But will you agree that the universe appears fine tuned? I mean, Jesus's face does appear from time to time on tree stumps and tortillas.
The constant gardener One problem is that, as it stands, the model requires its 20 or so constants to be exactly what they are to an uncomfortable 32 decimal places. Insert different values and the upshot is nonsensical predictions, like phenomena occurring with a likelihood of more than 100%. Nature could, of course, turn out to be this fastidious. But physicists have learned to take the need for such fine-tuning, as the precision fiddling is known in the argot, as a sign that something important is missing from their picture of the world. http://www.economist.com/node/21558248
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/cosmoconstant.html Extreme Fine Tuning - Dark Energy or the Cosmological Constant by Rich Deem ... How much fine tuning? How does this discovery impact atheists? Those who favor naturalism had long sought to find the simplest explanation for the universe, hoping to avoid any evidence for design. A Big Bang model in which there was just enough matter to equal the critical density to account for a flat universe would have provided that. However, for many years, it has been evident that there is less than half of the amount of matter in the universe to account for a flat universe. A cosmological constant would provide an energy density to make up for the missing matter density, but would require an extreme amount of fine tuning. The supernovae studies demonstrated that there was an energy density to the universe (but did not define the size of this energy density), and the recent Boomerang study demonstrated that this energy density is exactly what one would expect to get a flat universe. How finely tuned must this energy density be to get a flat universe? One part in 10120,6 which is: 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 Atheists' reactions What do atheists think about this level of design? Here is a quote from a recent article: "This type of universe, however, seems to require a degree of fine tuning of the initial conditions that is in apparent conflict with 'common wisdom'."1 Atheists see a conflict because this level of design is something that one would not expect by chance from a universe that began through a purely naturalistic mechanism. "Common wisdom" is common only to those who must exclude a supernatural explanation for the creation of the universe. Yet another study confirms the polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation, left over from the Big Bang. The standard inflationary model predicted that the background radiation should be polarized when it interacted with matter, nearly 14 billion years ago. John Carlstrom, the S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, announced the discovery and made the following admission: "Polarization is predicted. It's been detected and it's in line with theoretical predictions. We're stuck with this preposterous universe."7 Naturalism fails the test In another article entitled, "Disturbing Implications of a Cosmological Constant"8 researchers from Stanford and MIT examined some of the "problems" associated with a cosmological constant. In their paper, they stated that the implications of a cosmological constant "lead to very deep paradoxes, which seem to require major revisions of our usual assumptions." They admit that "there is no universally accepted explanation of how the universe got into such a special state" and that their study, "Far from providing a solution to the problem, we will be led to a disturbing crisis." They also admit, "Some unknown agent initially started the inflation high up on its potential, and the rest is history." In examining problems with the cosmological constant, the authors are concerned that ultimate fate of the universe is complete entropy with all the matter and energy distributed over maximally expanded spacetime. They cite the ability of the universe to undergo "Poincare recurrences" as a possible "solution" to one of the "problems." There is a certain theoretical possibility that after the universe is maximally expanded that it would come back together again into one point. Think of it like this. Let's say you are in a room with air molecules randomly moving around in the room. There is a certain probability that the random motion of the molecules could cause all of them to travel to one corner of the room, leaving you in a complete vacuum. Obviously, this would not be a good thing to happen, but it is possible, with an interval on the order of once every 1060 years. Since we only live 102 years in a universe that has been around for only 1010 years, it is practically impossible. So, what is the time it would take for a fully expanded universe to come back into a single point? The authors calculate the value as e10120 years, which they comment "seems like an absurdly big time between interesting events, which, by comparison, last for a very short time." Recent evidence suggests that even this estimate is very optimistic. Some scientists believe that the universe will be permanently destroyed within 22 billion years, with no possibility of reassembly. Robert Caldwell of Dartmouth College says that the dark energy of the universe is increasing at a rate that will rip the universe apart and even the atoms themselves.9 However, it is the nature of inflation and the temperature of the universe that deeply concerns these cosmologists. This is what they have to say about the nature of our current universe, among all other possible universes: "In all of these worlds statistically miraculous (but not impossible) events would be necessary to assemble and preserve the fragile nuclei that would ordinarily be destroyed by the higher temperatures. However, although each of the corresponding histories is extremely unlikely, there are so many more of them than those that evolve without "miracles," that they would vastly dominate the livable universes that would be created by Poincare recurrences. We are forced to conclude that in a recurrent world like de Sitter space our universe would be extraordinarily unlikely." Appealing to possible alternative ways that the universe might have evolved do not make fine tuning untenable. In fact, the vast majority of possible universes would contain no matter at all - just energy! Here is what Dyson says about the probability that our universe would be the way it is: "The vast majority of the space consists of states which are macroscopically "dead de Sitter;" that is, nearly empty de Sitter containing only some thermal radiation. A tiny subset of the states are anthropically acceptable, meaning that they contain complex structures such as stars and galaxies, and a very small subset of those are macroscopically indistinguishable from our universe (labeled MIFOU in the figure). Inflationary initial conditions occupy an even smaller fraction of the space. Trajectories which pass through the inflationary patch will almost always lead immediately to the MIFOU region, "mixing" into it in a "porous," phase-space-area-preserving manner. The vast majority of the points in the MIFOU region did not come from inflation, but rather from unstable trajectories originating in the dead region. Finally, any trajectory in the dead region will remain there almost all of the time, but will occasionally enter the anthropically acceptable region, and very much more rarely the MIFOU region, and almost never the inflationary region. Therefore, livable universes are almost always created by fluctuations into the "miraculous" states discussed above." Conclusion The nature of the universe reveals that a purely naturalistic cause for the universe is extremely unlikely and, therefore, illogical. One cannot say that a miraculous naturalistic event is a scientific explanation. Miracles are only possible when an immensely powerful Being intervenes to cause them. The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,10 and that He created the universe.11 When a model doesn't work, scientists must be willing to give up their model for a model that fits the facts better. In this case, the supernatural design model fits the data much better than the naturalistic random chance model. http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/cosmoconstant.html
Sorry Jem. Stu is absolutely correct. They say there is the appearance of fine tuning, not that it is or has been or is being fine tuned. Speaking of which, you might want to fine tune your argument because you have gotten your clock cleaned in this cyber dustup. Over and out. End of thread.
you fell for stu's bullshit again... I have for years re stated our universe appears to be fine tuned. Because I have been quoting the scientists and the science word for word. Many scientists say appear... so I have made that quote. Others say is... and I have quoted them. if you type in JEM and fine tuning you pages and pages where I quote the scientists accurately. The appears vs is argument seems to be model dependent. If you follow the standard model or classical physics as Hawking quoted in his paper, you would say is finely tuned or that you lose all ability to make predictions. If you have hope in almost infinite universes or lmost infinite tries you would say appears to be fine tuned. here is Penrose who is on record saying the multiverse idea is very speculative and hardly even science. Therefore it is not suprising he expresses fine tuning this way. also not I previous quoted Hawking word for word form his paper on this thread. don't be lazy and fall for stu bullshit. Final note this video is not out of context.. because I have quoted from his Penrose's book... showing the exact math. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WhGdVMBk6Zo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Odd that you incorrectly told me my clocked was cleaned and now you advising me about knob cleaning. Its funny cause I just got home from the office and my house is being cleaned.