Fine tuning

From Kirk Durston, in response to Ethan Siegel at Forbes, “Humanity May Be Alone In The Universe” (an unusual commonsensical approach to the question of extraterrestrial civilizations) at Contemplations: From a materialistic, evolutionary perspective, our technologically advanced civilization is almost certainly unique in the universe. Indeed, if the origin of life is so improbable that we should not even be here, then it seems we are faced with an interesting choice. The first option is to grant Koonin’s theory that we won a lottery against mind-staggering odds, requiring a near infinite number of unseen, untestable universes. The second option arises out of our observation that the universe and this particular planet seem to be incredibly fine-tuned to support life. It Read More ›

It seems there is now a talking-point agenda to dismiss the fine tuning issue as an illusion. So, in the current thread on the big bang and fine tuning, I have clipped and commented on a recent article by Luke Barnes. However, comments cannot put up images [save through extraordinary steps], so it is first worth showing Barnes’ key illustration, as showing where fine tuning comes in, updating Hoyle’s remark about the C-O balance first key fine tuning issue put on the table in 1953: Let me also headline my comment, no. 77 in the thread: >>Luke Barnes has a useful semi-pop summary: http://www.thenewatlantis.com/…..tures-laws Today, our deepest understanding of the laws of nature is summarized in a set of equations. Read More ›

Over on a recent thread there has been much interesting discussion about a recent debate between theist philosopher Rabbi Daniel Rowe and atheist philosopher A.C. Grayling.  HeKS provided a review of the matter, focusing largely on his analysis of Jerry Coyne’s responses.

I agree with HeKS’s general observation that Coyne failed to adequately address the issues.  Indeed, it seems Coyne failed to adequately understand some of the issues, a situation that is all too common.

However, I want to focus in this post on a specific aspect of the discussion, namely, some of the points raised by sean samis, starting @37 on that thread.  In his comments, samis urges caution in drawing any conclusion from the Big Bang about deity’s existence or involvement.  I do not necessarily share all of his conclusions, but I think a number of his points are worthy of additional discussion.

First of all, let me apologize to HeKS for starting a new thread.  I initially began this as a comment to the prior thread, but it became long enough that it required a separate post.  Additionally, I want to focus on a specific issue that tacks in a slightly different direction than the prior thread.

If the Universe Had a Beginning, then What? Read More ›

Recently, a debate was held in London between theist philosopher Rabbi Daniel Rowe and atheist philosopher A.C. Grayling. The subject under dispute, unsurprisingly, was God’s existence. It’s a very interesting debate to watch. I’d never heard of Rowe before, but I was familiar with Grayling, who is sometimes referred to as the Fifth Horseman of New Atheism. Generally speaking, the “New Atheists” haven’t shown any natural genius for philosophy. Grayling, though being a professional philosopher, does not prove to be the exception here. Instead, he shows that even when they have the benefit of philosophical training, it does them very little good when they engage in debates over God’s existence. I think it would be pretty uncontroversial to say that Read More ›

From Bernie Hobb at ABC: The Standard Model of particle physics — which accurately describes all the particles and interactions that make up our universe — says our universe shouldn’t exist. Or at least, the matter that makes up all the stuff in existence shouldn’t be here. It should have been wiped out by the matching antimatter that was created with it in the first second after the Big Bang. And unless we’re all part of some universe-wide delusion, that’s clearly not right. Why must it be a delusion? Why can it not be design? Something led to a tiny imbalance in the matter/antimatter numbers at the beginning of time, with matter slightly in the lead. That imbalance — called Read More ›

From Ohio State University: A study in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides the strongest evidence yet that proteins—the large and complex molecules that fold into particular shapes to enable biological reactions—can’t fold themselves. Rather, the work of folding is done by much smaller water molecules, which surround proteins and push and pull at them to make them fold a certain way in fractions of a second, like scores of tiny origami artists folding a giant sheet of paper at blazingly fast speeds. Dongping Zhong, leader of the research group at The Ohio State University that made the discovery, called the study a “major step forward” in the understanding of water-protein interactions and said it answers Read More ›

June 10–11, 2016 From NY/NJ Philosophy of Science group: ===========ABSTRACTS================ Title: Everettian Quantum Mechanics and Evil Author: Jason Turner Abstract: The problem of evil has been around for a long time: How can an all-powerful and all-good God allow evil of the sorts we see in the world? If the Everettian interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, though, then there is a lot more evil in the world than what we see. This suggest a second problem of evil: If Everettianism is true, how can an all-powerful and all-good God allow evil of the sort we don’t see? If the original problem of evil already pushed you into atheism, worries about Everettianism aren’t likely to make much difference. On the Read More ›

From Jonathan Webb at BBC News: A new study reveals how crocodiles’ eyes are fine-tuned for lurking at the water surface to watch for prey. The “fovea”, a patch of tightly packed receptors that delivers sharp vision, forms a horizontal streak instead of the usual circular spot. This allows the animal to scan the shoreline without moving its head, according to Australian researchers. They also found differences in the cone cells, which sense colours, between saltwater and freshwater crocs. … This is because light conditions are different in salt and freshwater habitats, but only underwater – and the crocodiles’ eyes show corresponding tweaks. … This arrangement reflects the predator’s iconic ability to lurk with just its eyes above the water, Read More ›

From David Snoke’s notes on the annual meeting of the Christian Scientific Society Robin Collins gave a great overview of the topic of fine tuning in cosmology, and raised the argument (subject of new work he is doing) that the cosmos is fine tuned not only for the existence of life or observers, but for the existence of scientific discovery. This is along the lines of Gonzalez and Richards’ The Privileged Planet from a few years ago, but with new and more rigorous arguments. More. Doubtless, a book is forthcoming… ? It tells us something about the times we live in that, whatever the evidence suggests, the people most likely to resist such a view would actually benefit from its Read More ›

This just in from David Snoke: University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Philosophy of Science is also running a conference on design themes in biology April 15-16: If you are coming to the Annual meeting April 15-16, consider extending your stay to come a little earlier and depart a little later. The world-renowned Pittsburgh Center for Philosophy of Science is having a meeting that runs through the day on Friday and in the afternoon on Saturday. Details here. Some relevant ideas unpacked here. From David Snoke at the Christian Scientific Society: Annual Meeting is in two weeks; late registration fees apply starting next week The annual meeting is coming up soon, in less than two weeks! This year we are applying Read More ›

From the BBC: Why there might be many more universes besides our own … The fundamental constants of the laws of physics seem bizarrely fine-tuned to the values needed for life to exist. … For example, if the strength of the electromagnetic force were just a little different, atoms would not be stable. Just a 4% change would prevent all nuclear fusion in stars, the process that makes the carbon atoms our bodies are largely made of. … This has made some people suspect the hand of God. Yet an inflationary multiverse, in which all conceivable physical laws operate somewhere, offers an alternative explanation.More. So there it is. Brits pay taxes for this, believing it is some kind of science. Read More ›

In tonight’s “What’s Behind It All? God, Science, and the Universe,” debate, the topic of protein evolution induced a long sequence of blunders. Lawrence Krauss attempted to compare a protein to a snowflake. If snowflakes spontaneously arise, then why not protein-coding genes? When Stephen Meyer called him on his absurdity, Krauss doubled down, making the ludicrous claim that there is “a lot of information” in a snowflake, and that Shannon’s information theorem would tell you that.  Read more

Physicist David Snoke writes to say that the abstracts and bios for the papers at the annual meeting of the Christian Scientific Society (April 15-16) are now posted online. A less familiar voice might be Perimeter Institute affiliate Rob Mann: Robert Mann, Professor of Physics and Applied Mathematics, University of Waterloo “Cosmic Particularity: a Universal Puzzle” It is now clear that our cosmos is riddled with considerable degree of particularity. In responding to this a number of scientists have in recent years advocated a “super Copernican” revolution, in which our universe is regarded as a small part of a much larger structure known as the multiverse. Scientifically, this entails an unprecedented combination of broadened theoretical perspective with severe empirical limitations, Read More ›

Voids and supervoids: Cosmic voids, and supervoids, are large volumes of space that are devoid of matter. This includes normal matter, in the form of galaxies, and dark matter. Initially, astronomers were not sure if the voids contained dark matter, even though there were no galaxies, but recent observations show that the halos of dark matter are not present. The filamentary structure of galactic superclusters surrounds the voids. While space is mostly empty, voids are large volumes, tens of megaparsecs across. The largest confirmed supervoids are about 100 Mpc (325 million light-years) or more across . The larger known voids include the Boötes Supervoid, and the Northern and Southern Local Supervoids. To explain the cold spot in the cosmic microwave Read More ›

From Science: As it turns out, our universe seems to get it just about right. The existing cosmological constant means the rate of expansion is large enough that it minimizes planets’ exposure to gamma ray bursts, but small enough to form lots of hydrogen-burning stars around which life can exist. (A faster expansion rate would make it hard for gas clouds to collapse into stars.) Jimenez says the expansion of the universe played a bigger role in creating habitable worlds than he expected. “It was surprising to me that you do need the cosmological constant to clear out the region and make it more suburbanlike,” he says. Beyond what they reveal about the potential for life in our galaxy and Read More ›