https://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=5653
The Goldilocks Principle: The Earth is Designed for Us
Do
you recall the story of Goldilocks from your youth? She struggled as
she sought the right porridge, chair, and bed, but in the end, her
discoveries were “just right.” The Goldilocks Principle in secular
cosmology is a recognition by scientists that the Earth appears to be
“just right” for life to exist on it. Leading science magazines
routinely run articles updating their audiences on the hunt for other
Goldilocks planets with just the right conditions for life to exist upon
them as it does on Earth. The Earth appears to be designed for us.
Atheistic philosopher Paul Ricci summed up the Teleological Argument
for the Existence of God well when he said, “[I]t’s true that everything
designed has a designer…. ‘Everything designed has a designer’ is an
analytically true statement.”1
There are an infinite number of examples of design that present
themselves to us when we study the natural realm—a problem for Ricci and
his atheistic colleagues, to be sure. Manuel Canales, Matthew Chwastyk,
and Eve Conant wrote an article in National Geographic titled “One Strange Rock: 13 Things that Make Life on Earth Possible.”2
“Earth is well equipped as a planet and ideally placed in our solar
system and galaxy to support life as we know it,” they explain.3 What kinds of features make Earth so special?
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If the Earth’s rotation axis was tilted differently…:
“A change in the rotation axis of the Earth…would be catastrophic. The
number of the seasons would change and their duration. If the rotation
axis became parallel to the orbital plane, as for Uranus, we could have
winter in the Northern hemisphere for 6 months followed by summer. The
Sun would set on the entire Northern hemisphere and not rise again for 6
months.”4
-
If the Earth was spinning faster…: “Hurricanes will spin faster…and there will be more energy in them.”5
A faster rotation speed by only 10% would translate to so much water
bulging around the equator, that all equatorial land would be flooded
while the sea level at the poles would lower.6 Human and animal life would be forced to live closer to the poles, which would result in catastrophic extinctions.
-
If the Earth’s orbit was closer to the Sun…: If the
average distance from the Sun was “reduced by only about three-tenths of
a percent,” disastrous atmospheric changes would occur, including
“sea-level rise, increases in extreme weather, species extinctions and
agricultural disruptions.”7
As it makes its elliptical path around the Sun, the Earth bends from
its straight course “only one ninth of an inch” every 18½ miles.8 “If the orbit changed by one-tenth
of an inch every 18 miles, our orbit would be vastly larger and we
would all freeze to death. One-eighth of an inch? We would all be
incinerated.”9
In fact, the Earth’s perfect distance from the Sun is called the
“Goldilocks zone,” “where it’s not too close and not too far from the
sun for water to be liquid on its surface.”10 Earth’s temperature is “not too hot or too cold.”11
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If the Earth had less water…: About 75% of the entire
area of the Earth is covered by water. If there was less water on the
Earth, it would suffer from the drastic temperature changes seen in
deserts—extremely hot during the day and extremely cold during the
night. Most of the Earth does not have this problem, due in large part
to the fact that the Earth has so much water on it. Water has a high
specific heat capacity, which means that water can hold a lot of
heat—way more than almost any other natural substance on Earth. Water
can store a lot of heat or lose a lot of heat without its temperature
being drastically changed, causing it to act like an air conditioning
unit for the Earth, keeping its temperature relatively constant. A
different liquid other than water or less water would make Earth
inhospitable for life.
-
If the Earth was like other planets…: Citing the work
of University of Washington’s Peter Ward, Stanford University’s Kate
Maher, NASA’s Karina Yager, and the University of Idaho’s Jason Barnes,
Canales and his colleagues highlighted that Earth “recycles
life-friendly carbon over time,” has an “ozone layer to block harmful
rays,” “a big moon to stabilize our axial wobble,” “varied surfaces [to]
support many life-forms,” and a “magnetic field” that “deflects solar
tempests.” Earth is “situated safely away from gas giants”—if it were
closer, their “powerful gravity could cause disastrous fluctuations in
Earth’s distance from the sun.” The star of our solar system—the Sun—“is
a stable, long-lasting star,” as opposed to less massive, allegedly
younger stars that are “often unstable and are prone to blasting their
planets with bursts of radiation.” Earth has “the right stuff to host a
dynamic core” (i.e., sufficient radioactive elements to generate a
“churning core” and protective magnetic field that could, theoretically,
last for billions of years). Earth has “giant planets that protect us
from afar,” like Jupiter, whose size and gravity protect “Earth from
overly frequent collisions that might trigger extinctions.” Zooming out
further to the scale of the galaxy, we observe that “our sun offers
protection from galactic debris,” “our galactic path steers us clear of
hazards,” and “our location is far from stellar crowds,” reducing the
“risks to Earth from gravitational tugs, gamma-ray bursts, or collapsing
stars called supernovae.”12 Truly Earth is just right for us—as though it was made for humans.
Dozens of such examples could be illustrated.13 In the words of famous skeptic and science writer Michael Shermer, who has a monthly column in Scientific American, “The design inference comes naturally. The reason people think that a Designer created the world is because it looks designed.”14 Agreed.
Endnotes
1 Paul Ricci (1986), Fundamentals of Critical Thinking (Lexington, MA: Ginn Press), p. 190.
2 Manuel Canales, Matthew Chwastyk, and Eve Conant (2018), “One Strange Rock: 13 Things That Make Life on Earth Possible,” National Geographic, 233[3]:78-87.
8 David Peck Todd (1906), A New Astronomy (New York: American Book Company), p. 383.
9 “Everyday Science” (1981), Science Digest, 89[1]:124.
11 Canales, et al., p. 81.
13 See the various “Design” topics in the “Existence of God” category on the Apologetics Press Web site—www.apologeticspress.org.
14 Michael Shermer (2007), Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design (New York, NY: Henry Holt), Kindle edition, p. 65, ital. in orig.
