Privileged Planet: The puddle and the hole

It’s rather like a puddle waking up one morning— I know they don’t normally do this, but allow me, I’m a science fiction writer— A puddle wakes up one morning and thinks: “This is a very interesting world I find myself in. It fits me very neatly. In fact it fits me so neatly… I mean really precise isn’t it?… It must have been made to have me in it.” And the sun rises, and it’s continuing to narrate this story about how this hole must have been made to have him in it. And as the sun rises, and gradually the puddle is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking— and by the time the puddle ceases to exist, it’s still thinking— it’s still trapped in this idea that— that the hole was there for it. And if we think that the world is here for us we will continue to destroy it in the way that we have been destroying it, because we think that we can do no harm.

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Relevant links

Privileged Planet website and the producers of the DVD Illustra Media.

New Mexicans for Science and Reason present: Illustra Media and Discovery Media appear to be linked

Detailed postings

• Kyler Kuehn, presentation given at the American Scientific Affiliation 2003 Annual Meeting A Critique of the Privileged Planet Hypothesis
• Kyler Kuehn, presentation given at the 2004 “Intelligent Design and the Future of Science” Conference The Potentials and the Pitfalls of the Privileged Planet Hypothesis
• Posted by Andrea Bottaro on March 25, 2004 10:22 PM A beautiful friendship?
• Posted by PvM on April 10, 2004 01:00 PM The Privileged Planet Part 1: Where Purpose and Natural Law freely Mix Part 1
• Posted by PvM on April 10, 2004 06:11 PM Where purpose and function meet
• Posted by PvM on April 11, 2004 01:59 PM The Privileged Planet Part 2: The failure of the ‘Design Inference’
• Posted by PvM on April 17, 2004 06:26 PM The Privileged Planet Part 3: The Anthropic principle
• Posted by PvM on April 29, 2004 07:41 PM Privileged Planet: The fallout starts
• Posted by PvM on June 26, 2004 09:59 PM Privileged Planet: Nature review
• Posted by PvM on July 31, 2004 03:08 PM The Privileged Wedge
• Posted by PvM on August 4, 2004 12:45 PM Icons of ID: Privileged Planet Authors respond to ‘unnamed’ critic
• Posted by PvM on August 4, 2004 08:46 PM Privileged Planet: Amazon Review
• Posted by PvM on August 26, 2004 09:22 PM The Privileged Planet: Single data points and naive falsification
• Posted by Jim Foley on October 18, 2004 06:00 PM Privileged Planet, Mk. 1
• By Lucas Grundmeier in Iowa State Daily October 12, 2004 A universal debate

  Hector Avalos, associate professor of religious studies, has debated the validity of creationism, the existence of God and Jesus’ resurrection, among other topics, while at Iowa State. He said Gonzalez’s work attempts to portray “a dressed-up version of Christian theology” as science. Patterson, who has written a review of the book and will present a scientific critique of it and intelligent design on Thursday, said he enjoyed “The Privileged Planet.”

  “The book is rich with good science in it,” he said.

  But, he said, the intentions of many intelligent design theorists were clear.

  “It is a religious apologetic disguised as science,” he said

• By: Scott Rank Iowa State Daily October 18, 2004 Is Intelligent Design Science or Creationism 2.0?
• Amazon.com
• Guillermo Gonzalez, Jay Richards Discovery Institute October 5, 2004 Paleomagnetism and The Privileged Planet
• Guillermo Gonzalez, Jay Richards Discovery Institute April 29, 2004 A Response to Some Objections by Kyler Kuehn to The Privileged Planet
• Guillermo Gonzalez, Jay Richards Discovery Institute August 2, 2004 Was Starlight Deflection Important for the Acceptance of General Relativity? A Response to Critics
• James Randi Educational Foundation offers $20,000 to Smithsonian not to show Privileged Planet

  Readers, do something about this. Please send an e-mail to giving@si.edu addressed to Mr. Randall Kremer, Public Affairs. Tell him of your concern over this situation. And, you might add that the JREF is willing to donate $20,000 to the Smithsonian Institution if they agree to give back the “Discovery Institute” $16,000 and decline to sponsor the showing of the film. And the JREF will not require the Smithsonian to run any films or propaganda that favor our point of view…

• Denyse O’Leary Wednesday, May 25, 2005 UPDATED News alert! Smithsonian Museum warming to intelligent design theory PvM wrote:

  Denyse jumping to conclusions about the Smithsonian warming up to ID and continues her mistakes of referring to Sternberg as a Smithsonian scientists.

• Denyse O’Leary Friday, May 27, 2005 Further Update! National science institution warming to ID? PvM wrote:

  Time to add a question mark to the title…What a little bit of research can do for a story…

• Denyse O’Leary Friday, May 27, 2005 Prominent science institution calls off the war against intelligent design?
• UPDATED! New York Times learns about Smithsonian event (apparently from this blog) PvM wrote:

  Denyse once agains jumps to conclusion that the New York Times learned about the Smithsonian event from Denyse’s website.

• JOHN SCHWARTZ Published: May 28, 2005 New York Times Smithsonian to Screen a Movie That Makes a Case Against Evolution