For me (speaking as someone who has been both a physicist and something like an evolutionary biologist), the difference between the two cases is that Behe is deemed to be mistaken in the context of widely accepted biological theory. Fine-tuning arguments, on the other hand, do not have the same kind of context because there is no theory for the origin of universes, or for the probability distributions from which their laws and constants might be drawn. When physicists say that if a constant were slightly different(*), life as we know it would be impossible, they are speaking from their expertise within the field. If they then go on to say that the observed values of constants are highly improbable, they have exceeded the current bounds of the field. Maybe someday string theory will provide an appropriate context for making that kind of judgment, but today it doesn’t.
(*) Note: one thing physicists can’t say is whether life would be possible if the laws of physics were very different. Fine-tuning arguments are based on our knowledge of a small part of the infinite space of imaginable physical laws.
I think it should be clear what a universe designed by God would look like, and that is what we have, because our universe is designed by God and created out of nothing. As for a universe not designed by God, it would not be rationally structured as the New Atheists claim, it would be strictly random.
Muslims say that Allah and God are the same. On the other hand they believe that Allah is Absolute and is thus not constrained by the laws of science, while Christians believe that God is Relational, rather than Absolute, and God lives within the laws of Science that God has created.
Before the Big Bang non believers could claim that the universe was eternal and did not have a beginning. After the Big Bang they cannot. From whence did the structure of the universe? Did it come from God? Did it come from humans? if not it does not exist and there is no tuning or structure of the universe.
That is the choice. Rational Structure and God or no structure, chaos, and no God?
What would that universe look like? Maybe something like this?
Does this clearly indicate a universe designed by God or random? Or perhaps your statement can’t be known by studying the natural world and only believed by faith.
From my reading, Matthew agrees with the consensus.
@pevaquark is also right on this point. Their calculations are based on massive assumptions. A probability is only as good as the assumptions it is based on, and those assumptions are entirely speculative. We don’t know if the constants we see in the universe can be any different, just as one example. We also don’t know how many universes there are. To use another example, you can calculate the odds of winning the lottery, but you can’t calculate the odds of there being a winner if you don’t know how many people played the lottery.
What does random mean? Chaotic, without order or structure.
The randomness comes from atmospheric noise, which for many purposes is better than the pseudo-random number algorithms typically used in computer programs.
This quote from an ad for a random number generator gives you some understanding of what pure randomness is, the antonym of order. It is very difficult to generate random numbers because order is basic to the way we act and think.
It is science often using math to find design in nature. 2 + 2 = 4 is not random. 2 + 2 might = 6 or 9 is random.
Faith does not create order, but it affirms that there is order.
That’s why fine-tuning should be defined without reference to probabilities. If small fractional changes to the constants result in an uninhabitable universe, then the universe is fine tuned regardless of the (likely unknowable) probabilities. More formerly, the probability agnostic definition:
Fine Tuning:The concept that the habitability of the universe is highly sensitive to the values of the physical constants.
The only strange aspect of all this is that if the universe is fine-tuned as defined above, then secular science answers it with the low probability explanation of a random draw from the multiverse.
On the other hand, if the probability is unity (an unknown theory of everything) then that means the only possible universe is habitable and fine tuned. That is as close as you can get to invoking design/God, for the only counter explanation would be blind luck.
And yet the theists fine-tuning champions universally argue for low probabilities. That’s bass-ackwards.
I never get tired of making this argument, even if everyone gets tired of hearing it.
I would say that the secular explain is “we don’t know”. Specifically, we don’t know how many universes there are, so the people arguing for one universe and those who argue for multiple universes are on equally shaky ground. As you have noted, what we can know is that there is a narrow range of constants that allow for life to exist. What we can’t know is the probability of the existence of a universe like ours.
Randomness needs context. Random processes can have order and structure, so that isn’t a part of it. If you say that something is random, you have to also ask “with respect to what?”. For example, the game of craps is considered to be random, but what do we mean by that? If we look at 1 million games of craps we see that the results have order and structure with certain outcomes being predictably more common than others. So what do we mean by craps being random? What we mean is that craps is random with respect to the bets on the table. If I put chips down on the Pass line, that doesn’t increase the odds that the shooter will roll a mark, 7, or 11 (which are not losses or wins for the Pass bet). The chips and the dice are independent of one another, so the results are random with respect to those two parts of the system.
Unfortunately, random has a lot of meanings and it requires context.
What would a randomly generated universe look like that had the laws of Physics of ours vs. a designed universe look like that has the laws of Physics like ours? What would a universe designed by Allah look like compared to a universe designed by Yahweh?
These quantum vacuum fluctuations are certainly “random” within overarching constraints and are one leading idea for what led to the seeds of early galaxies:
Fair enough, I’m happy with this! And I was waiting for you to pop in and quite hoping you would.
In the sense that this is a leading hypothesis but one that any if pressed would hold to very, very tenatively or perhaps simply go with:
Hmm I’ll have to think about this one a bit more. I still don’t like ‘the only possible universe’ because if you started our universe over and over again you’d never get the same thing again. The ‘only possible universe’ also appears to be extremely inhospitable to life which always struck me as an odd consequence of arguing for God’s special design. Perhaps you’ve thought about it more than I have but a universe with only the top few meters of a single planet (let’s say 1 x 10^15 m^3 assuming we could live everywhere on the surface of the earth) compared to the volume of the entire universe (let’s say 50 billion light years in ‘radius’) gives us a volume of 1 x 10^80 m^3 giving us the percentage of our ‘habitable universe’ that is actually habitable to be:
0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000002% of the total volume of the universe.
That seems a bit ‘inhabitable’ to me and not so friendly to life in general but I couldn’t say in general what qualifies as a universe as ‘habitable’ besides the fact we happen to live in this one.
What I meant by “only possible universe” is the extreme high probability case. If there is a universal physics that predicts the constants, the baryon density of the big bang, etc., all of it–so that our universe was the only one that could have resulted, the only one consistent with the super-physics–and yet it was still fine tuned as defined–that (to me) would be tantamount to proving a designer. And yet my theist colleagues always forage at the other end of the probability spectrum.
<<//beatDeadHorse>
I prefer arguments that are couched in terms of biochemistry. The flexibility of carbon based chemistry in specific conditions is what it all boils down to, at least in my view. The existence of an element like carbon and carbon based chemistry does appear to be the result of finely balanced physical constants.
If you started our universe over with the same constants, you would still get carbon and all of the other elements that combine so well with it, assuming that there is also star formation where these elements can form through nuclear fusion. Perhaps that is yet another factor that we would have to consider, which is the initial conditions of the universe and if it would have allowed gravitational collapse of matter. If memory serves (and I probably have this wrong in some sense), there is the question of the balance between matter and anti-matter in the early universe. This may be one more aspect to include in any fine tuning model.
There is also the fascinating philosophical question of why so much of the universe is inhospitable if the universe was designed for us, but I think the distribution of habitability in the universe can be dealt with independently of the fine tuning question.
First of all the laws of physics are rational and thus are dependent on God Who is the Source of Rationality in the universe. Therefore the laws of physics would not work in a randomly universe because there can be nom such thing and the laws of universe would not apply.
The second is a more difficult problem, which I see has confused many. There are two systems interacting here instead of one. Just think of how you and I interact with the world. The primary way is on the Newtonian level. We talk, we act, we think, and do many other things which are wonderful when we think deeply about it, but are commonplace.
On the other hand our body and our brain are doing many things too which in some sense are separate from our conscious self, but are necessary to our conscious self. These are activities are generally based on quantum activities. We breathe air and send it through the body and back out. We eat food, digest it, send it throughout the body, burn energy, create chemicals that regulate the body and mind, expel the waste, etc.
I do not think that quantum physics is the primary cause for genetic mutation, but this a factor, I do not think that quantum physics is the primary cause for changes in ideas, but this could be a factor. Again we have two inter-related systems that need to work together, but are very different.
My physical body is basically at rest. It reacts to the its environment and acts to my desires. Usually it works within tight limits. My rational/spiritual body can be much freer and flexible, which gives us our ability to adapt to our environment and our strength.
This being said the New History of Life reveals that the changes in the physical bodies of Life make possible the growth in the rational/spiritual life of fauna and flora.
Digressing from the fine-tuning for just a moment…
Which I guess might be why we aren’t plopped down in any of the inhospitable bits. It would seem that over 90% of my body is very inhospitable to having my brain reside there (if some Dr. Frankenstein surgeon were to experiment on me.) So should we conclude from then that our bodies certainly are not a good place for our brains? (that one cavity between our ears seems to be the only location that really works, after all).
This puzzlement reminds me of Douglas Adams’ puddle of water: A puddle mused to itself one day that it must be very special indeed since the hole in which it lived was just the perfect shape to match the puddle’s shape. In fact, that hole would be the only hole that had that exact shape … so the philosophers are tempted to conclude it must be a very inhospitable world [universe] indeed since no other hole would be right for this puddle.
Hi Matthew, I guess there is little more to say on this. In your eyes, just about all the expert cosmologists are wrong and you are right to doubt them. I think that is an amazing claim to make which I see no reason to accept. I’ll believe them and be sceptical about you, just as I do with ID, climate change scepticism, etc. Science, like other academic disciplines, depends a lot on peer review and the consensus of published work. That points to fine-tuning being the most reasonable way to interpret the data, so I will stay with that.
I think you are too focused on the numbers. Like I said to someone else, most cosmologists I have read don’t calculate probabilities, they make qualitative statements. Smolin may or may not have been arbitrary about his probabilities but may still be correct qualitatively. If your point is that the numerical probabilities are more speculative than you think is good for science, we wouldn’t have an argument, but you seem to think that all these guys’ judgments are seriously flawed, and they totally misunderstand the data and their models. I can’t buy that.
I would like to discuss the argument and God of the gaps, but granted this, I’m not sure it would be worthwhile. What do you think?
From what I have read, cosmologists think that the basic theoretical physics is very well worked out, and, in Barnes’ words: “to significantly change the probability of a life-permitting universe, we would need a prior that centres close to the observed value, and has a narrow peak. But this simply exchanges one fine-tuning for two — the centre and peak of the distribution.”
I think this idea is mistaken also. Barnes and Lewis & Barnes (in the references I’be given before) address this exact scenario. I think you may find it helpful to read the Barnes paper https://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1112/1112.4647v1.pdf
I don’t know about Barnes and Lewis, but Barnes does not address this scenario in the paper you linked to. Or rather, he introduces it, gives an analogy for why we might think that very different laws of physics would also require fine tuning for life, and concludes the section by saying, “We should be cautious, however. Whatever the problems of defining the possible range of a given parameter, we are in a significantly more nebulous realm when we try to consider the set of all possible physical laws. It is not clear how such a fine-tuning case could be formalised, whatever its intuitive appeal.” And that’s pretty much all he has to say about the matter.
I think you’ve misunderstood either Barnes or me. What he’s saying here is that if we get rid of the assumption that a wide range of parameter values are equally probable, and replace it with the assumption that some universe-generating physical principle makes some parameter values more likely than other, we haven’t solved the problem, because we still have to explain why that process favors those values. Which is true, but doesn’t address my point. These probability distributions are simply assumptions and are not grounded in any existing physical theory.
I’m not suggesting that fine-tuning isn’t a real puzzle. My only claim is that it involves questions that go well beyond current physics, while complaints about Behe’s work involve more problems within accepted biology.
Low chance or not, I gotta say it is kinda disapointing seeing people in the religious side of the science and religion debate relying on the fine tuning argument so much in these days. I know that is not their intention, but it sounds like they are saying “this is the only good argument we have”, when I think there is so much more to be discussed instead of obsessing so much over that.
Hi Stephen, I’ve been pondering yours and Matthew’s responses, and I think there is a major misunderstanding that I haven’t picked up, because I’m slow or because I’m on holidays and answering a little mechanically. So I’m going to try to explain that in my next comment. Suffice to say now, I think the paucity of information tells against the viewpoint you and Matthew seem to be expressing, not for it.
I’m quite happy to accept that there is a quantitative difference between Behe’s claims and yours and Matthew’s. I wasn’t wanting to imply anything quantitative. My comparison was qualitative. When one or two experts stand alone against the consensus, they may be right, but (1) it is unlikely, (2) the truth will come out eventually, and (3) a non-expert has to go with the consensus. You guys appear to be asking me to go against the expert consensus. I cannot see how I can do that. If you are right, argue with the experts, publish, etc, but just being mavericks on this forum isn’t enough to justify anyone following you.
I’m sorry, I hope I don’t sound rude, but to follow you would go against good learning principles of accepting expert opinion when we don’t have enough knowledge ourselves. If I was willing to do that here, I might also do it with Behe or climate change scepticism, etc.
But there is more to be said, so I’ll get onto that. Thanks.
Yes, it’s useless to tell the person holding the winning lottery ticket that the odds were against it. Nevertheless, I think there is something to be said for fine-tuning in general, but I think it is a cumulative argument that goes beyond the universal constants. After all, these simply allowed a place like Earth to form, which is a far cry from where we are now. So, without further ado, I present Jay’s Argument for “Highly Fortuitous” Creation:
The universe appears fine-tuned to produce a place like Earth.
This place, Earth, appears fine-tuned to produce life.
Life appears fine-tuned to produce mankind.
At every step along the path, many “highly fortuitous” events – some with scientific explanation, some without – conspired to bring us to this particular destination. What I find persuasive is not that humanity won the lottery. To my mind, assigning a probability to “this” or “that” event is somewhat arbitrary, and considering any of them individually, it is not to hard to see how the “lottery analogy” applies. But, when we consider the “big picture” of life on Earth, we didn’t just win the lottery; we won a whole series of lotteries – one after the other after the other. It is this aspect that gives me pause.
Is it an apologetic? Not really. I think of it more as a “pointer,” as in something that points beyond itself to hint at that which is greater. The long chain of highly fortuitous events doesn’t “prove” anything, but it might make people pause long enough to say, “Hmmmm. Maybe there is more here than meets the eye?” But, that is a long way from faith.
