# Are the Odds of Intelligent Design even roughly calculable **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 9, 2013, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742 "2013-10-09T02:41:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/41 "2013-10-09T17:11:57Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > As I asked the first time this was brought up: why? How does this designer exist if not in some form or other? You are postulating a “simpler” explanation that is no explanation at all. Tell us about this Designer, then, and how it exists and where and how it came into being. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/42 "2013-10-09T17:18:32Z")
It comes down to this: Intelligent Design is a thinly veiled attempt to find “proof” that God does exist by flaunting itself, foolishly, in the face of the scientific method; as if science had an agenda, dogma, or purpose like religion or faith requires. Science doesn’t, and never has. It’s simply a panoply of methods and tools used by mankind to objectively tease out reality by the short hairs for posterity, not it’s own, predetermined dictation on reality. The findings evolve, change, resolve and refine over the course of new evidence, as it comes to light. That is all. So far, besides philosophical musings, there’s zero evidence that an intelligent creator created all that is. And I’d wager not for lack of trying. If you want a God, use “faith,” not science. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/43 "2013-10-09T17:25:25Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > What’s the altrnative(s)? That such a being is its own universe either popping into existence by itself, or existing for an eternity before one fine day it decided to make ours then? > > How is that any better an explaination than our universe came from a non-aware, indifferent “nothing”. No. The point raised by those on ITR’s side of the discussion revolves around a deity who/that exists outside physical reality. The point is denied by those who maintain that only physical reality exists. That discussion is really going to go nowhere in this thread, (much less any other), as each side fails to persuade their opponent of their position while insisting that their own position is the only possible reality. Each side posits an axiom that cannot be tested and winds up being a point that cannot be argued to any resolution. If you folks want to keep pursuing that argument, I won’t stop you, (as long is it does not derail the thread), but it really has no place in the discussion of the OP’s question. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/44 "2013-10-09T17:33:08Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > “The anthropic answer, in its most general form, is that we could only be discussing the question in the kind of universe that was capable of producing us. Our existence therefore determines that the fundamental constants of physics had to be in their respective Goldilocks zones. Different physicists espouse different kinds of anthropic solutions to the riddle of our existence. … Other physicists (Martin Rees himself would be an example) find this unsatisfying, and I think I agree with them.” - _The God Delusion_ Wow, that is so extraordinarily misrepresentative of the idea expressed in the book that it is deceitful. You cut out a whole paragraph so as to suggest he was talking about the anthropic principle, rather than one perspective on it. Before giving the corrected version, let me give a relevant quote from earlier in The God Delusion: > [@](#): > > I hope the fact that I have stated as much will be noted, **since the same courtesy has not been extended to me in numerous creationist quotations of my works, deliberately and misleadingly taken out of context.** (28-29) Bolding mine. Here’s the quote that **ITR Champion** completely misrepresented: > [@](#): > > Different physicists espouse different kinds of anthropic solutions to the riddle of our existence. > > Hard-nosed physicists say that the six knobs were never free to vary in the first place. When we finally reach the long-hoped-for Theory of Everything, we shall see that the six key numbers depend upon each other, or on something else as yet unknown in ways that we today cannot imagine. The six numbers may turn out to be no freer to vary than is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. It will turn out that there is only one way for a universe to be. Far from God being needed to twiddle six knobs, there are no knobs to twiddle. > > Other physicists (Martin Rees himself would be an example) find this unsatisfying, and I think I agree with them. As you can see, **ITR Champion** cut out a whole paragraph. That paragraph makes it very clear that Dawkins was talking about one point of view that holds that there in fact could only be one specific type of universe to begin with. This is what he finds “unsatisfying”, not the anthropic principle. In fact, his position regarding the anthropic principle can be inferred from several other quotes appearing in the same chapter that **ITR Champion** took his botched and disingenuous misrepresentation from: > [@](#): > > We live on a planet that is friendly to our kind of life, and we have seen two reasons why this is so. One is that life has evolved to flourish in the conditions provided by the planet. This is because of natural selection. **The other reason is the anthropic one. There are billions of planets in the universe, and, however small the minority of evolution-friendly planets may be, our planet necessarily has to be one of them.** (169) bolding mine And from his summarization to conclude the chapter: > [@](#): > > 1. We don’t yet have an equivalent crane for physics. Some kind of multiverse theory could in principle do for physics the same explanatory work as Darwinism does for biology. This kind of explanation is superficially less satisfying than the biological version of Darwinism, because it makes heavier demands on luck. **But the anthropic principle entitles us to postulate far more luck than our limited human intuition is comfortable with.** > > 2. We should not give up hope of a better crane arising in physics, something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology. **But even in the absence of a strongly satisfying crane to match the biological one, the relatively weak cranes we have at present are, when abetted by the anthropic principle, self-evidently better than the self-defeating skyhook hypothesis of an intelligent designer.** So, contrary to the idea that Dawkins essentially discounts the anthropic principle as “lame”, he in fact regards it as a key mechanism within an explanatory model. **ITR Champion** ’s deceitful misrepresentation is shameful. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/45 "2013-10-09T17:43:04Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > No. The point raised by those on ITR’s side of the discussion revolves around a deity who/that exists outside physical reality. Please be specific about what “outside physical reality” means. You’re using it as a synonym for “magic logic nullifier.” If a diety exists, then they have to have achieved the requirements for existence. (Requirements for being able to create universes to exist) \> (Requirements for universe to exist) is all we’re saying, and that’s true with or without the “outside physical reality” weasel words. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/46 "2013-10-09T17:47:04Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I realize this is true what you say but what I would like to see compared would be the odds of it happening within the timeline it did happen as opposed to the timeline that it should have happened in. I doubt these calculations are possible but if sometime in the future we are able to make these calculations and they very strongly indicate some kind of intervention would that be scientific evidence of divine intervention. There is no “timeline it should have happened in”. There is no “should” about evolution at all. The chances of the world having turned out just the way it is now are one in however many other ways it _might_ have turned out by now. That latter number is undoubtedly huge, but just how huge is impossible to calculate or even meaningfully estimate (and is likely to always remain so). And, to repeat, whatever those odds are, nothing about them in any way validates the ‘theory’ Intelligent Design, or makes it one whit more plausible. The only thing that would make it plausible, and that would make the odds of things turning out as they in fact have relevant, is if we had some reason to think that things _had_ to turn out this way, and could not have been different, but in fact we have no reason to think that whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/47 "2013-10-09T17:53:21Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > Please be specific about what “outside physical reality” means. You’re using it as a synonym for “magic logic nullifier.” > > If a diety exists, then they have to have achieved the requirements for existence. > (Requirements for being able to create universes to exist) \> (Requirements for universe to exist) is all we’re saying, and that’s true with or without the “outside physical reality” weasel words. First. Learn to spell deity. Next. Do not try to drag me into this argument. Side Aleph argues that God does not need to exist in a place because he is outside physical reality–usually using the word spiritual–and that the rules for the physical realm do not apply to him. Side Alpha argues that there is nothing but the physical and that there have to be physical mechanisms for any non-physical entity to operate. Neither side will persuade the other of their views–as you have just demonstrated–which is why the whole issue is really outside the realm of this thread. Being snide simply indicates that you are emotionally caught up in your position without being able to see the position your opposition holds. One need not agree with one’s opposition to recognize that their framework is simply different from one’s own. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/48 "2013-10-09T18:15:31Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > No. The point raised by those on ITR’s side of the discussion revolves around a deity who/that exists outside physical reality. The point is denied by those who maintain that only physical reality exists. > That discussion is really going to go nowhere in this thread, (much less any other), as each side fails to persuade their opponent of their position while insisting that their own position is the only possible reality. Each side posits an axiom that cannot be tested and winds up being a point that cannot be argued to any resolution. > > If you folks want to keep pursuing that argument, I won’t stop you, (as long is it does not derail the thread), but it really has no place in the discussion of the OP’s question. While agreed that this discussion will offer no resolution among those already decided (but don’t agree that these public discussions are valueless, as I hold philosophy as important as science in human thinking), I was merely trying to get some distinction/clarification between what **ITR** posits and what Atheists (et al) are arguing in the form of being rhetorical. How that sways from the main OP, I’ll leave to your discretion, but my point does remain, despite being answerable in any satisfying way to all, some or none. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/49 "2013-10-09T18:32:13Z")
Back to the main OP. Here’s the best odds I could come up with at short notice: 1. We know, incontrovertibly, there exists at least one (1) universe. Ours. 1a) There are plenty of sound scientific theories that show there indeed might be more (i.e. It clearly happened once, why not again?) * * * 1. There is zero evidence that God or an Intelligent Designer had/has any part in the creation of said universe. At least convincingly so to most critical thinkers. 2a) God/Intelligent Design remains in the domain of philosophy and/or faith. In the former, science is only tangentially related and might have something to say for it one way or the other. The latter, _not at all…_ decidedly so by necessity for the scientific method to be viable and produce fruitful knowledge. Taking points 1 and 1a, 2 and 2a into consideration, I’d say the argument for ID is still woefully lacking, for not even a sound, testable hypothesis exists\* let alone any true theory thereof. \*e.g. If an ID exists outside our universe (and not within one apart from our own) to create it, defining this notion is _critical_ to proposing an alternate hypothesis. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/50 "2013-10-09T18:44:14Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > How does this designer exist if not in some form or other? You are postulating a “simpler” explanation that is no explanation at all. Tell us about this Designer, then, and how it exists and where and how it came into being. You are the one who first made an absolute statement about a designer: “there had to be a universe in which the Designer existed first”. I’m asking how you know that. As far as the context of the philosophical debate in this thread, I’ve not made any definite assertions about a designer, but you have. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/51 "2013-10-09T19:41:29Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > And as fas as the Anthropic Principle is concerned, I find it unsatisfying. (In fact, even Richard Dawkins has said that he finds that argument lame.) If the Mafia decides to kill me by kicking me out of an airplane, and then I happen to land in an enormous pile of foam and survive, I wouldn’t simply say there’s no point in talking about why it happened. As a creature with natural intellectual curiosity, I’d be interested in figuring out exactly why there was an enormous pile of foam that kept me alive. What if the Mafia kicks 100,000,000 people out of planes, and one of them survives because he landed on a snow-covered mountainside and slid to a stop safely? Would that person be justified in assuming divine intervention? From that person’s perspective, it would absolutely look like divine intervention. After all, millions of other people died, and he didn’t. His mind would be screaming at him that he must be special, because our brains evolved to assign causation to the events we see. But from the perspective of the guy chucking people out of the plane, it’s just luck. Bound to happen to some people, y’know? Since he’s personally seen all of the ‘trials’, the odd outlier doesn’t bother him a bit. Perspective can be a tricky thing. The ‘troubling aspect’ of the fine-tuning theory could vanish overnight if we could see things at a larger scale in both time and size, and we discovered that our universe was little more than a tiny bubble in a gigantic ocean of foam. Perhaps we’d find that there are trillions of universes of varying composition, with most being unstable and vanishing almost instantly or some being cold and dark, but with one in a million having just the right initial conditions to do something interesting. And only in those one-in-a-million universes will an intelligent being ever reach the level of complexity where he can start wondering what it all means. To that creature, it ‘feels’ like it must be divine intervention, and not just that his universe held the winning lottery ticket. But from the point of view of a being looking at the sea of foam, it’s no big deal. Given random starting values for the properties of each foam ‘bubble’, some are bound to start with conditions that kick off a process of emergence. It’s all about perspective. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/52 "2013-10-09T19:46:48Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Next. Do not try to drag me into this argument. Addressing merely points raised: > [@tomndebb](#): > > Side Aleph argues that God does not need to exist in a place because he is outside physical reality–usually using the word spiritual–and that the rules for the physical realm do not apply to him. > > Side Alpha argues that there is nothing but the physical and that there have to be physical mechanisms for any non-physical entity to operate. > > Neither side will persuade the other of their views–as you have just demonstrated–which is why the whole issue is really outside the realm of this thread. Being snide simply indicates that you are emotionally caught up in your position without being able to see the position your opposition holds. One need not agree with one’s opposition to recognize that their framework is simply different from one’s own. “Side Alpha” is trying to understand what “Side Aleph” is talking about. “Side Alpha” and “Aleph” do need to work within a mutual framework of communication before discussing anything related to the topic, including the OP, so discussion makes some sort of sense to both sides. It can be tedious and exasperating, but when talking the fundamentals of anything, semantic definitions are critical to understanding points made — _or not._ ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/53 "2013-10-09T19:54:38Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > would this be a strong indication of intelligent design? No. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/54 "2013-10-09T19:56:04Z")
Several things from my own perspective as a semi-professional biologist: -We simply do not have the data to calculate the odds of life, or intelligent life, evolving on any given planet, or any given planet that’s like Earth. We just don’t. We know that it did evolve here; we cannot extrapolate from that to other planets. We cannot take this to mean that it happens all the time, and we cannot take it to mean that it’s incredibly unlikely. We cannot calculate probabilities from a single data point. We won’t really know the odds until we get out there and survey a few million planets. -Now, that said, obviously a lot of people have tried to estimate the odds, from both sides of the “debate” (in quotes because only the ID proponents actually believe there is a debate to be had). For a thought-provoking scientific view as to why evolution of life might not be as improbable as it seems, I refer you to the book “At Home in the Universe” by Stuart Kauffman. From the ID side, in my experience, when I see someone throwing astronomical numbers around, they have always ignored some vital factor, like the fact that selection is nonrandom. The point being that people can and do twist numbers around to the point that you can “calculate” any number you like, but again, we won’t know until we go out and look. Or perhaps until we develop much MUCH more sophisticated computer simulations. -If it turns out that the evolution of intelligent life is so improbable as to make us seem miraculous, that does not serve as evidence of a divine creator. This is nothing more than the same old tired God of the Gaps argument that people have been throwing around since forever. “We don’t understand how this happened, therefore God must have done it by magic.” Magic is not a viable solution to “we don’t know what happened here”. -Even if there were some force that qualified as a divine creator, I cannot accept that it operated by simple magic, and nor should anyone with honest intellectual curiosity. OK, so it snapped its fingers and Earth popped into existence. Fine. How? What cascade of events on a quantum level was triggered by that finger snap? There must be rules, reasons, causes. Even if it’s magic, we should be able to someday understand it. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/55 "2013-10-09T19:56:40Z")
Quote: “What if the Mafia kicks 100,000,000 people out of planes, and one of them survives because he landed on a snow-covered mountainside and slid to a stop safely? Would that person be justified in assuming divine intervention?” ``` No, it would not, but if it happened to him 100 times I would say yes it is divine intervention. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/56 "2013-10-09T20:07:39Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > What if the Mafia kicks 100,000,000 people out of planes, and one of them survives because he landed on a snow-covered mountainside and slid to a stop safely? Would that person be justified in assuming divine intervention? Sure. We take a vote of all the people kicked out of planes, and 100% of those voting say it was divine intervention. The others refuse to vote for some reason. God made Earth to support us - and the Martians, Venusians, Jovians and Saturnians don’t have an opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/57 "2013-10-09T20:13:11Z")
It is interesting that this discussion has turned to cosmology. Intelligent designers for the most part worry about how intervention is necessary for us to get here, since they seem to think humans arising was the goal of evolution. I think for the most part that they’d be no more satisfied with a cosmos designed by some grad student with the right variables created and ignored than they would be with a totally random cosmos. So this has been a god of the gaps argument, since what sets the constants is still unknown. Specifically we do not know how many free variables there are. The case in the Dawkins quote is of no free variables. But if natural constants are constrained in ways we don’t understand yet, there might be very few free variables of limited ranges, and so the probability of a life-friendly cosmos much higher than if there were hundreds of free variables. It is quite hard to compute the odds of a poker hand if you don’t know how many cards are in the deck. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/58 "2013-10-09T20:23:49Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Next. Do not try to drag me into this argument. > Side Aleph argues that God does not need to exist in a place because he is outside physical reality–usually using the word spiritual–and that the rules for the physical realm do not apply to him. > Side Alpha argues that there is nothing but the physical and that there have to be physical mechanisms for any non-physical entity to operate. > > Neither side will persuade the other of their views–as you have just demonstrated–which is why the whole issue is really outside the realm of this thread. Being snide simply indicates that you are emotionally caught up in your position without being able to see the position your opposition holds. One need not agree with one’s opposition to recognize that their framework is simply different from one’s own. I’m not being snide, I’m being _rational_, and you can’t dismiss a valid argument as “being emotionally caught up.” _Even in a “spiritual” universe_ beings that create universes are inherently less likely than the universes they create, by basic logic. But if we insist on going the “two arguments” route: If the physical world is all there is, then the answer to the OP is “no,” because of the “designing the designer” argument repeatedly covered. If there’s a magical sky-fairy supernatural world “outside of time and space,” then the answer to the OP is still “no,” because we can no longer talk about things like “evidence” or “odds” at all, because we can always weasel-word the answer. A: “Do you agree that this object is white?” (holding up white object) B: “Yes.” A: “No, it’s black! Ha ha! You must be emotionally caught up in your perceptions!” B: “Uh, it reflects light equally in all spectrums, at high rates. It’s white by every definition of “white” I can find.” A: “But I’m using a definition that’s OUTSIDE OF COLOR! So you’re wrong no matter what you say!” ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/59 "2013-10-09T21:09:01Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > What if the Mafia kicks 100,000,000 people out of planes, and one of them survives because he landed on a snow-covered mountainside and slid to a stop safely? Would that person be justified in assuming divine intervention? > > From that person’s perspective, it would absolutely look like divine intervention. After all, millions of other people died, and he didn’t. His mind would be screaming at him that he must be special, because our brains evolved to assign causation to the events we see. > > But from the perspective of the guy chucking people out of the plane, it’s just luck. Bound to happen to some people, y’know? Since he’s personally seen all of the ‘trials’, the odd outlier doesn’t bother him a bit. > > Perspective can be a tricky thing. > > The ‘troubling aspect’ of the fine-tuning theory could vanish overnight if we could see things at a larger scale in both time and size, and we discovered that our universe was little more than a tiny bubble in a gigantic ocean of foam. Perhaps we’d find that there are trillions of universes of varying composition, with most being unstable and vanishing almost instantly or some being cold and dark, but with one in a million having just the right initial conditions to do something interesting. > > And only in those one-in-a-million universes will an intelligent being ever reach the level of complexity where he can start wondering what it all means. To that creature, it ‘feels’ like it must be divine intervention, and not just that his universe held the winning lottery ticket. But from the point of view of a being looking at the sea of foam, it’s no big deal. Given random starting values for the properties of each foam ‘bubble’, some are bound to start with conditions that kick off a process of emergence. It’s all about perspective. I agree with you. _If_ our universe is analogous to a tiny bubble in a gigantic ocean of foam, and _if_ there are countless other universes, and _if_ different universes all have different physical laws and compositions, then in that situation it would be possible for our universe to form in a way that would allow the emergence of life, without any intelligent design involved. If. But the multiverse theory has always seemed a little odd to me, ever since I read [this article](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=parallel-universes) by Max Tegmark 10 years ago. Folks often tell me that I should dismiss any assertion if there’s no evidence for it. How often have we heard “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”? Now the notion that there are infinite, or at least utterly enormous, number of universes looks to me about as extraordinary as they come, and not backed by any evidence. As far as probabilistic arguments, I see no reason why an ocean of foam so vast as to make our universe look bubble-sized by comparison, which happens to have the property of spinning off countless universes, some of which have enough order and matter and physical laws to sustain, would be inherently more probable than an intelligent designer capable of making one universe. To me the latter seems simpler. That doesn’t answer the question of what caused the intelligent designer to exist, but neither is there an explanation of why the ocean of cosmic foam that produces universes exists. Further, if Tegmark’s theory is correct and every possible universe that can exist with our physical laws does exist, then everything that skeptics have told me in my life is wrong. Somewhere there’s a universe that’s just like ours, except that Bigfoot does inhabit the woods of Oregon. Somewhere there’s a universe where the Loch Ness Monster is real. Somewhere there’s a universe where aliens landed at Roswell in 1951. Everything is real if you have a big enough multiverse. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/60 "2013-10-09T21:15:32Z")
I’m not saying I buy into the multiverse idea. However, I know I can point to one universe with certainty, and I have zero evidence for an intelligent designer. So, is it more probable that there is more than one of something real, or that there is one of something completely made up? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742.md?page=4)