The James Randi Educational Foundation wants to pay The Smithsonian Institution $20,000 to back out of its contract with Discovery Institute to co-sponsor a showing of The Privileged Planet at the museum's Baird Auditorium (HT Telic Thoughts). "We need to be alarmed and militant about this situation," Randi exclaims.

No, we need to encourage civil discourse about things like the fact that the physical constants of the universe appear fine-tuned for both life and discovery. While Randi continues his campaign to shut down civil debate on this issue, consider what some respected scientists and scholars had to say about the book, on which the film is based:

"Is our universe a blind concatenation of atoms, evolution a random walk across a meaningless landscape, and our sense of purpose a pathetic shield against a supremely indifferent world? Or does the universe and our place within it click into place, repeatedly? These starkly different views open up immense metaphysical and theological questions, and at least part of the answer must come from science and the unfolding triumphs of cosmology, astronomy, and evolution.

"In a book of magnificent sweep and daring Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards drive home the arguments that the old cliché of no place like home is eerily true of Earth. Not only that, but if the scientific method was to emerge anywhere, the Earth is about as suitable as you can get. Gonzalez and Richards have flung down the gauntlet. Let the debate begin; it is a question that involves us all."

Simon Conway Morris
Professor of Evolutionary Paleobiology, University of Cambridge
Author of Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe

"This thoughtful, delightfully contrarian book will rile up those who believe the ‘Copernican principle’ is an essential philosophical component of modern science. Is our universe designedly congenial to intelligent, observing life? Passionate advocates of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) will find much to ponder in this carefully documented analysis."

Owen Gingerich
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Author of The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus

This new book is an excellent and timely contribution to the broadening and increasingly important discussion of origins.

Henry F. Schaefer III
Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry
Director, Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry, University of Georgia

"Not only have Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards written a book with a remarkable thesis, they have constructed their argument on an abundance of evidence and with a cautiousness of statement that make their volume even more remarkable. In my opinion, their Privileged Planet deserves very careful attention.

Michael J. Crowe
Cavanaugh Professor Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame
Author of The Extraterrestrial Life Debate 1750-1900"

Impressively researched and lucidly written, The Privileged Planet will surely rattle if not finally dislodge a pet assumption held by many interpreters of modern science: the so-called Copernican Principle (which isn’t actually very Copernican!). But Gonzalez and Richards’ argument, though controversial, is so carefully and moderately presented that any reasonable critique of it must itself address the astonishing evidence which has for so long somehow escaped our notice. I therefore expect this book to renew—and to raise to a new level—the whole scientific and philosophic debate about earth’s cosmic significance. It is a high class piece of work that deserves the widest possible audience.

Dennis Danielson
Professor of English, University of British Columbia
Editor, The Book of the Cosmos: Imagining the Universe from Heraclitus to Hawking

Some of these men (like Simon Conway Morris) are not proponents of intelligent design. What they share in common is a desire to investigate the evidence the film considers with an open mind.