Podcasts

Cosmologist Luke Barnes answers 11 objections to the fine-tuning argument

5 Comments
Christianity and the progress of science
Christianity and the progress of science

This is from the blog Common Sense Atheism.

Atheist Luke Muehlhauser interviews well-respect cosmologist Luke Barnes about the fine-tuning argument, and the naturalistic response to it.

Luke M. did a good job explaining what was in the podcast. (I wish more people who put out podcasts would do that).

Details:

In one of my funniest and most useful episodes yet, I interview astronomer Luke Barnes about the plausibility of 11 responses to the fine-tuning of the universe. Frankly, once you listen to this episode you will be better equipped to discuss fine-tuning than 90% of the people who discuss it on the internet. This episode will help clarify the thinking of anyone – including and perhaps especially professional philosophers – about the fine-tuning of the universe.

The 11 responses to fine-tuning we discuss are:

  1. “It’s just a coincidence.”
  2. “We’ve only observed one universe, and it’s got life. So as far as we know, the probability that a universe will support life is one out of one!”
  3. “However the universe was configured, evolution would have eventually found a way.”
  4. “There could be other forms of life.”
  5. “It’s impossible for life to observe a universe not fine-tuned for life.”
  6. “Maybe there are deeper laws; the universe must be this way, even though it looks like it could be other ways.”
  7. “Maybe there are bajillions of universes, and we happen to be in one of the few that supports life.”
  8. “Maybe a physics student in another universe created our universe in an attempt to design a universe that would evolve intelligent life.”
  9. “This universe with intelligent life is just as unlikely as any other universe, so what’s the big deal?”
  10. “The universe doesn’t look like it was designed for life, but rather for empty space or maybe black holes.”
  11. “Fine-tuning shows there must be an intelligent designer beyond physical reality that tuned the universe so it would produce intelligent life.”

Download CPBD episode 040 with Luke Barnes. Total time is 1:16:31.

There is a very good explanation of some of the cases of fine-tuning that I talk about most on this blog – the force of gravity, the strong force, etc. as well as many other examples. Dr. Barnes is an expert, but he is also very very easy to listen to even when talking about difficult issues. Luke M. is very likeable as the interviewer.

Commentary

New study: marriages where husband does not work full-time more likely to end in divorce

1 Comment
Air Force TACPs confirm target locations with their map
Air Force TACPs confirm target locations with their map

This was reported in Family Studies.

Excerpt:

In a recent study published this July in American Sociological Review, Harvard sociology professor Alexandra Killewald, Ph.D., analyzed data on 6,309 heterosexual married couples from the 1968 to 2013 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). She looked specifically at the potential effects on marital stability of “spouses’ division of labor, overall financial resources, and wives’ economic prospects following divorce,” comparing couples married before 1975 to those married in 1975 or later (through 2011).

[…]Killewald found that for couples married in 1975 or later, marriages in which the husband was not employed full-time were one-third more likely to divorce. Specifically, a husband who was not employed full-time experienced a “3.3 percent predicted probability of divorce the following year, compared to 2.5 percent if he is employed full-time.”

[…]Killewald is certainly not the first to find an association between men’s employment and marital stability. A study conducted by three economists and published in 2015 found that “In couples where the wife earns more than the husband, the wife spends more time on household chores; moreover, those couples are less satisfied with their marriage and are more likely to divorce.”

And an earlier study by Liana C. Sayer, Paula England, Paul Allison and Nicole Kangas found that when a husband is “nonemployed” (defined as not working at all), both the husband and the wife are more likely to end a marriage. In an email interview with IFS, one of the study’s co-authors, New York University sociology professor Paula England, explained her findings.

“The innovation of our study was to look separately at what predicts a divorce wanted more by the woman versus a divorce wanted more by the man,” England wrote. “We found that a nonemployed man predicts either the woman leaving the man or the man leaving the woman.”

She continued, “Killewald’s data just show her if they got divorced, not who left. We found that women’s employment doesn’t make men leave more, and it only makes women leave more when they are unhappy in the marriage.”

People sometimes ask me why I have all these rules and best practices when it comes to relationships and marriage plans. You know: men must have STEM degrees, no sex before marriage, men have to approach women by speaking to fathers first, etc. Well, why have all these rules? Why not just do what feels good? Why not just do what my peers will approve of?

The answer is this:

I didn’t get my idea of how courting and marriage works from a culture that dismisses all of the ancient wisdom about love and marriage in favor of the trends of a culture dominated by ideologies that emphasize pleasure over wisdom. The right way to learn about romance, love, marriage and parenting is to go the classics, and then to the scientific studies. We have to learn how the world really works, and abide by the best practices that we find in the classics and in the peer-reviewed publications. And we have to be willing to say no to feelings and friends and even family, when the classics and the peer-reviewed literature say something different.

I’m really not sure where people get this idea that peer-reviewed literature “works within a narrow scope”, but you can just do anything you want. No, your radical feminist emotion-fueled craziness works in a narrow scope: in your dreams. In the real world, we do things by the book, and that’s how we get results. Children deserve to have parents who are wise and self-controlled, willing to do things the right way. You can’t break all the rules and then expect things to somehow magically work out because you feel that they will somehow. The rules are there for a reason.

Polemics

Christians have always believed in a romantic, committed, exclusive view of sex

1 Comment
Does government provide incentives for people to get married?
The natural family is the only place where sexual activity makes sense

Consider this post from Michael Krueger about the history of Christianity with respect to sex, love and marriage.

Excerpt:

[I]n the second century, as Christianity emerged with a distinctive religious identity, the surrounding pagan culture began to take notice.  And it didn’t like what it saw.  Christians were seen as strange and superstitious–a peculiar religious movement that undermined the norms of a decent society.  Christians were, well, different.

So, what was so different about Christians compared to the surrounding Greco-Roman culture?

[…]While it was not unusual for Roman citizens to have multiple sexual partners, homosexual encounters, and engagement with temple prostitutes, Christians stood out precisely because of their refusal to engage in these practices.

For instance, Tertullian goes to great lengths to defend the legitimacy of Christianity by pointing out how Christians are generous and share their resources with all those in need.  But, then he says, “One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are common among us but our wives” (Apol. 39). Why does he say this?  Because, in the Greco-Roman world, it was not unusual for people to share their spouses with each other.

In the second-century Epistle to Diognetus, the author goes out of his way to declare how normal Christians are in regard to what they wear, what they eat, and how they participate in society.  However, he then says, “[Christians] share their meals, but not their sexual partners” (Diogn. 5.7).  Again, this is the trait that makes Christians different.

We see this play out again in the second-century Apology of Aristides.  Aristides defends the legitimacy of the Christian faith to the emperor Hadrian by pointing out how Christians “do not commit adultery nor fornication” and “their men keep themselves from every unlawful union” (15).

A final example comes from the second-century apology of Minucius Felix.  In his defense to Octavius, he contrasts the sexual ethic of the pagan world with that of Christians:

Among the Persians, a promiscuous association between sons and mothers is allowed. Marriages with sisters are legitimate among the Egyptians and in Athens. Your records and your tragedies, which you both read and hear with pleasure, glory in incests: thus also you worship incestuous gods, who have intercourse with mothers, with daughters, with sisters. With reason, therefore, is incest frequently detected among you, and is continually permitted. Miserable men, you may even, without knowing it, rush into what is unlawful: since you scatter your lusts promiscuously, since you everywhere beget children, since you frequently expose even those who are born at home to the mercy of others, it is inevitable that you must come back to your own children, and stray to your own offspring. Thus you continue the story of incest, even although you have no consciousness of your crime. But we maintain our modesty not in appearance, but in our heart we gladly abide by the bond of a single marriage; in the desire of procreating, we know either one wife, or none at all (31).

The genius of Christ-centered relationships is that both parties have to prove that they can be faithful and committed during the courtship. Both people have to work before the marriage to demonstrate their ability at marital roles (husband or wife, father or mother). It’s not just that this is the way that we have always done it, it’s that there are real reasons why chastity and fidelity are important for marriage success. You can’t just have fun, pick anyone you like, and have marriage “work out”. You have to be comfortable with chastity and fidelity, and the person you choose has to be comfortable with chastity and fidelity. Each person has to demonstrate that they are capable of self-sacrificial love for others, since that’s the main thing that marriage is about – at least the ones that last. Virtue is at the center of the Christian concept of marriage.