Darwin or Design? The Privileged Planet
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=VMOMck9_R-o[/youtube]
Darwin or Design?
The Privileged Planet explores a startling connection between our capacity to survive and our ability to observe and understand the universe. Is this correlation merely a coincidence? Or does it point to a deeper truth about purpose and intelligent design within the cosmos?
Astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez and philosopher/theologian Jay W. Richards firmly stand in the design camp. In The Privileged Planet, the authors have produced a comprehensive, richly illustrated and heavily notated book.
Gonzalez and Richards counter the prevailing notion among scientists that Earth is merely an average rocky planet revolving around an ordinary star on the outskirts of an undistinguished galaxy. The authors present evidence that suggests life in the cosmos is a rarity due to a variety of prerequisite conditions, such as the unique properties of water, the peculiarities of the Earth-moon system, the sheltering effects of Jupiter and Saturn, and the fine-tuned nature of the universe. The authors maintain that these same conditions allow mankind’s significant discovery of the structure of physical laws and the universe. The appendices examine a revised Drake Equation and tackle the idea of “panspermia” – the seeding of life on Earth.
This hour-long documentary explores the scientific evidence for intelligent design and purpose in the universe. In the process, Earth is revealed as far more than the product of time, chance, and random natural processes. We now know that a rare and finely tuned array of factors makes Earth suitable for complex life. We depend on our planet’s oxygen-rich atmosphere, its large moon, its planetary neighbors, and its precise location within the solar system and Milky Way galaxy. But the story does not end here. For, the same factors that make a planet like Earth hospitable to life also provide the best conditions for scientific discovery.
The Privileged Planet explores a startling connection between our capacity to survive and our ability to observe and understand the universe. A connection that points directly to the work of a creative mind and plan. This extraordinary documentary will be a focal point in the escalating debate between evolution and design.
