theological or fine-tuning argument is a powerful argument for the existence of God we've already presented the argument in another video but a brief summary of that argument says that when we look at the universe we see that several fundamental constants need to have extremely precise values for the universe to exist as it is and support life if one of these fundamental constants was off by the slightest variation the universe would be drastically different and unable to support life so the universe need to exist exactly as it is or else we cannot exist so because of
this it seems pretty clear the universe was finely tuned by a designer the only other possibilities as to why the universe is so finely tuned is physical necessity or chance now we know it is not because of physical necessity meaning they are determined by the laws of nature because there is no connection between the laws of nature and the finally tuned constants of the universe the physicist Paul Davies notes that there is absolutely no no evidence whatsoever the universe had to have the set of physical constants it does but also if the universe was finally
tuned due to physical necessity this would mean that a life prohibiting universe is impossible but a life prohibiting universe is entirely probable and logically coherent Skeptics would need to demonstrate that a life prohibiting universe is incompatible with the laws of physics but this just isn't the case in leading physicists accept this which is why the idea that the universe is finally tuned due to physical necessity has very few of any supporters so this means the universe has either been finally tuned by Design or it's just a lucky chance so in order to avoid the design
hypothesis many Skeptics will argue that we are here by chance and say the weak anthropic principle is an explanation which is simply an argument that if the laws were not finally tuned for a life permitting Universe we would not be here to observe it in the first place basically Skeptics are sort of resorting to a nonchalant shrugging of the shoulders and saying because we exist the laws of nature must clearly be comp compatible with Life so the odds that we find ourselves in a life permitting universe is one in one however the philosopher John Lesley
responds to this with an analogy he says imagine you're facing a firing squad you hear the command of fire and then the sound of gunshots and then silence you were not dead and all the highly trained marksmen missed Leslie argues taking this stance is analogous to surviving a firing squad and saying of course all the shots miss me otherwise I wouldn't be here to notice that I'm still alive a much more logical approach would be to find an explanation as to why such an unlikely event occurred but according to this explanation by Skeptics you should
not be surprised by the high improbability of the fine-tuning of the universe because you are alive to observe it however it' be clear this would not be a reaction if a similar thing happened like that of the firing squad analogy we'd want to seek out an explanation as to why whereas the argument that the weak anthropic principle is an explanation does nothing to offer any kind of resolution which is why cosmologists have come out in agreement with John Leslie Martin Ree says in his paper one hard-headed response is that we couldn't exist if the laws
had boring consequences we manifestly are here so there is nothing to be surprised about I'm afraid this leaves me unsatisfied I'm impressed by a well-known analogy given by the philosopher John Lesley even Richard Dawkins has changed his View and now agrees with John Lesley I agree with those who don't find that totally totally uh satisfying um the philosopher John Leslie expresses his dissatisfaction with it by um by imagining a man facing a firing squad and um there are 10 men in the firing squad they all aim their rifles at him the rifles will go off
and he finds himself still alive and so he says to himself well obviously I the the the the rifles all missed because otherwise I wouldn't be here but that leaves unexplained why the rifle all missed you still feel you need an explanation he goes on to argue the Multiverse is the reason the universe is so finely tuned but as we have already shown in our previous video that idea is unreasonable and violates aam's razor so arguing the weak anthropic principes is an explanation is an overwhelmingly rejected response to theological argument however despite this many Skeptics
still argue like this without even realizing it a common objection Layman Skeptics use is to say that high improbabilities happen on a daily basis so the fine tuning of the universe should not be considered unlikely they often use examples like what are the odds you would pick any random sequence of cards out of a deck for example the odds you would pick out these four cards is one and over 7 million so astronomically improbable things happen all the time so this is pretty much like the traditional way to argue in that it is a nonchalant
shrugging of the shoulders and saying well High improbabilities happen all the time therefore we should not be surprised by the high impr probability of the finally tuned constants however this is simply a mischaracterization of the argument the fine-tuning argument doesn't simply argue high in probability it argues high in probability with what results from it when you take a random order of cards out of a deck nothing happens there is no special potentiality that makes a difference there is no complexity no order no creation of atoms no creation of massive stars or galaxies there is nothing
incredibly odd that needs explained taking random highend probabilities that produce nothing meaningful seems odd to compare to the fine-tuning argument as ER completely different based on context of what is happening on one hand a massive Universe containing billions of galaxies is formed which is filled with integrative complexity and utter Beauty and on the other hand cards get laid out that mean nothing and have no potentiality but furthermore these counterarguments against theological argument still failed to explain why the universe is so finely tuned and expect us to sit around in ignorance and not seek out the
most rational inference as to why the universe is so finely tuned this is like surviving an execution by firing squad and saying well you know High impr probabilities happen all the time so the odds that I'm still alive really don't need explained a good logical explanation satisfies curiosity oras this kind of explanation doesn't offer anything and seems it is trying to avoid the conclusion finally many Skeptics argue that since we have no universes to compare our own against we cannot say if the universe was finally tuned or not we would need to evaluate the constant
of other universes to see how improbable ours really is therefore we cannot say our universe is finally tuned because we lack others to compare it with well this objection is simply arguing that an absence of evidence somehow refutes the evidence that we do have in what we currently know which is that the Universe does not have to have the physical constants because of physical necessity Robin Collins points out that the naturalistic perspective would not predict a uniform distribution of values of constants so other possible universes with slightly different constant are entirely probable and the leading
physicists agree with this plus the physicist Paul Davies knows there is no good reason to think there could have been minor variations to our universe and still exist as is so there is also no evidence to suggest other universes could exist with slightly different constants and still support life arguing this way is like surviving an execution by firing squad and saying well we really don't know how improbable this event is since we cannot observe my execution in a parallel world so all the evidence we do have concludes our universes unlikely and requires an extreme amount
of fine tuning arguing we need a ability distribution is simply a way to try and brush over the evidence we do have there is no good evidence to think our universe doesn't require extreme fine tuning so when these arguments are looked at more closely we can easily see that it doesn't explain anything or even offer a rational conclusion they merely try to get us to not find an answer for the high improbability of our universe existing and the extreme fine-tuning it required any rational person will find these arguments pointless and will actually seek out the
most rational inference as to why the universe is so finely tuned hiding behind the weak anthropic principle is merely an attempt to hide from the most obvious conclusion
