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.
Here’s another Newton ID quote. This one complements PeterS’s because the true naturalistic explanation requires physics that was not implicit in Newton’s mechanics.
But how the matter should divide itself into two sorts, and that part of it, which is fit to compose a shining body, should fall down into one mass, and make a sun, and the rest, which is fit to compose an opaque body, should coalesce, not into one great body, like the shining matter, but into many little ones; or, if the sun, at first, were an opaque body, like the planets, or the planets lucid bodies, like the sun, how he alone should be changed into a shining body, whilst all they continue opaque, or all they be changed into opaque ones, whilst he remains unchanged, I do not think more explicable by mere natural causes, but am forced to ascribe it to the counsel and contrivance of a voluntary agent.
—Isaac Newton, Four Letters From Sir Isaac Newton To Doctor Bentley Containing Some Arguments In Proof Of A Deity.
I voted up both Newton quotes because they show how a very smart man can make a very plausible argument which is nevertheless very wrong.
And the reason Newton failed to guess the rather simple explanation is that he observed a solar system that was stable and unchanging and assumed that it must always have been stable and unchanging since the creation. His “biases” just didn’t allow him to imagine an evolutionary model of planet formation by accretion from a more-or-less random initial state.
Nowadays of course, we tend to invent evolutionary or historical explanations for everything. We don’t even limit ourselves to explaining the origins. We go on to predict how things will likely come to a contingent historical end … or should I refer to it as our next great adventure?
Second to this. The planets that remain in sequence and orbit survived the transition from entropy to stability in a way that didn’t result in them being ejected or destroyed. Their presence represents them making it through the pachinko machine of amalgamated physical parameters, not intentional design.
Newton’s inferences were like assuming a gold tooth has mystical properties because I’ve put you through a woodchipper and it’s the only thing that came out the other end. There is so much to understand about the internals of the machine before you make any solid judgments about the inputs and outputs.
I thought it was obviously ironic, since planets do actually move in ellipses and general conic sections; Newton makes a falsifiable claim in favor of ID and it is clearly false.
Wait, something seems wrong here. Newton knew the planets moved in ellipses. Probable conclusion: He was just referring to the low eccentricity of these ellipses?
I think that the issue was the number of planets. If you had just one planet orbiting the sun, that orbit would be a nice stable one. But if you have multiple bodies orbiting the sun, their paths will interfere chaotically. I think that Newton expected that, in general, you would get wildly erratic orbits, with some planets being thrown clear of the system altogether. As I understand it, he expected such catastrophes to be inevitable, unless you started with a very carefully-selected initial state. God was then necessary to explain how the solar system started out in such an improbable state. But in fact Newton just lacked the mathematical sophistication to see that, according to his own theory, typical initial arrangements could result in systems that are stable for billions of years.
“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.)
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.
Isaac Newton’s argument for intelligent design:
-- Letter to Richard Bentley
Here’s another Newton ID quote. This one complements PeterS’s because the true naturalistic explanation requires physics that was not implicit in Newton’s mechanics.
—Isaac Newton, Four Letters From Sir Isaac Newton To Doctor Bentley Containing Some Arguments In Proof Of A Deity.
Elements of this argument make an error related to numberplates. I’m surprised this was received so (+4) positively.
I voted up both Newton quotes because they show how a very smart man can make a very plausible argument which is nevertheless very wrong.
And the reason Newton failed to guess the rather simple explanation is that he observed a solar system that was stable and unchanging and assumed that it must always have been stable and unchanging since the creation. His “biases” just didn’t allow him to imagine an evolutionary model of planet formation by accretion from a more-or-less random initial state.
Nowadays of course, we tend to invent evolutionary or historical explanations for everything. We don’t even limit ourselves to explaining the origins. We go on to predict how things will likely come to a contingent historical end … or should I refer to it as our next great adventure?
Second to this. The planets that remain in sequence and orbit survived the transition from entropy to stability in a way that didn’t result in them being ejected or destroyed. Their presence represents them making it through the pachinko machine of amalgamated physical parameters, not intentional design.
Newton’s inferences were like assuming a gold tooth has mystical properties because I’ve put you through a woodchipper and it’s the only thing that came out the other end. There is so much to understand about the internals of the machine before you make any solid judgments about the inputs and outputs.
I thought it was obviously ironic, since planets do actually move in ellipses and general conic sections; Newton makes a falsifiable claim in favor of ID and it is clearly false.
Wait, something seems wrong here. Newton knew the planets moved in ellipses. Probable conclusion: He was just referring to the low eccentricity of these ellipses?
I think that the issue was the number of planets. If you had just one planet orbiting the sun, that orbit would be a nice stable one. But if you have multiple bodies orbiting the sun, their paths will interfere chaotically. I think that Newton expected that, in general, you would get wildly erratic orbits, with some planets being thrown clear of the system altogether. As I understand it, he expected such catastrophes to be inevitable, unless you started with a very carefully-selected initial state. God was then necessary to explain how the solar system started out in such an improbable state. But in fact Newton just lacked the mathematical sophistication to see that, according to his own theory, typical initial arrangements could result in systems that are stable for billions of years.
Numberplates?
“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.)
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.
:) I certainly wasn’t intending to accuse you.