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18 - Framing the question of fine-tuning for intermediary metabolism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2009

By
Eric Smith  and
Harold J. Morowitz
Edited by
John D. Barrow ,
Simon Conway Morris ,
Stephen J. Freeland  and
Charles L. Harper, Jr
Eric Smith
Affiliation:
Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe
Harold J. Morowitz
Affiliation:
Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, East Building 207
John D. Barrow
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Simon Conway Morris
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Stephen J. Freeland
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, Baltimore
Charles L. Harper, Jr
Affiliation:
John Templeton Foundation
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Summary

Learning from our own existence

Hoyle's [1] successful prediction of the 7.6 MeV resonance of the carbon-12 nucleus, based on observation of his own carbon-based existence, established the scientific usefulness of anthropic principles. These principles have become common, if not yet standard, tools in cosmology, where theories of initial conditions may not yet exist – or, if they do exist, may admit a range of values [2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. At the same time, anthropic principles have retained a traditional role in religion and philosophy, where sensitive dependence of human existence on laws of nature that could imaginably have been otherwise is interpreted as evidence for human significance in the creation of the universe.

The tendency of life forms to make universal use of, and seemingly to depend on, specific details of natural law or historical circumstance does not end with nuclear abundances. Following decades of studying the ways in which mammalian blood achieves homeostasis by exploiting favorable regions in carbonic-acid chemistry and similar adaptations, Henderson compiled a list of such dependences in physiology [7]. Inverting Darwin's description of selective fine-tuning of organisms for “fit” to their environments, Henderson characterized his physiological sensitivities anthropically as evidence of “the fitness of the environment” for life.

The rapid growth in understanding of biology, from structures to systems, seems likely to expose many more sensitivities of life to details of chemistry, physics, and history.

Type
Chapter
Information
Fitness of the Cosmos for Life
Biochemistry and Fine-Tuning
 , pp. 384 - 420
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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