The Fine-Tuning Argument

[MindForgedManacle]

I presume you've all heard the Fine-tuning argument for God's existence before. If not, eh, go to YouTube.

Anyhow, what do you think are good objections to the argument?

[Anomalocaris]

We are not special, we are unlikely, but so is every other particular outcome in which we do not arise. Our existence is no more special than our nonexistence.

[Angrboda]

You might want to take a look at the recent arguments of Drew_2013.

http://atheistforums.org/thread-17075-po...#pid402174

and his official" argument,

http://atheistforums.org/thread-17548.html

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He also took another stab at it from a slightly different angle after those two threads:

http://atheistforums.org/thread-18709.html

(I didn't pull the trigger on some of my main arguments, so it only went partway into the matter.)

[rexbeccarox]

The phrase "fine-tuning" is fallacious and implies the universe was formed for the existence of humans, not that we adapted to it.

I do love to think about what variations might have caused, though.

[Chas]

Life is fine-tuned by evolution to the universe. The universe is what it is.

[Angrboda]

One point which I read recently but for which I cannot recall the author is that fine-tuning arguments all have the same flaw, none of them provide any evidence that the values which are supposedly fine-tuned are at all unlikely; it's not even clear how they would go about doing so.

[MindForgedManacle]

I believe the physicist Victor Stenger has made that claim, or one similar in his debate with William Lane Craig. As I recall, Craig often makes that claim in his debates, that the values of the various constants are "so improbable that they demand an explanation, and a benevolent God whom made them as they are is more plausible than any naturalistic account". That's not exactly a direct quote from Craig, but is something like what he usually says.


I know that Stenger wrote a book on the topic - The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning - How the Universe is Not Designed for Us - but I haven't read it, and I hear it's a bit technical. Might pick it up from Amazon soon. Any of you read it before?

[Angrboda]

I believe the physicist Victor Stenger has made that claim, or one similar in his debate with William Lane Craig. As I recall, Craig often makes that claim in his debates, that the values of the various constants are "so improbable that they demand an explanation, and a benevolent God whom made them as they are is more plausible than any naturalistic account". That's not exactly a direct quote from Craig, but is something like what he usually says.


I know that Stenger wrote a book on the topic - The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning - How the Unuverse is Not Designed for Us - but I haven't read it, and I hear it's a bit technical. Might pick it up from Amazon soon. Any of you read it before?

I've got it, but I've only read partway into it. It is a bit technical. There is a section of Stenger's "God: The Failed Hypothesis" which is devoted to the subject and is considerably more accessible. I'm not saying the science in Fine Tuning is really difficult, I just got distracted with other things.

[MindForgedManacle]

I'll be sure to get when I can then.

[Lucanus]

Fine Tuning did make some sense to me back when I believed, yet now I think it is based on some sort of "logical mysticism": that is, you move the cause of what happens in the world from the world itself to somewhere else.

In my opinion, a good objection to the Fine-Tuning argument is that what it postulates is absolutely unnecessary and can have a much simpler explanation through naturalism; that means, use Occam's Razor.

A Xstian would most likely move the goalposts and say that Fine Tuning is fallacious only in an "atheist worldview". I happened to discuss with such a guy on youtube (username: "CalamitasDeus", look at his channel, it's quite hilarious), obviously to no result.

The problem is actually to make them understand how their worldview is not based on any proven fact and as such is not acceptable.