A Thick Layer: A Fine-Tuned Critique of Arvin Ash

Luke Barnes responds to Arvin Ash on the fine-tuning argument.

A formulation of the fine-tuning argument

A new paper from physicist Luke Barnes:

Abstract

A new formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) for the existence of God is offered, which avoids a number of commonly raised objections. I argue that we can and should focus on the fundamental constants and initial conditions of the universe, and show how physics itself provides the probabilities that are needed by the argument. I explain how this formulation avoids a number of common objections, specifically the possibility of deeper physical laws, the multiverse, normalisability, whether God would fine-tune at all, whether the universe is too fine-tuned, and whether the likelihood of God creating a life-permitting universe is inscrutable.

"A Reasonable Little Question: A Formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument"

On God and the moon

The fine-tuning argument is one of the more recent, scientific versions of the teleological argument. An illustration is the moon. If it was a little bigger, smaller, closer, or farther away, the earth would be uninhabitable. 

A popular objection to the fine-tuning argument is the contention that if the universe the earth was inhospitable, there'd be no observers to comment on the size and position of the moon, so the argument presupposes rather than proves the  claim. 

That, however, is a strange objection. If there's no one to observe a gothic cathedral, does that mean the cathedral was never designed? Does that mean Notre Dame cathedral goes from being designed to not being designed if Paris is deserted?

Has Sean Carroll refuted the fine-tuning argument?

The first of five in an interview series between Luke Barnes and Allen Hainline responding to atheist and physicist Sean Carroll (Ph.D., Harvard):

By the way, Luke Barnes is great. His book A Fortunate Universe, co-authored with his colleague Geraint Lewis, is likewise great. Robin Collins (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame), one of the world's foremost experts on the fine-tuning argument, has said about the book:

Lewis and Barnes' book is the most up-to-date, accurate, and comprehensive explication of the evidence that the universe is fine-tuned for life. It is also among the two most philosophically sophisticated treatments, all the while being accessible to a non-academic audience. I strongly recommend this book.

I follow Barnes' weblog Letters to Nature as well as his YouTube channel Alas, Lewis & Barnes. Barnes has done a number of interviews including with Robert Lawrence Kuhn at Closer to Truth.

If I recall, Lewis is an atheist or agnostic, while Barnes is an evangelical Anglican. Both are physicists (cosmologists) with doctorates from the University of Cambridge, U.K., and both are professors in Sydney, Australia.

Barnes and Lewis have a forthcoming book with Cambridge University Press: The Cosmic Revolutionary’s Handbook (Or: How to Beat the Big Bang).

Edit. Part 2 is available below.

The argument from scale

I'd like to consider a couple of objections to God's existence. In terms of how they are conventionally expressed, it's not clear if these are two separate objections or one overall objection:

1. The argument from scale

The vast size and vast antiquity of the universe renders human existence insignificant by comparison. Humans occupy such an infinitesimal fraction of the universe, in time and space. 

2. The universe is overwhelmingly hostile to life

Despite the vastness of the universe, intelligent life may only exist on earth. 

These two objections are individually problematic:

Regarding (1):

i) Advocates of mature creation don't think the universe preexisted humans for billions of years.

ii) The theological value of human life is irrelevant to the physical size of the universe in relation to the human population or the position of the earth in relation to the universe. That's a category mistake. To take a comparison, if a son is drafted to fight a war overseas, is he less precious to his parents when he's thousands of miles away compared to when he's living at home or living in the same town? Spatial separation is beside the point.

Is a parent who died 40 years ago less precious to their child than a parent who died last week? Temporal separation is beside the point. 

God is a discarnate being, so the value he places on creatures has nothing to do with physical proximity. 

Suppose, for argument's sake, that humans were able to colonize the universe. We had space stations scattered across the universe. Would that enhance our significance in the sight of God? The objection is theologically obtuse.

Regarding (2), astronomers are conflicted on that issue. Some think earth might be the only planet where life exists while others think the odds are that life must exist elsewhere in the universe. 

But another problem is how these two objections cancel each other out. Supposing that intelligent life only exists on earth, doesn't that make humans extra special? Don't rare things tend to be more precious than ordinary things? Isn't an oasis valuable in relation to the surrounding wasteland? 

Thanks, atheism!

Planned obsolescence

Secular Outpost
@SecularOutpost
Dec 19
A lot of tubes in the human body seem to be cases of imperfect 'design': Eustachian tube, ureters, urethra (esp. in older men), etc.
Secular Outpost
@SecularOutpost
Dec 19
Or consider 'silent' diseases like hypertension (high blood pressure), pre-diabetes, periodontal (gum) disease. Pain system not fine-tuned.

I assume this is Jeff Lowder's Twitter account. If so, several problems with Jeff's objections. 

i) It's not an undercutter, much less a defeater for Christianity, that humans develop health problems. To the contrary, Christian theology predicts for that. Mortality and illness are inevitable in a fallen world. That's not a design defect, but a punitive sanction. 

ii) How is a sinus infection a mark of poor design? That's caused by something external to the organ. 

iii) It's hardly a design flaw that aging organs, systems, and body parts are less efficient. Moreover, even planned obsolescence is can be a mark of good design in the sense that it was doing what it was programmed to do. And that serves a purpose. 

iv) It's easy to venture armchair complaints about alleged examples of poor design, but I don't see people like Jeff producing technical schematics for better designs. In addition, what compensatory adjustments would need to be made in the body to accommodate an allegedly superior design for one particular organ or body part?

v) On the one hand, atheists complain about God-of-the-gaps arguments. On the other hand, atheists point to examples of what they deem to be suboptimal design. But isn't that a naturalism-of-the-gaps argument? They default to the bungling, groping process of naturalistic evolution. They say that's just what you'd expect if life is the result of a haphazard process. But why isn't that an ad hoc fallacy or argument from ignorance? The very thing they impute to theistic explanations? 

vi) In general, would it not be disadvantageous rather than advantageous for "silent" diseases to be painful? Until the advent of modern medicine, what could be done about hypertension? How is it beneficial for the pain system to be fine-tuned to register untreatable or incurable conditions? How is it beneficial to experience pain if nothing's available for symptom relief, much less a fix for the underlying cause? Isn't that detrimental rather than beneficial? 

vii) How is the fact that body parts, systems, and organs can malfunction evidence of suboptimal design? Take sports cars and luxury cars like Lexis, Mercedes, Porsche, and BMW–not to mention Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Bugatti, and Lamborghini. Sooner or later, these will break down without regular maintenance. Is that a design flaw? Are they poorly engineered? 

Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me if modern high-end vehicles aren't more prone to malfunction than cars in the 1950s. Today's vehicles have so many gadgets, so many extra things to go wrong. 

The fine-tuning of nature's laws

The Fine-Tuning of Nature's Laws by Luke Barnes.

The fine-tuning of the universe

The Goldilocks Zone

I'd like to make an observation about the atheist trope that the Copernican revolution demoted human beings. The position of the stars and planets in traditional geocentric system is partly based on naked-eye stargazing, and partly on aesthetics. The distance between one star or planet and another is pretty arbitrary on that scheme. The concentric circles are more a matter of artistic symmetry than anything else. It's prettier if they are evenly spaced. But they could be closer or farther apart at random. In that (Medieval/Ptolemaic) system, it has no physical effects. 

Contrary to the atheist trope, the relative position of the earth is far more significant in modern astronomy. The earth is in the Goldilocks Zone. 

And that figures in the fine-tuning argument. There's a very narrow tolerance for life. Many variables must line up just so for life to be possible. 

At a functional, substantive level, the relative position of the earth is far more important, far more "privileged" in modern astronomy than Ptolemaic astronomy or Dante. 

"The Place of Life and Man in Nature"

"The Place of Life and Man in Nature: Defending the Anthropocentric Thesis" by Michael Denton.

A fine-tuned critique of Richard Carrier

"What Chance Looks Like – A Fine-Tuned Critique of Richard Carrier (Part 2)" by Luke Barnes.

Puddleglum thinking

"What to Read: The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life" by Luke Barnes.