Welcome to earth, a living breathing planet, an Eden for life.
The forces of nature have conspired in an unimaginable coincidence
to establish this oasis we call home.
Increase the strength of gravity and stars would collapse into black holes,
decrease it and stars and planets would never form.
Vary the strength of the electromagnetic force and atoms would become unstable.
Vary the strength of the strong nuclear force and the nuclei of atoms would become unstable.
Or so the argument goes.
So unlikely is the coincidence of all the forces being just right,
that many have argued the universe must have been fine-tuned
an intelligent being to allow for our existence.
Now let's for a moment ignore all lions, tigers, bears, and sharks that want to eat us.
Let's ignore all the bacteria and viruses that want to infect us.
Let's ignore all the poisonous snakes, fish, plants, and mushrooms
that would kill us after just one bite.
Let's ignore the forest fires,
blizzards,
tornados,
tsunamis,
hurricanes,
avalanches,
earthquakes,
landslides,
and volcanoes that can also kill us.
Let's ignore the fact that if we fall from a height greater than 10 meters
or if we are submerged under water for more than 10 minutes we are likely to die.
Yes, let's ignore all of that and assume the earth is a perfect bastion for human life.
Let's for a moment wrap ourselves in a blanket of ignorance and arrogance
and assume the earth and the universe were clearly designed just for us.
Unfortunately most of the earth is off limits for human life.
Take us above 8000 meters above sea level we will slowly die from lack of oxygen.
Going below 2000 meters below sea level and we slowly cook from the heat of the earth's interior.
It turns out less than ½ of 1% of the earth's total volume is capable of sustaining human life.
Meaning even if we imagine earth to be the Eden we know it's not,
more than 99.5% of it would kill us rather quickly.
But this is just Earth, surely the space around us, our solar system, will be more hospitable for us.
Actually no.
Go outside the Earth's atmosphere and you would quickly die in the vacuum of space.
And if the zero pressure didn't get you, the scorching heat in the sun,
the freezing cold in the shade, or the cosmic radiation would do you in quickly.
But what about all those planets.
Well you'd burn on Mercury,
you'd freeze on Pluto,
you'd suffocate then freeze on Mars,
there's no place to stand on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune,
and on Venus you'd be cooked and crushed to death in short order.
So no, no other place in the entire solar system is hospitable for human life.
Oh and it gets worse.
Now let's assume for a moment,
despite everything modern science has been able to tell us about extra-solar planets,
that every single star in every single galaxy has an earth-like planet orbiting it.
And let's also ignore the giant cosmic voids found between clusters of galaxies.
Even with these gross assumptions it turns out that less than one billionth
of one billionth of one billionth of one millionth of one percent
of the universe is habitable for human life.
Or to put it another way
99.9999999999999999999999999999999999927%
of the universe is not habitable for humans.
Really kind of takes the wind out of the sails of the
"the universe is fine-tuned for human life" argument doesn't it.
I mean, if the universe was fine-tuned for us, surely a bit more of it would be habitable.
This number is so absurd it defies comprehension.
It is equivalent to a person, after exploring 3.6 billion rocks like our moon
and discovering only 1 single virus particle on only 1 of the moons,
claiming that collectively they are fine-tuned for life.
Or having 6 million Olympic sized swimming pools that can collectively hold no more
than 1 molecule of water, yet claiming they are fine-tuned for water storage.
Or claiming that a hard drive the size of the earth that can only store one bit,
or a hard drive the size of Jupiter that couldn't even store a single Tweet on Twitter,
are fine-tuned for storing data.
Or claiming that 2 million 50-ton cranes that collectively can't lift more than a single proton,
are fine-tuned for lifting.
Or claiming a plane that at full speed travels less than 1 tenth of 1% of the diameter of a proton
over 10 billion years, is fine-tuned for speed.
If you think these examples are ridiculous,
then you would agree so too is the argument that the universe is fine-tuned for human life.
It doesn't take a genius to realize how absurd and flawed this argument truly is.
But maybe this is the best things could be.
Maybe given all possible laws of nature, this is the most life a universe could sustain.
Well, that sounds like the intelligent being that fine-tuned the universe in the first place,
isn't really all powerful after all.
So what does modern science have to say about why the universe is the way it is.
Why it has the physics, the forces, the fundamental constants it does?
One idea is that the laws of physics are set randomly during the first few instants after the big bang.
If that were true, one could then ask what the chances of observing a universe like ours would be.
And it turns out, real scientists, doing actual peer-reviewed research have asked,
and answered this question.
Work by Dr. Adams has shown that 25% of random starting conditions
would create universes capable of producing stars,
and stars are a fundamental source of energy and all higher elements necessary for life.
Work by Dr. Harnik and colleagues has shown a viable universe with stars
even if the weak nuclear force, one of the 4 fundamental forces, was removed.
So even if the initial conditions were a roll of the dice,
a universe capable of supporting life isn't that unlikely.
Some physicists have hypothesized that there may be parallel universes,
each with their own laws of physics.
Each universe would be equivalent to a roll of the die.
Given an infinite number of universes you are guaranteed to produce one that looks just like ours.
So no, no matter how you look at it, given all that we know today,
our universe is not an improbable coincidence fine-tuned for life.
Given any universe capable of producing life,
that life will compete and evolve over generations,
bettering itself to survive in that universe.
So no, it's not the universe that is fine-tuned for life,
but life that has fine-tuned itself for the universe.
In the end it doesn't take a genius to realize that the creationists claim
that the universe is fine tuned for life and therefore required an intelligent creator
is just like every other argument creationists have ever made:
complete nonsense.
To realize this all one need to do is
Think about it.