Fine Tuning

lesliedellow said:

I am sure you get the point. Evidence is cumulative.

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Was that not also the case for luminiferous aether?

HitchSlap said:

So says those who are most familiar with the evidence.

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You mean like George Coyne, Owen Gingerich. J Richard Gott or John D Barrow?

I suspect that they all are better acquainted with they evidence than you.

Davian said:

Was that not also the case for luminiferous aether?

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I am not sure what point you think you are making, except that scientific conclusions are provisional, because humans are fallible, and we already knew that.

lesliedellow said:

I am not sure what point you think you are making, except that scientific conclusions are provisional, because humans are fallible, and we already knew that.

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Interesting. May I infer from your comment that [your] theistic conclusions are not provisional?

Davian said:

Interesting. May I infer from your comment that [your] theistic conclusions are not provisional?

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I might be wrong about the existence of God, just as I might be wrong about the Theory of Evolution accounting for the origin of species, but in both cases, I doubt it.

lesliedellow said:

I might be wrong about the existence of God, just as I might be wrong about the Theory of Evolution accounting for the origin of species, but in both cases, I doubt it.

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You did not address my question.

Having pondered this somewhat, it would seem that theistic conclusions, by their very nature of being unfalsifiable, are only going to be as provisional as you wish them to be.

I mean, on the existence of God, how could you be shown to be wrong?

Davian said:

You did not address my question.

Having pondered this somewhat, it would seem that theistic conclusions, by their very nature of being unfalsifiable, are only going to be as provisional as you wish them to be.

I mean, on the existence of God, how could you be shown to be wrong?

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A lot of things are unfalsifiable, such as the belief that paedophilia is grossly immoral. Even an atheist like Stephen Weinberg can say that science [and its methodology] is not everything.

Willis Gravning said:

There is one bit of evidence, possibly to the contrary. The speed with which life on Earth began. It was a surprising discovery. Pretty much as soon as conditions stabilized after the great meteoric bombardment, life began.

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~10 billion years after the universe formed isn't exactly quick. That means the universe was lifeless for about 2/3rds of the time is has existed.

But that's the fun about this sort of metaphysical navel gazing. There's no actual substance to the claims of creationists, so creationism can be twisted to fit whatever facts we happen to find. That makes it pointless to argue against because when we find evidence which contradicts the claims of creationism on one day it is sure to change the next.

lesliedellow said:

A lot of things are unfalsifiable, such as the belief that paedophilia is grossly immoral. Even an atheist like Stephen Weinberg can say that science [and its methodology] is not everything.

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Do you drive a Dodge?

Chriliman said:

You can't, unless you know all things about every universe that exist or you know all things about the single universe(ours).

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Hence the problem with the fine tuning argument. It is argued that our universe is improbable, yet the people making those claims can't show us how to calculate those probabilities for the very reasons that I have been discussing.

Not impossible, if you know exactly how many tiles are in the bag.

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But impossible if you don't know how many tiles are in the bag, or what numbers or symbols are on the other tiles. That's the whole point.

We don't know if there are other universes, what they are like, or even the process that produces those universes if they exist. From this abject ignorance, some theists want to pretend that our universe is improbable. I think it is safe to say that they lack the knowledge necessary to make such a claim.

I think it's a good analogy, but I'm not sure how it supports the view that the universe is not finely tuned by God, instead I think it supports the view that God could have finely tuned the universe to do what he wants it to do.

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We don't have to prove that God didn't create the universe. It is up to those claiming that God did create the universe to produce the supporting evidence. Lacking such evidence, we can make no conclusions about God's involvement, if any.

When I say 'universe' I'm including all heavens and earth, everything that can be known to exist.

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The hard part is knowing if all we know is all that exists.

If we're talking about the God of Christ, then he'd be actively loving his creation(the universe and us) in order to cause change in a way that pleases him. This is possible and even likely, considering all the things we experience in our universe.

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I go through a rather large supply of grained salt when reading posts from Christians telling me what God does and doesn't think. I would hope you can understand my skepticism.

Chesterton said:

I agree he's not making a claim, but at the same time I didn't put forth a position on fine-tuning, other than the mere observation of the fact of fine-tuning, which I wouldn't even know about had I not read about it from very smart mathematicians, physicists and chemists.

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The problem is equivocation. There are two meanings for fine tuning. One refers to a very narrow range of physical constants and starting points that would result in a universe like ours. The other refers to the probability of this type of universe occurring. Those are two very different propositions.

Another analogy is the lottery. The specific results are very improbable. The nearly incalculable interactions of the ping pong balls results in a very improbable result. The results are fine tuned. However, given enough tickets sold, a winner is very probable, and it is an entirely natural process with no supernatural intervention needed.

Almost every result of natural processes we see today can be considered finely tuned. The sets of interactions and starting conditions that results in the shape of a specific cloud is extremely finely tuned. One small change in wind speed, humidity, temperature, or barometric pressure and that specific cloud with that specific shape would not have formed, yet it did. Almost every cloud you see has a nearly impossible chance of existing, yet they do, and it is all natural with no need for supernatural processes to intervene.

KCfromNC said:

~10 billion years after the universe formed isn't exactly quick. That means the universe was lifeless for about 2/3rds of the time is has existed.

But that's the fun about this sort of metaphysical navel gazing. There's no actual substance to the claims of creationists, so creationism can be twisted to fit whatever facts we happen to find. That makes it pointless to argue against because when we find evidence which contradicts the claims of creationism on one day it is sure to change the next.

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I think it could be easily argued that the Universe was finely tuned to create black holes and colorful stellar nebulae given the fact that these structures are presumably much more common than life is.

Loudmouth said:

Hence the problem with the fine tuning argument. It is argued that our universe is improbable, yet the people making those claims can't show us how to calculate those probabilities for the very reasons that I have been discussing.



But impossible if you don't know how many tiles are in the bag, or what numbers or symbols are on the other tiles. That's the whole point.

We don't know if there are other universes, what they are like, or even the process that produces those universes if they exist. From this abject ignorance, some theists want to pretend that our universe is improbable. I think it is safe to say that they lack the knowledge necessary to make such a claim.



We don't have to prove that God didn't create the universe. It is up to those claiming that God did create the universe to produce the supporting evidence. Lacking such evidence, we can make no conclusions about God's involvement, if any.



The hard part is knowing if all we know is all that exists.



I go through a rather large supply of grained salt when reading posts from Christians telling me what God does and doesn't think. I would hope you can understand my skepticism.

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I appreciate your honesty

Just wanted to say in regards to your tiles in bag analogy; what science is essentially claiming about the possible multiverse is akin to claiming that there are possibly more bags with tiles than just this one that we know of. I say, let's figure out why this bag has tiles and possibly find out how many tiles are in it and why they're there, then let's worry about other bags with tiles that we have no evidence of.

This illustrates the irrational idea of a multiverse because it's like looking at the tiles in the bag and concluding there might be more bags with tiles...just doesn't make sense, why make that conclusion? I guess it's possible, but I'm more concerned with how and why this bag of tiles that I can actually see, got here. I can't see any other bags of tiles, so why concern myself with the idea that there could be more? It's like I'm trying to avoid the obvious question of how this one got here and why. See my point?

Chriliman said:

Just wanted to say in regards to your tiles in bag analogy; what science is essentially claiming about the possible multiverse is akin to claiming that there are possibly more bags with tiles than just this one that we know of.

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Sticking with the analogy, science is saying that there are possibly more tiles in the bag.

I say, let's figure out why this bag has tiles and possibly find out how many tiles are in it and why they're there, then let's worry about other bags with tiles that we have no evidence of.

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I agree. However, curiosity and investigation are the antithesis of the creationist argument. All too often, creationists rely on gaps in our knowledge to insert a Creator, which is exactly what the fine tuning argument is. There are also Christians who believe that God can act through nature. I try not to paint all Christians with the same brush, so please excuse any overgeneralizations.

This illustrates the irrational idea of a multiverse because it's like looking at the tiles in the bag and concluding there might be more bags with tiles...

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Again, the tiles represent separate universes. It may be that there was only one tile in the bag. However, you need to search the bag to know how many tiles there are, if any.

Loudmouth said:

Sticking with the analogy, science is saying that there are possibly more tiles in the bag.



I agree. However, curiosity and investigation are the antithesis of the creationist argument. All too often, creationists rely on gaps in our knowledge to insert a Creator, which is exactly what the fine tuning argument is. There are also Christians who believe that God can act through nature. I try not to paint all Christians with the same brush, so please excuse any overgeneralizations.



Again, the tiles represent separate universes. It may be that there was only one tile in the bag. However, you need to search the bag to know how many tiles there are, if any.

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I see your point, but doesn't it seem to make more sense to compare the bag to the universe and the tiles to that which we find within the universe?

Chriliman said:

I see your point, but doesn't it seem to make more sense to compare the bag to the universe and the tiles to that which we find within the universe?

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I don't see how it changes anything. We could also say that there are multiple bags with unknown numbers of tiles (perhaps no tiles in the other bags), or even an unknown number of bags. It just seems simpler to keep it to one bag.

KCfromNC said:

~10 billion years after the universe formed isn't exactly quick. That means the universe was lifeless for about 2/3rds of the time is has existed.

But that's the fun about this sort of metaphysical navel gazing. There's no actual substance to the claims of creationists, so creationism can be twisted to fit whatever facts we happen to find. That makes it pointless to argue against because when we find evidence which contradicts the claims of creationism on one day it is sure to change the next.

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There is not yet any way to measure when life first began in the universe. Earth is the only known sample.

Science tells us the Earth is 4.543 billion years old and that life began at least 3.8 billion years ago. However, new evidence suggest that perhaps it began even earlier, 4.1 billion years ago.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/10/scientists-may-have-found-earliest-evidence-life-earth
This would mean that Earth has been a harbor of life for at least 83% and perhaps more than 90% of its existence.

Willis Gravning said:

There is not yet any way to measure when life first began in the universe. Earth is the only known sample.

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Yep, which is why I chose option #2 in the poll. We can't even effectively figure out how well the universe is fine tuned for life, much less figure out how likely it is it could have ended up any different than it is.

Loudmouth said:

You could just as easily argue that each and every time someone wins the Powerball lottery that the interactions of the ping pong balls were finely tuned by a deity so that specific person would win, especially given the nearly impossible odds of all the specific people winning all of those past Powerball drawings. I am not impressed when someone paints the bulls eye around the arrow.

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Your argument is flawed -- they are different things.

Someone winning the powerball lottery tonight is highly probable, because you didn't specify any particular person, if you understand laws of probability.

But fine tuning is a different matter, it is like saying "the probability of Bob and not others winning the Powerball lottery tonight". It's a very small probability.

The probabilities of these 2 events are significantly different.