Fine tuning argument assessed

[Tonus]

I don't see how this follows. Fine-tuning proponents are usually pretty clear that for each constant there is a range of life-permitting values, any of which would do the job. But the range is small, relative to the range of all possible values.

In the discussions I can recall (and the beliefs I held when I was a theist), the argument from fine-tuning is that life would be impossible unless those values were in a very tight range, and that any deviation would make life impossible.

If that is the case, then the implication is that god cannot create life except under limited circumstances, which seems at odds with the idea that he created the universe and wrote the laws by which it works. It would imply that the universe was designed by someone else, and god found it.

If the argument is that there are other settings that would also work, then at the very least the fine-tuning argument is weakened. We no longer are talking about a frightfully-narrow band of settings that seem so improbable that they make a compelling case for a creator. It just means that out of the numerous possible universes and the possible life forms that could be produced, this is the one we wound up with.