Fine tuning argument assessed

[Chas]

Everything is connected though, if there were no supernovas or supermassive blackholes there would be no galactic planetary formation and we would not exist. Our existence depends on everything else. This isn't non-scientific it's 100% factual and known. It's not just us here isolated on a little planet the rest of the universe having nothing to do with us, we are a part the system.

Even the guy who invented the idea of black holes says that they might just be a figment of his imagination. In that regard he's no different than the first guy who came up with the idea of a magical god creature. No one has ever seen evidence of either one.

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Considering the sheer number of planets within the billions of galaxies in our vision how does the conditions on them billions of light years distance from us affect our environment on Earth?

And since modern man has only existed for a micro-second when did the universe become fined-tuned for our existence?

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Your ignorance of the evidence does not mean that it doesn't exist.

Astronomers have found convincing evidence for a supermassive black hole in the center of our own Milky Way galaxy, the galaxy NGC 4258, the giant elliptical galaxy M87, and several others. Scientists verified the existence of the black holes by studying the speed of the clouds of gas orbiting those regions. In 1994, Hubble Space Telescope data measured the mass of an unseen object at the center of M87. Based on the motion of the material whirling about the center, the object is estimated to be about 3 billion times the mass of our Sun and appears to be concentrated into a space smaller than our solar system.

For many years, X-ray emissions from the double-star system Cygnus X-1 convinced many astronomers that the system contains a black hole. With more precise measurements available recently, the evidence for a black hole in Cygnus X-1 -- and about a dozen other systems -- is very strong.

Black holes have been discovered throughout our galaxy and elsewhere in the universe.

They say that truth is stranger than fiction, and it turns out that nature is stranger than science fiction. More than a dozen black holes have already been discovered in our Milky Way galaxy - out of more than a million black holes estimated to exist there. And a giant black hole, heavier than millions of stars, has been discovered at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

[jesus_wept]

Every time I hear the fine tuning argument I think of this.

"This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.” ― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/70827-th...dle-waking

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Even the guy who invented the idea of black holes says that they might just be a figment of his imagination. In that regard he's no different than the first guy who came up with the idea of a magical god creature. No one has ever seen evidence of either one.

---

Considering the sheer number of planets within the billions of galaxies in our vision how does the conditions on them billions of light years distance from us affect our environment on Earth?

And since modern man has only existed for a micro-second when did the universe become fined-tuned for our existence?

---

Your ignorance of the evidence does not mean that it doesn't exist.

Astronomers have found convincing evidence for a supermassive black hole in the center of our own Milky Way galaxy, the galaxy NGC 4258, the giant elliptical galaxy M87, and several others. Scientists verified the existence of the black holes by studying the speed of the clouds of gas orbiting those regions. In 1994, Hubble Space Telescope data measured the mass of an unseen object at the center of M87. Based on the motion of the material whirling about the center, the object is estimated to be about 3 billion times the mass of our Sun and appears to be concentrated into a space smaller than our solar system.

For many years, X-ray emissions from the double-star system Cygnus X-1 convinced many astronomers that the system contains a black hole. With more precise measurements available recently, the evidence for a black hole in Cygnus X-1 -- and about a dozen other systems -- is very strong.

Black holes have been discovered throughout our galaxy and elsewhere in the universe.

They say that truth is stranger than fiction, and it turns out that nature is stranger than science fiction. More than a dozen black holes have already been discovered in our Milky Way galaxy - out of more than a million black holes estimated to exist there. And a giant black hole, heavier than millions of stars, has been discovered at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

Something will turn up.

Even the guy who came up with the idea of black holes no longer believes in them.

"Stephen Hawking Stopped Believing in Black Holes"
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/11644...dont-exist

If black holes did exist then they should have been able to have consumed all of the stellar material in their respective galaxies. The fact that galaxies exist disproves the idea of black holes.

[Chas]

Something will turn up.

Even the guy who came up with the idea of black holes no longer believes in them.

"Stephen Hawking Stopped Believing in Black Holes"
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/11644...dont-exist

If black holes did exist then they should have been able to have consumed all of the stellar material in their respective galaxies. The fact that galaxies exist disproves the idea of black holes.

Except that statement is a very poor summary of the article, and the article is a very poor description of what Hawking said.

He doesn't say that black holes don't exist. He says they aren't quite what we thought they were.

This is called science. Our understanding is improved by new data and new theory.

[Mr. Moncrieff]

"The probability of a universe existing that can support us....."

There is the main flaw with the argument right off the bat.

The universe does not exist to support us.

We are not special and we are not the reason the universe exists.

Instead, we are an accident of evolution, no more likely to appear than any other species on this planet.

In fact the universe, insomuch as the universe is inclusive of all aspects of earthly existence, is vehemently open to killing us. We have had to continually adapt for millions of years.

The percentage of species still alive that have ever existed is less than 1% I believe...

That means the universe is pretty good at culling the unnecessary and anything it sees as unproductive and forcibly making those that survive to evolve.

The brutality of existence is evident every day. Animals live by the skin of their teeth, existing in a delicate balance of certain starvation and selfish predatory impulses. The selfish genes...

Our cells are continually threatened by disease, cancer and all kinds of bacterium that we still must evolve past.

The universe is incredible, beautiful, amazing, awesome. But those that hold beliefs seem to forget that it is brutal, callous, raging, imposing and terrifyingly opposed to weakness.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Something will turn up.

Even the guy who came up with the idea of black holes no longer believes in them.

"Stephen Hawking Stopped Believing in Black Holes"
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/11644...dont-exist

If black holes did exist then they should have been able to have consumed all of the stellar material in their respective galaxies. The fact that galaxies exist disproves the idea of black holes.

Except that statement is a very poor summary of the article, and the article is a very poor description of what Hawking said.

He doesn't say that black holes don't exist. He says they aren't quite what we thought they were.

This is called science. Our understanding is improved by new data and new theory.

You're making the classic mistake of appealing to authority instead of thinking for yourself. Such things as dark matter, black holes, and the Big Bang are pure BS. If you actually think about them you will see that they make zero sense. They are comparable to belief in some cosmic deity who is only concerned with a small group of people on a small plot of land on a small planet in the whole universe.

[max-greece]

You're making the classic mistake of appealing to authority instead of thinking for yourself. Such things as dark matter, black holes, and the Big Bang are pure BS. If you actually think about them you will see that they make zero sense. They are comparable to belief in some cosmic deity who is only concerned with a small group of people on a small plot of land on a small planet in the whole universe.

If we still lived in a Newtonian Universe I would agree with you. The problem is that physics is now beyond our pay grade. Appeals to logic are no longer valid - and ceased to be so when Einstein showed that time changes with speed (which makes no sense).

Since that moment physics has gone off on routes that are so alien to our in-built logic its mind boggling.

Whilst I have argued before on these forums that science is heading in the direction of religion in that we're told we can't understand it and we have to accept it that is not quite true.

Firstly there is the process of science and peer review. We take physics (particularly Quantum Physics these days) on the basis that it offers the best explanation we have and appears to have widescale support amongst the relevant science community.

It is, however, not treated as the gospel. Should science move on - and new predictions, models and explanation are made which replace those we currently hold then we go with those until such time as those in turn are replaced.

It is dangerous ground to simply surmise that Black holes, the big bang and so on are nonsense merely as they don't match your logic.

They may turn out to be ultimately wrong but right now the general consensus is that they are the best explanations we have.

There is nothing religious in this.

[Chas]

Except that statement is a very poor summary of the article, and the article is a very poor description of what Hawking said.

He doesn't say that black holes don't exist. He says they aren't quite what we thought they were.

This is called science. Our understanding is improved by new data and new theory.

You're making the classic mistake of appealing to authority instead of thinking for yourself. Such things as dark matter, black holes, and the Big Bang are pure BS. If you actually think about them you will see that they make zero sense. They are comparable to belief in some cosmic deity who is only concerned with a small group of people on a small plot of land on a small planet in the whole universe.

Please point out what you perceive as an appeal to authority, because there isn't one there.

[houseofcantor]

Except that statement is a very poor summary of the article, and the article is a very poor description of what Hawking said.

He doesn't say that black holes don't exist. He says they aren't quite what we thought they were.

This is called science. Our understanding is improved by new data and new theory.

You're making the classic mistake of appealing to authority instead of thinking for yourself. Such things as dark matter, black holes, and the Big Bang are pure BS. If you actually think about them you will see that they make zero sense. They are comparable to belief in some cosmic deity who is only concerned with a small group of people on a small plot of land on a small planet in the whole universe.

1) Appeal to authority is often not fallacious.
2) It's more of an appeal to mathematics you ignorant slut.

[LostLocke]

If black holes did exist then they should have been able to have consumed all of the stellar material in their respective galaxies. The fact that galaxies exist disproves the idea of black holes.

Actually, it disproves the fact that you understand basic physics and motion.
A black hole won't consume it's galaxy any more than a star will consume all its orbiting planets.