Friday 15 March 2013

A Doctor a Day - A Response

I recently saw an invitation, by someone with the moniker faithwithreason, to read an article by Luke A. Barnes (The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life).  Note that this article is located at arxiv.org, which means it has been “endorsed” by someone but it hasn’t gone through the full peer review process (note Luke's comment below in which he provides a link to a journal article in which the article also appears, indicating that it has since gone through a peer review process).  Victor Stenger, the author of the book that Barnes uses as his “antagonist”, has responded to Barnes’ paper (also located at arxiv.org).  Stenger did not however address Barnes’ motivations.  It’s entirely likely that Barnes’ motivations align very closely with faithwithreason’s motivations because, interestingly enough, faithwithreason is also completed a PhD in Astrophysics, “not too long ago”, just like Barnes.  For those not familiar with the difference between astrophysics and astronomy, it is worth noting that astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe – like “the absorption properties of damped Lyman Alpha systems” (Barnes’ refereed articles 1, 2 and 3) or “expanding space” (Barnes’ refereed articles 4, 6 and 7) or “evolving dark energy” (Barnes’ refereed articles 8).

The link to Barnes’ article was provided with the claim that it had no religious bias, a claim which I doubt, given that Barnes has also provided arguments against evolution.  However, even if there is a bias in the Barnes’ intent, the result of that bias is already adequately addressed in his response by Stenger, someone who has many years of experience in particle physics.

Barnes, on the other hand, presents his argument after a much shorter involvement in astrophysics from a position that appears to be largely motivated by a creationist agenda.  If there was, in the field of particle physics, such obvious evidence for the fine-tuning of universe for life (or for intelligent life as Barnes argues) then there would be more physicists who would have noticed it – but figures show that significantly less than 10% of physicists are believers.  Physicists simply don’t see the evidence that Barnes believes to exist and Stenger is one of the very few who have seen it as important enough to even bother devoting time to discussing something that has not been found, as opposed to the more fruitful discussions of what has been found.

I expect to see more efforts in the future from people like Barnes, and faithwithreason, I have no doubt, to argue that some things that we as a species don’t currently fully understand is somehow evidence for their god.  As a consequence you will start to see more serious researchers react against the theistic corruption of their discipline – in the future we might even see a cosmologist become the new Dawkins due to the feeling of outrage that Barnes’ sort of shenanigans engenders in people who have devoted their life to a proper search for understanding.

The problem, however, is that the whole argument is an effort at misdirection.

Fine-Tuning centres on a counterfactual, something that even Barnes admits, although he tries to make light of it.  He starts off saying that “FT can be understood as a counterfactual claim, that is, a claim about what would have been” and then goes on to talk about playing tennis against Roger Federer, which he has never done.

I’m assuming that Barnes means that we should imagine that there has been a game in which he played against Federer and lost, as he would undoubtedly do, and then imagine all the other possible game outcomes that didn’t happen, but which could have.  There are some major issues with the analogy: the rules of tennis are fixed; the implements are predetermined along with the arena; and so on.  The implied choice of game however, being tennis, means that the competition is heavily stacked against Barnes.  If given a clean sheet we would not be limited to tennis, so we could have chosen tiddlywinks or scrabble or any number of games in which the outcome would not have been nearly so predictable.

Instead of using a limited and entirely hypothetical scenario, I suggest that we should use a real, existent scenario, but something that could be equated to the amazing fact that I am here and able to ponder on the amazing fact that I am here and able to ponder on the amazing fact I am are here and able to ponder on the amazing fact that I am here and able to ponder on the amazing fact that I am here ... I think I have made my point, but here is a graphical representation:


In order to create such a scenario, I’m going to use a cat, who we shall call “Tiddles” (the star of The Logic of an Apologist, When an Ontological Argument Simply Isn’t and Fine-Tuning Towards Ignorance).

Tiddles (or a being very similar to Tiddles) lives in my house and this is an amazing fact.  If a single event out of a multitude of events had been slightly different, Tiddles would live in another house, would be dead or would never have existed.  I’ll just take half a dozen:

·         Tiddles’ mother could have been desexed – result = no Tiddles

·         Tiddles’ breed could never have caught on – result = no Tiddles

·         Tiddles could have escaped and been run over – result = dead Tiddles

·         Tiddles could have eaten a poisoned rat – result = dead Tiddles

·         I could have not visited the breeder the day I did – result = no Tiddles in my house

·         I could have decided to get a different type of cat – result = no Tiddles in my house

Now if I had the inclination (and the time), I could develop thousands of variations of my life, and the life of Tiddles, in which we never came to enjoy the relationship we currently enjoy or in which that relationship would have come to a distressing end.

It’s absolutely, gobsmackingly amazing, if one looks at it that way, that Tiddles lives in my house.

However, it’s not really that amazing.  I’ve had other cats and on the sad day that I become Tiddlesless, I shall certainly grieve but not too long afterwards, I will be looking for a replacement.

However, my life with the specific feline called Tiddles is a given.  It’s a fact and no matter how many other counterfactuals I might want to construct in which Tiddles is not a part of my life, they (neither singularly nor in combination) do not lead to a conclusion that some immensely powerful, transcendent, timeless, spaceless, personal Being guided Tiddles to me.

Similarly, once we are in the position to ponder how amazing it is that we are here – we are here.  All the other options that excluded us might have been possible, but if it weren’t possible for us to be here, then we wouldn’t be here to be amazed.  And it doesn’t matter how unlikely it is, because once an event has taken place, the likelihood of that event having taken place is 100%.

So, really, the universe could be “finely tuned” in the sense that if it were different then life could not have arisen and this would provide no proof of Barnes’ god.  In some ways, Stenger is doing the theists a favour, if they were only bright enough to realise it.

The Fine-Tuning “Argument” suggests that god was limited in how he built the universe in order to make life.  This is a rather weak god, one that has to follow imposed laws.  If that is the case, then why don’t we just refer to the laws and leave out the middle man?  If, however, there is a range of options from which god could choose to build a universe, then god is not so constrained.  God could make any sort of universe it wanted with life in it, but chose this one using its enormous powers.

Of course, that leaves the creationist apologists without any proof of god, but that’s what faith is for, isn’t it?

13 comments:

  1. So much bullshit, so little time.

    * "Note that this article is located at arxiv.org, which means it has been “endorsed” by someone but it hasn’t gone through the full peer review process."

    http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8794857

    This was pointed out on the forum, but no correction here I see.

    * "Provided arguments against evolution". Bollocks. I wrote a book review on a popular level book on Evolution which began: "My review will be in three parts, the first of which will give me the chance to display my ignorance of biology. Such ignorance should not be underestimated – many of the questions I ask below are not rhetorical. I just don’t know enough to answer them." I have nowhere criticised evolutionary theory because I am not a biologist. I have questions about evolution, but only because of my ignorance of the subject.

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    1. So, Luke, are you confirming or denying that you are a theist with creationist (or anti-evolutionary) leanings who is using science at the very edge of our comprehension to push your god?

      I can now see that you got the article published, congratulations and thanks for the update.

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    2. "science at the very edge of our comprehension". The science is well known and tested - nuclear physics and nuclear stability, atomic physics, cosmology.

      I am not a creationist. I am not antievolutionary. My views on theism are my own. Given the ad hominem attacks between atheist and theist I'm inclined to keep my views to myself.

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  2. * "If there was, in the field of particle physics, such obvious evidence for the fine-tuning of universe for life (or for intelligent life as Barnes argues) then there would be more physicists who would have noticed it".

    What, like these non-theists?

    Wilczek: life appears to depend upon delicate coincidences that we have not been able to explain. The broad outlines of that situation have been apparent for many decades. When less was known, it seemed reasonable to hope that better understanding of symmetry and dynamics would clear things up. Now that hope seems much less reasonable. The happy coincidences between life’s requirements and nature’s choices of parameter values might be just a series of flukes, but one could be forgiven for beginning to suspect that something deeper is at work.

    Hawking: “Most of the fundamental constants in our theories appear fine-tuned in the sense that if they were altered by only modest amounts, the universe would be qualitatively different, and in many cases unsuitable for the development of life. … The emergence of the complex structures capable of supporting intelligent observers seems to be very fragile. The laws of nature form a system that is extremely fine-tuned, and very little in physical law can be altered without destroying the possibility of the development of life as we know it.”

    Rees: Any universe hospitable to life – what we might call a biophilic universe – has to be ‘adjusted’ in a particular way. The prerequisites for any life of the kind we know about — long-lived stable stars, stable atoms such as carbon, oxygen and silicon, able to combine into complex molecules, etc — are sensitive to the physical laws and to the size, expansion rate and contents of the universe. Indeed, even for the most open-minded science fiction writer, ‘life’ or ‘intelligence’ requires the emergence of some generic complex structures: it can’t exist in a homogeneous universe, not in a universe containing only a few dozen particles. Many recipes would lead to stillborn universes with no atoms, no chemistry, and no planets; or to universes too short-lived or too empty to allow anything to evolve beyond sterile uniformity.

    Linde: the existence of an amazingly strong correlation between our own properties and the values of many parameters of our world, such as the masses and charges of electron and proton, the value of the gravitational constant, the amplitude of spontaneous symmetry breaking in the electroweak theory, the value of the vacuum energy, and the dimensionality of our world, is an experimental fact requiring an explanation.

    Susskind: The Laws of Physics … are almost always deadly. In a sense the laws of nature are like East Coast weather: tremendously variable, almost always awful, but on rare occasions, perfectly lovely. … [O]ur own universe is an extraordinary place that appears to be fantastically well designed for our own existence. This specialness is not something that we can attribute to lucky accidents, which is far too unlikely. The apparent coincidences cry out for an explanation.

    Guth: in the multiverse, life will evolve only in very rare regions where the local laws of physics just happen to have the properties needed for life, giving a simple explanation for why the observed universe appears to have just the right properties for the evolution of life. The incredibly small value of the cosmological constant is a telling example of a feature that seems to be needed for life, but for which an explanation from fundamental physics is painfully lacking.

    Smolin: Our universe is much more complex than most universes with the same laws but different values of the parameters of those laws. In particular, it has a complex astrophysics, including galaxies and long lived stars, and a complex chemistry, including carbon chemistry. These necessary conditions for life are present in our universe as a consequence of the complexity which is made possible by the special values of the parameters.

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    1. Given that Hawking is often quoted out of context in order to lend an appearance of legitimacy to these sorts of arguments ( an example is discussed here - http://debunkingdenialism.com/2011/11/16/the-creationist-quote-mine-of-hawking-on-expansion-rate-of-the-universe/ ), I'm not going to indulge you in your William Lane Craig-like attempt to trundle a bunch of names past as if they support your argument.

      The appearance of Fine Tuning is not argued. What is argued is the attempt to use this appearance of Fine Tuning to "prove" the existence of a god. As Smolin points out ( here - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/blog/author/lsmolin/ ) both "god did it" (theistic theory) and "it's just the way it is" (anthropic multiverse theory) are possible explanations, so the universe being fine tuned (if it is in fact fine tuned), doesn't prove either the existence or non-existence of a god.

      It's interesting to note that you looked past this, it inclines me to think that you just might be a "god did it" theorist.

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    2. I didn't look past this point. The comment was too long so I put it in the next one: "I defined FT as "In the set of possible physics, the subset that permit the evolution of life is very small." This is a claim about theoretical physics, one supported by a mountain of papers - see my paper. That is the claim that Stenger is almost alone in opposing. The controversial claim is whether FT supports or implies the existence of God, a claim which I haven't addressed in the paper or on my blog. I'll leave that to the philosophers."

      "The appearance of Fine Tuning is not argued." That's exactly what Stenger is arguing against. If we summarise the fine-tuning argument as:

      1. FT
      2. If FT then God.
      3. God.

      Stenger argues against 1. The physicists I've quoted above, as well as the physics literature in general, argue for 1. It's 2 that is controversial. I haven't addressed 2.

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    3. The **APPEARANCE** of Fine Tuning is not argued. Vic Stenger certainly argues that the extent is overstated by the "god did it" crowd, but I doubt that he really thinks that the range of values for the key constants is unrestrained if life is to result. For example in his response to you "I agree that life, as we know it on Earth, would not exist with a slight change in these parameters." In "Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Us?" Stenger writes "I do not dispute that life (as we know it) would not exist if any one of several of the constants of physics were just slightly different." (Words in brackets were originally only italicised.)

      I do believe that you are misrepresenting Stenger's argument and, less importantly, mine. You still sound like an apologist to me, irrespective of whether you want to hide that fact or not - or how did you put "your views on theism are your own". That would be fine if it weren't for the fact that your views have been co-opted by apologists which, if you are not inclined favourably to apologists, you should be addressing.

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    4. "I doubt that he really thinks that the range of values for the key constants is unrestrained if life is to result."

      Stenger: "The most commonly cited examples of apparent fine-tuning can be readily explained by the application of a little well-established physics and cosmology. . . . [S]ome form of life would have occurred in most universes that could be described by the same physical models as ours, with parameters whose ranges varied over ranges consistent with those models. … . My case against fine-tuning will not rely on speculations beyond well-established physics nor on the existence of multiple universes."

      I take this as the claim that FT is false; most possible universes contain some form of life.

      "your views have been co-opted by apologists". I'm only concerned with correctly presenting the science. If certain philosophical conclusions follow, then that can be debated by those philosophically inclined.

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    5. If you are limiting FT to every whacko claim of the more rabid apologists, the yes, Stenger is saying that FT is false. You said you weren't arguing FT->god so I assume that you aren't arguing for a form of FT that is consistent with that claim (although you might be lying about that, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt).

      However, my quotes from Stenger indicate that he's not arguing against "weak" fine tuning. Are you specifically arguing for strong fine-tuning that (supposedly) leaves us with no explanation for the universe other than "god did it" or are you trying to argue, a la Smolin, that the apparent fine tuning derives for some underlying fundamental characteristic of the universe that we should be investigating? If this is the case, then your paper was poorly written in that it gives the impression that the fact that intelligent life evolved in this universe somehow implies that the universe was finely tuned -deliberately and intentionally- in order for that intelligent life to evolve. This miswording, if that is what it is, is what the apologists latch onto, so you might want to address that rather than leave it in the lap of philosophers (especially noting that there is considerably more interest from apologists than philosophers).

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    6. I've read Stenger's book 3 times. He argues against every fine-tuning claim he can find. I'm certainly not "limiting FT to every whacko claim of the more rabid apologists" - Hugh Ross, for example, has written a lot of dross on this subject (http://letterstonature.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/any-claim-will-do-a-fine-tuned-critique-of-hugh-ross/)

      "a form of FT that is consistent with that claim [FT -> God]". FT is independent of any conclusion one might try to derive from it. It is a claim about theoretical physics. "In the set of possible physics, the subset that permit the evolution of life is very small."

      What is "weak" fine tuning? FT is the fact that needs explaining. I'm arguing for FT, not for any particular explanation. The abstract of my paper explicitly says "I do not attempt to defend any conclusion based on the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.". Fine-tuning is a well-understood in physics - it means slightly different though related things in different contexts. I've heard (somewhere ... sorry no reference) WLC say that fine-tuned does *not* mean designed, or made by God. John Donoghue explains the usage of fine-tuning in physics here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0710.4080v1.pdf

      "Naturalness and finetuning have very specific technical meanings in particle physics. These meanings are related to, but not identical to, the common usage in nontechnical settings. The technical version is tied to the magnitude of quantum corrections. When one calculates the properties of any theory using perturbation theory, quantum mechanical effects give additive corrections to all the parameters of the theory...

      The concept of naturalness is tied to the magnitude of the quantum corrections. If the quantum correction is of the same order as (or smaller
      than) the measured value, the result is said to be natural. If, on the contrary the measured value is much smaller than the quantum correction the result is unnatural because the bare value and the quantum correction appear to have an unexpected cancelation to give a result that is much smaller than either component. This is an unnatural fine-tuning."

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    7. A reply is on the way, it will be in the form of a separate article which has required a bit of research.

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    8. Reply is here - http://neophilosophical.blogspot.com/2013/06/an-open-letter-to-luke-barnes.html

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  3. I defined FT as "In the set of possible physics, the subset that permit the evolution of life is very small." This is a claim about theoretical physics, one supported by a mountain of papers - see my paper. That is the claim that Stenger is almost alone in opposing. The controversial claim is whether FT supports or implies the existence of God, a claim which I haven't addressed in the paper or on my blog. I'll leave that to the philosophers.


    * "All the other options that excluded us might have been possible, but if it weren’t possible for us to be here, then we wouldn’t be here to be amazed. And it doesn’t matter how unlikely it is, because once an event has taken place, the likelihood of that event having taken place is 100%."

    Go learn probability theory. If that paragraph was true, then no data could ever be used to test any theory, and all of science would be in vain. The probability of an event is hypothesis dependent. That's why we can use events to test hypotheses. The question is not whether our universe is life permitting - it clearly is. The question is: why is our universe life-permitting? Our existence is (probably) not the answer to that question. Given that life seems unlikely to form in a universe whose parameters and initial conditions are effected indifferently to the requirements of life, we should go look for a different hypothesis as to how our universe managed to be life dependent. Maybe there are lots of universes with different properties. Maybe there are deeper laws that we are ignorant of. Maybe our universe is a simulation performed by scientists in a meta-universe.

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