We know that there are planets around the majority of stars, and that there are billions upon billions of planets in the solar system. We also don’t have a full understanding of what features a planet needs in order to have intelligent life. We don’t have any way of absolutely knowing how many planets conducive to the emergence of intelligent life could naturally arise in our universe. In essence, we are trying to determine if a lottery was finely tuned for the winner without knowing the probability of winning nor how many people were playing the lottery.
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I know. Most of my questions are ones that I already believe I have answers to. The answer is that there is no fine tuning. I just wanted to make a post to see if anyone wanted to defend that position blatantly instead of random small snippets within various discussions. I think that often people do believe it’s fine tuned just that they don’t have a reason for it and when pushed they realize it. Sort of like a disconnect between faith and reality. Something common within deconstruction.
I have a reason for it, but I readily confess that it is not a scientific one. It’s very analogous to believing in God – I have lots of reasons, including empirical evidence, just no scientific ones.
Are you from Yorkshire?
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I thought there were eight?! There are easily a trillion in our mediocre galaxy. Tuning doesn’t apply beyond the measured constants of physics, if it applies at all.
The above comments are interesting but bypass what I remember as the main points in the “fine tuning” discussion I remember from my younger days, when particle physicists liked to write popular books suggesting they were chasing down God.
The point made in those books is that, 1) we seem to be able to understand much about the material world by postulating a set of laws of physics and fundamental numerical constants of physics, 2) we have no answer as to why the laws or constants take the forms and values they do, 3) the range of values the constants could potentially take, to be plugged into those mathematical laws, is as far as we know unlimited, 4) a hypothetical universe in which those constants took even slightly different values would not have lead to material structures (atoms, carbon, molecules, complex organic carbon-molecular chemistry) that are the only known basis for living material organisms including humans.
After that, the argument gets sketchy. Because, under metaphysical naturalism, it’s not possible to speak of a process or agent that determined the laws and constants of nature. They just Are. And yet, still, that’s unsatisfying, so the mind wanders, and considers two hypotheses: an agent determined them (a god, minimally a deist god), or they came about by some unknown/unknowable non-agent process, that to us would appear random (whether it is or is not actually random). And, although it courts the “turtles all the way down” syndrome, the latter is more appealing to ontological naturalists (atheists).
Assuming the fundamental constants were randomly drawn from wide and independent probability distributions, then it would be exceedingly unlikely that any roll of the dice would yield a universe that could sustain life as we know it. That in essence is the fine tuning problem.
There are of course many counter arguments. None of which make much sense. As an agnostic I viewed them as akin to stage characters beating in angst against the fourth wall, and chose instead to live in humble not-knowing. (But now I think I know the playwright.)
Edit to add, as a former physicist, I think (but have no evidence) as a result of such considerations, the incidence of atheism among physicists is lower than among other sciences. In the search for an answer to “why” questions in the sciences, the buck stops with physicists, and to any physicist it’s obvious, if you ask “why”, and then ask it again in response to the answer, repeatedly, you must end up with “I don’t know”.
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There are only a handful of constants that so far cannot be derived mathematically and have to be measured: c, G, e, h, mu zero, emm ee, nothing to justify ID.
A handful is not zero. (And there are 19 required to support currently accepted theory.) Even if we eventually come up with theories that have no reliance on measurables (ie. all rational numbers or calculable irrational numbers), the fine-tuning problem will become an anchronism, but there will still be the question of why those laws apply.
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While today’s digital hardware is extremely impressive, it is clear that the human retina’s real time performance goes unchallenged. Actually, to simulate 10 milliseconds (one hundredth of a second) of the complete processing of even a single nerve cell from the retina would require the solution of about 500 simultaneous nonlinear differential equations 100 times and would take at least several minutes of processing time on a Cray supercomputer. Keeping in mind that there are 10 million or more such cells interacting with each other in complex ways, it would take a minimum of 100 years of Cray time to simulate what takes place in your eye many times every second. John Stevens Byte Magazine
No big deal. Hey, I can count to 10 twice in 6 minutes!
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And on top of that, the human genome comprises at most 725 megabytes of information. The hardware that codes for is extraordinary, let alone the software… And there’s no real difference in the amount of code to produce animals with equally impressive bodies but far less capacity of mind. Amazing. Praise God.
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Aye, none of which needs ID. 19 calculated constants? Does that include all the quark ratios that don’t count?
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And what is that irrational bias and what is it that I want to believe?
Maybe you are denying what you see, too:
…and depending on your intuition?
if our universe is absolutely self-sufficient, there is a natural explanation for everything, does this leave room for faith in God?
For me it does. That’s how my faith already operates.
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As an atheist, I would be ecstatic if evidence for a deity creating the universe were discovered. I want to know the truth, no matter what that truth turns out to be. However, we aren’t there yet. We simply don’t know how the universe came about, or why it has the constants and laws that it does. We don’t know how many universes there are, be it one or many, nor do we know the full history that preceded the expansion of our universe. It is just a black hole of knowledge right now.
It is worth noting that a Jesuit priest was one of the founders of the Big Bang theory.
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By rationality we know that there are infinite from eternity. Whether God grounds them or not.
Nothing will ever “need” a god to be “explained”. (Yeah, I think ID barks up the wrong tree.) You can always just leave the unknown, unknown. Or assume that some new theory will come along that “explains” it, forgetting that the new theory will inevitably have its own mysteries. It’s not unreasonable at all to suggest the answers to some mysteries is simply “because God did it”. For example, here’s Richard Feynman on the fine structure constant:
Re 19, it turns out I’m behind the times and the discovery of neutrino mass pushed it up to 26. A list here:
https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/constants.html
Edit, sorry to trigger the cuss word filter! It was a direct quote.
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I cannot see how anyone could doubt fine tuning. Since the HGP (human genome project) has been studied, it seems obvious to me that we could not possibly exist without fine tuning. We cannot, even yet, reproduce in a laboratory the formation of the simplest life. We cannot understand how the millions of mutations necessary for our evolution could have occurred. Each gene accounts for 1-4 protein molecules, and even a single mutation of a single base pair results in loss of function and cell death. So the probability of it all happening by “chance alone” with selection promoting selective survival is calculated by some scientists as one in trillion-trillion-trillions.
And in regard to our planet, there are hundreds of circumstances that had to have occurred in order for Earth to support life. Location, atmosphere, degree of gravity, laws of physics, etc.
Abiogenesis (creation of life from inanimate molecules) has nothing to do with evolution of course. The evidence for one is unrelated to the evidence for the other. Proving that natural processes can produce life from non-living molecules does not address the issue of mutations followed by natural selection (Darwin, 1859). Importantly, few who have studied the science doubts evolution, including those scientists who are devout believers in a higher power. So this is about the science of the creation of life, whether or not “intelligent design” was (or is) also a factor in creating the environment for the process. In case anyone is interested, the most scientific analysis for creationists is here, a thorough work by Jerry Bergman Ph.D. They are recently categorized as Theistic Evolutionists, believing that God is compatible with science and was the “first cause and immanent sustainer of the universe”. Indeed, this article in the WSJ by Metaxas points to the quickly shrinking number of possible planets that would have been capable of evolving and supporting life, suggesting that an intelligent design may have laid the ground-work for our planets unique situation in the universe. But that’s another story…
Among the many indisputable and complex conditions that must exist for de-novo life to erupt, there must be precursor molecules necessary for self-replication. The Big Bang was definitely 13.8 billion years ago and the biochemistry of life may have begun during the first 10-17 million years following (first .072% of the time). Earth formed 4.51 B years ago and water shortly afterward .2B yrs later (200 M). Earliest undisputed life is 3.5 billion years ago as microbial mat fossils in sandstone in Western Australia. Others are a biogenic substance in rocks in Western Greenland at 3.7 B years ago. There are 10-14 million species on Earth but 99% of all that ever lived are now extinct. The first synthesis of a compound which is known to occur only in a living organism was in 1824 when Oxalic acid was created from cyanogen. In 1828 urea (CO(NH2)2) was synthesized from inorganic salts. There followed the synthesis of many organic compounds from inorganic ones, without the involvement of any living organism. The most famous was in 1953 in the Miller/Urey experiments. They filled a sealed glass apparatus with methane, ammonia, H2 and water vapor, then spark-discharged into it simulating lightning while a heating coil kept the water boiling. After 3 days, a reddish stain occurred, analysis of which revealed several amino acids. They produced 10 of the 20 essentials required for life. Thus the term “primordial soup” was coined. This “proof of concept” discredited the oldest “common denominator” which was the concept of “vitalism”, or some spark necessary for living things. Some equated this with the soul and Hippocrates (460-370 BC) named the “four temperaments and humours” as melancholic, phlegmatic, sanguine and choleric, as evolved from the classic elements of earth, water, air and fire. Also used were dry/wet, cold/hot, and it was only in the late 1828 that these were rejected (by the synthesis of urea). Famously, Thomas Huxley compared vitalism to stating that water is the way it is because of its “aquasity”, creating a word to beg the question.
So the first life (3.5B yrs ago) became layered in “microbial mats” with each layer living on the products of another layer, the highest “form” becoming the top of the food chain. After 500M yrs (1/2 a billion) photosynthesis evolved (3B yrs ago), creating a by-product of energy from light, the first O2. Then organisms evolved that could use O2, and by definition, became more efficient as a consequence. Anaerobic fermentation produces 2 molecules of ATP per molecule of glucose, while aerobic produces 36! Next, a billion years later, (2B yrs ago), came the “eukaryote” cell, one with a nucleus and enclosed in a membrane containing mitochondria (for energy) and the Golgi apparatus (to collect and dispatch proteins, also called membrane transport). This allows for both mitosis (diploid division into 2 identical nuclei) and meiosis (haploid single-chromosome necessary for sex replication), both necessary for further evolution. But these were still single-cell organisms. This gets us up to only .5B years ago, and all life had been in the RNA “single strand” World. DNA adds a strand is more stable, exchanging the uracil of RNA to the pyrimidine thymine, the other 3 being the same, purines guanine & adenine, and pyrimidine cytosine. The chemical structure is almost exactly the same, RNA having a C=O at the 2 carbon site which makes it unstable.
Multi-cellular “animals” came next, but always associated with a microbial mat. This happened only 500M yrs ago beginning the Cambrian Explosion so it took 4B years to get this far. Why evolution to larger organisms took so long is uncertain, but it may be that until more O2 was available, smaller was better (survival of the fittest). This period of such a rapid appearance of most animal phyla, lasting only 25M yrs, was mentioned by Darwin as “the best objection made against the theory of evolution by natural selection”. It remains so today.
The 4 most commonly held theories depicting the actual mechanism of abiogenesis are each a subset of the two views of possible transition from abiotic organic compounds to autonomous self-replicating molecules. They are:
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Iron-sulfur world: This postulates the evolution of biochemical pathways as fundamentals of evolution. It is consistent in tracing back to ancestral reactions assembling organic building blocks from gaseous compounds.The beauty of this theory is that it does not require external sources of energy, using energy released from reduction reactions with metal sulfides.
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Zn-World: Primordial atmosphere was 100 times more pressure, and IR radiation 100 times more intense, so ZnS provided just the right energy conditions to energize the synthesis of metabolic and informational molecules and nucleo-bases.
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Deep sea vent hypothesis: Hydrogen rich fluids emerge from the sea floor. Sustained chemical energy is created and electron donors such as H2 react with electron acceptors such as CO2 creating an environment ideal for an abiogenic hatchery for life.
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Thermo-synthesis: Similar to todays fermentation process. Life needed an energy source to create peptide bonds of proteins and RNA, and the process of chemiosmosis provided it. This is similar to the ATP synthase enzyme exists today and may be the progenitor for this process. The “first proteins” would have bound substrates and condensed them to a reaction product until a temperature change released them.
Now, in the search for other hospitable planets, a little history is important. The first exoplanet was detected only 20 years ago. We have now confirmed another 1,000 to 4,000 with NASA’s Kepler space telescope. An important issue now is figuring out what to look for that suggests life. While conditions do not have to be exactly like planet Earth, all scientists agree on certain prerequisites necessary, no matter how versatile evolution is. Temperature, gravity, density, atmosphere…
It’s not as simple as finding O2 in an atmosphere, because O2 can be produced by processes that don’t involve living things. All agree that 2 components are sine-qua-non: ability to replicate and ability to store energy. And to have this, there must be liquid water and organic polymers such as nucleic acids and proteins. Scientists agree on these points. How rare would it be for a new planet to have conditions suitable for abiogenesis? Since the conditions required also change as life evolves, the conditions themselves must “evolve” accordingly, such as high temperatures early on, but cooling at a perfect rate. So from 4.51 B ago to 4 ago, both cooling and water appeared. Early surface temps were -40. We needed to have a bit of global warming.
How much time would be necessary for life to emerge? If it took us 4B yrs to evolve to multi-cellular creatures, we are lucky, as the sun’s life-expectancy is only 10B years and our universe is only 13.8B. Again, time matters and nothing is permanent.
The best argument to persuade a “creationist” to the certainty of evolution is the pseudogene to produce Vitamin C. Most mammals have a gene that produces an enzyme called GULO that produces Vit C, but primates such as chimps, gorillas and humans require Vit C, but we have the gene to produce it, only it does not work. If we were all created similarly because of a God, then why would he bother to put the GULO gene in us at all? So we have a “common descent” not a “common designer”. And a bat’s wing, dolphin fin and human arm have the basic same structure, even with 2 bones in the forearm and finger bones. If design similarity was the point, why didn’t God design the dolphin’s fin to be like other fins that work so well, like the shark? Only mammals have fins like ours.
As incredible and improbable as our evolution seems, it becomes more-so when viewed in the context of our many mass-extinctions. Imagine that 252M yrs ago 96% of all marine species and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrates suddenly became extinct. So most of the process had to “start over” (the P-Tr or Permian-Triassic event). Then 200M yrs age, the Triassic-Jurassic event (Tr-J) occurred, eliminating 34% of marine life and all non-dinosaurs became extinct. Of course, the K-T or Cretaceous-Tertiary event 65M ago was the end of the dinosaurs along with 75% of all animal life and 80% of plants. This event is the one impacting at the current Gulf of Mexico by comet/asteroid impact. This profound effect on evolution allowed other organisms to flourish and we saw the first mammals growing and filling the niches left. So it is unlikely that we would be here absent many such episodes.