Download File - Philosophy, Theology, History, Science, Big

RESPONSE:
SCIENTIFIC DEFEATERS:
1) If we did observe a universe to human scale, then that would be strong disconfirmation of the
fine-tuning argument, and thus further evidence for the argument from scale. Moreover, we
wouldn't be embodied moral agents in a universe to human scale, and thus more evidence for the
argument for naturalism.
Specifically, if something like Vilenkin's Many Worlds Ensemble is correct, then it is
overwhelmingly more probable that we should be observing a much different universe then we in
fact observe. If our universe were but one member of a collection of randomly ordered worlds,
then it is vastly more probable that we should be observing a much much smaller universe
(Penrose, Road to Reality, 762-65). Universes that are to human scale are much more plenteous
in the ensemble of universes. Moreover, these universes have the troubling aspect of containing
Boltzmann brains as their inhabitants! Thus, if we were in such a universe, then that would
constitute strong support for Vilenkin's hypothesis which would mean that chance would be the
best explanation of our apparent fine-tuning since such an observation would constitute strong
support for a multi-verse, and thus, this would disconfirm the evidence for theism based on finetuning. Lastly, in such a universe, we wouldn't be embodied and interacting moral agents, but
Boltzmann brains which defeats the purpose of the fine-tuning argument as well. Thus, God
wouldn't create a universe to human scale. Also, our universe is more mathematically elegant
than any bubble universe would be and that is to be expected on theism over naturalism as well.
2) One assumption of this argument is that if one part of the universe is privileged for human
beings, then any other regions of the universe aren't necessary for some good reason; esp. if
those other regions are hostile to life. However, let's think of a counter-example to this premise.
The purpose of my car is to transport humans; the inside of my car is quite comfortable. The rest
of the car (e.g., under the hood, the tailpipe, the gas tank, etc.), however, is indifferent or even
hostile to human flourishing. Indeed, there may be a further analogy between my car and the
scale of the universe. Just as these other parts of my car are necessary for it to work, perhaps (for
reasons relating to the so-called 'fine-tuning' of the universe) the rest of the universe is somehow
necessary for the flourishing of human life. Indeed, I intend to argue that the other regions of the
universe where human beings do not live, are both necessary for their existence because of
various aspects of fine-tuning, and moreover, those other regions provide us with a robust natural
theology since a knowledge of the evolutionary history of our universe provides us with strong
evidence for the central premise of the kalam argument (The universe began to exist), and the
fine-tuning argument (that the universe is fine-tuned for the fitness of life).
WHY SUCH A VAST UNIVERSE? (All the scientific information in point 2 is taken from
Hugh Ross' book Why the Universe is the Way It Is)
The universe can be sized up in two ways: 1) By it’s volume (dimensions), and 2) By it’s mass.
The density of protons and neutrons relates to the cosmic mass, or mass density. To one’s
surprise, the universe must be as massive as it is for two reasons: 1) To produce life-essential
elements, and 2) To achieve the right expansion rate. Thus, we will show that the mass of the
universe is necessary, and derivatively, since the mass density drives the expansion rate of the
universe, the universe must have th volume that it does as well.
MASS DENSITY:
If the mass density significantly lower than the universe would never be capable of generating
elements heavier than helium. If the mass density was significantly higher, than all the hydrogen
in the universe would rapidly fuse into elements at least a heavy as iron, which again, would
prevent life essential elements from forming (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc.) Even if inflation
can explain the mass density, the point is that the universe still has to be as massive as it is.
However, if inflation can explain the mass density, another and more impressive parameter of
fine-tuning would be required, namely, the dark energy density. Whereas the former required
fine-tuning to one part in 10^60, the dark energy density must be fine-tuned to one part in
10^120!
DARK MATTER:
In addition to a specific cosmic mass, every component that makes up the universe, both matter
and nonmatter, must be present at a specified value or physical life would not exist. The
proportion of ordinary bright matter with relation to ordinary dark matter must also be finetuned. Life requires that 5 percent of ordinary matter be bright and 95 percent dark. Too much
or too little of the bright stuff would expose potential life-forms to either too much or too little
light, heat, and radiation, etc. and the production of life essential elements is also affected by this
balance.
AN EXQUISITE BALANCE:
While stars and planets only account for only about 1 percent of the total matter (and hence
mass) of the universe even that small percentage must be extraordinarily fine-tuned. The rate at
which the universe expands throughout cosmic history critically depends on its mass density.
Without any additional cosmic density factors, a universe with less mass density wouldn’t form
stars like the Sun and planets like earth. It’s expansion would be so rapid that gravity wouldn’t
have the chance to pull together the gas and dust to make such bodies. Yet, if the cosmic mass
density were any greater, gas and dust would condense so effectively under gravity’s influence
that all the stars would be much larger that the Sun. This degree of fine-tuning is so great that if
no other density factors influence the expansion of the universe, at certain early epochs in the
universe someone could have destroyed the possibility of life by subtracting a single dimes mass
from the whole of the observable universe.
DARK ENERGY:
Much like a car, the universe has separate systems for slowing down and speeding up. Gravity is
the main braking system whereas ‘dark energy’ serves as the acceleration system. It acts as a
self-stretching property of the universe. For the first 7 billion years of its existence, the universe
expanded at a decelerating rate. But, as the space stretched, gravity became progressively
weaker in its capacity to brake the expansion of the universe. Eventually, dark energy took over,
and for the past 6.7 billion years, cosmic expansion has been speeding up. Much as the mass
density is fine-tuned to produce an expansion rate that life requires, so too, the dark energy
density must be fine-tuned, but much much more so than the mass-density; 10^120 compared to
10^60. If compared to the mass of the entire universe, it would be no bigger than a billionth of a
trillionth of a trillionth of an electron’s mass.
WHY SUCH AN OLD UNIVERSE?
From an astronomical view, 13.73 billion years represent the minimum time necessary to prepare
a home for humanity because:
1) Essential heavy elements needed to build up—For its first 365 million years, the universe only
contained 5 elements: hydrogen, helium, tiny traces of lithium, beryllium, and boron. In addition
to hydrogen and boron, life requires over twenty different elements heavier than boron including
carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, and iron. BUT, THE BIG BANG
EVENT YIELDED NONE OF THESE!! It took three generations of stars forming, burning, and
scattering their ashes into the interstellar medium before the elements necessary to make planets
and advanced life. These three generations translate into 9 billion years, and lo and behold,
slightly more than 4.5 billion years ago when the essential elements required for life, terrestrial
planets, and advanced civilization first became available, Earth’s solar system came together!
2) Long-lived radioactive isotopes need to build up—As the universe ages, and the abundance of
heavy elements increases, radioactive isotopes start to decay as soon as they form. Depending
on how rapidly stars replenish supplies, radiometric isotopes with slow decay rates can build
while those with rapid decay rates being to disappear. As the universe continues to expand, the
dispersal of gas and dust translates into lower and lower numbers of star forming, and more
importantly, star development itself depletes the universe’s reservoirs of gas and dust. So, as the
universe gets older, star formation gradually tapers off. This translates into smaller and smaller
number of supernovae, and supernovae produce ALL the universe’s long lasting radiometric
isotopes, especially uranium-235, 238, thorium-232, which decay into lead-206, 207, 208. The
radiation these isotopes release provides nearly all the energy that drives and sustains plate
tectonics, and helps sustain Earth’s magnetic field. Given the importance of these isotopes then,
the best possible time for an advanced life habitable planet to form would be when uranium and
thorium reach their peak abundances. Recent research reveals that the peak production of these
isotopes was 4.57 billion years ago; that age matches the timing of the Earth’s formation 4.5662
plus or minus .0001 billion years ago.
3) Dangerous events must subside—The same supernovae essential for building up the heavy
elements and radiometric isotopes essential for advanced life also fill their environs with deadly
radiation. Consequently, advanced life could not be safely introduced until the expansion rate of
supernova eruptions in the Milky Way Galaxy had subsided considerably.
Dense molecular clouds are another galactic hazard for advanced life. Fortunately, as the Milky
Way Galaxy aged, ongoing star formation eventually consumed enough of the gas and dust in
such clouds that they ceased to pose a major threat to advanced life.
Gamma ray events pose an even deadlier risk to advanced life than supernovae, or dense
molecular clouds. But, like supernova, the rate of gamma ray bursts subsided substantially once
the universe exceeded the age of about 10 billion years.
Early collisions between the Milky Way Galaxy and other medium-sized galaxies during which
the mass of the colliding galaxies merged would have seriously disrupted the structure of the
Milky Way Galaxy, making it uninhabitable for advanced life. Advanced life would not have
survived during our galaxies youth when these galaxy merging events were likely frequent.
Though a PLANET suitable for life’s survival could be assembled at a minimum of 9.2 billion
years after the beginning of the universe, which Earth was, nearly 1 billion years would be
required to prepare the planet for primitive life. Beyond that time, it took another 3.5 billion
years for supernova eruptions, dense molecular clouds, and gamma ray bursts to subside enough
for advanced life and civilization to survive and thrive. As surprising as it may seem, a number
of terrestrial and solar system reasons account for the necessity of an additional 4.57 billion
year delay before the arrival of advanced life on the cosmic scene:
WHY SUCH A DELAYED APPEARANCE OF COMPLEX LIFE ON EARTH? /
PROVIDENTIAL TIME WINDOWS:
1) The Sun’s stability—Only when the Sun was about halfway through its hydrogen-burning
phase did its flare activity level become low enough not pose a risk for humans or for advanced
civilization. The Sun currently burns with the greatest consistency possible. This stability began
50,000 years ago, and will last for another 50,000 years.
2) The Bombardment Subsistence—During our solar system’s youth, it was filled with an
enormous abundance of asteroids, comets, rocks, and dust. These materials pelted the Earth with
great frequency and intensity making advanced life impossible for a few billion years. These
bombardments also yielded positive benefits for advanced life: they provided fresh supplies of
water to replace that lost to outer space, they salted the Earth’s surface with valuable mineral
deposits (i.e. the planet’s richest nickel deposit, in Ontario, Canada, is the result of an asteroid
collision.) For a few billion years these deposits accrued for the maximum benefit of human
civilization.
3) The Earth’s Transformation—Advanced life needs a rotation rate very close to twenty-four
hours per day. Tidal interaction between the Moon and Sun has steadily reduced Earth’s rotation
rate from its initial rotation rate from its initial two to three hours per day down to its current
twenty-four. However, it has taken about 4.5 billion years of tidal interaction to accomplish this
reduction. In another 100 million years, Earth days will last 25 hours. When the rotation rate
was more rapid, rainfall was less evenly distributed over the planet’s surface, and hurricanes,
tornadoes, and storms were more targeted on certain geographical regions. Less heat transferred
from the tropics to the poles, which meant less biomass and less biodiversity in high latitude
areas. Less nighttime cooling meant many plant and tree species were less able to produce what
the human economy requires. On the other hand, as the rate slows to 25 hours, temperature
differences between night and day will become more extreme. A longer rotation will also
significantly disturb Earth’s rainfall distribution patterns. Humans live at the ideal rotation
epoch in Earth’s history.
4) The Need for Free Oxygen in the Atmosphere--Advanced life needs lots of free oxygen in its
planetary atmosphere. In order to produce the required oxygen, a huge abundance of
photosynthetic life had to work aggressively to pump out enough oxygen to fill oxygen sinks in
both Earth’s crust and mantle. Oxygen also had to reach appropriate levels in the atmosphere. It
took 3.8 billion years to raise the atmospheric oxygen level from less than 1 percent to its present
21 percent.
5) The Formation of Continental Landmasses—For human species to achieve a high population
and high-technology global civilization, continental landmasses had to cover a significant
fraction of Earth’s surface. This required four billion years of plate tectonics on Earth to
generate enough landmass. Powerful tectonic forces played the primary role in lifting Earth’s
continental landmasses above the surface of its early global ocean. However, this was a period
of heavy seismic activity that has since extremely calmed down. Research shows that the current
continental and island landmass tha covers 29 percent of Earth;s surface is ideal for sustaining a
large, globally distributed, high tech human population. This ideal also includes the shapes,
elevation patterns, orientations, and relative positions of continents, islands, and oceans. If the
human race had arrived earlier, the radiation from plate tectonic movement would have been
deadly and volcanic and earthquake activity would have been too intense. A later arrival would
have meant living without the benefits of abundant nutrient rich volcanic soils.
6) Fossil Fuels—The death and extinction of animals throughout the evolutionary development
of life on Earth resulted in several useful mineral deposits that are necessary for an advanced
technological civilization to live off of; such as coal and petroleum. The optimal time for
petroleum production perfectly matches the optimal time for reservoir structure formation and
the storage of petroleum in those structures. These circumstances coincide perfectly with the
timing of humanity’s appearance on Earth.
7) Solar Luminosity—During the past 3 billion years the Sun’s luminosity has increased about
15 percent, enough to destroy life if not for the carefully orchestrated introduction of the justright species at the just-right population levels at the just right times. These layers of life remove
green house gases from the atmosphere in the just right amounts to compensate for the Sun’s
heat producing luminosity. More than 3 billion years of this ongoing process loaded Earth’s
crust with a wealth of biodeposits, the resources human needed for the rapid launch and ongoing
support of global civilization.
8) Perfect Solar Eclipses—Because humanity’s arrival in the solar system coincides with the
current status of the ration of the Moon’s diameter perfectly eclipsing the Sun’s diameter from
the perspective of the Earth, people living before the advent of modern technology were able to
determine the geometry and the scale of Earth’s solar system. They could also use the timing of
solar eclipses to calibrate their calendars and maintain accurate historical records. A few million
years ago, the Moon’s diameter was larger than the Sun’s, and in another few million years it
will be smaller.
9) In the first place, the neo-Darwinian mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection
work far too slowly to produce, unaided, sentient life. In their Anthropic Cosmological
Principle, Barrow and Tipler list ten steps in the evolution of homo sapiens, including such steps
as the development of the DNA-based genetic code, the origin of mitochondria, the origin of
photosynthesis, the development of aerobic respiration, and so forth, each of which is so
improbable that before it would have occurred, the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence
star and incinerated the earth. They report that “there has developed a general consensus among
evolutionists that the evolution of intelligent life, comparable in information processing ability to
that of homo sapiens is so improbable that it is unlikely to have occurred on any other planet in
the entire visible universe.”
10) All organisms, except for humans and the great apes, are not self-aware of pain-- This is
significant because not only is the animal death in our planets history necessary and preparatory
for humanity in several ways already mentioned, but God wasn't cruel in permitting such death
since animals aren't self-aware of pain!
Despite appearances, homo sapiens arrived very soon and at the just right time. There are many
more factors than these that demanded 4.5-4.6 billion years of planetary history, and when we
add that age to 9.2 billion years of required cosmic history, we come up with 13.7 to 13.8 billion
years. Given the laws of physics that govern the cosmos, the universe was ready to serve as a
home for human beings at the earliest imaginable date.
JUST RIGHT AGE FOR OBSERVING:
Besides needing 14 billion years to serve as a home or human beings, this age is just old enough
and young enough to facilitate human exploration of the universe through visual and
technological exploration:
1)
In a continuously expanding universe (which is required for life), the space surface of a
young universe would be much smaller than when the universe is older. But, a smaller surface
means that all the light-emitting objects in the cosmos (primarily stars, galaxies, the regions of
around black holes) are jammed together. The light from these objects would have blinded
observers from seeing more distant objects. It took billions of years for cosmic expansion to
push the bright lights of the universe far enough apart for optimal visibility.
2)
These lights were much brighter in the past than they are today. The intensity of the light
emitted by the cosmos is strongly tied to the rate of star formation. This rate peaked 5 to 6
billion years after the origin of the universe. It took additional billions of years beyond that peak
for the lights of the universe to dim sufficiently so as not to impair astronomer’s viewing
capacity.
3) During Earth’s infancy, its atmosphere was opaque to light. In its youth, Earth’s
atmosphere was still translucent. It wasn’t until the Earth was over 4 billion years old that the
atmosphere became transparent enough to enable its inhabitants to observe the most distant
objects in the universe (While space-based telescopes are not limited by atmospheric image
degradation and distortion, it is doubtful that humans ever would have placed such instruments in
orbit without prior knowledge of the potential to gain significant information.)
4) The laws and constants of physics themselves impose theoretical limits on how much
cosmic history astronomers can view. Astronomers now recognize that only one relatively brief
epoch in cosmic history allows for direct observation and measurement of its entire sweep.
Theoretically, the earlier in cosmic history humans arrived, compared to 13.73 billion years ago,
the smaller the fraction of cosmic history they could have observed. If we had arrived
significantly later upon the scene, the situation also would have been less than optimal. The
accelerating expansion of the universe will eventually propel the cosmic origin event beyond the
limits of viewing. Our human era therefore, is theoretically the earliest and most optimal epoch
that allows astronomers to study light from the origin of the universe. They can see light clear
back to 0.000028 of its present age. Because of the universe’s age, astronomers can directly
view 99.9972 percent of cosmic history and almost behold the instant of cosmic creation!
WHY SUCH A LONELY UNIVERSE?
After a series of discoveries including such things as the Earth doesn’t reside at the center of the
solar system, that our solar system doesn’t reside near the center of the Milky Way, that the
Milky Way is not the dominant galaxy in our Local Group, nor is it at the center of our local
group, that the galaxy cluster of our Local Group is one of the smallest clusters of galaxies in the
Virgo supercluster, and that the Local Group resides on the far edge of that supercluster, and that
the Virgo supercluster proves to be far from the center of a cluster of superclusters of galaxies,
and fueled even more by evolutionary theory, humanity seemed to shrink to an insignificant
speck of dust. This gave rise to the Copernican Principle which claims that humanity occupies
no special or privileged place in the cosmos.
As if the material that has been cover wasn’t enough already to thoroughly refute this argument
from scale, let’s go over even more evidence to the contrary:
1)
First of all, astronomers have established that it is impossible for our universe to have a
physical center since everything about the universe—all of its stars, galaxies, energy, matter,
etc., reside on the surface of the universe in much that same way life and civilization reside on
Earth’s surface.
2)
Lethal radiation emanates near the center of our galaxy from a massive black hole and
supernovae. Also, given the density of stars and molecular clouds there, the gravity from such
objects would certainly disturb the orbits of any possible planets far more radically than life can
tolerate. These deadly conditions extend more than 20,000 light years from the galactic core,
and Earth’s solar system orbits at a distance of 26,000 light years.
3) Our Solar System is protected from too much radiation within the plane of the spinning
galaxy’s disk. Virtually all stars bounce up and down, above and below the galactic plane, and
as soon as they do, any planets orbiting them get blasted with radiation from the galactic core.
Within the plane however, thick dust provides a radiation shield. Because our solar system
experiences very little up and down movement in its orbit about the galactic center, Earth’s life
remains protected behind the radiation shield.
4) Planetary systems farther out than 26,000 light years run into the problem of there being
very sparse heavy elements, but such elements are needed for the existence and survival of
advanced life. Thus, it is only in this narrow range, called the Galactic Habitable Zone that
advance life can stand a chance.
5) However, even most areas within the Galactic Habitable Zone are unlivable because the
spiral arm plus giant stars, star clusters, dense molecular clouds, and young supernovae emit
radiation that intersect with the Galactic Habitable Zone.
6) Our star and planetary system are located at the right co-rotational distance and between
two spiral arms that are also required to keep us safe. Stars and planetary systems exactly at the
co-rotation distance would experience a mean motion resonance, repeated gravitational kicks,
and such events would likely send the star and its possible planetary system flying outside the
habitable zone.
7) The Milky Way Galaxy’s Spiral Arms are extraordinary compared to other spiral galaxies
in that its spiral arms are exceptionally symmetrical, and evenly spaced with respect to one
another. Moreover, these arms show no signs of disturbing events found in most other spiral
galaxies, such as giant an highly active star-forming regions, and many other dangers.
8) Unlike other spiral galaxies, the Milky Way hasn’t experienced a significant collision or
merger event for 10 billion years.
9) Nearly all other galaxies in the universe reside within dense clusters or galaxies, with giant
or supergiant galaxies as neighbors. These neighbors intermittently blast their whole
neighborhood with deadly radiation. Also, their gravity and the gravity of thousands of smaller
galaxies associated with them significantly distort the structures of the galaxies they contain
making the existence of advanced life impossible.
10) The Milky Way finds itself in a tiny cluster of galaxies without any giants or supergiants
and where galaxies are widely disbursed. Not only this, but the Local Group contains a
sufficient number of smaller dwarf galaxies to sustain the spiral structure of the Milky Way.
Unless Earth’s galaxy absorbs a smallish dwarf galaxy about once every half-billion to one
billion years, its spiral structure will inevitably collapse.
11) Not only do galaxies reside in clusters, the clusters themselves exist in clusters of clusters
called superclusters. Our Local group sits on the extreme fringe of the Virgo supercluster. If it
were closer to the middle, Virgo’s mostly massive clusters would disrupt the Local Group or
swallow it up.
Earth’s location is spectacularly favored for life. Earth resides in the only neighborhood in the
universe where humans can exist and thrive long enough to enjoy a global, high-tech civilization
and to discover how rare they are.
WHY SUCH A DARK UNIVERSE?
Not only are the quantities and locations of the various kinds of dark stuff exactly what advanced
life needs, but because of Earth’s dark cosmic location, the lights of the universe don’t blind us
or limit our view. Astronomers can see virtually all of the heaven’s wonders, including the
entirety of cosmic history. This visibility is possible because Earth resides in a very dark place.
In fact, Earth’s solar system resides in the darkest part of the Milky Way Galaxy’s life-habitable
zone. And the Milky way resides in the darkest life habitable region of its galaxy cluster, which
occupies the darkest life-habitable region of its supercluster of galaxies. On the cosmic scale,
virtually all the matter and energy in the universe can be described as dark. Imagine the painful
glare if it weren’t! Moreover, if all or even a substantial quantity of the exotic and ordinary dark
matter were centrally concentrated rather than distributed in halos then that concentration would
force nearly all the ordinary matter to collapse into the core of galaxies. Massive galaxies would
quickly gobble up the less massive galaxies, leading to an even greater concentrations of matter.
Star formation in the remaining galaxies would be extremely aggressive and concentrated,
leading to the formation of hypermassive black holes in the core of each galaxy. The central
concentration of stars and black holes in each galaxy would make the formation of habitable
planets impossible. Located where it is, all this dark stuff supports the structure of spiral
galaxies through time in such a way as to allow for the existence of at least one life-support
planet. The quantities and distributions of the different forms of cosmic dark matter also permit
observers on that one life-support planet to explore and map the structure of the universe and to
trace its history back to its point of origin.
WHY A DECAYING UNIVERSE?
If the rate of decay in the universe were any lower, galactic systems would trap radiation in such
a manner that stars could not form. If the rate of decay were any greater, no galactic systems
would form at all.
If the Creator and Designer put all this effort into creating and sustaining human life, then surely
our life must have some ultimate purpose of which the evidence for the anthropic principle
glimpses in a coarse grained manner that awaits further and more specific revelation.
A LEIBNIZIAN VIEW OF PROVIDENCE:
WHY DON"T WE SEE MANY IF ANY SUPERNATURAL INTERVENTIONS IN THE
COURSE OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSMOS AND LIFE ON EARTH?
“As I cast the exchange between Newton and Leibniz on the issue of providence over nature,
Leibniz makes heavy weather over the fact that the Newtonian God appears to be a designer of
less than adequate competence. What sort of God would actualize a creation which would
require periodic intervention to keep things from collapsing into disorder and chaos? Leibniz’s
answer: only one with less than perfect knowledge, power, or goodness.
There is something very attractive about this position. When I bought my first car, the
manufacturer recommended a tune up every twenty thousand miles or so. Cars rolling off the
assembly line today hardly need anything like a tune up. With many of these cars, the sort of
routine service that would be required every twenty thousand miles need only be done every fifty
or one hundred thousand miles. Better engineers with greater understanding and better raw
materials are now producing better cars. And I think we suppose that were General Motors to
take on a few omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good engineers, cars would be utterly
maintenance free (less than wholly good engineers might be able to design such cars, but
undoubtedly their greed would get the better of them). The same intuition underlies the
Leibnizian picture. If God knows how to bring about all of the states of affairs he wishes to bring
about in the course of natural history by deck-staking, what would motivate the creation of a
universe that was in need of periodic tune ups?
WHY THE SIZE OF OUR EARTH:
Also, recent research on super-earths has revealed that on our laws of nature, our Earth is the
about as large as it can be before the density and distribution of water would prevent complex
life! That may seem counterintuitive but so much for your intuitions.
PHILOSOPHICAL DEFEATERS:
1) This objection evinces a nasty double standard on the part of the atheist. Prior to the finetuning, the Copernican principle was seen as making our planet, solar system, and galaxy
mundane so that the conditions that made life on our planet possible weren't special,
improbable, intended, or designed in all likelihood. The extension of this logic was to say that
therefore, there are probably millions, if not billions of intelligent civilizations in the universe at
least as advanced as our own. However, once the evidence for fine-tuning started to grow, along
with several other dependent conditions that add on several more layers of improbability onto the
chances of other intelligent civilizations existing in the universe, now the atheist wants to turn
around and say that the fact that there aren't millions, or billions of complex civilizations in the
universe means that life isn't special still. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't I guess.
Why wouldn't the fact that there is hardly any, if any other complex life in the universe, make us
think all the more that such life is the product of the design?
2) There is more than one way to determine the value of something based on size and age. Think
about what makes diamonds so valuable. It is that they are incredibly rare amongst all the
various natural resources and also because they take lots of time and special circumstances to
make. Now, I found it ironic that Everitt uses the phrase "jewel of creation" because 'jewels' and
diamonds are so valuable in virtue of how rare they are despite their size, and precisely because
of how long it takes natural processes to make them. So, why couldn't we view human beings
like diamonds that are so valuable precisely because to find them in the history of the universe is
so rare, and because it takes so long to produce them? I think this reveals how utterly subjective
the argument from scale is. I mean, why not think that instead of the universe's size and age
revealing something about us, that it reveals the infinitude of the designer with respect to his
power, eternity, and omnipresence. So, if we were in a universe to human scale we would infer
that the designer wasn't much, if at all, different from what a human could produce.
Secondly, the Biblical notion of humans as the apex of creation has nothing to do with their size,
location, or the time that they come into existence relative to the age of the universe. Rather, our
value derives from God and being made in His image. This is what makes us have intrinsic
worth, in fact, we are more valuable than the entire cosmos since matter doesn't have any
instrinic value whereas persons (made of matter) have intrinsic worth in virtue of being made in
the image of God (i.e. self-aware, moral agents, higher-order reasoning, etc.). Moreover, why
not determine significance in terms of complexity rather than size, age, and location. If we take
that tactic, then as scientists tell us, the human brain is the most complex thing in physical
existence that we know of, and thus, that should make us think that human beings are the 'jewel
of creation.'
3) This objection does nothing to explain, or explain-away the fine-tuning. While Christian
theism is less surprising than atheism because of the fine-tuning, the fine-tuning argument
doesn't contain any predictions within in it as to how many kinds of life will exist in the universe,
the age of the universe, the size of the universe, etc.
4) Moreover, the fine-tuning argument is not an argument from analogy, but rather, an inference
to the best explanation. Just as in evolution, we could point out disanalogies to the motto:
survival of the fittest (such as homosexuality, suicide, etc.), on the basis of the cumulative
evidence evolution is the best explanation of what we see in the world.
5) Let me also state that what your argument seems to be after is that if God created us, then he
would let us know that we are intended for some specific purpose. I do not think that our
ultimate purpose can be read off the fine-tuning, or if we were at the 'center' of the universe
which is physically impossible anyway (the ancient Greeks saw the center of the universe as the
refuse of the universe by the way), all such notions are either to vague, awaiting further
revelation, or too subjective. However, a Christian theist can claim that God let us know that we
were intended and meant for a specific purpose based on the teachings, life, death, and
resurrection of Jesus who was God incarnate! (if true).
6) Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that the fine-tuning of the universe refers to
necessary conditions, but not sufficient conditions for the evolution of complex moral agents to
take place. It is not as if fine-tuning means designed for human life, that would clearly be
question-begging. So, why fault necessary conditions that cry out for explanation for not also
being sufficient conditions when by the nature of the case that is not the case. Indeed, the fact
that there are even more dependent improbabilities required for the evolution of complex life
makes atheism all the more inept as an explanation of the fine-tuning.
7) We should be careful how we think of God. Perhaps He is an artists as well as an engineer
and the universe is beautiful to Him as it is.
8) Why not react as the Psalmist did where he was amazed at the condescion God displayed in
relating to man?