In his Scientific American article Scientists on Religion – Theist and materialist ponder the place of humanity in the universe, George Johnson writes the following of Owen Gingerich’s book God’s Universe and Francis S. Collin‘s book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief:
…along with most every reconciler of science and religion, invoke the anthropic principle: that the values of certain physical constants such as the charge of the electron appear to be “fine-tuned” to produce a universe hospitable to the rise of conscious, worshipful life.
But the universe is not all that hospitable-try leaving Earth without a space-suit. Life took billions of years to take root on this planet, and it is an open question whether it made it anywhere else. To us carboniferous creatures, the dials may seem miraculously tweaked, but different physical laws might have led to universes harboring equally awe-filled forms of energy, cooking up anthropic arguments of their own.
Well, the caricatures of scientist who also dare to admit that they are also theists continues unabated by bothersome facts.
Yes, it is argued by appeal to the best scientific knowledge at our disposal that “the values of certain physical constants…appear to be ‘fine-tuned’ to produce a universe hospitable…”
But it is a non-sequitur that spans the breath of the known universe to so fallaciously assert that this is somehow at variance with the fact that we cannot live if we “try leaving Earth without a space-suit.” The Earth has been shown to be in a unique locality and to contain the unique atmosphere, etc. commensurate to life. The same has never, ever been claimed of space as a whole.
It is no arguments against fine-tuning to note that fine-tuning provided us one planet to live upon without the utilization of life preserving paraphernalia-that is just the point: this planet is a life preserving unit. The fact that atheist’s ultimate explanation for anything and everything is “It just is; it just happened to happen” should not keep us from detecting design where others see fortuitous accidents.
That it may be that “Life took billions of years to take root on this planet” has nothing to do with whether this planet and the atmosphere, solar system, galaxy, universe which is wrapped around it were fine-tuned or not.
Moreover, that “different physical laws might have led to universes harboring equally awe-filled forms of energy, cooking up anthropic arguments of their own” is just the point.
Let us briefly note the qualifier “might” and further note that this statement is premised upon an unscientific assertions which sees life as either accidental or, perhaps, the inevitable outcome of whatever the physical laws may happenstantially be.
But that is just the point: the physical laws imply fine-tuning and making science fiction assertions about multi-verses or alternate universes is absolutely no way to deny it (see here for cosmology and refutation of the multi-verse SciFi).
Lastly, merely asserting that different physical laws would lead to other life forms is not only further science fiction: but if, in fact, there were “different physical laws” it would say absolutely nothing about whether they were fine-tuned and may, indeed, be evidence of fine-tuning in each case.
In order to protect their chosen worldviews and prop up the facade of scientific respectability, as very thin veneer indeed, some atheists are perfectly willing to deny evidence to the contrary or to even entertain such evidence to the point that they at least recognize it as something to build from-you know, good ol’ fashioned doing science.
The fact that it is a logical and scientifically valid inference to consider fine-tuning to imply creation does not make any bit of wild imagination, fiction and misrepresentation valid. This is so even when atheists are desperate to protect their consoling delusion of lack of ultimate accountability and the consoling delusion of absolute autonomy and even if the scientific cenobites of the peer reviewed science [fiction] journals approve.
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