Date of Birth: 
About John A. Leslie
- John Andrew Leslie (born 2 August 1940) is a Canadian philosopher.
- He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, earning his B.A.
- in English Literature in 1962 and his M.Litt.
- in Classics in 1968.
- He is currently Professor emeritus at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada. In his book Universes, Leslie describes a philosophical parable in which an individual survives a firing squad of fifty expert marksmen unscathed.
- He offers two explanations for this remarkable event: either it is a fortuitous outcome, to be expected occasionally by pure chance among many thousands of attempted executions by firing squad; or it is intentional.
- Francis Collins references this parable in his book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief as part of his argument that the Anthropic Principle strongly suggests a Creator with intent. Leslie has spoken as follows about his life's work: What I have to contribute is some technical defense of the idea that if you had an infinitely rich [universe], it could be explained by reference to its value.
- Its goodness could be the creative force which had produced it.
- I think if I would like to be remembered as a philosopher for any one thing, that would be the thing I'd most like to be remembered for.
Read more at Wikipedia