What’s the name of this logical fallacy?

561 views

When people say that e.g. it’s such a miracle that life on Earth exists because the slightest change in its distance from the Sun or gravity or the lack of water would make it impossible for us to be around – forgetting that our existence presupposes all this. Or an argument for God that it cannot be accidental that we have all the preconditions on Earth to sustain ourselvea and that the way nature and our body works is a miracle – but it’s precisely why it can work and there are many planets where life couldn’t form for the lack of these components.

In: 10

16 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Something not mentioned in the comments yet is the existence of other habitable planets. To an extent, the odds matter. If Earth was the only habitable planet in the entire universe and the number of planets in existence were far lower than the denominator in the odds, then that would be a bit mysterious to scientists. To necessitate God would be a logical fallacy, but it would indeed be quite striking as a mystery as to how we came into existence with such low probability. However, if we can observe many other habitable planets and the number of planets in the universe are far greater than the denominator in the odds, then there is less mystery. The logical fallacy you are sensing is partly due to different people’s sense of the odds. If an event has a one in a million chance of happening but there were one trillion tries, then that event happening is not mysterious and actually quite expected. Whereas if there was a one in a million chance and only one try, we’d look at the result with a bit of surprise and wonder. The fact that the universe appears to have many habitable planets indicates it is closer to the former than the latter.

You are viewing 1 out of 16 answers, click here to view all answers.