I too read Tipler’s “The Anthropic Cosmological Principle” because, now that I think of it, I was impressed by the size of the book and that imposing title. It was recommended to me because it covered an area that I am interested in, extraterrestrial intelligence, but after wading through its review of all the crazy belief systems on earth I finally gave up on the book and flipped to the back to see what the conclusion was. It could have been summarized quite simply in one sentence. The Universe Speaks: “You think therefore I am”. That was the end of my respect for Tipler and for his book.

When I was young, up to the age of about 18, I was involved in a religion that held a very literal view of the bible and all the events in it. Most of the adults around me were also members of this religion and since they were very smart people, with PhDs in biology, mathematics, teaching etc, I thought they must be right in their beliefs. They were not. Stepping back just a little bit and taking a fresh look at that belief system made it clear that it was total foolishness.

This church did not believe in evolution but one of my relatives taught biology at the university level. I knew he had to teach evolutionary theory since it is the basis for biology so I asked him how he squared his religious belief with what he taught to his students as truth. He said “I have to teach it but I choose not to believe it myself”. At that instant my respect for him plunged to zero.

You see this in all walks of life. For example: Would you trust your life savings to someone who thinks that the earth is no more than 10,000 years old? The sad part is you probably do. Most people in the US believe this to be true and that goes for you average banker as well.