Fine-tuning does have theistic overtones because it begs the question "fine tuned by whom?" It's the old watchmaker argument. Evolution shows us that the universe is a blind watchmaker, and that order and complexity (at least as we perceive them) are emergent. The key thing to realize is that we're programmed through DNA to view life as incredibly special. We're always looking for a reason "why" we were put here on planet Earth, but there is no proof of a "why." Only a "how."
This reeks terribly of Dawkins' "central argument" in
The God Delusion. It is not logically consistent to take a logic which may or may not be true of evolution and then apply it to the universe. Besides, we have an overwhelming amount of evidence to support the self-evident fine-tuning of the universe in merely cosmological and probabilistic terms. By "fine-tuning," all one means is that small deviations from the constants and quantities in question would render the universe life-prohibiting, or, alternatively, that the range of life-permitting vales is incomprehensibly narrow in comparison to the range of assumable values. We can cite a good number of examples of cosmic fine-tuning. The world is conditioned principally by the values of the fundamental constants such as the fine structure constant, or electromagnetic interaction, or gravitation, or the weak force or the strong force, or the ratio between the mass of a proton and the mass of an electron, etc. When one assigns different values to these constants or forces, on discovers that the proportion of observable universes capable of supporting life is shockingly small. For example, according to the renowned physicist Paul Davies (whose lovely house in Phoenix I've had the pleasure of staying at a couple of times; no, I'm not kidding), changes in either the gravitational constant or the weak force constant of only one part in 10
100 would have prevented a life-permitting universe. Observations indicate that at 10
-43 second after the Big Bang, the universe was expanding at a fantastically special rate of speed with a total density close to the critical values on the bortderline between recollapse and everlasting expansion. Hawking estimates that a decrease in the expansion rate of even one part in a hundred thousand million million (1000000000000000000000000) one second after the Big Bang would have resulted in the universe's recollapse long ago; a similar increase would have precluded galaxies' condensing out of the expanding matter. 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). Calculations by Brandon Carter show that if gravity had been stronger or weaker by 1 part in 10
40, then life-sustaining stars like the sun could not exist. This would most likely make life impossible (Davies, 1984, p. 242). 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 ). If the electromagnetic force were slightly stronger or weaker, life would be impossible, for a variety of different reasons (Leslie, 1988, p. 299).
There is no denying that our universe is finely-tuned to be life-permitting. Any person that attempts to deny that our universe is indeed fine-tuned to permit the formation of life is being incredibly intellectually disingenuous and demonstrably so.
Topic: Are We Truly In The End Times? (Read 107760 times)
