The Unauthorized Outline Notes for TrueU
DOES GOD EXIST? //01
04 - Big Bang Cosmology Pt 3
Isa 45:18 For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), "I am the LORD, and there is none else.
Finite Universe
Thesis
There is compelling evidence for the intelligent design of the entire universe because of the “fine-tuning” of the laws of physics and chemistry.
Intelligent design is the best explanation for the “fine-tuning” of the universe as a whole.
A FINELY TUNED MACHINE
- the universe is expanding at a very precisely calibrated rate
- If the universe were expanding faster, then there would be no structure in the universe. (Heat death)
- If the universe were expanding slower, it would collapse back in on itself. (the Big Crunch)
The Cosmological Constant
Fine tuned to 1 part in a 100 million, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion
1:100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Jay Richards – Philosopher Action Institute
Anthropic fine-tuning evidences
Anthro – Man
Fine tuned for human life
“The possibility of life as we know it depends on the values of a few basic physical constants and is, in some respects, remarkably sensitive to their numerical values. Nature does exhibit remarkable coincidences.”
- M. J. Rees, Cambridge University Professor
John Polkinghorne, Cambridge Physicist
Why are the “Dials” fine-tuned to allow for the possibility of life?
The universe is a “setup job”.
“A common sense interpretation of the data suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well with chemistry and biology.”
- Sir Fred Hoyle, Cosmologist
“The thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency – or rather Agency – must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being?”
- George Greenstein, Astronomer
WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?
Fine-Tuning
Why do we infer design?
Specification = A meaningful pattern
The correlation of the conditions that allow for life and the values of the constants of fine-tuning forms a “functionally significant” outcome.
William Dembski, “The Design Inference”
When do we infer design?
1. A highly improbable event.
2. A pattern or functional outcome.
Fine-tuning allows life to be.
SPECULATIVE EXTRAVAGANZA
Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP)
We shouldn’t be surprised that we live in a universe in which the conditions that are necessary for our existence are present.
Problems with the Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP)
1) Doesn’t explain why the necessary conditions of life and universe are so improbable
2) Confuses a necessary condition with a cause
David Berlinski, Philosopher & Mathematician
Brandon Carter
WHO MADE THE BREAD-MAKING-MAKING MACHINE?
The Many Worlds Hypothesis
The idea that many other universes may exist.
If there are other universes that exist, we can explain our universe as a chance in a cosmic lottery.
Robin Collins, Philosopher of Physics
William of Ockham
Rule of reasoning:
Don’t multiply theoretical entities
Fine-Tuning
When you have a finely tuned system that also produces a function, then you know that intelligence is involved.
Anthropic Fine-Tuning Principle
“No such argument can ever be absolutely conclusive, and the anthropic fine-tuning argument stops just short of knock-down proof. For there could’ve been millions and millions of different universes created each with different settings, of the fundamental ratios and constants, so many in fact that one with the right set was eventually bound to turn up by sheer chance. We just happened to be the lucky ones. But there is no evidence for such a theory what-so-ever. On the other hand the evidence for the truth of anthropic fine-tuning argument is of such an order of certainty that in any other sphere of science we would regard it as absolutely settled. To insist otherwise is like insisting that Shakespeare was not written by Shakespeare because it might have been written by billions of monkeys sitting at billions of keyboards over billions of years. But so it might. But the sight of the scientific atheist clutching at such desperate straws has put new spring in the step of the theists. For the first time in more than a hundred years, they no longer feel the need to apologize for their beliefs. Perhaps now, they should apologize for their previous apologies.”
- Clifford Longley, “Focusing on Theism,” London Times, January 21, 1989, p. 10.
Attributes of the Cause of the Universe
1. Transcends matter, time, space and energy
2. Intelligent, rational
Conclusion
Intelligent design provides the best explanation of the “fine-tuning” of the laws of physics and chemistry. And thus it points to not only a transcendent cause of the universe, but also an intelligent and rational one.
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