# Scientific Evidence for God? (Odds Against Life) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 29, 2014, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490 "2014-12-29T23:51:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/41 "2014-12-30T16:01:38Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I’m not sure I understand precisely what you’re saying. > > To the extent that the properties of the god would involve some physical manifestation which contradicts laws of nature, then you could set the likelihood to zero based on the observed contradiction. But if you were just postulating a god who created laws on nature in a miraculous way - as is the suggestion here - then there’s no scientific way to measure that. The other contradiction is with the deity itself; if a god is postulated which includes it acting in a certain way which observation indicates did not occur, then there’s also the contradiction within itself. If I suggest Zeus, for example, allows bees to fly by strapping rockets under their wings, and we discover no such rockets, then Zeus-who-did-that’s existence becomes less likely. Instead of altering the laws of nature to fit if we wanted to fit in the contradiction, we have to alter the god. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/42 "2014-12-30T16:49:33Z")
I agree that WSJ is increasingly too silly to pay attention to. Nevertheless: > [@](#): > > Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp. I realize some of those ratios appear fine-tuned. But what is the argument that that parameter requires tuning to _this_ level of precision? And in Davies book, he worries more about the types of stars that will exist rather than that none will form at all. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/43 "2014-12-30T17:30:03Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Also…why do such articles never say “Brahma” or “Tawa” or “Gaea?” It’s always their god, but never someone else’s. Yep. Article should be titled: “Science Increasingly Makes the Case for [whatever you want to imagine to bridge the gap between your personal understanding of how the universe actually works and your personal beliefs about how you think the universe ought to work]” Science proves once and for all that an imaginary being or beings with an arbitrary and diverse set of powers, the specifics of which are not agreed upon by any set of storytellers to date, totally exists guys! Chalk one up for reason! One of my favorites, **Tim Minchin** , put it pretty well in [one of his bits](http://youtu.be/ET1-_PeExMs?t=1m48s): > [@](#): > > Things that have a 1 in 64 million chance of happening happen all the time. To presume that your 1 in 64 million chance thing is a miracle is to significantly underestimate the total number of things that there are… maths! ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/44 "2014-12-30T19:49:21Z")
If science could prove that raising taxes on high earners and corporations could balance the budget and even pay off the debt, do you think WSJ would run an article on it, or would we get 100’s of column inches of claptrap about the evils of Socialism, like every other conservative rag? Murdoch insisted his acquisition of WSJ would mean its devolution into partsan drivel. Looks like he was wrong. I can’t remember which editorialist said, “No self-respecting fish would allow itself to be wrapped in a Murdoch paper.” ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/45 "2014-12-30T20:54:49Z")
I would point the writer to the [law of truly large numbers](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_truly_large_numbers), which states that with a sample size large enough, any outrageous thing is likely to occur. Hell, we don’t even know if the Big Bang was _the_ Big Bang. For all we know, this universe is not only one of eleventy-billion concurrently existing universes, but it could be the eleventy-billionth one in an even longer chronological series of universes with the same coupling constants. That’s a very very very large sample size. Almost anything is possible. I’d ask the writer how his mind might change if scientists were to report they’ve been overestimating the importance of strong/electromagnetic forces all this time, or one day we discover that not only are inhabitable planets quite commonplace, but most of them are teeming with civilizations more advanced than ours. Will the writer use these new findings as evidence there is no God? Or will he conclude that these findings are also compatible with theism? Because faith, by definition, doesn’t require evidence, I’m guessing it’d be the latter. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/46 "2014-12-30T23:54:39Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > This seems like a specious argument. > > The idea of a supernatural creator is non-scientific, and any assignment of likelihood is unknowable and arbitrary. You can’t weigh that against something which operates by known and measurable scientific principles. This is true. And, from my point of view, there’s no reason to consider explanations that are non-scientific for anything. I’m unaware of a single non-scientific explanation for any phenomenon or event that has ever been demonstrated to be accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/47 "2014-12-31T14:43:33Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This is true. And, from my point of view, there’s no reason to consider explanations that are non-scientific for anything. I’m unaware of a single non-scientific explanation for any phenomenon or event that has ever been demonstrated to be accurate. That sounds like a tautism to me. It’s inherent to the nature of non-scientific explanations that they can’t be demonstrated to be accurate. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/48 "2014-12-31T14:47:00Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > That sounds like a tautism to me. It’s inherent to the nature of non-scientific explanations that they can’t be demonstrated to be accurate. Then they are useless as an explanation for any phenomena and should be abandoned as unproductive. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/49 "2014-12-31T14:48:18Z")
Only in a scientific sense. Which is as it should be. They are non-scientific. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/50 "2014-12-31T14:53:13Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Only in a scientific sense. Which is as it should be. They are non-scientific. And thus, useless, from my point of view. In what circumstance are they useful? ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/51 "2014-12-31T14:57:30Z")
In forming part of the worldview of a religious person who believes them to be true. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/52 "2014-12-31T15:03:56Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > In forming part of the worldview of a religious person who believes them to be true. Objective reality cares not a whit for anyone’s “worldview.” ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/53 "2014-12-31T15:05:34Z")
Quite true, of course. However, the question I was answering was not about “objective reality”, so that’s a moot point in context. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/54 "2014-12-31T15:13:14Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I agree that WSJ is increasingly too silly to pay attention to. > Nevertheless: > I realize some of those ratios appear fine-tuned. But what is the argument that that parameter requires tuning to _this_ level of precision? And in Davies book, he worries more about the types of stars that will exist rather than that none will form at all. There’s also the issue that these ratios are seemingly so arbitrary. You would think that a God, in charge of the whole shebang, would come up with better ratios for the relative strengths of the strong/weak/electromagnetic/gravitational forces than those shown in [this Wikilectures piece](http://www.wikilectures.eu/index.php/Fundamental_forces_of_nature). For example, the electromagnetic force is 1/137th’s as strong as the strong force… what sort of God would come up with such an unwieldy number? How many chef’s have come up with a recipe saying “Take a cup of flour, a 1/137’th cup of sugar, a .000001 cup of thyme, and a .00000000000000000000000000000000000006 cup of garlic, mix in a bowl…” So, yeah, these ratios may be fine-tuned, they may be precised, but what they aren’t are “intelligently” designed. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/55 "2014-12-31T15:17:32Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > There’s also the issue that these ratios are seemingly so arbitrary. Any ratio would be equally arbitrary. You’re used to a base 10 numbering system so numbers like 1/137 strike you as being weird, but they’re not inherently any more arbitrary than any other number. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/56 "2014-12-31T15:21:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart. Without a massive planet like Jupiter nearby, whose gravity will draw away asteroids, a thousand times as many would hit Earth’s surface. The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing. It’s like buying a lottery ticket, in a way. The numbers have to line up just so. And regardless of how tiny the odds are, they will always be greater than zero. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/57 "2014-12-31T15:29:44Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Any ratio would be equally arbitrary. > > You’re used to a base 10 numbering system so numbers like 1/137 strike you as being weird, but they’re not inherently any more arbitrary than any other number. In what base are the ratios seemingly non-arbitrary, then? What I’m saying is that there is nothing that states a creator is limited to making gravity as weak as it is compared to the other three forces - if one presumes an all-powerful creator, then this creator has the ability to adjust these ratios _and still make them work_ (after all, this is the “person” responsible for creating these forces in the first place, right?) In this universe, the ratio between the strength of EM compared to the strength of the Strong force is 1:1/137… but, hell, it could have been 1:.5, or 1:.1 and an all-powerful creator could have made them work. My point is simply aesthetic and as likely flawed as the argument _for_ intelligent design - if the Universe was intelligently designed, the basic parameters would show some intelligence and rationality in how they were selected and not be so seemingly random as they appear, regardless of whether we’re looking at them in base-10 or base-12 or base-43 math. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/58 "2014-12-31T15:29:55Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > In forming part of the worldview of a religious person who believes them to be true. That’s supposed to be “useful”? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/59 "2014-12-31T15:31:44Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > In forming part of the worldview of a religious person who believes them to be true. This is fine, but I don’t think this is applicable to whether there is scientific evidence for God, or the question of the odds against life occurring. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490/60 "2014-12-31T15:48:26Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > In what base are the ratios seemingly non-arbitrary, then? Well for starts, in a base 137 system 137 is a very elegent and aesthetic ratio. But that’s not the real point - there’s nothing magical about base numbering systems, which are just an artificial means that humans have contrived to organize and compute numbers, and have no inherent status. IOW, any number would be equally arbitrary. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This is fine, but I don’t think this is applicable to whether there is scientific evidence for God, or the question of the odds against life occurring. Don’t look at me - you’re the guy who brought the “what use are they?” angle in here. To review, you declared that no non-scientific explanations for anything should be considered because they’ve never been demonstrated, and I responded that this is just the nature of non-scientific explanations, and you responded that in that case they’re of no use, and here we are. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientific-evidence-for-god-odds-against-life/708490.md?page=4)