In Popular Culture
- Robert J. Sawyer discusses the fine-tuned Universe at length in his novel Calculating God (2000).
- Author Neal Stephenson discussed the issue of fine-tuning in the conclusion to his essay In the Beginning... was the Command Line.
- Puddle thinking is a satirical illustration of the "life is fine-tuned to the Universe" argument above coined by Douglas Adams to satirize the Fine-tuned Universe argument for supernatural creationism. As quoted in Richard Dawkins' eulogy for Douglas Adams:
... imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact, it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the Sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be all right, because this World was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.
Read more about this topic: Fine-tuned Universe
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Popular culture is seductive; high culture is imperious.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“It is among the ranks of school-age children, those six- to twelve-year-olds who once avidly filled their free moments with childhood play, that the greatest change is evident. In the place of traditional, sometimes ancient childhood games that were still popular a generation ago, in the place of fantasy and make- believe play . . . today’s children have substituted television viewing and, most recently, video games.”
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“It is of the essence of imaginative culture that it transcends the limits both of the naturally possible and of the morally acceptable.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)