chance but to design"), and the analogical argument (because it proceeds by
drawing an analogy between the apparently goal-directed behavior of things
in the natural world--birds flying south for the winter or the leaves of a pho-
totropic plant turning toward the sun--and the behavior of things designed or
controlled by human begins: "as an arrow is directed by an archer").

It is commonly held that the teleological argument has been refuted by the
Darwinian account of evolution--indeed by the very existence of the Darwin-
ian account, whether or not we know it to be true. And this may very well be
so if we take the scope of the argument to be limited to living organisms (that
is, to those objects in the natural world whose features the Darwinian theory
gives an account of). But what of the cosmos as a whole? If the cosmos is a very
special cosmos among all possible cosmoi, and if it has every appearance of
being a cosmos that has been designed to be an abode for life, might not the
most obvious explanation of this appearance be that the appearance is reality?
Might not the most obvious explanation of the fine-tuning of the cosmos be
that it has been fine-tuned? That its large-scale features (if no others) have been
carefully chosen and put into place by a conscious, purposive being who
wanted to make an abode for living things? And if a conscious, purposive be-
ing designed the cosmos to be an abode for living things, and if, as we know it
does, the cosmos also contains rational beings like ourselves--rational
animals--is it not reasonable to infer further that the existence of those ratio-
nal beings is a part of the purposes of the Designer (who is, after all, also a ra-
tional being and may therefore be presumed to take a special interest in
rational beings)?

For justification of the claims found in the text concerning the origin of terres-
trial life and the likelihood of extraterrestrial rational species, see Shapiro, Ori-
gins, and Mayr, "The Probability of Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life."

Leslie Universes is a brilliant exposition and discussion of physical cos-
mology and "fine- tuning."

Aquinas's teleological argument can be found in any collection devoted to
the philosophy of religion. It is included in Burrill The Cosmological Argu-
ments.

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