Re: The Latest Desperate "Theory" Of The Evolutionists: Time Travellers From Far Future Created The Universe
- From: "chosp" <chosp@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 16:41:28 -0700
"Kevin" <ktn3654@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:f71jj9$2qg$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In rec.arts.sf.written Matt Silberstein
<RemoveThisPrefixmatts2nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 19:01:59 -0700, in alt.atheism , Sound of Trumpet
<soundoftrumpet@xxxxxxxxxxx> in
<1184119319.737688.140660@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
And that it is not an
argument that applies only to life "as we know it" but any life at
all. But your garden-variety non-scientist layman will almost always
argue as if only theists see fine-tuning-when, in fact, atheistic
scientists see it just as clearly as we do. The explanation is in
dispute, not the phenomenon.
Not really. 99.99999999999% of the Universe is inhospitable to life.
Where is the fine tuning?
The fine-tuning exists in fundamental parameters that are the same
throughout _all_ of the observable universe--e.g., the mass and charge
of the electron, the strength of gravity, etc. It appears that for
many values of those parameters, life would be absolutely impossible.
So who has actually changed the values of those parameters to test
this?
These arguments become merely philosophical statements
when one realizes that experimentally changing the physical constants
to refute or confirm theoretical calculations does not appear to be
in the cards into the most remote forseeable future.
In this case, Elvis has left the building - taking empiricism with him.
You are correct that the vast majority of the universe is already
inhospitable for life, but there is a difference between that and life
being impossible.
For example, if the cosmic acceleration were much larger, there
would be no chance for matter to coalesce into such large objects as
stars and planets. In a very short time after the Big Bang we would
have a universe consisting of largely isolated atoms. It is very hard
to see how life could exist in such a universe.
See, for example, "Dimensionless constants, cosmology, and other
dark matters" (Tegmark, Aguirre et.al., Physical Review D 73, 023505,
2006). Tegmark et. al. acknowledge the existence of fine-tuning, but
you can't call them cosmological design advocates---they are expressly
negative about the design option.
I do think that some of the fine-tuning boosters have somewhat
exaggerated its extent. In particular, it's hard to completely rule
out forms of life very different from what we know. But I think the
existence of some degree of fine-tuning is by now pretty well accepted
among scientists who have looked into the matter.
As always, I
dutifully point out that if we ever do discover a fundamental theory
that explains the constants, then given what we know and agree, that
habitability is sensitive to their values, we have just then arrived
at the most compelling cosmological design argument possible, short of
God's personal appearance. Namely: habitability is built into the
fabric of spacetime.
Wow, that straw really goes fast. Read Kauffman. He argues rather
convincingly that life is pretty much inevitable in a wide range of
Universes.
Would you mind giving a more specific reference for Kauffman?
Feinberg and Shapiro (_Life Beyond Earth_) made a similar argument that
I, and most others, found at best only partially convincing.
The problem with the argument in the original post is that there
is no reason to think that a universe following such a fundamental
theory (one from which life-permitting parameters followed inevitably,
rather than being adjustable) could _only_ be the result of design,
or is even especially probable to be the result of design.
Kevin
.
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