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Writer's picturejmgiardi

Notes on Fine-Tuning and Creationism


According to Paul Davies, in the traditional religious approach to the questions of "the cosmic arrangement, it is usually supposed that the world was made by God with the particular structure we encounter built in, precisely for the purpose of colonizing it with humans"; the Earth was "tailor-made" by God for mankind. After Darwin's theory of evolution was disseminated, "it was discovered that life on Earth is not static, but continually evolving. It then became possible … to turn the problem upside down and ask, not why is the Earth so well-suited to life, but why is life so well adapted to the Earth." (Davies [1980] 1982, 142 & 144) In [redacted]' analogy, water is life (presumably human life) and the hole is the Earth: "The hole existed first, and the water and ice that came later and filled the hole had to conform their shape to the surroundings. The hole did not transform itself ahead of time into the shape of the future ice-block." ([redacted] 2006, 221) While there is more than a grain of truth in this analogy, it, like most analogies, has problems. First, while a sufficient quantity of liquid water can fill any hole of any shape, life, especially human life, cannot adapt to any environment. As Davies emphasized, "it is not possible to argue that we could have evolved to fit any conditions whatever, because there are certain absolute limits and requirements without which no life at all is possible." [redacted]' analogy is applicable to natural selection. Life as we know it is adapted to the environment just as the shape of water is determined by the shape of the hole. One could say in that case, "Had conditions been different, so should we." However, "only a small subset of all possible worlds can support life." (Davies [1980] 1982, 144) If conditions were drastically different then life wouldn't exist at all. "In the case of organisms, even minute tinkering with the constants of nature would rule out life altogether, at least of the terrestrial variety." (Davies [1988] 2004, 163) Certainly, no one is saying that the hole was caused by the puddle. That would be absurd. Some did believe, as [redacted] stated it, that the cosmos "was personally tailored beforehand by (God) to match human specifications." Some may still believe this but this does not mean that [redacted]' analogy is valid. Life is still forced, as [redacted] put it, "to adapt to the environment in which it is found." ([redacted] 2006, 222) The Intelligent Designer could have "made the world for mankind" by assigning the constants of nature the values that they have; the values that permit not only complex structures but biological organisms to exist. It's one thing to say that God fine-tined the hole and another thing to say that He finely tuned the laws of science to make possible the development of holes.


To be fair to [redacted], it is true that modern theists claim that God "carefully created the universe for life." (Pilpel 2007, 18) This position is not identical to the one that endured prior to Darwin, the "tailor-made world" doctrine that views the environment as being "carefully prepared" so that "humans can live comfortably." (Davies [1980] 1982, 143) Theists today make much weaker claims. They say that "the universe's basic constants appear fine-tuned for life … With its constants finely-tuned for life, the universe must have been designed, and such design implies a designer…" (Pilpel 2007, 18) The question is why does a universe where life is possible exist? Evolution by natural selection, of course, can't be the answer. The possible answers include intelligent design, chance and multiple universes. [redacted] wrote that "[e]volution by natural selection provides a completely satisfying and comprehensive explanation to the fine-tuning between a lifeform's needs and the environment in which it lives." ([redacted] 2006, 222) Fair enough. Unfortunately, natural selection does not explain why our universe exists when the vast majority of possible universes can't support life.


In short, the problem with [redacted]' analogies is that in both of them there is x and something that adapts or conforms to x. The really important question is why is there something that adapts? According to Roger Penrose, a professor of mathematics, "the probability of a universe with life emerging in the aftermath of a big bang event is no better than one in 101230." (Van Gorder 2007, 17) If this is correct then it can't be said that the emergence of life was inevitable. Nevertheless, it occurred. If it hadn't, you wouldn't be reading this. In a great multitude of alternative worlds there is no life much less intelligent life and, therefore, no one to ponder these questions. We could "view our existence as an exceedingly improbable accident." (Davies [1980] 1982, 145) The odds of us existing have been compared to the odds of us continuing to exist after being faced by a firing squad that didn't all conspire. "[T]he alleged improbability of the cosmic 'coincidences'," according to one author, "is often illustrated by comparing it to extremely improbable mundane situations - such as every gun jamming at once in a firing squad." (Moreland & Nielsen [1990] 1993, 182) Even if this is not a disanalogy, a negligible likelihood is not an impossible likelihood. Chance is still a possible explanation. Lee Strobel claimed that "random chance was insufficient to explain away the anthropic 'coincidences'." (Strobel 2004, 136) It could, nonetheless, be the correct answer. According to the physicist Victor Stenger, the universe "could just as well be the way it is because it happened that way, and we could be the way we are because the conditions were such that we developed, random step by random step, to where we are today. Nothing forbids that the particular configuration of our universe could have happened by accident." (Stenger 1990, 267 & 268)

[redacted]

Prior to modern cosmology, it was widely believed that the universe was relatively young. According to several early cosmologies "and the Jewish/Christian/Muslim tradition, the universe started at a finite, and not very distant, time in the past." (Hawking 1988, 7) Genesis 1:2 says that "the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." (KJV) Then "light was supplied..." Then a firmament was created. Then "the waters were divided between those which were under the firmament and those above the firmament, and those under the firmament were gathered together into one place; dry land appeared and finally the Earth was stocked with plants and animals. In this way God created the conditions necessary for the support of human life." (Davies [1980] 1982, 143) According to the Bible, the human race was created on the sixth day. There is compelling evidence that the days are "literal days of twenty four hours." The Hebrew word for day is yom. According to Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, "[m]ore than 700 times in the Old Testament, the plural of yom is used and always has twenty-four-hour days in view. The burden of proof is on those who argue that the word yom cannot be understood in its plain and natural sense." (McDowell & Stewart 1980, 199 & 200) Another Christian author insisted, "The creation was accomplished in six literal days, not through billions of years of gradual development." (Huse 1993, 43) According to the Scriptures, the Designer's end goal was human beings and He only had to wait six days for it to be carried out. Contrast this with modern cosmology. According to Stephen Hawking, "the big bang occurred about ten thousand million years ago … [I]t takes about that long for intelligent beings to evolve." (Hawking 1988, 124) If modern cosmology is accurate and the Designer wished to see the emergence of the human race then He had to wait ten billion years after initiation for his goal to be achieved. Human beings, with our brief lifespans, do not begin tasks that will not bear fruit until ten billion years from now. Yet this is roughly what the Intelligent Design camp infers about their Designer; He started a project that wouldn't be completed until He was ten billion years older. According to the economist Ludwig von Mises, people "are purposively intent upon bringing about some changes." They are "eager to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory … Action is an attempt to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory one." (von Mises [1949] 1998, 13, 97, & 352) Human action results in gratification either instantly or (hopefully) in the future. Those who believe one would be remiss for not immediately accepting design as an explanation for why the universe exists should explain what would motivate an intelligent being to undergo such a project. Certainly, such a being would have to have, according to our standards, a very low time-preference. In the analogies that are offered to demonstrate the truth of design theory, the human designers receive gratification for their endeavors either instantly or shortly thereafter; for this reason, their motives are apparent. For example:

Let's say I was hiking in the mountains and came across rocks arranged in a pattern that spelled out, WELCOME TO THE MOUNTAINS (JONATHAN GIARDINA). One hypothesis would be that the rocks just happened to be arranged in that configuration, maybe as a result of an earthquake or rockslide. You can't totally rule that out. But an alternative hypothesis would be that my brother, who was visiting the mountains before me, arranged the rocks that way. Quite naturally, most people would accept the brother theory over the chance theory. (Strobel 2004, 136)


Or let's say that I was in the public library and I wanted to check out four books by left-liberal economist Paul Krugman. I check the library's webpage to see where they are located and if any or all of them have been checked out. The webpage informs me that all the books are currently available. To my astonishment, every time I go to where a Krugman book is supposed to be, it is missing. I know from past experience that the library is well-run and, normally, if a book is marked as available it will be there on the shelf. Now, it's possible that this occurrence is the result of chance but I suspect something more sinister. I hypothesize that a Machiavellian Republican purposely misshelved all the Krugman books so that his Neo-Keynesian teachings would not influence the electorate. Perhaps the librarians themselves are all conspiring against the Nobel Prize winning heretic. In this analogy and the preceding one the designer has a clear motive. His activity leads to gratification either instantly or in the not-too-long run. This condition would not hold if the universe was in fact designed for the sake of bringing human beings into existence. Unlike in the analogies, the desired effect would not be achieved in a (by our standards) reasonable time period. Why would the Designer bother?


The designer would get a significant (at least by our standards) return on his investment after five billion years. This is when the solar system came into being. The Earth would then exist but it would be too hot for anything complicated to develop. After one or two billion years life emerges. For the next three billion years a slow process of biological evolution takes place. One of its latter results is a being that can read books like this. Was this being the ultimate objective of the designer? If so, he can, conceivably, enjoy the fruits of his labor. He can conceivably watch the members of the human species and derive utility from the spectacle.

The eminent philosopher Bertrand Russell thought it was far-fetched that God would initiate a process that wouldn't produce the ultimate objective until ten billion years in the future:

Since evolution became fashionable, the glorification of Man has taken a new form. We are told that evolution has been guided by one great Purpose: through the millions of years when there were only slime, or trilobites, throughout the ages of dinosaurs and giant ferns, of bees and wild flowers, God was preparing the Great Climax. At last, in the fullness of time, He produced Man, including such specimens as Nero and Caligula, Hitler and Mussolini, whose transcendental glory justified the long painful process … [I]f God is indeed omnipotent, why could He not have produced the glorious result without such a long and tedious prologue? (Hitchens 2007, 189)


Even if we concede that the universe was designed we still don't know the identity of the designer. According to Christian author Dinesh D'Souza, "[t]he first reference to light in Genesis 1:3 can be seen to refer to the Big Bang itself … [T]he biblical account of how the universe was created is substantially correct." (D'Souza [2007] 2008, 126) It's difficult to see how. Genesis 1:2 informs us that "the earth" and "the waters" existed prior to the light. This can't be reconciled with modern cosmology:

[M]odern cosmologists believe the universe … had an origin, about fifteen billion years ago … [T]he origin could have been a so-called spacetime singularity marking the ultimate past extremity to the physical universe … In the moments after the singularity was the famous big bang… (Davies [1980] 1982, 152)


(In the beginning) the temperature was so high that ordinary atomic nuclei could not have existed. This means that the primeval cosmic material consisted of a soup of individual subatomic particles roaming about in (chaos) … When the physical conditions in the big bang are examined it appears that none of the presently observed cosmic organization existed at the beginning. There were no galaxies, no stars or planets, no people, no atoms, and not even atomic nuclei … The primeval universe was, as far as we can tell, close to total chaos (Davies 1981, 157, 169 & 170)


Water and "the earth" did not exist before or even during the big bang. Therefore, Genesis isn't referring to the Big Bang. Folks are free to believe what they want but, ultimately, if the origin of the universe was a singularity, science cannot answer the questions about our origins; "the singularity had no past of which we can know." (Davies [1980] 1982, 152)

Science, according to Davies, "does not support the religious picture of a creator who produced a ready-made cosmic organization. The old idea of a sort of 'package universe', set up in cosmic splendor, does not accord well with the evidence." (Davies 1981, 170) The universe, scientists insist, is over ten billion years old. Biblical tradition holds "that the universe was created in the fairly recent past." A bishop "calculated a date of 4004 B.C. for the creation of the universe, a figure he arrived at by adding up all the ages of people in the Old Testament." (Hawking 1993, 86) Twenty years ago, Carl Sagan could report that many "scientific creationists" believe that the universe is 6 to 12 thousand years old. "Why? Because adding up the 'begats,' the ages of the patriarchs and others in the Bible, gives such a figure, and the Bible is 'inerrant'." (Sagan [1996] 1997, 13 fn) Those who interpret the Bible the way "creationists" do must resort to "apparent age theory" which says that the universe was created to seem like it was ancient. Apparent age theory bears a striking resemblance to the obscure "theory of preformation." This theory from the nineteenth century held that "the creation of the world indeed did occur in 4004 B.C., as Archbishop Usher had calculated, but God created all the strata with all the fossils already in them." (Matson & Warren 1978, 316) Advocates of these viewpoints believe that the earth is a few thousand years old. They claim that "it is impossible to prove that the earth is billions of years old." (Huse 1993, 35 & 49) They point to the Bible and how God created Adam and Eve "fully grown" and naturally assume that God could've done the same for the universe. (McDowell & Stewart 1980, 200) A philosopher once said that "it is conceivable that the world popped into existence just 5 minutes ago, complete with all its apparent memories and traces of the past." (Varghese 1984, 167) Some creationists believe that something like this is not just conceivable but, in fact, happened. They believe that light from distant stars was created "already in transit toward the earth." (Harris 2004, 17) Or do they? They would have to believe the preceding only if they believed that the speed of light was always what it is today. Christians have been skeptical of "the uniformity of nature." Some argued that it "cannot be verified through reason and … must be accepted on faith." (Smith 1979, 129) They could say that light travelled faster in the past than it does now.


Some Christians are skeptical of what Carl Sagan diplomatically referred to as "our modern scientific myth of the Big Bang." (Sagan 1980, 258) They prefer their version: "God spoke and BANG! It happened." All Bible-believing Christians believe that God is the creator of man. The "theory of special creation," McDowell and Stewart admit, cannot be proven because it cannot be repeated in a laboratory experiment; it is a faith assumption. Nevertheless, "Christians should not be embarrassed for believing the Genesis account of creation, since it not only fits better with observable facts but also was the view of the God-Man Jesus Christ." (McDowell & Stewart 1980, 194) When it comes to cosmology, Christians are not unanimous. According to "Halley's Bible Handbook," the creation of Man "was about 4000 B.C. But the creation of the Universe may have been countless ages earlier." (Halley 1965, 59)

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