@Mary:
It’s not an attempt to undermine anything. It’s simply a competing theory.
I don’t think it is a theory. It can not be used to predict any behavior.
The conditions at the start of the universe could have been anything.
That is true. We can’t say what was there … at least not yet. So, i would
again not call it a theory, but speculation.
Just because we are -at the moment- unknowing, does that mean that the former believe of the sun being town across the sky by a chariot was a theory?
It’s a very popular argument in cosmology.
It is not :)
To the link …
“To use the lottery fallacy against the fine tuning argument we must postulate a suitably large array of universes for which we have no other evidence at all. This isn’t a fatal problem because we are also postulating a Creator but persuading an atheist that he is standing on the same metaphysical ground as his theistic opponent can be rather hard.”
I don’t think so. It is just that the Creator argument (like the many worlds argument) can not be checked yet. Either you have to build a sound scientific theory of how to check the existance, or leave it as metaphysics/religion.
It also says:
"An example of the former (fallacy) is when we are asked why we are not amazed by the incredible odds that we were born given the number of eggs and sperm produced by our parents. Is it not amazing that I am not someone else? This is fallacious " … with regard to the existance of life.
On the terms, the same lines can be used against the creationist argument on the natural constants.
“As we are investigating why the laws of physics are as they are, the answer ‘because they are’ does not seem to take us very far forward and indeed, begs the question.”
This is effectively using the same argument once to defend creationism and once discarding it as a fallacy.
The author then says “but like all arguments for God, this one does not seem to convince anyone who does not want to be convinced” but i doubt that he considers the vice versa case which is as true. No scientist (i know of) wants to mix science into religion. On the other hand, we have people who want to mix religion into science (mainly believing/faithful religious people, who find it difficult to keep their religious believe while learning their science with critical thinking and constants doubts. It may be hard for a religious person to stay faithful when there is “no hard evidence”, intelligent design is a nice way out of that.)
All in all the article is putting up a huge straw man.
“We cannot know that our particular set of physical laws and constants are the only ones that will produce a viable universe.”
Agreed, yet
"One thing a design argument must not do is look for a ‘God in the Gaps.’ "
which is exactly what she is doing. We have insufficient knowledge, and probably never a way to gain more. Thus we need a creator.
That is not science, and exactly looking for a “god in the gaps”.
He in lengths argues about the existance of universes or not, then…
"Victor Stenger… has tried to demonstrate that many different constants produce viable universes …
First, it assumes exactly the same laws of physics that we have but with different numbers. Most fine tuners would say that the laws themselves have been finely tuned and so cannot be taken as read.
That is a “God in the Gaps” ….
(1) See we don’t know wether other universes could bear life. The universe as we see it must have been created the way it is (with its natural constants).
(2) Look, here are some “life bearing” universes, with different constants.
(3) The universe as we see it must have been created with laws the way it is.
I do appreciate that science is pushed by these questions. I yet don’t see them as being science themselves.
“The problems with the multiple universe theory are manifold but the most important is that we have no evidence for them whatsoever.”
We have no scientific evidence for god.
“there is no theory that predicts they might exist.”
Wheelers interpretation of the quantum mechanical measurement process lives on spawning more and more universes from the current one. There has been a ST:TNG show where Worf skips between these universes that is based on that idea.
"Also, for the multiple universe theory to help the atheist at all, the universes must all have different physical laws "
No, SOME must differ, not all.
“Finally, the vast number of universes required seems to insult every principal of scientific elegance from Ockham’s razor onwards”
Is it better to introduce someting totally new, like a creator, or to add more of what is know already ?
“The atheist should realise that hypothesising multiple universe is metaphysics and not science.”
We do. Unfortunately the “designers” don’t see that adding a creator is as much metaphysics. Both are not holding under scientific examination.
I agree with:
“It is not a scientific theory because it cannot be experimentally verified or falsified… Indeed it is a metaphysical statement itself–as it lies behind science, it cannot be examined scientifically”
Until i see an experiment that shows the signature of a creator, i doubt one exists. I wonder why it is not applied to the creation arguement by the author.
“So would the discovery of life on other planets with the same or a very similar genetic architecture to our own (be evidence for a creator), as this would suggest that different pathways to life are not common.”
That holds nothing.
If a way to create life is the most probable, and happened on two different planets, doesn’t mean at all that a creator created this “most likely” (or maybe even only possible) way.
The personal need for a creator speaks out of the whole article. I respect this personal need, but strongly object to bring it into science and mix metaphysics into science.
Remember, paradigm shifts often move with glacial speed. How long did it take germ theory to become established? How long before scientists gave up on spontaneous generation? Why was homosexuality considered a mental disorder all the way up to the 1970’s?
Yes … so we are slowly moving away from the need of a creator, and just see the last defenses of the ones that follow the old paradigm?
