Alex Rosenberg Rejects Theism Because the Probability of Sapient Life is “vanishingly small”.

The debate between Sean Carroll and William Lane Craig was excellent, full of good information, full of interesting arguments, and full of surprises.  One surprise was that Sean Carroll chose Dr. Alex Rosenberg as one of his supporting speakers.  In February 2013, Craig debated Rosenberg at Purdue University and pummeled him.  You know you are going to have a bad day when you agree to a debate and then proclaim in that debate that debating is not a good venue to exchange ideas, as Rosenberg did. 

Rosenberg is a co-director of the Center for Philosophy of Biology at Duke University.  As a philosopher, one would think he could give logically sound reasons for why he does not believe in God.  Rosenberg claimed the purpose of his talk was to show “the incompatibility of Darwin’s theory of natural selection and theism.”  Obviously this has nothing to do with the debate topic of God & Cosmology (aka a red herring), but maybe Carroll wanted a philosopher to give a good argument against theism even if the argument has nothing to do with cosmology.  So how does Rosenberg claim that evolution is incompatible with theism? 

 

“An omniscient God would therefore know that…..the probability of the emergence of life was low, the probability of the emergence of vertebrate life was even lower, the probability of the emergence of mammalian life was minuscule, the probability of the emergence of sentient life was even smaller, and of sapient life was vanishingly small.  God would have known this.”

There you have it.  The probability of human life evolving is so extremely small that God could not possibly have been involved.  Regardless on one’s view on evolution, I don’t see how it follows logically that if the probability of sapient life forming naturally is “vanishingly small” that this means God was not involved.  It seems the extremely low probability would show outside help may be needed.  If human life evolving naturally is extremely improbable, yet not enough to show God was involved, what could God have done to show that he was involved in the creation of life?  Here’s what Rosenberg says,

“God could have created us by a means so fiendishly clever, that involved so many complications, that involved so many laws of nature, and boundary conditions working together that we, as smart as we are, will never be able to figure out what that process was.  We will never be smart enough to identify the laws that governed our evolution from the basic distribution of matter from the beginning of the universe.”

Then he later says,

“Biology is much harder than quantum mechanics.  Why is it harder than quantum mechanics?  Because for one thing it involves the operation of quantum principles, the operation of classical physical principles, the operation of chemical thermodynamic laws, on a conjuries of initial conditions so complicated, so fine, so different across various environments that we now know relatively less about life on our planet than we know about the cosmology of the universe.”

In other words, God could have used the laws of physics and the fine-tuning of the universe to show that he exists….and that is what he did.  By the end of his talk, all I could say was “Amen!”

Roger Penrose on entropy: How did he calculate that?

 

One of the fine-tuning arguments frequently used is the low entropy state of the universe at the Big Bang.  This was calculated by Roger Penrose to be 1:10¹⁰¹²³.  How does he do this?  He explains it in his book, The Emperor’s New Mind.  Here is the section of the book that discusses it.   Penrose uses the Bekenstein-Hawking formula for the entropy of a particle in a black hole to determine the entropy of a particle at the singularity of the Big Bang as if the entire universe were a giant black hole.  He calculates this to be 10⁴³.  There are estimated to be 10⁸⁰ particles in the observable universe. 

 

10⁸⁰ x 10⁴³ = 10¹²³ . 

Entropy is on a logarithmic scale, so that is how he arrives at 10¹⁰¹²³. 

V = total phase-space volume available

W = original phase-space volume

V/W = 10¹⁰¹²³

 

Therefore, the accuracy of the low entropy value was 1:10¹⁰¹²³.  Penrose says,

“This is an extraordinary figure. One could not possibly even write the number down in full, in the ordinary denary notation: it would be `1' followed by 10<sup>123</sup> successive `0 's! Even if we were to write a `0' on each separate proton and on each separate neutron in the entire universe-and we could throw in all the other particles as well for good measure-we should fall far short of writing down the figure needed. The precision needed to set the universe on its course is seen to be in no way inferior to all that extraordinary precision that we have already become accustomed to in the superb dynamical equations (Newton's, Maxwell's, Einstein's) which govern the behaviour of things from moment to moment.”

 

If there are more particles in the universe than 10⁸⁰ (like an infinite number), all the more extraordinary!!

Sean Carroll pointed out in his debate with William Lane Craig that this low entropy value was not a requirement for life to exist and, therefore, should not be considered finely tuned by a creator.  As I discussed here, Robin Collins addresses this in his paper claiming that without a low entropy at the Big Bang, we would not know that our universe had a beginning and some of our fundamental laws of physics would not have been discovered.

The Fine-Tuning for Discoverability

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’. 

William Lane Craig

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.

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.