Archaeopteryx
Wanderer
I understand Carroll's position well enough to know that he isn't endorsing P1.
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I understand Carroll's position well enough to know that he isn't endorsing P1.It seems amazing to you because
a. you misunderstand Carroll's position on p1 and
b. you still don't seem to understand the meaning of p1 itself.
Ken was not addressing the OP but rather making an unrelated sweeping response. My reply was designed to update him and refocus the discussion back to the OP. thanks for your help.Joshua, this has already been addressed. You haven't made any new points.
Lawrence M. Krauss said:It is true that a small change in the strength of the four known forces (but nowhere near as small as Metaxas argues) would imply that stable protons and neutrons, the basis of atomic nuclei, might not exist. (The universe, however, would—a rather large error in the Metaxas piece.) This is old news and, while it’s an interesting fact, it certainly does not require a deity.
Once again, it likely confuses cause and effect. The constants of the universe indeed allow the existence of life as we know it. However, it is much more likely that life is tuned to the universe rather than the other way around. We survive on Earth in part because Earth’s gravity keeps us from floating off. But the strength of gravity selects a planet like Earth, among the variety of planets, to be habitable for life forms like us. Reversing the sense of cause and effect in this statement, as Metaxas does in cosmology, is like saying that it’s a miracle that everyone’s legs are exactly long enough to reach the ground.
More evidence that you do not understand the meaning of p1.Carroll isn't the only member of the scientific community who thinks that P1 may be dubious. As the late Victor Stenger argued, "the universe is not fine-tuned to life; life is fine-tuned to the universe."
Still more evidence you don't understand the meaning of p1.Lawrence Krauss offered a similar view:
P1 states that "the universe is fine-tuned for life." You clarified the meaning of P1 repeatedly, noting that fine-tuning "simply means that there are constants found within the universe that if they were adjusted only slightly one way or the other, then life would not have been possible within the universe." You further claimed that P1 is "not really controversial amongst scientists." Yet at least three scientists seem to disagree with that. Sean Carroll said that "fine-tuning for life is dubious at best" (emphasis in original), and Stenger and Krauss both seem to think that P1 has it backwards and that life is most likely fine-tuned for the universe.More evidence that you do not understand the meaning of p1.
I'd just like to know why atheists, especially those who proclaim to hold to "a lack of belief in God", rule out the design option as a cause for the fine-tuning.
Without evidence to support ruling out the design option, it seems like they are acting on an assertive belief that a designer "code named God" does not exist.
Lawrence M. Krauss said:By considering each of these many factors and imagining the probability of each separately, one can imagine that the combination is statistically very unlikely, or impossible. “Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart,” Metaxas writes. “The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing.”
Such a claim is fraught with statistical perils, however. The first is a familiar mistake of elaborating all the factors responsible for some specific event and calculating all the probabilities as if they were independent. In order for me to be writing this piece at this precise instant on this airplane, having done all the things I’ve done today, consider all the factors that had to be “just right”: I had to find myself in San Francisco, among all the cities in the world; the sequence of stoplights that my taxi had to traverse had to be just right, in order to get me to the airport when I did; the airport security screener had to experience a similar set of coincidences in order to be there when I needed her; same goes for the pilot. It would be easy for me to derive a set of probabilities that, when multiplied together, would produce a number so small that it would be statistically impossible for me to be here now writing.
But the fact that if the constants were slightly different from what they are, the universe would not be life permitting is strongly supported by notable scientists, and more findings continue to confirm it. See my other reply citing scientists' quotes. Again, p1 is not the controversial premise. It's p3.
So far we have at least three scientists who cannot be said to "strongly support" P1. So P1 is contestable, even within the scientific community. Shall we move on and consider what scientists have to say about the rest of the premises?I'm only addressing p1 right now, and in that sense, scientists would certainly be comfortable agreeing with it. See my citations in my other reply.
The main criticism is that you are not holding your own preferred explanation to the same standard as the other two, which you dismiss due to paucity of evidence. If we are going to approach this matter systematically, then we should examine the evidence for each option, including design, before making our conclusions. Importantly, the conclusion can be indeterminate (i.e., we don't know at present). The problem is that you haven't presented any evidence for design. You have examined and dismissed physical necessity and chance, but you didn't examine design before endorsing it. Perhaps design should be dismissed on the same grounds as the other two options, in which case our conclusion would be indeterminate and signify the need for further inquiry. Or perhaps the evidence for physical necessity and chance, however weak, is still greater than the evidence for design. Again, we don't know because you haven't presented any evidence for design for us to evaluate.Hello Ken. Long time, no see.
Instead of sweeping responses, I was kind of looking for responses directed specifically at the OP.
More on that in a minute, but first, I'd like to explain something about the type argument in the OP. It is called an abductive inference. There's nothing wrong at all with this type of logic, and it is in fact used all the time during criminal and historical investigations. It does not carry with it the level of certainty that an inductive inference does, but never-the-less, it is a valid line of reasoning. It boils down to making an observation and then exploring the possible explanations for it.
The teleological argument is intended to be evidence for design, which is why those other folks were calling this circular logic.Again, we don't know because you haven't presented any evidence for design for us to evaluate.
I think someone previously argued that physical necessity and chance were highly improbable. Suppose we grant that point, just for the sake of argument. What is the probability of design? We still don't know. It could be just as improbable, or even more improbable, than the other two options. Design proponents seem to declare triumph prematurely.The teleological argument is intended to be evidence for design, which is why those other folks were calling this circular logic.
When you look at the three options (necessity, chance, design) and decide which is most likely, you have to consider the evidence for design (which at least in part is the argument itself) thereby proving design by asserting itself.
Or, one starts with a presupposition, and creates rationalizations in an effort to justify it....
It boils down to making an observation and then exploring the possible explanations for it.
Why do you not change P1 to that last sentence from Davies, so that it actually agrees with what he says?This is the argument of the OP.
Other quotes that support p1:
- The universe is fine-tuned for life.
- <snip>
a. "There is now broad agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the Universe is in several respects ‘fine-tuned' for life". However, he continues, "the conclusion is not so much that the Universe is fine-tuned for life; rather it is fine-tuned for the building blocks and environments that life requires."
But you do, don't you? Or are we all supposed to pretend that this is not actually a general apologetics thread in favour of Christianity?You imply that I presuppose that a designer exists.
Operators are standing by. Please have your credit card ready.<snip>
Here's a really short film on the argument of OP (which is a slight variant of Craig's) and includes quotes from various scientists:
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/finetuning
It may seem that way to you. I cannot see how this "universe designer" concept of yours is coherent, or how it can be an option. As I said back in post #379, as an ignostic, I would ask: define what you mean by "designer" in this context, in some testable, falsifiable manner.I'd just like to know why atheists, especially those who proclaim to hold to "a lack of belief in God", rule out the design option as a cause for the fine-tuning. Without evidence to support ruling out the design option, it seems like they are acting on an assertive belief that a designer "code named God" does not exist.
Well, I applaud you for admitting that atheists sometimes rule out God a priori. I don't think many other atheists on this thread would admit that. I believe that with many atheists, it's really not "a lack of belief", but rather a committed belief in atheism. They're committed to the belief that God does not exist and move forward on that basis. So thanks for being honest about that. You know, it used to be the accepted idea that the universe has always existed, but then the Big Bang came along and messed that up. So atheists began making up all sorts of alternate models for the universe to avoid a beginning. Recently, some of them have been conceding that the universe had a beginning...basically saying to the rest "Hey, the universe had a beginning. Deal with it." Now we have the fine tuning which is messing things up for the atheists also and some of them are willing to deal with it, but they come up with alternate explanations for that also. If you look at the link I supplied before, you will see several scientists concurring that the universe is fine-tuned. Atheists have been accusing believers of offering a god of the gaps argument for years, but haven't some scientists been doing that --coming up with scientific explanations that seem far out only because of a commitment to atheism? Anyway, Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist, seemed to think so. Read what he said about that:There are two reasons that design is ruled out almost a priori.
Christians are not against scientific advancement. Heck, the scientific endeavor began with the motive to understand how things worked in God's universe. Even now, many scientists are theists.First, what good would it do for scientific progress if we just assumed God did it? We would be done exploring and figuring things out.
Again, no serious apologist believes in a god of the gaps. That's just a caricature that atheists throw out. Christians believe, just like the early scientists did, that God works through nature. It's called providence. If you're looking for empirical proof for the existence of God, you should study the evidence surrounding the Resurrection.And secondly, the reason God is ruled out as a reason for things almost a priori, is because that hypothesis has been wrong in every other thing we have ever figured out... ever.
We know how planets form themselves.
We know how galaxies form themselves.
We know how the universe came to look the way it does.
We know how weather works.
We know how bacteria/viruses/disease/pestilence works.
We know how earthquakes/tornadoes/hurricanes/floods/volcanoes work.
We know how evolution works.
These are all things that God used to be the hypothesis for, and it turns out none of them have anything to do with him. So why would we make a guess that God did it now when that guess has been wrong every time before?
you still don't get p1 and that is causing a lot of confusion for you.Carroll isn't the only member of the scientific community who thinks that P1 may be dubious. As the late Victor Stenger argued, "the universe is not fine-tuned to life; life is fine-tuned to the universe."
Yes, you keep saying that. But you always stop short of showing that that is the case.you still don't get p1 and that is causing a lot of confusion for you.
Well then they obviously don't understand what it means to say that an argument is using circular logic. In order for an argument to be circular, the conclusion would have to be found in one of the premises.The teleological argument is intended to be evidence for design, which is why those other folks were calling this circular logic.
Remember that this is not an inductive inference (which are arguments designed to prove something), but an abductive inference (or an inference to the best explanation). We looked at physical necessity and that's out. We looked at chance and calculated that it is extremely unlikely that a life-permitting universe would exist. We looked at design and that option has the explanatory power of explaining why a life-permitting universe exists in spite of the odds against it. So right there, it is found that the design option offers the best explanation. It hasn't been proved, but it offers the best explanation...so far. What I'm waiting for now is for someone to show why the design option is not the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe. All I've gotten so far is "well, I don't believe in a designer, so it must be chance".When you look at the three options (necessity, chance, design) and decide which is most likely, you have to consider the evidence for design (which at least in part is the argument itself) thereby proving design by asserting itself.
No, I have already explained why several times. The scientific community, maybe not every single person, but the scientific community in general, has accepted the fact that the universe is fine-tuned for life.Yes, you keep saying that. But you always stop short of showing that that is the case.
You have had atheists in this thread concede that design is a possibility, and yet, despite this, you want to suggest that we are being disingenuous.Well, I applaud you for admitting that atheists sometimes rule out God a priori. I don't think many other atheists on this thread would admit that. I believe that with many atheists, it's really not "a lack of belief", but rather a committed belief in atheism. They're committed to the belief that God does not exist and move forward on that basis. So thanks for being honest about that.
You seem to be assuming that the universe having a beginning is somehow inherently problematic for atheism, perhaps because you think a beginning must imply that a deity was somehow involved. This assumption is incorrect.You know, it used to be the accepted idea that the universe has always existed, but then the Big Bang came along and messed that up. So atheists began making up all sorts of alternate models for the universe to avoid a beginning. Recently, some of them have been conceding that the universe had a beginning...basically saying to the rest "Hey, the universe had a beginning. Deal with it."
The fine-tuning problem isn't "messing things up." It's a phenomenon that we are curious about and eager to learn how it works.Now we have the fine tuning which is messing things up for the atheists also and some of them are willing to deal with it, but they come up with alternate explanations for that also.
You only ever say "scientists concur" when they happen to concur with your premises. I've already shown you that not all scientists concur with P1. But since you are eager to discuss what scientists think, shall we move on and look at what they have to say about the other premises in your argument?If you look at the link I supplied before, you will see several scientists concurring that the universe is fine-tuned.
I think you are projecting here. You are assuming that atheist scientists are "committed to" atheism in the same way that you are committed to your religion. Although I cannot speak for all atheist scientists, I think it's safe to say that most aren't religiously committed to atheism. If your theology actually had any explanatory power, they would gladly integrate it into their models. They ignore your theology not out of some commitment against it, but because it has nothing to offer them.Atheists have been accusing believers of offering a god of the gaps argument for years, but haven't some scientists been doing that --coming up with scientific explanations that seem far out only because of a commitment to atheism?
Many theists are excellent scientists, but poor apologists. They are excellent scientists because they are not satisfied with the shallow explanations of the apologists. They are curious enough about the question to seek a deeper understanding. That spirit of curiosity is lacking in apologetics.Christians are not against scientific advancement. Heck, the scientific endeavor began with the motive to understand how things worked in God's universe. Even now, many scientists are theists.
Yet many of the most well known apologetic arguments focus on questions about which we are still profoundly ignorant.Again, no serious apologist believes in a god of the gaps. That's just a caricature that atheists throw out.
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