The Ownership of Science

[Neo-Scholastic]

The statistical probabiity of fine-tuning depends on assuming that the constants referred to could be other than they are, that if they could be other than they are that they could differ enough to make life impossible, that if they could differ enough to make life impossible, they are independent of each other (that is, raising one by X doesn't mean that another has to be X lower, for instance) AND there are no other possible combinations where life different from what we're familiar with would be possible. That's a lot of ifs without even bringing other universes into it and we don't know the answer to any of them. It's not evidence, it's a thought experiment.

It almost seems as if there are these four basic categories keep popping up to "explain" the apparent contingency of the physical universe: chance, necessity, providence, and choice. Depending on one's faith, or lack thereof, people are disposed to feel emotionally and intellectually satisfied with some categories more than others. At the same time though, some categories seem to blur together. Is there really that much difference between them? If you can model chance outcomes statistically doesn't that bleed into necessity when there is a predictable and graphable distribution? Is there really much difference between necessity, that which must happen, and providence, the idea that some things are set-up to happen. Isn't that perhaps just a differnent way of talking about the same thing...between the "how" and "why" of things.

a universe in which life can exist naturally is the only kind of universe that doesn't require a supernatural explanation for why life exists.

And all bachelors are unmarried. :-)