(Series to date: 1, 2, 3, 4 , 5)
UD’s Gil Dodgen has recently observed:
In the case of cosmic ID the situation is even worse. The evidence for design of the laws of physics with the ultimate goal of producing a life-permitting universe is so obvious that detractors have been reduced to proposing an infinitude of in-principle undetectable alternate universes. If this is the case, nothing is impossible and everything is inevitable.
It is plainly time for us to take back up the ID Foundations series (series to date: 1, 2, 3, 4 , 5), and to now focus on cosmological signs of design (at an introductory* level).
[U/D Jan 11, ’15:] As a preview, let us view a rather simplified summary view of that argument to get a feel for the issue:
[youtube UpIiIaC4kRA]
While the rhetorical fireworks and worldview agendas-tinged culture clashes that so often crop up at UD and elsewhere have clustered on design inferences regarding the origin of life and the origin of body plans, modern design theory actually began with cosmological inferences to design on signs of highly specific, functionally complex organisation of the laws and circumstances of our observed cosmos that set it up at an operating point conducive to C-chemistry, cell based life.
Then agnostic British astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle (holder of a Nobel-equivalent prize) has pride of place:
From 1953 onward, Willy Fowler and I have always been intrigued by the remarkable relation of the 7.65 MeV energy level in the nucleus of 12 C to the 7.12 MeV level in 16 O. 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 where these levels are actually found to be. Another put-up job? . . . I am inclined to think so. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has “monkeyed” with the physics as well as the chemistry and biology, and there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.[F. Hoyle, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 20 (1982): 16. Emphasis added.]
Hoyle added:
I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within stars. [[“The Universe: Past and Present Reflections.” Engineering and Science, November, 1981. pp. 8–12]
Canadian astrophysicist (and Old Earth Creationist) Hugh Ross aptly explains:
As you tune your radio, there are certain frequencies where the circuit has just the right resonance and you lock onto a station. The internal structure of an atomic nucleus is something like that, with specific energy or resonance levels. If two nuclear fragments collide with a resulting energy that just matches a resonance level, they will tend to stick and form a stable nucleus. Behold! Cosmic alchemy will occur! In the carbon atom, the resonance just happens to match the combined energy of the beryllium atom and a colliding helium nucleus. Without it, there would be relatively few carbon atoms. Similarly, the internal details of the oxygen nucleus play a critical role. Oxygen can be formed by combining helium and carbon nuclei, but the corresponding resonance level in the oxygen nucleus is half a percent too low for the combination to stay together easily. Had the resonance level in the carbon been 4 percent lower, there would be essentially no carbon. Had that level in the oxygen been only half a percent higher, virtually all the carbon would have been converted to oxygen. Without that carbon abundance, neither you nor I would be here. [[Beyond the Cosmos (Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress Publishing Group, 1996), pg. 32. HT: IDEA.]
{ADDED, 13:02:24: Dr Guillermo Gonzalez surveys several fine tuning cases here, in a videotaped lecture. Let us add it . . . }
[youtube M39BKwtUAyA#!]
Why all the fuss about this?
It can be boiled down to one pivotal word that gives a slice of the cake with all the ingredients in it: water . . .
First, let us note that the three most common atoms in life are Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. For instance, H and O make water, the three-atom universal solvent that is so adaptable to the needs of the living cell, and to making a terrestrial planet a good home for life.
As D. Halsmer, J. Asper, N. Roman, T. Todd observe of this wonder molecule:
The remarkable properties of water are numerous. Its very high specific heat maintains relatively stable temperatures both in oceans and organisms. As a liquid, its thermal conductivity is four times any other common liquid, which makes it possible for cells to efficiently distribute heat. On the other hand, ice has a low thermal conductivity, making it a good thermal shield in high latitudes. A latent heat of fusion only surpassed by that of ammonia tends to keep water in liquid form and creates a natural thermostat at 0°C. Likewise, the highest latent heat of vaporization of any substance – more than five times the energy required to heat the same amount of water from 0°C-100°C – allows water vapor to store large amounts of heat in the atmosphere. This very high latent heat of vaporization is also vital biologically because at body temperature or above, the only way for a person to dissipate heat is to sweat it off.
Water’s remarkable capabilities are definitely not only thermal. A high vapor tension allows air to hold more moisture, which enables precipitation. Water’s great surface tension is necessary for good capillary effect for tall plants, and it allows soil to hold more water. Water’s low viscosity makes it possible for blood to flow through small capillaries. A very well documented anomaly is that water expands into the solid state, which keeps ice on the surface of the oceans instead of accumulating on the ocean floor. Possibly the most important trait of water is its unrivaled solvency abilities, which allow it to transport great amounts of minerals to immobile organisms and also hold all of the contents of blood. It is also only mildly reactive, which keeps it from harmfully reacting as it dissolves substances. Recent research has revealed how water acts as an efficient lubricator in many biological systems from snails to human digestion. By itself, water is not very effective in this role, but it works well with certain additives, such as some glycoproteins. The sum of these traits makes water an ideal medium for life. Literally, every property of water is suited for supporting life. It is no wonder why liquid water is the first requirement in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
All these traits are contained in a simple molecule of only three atoms. One of the most difficult tasks for an engineer is to design for multiple criteria at once. … Satisfying all these criteria in one simple design is an engineering marvel. Also, the design process goes very deep since many characteristics would necessarily be changed if one were to alter fundamental physical properties such as the strong nuclear force or the size of the electron. [[“The Coherence of an Engineered World,” International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics, Vol. 4(1):47-65 (2009). HT: ENV.]
In short, the elegantly simple water molecule is set to a finely balanced, life-facilitating operating point, based on fundamental forces and parameters of the cosmos. Forces that had to be built in from the formation of the cosmos itself. Which fine-tuning from the outset, therefore strongly suggests a purpose to create life in the cosmos from its beginning.
Moreover, the authors also note how C, H and O just happen to be the fourth, first and third most abundant atoms in the cosmos, helium –the first noble gas — being number two. This — again on fundamental parameters and laws of our cosmos — does not suggest a mere accident of happy coincidence:
The explanation has to do with fusion within stars. Early [[stellar, nuclear fusion] reactions start with hydrogen atoms and then produce deuterium (mass 2), tritium (mass 3), and alpha particles (mass 4), but no stable mass 5 exists. This limits the creation of heavy elements and was considered one of “God’s mistakes” until further investigation. In actuality, the lack of a stable mass 5 necessitates bigger jumps of four which lead to carbon (mass 12) and oxygen (mass 16). Otherwise, the reactions would have climbed right up the periodic table in mass steps of one (until iron, which is the cutoff above which fusion requires energy rather than creating it). The process would have left oxygen and carbon no more abundant than any other element.
So, we can see why Sir Fred so pithily summed up a talk he gave at CalTech in 1981 as follows:
From 1953 onward, Willy Fowler and I have always been intrigued by the remarkable relation of the 7.65 MeV energy level in the nucleus of 12 C to the 7.12 MeV level in 16 O. 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 where these levels are actually found to be. Another put-up job? . . . I am inclined to think so. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has “monkeyed” with the physics as well as the chemistry and biology, and there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.[F. Hoyle, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 20 (1982): 16.Cited, Bradley, in “Is There Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God? How the Recent Discoveries Support a Designed Universe”. Emphasis added.]
{Added, 13:02:05: Earlier in the talk given at Caltech in 1981 or thereabouts, he elaborated on Carbon and the chemistry of life, especially enzymes:
The big problem in biology, as I see it, is to understand the origin of the information carried by the explicit structures of biomolecules. The issue isn’t so much the rather crude fact that a protein consists of a chain of amino acids linked together in a certain way, but that the explicit ordering of the amino acids endows the chain with remarkable properties, which other orderings wouldn’t give. The case of the enzymes is well known . . . If amino acids were linked at random, there would be a vast number of arrange-ments that would be useless in serving the pur-poses of a living cell. When you consider that a typical enzyme has a chain of perhaps 200 links and that there are 20 possibilities for each link,it’s easy to see that the number of useless arrangements is enormous, more than the number of atoms in all the galaxies visible in the largest telescopes. This is for one enzyme, and there are upwards of 2000 of them, mainly serving very different purposes. So how did the situation get to where we find it to be? This is, as I see it, the biological problem – the information problem . . . .
I was constantly plagued by the thought that the number of ways in which even a single enzyme could be wrongly constructed was greater than the number of all the atoms in the universe. So try as I would, I couldn’t convince myself that even the whole universe would be sufficient to find life by random processes – by what are called the blind forces of nature . . . . By far the simplest way to arrive at the correct sequences of amino acids in the enzymes would be by thought, not by random processes . . . .
Now imagine yourself as a superintellect working through possibilities in polymer chemistry. Would you not be astonished that polymers based on the carbon atom turned out in your calculations to have the remarkable properties of the enzymes and other biomolecules? Would you not be bowled over in surprise to find that a living cell was a feasible construct? Would you not say to yourself, in whatever language supercalculating intellects use: Some supercalculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule. Of course you would, and if you were a sensible superintellect you would conclude that the carbon atom is a fix.
No wonder, in that same talk, Hoyle — a lifelong agnostic — also added:
I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within stars. [[“The Universe: Past and Present Reflections.” Engineering and Science, November, 1981. pp. 8–12]}
The story does not end here.
As Robin Collins put the case in summary, in a classic essay on The Fine-tuning Design Argument(1998):
Suppose we went on a mission to Mars, and found a domed structure in which everything was set up just right for life to exist. The temperature, for example, was set around 70 °F and the humidity was at 50%; moreover, there was an oxygen recycling system, an energy gathering system, and a whole system for the production of food. Put simply, the domed structure appeared to be a fully functioning biosphere. What conclusion would we draw from finding this structure? Would we draw the conclusion that it just happened to form by chance? Certainly not. Instead, we would unanimously conclude that it was designed by some intelligent being. Why would we draw this conclusion? Because an intelligent designer appears to be the only plausible explanation for the existence of the structure. That is, the only alternative explanation we can think of–that the structure was formed by some natural process–seems extremely unlikely. Of course, it is possible that, for example, through some volcanic eruption various metals and other compounds could have formed, and then separated out in just the right way to produce the “biosphere,” but such a scenario strikes us as extraordinarily unlikely, thus making this alternative explanation unbelievable.
The universe is analogous to such a “biosphere,” according to recent findings in physics . . . . Scientists call this extraordinary balancing of the parameters of physics and the initial conditions of the universe the “fine-tuning of the cosmos” . . . For example, theoretical physicist and popular science writer Paul Davies–whose early writings were not particularly sympathetic to theism–claims that with regard to basic structure of the universe, “the impression of design is overwhelming” (Davies, 1988, p. 203) . . .
[[Cf. also here and his video summary here. Short summary here. Elsewhere, Collins notes how noted cosmologist Roger Penrose has estimated that “[[i]in order to produce a universe resembling the one in which we live, the Creator would have to aim for an absurdly tiny volume of the phase space of possible universes — about 1/(10^(10^123)) of the entire volume . . .” That is, 1 divided by 10 followed by one less than 10^123 zeros. By a long shot, there are not enough atoms in the observed universe [~10^80] to fully write out the fraction.]
Collins continues:
A few examples of this fine-tuning are listed below:
1. If the initial explosion of the big bang had differed in strength by as little as 1 part in 1060, the universe would have either quickly collapsed back on itself, or expanded too rapidly for stars to form. In either case, life would be impossible. [See Davies, 1982, pp. 90-91. (As John Jefferson Davis points out (p. 140), an accuracy of one part in 10^60 can be compared to firing a bullet at a one-inch target on the other side of the observable universe, twenty billion light years away, and hitting the target.)
2. Calculations indicate that if the strong nuclear force, the force that binds protons and neutrons together in an atom, had been stronger or weaker by as little as 5%, life would be impossible. (Leslie, 1989, pp. 4, 35; Barrow and Tipler, p. 322.)
3. Calculations by Brandon Carter show that if gravity had been stronger or weaker by 1 part in 10 to the 40th power, then life-sustaining stars like the sun could not exist. This would most likely make life impossible. (Davies, 1984, p. 242.)
4. If the neutron were not about 1.001 times the mass of the proton, all protons would have decayed into neutrons or all neutrons would have decayed into protons, and thus life would not be possible. (Leslie, 1989, pp. 39-40 )
5. If the electromagnetic force were slightly stronger or weaker, life would be impossible, for a variety of different reasons. (Leslie, 1988, p. 299.)
But, what if we just happen to be here to see it because we are the lucky ones in some tiny corner of the multiverse?
[CONT’D]
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*F/N, Jul 19: This post is meant to be an introduction to the cosmological fine tuning argument. Accordingly, I must now direct those needing background information, and those needing more specific responses to push-back attempts, as follows:
1] Background: Please read the IOSE draft course unit on cosmology, here. For a 101 on the Anthropic Principle(s) NWE’s article here is a good start. Privileged Planet is here. Sheldon’s discussion of issues here gives some context for appreciating the worldview level significance of a big bang, and of its fine tuned organisation that set the stage for Carbon-chemistry, cell based intelligent life, with sidelights on the question, where did/does complex, specific functional information come from.
2] General level response to Stenger’s “Fine tuning fallacy” thesis: 1, 2, 3 (HT: Mung.)
3] More technical level response to Stenger, that also brings out some of the subtleties of the cosmological fine tuning design case: 1, 2. (HT: Mung. Also cf Luke Barnes’ links to his series on fine tuning critiques on both sides, here.)
4] More technical response to Ikeda and Jeffreys’ Bayesian probability critique: 1, 2. (DM, kindly take notice. This critique, by reasonable extension, also applies to Sobers’ arguments that were endorsed by I & J. Part 2 has an interesting variant on the firing squad parable, showing how subtly imposed naturalistic assumptions can lead to patent absurdities that are not obvious from the mathematical models used to support them. Palonen’s THIS universe argument is also worth a look, here. )
5] Robin Collins: General intro on fine tuning here. 20 pp. summary argument here, 80 pp current version here, (early, doc format version here), collection of supportive evidence on the existence of fine tuning here. Discussion of definition of fine tuning here. Discussion of multiverse hyp here.
6] A good, monograph length technical survey by Luke Barnes: here. (Excellent for going on to the next level. Added, Jan 6, 2012, HT VJT.)
[CONT’D]