Posted on 08/07/2004 2:28:51 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
We are lucky to be alive. Extraordinarily lucky. So lucky, in fact, that some people can only see God's hand in our good fortune.
Creationists are fond of pointing out that if you mess with the physical laws of the Universe just a little, we wouldn't be here. For example, if the neutron were just 1% heavier, or the proton 1% lighter, or the electron were to have 20% more electrical charge, then atoms could not exist. There would be no stars, and no life.
But although creationists rejoice in the divine providence that has made the Universe exquisitely contrived to support life, science has long argued for an alternative explanation: the anthropic principle.
The theory has been supported by several leading physicists and astronomers, from Fred Hoyle to Steven Weinberg, who claim it reduces the mystery of our existence to a logical necessity.
Yet the whole idea is roundly trashed by Lee Smolin, a renowned quantum-gravity theorist at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Canada. Smolin asserts, in a preprinted paper on Arxiv1, that the anthropic principle is not a scientific theory at all, because it lacks the basic requirement of falsifiability. It is impossible to prove the anthropic principle wrong, hence it is outside the remit of science.
Circular argument
In truth, the idea always had an air of circularity about it. Crudely put, the anthropic principle states that our universe must look the way it does (that is, primed for life), because if it didn't, we wouldn't be here to argue about it.
But there is a little more sophistication to the idea, which has enabled some researchers to claim that they have put the principle to the test.
The argument usually goes something like this. Let us assume that our Universe is in fact just one of many. This collection of universes is called the multiverse, and its members cannot affect each other in any way. Assume also that physics, by which we mean the fundamental constants of nature, such as Planck's constant and the speed of light, differs more or less at random in each universe.
Most of these universes would be unable to support life. But if there were enough universes, a tiny fraction of them should have just the right parameters to give rise to a cosmos like ours.
Then, the anthropic principle asserts, the intelligent beings in those lucky universes would marvel at how their universe seemed fine-tuned for life, unaware of the countless other universes that remain barren forever. There is no need to invoke God to explain our precarious existence; chance alone suffices.
How one arrives at the multiverse is another matter, but there are possible mechanisms for that. For example, an extension of inflationary theory called eternal inflation suggests that new universes could continually blossom from tiny regions of a precursor universe2.
Alternatively, new universes could be spawned by bouncing black holes. General relativity predicts that sufficiently large stars can collapse without limit under their own gravity to produce a point of space-time that is infinitely small and infinitely dense: the 'singularity' of a black hole. But the quantum-mechanical effects that must take hold at very small scales could in theory cause this collapse to reverse, so the black hole could rebound to form an entirely new universe, which would be a region of space isolated from the universe in which the black hole originally formed.
Put to the test
So in principle one can make new universes, and the anthropic principle could be true. But the real question is, does it actually predict or explain anything? This is what Smolin disputes. He thinks that not only has the idea failed to produce any testable predictions, it cannot do so even in principle.
That is quite a controversial view. Fred Hoyle, for example, used the anthropic principle to successfully predict the existence of a certain energetically excited state of the carbon nucleus. He argued that there would be no life as we know it without carbon, which can only be produced by stars. And he calculated that carbon atoms could only be made in stars in significant quantities if carbon possessed this particular state, which had never at that stage been observed.
Armed with his prediction, astronomers duly looked for the excited state, and found it. It sounds impressive. But Smolin points out that there is nothing anthropic about this reasoning. We know that carbon exists in the Universe irrespective of the existence of life, so life plays no essential role in the logic.
Look at it another way: suppose the predicted state of carbon had not been seen. Would we conclude that the anthropic principle was wrong? Clearly not, because carbon does, in fact, exist, and so do we. We would have to conclude instead that there must be some way of generating carbon other than the one Hoyle proposed, or that his calculations were wrong.
Much the same applies to a prediction of the value of the cosmological constant, made by Steven Weinberg in 1987. The cosmological constant was originally proposed by Einstein as a way of stopping his equations of relativity from predicting an expanding Universe (it was at that time assumed to be static). The idea of such a constant is now back in favour, because it might, this time, be used to rationalize the recently observed acceleration of the Universe's expansion.
Weinberg invoked the anthropic principle to argue that the constant could not be very large, or the Universe would expand too fast for galaxies, stars (or us) to form. A subsequent refinement of his argument predicted that the probability that the cosmological constant has the value suggested by current astrophysical observations is only around 10%.
In other words, the principle seems to make a prediction that, if not stunningly accurate, is certainly plausible. But again, Smolin says, "What is actually doing the work in the arguments is never the existence of life or intelligent observers, but only true observed facts about the universe, such as that carbon and galaxies are plentiful." Our own existence doesn't 'predict' anything.
"The anthropic principle is never going to give falsifiable predictions for the parameters of physics and cosmology," Smolin asserts.
No need for God
So are we forced back to the hypothesis of God? Not at all. Smolin adduces an alternative that, he claims, is scientifically falsifiable. He calls it 'cosmological natural selection'.
The most obvious scientific theory that accounts for a situation that, at first sight, seemed highly improbable is natural selection, points out Smolin. Darwin's idea abolished the need for the Reverend William Paley's heavenly 'watchmaker' to fashion the beautifully 'designed' products of biology.
Smolin believes that a similar principle could save us from making the same mistake about the Universe. This does not involve indulging in any "mysticism about living universes", he reassures us. Rather, he suggests that if there exists some process by which parent universes spawn new universes with small, random changes in their physical parameters, and if the characteristics of a universe determine how many progeny it produces, then fine-tuned universes like ours can arise by cosmological natural selection.
In particular, if new universes are produced by black-hole bounces, then universes in which stars (and thus black holes) can form are 'fitter' than others. After a period of time, you would expect the universes produced by this process to have a set of cosmological parameters that maximizes the number of black holes that can form.
That conclusion helps to explain why we are here, since universes in which complicated structures such as stars and black holes can form are also likely to be hospitable to life, Smolin argues. It also gives us a way to test the idea.
Smolin points to astrophysical measurements that we are able to make now, that could refute cosmological natural selection. For example, the existence of neutron stars with a mass greater than 1.6 times that of the Sun would scupper the idea. So, it could be wrong...but at least it's science.
Your "next logical step" has been taken countless times over recorded history -- every time there is an unexplained phenomena. This tendency to attribute the unexplained to God is the essence of superstition, and it is exactly what science rejects.
I have no trouble with faith, except when it puts curiosity and inquiry out of bounds.
It is very sad to observe people who base their faith on a specific list of unexplained phenomena. They are forever in retreat. I find it much more satisfying to believe that existence is both infinitely explainable and infinitely deep. I could be wrong, but I doubt if I will be proven wrong anytime soon.
Or in denial. Or at war with those who seek new information. Or posting in blue font in these threads.
Respectfully, I submit to you that in error, you hold a thought of the Creator constrained to time and the physical realm - His creations, so you can't more clearly see His eternal quality. That line of thought will confuse one everytime. It did me for years.
No "circularity", but a Creator who created and controls time and views it as one event, a whole - not a sequence of events one after another. The "In the beginning" quotation from scriptures - it refers to creation - not the Creator.
Conversely, the above author (who might be speaking past the scientist in this case) - as well as Hawking in his lecture on imaginary time - specifically target their material to debunk the belief in God as Creator. This is not helpful to anyone.
And certainly there are many doctrines and traditions among men. Some of a particular faith may believe they alone know the true doctrine; as evidence, the debates on the religion forum sometimes turn quite hostile on this very point.
But there is only one God, one Truth, one beginning. I have known Him personally for more than four decades as the triune God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But my experience is of no direct help to you because nobody can walk your Spiritual path, but you:
"every time there is an unexplained phenomena" = "every time there is an unexplained phenomenon".
I would hate to be on the side of those who think Mt. improbable can't be climbed.
I wonder what the probability is of hydrogen gas mutating into iron, or gold without divine intervention.
In a nova, it happens every time. But I think that's transmutation. Or is that a word left over from alchemy?
Great scientists like Bohr and Dallaporta have observed that science must stay within that which can be observed or measured. Beyond that, the scientist enters metaphysics.
I would add that it is not inappropriate for a scientist to have a metaphysical point of view, but it is inappropriate for the scientist to misrepresent his metaphysical view as science proper. However, when he carefully separates the two and labels them accordingly, there ought to be no offense taken.
Then, if the sciences should stop at that point alone, there would be no prollem. Their rejection that there COULD be attributes of a Divine Creator is rejection of the exact conclusiveness they exhibit when they presume another drug may slow cancer, or that stem cells may aid Alzheimers. They follow the evidence to a conclusion.
You can't have evidences pointing to a logical conclusion and "selectively" choose your results - not and be clinically honest. They either are or they're not, they either do or they don't... Hawking's "point of singularity" and Hubbel's "regression" theories point to a "time" when all was One, or "In the beginning.."
BUMP - what you said!
immutable placemarker
On the whole it seems highly improbable that hydrogen ions would spontaneously and randomly self assemble themselves into heavier elements. Perhaps some ID person would calculate the odds for us.
THEIST: Yep, God sure arranged it carefully! ....There is really no other productive argument which can be made along these lines.
To be truly illustrative, your dichotomy should include some adjectives.
ATHIEST: Yep, we sure are staggeringly, mind-blowingly, down-to-the-most-impossible-and-exquisite-detail...lucky.
The other day I was reading on how stroke victims can slowly heal their damaged brains. The circuitry for living can gradually "rewire" itself through the nerves which previously handled different "information."
How I marvelled. And I also marvel at those who do NOT marvel.
I'm not good at creationist math, but I believe that 1720 is one of their highest numbers.
Very simplistic fundamental type view, but I can see where a zealot would think he was making some sort of a point saying that. Exactly what was the 'point' we could leave to mental health pros to define.
There either is a God and all that implies, or there is not a God and all that implies.
Suit yourself. I'd bet that the answer to the creation of the universe is much more elegant that your vision that a 'god' decreed it to be so.
The existence or nonexistence of God can't be resolved by scientific rigor and material measurements, so waiting for the deciding test is futile.
Who's waiting? I'm living my life as best I can, [and its been good] without a "need for god".
One has to ultimately come down on either side.
You think so, - I don't..
-- Why not leave me to live in that liberty? Isn't that the American way?
Actually, Hawking seems no longer to believe in eithae a singulatity or a beginning. My personal belief is that existence is an inpenetrable mystery, but that anything that can be observed is fair game for science. And by that I mean, it is the task of science to expect and search for naturalistic explanations for everything that can be observed.
Sure. Essentially zero outside of the Big Bang and pretty low inside it. Conditions, conditions, oh the conditions
Number of atoms per 10,000,000 of hydrogen
hydrogen
10,000,000
sulfur
95
helium
1,400,000
iron
80
oxygen
6,800
argon
42
carbon
3,000
aluminum
19
neon
2,800
sodium
17
nitrogen
910
calcium
17
magnesium
290
all other elements
50
silicon
250
Deferring to the physicists on this one...
Well, then pose your questions more precisely. As a matter of quick observation, in a typical earth lab, water remains water "forever", despite having hydrogen ions flitting about.
I am merely observing that there are many impossible things that become possible when understood.
There are many purported phonemena -- UFOs, ESP, ghosts -- whose existence can reasonably be doubted, but when an object or phemenon unquestionably exists, the notion that it is the result of a miracle always erodes with time and research. At least I would not like to be on the side that asserts that naturalistic explanations will never be found.
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