This weekend I finally listened to Don Bradley’s “Pillars of My Faith” talk at Sunstone. His story is remarkable. Bradley is a Mormon historian who lost his faith decades ago. He forged a path through agnosticism to atheism and back to belief via the Baha’i faith, returned to Christianity via mainline Protestantism, and finally rediscovered his faith in Mormonism. His forthcoming book is an investigation into the 116 lost manuscript pages of the Book of Mormon.
According to Bradley’s talk, a crucial point in his reconversion was an encounter with James Gardner’s Biocosm. Biocosm addresses the fact that the physical constants of the universe appear improbably “fine tuned” for life, a fact usually cited as evidence for God. Gardner attempts to rebut the fine-tuning argument by offering a naturalistic argument — one that was so unconvincing that it shook Bradley’s faith, as it were, in atheism:
Biocosm shattered my atheistic illusions. I’d thought the chance of a universe fitted for life was something like one in a billion. The reality was more like one in 10 to the 200th power…
I now anticipated Gardner’s answer to the cosmos-sized problem he had opened for me, and here it was: The constants of the universe were shaped by our distant descendants, who engineered the collapsing universe to restart.
Somewhere along the line, he lost me… He thinks this is more likely than God?
Full disclosure: I’m an atheist, Bradley’s talk hasn’t persuaded me to reconsider my beliefs. But neither am I interested in quibbling with his path. Belief is complex and personal, and I’m under no illusions that a coherent rebuttal to the fine-tuning argument would convince him or anyone else that there is no God.
But I am interested in the fine-tuning argument itself. It touches on a few areas that I know a little bit about, and I think it has a relatively straightforward solution that I haven’t seen articulated anywhere else.
The Argument
The fine-tuning argument begins with the Standard Model, which is the current synthesis used in particle physics. The Standard Model contains of some 25 free constants, which are set experimentally instead of derived from theory. Several of these constants are remarkably well-suited for the emergence of life. For example, if the strong nuclear force — which bind protons and neutrons in an atoms nucleus together — were only 2 percent stronger, hydrogen atoms would fuse naturally into helium, precluding the existence of stars. Similarly, if the strong force were only 5 percent weaker, no helium would form. Similar facts hold for other constants: the electromagnetic force, the charge of the electron, etc. Small perturbation of these constants would render a universe inhospitable to life as we know it.
Advocates of the fine-tuning argument hold that the odds that the constants would fall in such a narrow range are vanishingly small. Thus, the universe appears to be designed; what better designer than the deity of your choice?
However, several naturalistic, disbelief-friendly explanations have been advanced:
- The Anthropic Principle: If the universe weren’t tuned for life, we wouldn’t be here. Thus, given that we exist, it follows logically that the universe be one fine-tuned for conscious life.
- The Multiverse: There is an infinitude of “parallel” universes, each with potentially different constants. It’s therefore inevitable that there exist universes with the proper constants, and by the anthropic principle we live in one such universe.
- The Biocosm: Gardner argues for a stronger version of the anthropic principle. In a sort of Darwinian argument, he asserts that “the destiny of highly evolved intelligence (perhaps our distant progeny) is to… accomplish the ultimate feat of cosmic reproduction by spawning one or more ‘baby universes,’ which will themselves be endowed with life generating properties.” Universes amenable to intelligent life “reproduce,” in other words, and thus thrive in a cosmic fitness landscape.
I confess that I don’t find any of these explanations compelling. The anthropic principle is trivially true, but it doesn’t explain anything. I side with physicist Paul Davies, who argues that the multiverse is unfalsifiable woo-woo. And I’m with Bradley on the biocosm; it’s no more plausible than God — or, for that matter, Cthulhu or the Easter Bunny.
What, then, are we to do about the finely-tuned universe? I think the answer lies in what we expect out of science. We expect it to be more “objective” than human endeavors have any business being.
A Pragmatic Objection
The kernel of my explanation is simple: Fine-tuning is only a “problem” if you assume there is something inherent about the Standard Model. Those arguing for theism assume the Standard Model parameters are random, and invoke a God tweaking them in order to overcome the improbability of life. Those arguing for the multiverse assume that each parallel universe has different Standard Model parameters. In either case, they suppose that the only possible universes are Standard Model universes.
I just don’t see any reason to believe that’s the case.
First of all, the Standard Model is known to be incomplete. If you’ve ever talked to a physics enthusiast, you’ve probably heard that quantum mechanics and general relativity are known to be contradictory; as a result, the Standard Model lacks a description of gravity. Theoretical physicists are busy trying to put together models — such as string theory or quantum loop gravity — that bridge the gap and unify physics. For all we know, the seemingly arbitrary scattering of constants in the Standard Model emerge naturally from a more fundamental “Theory of Everything”.
Sure, you might object, some of the details of the Standard Model might get revised. But fine-tuning involves concepts as simple as the charge of an electron. Surely our basic understanding of the electron isn’t likely to change?
I’m not willing — or qualified — to make predictions about what bits of science will and won’t eventually be revised. But I do assert that we tend to underestimate the degree to which our scientific understanding is faulty. Philosophers of science use the overly-fancy term pessimistic meta-induction to denote a simple idea: Throughout human history, smart people have come up with smart ideas that have successfully accounted for the data at hand. Invariably, those smart ideas turn out to be flawed in a fundamental way.
In other words, history teaches us that our ideas are fundamentally human and thus fundamentally flawed. We should expect that today’s theories — no matter how intuitive or even successful they are — are wrong in important ways. To expect otherwise is to engage in rather flagrant recentism.
Taking my pragmatism one step further, is it even appropriate to suppose that scientific models should provide an intrinsic description of reality? A large chunk of philosophers say “no.” They argue for scientific instrumentalism, which is the idea that scientific theories should be viewed merely as tools for making predictions. Instead of worrying about whether theoretical entities “really” exist, it’s enough to worry about whether the resulting predictions agree with observation. A good theory might tell us something about the underlying structure of reality, but it might just as easily not. Since there’s no way to tell, why worry about it?
Given a pragmatic view of science, fine tuning ceases to be a problem. Scientific models are remarkable, but human, efforts at reverse-engineering the universe. We can’t expect them to be indicative of objective reality. But fine tuning requires that modern, late 20th-century physics say something sufficiently final that we should draw conclusions from it about unseeable beings or undetectable universes. It’s a strange position for theists, who tend to place objective truth with God, not man. It’s an even stranger position for scientists, who ought to be keenly aware of their fallibility.
I don’t have a scientific background, but I find all of this very fascinating and your argument for a pragmatic view very compelling. Sometimes it surprises me that so few people I know have any interest in this kind of discussion, but I have to accept that we all come to the conclusions that work for us individually, and some just don’t want to think about it. Thank you for making me think today.
Thanks, Catherine!
BTW, Peggy’s article greatly exaggerates the speed with which I re-accepted God after encountering the fine tuning argument in its full force. I did not “in that instant” become a believer in God, while reading Biocosm. Rather, I went in search of non-theistic explanations for the problem of fine tuning, but found none that remotely satisfied me.
Also, the fine-tuning problem opened me to reconsider other reasons for believing in God which I had set aside.
Don
Hi Matthew,
I’m glad you encountered my faith story and that it prompted you to write up some of your thoughts on the fine-tuning problem. I also appreciate your entirely friendly, curious, and exploratory tone.
While I have friends who are perhaps as heavily invested in philosophical pragmatism as you are, I really can’t take this line of thought nearly so far. I’ll offer a few thoughts on why–though this is far outside my areas of focus and expertise–before returning to my regularly scheduled programming.
Scientific methodology has been remarkably successful in predicting where we will find minerals, oil, certain organisms, gravity-producing bodies such as moons, and other objects that are much more than merely hypothetical. Yet when it comes to the micro-level science suddenly loses this capability to locate and describe actual objects and only provides useful constructs? This sounds like a perverse form of faith in which scientific models tell us of real objects and forces on the experiential level, but then we are supposed to believe that they no longer do so with respect to things we won’t experience directly. So, for instance, we are pretty sure about the reality and effects of physical forces when we fear falling from a tall building or being hit by a bus, or if we imagine the detonation of a hydrogen bomb or neutron bomb. But physical forces and neutrons and the other subatomic particles we use to create such explosions become *”hypothetical”* entities when we talk about them outside the context of these horrendous observable and impactful events.
To argue that science provides only useful predictions, and not any actual grasp on reality, is to bracket one of the most fundamental questions we can ask: “why?” For instance, germ theory has provided us a remarkably good way of fighting disease. But without a belief in actual germs, we are left with no explanation for *why* it works. The person who believes that scientific inquiry yields actual, if always partial, knowledge of nature has an answer to why the model works. The person who holds otherwise has none–and tells others they can’t have one either. Asking *why* things happen is one of the fundamental drivers of the advancement of human knowledge, including scientific knowledge. The bracketing of genuine “why” questions sounds less like progress than it does like obscurantism.
If the way to avoid the fine-tuning problem, and therefore its implication of God, is to reject the idea that science is getting at some actual truth out there, then I would see the supposed solution as jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire–like Gardner’s argument that our distant descendants will create/have created us.
I know you aren’t pinning your rejection of fine tuning on this alone. And I agree that we should hold our present understandings as only very partial. I’m just saying that for me, the rejection of science as a way to actual (“intrinsic”) truth about nature, would be far less reasonable than a belief in God.
I have absolutely no doubt that you are far more proficient than I in casting arguments in terms of the philosophy of science. So, without further ado, I’ll return your blog post to you and leave the topic behind until I am old, retired, and have plenty of time to catch up on such topics, which are presently entirely at the periphery of my focus.
Take care,
Don
P.S. I am trying to post also some links to some interesting things on the fine tuning problem, but it won’t let me. I’ll see if I can get that figure out.
Hi, Don. Thanks for engaging! Lots of good stuff here.
“This sounds like a perverse form of faith”
This is a bit adjacent to what you’re getting at, but I toyed with the idea of exploring whether I’ve engaged here in atheist apologetics (to an extent) or the construction of “plausibility structures” for disbelief (certainly). I think my apologetics aren’t of the “just have faith” variety, but of the “nuance the truth claims” variety. That is, the superficial structure of the argument is the same as the limited geography model for the Book of Mormon: A nuanced, more careful parsing of scientific claims eliminates the fine-tuning problem just as an appropriate reading of the Book of Mormon eliminates, for example DNA problems. Whether or not my efforts are any more compelling than Mormon apologists I leave to the reader.
“Scientific methodology has been remarkably successful in predicting where we will find minerals, oil, certain organisms, gravity-producing bodies such as moons, and other objects that are much more than merely hypothetical. Yet when it comes to the micro-level science suddenly loses this capability to locate and describe actual objects and only provides useful constructs?”
I probably overstated the extent to which I subscribe to instrumentalism. I think of it as a sliding scale between skeptical scientific realism and a pragmatic instrumentalism, depending on how directly we can interact with the phenomena in question. If that interaction is relatively direct, I’m happy to adopt a skeptical realism — the entities in question are probably real, although our understanding is always provisional. As the interaction becomes more and more indirect, my skepticism increases, and at some point I find the ontological question pointless. (For example, it would have been pointless in the 18th century to agonize over whether or not electricity was “really” a fluid.) It’s *possible* that the underlying, unobservable structural elements of scientific theories correspond to reality, but when those elements are multiple layers away from actual experience, I don’t even see the point in speculating about it, let alone deducing conclusions from it in which I have any confidence.
“To argue that science provides only useful predictions, and not any actual grasp on reality, is to bracket one of the most fundamental questions we can ask: ‘why?'”
Probably you and I simply disagree on the degree to which model that claims only empirical adequacy is a satisfactory answer to a “why” question.
“For instance, germ theory has provided us a remarkably good way of fighting disease. But without a belief in actual germs, we are left with no explanation for *why* it works.”
This is a good point, and it illustrates how instrumentalism really only makes sense for models contain purely theoretical elements. (In general I’ve noticed that realists like to invoke examples from biology, while instrumentalists like to invoke examples from theoretical physics.) It doesn’t make any sense — beyond radical skepticism, I suppose, which is only occasionally useful — to deny that germs and cells and genes are “real”. But is, say, the “fabric” space-time a real thing, or is it just a convenient visualization of the mathematics of general relativity? And does its not being real mean that general relativity fails to provide a proper explanation?
Once again, thanks for engaging; it was an unexpected treat. The number of comments on this post has been disappointingly low, and it’s nice to find at least one other person who cares a little about the subject.
How do I insert links? I have no idea, and it simply refuses to post them if I just paste in the URLs.
Don
Hmm. You should be able to use ordinary HTML tags to create a hyperlink. And I seem to be able to post a “naked” URL.
I didn’t think I would like this post until I got a little further into it, and it seems to support a feeling I have been having for a while: Scientists (particularly physicists) are becoming an analog to priests in early Christian times. Specifically, many of us cannot parse the language of Science, so we must have belief that stuff scientists say is true. If things like String Theory and the quantum gravity can only be perceived mathematically, how real can they be to someone who can’t do math? It’s like asking a blind person to describe a painting.
I was at Don Bradley’s talk at Sunstone, and the passage you quoted left me with three immediate reactions:
(1) Douglas Adams’s puddle analogy (explained in your image);
(2) “one in a billion. […] one in 10 to the 200th power” — These are numbers that someone simply pulled out of their ass. We can’t know what is the likelihood of a particular universe forming because we don’t have any data on the subject. We don’t have a number of spontaneously-formed universes to serve as sample data to use when computing the probability of this or that type forming. The only data point we have about universe formation is the one we’re living in. On the basis of being given one sample data point, it does not follow that that data point is astronomically unlikely;
(3) Just because one atheist advances a crazy Sci-Fi theory of how the universe may have formed, that doesn’t mean that atheism relies on crazy Sci-Fi theories of how the universe formed — or even that they’re typical of atheist thought. And if that theory came from the same book with the “probabilities of our universe existing” numbers, I’m very surprised that the author’s nutty theories didn’t inspire Bradley to be a little more skeptical of the author’s nutty probability numbers.
Even more interesting though, is Bradley’s quick dismissal of mainstream Christianity, a few moments later in the talk. (As I recall) he essentially said that the Bible can’t possibly be the only direction that God left us since (looking at all the different sects) it doesn’t lend itself to clear interpretation. That seems very logical to me, but I’m pretty sure my Evangelical Christian dad would totally disagree with that reasoning. Many Christians believe that the Bible is clear and sufficient to lead one to God — while to a Mormon, it’s totally obvious that it isn’t.
In a nutshell, I thought it was interesting how Bradley’s Mormon assumptions from his Mormon upbringing primed him to come back.
“(1) Douglas Adams’s puddle analogy (explained in your image)”
I actually find the puddle analogy a somewhat glib expression of the anthropic principle. It supposes that intelligence can arise in most any type of universe, when the whole point of fine-tuning is that in these other universes it’s difficult to imagine *any* type of life. Of course this could just be “carbon chauvinism” — just because we can’t imagine it doesn’t mean it’s impossible — but I don’t think we can get around fine-tuning by supposing that some type of intelligence will arise no matter what the universe.
“These are numbers that someone simply pulled out of their ass.”
You can derive Gardner’s numbers, but the derivation relies on assumptions I don’t accept. Supposing the universe is a Standard Model universe, and supposing you know the range of Standard Model parameters that are consistent with intelligent life, you can assume a probability distribution on the parameters and compute the odds of getting a suitable universe. To me, the problem is that *there’s no reason to suppose that the ensemble of possible universes corresponds to the Standard Model*, let alone to suppose that our universe is a random draw from Standard Model universes. I see far too much recentism in saying “Yes, we’ve had this scientific model since the 1970s; it’s sufficiently reflective of reality that we can draw reliable conclusions about the existence of God from it!”
“Just because one atheist advances a crazy Sci-Fi theory of how the universe may have formed, that doesn’t mean that atheism relies on crazy Sci-Fi theories of how the universe formed – or even that they’re typical of atheist thought.”
Definitely. The existence of bad *atheist* “apologetics” doesn’t disprove atheism any more than the existence of bad theistic or Mormon apologetics disproves *its* truth claims. But I believe Bradley when he says that his journey back to theism was more complex than a bad reaction to a crackpot theory.
What a confused mess of competing biases. All you have done is dismantled anything you dont like to protect your worldview.
So the very science you base all your opinions on is only deficient in the areas that you dont like. So now the standard model is trash because it exposed the fine tuning? Someone needs to do a deep psychological study on the atheist brain. It denys freewill yet seems to thinks its random colliding particles are spewing out logical thoughts that they have no choice to think. It denys time is real then explains how the big bang transpired. Studies have showed atheists entered the fields of origins to show the world only appears designed. .but now that they have found it is designed by inescapable odds they reject their findings or propose a comic book solution that is ludicrous….all for what?
So you can remain atheist? You have been beaten..its been over but you’re stuck in the first stage of grief …..denial. Its pathological and thoroughly embarrasing. Look, you trusted a bunch of dweebs who ate their boogers for school lunch. Did you really think they had any real answers?