I don't want to step out of my bounds here in regards to this argument. I think we would have to shift to the KCA in order to speculate about the nature of the designer. The KCA would suggest that the designer was not contingent on the existence of this universe, and therefore not of this universe.
And that is why science rejects it.
I'm honestly not sure how something inside the universe could fine-tune the universe's parameters; either way, the context of the arguments makes it pretty clear that the god it is arguing for is a supernatural being. And in science, the supernatural is not a valid answer, for a variety of well-established and clear reasons. Now, if you want to exit the realm of science, that's fine, but keep in mind that you're also abandoning the justification you have for rejecting options 1 and 2.
Well, it is estimated that the odds of a universe being life-permitting is 1 in 10 followed by 500 zeros. So, if it was deigned, that would help explain why such an unlikely scenario was realized. Odds are we should be dead...or more accurately, non-existent.
Wow, what brilliantly useful explanatory power.
That explains so much about the universe that every other option wouldn't have.
Actually, supernatural design could create a universe which was
not life-permitting, and then proceed to fill it with life
anyways. Disembodied spiritual entities that can communicate with each other across boundless space without the need for things like bodies or food or sustenance. Great cosmic beings that hold together not with things like gravity and electromagnetism but the hand of a loving deity. In this universe, there could be no other explanation but design. But the fact that we can invoke design to explain both a universe fine-tuned for life and a universe not fine-tuned but which contains life nonetheless is a perfect example of why supernatural explanations hold no merit in science. They make no testable predictions, have no predictive power, and are unfalsifiable. They are, as a result, completely useless.
And of course, "if the universe were different we wouldn't be here" is a meaningless argument. Yeah, weak anthropic principle says hi. In any given universe where we would not exist, we would not be there to wax philosophical about how unlikely it is that we were there!
Let's be honest here. Given these three options for the universal constants - physical necessity, chance, and "god did it" - what do you think most cosmologists accept? Which do you think
Hawking accepts? Do you think there is one which most of them
reject, and if so, which one?
I mean, to be blunt, I at least have
some respect for the people who cite their own scientists accurately, even if those scientists are crap. Citing a thousand crap articles by Behe is at least more intellectually honest than twisting Hawking's words to have him take on a position he quite obviously does not take on.