Why the fine tuning argument is a pile of shit

[Alex K]

It's quite a common fallacy, often said by misty-eyed theists who say it whilst literally standing atop the ground which is full of remains of the millions of species which evolved, lived and died out in such a way that we managd to blag our way to planetary dominance.

Interesting analogy however it didn't make the argument any clearer to me...

The argument, if you're unfamiliar with it, is basically this: If for example the energies of certain nuclear processes were just a bit heavier, the reactions couldn't take place, there would be no stars and therefore no heavy elements beyond hydrogen or helium. Similar or more severe things can be said for many other constants of nature. So can it really be a coincidence that all these laws of nature line up to allow for complex organisms and thus intelligence? Seems super unlikely, so there must have been a big sky daddy who turned the knobs such that the laws of nature were juuuuuuuust right.

The first big challenge this argument meets is that it is invalid to demand exactly our kind of life to be possible - you have to argue that no conceivable other kind of intelligence can arise if those numbers were different. But if you manage that, it is still questionable if the claimed conclusion even follows.