The not-so-fine tuning argument.

[robvalue]

"Stop fucking goats all the time you guys! I made other animals too!"

[Meandering Atheist -J-]

I always found the fine tuning argument to be one of the least strong, although I know lots of smart people find it convincing. The reason is this: I am not concerned with "probabilities" when these events are prerequisites for this conversation. What are the odds that there would be life? What are the odds that we would be having this conversation in a universe that doesn't support life? What are the odds that everyone drinking in a bar is over 21? What are the odds that everyone with a college degree also has a GED? The probability argument is nothing more than a poorly worded question.

[Jehanne]

I always found the fine tuning argument to be one of the least strong, although I know lots of smart people find it convincing. The reason is this: I am not concerned with "probabilities" when these events are prerequisites for this conversation. What are the odds that there would be life? What are the odds that we would be having this conversation in a universe that doesn't support life? What are the odds that everyone drinking in a bar is over 21? What are the odds that everyone with a college degree also has a GED? The probability argument is nothing more than a poorly worded question.

Let's create a really, really improbable event!  Toss a quarter in the air 100 times in a row, recording the outcomes of each toss on a piece of paper.  What is the probability that you will get the exact sequence of heads and/or tails that you will get?  Answer:  1 / (2 ^ 100).  Now, what is the probability that you will get a sequence of 100 heads and/or tails?  Answer:  1 (or, 100%)

[Alex K]

@Jehanne

But isn't the point of those advancing the fine tuning argument precisely that they can say a priori that (simply speaking) only one of those outcomes is compatible with life, e.g. that life = 100 times heads? Then it is irrelevant that all possibilities add up to a probability of 1. I'm not saying I buy the ft argument, just that the lotto fallacy alone doesn't appear to be sufficient to refute it unless you also argue that all outcomes are compatible with some form of observer

[TheRocketSurgeon]

@Jehanne

But isn't the point of those advancing the fine tuning argument precisely that they can say a priori that (simply speaking) only one of those outcomes is compatible with life, e.g. that life = 100 times heads? Then it is irrelevant that all possibilities add up to a probability of 1. I'm not saying I buy the ft argument, just that the lotto fallacy alone doesn't appear to be sufficient to refute it unless you also argue that all outcomes are compatible with some form of observer

And my response to their "only one of those outcomes is compatible with life" is how the fuck can you know that!?!

I tend to think of it like a "results chart", following a dice-roll. You roll a few 100-sided dice and see what numbers you get, then you consult the chart to see what the outcomes are from those results-- some of the chart-results aren't compatible with life, some are. Some may produce results we cannot imagine but which produce life-forms we also cannot imagine. Who knows? I don't. They don't.

The assumption that is required to even start their argument is that this is the only way it could be, the same anthropocentric bullshit they've been peddling since they said the earth was flat, made-for-us, and that the entire rest of the universe revolved around it.

[Alex K]

@Jehanne

But isn't the point of those advancing the fine tuning argument precisely that they can say a priori that (simply speaking) only one of those outcomes is compatible with life, e.g. that life = 100 times heads? Then it is irrelevant that all possibilities add up to a probability of 1. I'm not saying I buy the ft argument, just that the lotto fallacy alone doesn't appear to be sufficient to refute it unless you also argue that all outcomes are compatible with some form of observer

And my response to their "only one of those outcomes is compatible with life" is how the fuck can you know that!?!

I tend to think of it like a "results chart", following a dice-roll. You roll a few 100-sided dice and see what numbers you get, then you consult the chart to see what the outcomes are from those results-- some of the chart-results aren't compatible with life, some are. Some may produce results we cannot imagine but which produce life-forms we also cannot imagine. Who knows? I don't. They don't.

The assumption that is required to even start their argument is that this is the only way it could be, the same anthropocentric bullshit they've been peddling since they said the earth was flat, made-for-us, and that the entire rest of the universe revolved around it.

I don't quite buy it. If I take the usual theories as a given and play around with the parameters, I very quickly get something where nothing but a gas of dilute particles will exist because there are no stable nuclei and no elements. Or - the universe recollapses or expands so fast that no stars are formed. I don't quite buy that we cannot say anything about this.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

And my response to their "only one of those outcomes is compatible with life" is how the fuck can you know that!?!

I tend to think of it like a "results chart", following a dice-roll. You roll a few 100-sided dice and see what numbers you get, then you consult the chart to see what the outcomes are from those results-- some of the chart-results aren't compatible with life, some are. Some may produce results we cannot imagine but which produce life-forms we also cannot imagine. Who knows? I don't. They don't.

The assumption that is required to even start their argument is that this is the only way it could be, the same anthropocentric bullshit they've been peddling since they said the earth was flat, made-for-us, and that the entire rest of the universe revolved around it.

I don't quite buy it. If I take the usual theories as a given and play around with the parameters, I very quickly get something where nothing but a gas of dilute particles will exist because there are no stable nuclei and no elements. Or - the universe recollapses or expands so fast that no stars are formed. I don't quite buy that we cannot say anything about this.

I understand, but it's similar to the arguments against mutation as a driving force behind evolution. Even though 99.9% of the results are bad, useless, and/or destructive, it only takes the 0.1% to drive the mechanism.

Most of the results on my "chart", above, give the outcomes you describe. But the "usual theories" you're talking about are not yet complete--it's why they're arguing over the Multiverse concept, among other things--and it's entirely probable that we'll discover new forces and/or particles that may change those equations.

Granted, physics is not my field, so I won't presume to say more on it, but it strikes me as astoundingly anthropocentric to assume that this is the only way it can possibly be, simply because it's the only version we can demonstrate at the moment. It's also a presumption that the constants could be anything but what they are. Just because you can change the numbers mathematically and see what happens in a simulation doesn't mean that there exists such a possibility for variance in the gravitational constant (for instance) in nature.

[Alex K]

@Rocket

what you say is all true, but

- your first and second point would need something like a multiverse such that a small number of working possibilities can actually be selected, right? A multiverse would absolutely be a possible explanation for apparent fine tuning

- Your last point is the most important one in my eyes because it touches upon what we exactly mean by fine tuning and why it would be an argument for anything.

[The Grand Nudger]

The lotto fallacy alone -is- sufficient answer to the ft argument, because the ft argument isn't an argument until you tack on the probability bit.  If the universe or some portion is fine tuned, then the universe or some portion is fine tuned.  As such, there's no need to address the soundness of the  FT premise, regardless of whether or not the FT statement is accurate or inaccurate, it doesn't provide valid means of inference to conclude that god exists or did any tuning even if it did.  The one does't speak to the other without addendum.
  
On potential addendum, we can't reasonably claim that it would be impossible for the universe to be as it is in the absence of a god..because we'd have no way of knowing that in the first place, and depending upon what they are referencing, specifically, we know that to be untrue. The earth being where it is in the incomprehensibly wide (but somehow fine tuned?) band of our Suns CHZ, for example, is an effect of it's composition. This is where the materials that form our planet fall into an orbit due to their mass, due to gravity, due to their velocity and inertia.  This also happens with moons and planetary rings.  It's not impossible or even inexplicable in the absence of a god, and the explanation we have is confirmed by every observation and all the data we possess.  We leverage that data, those observations, and those relationships day in and day out with the placement of satellites and the design of orbital delivery systems.  

If, instead, we dial back our god of the gaps to the cosmological constants in response to this (which, conveniently, is what's been done)...we're back to having no reasonable way of knowing whether or not that claim is true.

The only reasonable and operative portion of the FT argument can be nothing -other-  a question of probability.   Here comes the lotto fallacy response and more.  Improbable things happen, regardless of a god.  Life exists, however improbable, regardless of whether or not a god exists.  The environment a creature finds itself in must support that creatures existence, or else they wouldn't exist to ask the question, regardless of whether or not a god exists.  QED

[TheRealJoeFish]

My favorite example of a vestigial/accidental/no-perfect-designer-would-have-done-it-like-this structure:


The ancestors of humans had internal testicles that gradually descended.  One of them got hooked over the path from the kidney to the bladder, resulting in a silly, asymmetrical, circuitous route.

Something similar happened with giraffes' facial nerves and their hearts (really, it happens for all mammals, but giraffes are the best illustration):

The nerve from the brain to the front part of the throat is a few inches long.  The nerve from the brain to the back part of the throat - which is only a few inches from the brain - is thirteen feet in length, because it got hooked around the aorta way back in some protomammal.

(Both images from Wikipedia Article on Evidence of Common Descent)