A continuation, with a different interlocutor, of the discussion begun in the latest

Firing Line Debate (#FLS203). Mr. Glynn's book had stressed the "anthropic principle":

the idea that it is mind-bogglingly improbable that man just "happened" through natural

processes. This show is no sparring match; instead, Mr. Buckley invites Mr. Glynn to

lead us through these thickets, which he does with great enthusiasm and clarity: "And

scientists ... began to look at the evolution of the universe ... And what they began to

do was play with the various values in the universe ... like, you change the value of

gravity, or you change the value of electromagnetism, or you change the masses of the

subatomic particles. And what they found in these various thought experiments or

exercises is that every time they made even a slight change, the whole Big Bang derailed.

... And so it began to dawn on scientists that biological life, far from being sort of an

accident that just happened ... had to have been programmed into the universe from the

very, very start."