The not-so-fine tuning argument.

[Jehanne]

I was watching a Closer to Truth (Season 5, Episode 2 or so) show yesterday and the late Professor Victor Stenger was interviewed, and "Wow, I am such a dummy!"  He gave an argument against the so-called fine-tuning argument that reminded me of the widespread stupidity of the 70s and 80s with regards to hardly ever wearing seat-belts in a car, an argument that I have never heard before.  Basically, Dr. Stenger said (a poor paraphrase, I admit), "If God exists, then God could have created the constants of nature to be whatever God wanted them to be; God could have created humans to live in outer space or anywhere."  Dr. Stenger's point is that the whole fine-tuning argument that William Craig and others advance is just stupid; God, if he/she/it exists, did not need to "fine-tune" anything!  To say that fine-tuning exists is really an argument for atheism, not theism, in that it recognizes, even implicitly, that physical law is supreme and not magic or miracles or the supernatural.  We can easily imagine scores of dead, lifeless Universes just as modern astronomy has observed scores of lifeless, dead planets all throughout our Galaxy to explain the so-called fine-tuning of our Universe.

[abaris]

Actually, you don't need any of this. Our own body is testimony to absent finetuning. We've got a lot of now useless remnants from our evolutionary past built in. Such as the appendix, just to name one of about a dozen.

[Alex K]

@Jehanne
Cool, that's roughly the refutation I also always use.

[robvalue]

Ah yes! The "he didn't quite totally fuck it all up" argument.

Yeah, theists generally can't make their mind up whether God made the rules, or God showed up with some rules already present. They have to believe both, because committing to either shoots holes right through their explanations.

All we have is the evidence: the so-called designed universe. It points to a designer that is either unconcerned with us, or is hopelessly bad at designing. It boggles my mind that theists could be impressed with this outcome, given the power and resources the designer is meant to have.

[vorlon13]

Actually, you don't need any of this. Our own body is testimony to absent finetuning. We've got a lot of now useless remnants from our evolutionary past built in. Such as the appendix, just to name one of about a dozen.

Turns out an appendix is handy to have if you survive cholera . . .

[Chad32]

If the Human body is designed, it's a pretty bad design. There are several parts that, in general are better off removed from the body for it to function well. We have a quadrupedal skeleton, despite being bipedal. We have almost nothing separating the wind pipe from the digestive pipe, resulting in a choking hazard. We have a blind spot in our eyes that the brain has to fill in for itsself. We only have two sets of teeth, despite being able to live for several decades. I could probably go on.

[The Grand Nudger]

The fact that we're tool users ought to disabuse us of any notion that we were well designed for -anything-.  We didn't have to come up with spear points and hoes because we were well designed even to -feed- ourselves.   We've spent our entire existence, as a species, attempting to overcome the flaws and limitations of our "design", just so we could live another day....and even with all of that we fail and die off at a disturbing rate. The only thing that's ever worked for us, uniformly, is to spit out more of us than this rock can axe at any given time (and that's also, conveniently, been a leading cause of death itself)....but sexual promiscuity is something "god" has a real problem with, apparently. It goes against some "purpose" he has in mind, some design. That purpose and design, by the crushing weight of evidence, can only be misery and death. That's what we're "designed" to do, that's our "divine purpose". To suffer and then, inevitably, die in a cosmic morality play.

Some design, some designer.

[Nuda900]

Dr. Stenger's point is that the whole fine-tuning argument that William Craig and others advance is just stupid; God, if he/she/it exists, did not need to "fine-tune" anything! 

Try explaining this to a theist. All of a sudden stuff starts to become inconsistent. On atheism we won the lottery, on theism there is no lottery.

---

If the Human body is designed, it's a pretty bad design. There are several parts that, in general are better off removed from the body for it to function well. We have a quadrupedal skeleton, despite being bipedal. We have almost nothing separating the wind pipe from the digestive pipe, resulting in a choking hazard. We have a blind spot in our eyes that the brain has to fill in for itsself. We only have two sets of teeth, despite being able to live for several decades. I could probably go on.

Combining the waste disposal area with the recreational area.....

[Chad32]

Yeah. You can reach an orgasm by doing anal.

[Mister Agenda]

Actually, you don't need any of this. Our own body is testimony to absent finetuning. We've got a lot of now useless remnants from our evolutionary past built in. Such as the appendix, just to name one of about a dozen.

Turns out an appendix is handy to have if you survive cholera . . .

'Vestigial' does not mean 'useless'.