(April 12, 2012 at 4:23 pm)DrunkAtheist Wrote: I watched a video recently in which a prominent creationist informed his audience that the "universe is perfectly designed for human beings. Only a god could accomplish this"
Hardly. Lets think about that statement for a second. We'll do some math. The universe is at least 27 Billion light years across, as it has been expanding from a central point at or above light speed for at least 13.5 Billion Years. If the universe is finite, and roughly a sphere, the equation for its volume is V= 4Pi*r^3/3.
Plug in the radius of 13.5 Billion light years and we get a volume of just over Ten Trillion Cubic light years...
Now the vast, vast majority of this volume is open space, at a temp of less than 270 degrees below zero Celcius, containing almost no oxygen. We certainly couldn't live there. A little bit more of this space is stars, and gas planets like Jupiter, and icy rocks, the Pluto and asteroids and moons....our life certainly couldn't arise on any of those places.
The only place we know FOR SURE that human life could evolve is earth. There may be other places its possible, and probably are some, but there sure aren't any anywhere near us.
So, if we divide the volume of the earth by the total volume of the universe, the earth makes up far less than 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 percent of the total universe.
The Universe is perfectly designed for us???? Hardly.
Now lets look at the earth itself. About 71% of the earth is covered in water. Of the dry land, about 1/3 of it is hot desert or ice tundra. From about 10% of the way both above and below the equater, the sun's rays are so direct that the incidence of skin cancer and other diseases related to sun exposure is staggering.
This leaves approximately 12% of the earth's surface that is suited for human life. And of this 12%, the majority of those places go through seasons and severe weather that would not be suitable for life without the protection of a house or other shelter. This means that only a VERY small percentage of earth is really, truly suited to human life.
The Universe is perfectly designed for us??? Hardly.
There is a mistake in your first calculation. The entire earth's volume should not be considered since life isn't possible below earth's crust. Earth's biosphere, where life is actually possible, is a thin shell about 20 km thick. That should bring down you initial estimation even lower to about .33% of the original.
