New Miscellany: more on fine-tuning (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, February 19, 2025, 13:06 (15 days ago) @ David Turell

Fine-tuning

dhw: The focus of the fine-tuning debate is on whether the universe is fine-tuned for life. Clearly if the universe did not exist, there would be no life, and if the universe did not contain all the factors necessary for life, there would be no life. But I maintain that the “fine-tuning” consists in the selection and combination of all those factors, both biochemical and environmental. The only place we know of that has brought all of them together to create life is Planet Earth, and so I find it absurd to claim that the whole universe is fine-tuned for life. Only if we find life elsewhere will be able to say that a particular heavenly body is also fine-tuned for life.

DAVID: Yes, the appearance of life requires a climate for life, but life can appear anywhere in that universe such a climate exists. Therefore, the entire universe is fine-tuned for life to appear! Life always requires a special universe.

You have left out the important word IF (such a climate exists). All you are saying is that if conditions are right, life can appear, and therefore conditions are right everywhere in the universe! No, they're not. You can only say conditions are “fine-tuned” if you know that life has appeared! You have also left out virtually every biochemical and environmental factor which you harp on when you discuss the complexity of life as evidence of design! Talk about shooting yourself in the foot! “Always”? How many examples of special universes and life production do you know?

DAVID: This is a special unique universe that allows life. That is the primary concept. It's exact factor values make it that way. Life can pop up anywhere with a hospitable environment.

This is the only universe we know, and we know that it allows life. Stop stating the obvious. Dawkins & Co will certainly agree with you that theoretically, given the right conditions, “life can pop up anywhere” – who needs design? But even that does not mean that the right conditions exist all over the universe, let alone that the right conditions are all that is needed to breathe life into blobs of matter, and therefore everywhere in the universe is fine-tuned to produce and sustain life. For the umpteenth time: only if we find life can we say that somewhere is fine-tuned for life.

Bird brains

QUOTES: "The genetic tools they use to establish their cellular identity vary from species to species, each exhibiting new and unique cell types."

“Our studies show that evolution has found multiple solutions for building complex brains," explains Dr. García-Moreno. bbb"Birds have developed sophisticated neural circuits through their own mechanisms, bbbwithout following the same path as mammals.”

dhw: Evolution does not find anything. Evolution is a process, not an agent. The emphasis is always on how cells/cell communities develop or change their functions as they respond in their different ways to the conditions they are exposed to. You will no doubt tell us that every variation was divinely planned 3.8 billion years ago, or dabbled ad hoc. Shapiro suggests that all such changes are made by intelligent cells/cell communities that work out their own solutions (if they are clever enough – otherwise, they go extinct). You and I both reject Darwin’s theory of random mutations. Of the three explanations, I must confess I find Shapiro’s by far the most convincing, and to forestall your usual objection, his theory does not exclude your God, who may have designed the intelligent cell in the first place.

DAVID: Cells are not intelligent enough to design a new type of organism.

dhw: Yes, I know you prefer your theory of ad hoc divine dabbles or the first cells being provided with 3.8000,000,000 years’ worth of instructions.

DAVID: And you have your brilliant cell committees.

I don’t dislike your “committees” image, though I would never use it. Virtually every article on cellular behaviour that you present to us draws attention to the manner in which cells/cell communities communicate and cooperate with one another as they process new information and decide how to handle it. But they don’t sit round a table sipping their pints of beer.