Kerby Anderson
In the opening chapter of his book, The Privileged Planet, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez talks about watching a total eclipse in India in 1995. In order to have a solar eclipse, you need to have an object come in front of the sun. But in order to have a total solar eclipse, you need the right ratios in size and distance.
As one website explains it: ‘The Sun’s diameter is about 400 times greater than that of the Moon, but it’s also about 400 times farther away. This coincidence of nature means that the Sun and the Moon appear to be roughly the same size in our sky.”
But he began to wonder, Is it merely a coincidence? He begins to play the “what if” game. What if the Moon were much closer to earth? What if the Moon were less round? What if the Moon had an atmosphere? What if we were living on another planet in the Solar System? In case you are wondering, Earth is the only planet where a total solar eclipse can be seen.
The ratios of size and distance are “just right.” As you have probably heard me say in previous commentaries, the growing list of parameters in our universe, our galaxy, and our solar system are all “just right.” Some astronomers looking at these “just right” anthropic coincidences say we live in a Goldilocks Universe.
Non-Christian scientists are aware of these parameters and merely argue that we were fortunate and won the cosmological lottery. But others, like Guillermo Gonzalez, see the so-called coincidences are evidence of intelligent design.
Next Monday, when you look up in the sky, make sure you have approved solar eclipse glasses. But as you watch or even see the event recorded on the Internet, remember Psalm 19 – “The heavens declare the glory of God.”

Kerby Anderson
Inflation has been so much a part of our economic lives, so we take it for granted. Although the Federal Reserve aims for an inflation target of 2 percent, some economists are suggesting we should reexamine that target especially since we won’t be hitting it very soon.
Two years ago, I mentioned a book by Jeff Booth. In the The Price of Tomorrow, he argues that we should be seeing deflation in our society. His argument is simple: Technology is deflationary. That is the nature of technology.
Think about cell phones. He explains that his first cell phone (which was a Motorola 8000). “It had thirty minutes of talk time before it needed to be charged for ten to twelve hours, and it cost about $2,000.” Think of the cell phone in your hand today.
While we are talking about cell phones, perhaps you have seen the graphic that compares the Apollo 11 computer with the Apple iPhone. The Apollo guidance computer used 12,250 flops (floating point operations per second). The Apple iPhone 12 now processes 11 trillion flops. It is 900 million times faster than the Apollo computer and also a fraction of the cost.
Jeff Booth reminds us, “Our economic systems were not built for a world driven by technology where prices keep falling. They were built for a pre-technology era where labor and capital were inextricably linked, an era that counted on growth and inflation, an era where we made money from scarcity and inefficiency.”
We should be experiencing deflation, which is a world where you get more for your money. But we have inflation due to money printing and the declining value of the dollar. Perhaps it is time to rethink how we do this economy.