When Faith and Science Clash

[Simon Moon]

The following is copied from Reasonable Faith's website

That was your first mistake.

Let me give some examples of fine tuning because physics abounds with examples of fine tuning. But before I do so, let me give you some numbers to give you a feel for the delicacy of the fine tuning because otherwise the numbers are so large they become meaningless to us. The number of seconds in the history of the universe, from the very beginning of the universe, is about 10^17. That is a 1 followed by 17 zeroes. Just an incomprehensible number – but that is the number of seconds in the universe. The number of subatomic particles in the entire known universe is around 10^80.

With those numbers in mind, consider the following. The atomic weak force which operates within the nucleus of the atom is so finely tuned that an alteration of even one part out of 10^100 would have rendered the universe life-prohibiting. In order to permit life, the weak force has to be fine tuned to one part out of 10^100. Similarly, the so called cosmological constant, which drives the acceleration of the universe, has to be fine tuned to within one part out of 10^120 in order for the universe to be life- permitting. Here is a real corker: Roger Penrose of Oxford University has estimated that the initial entropy condition – the entropy level of the early universe – has to be fine tuned to one part out of 10^10^(123) – a number which is so incomprehensible that to call it astronomical would be a wild understatement.

It is not just one of these numbers that must be fine tuned but all of them. So you multiply these probabilities together until our minds are just reeling in incomprehensible numbers. Having an accuracy of even one part out of 10^60 would be like having a range the size of the entire visible universe – 20 billion light years across – and in order for life to exist, a randomly thrown dart would have to land in an area one inch square. And that is just one part in 10^60! We are talking about numbers that are just unimaginably greater than that.

These are just some of the examples of fine tuning. The examples of fine tuning are so many and so various that they are unlikely to disappear with the further advance of science. Like it or not, the fine tuning of the universe for life is just a scientific fact which is well-established.

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/defenders...z272yV1YIK

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These number/conditions are incredible!

"It appears that there is a set of fundamental physical constants that are such that had they been very slightly different, the universe would have been void of intelligent life. It's as if we're balancing on a knife’s edge. Some philosophers and physicists take the 'fine-tuning' of these constants to be an explanandum that cries out for an explanans, but is this the right way to think?

The data we collect about the Universe is filtered not only by our instruments' limitations, but also by the precondition that somebody be there to “have” the data yielded by the instruments (and to build the instruments in the first place). This precondition causes observation selection effects - biases in our data that may call into question how interpret evidence that the Universe is fine-tuned at all." Professor Bostrom

Bottom line, the universe was not designed with us in mind. We are here because the universe is such that the laws allowed the ability for life to exist. If it didn't, we wouldn't be here discussing this. There would be a universe with different attributes instead.

You've got your presuppositional cart before the horse.