Claim CI301:
The cosmos is fine-tuned to permit human life. If any of several
fundamental constants were only slightly different, life would be
impossible. (This claim is also known as the weak anthropic principle.)
Source:
Ross, Hugh. 1994. Astronomical evidences for a personal, transcendent
God. In: The Creation Hypothesis, J. P. Moreland, ed., Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity Press, pp. 141-172.
Response:
- The claim assumes life in its present form is a given; it applies not
to life but to life only as we know it. The same outcome results if
life is fine-tuned to the cosmos.
We do not know what fundamental conditions would rule out any
possibility of any life. For all we know, there might be intelligent
beings in another universe arguing that if fundamental constants were
only slightly different, then the absence of free quarks and the
extreme weakness of gravity would make life impossible.
Indeed, many examples of fine-tuning are evidence that life is
fine-tuned to the cosmos, not vice versa. This is exactly what
evolution proposes.
- If the universe is fine-tuned for life, why is life such an extremely
rare part of it?
- Many fine-tuning claims are based on numbers being the "same order of
magnitude," but this phrase gets stretched beyond its original meaning
to buttress design arguments; sometimes numbers more than
one-thousandfold different are called the same order of magnitude (Klee
2002).
How fine is "fine" anyway? That question can only be answered by a
human judgment call, which reduces or removes objective value from the
anthropic principle argument.
- The fine-tuning claim is weakened by the fact that some physical
constants are dependent on others, so the anthropic principle may rest
on only a very few initial conditions that are really fundamental (Kane
et al. 2000). It is further weakened by the fact that different
initial conditions sometimes lead to essentially the same outcomes, as
with the initial mass of stars and their formation of heavy metals
(Nakamura et al. 1997), or that the tuning may not be very fine, as
with the resonance window for helium fusion within the sun (Livio et
al. 1989). For all we know, a universe substantially different from
ours may be improbable or even impossible.
- If part of the universe were not suitable for life, we would not be
here to think about it. There is nothing to rule out the possibility
of multiple universes, most of which would be unsuitable for life. We
happen to find ourselves in one where life is conveniently possible
because we cannot very well be anywhere else.
- Intelligent design is not a logical conclusion of fine tuning. Fine
tuning says nothing about motives or methods, which is how design is
defined. (The scarcity of life and multi-billion-year delay in it
appearing argue against life being a motive.) Fine-tuning, if it
exists, may result from other causes, as yet unknown, or for no reason
at all (Drange 2000).
- In fact, the anthropic principle is an argument against an omnipotent
creator. If God can do anything, he could create life in a universe
whose conditions do not allow for it.
Links:
Drange, Theodore M. 2000. The fine-tuning argument revisited (2000).
Philo 3(2): 38-49.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/tuning-revisited.html
Stenger, Victor J. 1997. Intelligent design: Humans, cockroaches, and
the laws of physics. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cosmo.html
Stenger, Victor J. 1999 (July). The anthropic coincidences:
A natural explanation. The Skeptical Intelligencer 3(3): 2-17.
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/stenger_intel.html
Weinberg, Steven. 1999. A designer universe?
http://www.physlink.com/Education/essay_weinberg.cfm
References:
- Drange, Theodore M. 2000. The fine-tuning argument revisited (2000).
Philo 3(2): 38-49.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/tuning-revisited.html
- Kane, G. L., M. J. Perry, and A. N. Zytkow. 2000 (28 Jan.). The
beginning of the end of the anthropic principle. New Astron. 7:
45-53. http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0001197
- Klee, Robert. 2002. The revenge of Pythagoras: How a mathematical
sharp practice undermines the contemporary design argument in
astrophysical cosmology. British Journal for the Philosophy of
Science 53: 331-354.
- Livio, M., D. Hollowell, A. Weiss and J. Truran. 1989. The
anthropic significance of the existence of an excited state of
12C. Nature 340: 281-284.
- Nakamura, Takashi, H. Uehara, and T. Chiba. 1997.
The minimum mass of the first stars and the anthropic principle.
Progress of Theoretical Physics 97: 169-171.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/9612113
Further Reading:
Goldsmith, D. 2004. The best of all possible worlds. Natural History
113(6) (July/Aug.): 44-49.
created 2001-2-18, modified 2005-8-5