I don’t think anybody would have a problem with the statement “The motion of the planet is the strongest governing factor for life on Earth”. It’s when you make it explicitly plural that there’s a problem.
To some extent true, but consider the analogy to a thesis like “Quantum chromodynamics is the strongest governing factor for life on Earth.” Is this sentence also problematic because it addresses locations and energy levels that have no relevance for Earth?
If you replace it with “quantum chromodynamics”, then it’s still very problematic but for different reasons.
Firstly, there’s no obvious narrowing to equally causal factors (“motion of the planet” vs “motion of the planets”) as there is in the original statement. In the original statement the use of plural instead of singular covers a much broader swath of hypothesis space, and that you haven’t ruled out enough to limit it to the singular. So you’re communicating that you think there is significant credence that motion of more than one planet has a very strong influence on life on Earth.
Secondly, the QCD statement is overly narrow in the stated consequent instead of overly broad in the antecedent: any significant change in quantum chromodynamics would affect essentially everything in the universe, not just life on Earth. “Motion of the planet … life on Earth” is appropriately scoped in both sides of the relation. In the absence of a context limiting the scope to just life on Earth, yes that would be weird and misleading.
Thirdly, it’s generally wrong. The processes of life (and everything else based on chemistry) in physical models depend very much more strongly on the details of the electromagnetic interaction than any of the details of colour force. If some other model produced nuclei of the same charges and similar masses, life could proceed essentially unchanged.
However, there are some contexts in which it might be less problematic. In the context of evaluating the possibility of anything similar to our familiar life under alternative physical constants, perhaps.
In a space of universes which are described by the same models to our best current ones but with different values of “free” parameters, it seems that some parameters of QCD may be the most sensitive in terms of whether life like ours could arise—mostly by mediating whether stars can form and have sufficient lifetime. So in that context, it may be a reasonable thing to say. But in most contexts, I’d say it was at best misleading.
I don’t think anybody would have a problem with the statement “The motion of the planet is the strongest governing factor for life on Earth”. It’s when you make it explicitly plural that there’s a problem.
To some extent true, but consider the analogy to a thesis like “Quantum chromodynamics is the strongest governing factor for life on Earth.” Is this sentence also problematic because it addresses locations and energy levels that have no relevance for Earth?
If you replace it with “quantum chromodynamics”, then it’s still very problematic but for different reasons.
Firstly, there’s no obvious narrowing to equally causal factors (“motion of the planet” vs “motion of the planets”) as there is in the original statement. In the original statement the use of plural instead of singular covers a much broader swath of hypothesis space, and that you haven’t ruled out enough to limit it to the singular. So you’re communicating that you think there is significant credence that motion of more than one planet has a very strong influence on life on Earth.
Secondly, the QCD statement is overly narrow in the stated consequent instead of overly broad in the antecedent: any significant change in quantum chromodynamics would affect essentially everything in the universe, not just life on Earth. “Motion of the planet … life on Earth” is appropriately scoped in both sides of the relation. In the absence of a context limiting the scope to just life on Earth, yes that would be weird and misleading.
Thirdly, it’s generally wrong. The processes of life (and everything else based on chemistry) in physical models depend very much more strongly on the details of the electromagnetic interaction than any of the details of colour force. If some other model produced nuclei of the same charges and similar masses, life could proceed essentially unchanged.
However, there are some contexts in which it might be less problematic. In the context of evaluating the possibility of anything similar to our familiar life under alternative physical constants, perhaps.
In a space of universes which are described by the same models to our best current ones but with different values of “free” parameters, it seems that some parameters of QCD may be the most sensitive in terms of whether life like ours could arise—mostly by mediating whether stars can form and have sufficient lifetime. So in that context, it may be a reasonable thing to say. But in most contexts, I’d say it was at best misleading.