Hello!
Thomas Westbrook here.
Have you ever wondered: Is the Universe Fine Tuned for Life?
Ah, the fine-tuning argument.
The most overused argument in the creationists’ toolkit.
If you’re not familiar with the fine-tuning argument, it goes something like this:
These are the fundamental constants and quantities of the universe.
Scientists have come to the shocking realization that each of these numbers has been carefully
dialed to an astonishingly precise value – a value that falls within an exceedingly narrow,
life-permitting range.
If any one of these numbers were altered by even a hair’s breath, no physical, interactive
life of any kind could exist anywhere.
If the earth were just 5% closer to the sun, it would be subject to the same fate as Venus
– a runaway greenhouse effect with temperatures rising to nearly 900 degrees Fahrenheit.
Conversely, if the earth were 20 percent farther from its home star, carbon dioxide clouds
would form in its upper atmosphere, initiating the cycle of ice and cold that has sterilized Mars.
5% and 20% don’t sound like much, but that window is 37,399,000 km wide, and the earth’s
orbit isn’t a perfect circle.
It varies wildly in its distance to the sun.
With over 100 billion galaxies containing 100 billion stars, many of which have multiple
planets - ours has at least 8 (sorry, Pluto) - it’s not surprising that in just the few
years that we’ve had telescopes and methods to detect them, we’ve discovered thousands
of exoplanets with estimates of as many as 40 billion just in our galaxy that are orbiting
around a star in the habitable zone.
Now most of the universe is a dangerous vacuum that’s either scorching hot or ice cold,
and with no air to breathe, we would die in seconds.
In fact, 99.999-ad nauseam percent of the universe is not suitable for human life.
And it took us billions of years to evolve and adapt to this narrow corner of it.
So to say that the universe is fine-tuned for human life is like saying that the Sydney
Opera House was fine-tuned for the spec of mold growing on the crumb of cheese that fell
from a lady’s pocket 5 minutes ago.
Allow me to paint a picture for you of what a universe fine-tuned for human life might
actually look like.
Every star would be surrounded with multiple, habitable planets - each in perfect equilibrium
- and they wouldn't have to have shifting tectonic plates causing earthquakes or volcanoes.
No dangerously sporadic weather conditions would exist, and we would be impervious to
UV radiation, if it existed at all.
There would be a higher ratio of land to water,
and a greater percentage of the water would be drinkable.
The requirements for human life wouldn’t be so minuscule and tiny.
We would possibly even be able to survive in outer space and explore it with ease.
And while this type of universe may not be able to operate on its own according to our
current laws of physics.
It wouldn’t have to, because it would be held in place by god.
The very fact that our universe always adheres to physical constants and operates so well
on its own is proof in itself that god is superfluous.
We live on a tiny rock, hurdling around a massive fireball at death-defying speeds in
the vacuum of space.
Our planet is bombarded by meteors and asteroids, encompassed with natural disasters, and has
undergone at least five known mass extinction events.
Our primary source of light and energy gives us cancer.
Only a fool would say this planet is intelligently designed.
Only a blind lunatic would call it fine-tuned for human life, when everything around us
is trying to wipe us out.
But even though it’s not fine-tuned for life, the parameters for life aren’t nearly
as narrow as we once thought.
In the 19th century, it was speculated that man could not survive speeds greater than
50 miles per hour.
To show just how laughable that assumption is, astronauts on the Apollo 11 reached speeds
of 24790 mph.
Creationists think the window for life is so tiny, but let’s take a look at the tardigrade.
This little guy can survive temperatures as low as -328 degrees Fahrenheit (-200 Celsius)
and as high as 300 degrees Fahrenheit (148.8 Celsius).
Radiation?
No problemo!
They can take doses a thousand times the lethal dose for humans, and can live on in pressures
6000 times higher than that of our atmosphere.
And we’ve even found bacteria that can survive in outer space.
The fact is, we just don’t know what the limits of life are.
Sure, we’ve adapted to this planet, but the requirements for life in other circumstances
may be broader than we ever thought possible.
If we had been born in a hotter planet, we would have likely evolved from thermophiles
and would have evolved better cooling mechanisms, or internal systems that thrive in heat.
Would you then say that that planet is so fine tuned for life?
But what about the constants of the universe?
The force of gravity is determined by the gravitational constant.
If this constant varied by just one in ten to the 60th parts, none of us would exist.
That seems pretty crazy, but here’s what an actual physicist has to say about it.
There’s a famous example that theists like to give – or even cosmologists who haven’t
thought about it enough – that the expansion rate of the early universe is tuned to one
part in 10 to the 60th.
That’s the naïve estimate, back of the envelope, pencil and paper you would do.
But in this case, you can do better.
You can go into the equations of general relativity, and there is a correct, rigorous derivation
of the probability, and when you ask the same question using the correct equations, you
find that the probability is one.
All but a set of measure zero of early universe cosmologies have the right expansion rate
to live for a long time and allow life to exist.
Or here’s another one:
Consider the expansion rate of the universe.
This is driven by the cosmological constant.
A change in its value by a mere one part in ten to the 120th parts would cause the universe
to expand too rapidly or too slowly.
In either case, the universe would, again, be life-prohibiting.
One of the worst fine-tuning problems in nature which is the one of the ones I first proposed,
the cosmological constant problem (dark energy in the universe) – the biggest mystery of
the universe - that looks like it’s incredibly fine-tuned.
120 orders of magnitude – the worst fine-tuning problem in nature, and Dr. Craig will jump
up and say, “Look, if it was a lot bigger, we wouldn’t have humans.”
Well, it turns out, if it was precisely zero, which is a more natural number,
more life would form.
What about the electroweak force?
Well it turns out, it appears fine-tuned
if that’s the only value we’re permitted to alter.
But work by Dr. Harnek and colleagues has demonstrated a perfectly viable universe
when allowed to tweak other parameters simultaneously,
even in the complete absence of the weak force altogether.
And if you’re concerned with probability, there’s no reason to assume that the universe
hasn’t been expanding and contracting for eternity,
or that our universe isn’t one of many.
The Cosmological Natural Selection theory by physicist Lee Smolin posits that black
holes may be the way that universes reproduce
- each new universe having slightly different physical constants.
If that’s the case, and there’s an infinite number of universes, then even if the creationists’
assertions about the improbability of life were true, probability would be irrelevant.
Because even if the chance of life was really one in a trillion-trillion, then with more
than a trillion-trillion universes, each with different physical constants, our existence
would be a statistical necessity.
But rather than our universe being fine-tuned for life, it would be fine-tuned for the formation
of black holes, which given the prevalence of black holes, it certainly appears to be.
The universes that don’t produce black holes would die out, and the ones that produce the
most would become more common.
The fact that some of the mass formed would evolve into human life
would be an inconsequential by-product.
We inhabit an incomprehensibly tiny spec, floating through vast emptiness and chaos.
Are we really so arrogantly egocentric as to look up at the night sky and assume that
it’s all made for us?
Is that really a crutch we need to make it through the day?
Starting in extreme conditions, humans and our ancient, non-human ancestors adapted to
this planet as it cooled.
Those of us who couldn’t live long enough to reproduce, were lost along the way.
We have evolved to survive here,
fine-tuning ourselves to this planet, not the other way around.
We have fought tooth-and-nail to get to where we are.
That’s all the more reason to cherish this life and not squander it
or destroy the only home we have.
I put out a video like this, every week, now.
If you’re able to pledge even just a buck or two per video on Patreon (that’s about
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I’m living in South-East Asia to stretch out my savings right now, and Holy Koolaid
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I’d hate to see it die off due to lack of funding.
But you can change that and help me make more of these videos,
just like these amazing patrons are.
Thanks again guys, and Don’t Drink the Koolaid!
If our universe is intelligently designed, why did god make seals that rape penguins?