New Miscellany: fine-tuning, climate, theodicy (General)

by dhw, Monday, March 03, 2025, 10:51 (3 days ago) @ David Turell

Fine tuning

DAVID: You were last in science it seems. The construction of the universe allows the Earth to harbor life. If the universe were only very slightly different the Earth could not
have life.' The difference is emphasis.

dhw: No it isn’t. The difference is between stages of construction and the meaning of words. The construction of the universe (first stage) allows the Earth to harbour life, but it does not allow the entire universe to harbour life. The Earth has to be fine-tuned (final stage) to harbour life. Environmental conditions including climate are part of the fine-tuning, although even these may not necessarily harbour life, because the only life we actually know of is ours; other places may have suitable conditions but still be without life. Yes, the universe allows life to appear. No, the entire universe is NOT “fine-tuned for life to appear”.

DAVID: Why attack my construction? I have accepted the Wilsonian view of fine-tuning in my statement. Or not? Please explain.

You would have to explain why I would be the last in science, and how the difference is “emphasis”. Your statement does not even mention fine-tuning. But since you have now explicitly accepted my argument, then of course we can close the discussion. Thank you.

Theodicy

dhw: Proportionality may be a comfort to you as you stick you head in the sand, but it does not explain anything.

DAVID: Not to you.

dhw: Harold Shipman was a highly respected GP who during a career of about 30 years murdered over 250 of his patients. He must have helped thousands of others. Do you think the “proportion” of good (let’s say 90% help) explains and vindicates the proportion of bad? Your omnipotent, omniscient God, as creator of everything, would have known about all the evils he was creating. For instance, he must have known that his viruses (flu, malaria, AIDS etc.) would kill millions, though many more people survived than died. Does proportionality explain or vindicate the evil? (NB: I am NOT saying your God is evil. I am explaining why “proportionality” does not solve the problem we call theodicy.)

DAVID: It is the way theodicy experts view it.

I don’t know how you can possibly talk of “experts” since nobody knows (a) whether God actually exists, or (b) if he does, what is his nature. Why must you blame other people for an argument which clearly makes no sense?

Climate change

Timing a probable glacial period

dhw: Delaying the next glacial period won’t be much use to humanity if it has already been frizzled up by global warming. No, this is not panic. If temperatures continue to rise, the planet will be uninhabitable long before the next ice age is due, and the period in between will create hell on Earth. We shan’t be there to see it, but “decisions we take now will have consequences into the far future.”

DAVID: You have bought the so-called "accurate" predictive models hook line and sinker.

dhw: Stop dodging and distorting what I have said! I have emphasized that there are no “accurate predictive models”, but the plain fact that our current practices are already causing damage should make it abundantly clear that if they continue, the damage will escalate. If temperatures continue to rise as they are now doing, you don’t need to be a prophet to assume that there will be even more damage during the next 11,000 years. Hence the need for pragmatic action now to prevent future environmental disaster while at the same time avoiding social and economic disaster. Your attempt to brush this argument aside and focus solely on suspect predictions is part of your head-in-the-sand tactic, which is a shame, because earlier you agreed completely with what I have just said.

DAVID: Yes, I have agreed, but without the panic attack you favor. We do not know how much heat will delay glaciation, which will destroy much of our civilization in the cold ice.

I do not favour a panic attack. We agree that all measures to prevent escalation of damage must be balanced against the need to avoid social and economic disaster. How does that constitute panic? Glaciation would indeed destroy much of our civilization, and so will unrestricted warming. Are you now panicking over the glaciation which some folk prophesy will happen in 11,000 years’ time?

Evolution: dinosaurs to birds

QUOTE:"Fossils of birds are rare because of their fragile bones. When Wang held the Baminornis zhenghensis fossil for the first time, he said, his heart raced. “If there are still any doubts about how birdy Archaeopteryx is,” he said, “Baminornis is undoubtedly a real bird.”

DAVID: this settles the argument. Dinosaurs gave us birds.

dhw: It should also open minds to the distinct possibility that there are countless extinct life forms that have left no fossils at all. Why should we expect an unbroken chain to survive for 150 million years, let alone 3,800,000,000 years?

DAVID: That we have a good chain of fossils to explain the course of evolution is obvious.

Yes indeed. But you like to emphasize the gaps as evidence that your God steps in to create species “de novo”.