I've been around a lot of these people professionally, and frankly this notion that they claim that the universe/physics shows design is *very* far from reality. We don't talk that way amongst ourselves.
Setting that aside, can you name *one* of the parameters of the universe that is so on the "knife's edge" that changing it a minuscule bit would make life impossible. Be specific about which property, how much it can be changed, and what evidence demonstrates that values outside that range would be detrimental to life. Only one such property is needed, but I don't want some derivative property.
In the first three minutes of cosmic history, the whole universe was the arena of nuclear reactions. When that era came to an end, through the cooling produced by expansion, the world was left, as it is today on the large scale, a mixture of three-quarters hydrogen and one-quarter helium. A little change in the balance between the strong and weak nuclear forces could have resulted in there being no hydrogen--and so ultimately no water, that fluid that seems so essential to life. A small increase (about 2 percent) in the strong nuclear force would bind two protons to form diprotons. There would then be no hydrogen-burning main-sequence stars, but only helium burners, which are far too fierce and rapid to be energy sources capable of sustaining the coming to be of planetary life. A decrease in the strong nuclear force by a similar amount would have unbound the deuteron and played havoc with fruitful nuclear physics." (John Polkinghorne, "A Potent Universe," in Templeton pg 111
Slight variations in physical laws such as gravity or electromagnetism would make life impossible . . . the necessity to produce life lies at the center of the universe's whole machinery and design ..." (John Wheeler, Princeton University professor of physics Reader's Digest, Sept., 1986)
We have attempted to describe early stages of the expansion of the universe but the description in terms of nuclear physics and relativity is not an explanation of those conditions. Formidable questions arise and it is not clear today where the answers should be sought: indeed, even the scientific description of these queries produces the remarkable idea that there may not be a solution in the language of science. Why is the universe expanding? Furthermore, why is it expanding at so near the critical rate to prevent its collapse? The query is most important because minor differences near time zero would have made human existence impossible. When the universe was one second from the beginning of the expansion we have stated that the temperature had fallen to 1010 deg K and the density to 1 gram per cubic centimeter. It is a phase when, it is postulated, the universe had already reached the possibility of description in terms of common physical concepts. If at that moment the rate of expansion had been reduced by only one part in a thousand billion, then the universe would have collapsed after a few million years, near the end of the epoch we now recognize as the radiation era, or the primordial fireball, before matter and radiation had become decoupled. This remarkable fact was pointed out recently by one of the most distinguished contemporary cosmologists who referred to the suggestions that out of all the possible universes, the only one which can exist, in the sense that it can be known, is simply the one which satisfies the narrow conditions necessary for the development of intelligent life." (Bernard Lovell, In the Center of Immensities, pages 122-123 (New York: Harper & Row, 1978).)
If you wanted to produce carbon and oxygen in roughly equal quantities by stellar nucleosynthesis, these are the two levels you would have to fix, and your fixing would have to be just about where these levels are actually found to be ... A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." (Hoyle F., 'The Universe: Some Past and Present Reflections," University of Cardiff, 1982, p16, in Davies P.C.W., "The Accidental Universe," [1982], Cambridge University Press: Cambridge UK, 1983, reprint, p.118)
Given a random distribution of (gravitating) matter, it is overwhelmingly more probable that it will form a black hole rather than a star or cloud of dispersed gas. These considerations give a new slant, therefore, to the question of whether the universe was created in an ordered or disordered state. If the initial state were chosen at random, it seems exceedingly probable that the big bang would have coughed out black holes rather than dispersed gases. The present arrangement of matter and energy, with matter spread thinly at relatively low density, in the form of stars and gas clouds would, apparently, only result from a very special choice of initial conditions.
Roger Penrose has computed the odds against the observed universe appearing by accident, given that a black hole cosmos is so much more likely on a priori grounds. He estimates a figure of 10^300 to one." (Paul Davies, God and the New Physics, pages 178-179 (Simon & Schuster, 1984).)
strong nuclear force constant:
if larger: no hydrogen would form; atomic nuclei for most life-essential elements would be unstable; thus, no life chemistry
if smaller: no elements heavier than hydrogen would form: again, no life chemistry
weak nuclear force constant:
if larger: too much hydrogen would convert to helium in big bang; hence, stars would convert too much matter into heavy elements making life chemistry impossible
if smaller: too little helium would be produced from big bang; hence, stars would convert too little matter into heavy elements making life chemistry impossible
gravitational force constant:
if larger: stars would be too hot and would burn too rapidly and too unevenly for life chemistry
if smaller: stars would be too cool to ignite nuclear fusion; thus, many of the elements needed for life chemistry would never form
electromagnetic force constant:
if greater: chemical bonding would be disrupted; elements more massive than boron would be unstable to fission
if lesser: chemical bonding would be insufficient for life chemistry
ratio of electromagnetic force constant to gravitational force constant:
if larger: all stars would be at least 40% more massive than the sun; hence, stellar burning would be too brief and too uneven for life support
if smaller: all stars would be at least 20% less massive than the sun, thus incapable of producing heavy elements
ratio of electron to proton mass:
if larger: chemical bonding would be insufficient for life chemistry
if smaller: same as above
ratio of number of protons to number of electrons
if larger: electromagnetism would dominate gravity, preventing galaxy, star, and planet formation
if smaller: same as above
expansion rate of the universe:
if larger: no galaxies would form
if smaller: universe would collapse, even before stars formed
entropy level of the universe:
if larger: stars would not form within proto-galaxies
if smaller: no proto-galaxies would form
mass density of the universe:
if larger: overabundance of deuterium from big bang would cause stars to burn rapidly, too rapidly for life to form
if smaller: insufficient helium from big bang would result in a shortage of heavy elements
velocity of light:
if faster: stars would be too luminous for life support if slower: stars would be insufficiently luminous for life support
age of the universe:
if older: no solar-type stars in a stable burning phase would exist in the right (for life) part of the galaxy
if younger: solar-type stars in a stable burning phase would not yet have formed
initial uniformity of radiation:
if more uniform: stars, star clusters, and galaxies would not have formed
if less uniform: universe by now would be mostly black holes and empty space
average distance between galaxies:
if larger: star formation late enough in the history of the universe would be hampered by lack of material
if smaller: gravitational tug-of-wars would destabilize the sun's orbit
density of galaxy cluster:
if denser: galaxy collisions and mergers would disrupt the sun's orbit
if less dense: star formation late enough in the history of the universe would be hampered by lack of material
average distance between stars:
if larger: heavy element density would be too sparse for rocky planets to form
if smaller: planetary orbits would be too unstable for life
fine structure constant (describing the fine-structure splitting of spectral lines):
if larger: all stars would be at least 30% less massive than the sun
if larger than 0.06: matter would be unstable in large magnetic fields
if smaller: all stars would be at least 80% more massive than the sun
decay rate of protons:
if greater: life would be exterminated by the release of radiation
if smaller: universe would contain insufficient matter for life
12C to 16O nuclear energy level ratio:
if larger: universe would contain insufficient oxygen for life
if smaller: universe would contain insufficient carbon for life
ground state energy level for 4He:
if larger: universe would contain insufficient carbon and oxygen for life
if smaller: same as above
decay rate of 8Be:
if slower: heavy element fusion would generate catastrophic explosions in all the stars
if faster: no element heavier than beryllium would form; thus, no life chemistry
ratio of neutron mass to proton mass:
if higher: neutron decay would yield too few neutrons for the formation of many life-essential elements
if lower: neutron decay would produce so many neutrons as to collapse all stars into neutron stars or black holes
initial excess of nucleons over anti-nucleons:
if greater: radiation would prohibit planet formation
if lesser: matter would be insufficient for galaxy or star formation
polarity of the water molecule:
if greater: heat of fusion and vaporization would be too high for life
if smaller: heat of fusion and vaporization would be too low for life; liquid water would not work as a solvent for life chemistry; ice would not float, and a runaway freeze-up would result
supernovae eruptions:
if too close, too frequent, or too late: radiation would exterminate life on the planet
if too distant, too infrequent, or too soon: heavy elements would be too sparse for rocky planets to form
white dwarf binaries:
if too few: insufficient fluorine would exist for life chemistry
if too many: planetary orbits would be too unstable for life
if formed too soon: insufficient fluorine production
if formed too late: fluorine would arrive too late for life chemistry
ratio of exotic matter mass to ordinary matter mass:
if larger: universe would collapse before solar-type stars could form
if smaller: no galaxies would form
number of effective dimensions in the early universe:
if larger: quantum mechanics, gravity, and relativity could not coexist; thus, life would be impossible
if smaller: same result
number of effective dimensions in the present universe:
if smaller: electron, planet, and star orbits would become unstable
if larger: same result
mass of the neutrino:
if smaller: galaxy clusters, galaxies, and stars would not form
if larger: galaxy clusters and galaxies would be too dense
big bang ripples:
if smaller: galaxies would not form; universe would expand too rapidly
if larger: galaxies/galaxy clusters would be too dense for life; black holes would dominate; universe would collapse before life-site could form
size of the relativistic dilation factor:
if smaller: certain life-essential chemical reactions will not function properly
if larger: same result
uncertainty magnitude in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle:
if smaller: oxygen transport to body cells would be too small and certain life-essential elements would be unstable
if larger: oxygen transport to body cells would be too great and certain life-essential elements would be unstable
cosmological constant:
if larger: universe would expand too quickly to form solar-type stars
