The Argument from Scale: Oh My!
The universe is too big, says Nickolas Everitt. And why has much time passed since the beginning of the universe until humans came onto the scene? It’s just so… “inapt,” unfitting given what theists take God to be, unlike even the Genesis account. (The Improbability of God, 2, 1)
So far this is the funniest atheistic argument I’ve ever encountered. But I plead guilty to harboring such thoughts myself: before becoming Christian in a letter to a friend I asked: What about the dinosaurs? For what possible reason did these preposterous lizards exist?
Instead of my usual attempt at analysis, I’ll leave this one as an exercise for the reader.
(OK, here are some hints. Also, when I asked Dembski why it was necessary to go through the TRIZ-imitating process of evolution/intelligent design which took billions of years, he replied that solving mechanical biological problems seems to have taken place according to TRIZ, but TRIZ itself need not have been the methodology chosen. The point is that the becoming of the universe, of life, of humans, of civilizations obeys the rules laid out in TRIZ. God could have created things already fully formed, and did — it’s called heaven and angels. For humans He chose a more roundabout process. Could there have been a third option? That’s for Everitt to surmise.)
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
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April 25th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
I’m reminded of something Chesterton wrote:
“If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is stingless for the
most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things
slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were
outside time.” (Orthodoxy)
May 14th, 2008 at 8:33 am
For a few more remarks on Everitt’s argument from scale, check out the long review here.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Tim, I’m not familiar with Thomas Chalmers’s arguments. What does he say?
May 25th, 2008 at 2:30 am
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