By the way, in your post, I'm not sure you have used the expression "anthropic principle" correctly. The anthropic principle says nothing about the frequency of the appearance of life, merely how we come to be observers in an observable universe. - 
 I think you are correct as some people view Carter's principal. John Leslie takes a good portion of his book, Universes, discussing 'weak', 'superweak' and 'strong' versions of the principle. I've never thought much of it except mental masterbation. Leslie quotes Brandon Carter as regretting using the term 'anthropic' at all, as certainly other animals, elephants, dogs, dinosaurs can also be observers, but not at the level of scientists as humans are. I know that we humans are a major part of the principal, but life has to be permitted for evolution to occur for 'us' to finally appear. And that is the way I view it. It is a tautology, at any rate.


> Matt: You need to read some lay books on the standard cosmologic theory. There are 20 major parameters that must be finely tuned for life and 100 minor parameters tuned the same way. This is why the Anthropic Principal is so revered by some folks and they start talking about mutlverses. All the cosmologists accept that this universe allows life. Fred Hoyle called it "A put up job". In the same breath I am not saying someone 'tuned' it. - Well, I'm reading "The Comprehensible Cosmos" after Adler's book. I will assume that it should take enough of cosmology into account that I'll get a good overview since it derives all of the physical equations in a really nice 200 page supplement. (That I can understand the derivations is itself amazing... something got built in me somewhere saying that physics was only comprehensible to an elite class...) - If not I could always borrow Hawking's book again. I grabbed it in high school but never really *read* it, to my detriment. All the same, physical theories are a model that *hopes* to create a 1:1 correspondence to reality... that said I have hard time accepting a model when some of the inferences... (here I go again) move beyond the realm of the testable. Which is what I mean when I say "safely" say. - We both agree that there's things we can know and things we can't--and I deign to bring exactly this kind of skepticism to anything I study.

Which is why I feel at this point I need to attack your 1).
 
> We can't safely make that claim. See your final sentence above. As far as knowledge goes all we can do is state that our universe indeed, exists, and it is capable of supporting life. To infer that it is "finely tuned" for life makes a series of assumptions that can only be safely made with a helluva lot more knowledge than we currently possess. - Matt: You need to read some lay books on the standard cosmologic theory. There are 20 major parameters that must be finely tuned for life and 100 minor parameters tuned the same way. This is why the Anthropic Principal is so revered by some folks and they start talking about mutlverses. All the cosmologists accept that this universe allows life. Fred Hoyle called it "A put up job". In the same breath I am not saying someone 'tuned' it.

John: David has reminded us many times of how extraordinarily difficult it is for life to get started. His view is that it is, in principle, impossible and that, accordingly, science will NEVER be able to describe with certainty how it came about. - > I would add that even if eventually scientists do unravel the code that gave rise to life and evolution, they still won't be able to say whether it came about by chance or by design. - Great point!
 
> Why, then, should anyone assume that if it does eventually crack the code of life, this will somehow favour the theory that life came about by chance?if life could be recreated in the lab and was found elsewhere in the universe, along with evidence of evolution (I see that as vital because of the complexity of the mechanism that made it possible), I too would be far more inclined to believe the atheist theory of chance. - > I expect David would also change his line of thinking, as he has always expressed his readiness to respond to new discoveries. - I would like to answer for myself on these points. Matt has brought up Popper and falsification of scientific theory as a mode of confirmation. If a concept cannot be falsified in any manner, this raises a philosophic problem. - Let's say that a lab produces life. Since we were not present at the time life began, we will not know if the lab's method was the original method, or different, but possibly parallel. To be the same method, it would have to develop to the point that it is exactly comparable to the life we see in the Archaeia (the oldest form of bacteria) and then as dhw cleverly points out, evolution must occur similar to what we know about our evolution. It still won't be exactly the same, as the environment from the past will be difficult to mimic, but if close enough to parallel our evolution, I would change my thinking, BUT only if the combinations of molecules required and used by the lab are clearly shown to have been able to assemble themselves by chance. Otherwise all we have seen is intelligent design. - The whole issue is an extremely difficult area to establish proof. It will be proof by analogy.

New life has happened here...my daughter recently gave birth to a happy healthy baby boy and, since they live with us, it's amazing how much time and space one new life takes up in a household. - Sounds like a wonderful 'new' household. Congratulations! I still view every birth as a miracle. In training I delivered about 75.
 
> I think of the universe and all that IS as one breathing "life" form that is ever evolving ever living being with every element that is or ever will be within it's framework....which includes us. - A very believable mystical framework as a world view. Sometimes you have to give me a good shake to get me away from the pure science. - Speaking of pure science: imagine DNA and RNA following a construction plan for your new grandson! Truly amazing.

My contentions stand on a four-legged table, developing temporally in the following order: 1) The universe, whose parameters are so finely adjusted, allows life. 2) The origin of life from inorganic matter. 3) The enormous complexity of the coding system DNA/RNA which drives and controls life. 4) The human mind which makes US dilfferent in kind, not degree. I have no idea what the total odds are, when compiled in order, and of course, as Matt notes, there is no reasonable way to estimate and calculate them. - Thought I should add these studies which shows the intricacies of a cell at work, which supports my third point. - http://www.physorg.com/news167400145.html

All life could be ever existing and ever evolving, couldn't it? Life emerging from non-life would be a real jump of evolution, wouldn't it? Some-thing from no-thing?
> 
> Life is not ever-existing. That is exactly the problem. Inorganic chemicals are non-living. Organic chemicals are also non-living until they organize into life. Life leaves behind telltale signs of life as deposited waste products and corpses. The earliest on Earth of these substances is either 3.8-3.6 billion years old in Greenland. That is how long ago it is scientifically accepted that life appeared on Earth.> - New life has happened here...my daughter recently gave birth to a happy healthy baby boy and, since they live with us, it's amazing how much time and space one new life takes up in a household. - I did want to respond to the above David, thank you for your response and patience. Altho life (the substance of which you are speaking above) did appear on earth so many billions of years ago, the properties it took to create this life have been around much longer, which is what my comment was aiming at. In the sense that our new born baby's physical elements have been around since time began - or in my way of thinking - has always been. When I said "life" in the above comment, I was thinking more of the elements of life, what life is made of/from, rather than the being which breathes air. I think of the universe and all that IS as one breathing "life" form that is ever evolving ever living being with every element that is or ever will be within it's framework....which includes us.

You have--in a concise way--fairly represented my thrust. There's a more direct argument that he hasn't exactly made, but by reading the book by Adler he suggested I'm forming a strong opinion on what exactly Dr. Turell's argument is--and its a little more nuanced than that but I think can still boil down to those two stated fallacies. - My contentions stand on a four-legged table, developing temporally in the following order: 1) The universe, whose parameters are so finely adjusted, allows life. 2) The origin of life from inorganic matter. 3) The enormous complexity of the coding system DNA/RNA which drives and controls life. 4) The human mind which makes US dilfferent in kind, not degree. I have no idea what the total odds are, when compiled in order, and of course, as Matt notes, there is no reasonable way to estimate and calculate them.

By the way, psedoscientists positively DO NOT go around trying to publish in scientific journal ... 
 In view of dhw's previous comments about your replies, I appreciate the civility you are showing in this response and I will do the same. We are eons apart in our views but I feel we can learn from each other. No one can read everything in science that comes down the pike. - What is not pseudoscience in the possible paranormal area is the work by Pim van Lommel, a Dutch cardiologist, reported in Lancet Vol.: 358, Dec. 15, 2001. It is worth a read, as a prospective study of near-to-death coronary patients with some extraordinary findings. I have not googled him recently, but I know he continued his work. I can give you references to other physicians' reports. - 
> In some ways, when I reflect on it, there are similarities here.Your "evidence" about RNA and so on can only be "evidence" against the idea that complex life arose spontaneously. Even you must admit it can never be positive evidence FOR an interventionist God ... which is, as you say, a metaphysical claim. The best that the you can do is the argument from personal incredulity. It's so complex it must have had a designer. - I do agree with your observation about me. There will never be positive proof of God, only as Adler uses 'proof beyond a reasonable doubt', and we do convict in error at times. 
> Go and try and find evidence for God in RNA and good luck. You're not alone in your desire and many have tried before to prove God by looking at nature. - Just as Antony Flew has done. Perhaps in his 80's he is accepting Pascal's wager, but he also has accepted Christianity in his book. I can't go near Biblical fairy tales, apologies to Mark. I'll stick with a universal intelligence. - 
> I think you are guilty of repeating William Paley's mistake with his watch and his eye analogy. - DNA/RNAS coding is enormously more complex than watchmaking. It is the key to my persuasion. Where did the inherent information come from? All life runs on it.

David has reminded us many times here of how extraordinarily difficult it is for life to get started. His view is that it is, in principle, impossible and that, accordingly, science will NEVER be able to describe with certainty how it came about. 
 
 To base a metaphysic on something so contingent seems unwise, particularly as this scenario may well come to pass within the lifetimes of everyone here writing. - I think this discussion by Paul Davies indicates not in our lifetimes, with 60 years of futilee effort behind us. Especially note his comment in the Origin of Life section on the enormous complexity of the simplist cell form. - http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/39669