…and this is a 
The new creationist tactic?
Category: Creationism
Posted on: December 10, 2006 5:51 PM, by PZ Myers
They never rest, and you know the creationists are constantly probing, trying to find the next likely inroad into the schools. Sahotra Sarkar offers some concerns about what's coming next in creationism—these seem like quite probable strategies to me.
As the physicist and astronomer Victor Stenger noted in the Skeptical Briefs newsletter last September, The Privileged Planet represents a new wedge in the creationists' arsenal. Equally importantly, the Smithsonian episode shows how this new physics-based version of creationism is being propagated with unusual stealth. Biologists may now feel safe that the problem of combating creationism has moved out of their backyards to infest the haunts of the physicists. Some religious biologists have even endorsed the idea of a conscious creator of the universe, so long as it does not affect biological theory. For instance, the biochemist Ken Miller, who ably defends evolution against creationist charges in Finding Darwin's God, goes on to claim that God created the universe with its laws and evolution is simply a result of these laws.
These moves are dangerous: once the creator enters the science classroom, even through the physicists' backdoor, the room for mischief is enormous. Biologists would do well to remember that, ultimately, what has motivated creationists to action throughout history is the natural origin of the human species. Sooner or later creationists will return to the theory they fear and detest most: evolution by natural selection. Moreover, if religious dogma manages to breach the defenses of science, there is every reason to believe that it will proactively encroach on every other secular institution of society. The new stealth creationism is, in short, as dangerous as its older cousins, Intelligent Design and Young Earth creationism. It can and should be defeated in the same way they were.
We've seen this coming for a long time: the Discovery Institute has been pushing that fine-tuning argument for a while, and that line of argument makes an end run around one of our most successful debaters, Ken Miller, and also puts Francis Collins and many other theistic evolutionists on their side. We prickly, cranky, vociferous biologists, who've been fighting this nonsense for years and are ready to start roaring at the first attempt to smuggle a creationist onto a school board, are also going to be less effective—for instance, I don't pay that much attention to the physics standards, and wouldn't have any influence at all on physics teaching. We'd need more effort at the public school level in this discipline.
And, honestly, physics teachers are smart people, but they get even less training in coping with creationist arguments than biology teachers, and unfortunately, a lot of physics instructors and engineers and chemists have more sympathy for ID than do the biologists. Add to that problem the fact that a few notable evolutionists are perfectly willing to pass the headaches on to the physicists, conceding the Big Bang to a vague version of a god, and this could be a major worry.
Comments
I wonder what Ken Miller thinks about that new LHC that is being built at CERN? It, along with theoretical physics, might unlock secrets to how the 'fine-tunings' were tuned by a natural process. And then he needs to find another hiding place for god.
Posted by: daenku32 | December 10, 2006 6:02 PM
It's precisely because of this new focus from the DI that I must now ally myself with the astronomers ... oops!
Posted by: The Science Pundit | December 10, 2006 6:47 PM
Another good reason to vote for Phil, he'll need props if he's going to take over from PJ.
Posted by: JScarry | December 10, 2006 7:07 PM
Oops, wrong blog. PZ not PJ
Posted by: JScarry | December 10, 2006 7:08 PM
Is there an alarm I could set off that is made up of a series of mountain-top bonfires? Or an army of the dead I could summon? No? Crap.
Posted by: jeffk | December 10, 2006 7:16 PM
I never quite got the fine tuning arguments. I get the impression that the point is that the probability of the constants taking the value for life etc is very small, so therefore unless there are multiple universes we infer a creator. I'm assuming therefore that these people know how the constants are selected when the universe was created. I've asked a couple of physicist friends and they have no idea.
Posted by: Chris Hyland | December 10, 2006 7:19 PM
What am I missing? Creationists/IDers are trying to knock out a central principle in natural science. This seems more like harmless Deism (however silly) in that it's not trying to deny anything well-established. I would be delighted if students finished high school with enough comprehension of cosmological constants to even appreciate what these folks are talking about.
Posted by: C | December 10, 2006 7:31 PM
I think the fact that nobody knows how they are selected *is* the point. Unlike traditional creationism, there's no need to ignore or discredit a body of existing knowledge. Of course, like all "god of the gaps" arguments, there's no reason to suppose that physicists will *never* know the reason.
Posted by: Jonathan Badger | December 10, 2006 7:37 PM
I don't think this is going to work out. The moron public can get their heads around a dopey "humans aren't monkeys" argument, but I don't see how they're going to get a hook on physicists-- this is difficult subject matter to understand, even when you're trying.
Posted by: Daephex | December 10, 2006 7:39 PM
As a high school physics teacher I have been waiting for the assault from a religious zealot in my district to object to the NOVA programs I show that indicate the age of the universe is billions of years old or that everything on this planet, including us, is made of old stardust. Cosmology, radioactive dating and the "Big Bang" theories are definitely a target. I read this blog for several reasons, one of which is to frequent a community of people who confront the assault daily. Any advice for us physics types?
Posted by: John-Michael Caldaro | December 10, 2006 7:47 PM
Thank you C, I was really just thinking "It would be marvelous if some waffeling intellectual relativist started talking through his hat right now".
The problem is that they're not trying to hock Deism. They're counting on you to believe that they're hocking Deism so that, once they have Bog in his Bolshy Heaven integrated into those already nonsensical books on cosmology right next to that dressed up tautology of "The Anthropic Principle", they'll have their little creationist Sketchers in the door. They're counting on establishing themselves there, and then using that as a staging point to squeeze into the other areas of science education. They're counting on getting the kids to believe in a sky wizard who will be so vaugely defined as to slip past all of that "no teaching religion in school" stuff that's kept our science cirriculum out of the dregs of the earth for the last few decades because, as soon as they go skipping out of the classroom, they'll go skipping to the local church to fill its coffers.
And how about that Discovery Institute? They don't actually do science. So having some inkling of the little numerical values that should follow the capital lambdas and H-naughts in the cosmology book doesn't seem to do much by itself.
Posted by: Dustin | December 10, 2006 7:48 PM
And, in my opinion, that sympathy will last until about the twelvth time they hear the same creationist abuse the second law of thermodynamics. The only reason that there is more support for the anti-evolution creationist crowd among the physical sciences is that they haven't been exposed enough to the creationist crowd, and the heat hasn't been on any theories important to them (at least, not nearly as high). Once they are subject to the full-court lie of the creationist lobbying machine, the physical scientists will figure out what's going on pretty quick. All it will take is some southern or midwestern state putting a sticker on a textbook asking to "teach the controversy" around Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. As you say, they are pretty smart.
Posted by: Shygetz | December 10, 2006 7:49 PM
" etc is very small, so therefore unless there are multiple universes we infer a creator. "
Well, that would apply to the constants that effect the entire universe.
But there are also the factors required for Earth to support life (distance from Sun, etc), and you'd expect those to pop up multiple times across the entire universe.
So even if they claim the universe was set up for our existence, that doesn't mean there is anything uniquely special about Earth - which is no doubt what they would want to claim.
Posted by: Jon H | December 10, 2006 7:54 PM
I wouldn't worry about physics, anyhow. The creationists will get as warm a reception from physicists as the relativity deniers, perpetual motion machine inventors, and ufologists do.
Posted by: Dustin | December 10, 2006 8:01 PM
So biology and evo devo are not difficult? :-)
I agree with "C" above:
I was surprised by Jon Rowe's thoughts http://positiveliberty.com/2006/04/contra-atheism.html
Posted by: AndyS | December 10, 2006 8:09 PM
Yes, this is a probable scenario and it could be part of the explanation why fine-tuning is mentioned so often.
This tickles my fancy since I have been debating John Pieret on Sandwalk about Millers claim about and on science. We had to agree to disagree, but perhaps I will drop a link referring to why Miller's ideas may be harmful. Chamberlaining seems dangerous!
Sarkar's argument on finetuning could be sharpened to creationists disadvantage.
Creationists conflate physical fine-tuning with conditions that happened to produce Earth. Sarkar also makes a conflation of his own. Fine-tuning of several parameters in current physical theories is an observation. The anthropic principle is an independent idea how parameter values come to be.
Parameter values may be fixed by first principles in some "theory of everything". It seems most theoretical physicists would like that to be true since anthropic reasoning may give hypotheses that are hard or impossible to falsify. A concern is if they are theories then.
There are several anthropic principles which compete with creationism. The most plausible is the tautological AP - parameters we observe must allow for our life. It can be sharpened to the weak AP - the probabilities for parameters that we observe allow for our life was most likely higher. Either of those explains fine-tuning in several different plausible scenarios.
My preferred answers to finetuning is to mention such scenarios since a parameter-setting TOE seems a more remote possibility. But I can also point out that the Ikeda-Jefferys argument shows that fine-tuning seemingly paradoxically supports a naturalistic universe ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_universe ).
The belief that fine-tuning supports a creationistic universe comes from a nonexisting or sloppy analysis. Even accepting the ad hoc constraint of a designer means no support either way. It is simply Dembski's Explanatory Filter debacle in another setting.
BTW, in the original version I-J use a multiverse setting, but any universe where parameters are set by probability suffice. Inflation does that (AFAIK, absent a theory that fixes the values). The case for inflation is good but AFAIK not settled. But the upcoming Planck probe may do that in a few years.
That could place creationists cosmological EF god-of-the-gaps claims explicitly between the Scylla of a theory of everything that fixes parameters and the Charybdis of a theory that does not.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | December 10, 2006 8:20 PM
I'd love to see a Creationist present a coherent argument detailing why life isn't possible if physical constants were slightly different - not just our familiar kind of life, but life in general.
I'd also love to see how they explain why there's only one place suitable for life-as-we-know it within the entire known universe if the universe is designed to be hospitable to us.
Posted by: Caledonian | December 10, 2006 8:21 PM
From what I've seen, they do a little misdirection act where they talk about cosmological constants and then, for their example, jump clear out of context and start talking about things like "if there were 4 spatial dimensions, the planets wouldn't be stable in their orbits". It's the Hovind Gallop Redux.
The real fun comes when they mistake something for a cosmological constant when it isn't anything of the sort. They'll try to throw around things like ground state energies of carbon as though they were arbitrarily set independently of the rest of physics. That's when they get shot down in short order.
Posted by: Dustin | December 10, 2006 8:30 PM
I've said it before:
Posted by: Blake Stacey | December 10, 2006 8:33 PM
*Black eye from hanging out with bad UD crowd.* That's what you get for "communicating" (I'm done).
I never got the fine-tuning claim either. (What did they use to tune the thing, a branch rubbed against a pitchfork?)
Why claim that some intelligent designer fine-tuned everything from the beginning and ballooned, rhyme-runed, and festooned our universe when you are later going to claim that something went "wrong"? Because something always goes "wrong." And then, out of the magic hat (nothing up their sleeves, right?) they pull--ah! Sin and a Fallen World! Isn't that sweet. Just the thing to cheer me up.
And then it's hop-on-the-atheist time. Prove to me that you really believe that your life has meaning when you don't believe in the intelligent designer of all this bad design. Hey, how come there aren't any atheist charities? (Um, that's so false.) Well, you know, because atheists don't believe that everyone's a miserable sinner they never give their money away, because true altruism requires a heavenly reward for yourself.
Got it? Yes, we see.
Frankly, I think there's something even worse coming down the pike, considering all this You Hideous Atheists Don't Believe in Love talk. Just my hunch.
It was fine-tuned way back when in Seattle.
Posted by: Kristine | December 10, 2006 8:34 PM
I'm out in lay land fighting the good fight. Think of me as infantry. I've spent the last year understanding scientific method and biological evolution. It wasn't all that hard to digest. I now know for instance why my head is on one end and my feet are at the other. From Darwin's observations to modernscience figuring out the mechanisms. From bio-medical to bio-engineering. Prediction, prediction, prediction. The wealth of information found at TO is all you really need as a lay person to refute the fundie misconceptions within a lay group of computer nerds. (I'm an old hippy with nerd qualities ;) )
Is there a physics site comparable to TO ? I'd like to get a head start on learning what it will take to refute the fundies in a physics debate.
An Index to Creationist Claims in Physics maybe? etc.
Posted by: Gene Goldring | December 10, 2006 8:38 PM
I don't think this is going to get Creationsists anywhere when it comes to public school curriculum the way it has in biology. Not a whole lot of time in high school physical science is spent talking about anything more than basic mechanics and motion and electricity... we certainly don't talk at all about questions of cosmology and the origin of fundamental constants. So unless the new tactic is to suggest that God nudges balls down inclined planes at a particular acceleration ("Intelligent Rolling Theory") I really doubt any HS physics prof is going to have to deal with these issues.
Posted by: dr. dave | December 10, 2006 8:38 PM
Dr. Dave, I'm ashamed of you. Your metaphysical naturalism has discounted the possibility of an ontologically richer array of causes in which invisible angels push the balls down the incline. This is clearly an example of the philosophical presuppositions of an archnaturalist affecting his interpretation of the empirical data.
Posted by: Dustin | December 10, 2006 8:42 PM
I know the response to this is going to be - like "C" gave above - that the two cases are different: attacking evolution undermines well-established science, the fine tuning hypothesis merely speculates on something science hasn't resolved. But this distinction simply isn't true: the strategy of Intelligent Design has been to claim that unresolved issues in evolutionary biology are intractable. In that respect ID is a "God of the gaps" argument similar in nature to the ones theistic evolutionists and scientific deists have presented. The only difference between claiming that God set the constants of the Universe and claiming that the structure of a particular molecule is "irreducibly complex" is that the latter is likely to be disproved sometime soon.
If you're going to present science to the public, you should take especial care with the parts that are incomplete, not just use them to jam in whatever speculation fits your world view. Speculation over how science could resolve the issue should take precedence over how to interpret the fact that it might not be able to (which is what all "God of the gaps" arguments are).
Posted by: poke | December 10, 2006 8:44 PM
... perhaps I will drop a link referring to why Miller's ideas may be harmful.
Why would they be that? Miller identifies his ideas about the uncertainty principle and the universal constants as theology. That's the last thing the DI crowd want.
Posted by: John Pieret | December 10, 2006 8:45 PM
Dustin I think I'd spell it "waffling" and the verb you want is "hawk" as in sell, not "hock" which means pawn.
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/329/hock/
As for substance, I simply posed a question, so there's not even a position to be called relativist. I did mark a distinction between the sort of creationism that would attack astronomical knowledge (which is a serious threat) and the long-standing tradition of Deism which'll always be with us because it's irrefutable, but which has also always acknowledged, and *indeed relied on*, natural science. Deism, strictly speaking, is not a threat to science. It's not particularly helpful either, but it's a supplemental belief. (Traditional deism is also anti-Christian because it denies miracles, so it would be interesting to know if somebody has effected a new synthesis.)
Of course the Discovery Institute is up to no good. But you're going to have to write more coherent posts to delineate the threat.
Posted by: C | December 10, 2006 8:53 PM
"...unfortunately, a lot of physics instructors and engineers and chemists have more sympathy for ID than do the biologists."
No kidding. At one of the two major high schools in our town, the chemistry teacher begins the year by standing up in front of the class and saying, "Now, I am a Christian, and I do want y'all to know that." As if that were remotely relevant to the teaching of chemistry. He also happens to believe in six-day creation.
Posted by: j | December 10, 2006 8:58 PM
Just a quick tip for any physicists who haven't had experience with Creationists:
If they bring up probability, chances are that you can use these three magic words: "Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy."
Posted by: Bronze Dog | December 10, 2006 9:06 PM
Thanks poke for a careful reply.
"the strategy of Intelligent Design has been to claim that unresolved issues in evolutionary biology are intractable."
ID has been a relentlessly stupid-making, bad-faith attack on the very *idea* of science. It draws directly on the worldview Darwin went after, that the natural world shows the work of a Creator at the finest-grained level -- an infinite number of tiny miracles, as it were.
But Deism is the opposite of the gaps-God argument. It's a God of the whole, a God outside the whole, a watchmaker God who sort of pushed everything off in the right direction and never intervened again. Deism gets its enlightenment-era inspiration *from* Newton and in fact relies on natural science as a knowledge-making project. Deists have generally been happy to get out of the way and let science show order, and whatever order it shows, say how lovely it is.
I agree that Deism ain't science. And I agree that some of the arguments around fine-tuning have an annoyingly woo-woo feeling about them. I just want to sort out the issues.
Posted by: C | December 10, 2006 9:18 PM
John-Michael Caldaro, a high school physics teacher, asked a good and useful question above. It appears to have zoomed right past without notice. How about some of the physics types here answer him. Where are the appropriate physics resources? Who is working on making the compendium of rebuttals to the misrepresentations that he'll be faced with? Privileged Planet bullshit is already showing up in high school science fairs, so it has already started for those teachers. How about the physical scientists give their high school colleagues some help here.
Posted by: RBH | December 10, 2006 9:37 PM
Dustin wrote
"I wouldn't worry about physics, anyhow. The creationists will get as warm a reception from physicists as the relativity deniers, perpetual motion machine inventors, and ufologists do."
Yes, but the problem is that most of us physicists just smirk or frown at these types of crackpots (there are of course exceptions). But they are much more innocent than creationists, so there may be a problem there. Physicists may have to learn that creationists are in another league.
Posted by: Rikard | December 10, 2006 9:38 PM
"Not a whole lot of time in high school physical science is spent talking about anything more than basic mechanics and motion and electricity... we certainly don't talk at all about questions of cosmology and the origin of fundamental constants."
I'd think it would show up more often in elementary school. Not so much because physics or cosmology are in the curriculum, but teachers might slip it into Earth Science lectures, especially if some kid brings up the Big Bang.
Posted by: Jon H | December 10, 2006 9:38 PM
Correction: It was a bloody middle school science fair!
Posted by: RBH | December 10, 2006 9:39 PM
There's something I've never understood about the claim of fine-tuning. How exactly is any observer not going to observe a "finely-tuned" universe, no matter how low the probability of such conditions actually existing? I mean, I know that my own existence is highly unlikely, but how could one go about observing one's own non-existence? Am I missing something in the creationists' arguements, or are they really that dense?
Posted by: NElls | December 10, 2006 9:57 PM
Nope, NElls, that's the anthropic principle for you.
As Douglas Adams once put it, it's like a puddle of water being amazed at how perfectly the depression it sits in conforms to its shape.
Posted by: Caledonian | December 10, 2006 10:01 PM
Many anthropic arguments entail a subjective interpretation. I tend to shy away from the idea that because we are here to talk about it that the universe was built whole and fit for us to do so. In any sense of the idea except the natural progression of things.
It seems apparent that regardless of the exact universal constants as we know them here presently, another universe similar to ours would likely have a certain (high?) probability of being hospitable to those forms of life that might live in it, if any. If one (or more) of those lifeforms developed the means to do so, they might well remark on their good fortune.
Some of them, by virtue of their ability to comment on their good fortune one to another, might also be tempted to codify such revealing insights into a form that "everyone" could understand. Read "dumbed down."Then, given wide acceptance and vaguely (or non-) stated principles, offer the inside poop for a special introductory price.
If this is true then not only must the rational suffer the faithful (and vice versa) but also this same scenario may be playing out right now, as we speak, in universes between our cells and under our beds, in numbers incalculable.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | December 10, 2006 10:23 PM
It isn't just the creationists. I just gave "Cosmological Inflation and Large-Scale Structure" a once-over. Liddle and Lythe cite the Anthropic Principle as some kind of profound, earth-shattering revelation and actually use it in the footnotes as a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card whenever they're stumped on the reasons for this-or-that value of this-or-that constant. It wasn't pervasive, but it still marred my opinion of the book.
Now this:
Now you're just being disingenuous. You did not simply pose a question, and you did take a position. I'd blockquote your original post, but I trust you can scroll back and read it, C.
Posted by: Dustin | December 10, 2006 10:34 PM
I don't think it has come to that. Meanwhile, different physics FAQ (and also Wikipedia in some cases) does a decent job as being resources. And TO tackles some of these issues too, IIRC. Perhaps it should simply be expanded on.
John, remember we had to agree to disagree. I think it is clear that Miller makes claim about and on science, while you do not.
As to why they would be harmful, Sarkar's argues so convincingly without the issue of identified theology being either a concern to his argument or disadvantageous to stealth ID since it is a well known and often used backdoor for religious claims on science. "For instance, the biochemist Ken Miller, who ably defends evolution against creationist charges in Finding Darwin's God, goes on to claim that God created the universe with its laws and evolution is simply a result of these laws.
These moves are dangerous: once the creator enters the science classroom, even through the physicists' backdoor, the room for mischief is enormous. Biologists would do well to remember that, ultimately, what has motivated creationists to action throughout history is the natural origin of the human species."
I am very fond of that analogy. I'm glad someone thought to bring it up.
The weak AP should be that the probability was high that the depression was deep enough to contain all of the rain water draining to it. Personally, I think that idea is somewhat slippery, if not wet.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | December 10, 2006 11:46 PM
Following up on NElls question: It is true that an observer has to see constants that are exactly what they need to be for him (or her) to observe them. That's the tautological side of the anthropic principle, the part that just means that the universe is self-consistent (and the part that annoys many of my fellow physicists).
The interesting part comes when you note that very small changes in some of these constants would produce a very different universe, and if you can make the argument that such a universe would be vastly less hospitable to life. Different physics could lead to different forms of life, of course, but there are some relatively small changes that could make a universe very boring indeed. Galaxies (and hence large quantities of stars) would never form if there were a bit more dark energy in the universe, stars wouldn't shine if you tweaked a few nuclear parameters a bit, etc. These kinds of observations do present a very interesting challenge to our usual program of understanding. If these numbers are specified by some fundamental particle physics, why should they also be so amenable to life? If they are random, why should we have been so insanely lucky?
These questions lead to two ultimate ways out (other than just saying "I don't know"). One is to say that someone planned it that way, and that we've uncovered the first really interesting evidence for some form of intelligent design. The other is to say that the universe is very big and some of these numbers are different in different regions - we hit the jackpot, but that will happen eventually if you play enough! The reasoning is very intriguing, though it's not clear how to test this argument (upsetting to me as an experimentalist). In fact, it may be that there is no experimental way of distinguishing the two options. God or an infinitude of universes - choose the option that upsets your Occam's razor instincts the least.
Regardless, this very interesting debate has nothing to do with evolution. Even if you took this as evidence of God, it wouldn't show he was the God of creationism of the God of the Judeo-Christian Bible. It plays into the old fallacy: "If I think God exists, that must mean everything my preacher told me is true!".
Posted by: JeffF | December 10, 2006 11:56 PM
The Anthropic Principle is proof that scientists can be just as silly as theologians sometimes. Honestly, it's as bad as or worse than the Ontological Argument.
Posted by: Joshua | December 11, 2006 12:00 AM
"So biology and evo devo are not difficult? :-)"
I don't find them nearly as difficult as contemplating the nature of the universe, no! Biology is very interesting, but it really lacks that "too big for my puny human brain" component of something like astrophysics. If anyone wants to get me a killer Cephalopodmas gift, though, how about booking me a pizza lunch with a talkative astrophysicist? That would be WAY cool.
Posted by: Daephex | December 11, 2006 12:07 AM
One way that interested parties could prepare themselves would be to dust off a copy of Rudolph Carnap's "Pseudoproblems in Philosophy". Unlike hashing out the generalities and particulars of a scientific theory like evolution, this new tactic is going to take everyone involved in the argument straight to the existence of God and the origin of the universe. It will make life a lot easier if everyone is ready to simply dismiss questions like "Why is the universe here?" or "Ok, atheists, where did the universe come from, then?" as the meaningless nonsense they really are.
I guess I should be happy about this. If the creationists are getting ready to haul out the metaphysics, this could spark a revival of logical positivism (Eat my shorts, Popper!) since it's really easier to simply deprive them of their questions than to wrangle around a bunch of vague and baseless metaphysical nonsense.
Posted by: Dustin | December 11, 2006 12:09 AM
Interestingly, a number of months back I had a bit of a spat with a friend who holds a degree in astrophysics about just this subject.
No, I wasn't on the side you might think...
I pointed out the logical flaws with the arguments regarding the nature of the cosmological constants being precisely what we need to survive and therefore implying a creator.
As I recall, my argument was something like: "We evolved in this environment, so of course it is perfectly suited for us. Why are you assuming the result preceeded the cause, and that the product in any other case wouldn't be evolved for its own universe? The idea seems to be begging the question: because we exist, therefore we must exist."
I believe my actual rebuttal was more coherent/elegant than that.
Regardless, this friend threw a hissy-fit -- boasted about his credentials (and attacked my lack of such) -- especially when I pointed out the argument regarding the fine-tuning of the universe being evidence for a creator of some sort wasn't as accepted a theory as he was making it out to be (based on a quick perusal of Google and Wikipedia).
To me, it seems a great deal like asking the question: "If I married a different woman, would I have had the same children I do now?" And then saying, "Yes!" without any evidence whatsoever to back up that assertion, except for the idea that since my current children were the result, they have to be the result -- or that I had to marry my current wife, or some other bizzare pre-destination paradox.
That's just so mind-bendingly backwards a position I don't even know how to approach it. It's "*poof*, woo, magic! Let's go read our daily horoscopes!"
That it was being held and espoused as "really good evidence" by someone with a sciences degree...sheesh, I don't know. What the hell are they teaching you guys in college these days?
Posted by: Rev. Raven Daegmorgan | December 11, 2006 12:17 AM
Well, for my part, I was never taught the anthropic principle in school. It's doubtful that your friend was either since, in my experience, even the mention of the anthropic principle makes physicists wince. It's one of those poisonous little memes that spread because they're conceptually simple but packaged in a way that makes them sound sophisticated.
Also, science credentials do not a scientist make. There are highly credentialed fools out there, and I've met a fair share of graduate school dropouts who, nonetheless, produced high quality results that earned them a tenure track position.
Posted by: Dustin | December 11, 2006 12:30 AM
Please don't get the idea that I'm intending to defend the ID claptrap that's being heaped onto this topic. I think that the environmental selection (e.g. "anthropic") arguments I hear colleagues making are intriguing, but they tend not to be all that useful in practice. It's also pretty arrogant to claim that we know enough about the universe to really feel confident in making these arguments yet. Calling this "proof" of God is dubious at best, and connecting it to any discussion of evolution is sheer dishonesty.
My point instead is that this is not in the same category with the usual ID/Creationist B.S., and shouldn't be dismissed as such. Environmental arguments can have real content in principle, though we're not there yet and they are often radically misused in practice.
Posted by: JeffF | December 11, 2006 12:36 AM
There are highly credentialed fools out there, and I've met a fair share of graduate school dropouts who, nonetheless, produced high quality results that earned them a tenure track position.
Very true, and that is one of the reasons I'm skeptical of the claim, made by some, that an increase in the quality of science education will necessarily nix creationism and other forms of pseudoscience. I know of (and personally know, with varying degrees of familiarity) several science grad students who are sympathetic to ID, even if it doesn't come through in their actual work.
The reason America is so in love with foolish nonsense like creationism is because of the social atmosphere involving superstition and anti-intellectualism. If we are to marginalize creationism and other nonsense to European levels, broader cultural changes need to happen. Unfortunately, I don't see them happening anytime soon.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | December 11, 2006 12:39 AM
Although I was dimly aware of some of the anthropic principle/fine-tuning type reasoning from a quick conversational interchange in a college physics course, I hadn't really thought about it too much until I saw this post. Having briefly looked at a recap of the fine-tuning argument, I have to say: how is it any different from the old, "Why are there beings at all rather than nothing?" pseudo-question?
I get that there's a legitimate reason to marvel at the fact that physical constants of the universe are such as to make the universe a comparably interesting place, but as we know very well around here, incredulity is not a basis for belief-fixation of any kind. Moreover, while I grant that other constellations of physical constants are conceivable, do we have any further reason for believing they are physically possible? The probability argument only gets off the ground if other constellations of constants really could have been realized, and I don't know how one would go about establishing that as a real possibility (as opposed to a merely conceivable possibility), other than showing that said constants could have been otherwise because (in some other universe or region of the universe) they are otherwise, or by having have some inkling of how they in fact came to be, and we can see how it might have turned out else. But in the one case, it seems as though one could say, "We just happen to be in an amenable [part of the] universe," and in the other, the answer to the question presupposes some alternative (if partial) explanation, that presumably doesn't involve positing a deity.
That's probably a whole lot of armchair handwaving on my part, possibly incoherent, but I don't know a lick about physics--especially not any physics that's relevant to the question. But that reminds me why I might not mind the creationists pushing in on the physicists' territory: perhaps just as the ID "controversy" has encouraged me to learn more about evolutionary biology, a fine-tuning argument "controversy" would encourage me to learn more about fundamental cosmology.
Nah. I enjoy learning about science (part of a philosopher's balanced diet) quite a bit, but I'm not sadistic enough to wish the creationists on another undeserving discipline.
Posted by: noema | December 11, 2006 1:11 AM
But JeffF, I don't see why it is necessary to propose infinite (or even just multiple) universes to account for our universe allowing life as we know it. If the universe did not allow for life, yes, it would be a very dull place, but no one would notice. So what if it was a one in a trillion chance that the universal constants would allow life? We would have to be lucky in order to observe that we were lucky.
Posted by: NElls | December 11, 2006 1:21 AM
A couple of thoughts about Mr Caldaro's issues. The "constants" debate, and all related pre-Big Bang questions, are rather in the same boat as abiogenesis - ie we don't know, so the terrain is occupied by more or less informed speculation based on what we do know. The issues of the age of the universe, stellar origin of heavier elements, dating, etc are however the stuff of actual science, in the same way that natural selection is.
It seems to me we need to be precise in what we are defending. The creationist positions on abiogenesis and the physical constants (ie God) are unscientific not because they contradict an established theory but because they violate the presumption of naturalism. That doesn't make them wrong (yet), but it does imply that science can never produce any answers, and therefore falls victim to the standard critique of "God of the gaps" (whatever Paul Davies may think).
So let's not allow the enemy to confuse the question of the origins of life or the universe with the evolution of life and the cosmos (remembering akso that "evolution" has different meanings in the two disciplines). As of today, one set of questions is still philosophy, the other is science.
Posted by: johnc | December 11, 2006 1:24 AM
Dead on. So many of those attempts at finding a GUT are motivated by the hope that the seemingly arbitrary nature of those constants can be eliminated. Everyone seems to be uncomfortable by the fact that so many mass ratios and other things need to be experimentally determined and then introduced by hand into the theories we have now. And of course, if they aren't arbitrarily determined, then there is not any good reason to think that they're independent of one another either. So, while tweaking those constants in models to see what happens is perfectly fine, following the modeling up with lofty claims about the necessity of God is not.
Posted by: Dustin | December 11, 2006 1:42 AM
While I do believe that God created this fine-tuned universe for His purposes, I also believe that it isn't an argument for His existence. By such reasoning, any result of any random sequence of events would be proof that the sequence wasn't random, which is absurd to me. No, I believe the universe is fine-tuned because I first believe there is a "tuner". Any marveling I do at the details is just mind candy.
Posted by: geocreationist | December 11, 2006 3:06 AM
Not a priori. Though it turns out that many theories have a leeway that is hard to fix, ranging from a simple potential upwards. For example, string theory is a proposal for a fundamental theory that are such. The theory has still 10^100 different possible configurations or so.
Further it seems that such theories in tentative cosmological settings often lead to possible solutions with pocket and/or bubble universes with different properties. Perhaps this is what JeffF was referring to - it is a rather common property, perhaps inevitable in some fairly simple settings. (Not to mention interesting. Which is one reason for many speculations, of course.)
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | December 11, 2006 3:10 AM
Any marveling I do at the details is just mind candy.
something tells me you should see a dentist.
Posted by: Ichthyic | December 11, 2006 4:12 AM
As someone who has taught an introductory physics class on more than one occasion, I think this is a tempest in a teapot. There is at best only the weakest of pedagogical justifications to even discussing the anthropic principle in a high school physics course; I doubt very much that either the AP or cosmological constants figure explicitly in any state standards. If someone knows different, I'd be interested in hearing about how, and in which state.
I do agree that there are physics and chemistry teachers who are creationists and we should be leery of same, but the fact is the orientation of those courses is not anywhere near the topic of origins, typically. And, when physics and chem instructors (and for that matter, engineers and mathematicians) go bad, they typically go bad as they attempt to speak outside their area of expertise.
SH
Posted by: Scott Hatfield | December 11, 2006 4:14 AM
A few more comments, for TL and Caledonian:
TL, when I looked at the link you dished for the IK argument (thanks, BTW) I'm afraid I missed the landing of the blow I expected. From reading the Wikipedia summation in the notes, it seemed one could easily insert 'Petri dish' for every appearance of the word 'universe' and come to the absurd conclusion that Petri dishes, by being life-sufficient, are naturally-occurring objects.
Since I know that your thought is quite a bit more sophisticated than that, I'm assuming that I misunderstood the summary and/or the summary was incomplete or otherwise faulty. I'd like to learn more about the argument, in other words, before performing a snap judgement.
Caledonian: one doesn't have to be a creationist to recognize that twiddling with some of the parameters would render life impossible. Paul Davies is no creationist, but makes the same point. Change 'G' just a little and no hydrogen coalesces in the early universe, for example.
SH
Posted by: Scott Hatfield | December 11, 2006 4:26 AM
I would have thought that the best argument against the stupid anthropic principle (and it is stupid) is Douglas Adams' "puddle" in HitchHiker .....
As a Physicist/Engineer, I can tell you, that agreeing with previous posters, the reception will be very warm (like fusion temperatures) from the profession.
For example: The thermodynamical argument only works for a closed system, and Earth is not a closed system.
Posted by: G. Tingey | December 11, 2006 4:53 AM
And why is hydrogen necessary for life?
Didn't quite think that through, didya?
Posted by: Caledonian | December 11, 2006 8:38 AM
"Also, science credentials do not a scientist make."
Sounds more like a case of science credentials do not a philosopher make. Well, it depends on the exact gap in question...
I think it quite likely that the standard model of particle physics is explainable, and will eventually be explained in terms of a model with greater scope, and maybe even with fewer than the 29 parameters of the (new, neutrino mass) standard model. Explaining why the standard model is the way it is is well within the scope of physics (though we can't yet demonstrate that physics can explain it), the God that fixed the parameters of the Standard Model is the same God of the gaps we've undoubtedly all run across many times before.
In my limited experience Deists tend not to be so silly as to assert God fixed the parameters of the Standard Model. The I.D. crowd in contrast are that silly. That silly and more. I suspect Dustin is quite right that "they'll try to throw around things like ground state energies of carbon as though they were arbitrarily set independently of the rest of physics." They're ignorant of biology, theology, metaphysics and the contents of their own holy book[1], why should physics be any different?
[1] Yup, despite all the citations from scripture, the ID/fundie crowd don't know what's in the Bible. This becomes clear fairly fast if someone who has actually read the thing starts asking questions.
Posted by: Andrew Wade | December 11, 2006 8:41 AM
"Well, it depends on the exact gap in question..."
To elaborate, the question of why this universe exists at all, and follows physical laws in the first place, is a different sort of gap from the usual "missing link" sort. It's a philosophical question (or pseudo-question as the case may be) and science can't answer it. So it's not that surprising that a scientist would not be familiar with the long and sordid history of that question and its answers.
Whereas the question of why the parameters to the Standard Model have the values they do is very much a scientific question. One that so far has no answer, but that's not a good reason for thinking there is no answer in science to be found.
Posted by: Andrew Wade | December 11, 2006 8:59 AM
There really *was* a fine tuning problem in big-bang cosmology, back in the 70's. To get universe that is as 'flat' as observations, the density during the early stages had to be tuned to some absurd (one part in 10**30?) level.
But along came inflationary cosmology (and 'new' inflationary cosmology soon after), and the fine tuning problem was solved. Not that there aren't open questions and problems with inflationary cosmology, but damn, it's been wildly successful, so that the original fine-tuning problems is buried and forgotten.
I fully expect that these other fine-tuning issues meet the same fate. Would that they could take the DIers with them.
Posted by: Grumpy Physicist | December 11, 2006 9:34 AM
Torbjorn has it right here, as I understand it - I've heard Susskind and Linde give just this basic argument. The reason why environmental selection (anthropic) arguments have gotten so much traction recently is because this kind of thing is very generic in current theories. You get faced with an enormous number of ways the theory could have turned out, but no way of choosing among them. Things like the number of large dimensions of space or the cosmological constant are affected by the values certain fields take, but these values are really just random in the theory - they fluctuate quantum mechanically from place to place. Some values of constants will cause their regions to rapidly expand, others to quickly recollapse (similar to the way a gene pool composition varies with time).
If that basic fact is true, environmental selection becomes obvious in much the way evolution is. We have a source of variation (quantum fluctuations) and a sort of fitness selection - most observers will observe a universe that is very interesting, since many more observers will appear in those regions than in the more boring regions. Appearing to have "hit the jackpot" is a lot less surprising if you know you've been playing the game for a long time.
The debate in theoretical physics is over whether this is really testable, and surprisingly there are many attempts at producing actual predictions (though I personally think they fall short of being very interesting thus far).
Posted by: JeffF | December 11, 2006 10:01 AM
this is a tempest in a teapot
orbiting Mars!
Posted by: Kristine | December 11, 2006 11:38 AM
All this arguing about drawing the bullseye after you fire, multiverses and so on is interesting, but I think Blake nails why - even if the universe *is* unlikely - a god cannot possibly explain it in any meaningful sense:
It's very similar to the point the IDists love to ignore: if all complex life had to be designed, who designed god? If complex lifeforms can only exist in a fine-tuned universe, what universe is god from and who fine-tuned it?
God as an uncaused first cause or an unmoved prime mover or an undesigned designer doesn't explain anything any better than the universe itself as an uncaused cause or an unmoved mover (and much worse than the theory that complex beings don't necessarily have to be designed). It's just the same old fundamentally self-defeating cosmological arguments that have been around, not convincing anyone, for thousands of years.
Whenever there is a major disaster with few survivors, some of the living can generally be counted on to thank the god of their choice for preserving them. The opinion of the dead as to whether or not a god chose them to *not* preserve is rarely solicited and never obtained. Only the living can wonder why they are alive. Dead people, like dead universes, can't even ask the question. Therefore, the fact that every person wondering why they are alive actually *is* alive despite the odds against them... isn't remarkable at all when you look at it from the right perspective.
Posted by: Chris | December 11, 2006 12:07 PM
I understand that there may in fact be multiple universes, or that there may be regions with different constants, but I still don't see why they are necessary to refute the anthropic argument. Even given a single universe with no regions of differing constants and an almost infinitesimal chance of being hospitable to any sort of life, in other words the best case scenario for the anthropic argument, I still don't see how this could be logically seen as an argument for God. Yes, the probability of our being able to exist would be incredibly low, but the probability of our being able to exist given that we can observe the probability of existing would be 100%. We still wouldn't have any need of divine intervention.
Posted by: NElls | December 11, 2006 12:07 PM
This casts "god" as being a Puckish or Pan-style trickster figure, an idea I rather like, since it's more in league with some traditions' ideas of "satan".
Posted by: Warren | December 11, 2006 12:40 PM
What is worth remembering is that there isn't even a real word for the supposed fine-tuning "creation event". I have to put it in quotes because not even the "hypothesis", let alone the evidence, points to a creation event behind the "fine-tuning".
Contrast that to the propaganda value of "design". You can tell people that everything "looks designed" and many will believe it since they know no more about design than they do about biology. Yet it sounds "scientific" to "detect design" in organisms. And even if they say the same thing about the universe and its "fine-tuning", it just doesn't have the same impact as saying that flesh and blood animals were designed. That the parameters of the universe are the responsibility of some "creator" that doesn't really sound like the God they hear about on Sunday may in fact have them claiming fine-tuning for their God, but it will seem like "woo" even to them.
ID was supposed to provide "concrete evidence" for the creator (never mind the fact that they had no evidence at all, a bit of sciency jargon was enough to convince many that eliminativism (not that they could even accomplish that) was evidence for design), not the vague "God is behind it all" that some philosophers and many theistic evolutionists are content to accept. Creationists have used "fine-tuning" as long as it has existed as an "argument", but it has never been their main stock in trade. They don't understand it, they want proof of the flood and numbers that "disprove evolution".
Well fine, but maybe fine-tuning is the backdoor to crackpot numbers and "proofs of the flood"? No, I doubt it, as long as any vigilance remains. Only the top guys are sophisticated, if not in science, at least in PR--and even they put the asinine biological ID nonsense in The Privileged Planet." These guys can't stop themselves from piling on the "evidences" in an attempt to win with sheer weight (they seem to know that some of their arguments might fail, yet they suppose that some will not). Remember Dover. The creationists who enact curricula and legislation can't shut up about God, creationism, and their belief that the Bible is the source of all Truth.
We do need to remain awake, but if at least that, not terribly worried. Fine-tuning problems do exist, but there isn't a seemingly plausible anthropocentric super "designer" to invoke as a "reasonable hypothesis" for fine-tuning the universe. The philosopher's God might seem reasonable enough to the philosophers (Antony Flew, even), but the creationists/IDists want a God as an enhancement of their own image, a hyper-engineer. They cannot push for cosmic woo without demanding that the super-engineer is a plausible scientific theory for organisms as well.
Plus the DI morons will go around preaching in the churches about how the universe and life mean that Jesus and Yahweh got together one day and decided to create everything (Behe himself can't even stick with the God who controls evolution, but had