly. If the moon were any larger, astronomers could not study the sun’s atmosphere during a solar eclipse because they couldn’t see it, and if the moon were smaller, the sun wouldn’t be fully eclipsed and there would be too much sunlight to enable the study of the solar atmosphere.

The proposal of The Privileged Planet is that the fact that life exists in the best place to develop scientific knowledge implies that it was placed here for a purpose and that the universe has purpose related to that.

I have at least two challenges to this proposition. First, how do we know that there isn’t some kind of life that isn’t based of metabolism or photosynthesis? Perhaps there is life that does not need carbon and oxygen and that is better suited to some other area of the galaxy.  Second, the video assumes that what we understand about the universe is actually correct. Maybe we have it all wrong because this isn’t the best place to learn after all. If so, we wouldn’t know it.

Nonetheless, I tend to think that the creators of The Privileged Planet are onto something worthwhile embracing.