PeterS comments on Rationality Quotes: November 2010 - Less Wrong

5 [deleted] 02 November 2010 08:41PM

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Comment author: PeterS 03 November 2010 09:51:17PM 5 points [-]

Isaac Newton's argument for intelligent design:

Were all the planets as swift as Mercury or as slow as Saturn or his satellites; or were the several velocities otherwise much greater or less than they are (as they might have been had they arose from any other cause than their gravities); or had the distances from the centers about which they move been greater or less than they are (as they might have been had they arose from any other cause than their gravities); or had the quantity of matter in the sun or in Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth (and by consequence their gravitating power) been greater or less than it is; the primary planets could not have revolved about the sun nor the secondary ones about Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth, in concentric circles as they do, but would have moved in hyperbolas or parabolas or in ellipses very eccentric. To make this system, therefore, with all its motions, required a cause which understood and compared together the quantities of matter in the several bodies of the sun and planets and the gravitating powers resulting from thence.... And to compare and adjust all these things together in so great a variety of bodies, argues that cause to be, not blind and fortuitous, but very well skilled in mechanics and geometry.

-- Letter to Richard Bentley

Comment author: wedrifid 04 November 2010 06:15:43PM *  0 points [-]

Elements of this argument make an error related to numberplates. I'm surprised this was received so (+4) positively.

Comment author: PeterS 05 November 2010 04:13:58AM 0 points [-]

Numberplates?

Comment author: wedrifid 05 November 2010 04:30:23AM 1 point [-]

"The chance that the numberplate of my first car was EIT411 is one in a whole lot. Wow! It happened! There must be a God!" (crudely speaking.)

This seems to be relevant to, for example, yabbering on about the exact speeds of Saturn et. al. The Saturns that were going the wrong speed all fell in to the sun (or cleared off into space.)

Comment author: PeterS 05 November 2010 10:27:48AM 1 point [-]

Oh... I in no way endorse the above argument! Pierre-Simon Laplace's, a century or so after Newton, gave a naturalistic model of how the Solar System could have developed. "Rationality quotes" is not only about sharing words of wisdom, but also words of folly.

Comment author: wedrifid 05 November 2010 10:44:00AM 0 points [-]

:) I certainly wasn't intending to accuse you.