So your basis for dismissing the theory is that it “seems improbable”? I’ve heard this argument far more times that I care to admit and my response is always “Your inability to imagine the circumstances under which such a thing could happen does not impose a limitation on the universe”.
Consider the sand dune example above, or groups of thousands of fireflies all blinking in exact unison, or any other example of emergence theory. Order comes from natural processes all the time. And while we often use the word “random” to describe the outcomes of these processes, the universe is not entirely random. There are physical laws, and the way things happen are both constrained and guided by those laws. And those constraints and influences are more than sufficient to achieve outcomes which to our minds would seem impossible by natural processes. It happens all the time, and when we dig a little deeper we begin to see how this works.
The universe is full of counterintuitive events and things. All this means is that our intuition is flawed.
The biggest, (perhaps first), proponent of attacking evolutionary theory in favor of Intelligent Design by the use of probability was William Dembski.
He has been trying to get out his message for many years, but the scientific community has pretty well shredded all his efforts. Dembski’s works were profferred at the Dover, PA Creationism trial and dismissed as unscientific, including this observation:
If the most “serious” proponent of probability arguing against Natural Selection cannot support it, I am doubtful that it is based on anything resembling reality.
I like to think of it as a big Plinko game. The ball or ring or whatever bounces down the pegboard and lands in a slot. The ID crowd’s argument is that, since the odds of it landing in that specific slot are astronomical, it must have been guided there by an outside influence. But it had to land somewhere.
Indeed. It is probably “highly unlikely” that our brains are even capable of understanding the universe. They evolved to solve problems here on earth, and it’s amazing they can get us beyond that realm in the first place! There is no reason to think that they should be able to comprehend “everything”.
Trying to calculate the odds Intelligent Design was behind the creation of our cosmos is as pointless as doing exercises like this, but in sincerity and not in jest.
But, that’s not what divine means. String theory is basically understood by nobody, especially not me, but I don’t consider it divine, and no one is proposing worshiping it. Divine doesn’t mean unknown or unknowable. As you used it, it really means that its source is godly or supernatural.
I’d define divine as the manifestations from some knowing, god-like entity who can weild it’s inherent power (At times against the laws of known physics) unto it’s own desires or whims, sometimes even involving the human race and our affairs.
Which, of course, is a great fiction that the majority of this race believes. But that’s beside the point.
No. As I said, I’ve researched the issue and my conclusion is that it’s extremely unlikely that a universe, with physical laws arising from pure chance, could support any life, and I listed two books by physicists that support this point.
The point that we’re discussing is whether it’s probable that a single universe, with all of its physical laws arising at random, would be likely to produce life. The question of what happens in this particular universe with its set of laws, given the behavior of matter and energy acting under those laws, is a different question.
And what do you mean by “first”? In our universe time exists, so we can talk about which of several events happened “first”. But according to modern physics, time is a property of our universe and would not apply to anything outside said universe.
That’d be fine if you were talking about a hypothetical universe- but we’re talking about ours… the one we know exists. It already arose, and it supports and produces life. There’s no point in talking probabilities for something that already happened. It’s like a lottery winner being certain he must have been chosen by God, because the chances of winning were so low- but someone was going to win.
First, there’s often a point in talking about the probability of things that have happened. That’s what Bayesian theory is all about.
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.
Of course we don’t know of any reason why physical laws and constants are the way they are. We may in the future discover some underlying set of rules that constrains the constants, and find that they aren’t arbitrary after all. Except then we’d have to ask why the rules that constrained the physical constants are the way they are, and wonder if the constraining rules are arbitrary.
The thing is, even if we find that physical law is constrained in some way, and that the constraint was some sort of designer, well, where did the designer come from? An earlier universe? I can imagine a universe with a scientist who invents a universe-creating tool, and the scientist can create universes with arbitrary physical constants, and our universe is an example of one that he created that has physical laws that can support life. But then where did the scientist come from? He had to have existed in a universe that was capable of supporting a scientist, so it has to have some sort of life even if the life is radically different than life in our universe.
So the designer would have to exist in a fine-tuned universe such that a universe-designer is capable of existing. And what are the odds of that?
Cite for Dawkins calling the argument lame, please?
Your foam example is not a remotely functional analogy. We exist. The probability of that is perfect. We would need some number of cases of earths with us not existing on them to estimate a likelihood.
On the other hand, we have plenty of examples of people falling from planes without winding up in foam.
Did the evidence you reviewed include proof of the possible values of the different variables? For example, can it be shown that gravity can in fact be much much greater or much much lower than it is now? Did it include the fact that at least some of the variables don’t really need to be all that fine tuned? For example, the resonant energy levels required for carbon to form in stars? Or how about how some of the variables are dependent on each other and that variations in the initial values could still result in the same outcome? Did it include proof that life couldn’t possibly exist at any given a combination of variables except the one in this universe? Did it include anything that explained why, if the universe is so fine tuned for life, is the vast majority of it so inhospitable to life?
The whole argument is the Anthropic Principle in action. “Look, these values mean we can live here, it must be made for us to live here!” It’s the puddle marveling at how the hole it’s in must have been made specifically for it, after all, look at how well it fits.
“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
As has been mentioned, to calculate probability, you need evidence and proof of alternate universal modalities in order to cater to them mathematically.
To illustrate this, let’s take basic static probability based on choices. The direct comparison is that we have a 50/50 chance of ID versus random.
But let’s expand that. Instead of “ID” let’s instead say “Non-Random Creation.” That opens us up to more possibilities:
Diety-Created
Precursor Civilization Created
Random
Well, now we have a basic probability of 33% Diety-created. Further expansion:
Diety-Created and Guided
Diety-Created and Abandoned
Precursor Civilization Created and Intentional
Precursor Civilization Created and Unintentional
Random
Oops. Looks like the probability dropped to 20% (of a Christian-esque scenario). Oh noes!
The problem with this sort of calculation is that in order for us to begin working that kind of probability we need some indication that the probability even exists. I came up with 5 scenarios off the top of my head, but how many scenarios for ID (And scenarios for “Random”) can you think of?
On top of just the basic pool I illustrated above, you also need to know what sort of weighting to give each of those options. What possible options, for instance, are there for the strength of Gravity? If 0x is an option, then in some of the random possible universes no life happened because matter accreted from energy and drifted around never clumping up. What about 1000x? If 1000x is an option, then matter formed a single super-ball and some of these universe possibilities became a giant black hole about 10 seconds after the big bang that started it.
This changes how you weight the sub-options of Random. Those universes would, for instance, be “0% chance of life”.
Basically: We might, one day, potentially be able to pretend that we have half-accurate answers for stuff like this. But I anticipate it happening long after the Sun has swallowed the earth when we as a species have explored and tested a lot of this stuff scientifically.
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”.