Wednesday, October 25, 2017

There he goes again

The Rasputin-esque topic of fine-tuning came up on Biologos again.  I commented this, which you've heard me say a semi-infinite number of times, so forgive me:
I'm going to get on my soap box again. "Fine Tuning" and probability should never be mentioned in the same context. They have nothing to do with each other. Fine tuning is simply the observation that the habitability of the universe (or more precisely, the ability of the universe to manufacture heavy elements) appears to be highly sensitive to the values of the constants. End of story. No mention of probability. If the universe is fine-tuned, then it is fine tuned whether the values of the constants are probable or not. Furthermore, if you insist to turn [it] into an apologetic, IDers (as is their custom) take exactly the wrong approach. They argue (with no scientific support) that the [probability of the values] values of the constants [is] vanishingly small, ergo god. When in fact it is more likely if the [probabilities]  are vanishingly small it would be ergo multiverse. The best apologetic would be a fundamental theory that predicts the constants (unit probability) which, when coupled with the fine-tuning (sensitivity) would be the best possible prima facie evidence for design.
It is the height of arrogance to assume I'm right and everyone is wrong, I would never think of doing that. Except in this case. Those Intelligent Design advocates who tie fine-tuning to low probability are  making the worst scientific, mathematical, and strategic mistake they could possibly make. I suspect they don't care about the first two, but the last one, you'd think, would be of some importance.

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