Cool Science

I'm trying to decide if I feel like opining on this. But I'm caving in and doing it. I get these regular newsletters from a London university where I studied for a year. One of their professors has written a book wondering why it seems that the universe is so perfectly suited to us. This is the kind of tempting argumentative writing that attracts attention and is designed to sell books, but is completely flawed. And as I did throughout high school and college, I plan on analyzing the book without ever reading it.

First, it is we who are somewhat compatible with the universe. Natural selection has favored any mutation in a species that resulted in better adaption (chance for reproductive success) to the environment (a.k.a. the universe). An unimaginably large number of mutations together with billions of years of natural selection have resulted in species like humans that seem to be well adapted to their environment. Except that we need shelter, we also perish easily in extreme weather, we have dangerously long periods in which the young are helpless without parenting, etc. And no human or any other higher species on Earth has any chance of existing in the cold vacuum of space. That's right, we are not very well adapted to the universe at all.

When we drive around a fancy car, enjoy a nice filet mignon and then sleep for 12 hours between silk sheets, (FYI : I do none of these things) it may seem that we are masters of our universe, a perfect fit in every way. No, we're just spoiled and we shouldn't read anything more into it.

To make an example, nobody has (publicly) figured out a good solution to how humans are going to survive the lethal high energy background radiation of the universe (and solar flares) when we try to leave low Earth orbit and the protective cocoon afforded by Earth's magnetic field. Even the ISS is in low earth orbit so that it is protected from solar radiation. So in fact the universe is not well suited to us at all, and while we seem to do ok, natural selection has several billion years to go before we have any chance of being considered well suited to the universe.