In yesterday's post on the amazing properties of water it was noted how easy it is to take some very extraordinary things for granted as we go through our everyday lives. Yet when we stop to contemplate the astounding nature of some of those things, like water, it can just take our breath away.
Consider another example - fire.
When we reflect upon all the characteristics of our planet that have to be just so for fire to even exist and then consider all the physical traits of an animal such as human beings that have to be just right for that animal to be able to use fire, and then contemplate what that animal's culture would be like were the animal or the earth even slightly different such that fire could not be made or harnessed, it just leaves one shaking his/her head in amazement.
In this 21 minute video Australian geneticist Michael Denton walks us through the astonishing series of properties and characteristics of the earth, fire, and mankind that have to be precisely calibrated in order for humans to have developed the culture that we have today. Had any of those properties been other than what they are humans might never have survived at all, much less developed an advanced culture.
Someone hearing all this for the first time might well be stunned by how astonishingly fortuitous it all seems.
The book on which the video is based is available here.