Tag Archives: Luke Barnes

Podcasts

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

2 Comments
Apologetics and the progress of science
Apologetics and the progress of science

This is from the blog Common Sense Atheism. (H/T Allen Hainline)

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.

Podcasts

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

7 Comments

This is from the blog Common Sense Atheism. (H/T Allen Hainline)

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.

I’m going to put the list of resources for the podcast that Luke M. mentioned in his post, but without the actual hyperlinks. It saves me having to type up a summary. If you want to click the links that I removed, go over to Common Sense Atheism and the links are there.

Links for things we discussed:

  • Fine-tuned universe
  • Cosmological constant
  • Miss Marple
  • Other forms of life and Daleks
  • Elliot Sober
  • Cosmic inflation
  • The graceful exit problem
  • Carr and Rees, “The Anthropic Cosmological Principle and the Structure of the Physical World” (1979)
  • David Lewis’ modal realism
  • Boltzmann’s multiverse
  • Roger Penrose argues that some modern multiverse theories face the same problem that Boltzmann’s multiverse faces in The Road to Reality.
  • Everett’s multiverse
  • Wheeler – At Home in the Universe
  • Thorne-Hawking-Preskill bet
  • Edward Robert Harrison
  • Luke responds to PZ Myers
  • You can find some good talks by Polkinghorne and Ellis on fine-tuning at the Faraday Institute’s multimedia page.
  • William Lane Craig, “Design and the Anthropic Fine-Tuning of the Universe“
  • Robin Collins, “The Teleological Argument“
  • Good stuff: Davies – The Goldilocks Enigma; Rees – Just Six Numbers; Barrow – The Constants of Nature; Barrow & Tipler – The Anthropic Cosmological Principle; Leslie – Universes; George Ellis articles.
  • Fred Adams and Luke’s critique
  • Luke’s critique of Hector Avalos
  • Luke’s critique of Victor Stenger: part 1 and part 2
  • Luke’s critique of Hugh Ross
  • Luke’s critique of William Lane Craig: part 1 and part 2

I thought the funniest part was the Natalie Portman part. Boy, do I wish more atheists would listen to this podcast and understand what the fine-tuning argument is actually about. Luke M. gave Luke B. a ton of time to talk. 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.

Polemics

Do most cosmologists accept the reality of the cosmic fine-tuning?

6 Comments

I don’t know how I missed this, but apparently Dr. Richard Carrier, a historian, wrote a critique of the fine-tuning argument a while back, and Dr. Luke Barnes, a cosmologist responded to him.

Much of what is said by both of them in their contributions is beyond me, but I did want to quote one part from a blog post by Luke Barnes about whether most scientists accept that our universe is finely-tuned for complex embodied life.

First, Dr. Carrier writes this:

[Dr. William Lane Craig] claims “the fundamental constants and quantities of nature must fall into an incomprehensibly narrow life-permitting range,” but that claim has been refuted–by scientists–again and again. We actually do not know that there is only a narrow life-permitting range of possible configurations of the universe. As has been pointed out to Craig by several theoretical physicists (from Krauss to Stenger), he can only get his “narrow range” by varying one single constant and holding all the others fixed, which is simply not how a universe would be randomly selected. When you allow all the constants to vary freely, the number of configurations that are life permitting actually ends up respectably high (between 1 in 8 and 1 in 4: see Victor Stenger’s The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning).

And Dr. Barnes replies (in part): (links removed)

I’ve said an awful lot in response to that paragraph, so let’s just run through the highlights.

  • “Refuted by scientists again and again”. What, in the peer-reviewed scientific literature? I’ve published a review of the scientific literature, 200+ papers, and I can only think of a handful that oppose this conclusion, and piles and piles that support it. Here are some quotes from non-theist scientists. For example, Andrei Linde says: “The existence of an amazingly strong correlation between our own properties and the values of many parameters of our world, such as the masses and charges of electron and proton, the value of the gravitational constant, the amplitude of spontaneous symmetry breaking in the electroweak theory, the value of the vacuum energy, and the dimensionality of our world, is an experimental fact requiring an explanation.” [emphasis added.]

  • “By several theoretical physicists (from Krauss to Stenger)”. I’ve replied to Stenger. I had a chance to talk to Krauss briefly about fine-tuning but I’m still not sure what he thinks. His published work on anthropic matters doesn’t address the more general fine-tuning claim. Also, by saying “from” and “to”, Carrier is trying to give the impression that a great multitude stands with his claim. I’m not even sure if Krauss is with him. I’ve read loads on this subject and only Stenger defends Carrier’s point, and in a popular (ish) level book. On the other hand, Craig can cite Barrow, Carr, Carter, Davies, Deutsch, Ellis, Greene, Guth, Harrison, Hawking, Linde, Page, Penrose, Polkinghorne, Rees, Sandage, Smolin, Susskind, Tegmark, Tipler, Vilenkin, Weinberg, Wheeler, and Wilczek. (See here). With regards to the claim that “the fundamental constants and quantities of nature must fall into an incomprehensibly narrow life-permitting range”, the weight of the peer-reviewed scientific literature is overwhelmingly with Craig. (If you disagree, start citing papers).

There’s more, too.

I wish I understood cosmology enough to understand everything Dr. Barnes says, but it seems to me that this much is clear. If you’re an atheist and you’re reading stuff by these very far-out atheists, then you need to be very careful. Dr. Stenger and Dr. Carrier are both highly-intelligent and have great credentials, but it’s probably better for all of us to be interacting with the other side when we form our worldviews.

I noticed that respected atheist Jeff Lowder has a post up where he looks at both sides and comes down more with Barnes than with Carrier.