What exactly did Einstein get exactly right? Why is this question so important? "Is the Universe a friendly place?" If you don't mind, I'd like to hear the answers in some of your own words.
How am I supposed to think of you as a one dimensional character when you make intelligent thoughtful posts like this.... I don't know what to say, good post man.
The notion of a multiverse doesn't render the fine-tuning and/or the design arguments meaningless at all. It (the notion a multiverse) may very well be an attempt by some athiest scientists to render those ideas meaningless, but one only has to consider that even if the multiverse notion holds any water, there is still the very real possibility that every single other alternate universe may also turn out to be a "Goldilocks universe" , in which the conditions are just right for life. This would actually provide further and perhaps irrefutable evidence of an intelligent design. Well said (whoever said it).
1. with respect to Prager... your statement is contrary to what he wrote. "To posit the existence of a Creator requires only reason. To posit the existence of a good God requires faith." ---- with respect to the idea that that life could exist in some other way. 2. robbin collins wrote the following... in word doc I downloaded... I am sure you can find this on the net. Objection 2: Other Forms of Life Objection Another objection people commonly raise against the fine-tuning argument is that as far as we know, other forms of life could exist even if the constants of physics were different. So, it is claimed, the fine-tuning argument ends up presupposing that all forms of intelligent life must be like us. One answer to this objection is that many cases of fine-tuning do not make this presupposition. Consider, for instance, the cosmological constant. If the cosmological constant were much larger than it is, matter would disperse so rapidly that no planets, and indeed no stars could exist. Without stars, however, there would exist no stable energy sources for complex material systems of any sort to evolve. So, all the fine-tuning argument presupposes in this case is that the evolution of life forms of comparable intelligence to ourselves requires some stable energy source. This is certainly a very reasonable assumption. Of course, if the laws and constants of nature were changed enough, other forms of embodied intelligent life might be able to exist of which we cannot even conceive. But this is irrelevant to the fine-tuning argument since the judgement of improbability of fine-tuning under the atheistic single-universe hypothesis only requires that, given our current laws of nature, the life-permitting range for the values of the constants of physics (such as gravity) is small compared to the surrounding range of non-life-permitting values. A dart board analogy might help illustrate the point. If we saw a dart hit a very small target surrounded by a much, much larger blank area, we would still count its hitting the target as evidence that the dart was aimed even if we did not know whether other areas of the dart board were covered with targets. Why? Because even if other parts of the dart board had targets on them, it would still be very surprising under the chance hypothesis, but not under the aiming hypothesis, for it to hit the target instead of somewhere else in the surrounding blank area.
When you start dealing with concepts coming from religion of one kind or another you very quickly find yourself confronted with mumbo jumbo. Since the fine tuning argument itself is mumbo jumbo, any statement such as "[fine tuning] presupposes that all forms of intelligent life must be like us," is also mumbo jumbo. What is the point, of all this. It's all meaningless dogmatic croaking. Jem, you should probably make an effort to get more in touch with reality. So far we haven't discovered chemical elements anywhere in our universe that are any different from those we find on Earth. And there are sound scientific arguments suggesting that we won't find them no matter how hard we look. Furthermore there is a very strong argument made already by M.J.S. Dewar and E.F. Healy that life on other planets will be carbon based just like life here, and that it is very unlikely to be based on any other element, such as silicon for example. (I used silicon as an example, because it is isoelectronic with carbon and shares some of the same chemisrty. Silicon is the element closest to carbon in its chemisrty, but we are not going to find life based on Silicon, or any element other than carbon. Trust me on that. Therefore if we find a planet, and there is no carbon on that planet, we don't need to waste time looking for living organisms, or even virus for that matter.
Piezoe, When dealing with concepts such as forgiveness, and "thou shall not kill", I would be interested to know what your scientific view of such profound ideas would be. Or, Does the very word "forgiveness", and the commandment which says "thou shall not kill" constitute "mumbo jumbo" in your dictionary?
People might argue whether God is a good one or a bad one but there's little doubt that He/She's very good at what He/She does! Check out the universe for one example! Disclaimer: I use the He/She because the God of the Bible has a lot of different names and many are completely feminine.
did the poster to whom I was responding not just raise that objection ? mumbo jumbo... is the standard model of physics mumbo jumbo. Do you understand the implications of constants tuned to over 100 decimal places or the universe(s) cease to exist? was the counter not scientific... why are your bringing religions into this. we are at talking about science... for instance... Our universe appears highly fine tuned. Fine tuned to the point that it is scentific evidence of a Tuner. That is not relgion speaking... it is some of the worlds top physicists telling you our universe appears fine tuned. http://www.economist.com/node/21558248 "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."
All this talk about intelligent design isn't honest. This is a Christian movement to legitimize the religion scientifically. It has nothing to do with science and everything to do with the Jesus religion, that is why the ID push is from Christian groups. I love science talk even when it's way over my head, but this is religion, that's all.