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Introduction: John Barrow and Frank Tipler's The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
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11848 |
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BOOK WORLD
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8 / 1987 |
352 Words |
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As scientists seek to understand how and why the universe operates, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, a recent book by astrophysicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler, is generating discussion. The grounds upon which the anthropic principle is developed are, briefly, that there is a series of coincidences among the numerical values of the fundamental constants of nature. The possibility of our own existence seems to hinge precariously upon these coincidences. These relationships and other aspects of the universe's composition appear to be necessary to allow the evolution of carbon-based organisms like ourselves. Such a line of thinking strongly challenges the twentieth-century dogma that human beings occupy an accidental position in the universe.
This month Book World is featuring an excerpt from The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, followed by commentary on the ideas it introduces. The excerpt was chosen to explain the anthropic principle, its history and applications, and to provide an overview of arguments presented in different chapters of the book.
The topics that are addressed in The Anthropic Cosmological Principle include the following:
Design Arguments
Modern Teleology and the Anthropic Principles
The Rediscovery of the Anthropic Principles
The Weak Anthropic Principle in Physics and
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