The recent debate with Sean Carroll and William Lane Craig on
February 21, 2014 had a different format than most debates. Craig and Carroll debated on a Friday night,
but then each brought two other people with them to write companion paper’s to
support/refute the various positions and give a talk the following morning. Sean Carroll brought Tim Mauldin and Alex
Rosenberg. William Lane Craig brought
Robin Collins and James Sinclair. I
haven’t had time to look at the debate in depth yet, but on the surface it was
a great exchange with lots of scientific details. Sean Carroll held his own quite well, and holding
your own against WLC is almost a default victory. Not all of the videos are posted yet. I can say the talk Tim Mauldin gave was a
snooze….a giant ‘we don’t know anything and don’t need God either’.
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| William Lane Craig |
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| Sean Carroll |
One of the arguments Craig uses that points to an intelligent
creator is the fine-tuning for life. Carroll
claims we have no evidence to suggest the universe is fine-tuned for life. An example he uses is Roger Penrose’s staggering
calculation for the minimum entropy value at the Big Bang….1:1010123. You could put
a zero on every particle in the observable universe with more to spare. It’s an unfathomably small number!!! Carroll claims that the entropy of the early
universe did not need to be that low for life to form, so it is actually an argument
against the fine-tuning by a creator.
Queue Robin Collins.
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| Robin Collins |
Robin Collins is an expert in the fine-tuning of universe. His talk is not out on video yet, but he has published
his companion paper called “The Fine-Tuning for Discoverability”. He calls it the Discoverability Thesis.
“Discoverability Thesis: This thesis
is that the universe is non-accidentally structured in such a way as to be
highly discoverable.”
In other words, not only is the universe fine-tuned for life,
but it is also finely tuned to allow for intelligent agents to be able to
understand it. Many of the fundamental
constants and early universe conditions are not necessary for life, but are
necessary if we are to be able to learn about the universe and life. Collins claims to have found at least a dozen
examples of fine-tuning for discoverability.
The low entropy condition at the Big Bang is one of
them. Carroll is correct in saying that
the entropy could be higher and still support life, but having a low entropy
helps our discoverability in two ways:
1)
A low entropy allows us to see other galaxies
and a larger universe. Without a low
entropy, we would only see our galaxy. We
wouldn’t know that the universe was expanding or that it had a beginning.
2)
Without
a low entropy in the beginning, the universe would not have a uniform
distribution. We wouldn’t be able to
discover some of the fundamental laws that govern the universe, like General
Relativity which assumes a uniform distribution throughout the universe.
The beginning of the universe points to a transcendent cause. A universe that follows laws and can be
rationally understood indicates a rational mind formed those laws.
Another example of tuning for discoverability is the constant,
α, that governs the electromagnetic force.
“A small increase in α would have
resulted in all open wood fires going out; yet harnessing fire was essential to
the development of civilization, technology, and science – e.g., the forging of
metals….. Going in the other direction, if α were decreased, light microscopes
would have proportionality less resolving power without the size of living
cells or other microscopic objects changing (when measured in atomic units).”
So a larger α means no open
wood flames and a smaller α means we would not be able to examine living cells,
both of which are very significant to discoverability and technological
advancement.
Another
example of fine-tuning discoverability is radioactive decay compared to the strength
of gravity. This allows us to study geology,
archeology, and paleontology….all crucial in learning about life, the Earth,
and history.
“the ability to use radioactive dating – which
plays a crucial role in geology, archeology, and paleontology -- depends on the
density of radioactive elements in the crust of the planet on which observers
evolve. As the strength of gravity is decreased (e.g., as measured by the force
between two protons a unit distance apart), the density of radioactive elements
must decrease to keep the number of volcanoes per unit area from increasing,
which would decrease livability.”
Some
atheists, including Carroll, have claimed that extra, unnecessary particles show
that the universe was not created by an intelligent agent since a designer
would not include such unnecessary features.
This is merely a “Naturalism of the gaps” argument….. ‘I don’t know why
a creator would do this, so there is no creator’. One example is the muon. Collins argues that the muon has played a very
important role in our ability to learn about our universe and other particles. He sites this article in Symmetry Magazine:
“The muon is one of 16 fundamental
particles that make up everything—all matter, all forces, all energy—in the
visible universe….The muon’s puzzling appearance and subsequent identification
as a unique and autonomous particle perplexed scientists and revolutionized the
field of particle physics. It was the precursor to the three generations of
matter and opened the door for the discovery of quarks and other particles.”
“Today scientists can manipulate the
muon and use it as a tool not only for particle physics research but also for
cosmology, archeology and public safety. They have used muons to test special
relativity and time dilation and to probe the interiors of pyramids for secret
chambers. Today scientists use muons to image novel materials such as
high-temperature superconductors, to study chemical reactions, to look for
hidden nuclear weapons and even to determine things as delicate as the size of
a proton.”
There
is even talk of building a muon collider.
For an unnecessary particle, a lot has been learned because of it and
this isn’t the end of what we will learn from the muon!
Collins
goes on to discuss the cosmic microwave background radiation and the dark energy
coincidence problem, but that will have to be another post. Needless to say, his paper is full of good
info!!
How
does the discoverability point to an intelligent creator? If the entropy were higher, we would not know
that our universe had a beginning and required a transcendent cause. We also would not know some of the
fundamental laws that govern our universe, which a rational universe provides
evidence for a rational creator. If the
constant that governs the electromagnetic force, α, were higher, we wouldn’t
have fire or anything that results from fire.
If α were lower, we would not be able to see living cells in a microscope. If you want to know why that points to an
intelligent mind, see Steven Meyer’s video on the cell. Radioactive decay has allowed us to study geology,
archeology, and paleontology….all crucial in learning about life, the Earth,
and history. The muon has opened the
door to understand our universe at the particle level.
The
more I learn, the more Romans 1 amazes me.
God truly has revealed his existence through what he has made.
