The Fallacy of Bias

[bjorn]

Having just received Stenger's latest ("The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning", I collect these books), I think I'll need some weeks or months to read and ponder it (not the least as some dozen other books are waiting patiently in line). However, leafing quickly through it, I came across these lines which I have seen also other atheists use:

"Certainly an all powerfull creator could have made a universe delicately balanced to produce life. But he also could have made life exist in any kind of universe whatsoever, with no delicate balancing act necessary. So if the universe is, in fact, fine-tuned to support life, it is more - not less - likely to have had a natural origin" (page 115, start of the chapter "The Eternal Universe").

IOW, if the universe is fine-tuned, then no need for a creator, if it is not fine-tuned, then no need for a creator.

Heads I win, tails you loose.

What Stenger has done here is quite simply to make himself immune from attack. Whether or not he succeeds in disproving some (or all) of the so called fine-tuned constants and laws, he has nevertheless shown the fallacy of fine-tuning.

With such a non falsifiable angle, it is hard to see what argument may ever persuade him that atheism is wrong.

However, the cost may be a tad or two too high. Making atheism sound just like what most people thinks religion does, may not be the cleverest way to advocate it.

Or, some might say, based on Stenger's own phrasing above, if he really means that if the universe is not in fact, fine-tuned to support life, it is more - not less - likely to have had a devine origin, and he may have proven God.

For some reason I don't think the next chapter - "Gravity is fiction" - sounds quite right either.

[fortigurn]

But he also could have made life exist in any kind of universe whatsoever, with no delicate balancing act necessary.

How does Stenger know this?

[bjorn]

Jun 1, 2011 4:35:38 GMT fortigurn said:

But he also could have made life exist in any kind of universe whatsoever, with no delicate balancing act necessary.

How does Stenger know this?

Besides the well known fact that phycisists are omniscient...?

Well, I guess he simply thinks an omnipotent God can do anything, like keeping someone alive in a vacuum...

Now, a more important question is why on earth (or in the universe) God would do such a thing. It would for the first show anyone living in such conditions that he was utterly dependent on God for everything or that he himself was a superman, able to live in a vacuum. And for the second that he had no role to play or real responsibility for his own life.

And it is hard to see how it could be anything but incredible boring in such a low risk universe with no further point that keeping someone alive (e.g. was not Heaven).

Which I (though not being a phycisist) know is not what God had in mind when creating the universe from nothing.

[bjorn]

For those interested, there is a new interview with Stenger at www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-06-15/#feature

Even though his arguments are the important thing here, the last three paragraphs are rather illuminating. He is fighting religion because it is evil.

“I won’t live to see it,” he says, “but someday religion will disappear from the face of the Earth. It has to. It is too evil and too absurd.”

Wonder when we'll find a phycisist who says "I really hope there is a God, as religion is a good thing, still Fine-Tuning is a bad argument"...?

[noons]

I found a similar argument in a comment that I am pasting here:

Ah, but what is the range of possible universes which could support not naturally-formed life, but supernaturally-formed life?

100%

Think about it. ALL universes, with whatever constants you want, could support life created through supernatural means — for life and mind are not dependent on matter and energy in a supernatural world view. Instead, living consciousness is a mysterious, immaterial essence independent of the physical world. Any physical world.

God exists in all possible universes. So could we… unless you assume mind/brain dependency and the metaphysical naturalism it entails.

So the fact that we apparently exist in what looks like a rare form of universe which can support natural life suggests that we depend on the existence of such a universe. We are natural beings all the way down; mind/body dualism is false; there is no God.

Collins’ Fine-Tuning Argument, therefore, has it backwards. The more it looks like we live in the sort of universe where life and mind can form naturally, then the LESS it looks like there’s a supernatural dependency.

-----------------------------------------

I posted it in another thread, but it fits well in this one. It seems to be very similar to Stenger's argument.

[hawkinthesnow]

Jun 1, 2011 4:35:38 GMT fortigurn said:

But he also could have made life exist in any kind of universe whatsoever, with no delicate balancing act necessary.

How does Stenger know this?

It follows from the definition of God as an omnipotent being. The only constraints on God's omniscience are logical. He cannot for example, make five sided square, given the definition of square. However, I see no reason why God, who is supposed to have created the whole universe from nothing could not have created a universe with low tuning which would have had the same results as this one - there is no question of logical contradiction here.

I do not see how this observation, however, means that God's existence is less likely. It would simply mean that the argument from fine tuning is perhaps not as good an argument as theists make out.

[ignorantianescia]

Aug 29, 2011 16:16:12 GMT hawkinthesnow said:

However, I see no reason why God, who is supposed to have created the whole universe from nothing could not have created a universe with low tuning which would have had the same results as this one - there is no question of logical contradiction here.

I do not see how this observation, however, means that God's existence is less likely. It would simply mean that the argument from fine tuning is perhaps not as good an argument as theists make out.

I think the issue would be that it would then require various arbitrary interventions, say God filling the gaps. It would also decrease the understandability of the universe, since we would then encounter stange paradoxes. Since Christians believe in a loving, reasonable and consistent God, such a God would be less likely to go for some more wild stuff.

So I think it would not be inconsistent with God's omnipotence (I have no clue whether this would), but it would be inconsistent with other characteristics of God. At least, that's my two pence.