Comment #13339

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on January 11, 2005 03:02 PM (e) (s)

Derbyshire has criticized ID before, for which I praised him here.

Comment #13343

Posted by David Heddle on January 11, 2005 03:34 PM (e) (s)

Derbyshire’s comments are not intelligently designed. I have posted on this here

Comment #13347

Posted by Ed Brayton on January 11, 2005 03:51 PM (e) (s)

David, your post focuses on cosmological claims, which interest me as little as the biological aspects interest you. Personally, as a deist, I have no problem with the notion that the universe was created, or was created with conditions that could allow the formation of life (WAP is fine by me, SAP seems a major stretch). But that has little to do with the ID and evolution, which focuses on biology and the biodiversity of life on earth, not with the universe as a whole.

Comment #13358

Posted by David Heddle on January 11, 2005 04:01 PM (e) (s)

Ed,

You are correct. It’s a pet peeve of mine that ID is almost always viewed as an attack on evolution. I take all opportunities to point out that there is an even more fundamental cosmological ID question. If ID in cosmology cannot be satisfactorily refuted, then I view the evolution debate as “in the noise.”

Comment #13360

Posted by Bayesian Bouffant on January 11, 2005 04:04 PM (e) (s)

2) None of the ID people I have encountered (in person or books) is an open-minded inquirer trying to uncover facts about the world. Every one I know of is a Christian looking to justify his faith.

It appears he doesn’t know any Raelians

Comment #13362

Posted by Ed Brayton on January 11, 2005 04:08 PM (e) (s)

David-

Perhaps you should take that up with the Discovery Institute. 99% of their efforts focus exclusively on poking holes in evolution. It’s almost always viewed as an attack on evolution because it almost always IS an attack on evolution.

Comment #13363

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 11, 2005 04:10 PM (e) (s)

Nice try Heddle.  By the way, as I recall last time you ran away from this blog without providing satisfactory answers to some questions about the “evolution” of your thinking with respect to evolutionary biology.  Like, what was the scientific thinking which led you to conclude in high school that the entire field was a fraud?

In any event, Derbyshire is correct and you remain a dissembler.

You write

Now I limit myself to ID as it applies to cosmology.

And I limit myself to “ID” as it applies to wristwatches.

Does that mean Derbyshire is mistaken?

Of course not.

We all know what we’re talking about when we talk about “ID theory”, Mr. Heddle.  Except some of us (you) apparently like to pretend that we don’t.

Derbyshire makes a theologically incorrect statement, at the very beginning of his post:

It is possible to believe in God and not believe in ID;
theologically incorrect statement, at the very beginning of his post:

It is possible to believe in God and not believe in ID

Theologically incorrect?  What the hell does that mean?  I recall you claiming that you weren’t a fundamentalist.  I suggest you “try again.”  Of course, it’s clear that “ID” means whatever you want it to mean, David Dumpty.  So maybe it’s just impossible for you to be proven wrong about anything.  I guess that would be consistent with your ability to rebuke a century’s worth of scientific research before you reached twenty.

Why is there a universe at all? Why is there something rather than nothing?

Wow, that is so deep, man.  My bong isn’t long enough to inhale such deep thoughts.  If such deep questions were relevant to determining whether science teachers should instruct children that mysterious alien beings created all the earth’s life forms, I might reach for my bong and take you on.  For better or worse, that isn’t necessary.

He has, of course, relegated me to the category of uninformed scientist.

Misinformed and willfully deluded is more accurate.

Contrary to what Derbyshire implied, a great deal of research is conducted to answer the questions uncovered by ID research.

Oops. Instead of “uncovered by ID research” you meant to write “theologians and pop science cosmologists”.

Derbyshire confirms my speculation in his latest post in which he writes:

“None of the ID people I have encountered (in person or books) is an open-minded inquirer trying to uncover facts about the world. Every one I know of is a Christian looking to justify his faith.”

Were you really speculating about whether you were a Christian, Mr. Heddle?  Gee, I could have helped you out with that one.  I also have some advice on how to become a better Christian: stop dissembling on behalf of the ID peddling charlatans.  You are turning your religion into a joke.

Comment #13364

Posted by David Heddle on January 11, 2005 04:10 PM (e) (s)

Ed,

My point exactly. Perhaps I wasn’t clear on one thing: I don’t blame the biologists.

Comment #13365

Posted by David Heddle on January 11, 2005 04:13 PM (e) (s)

Ahh GWW, I missed you! You have such a way with words.

Comment #13366

Posted by Barron on January 11, 2005 04:16 PM (e) (s)

NR is rather confused on this as they named “Darwin’s Black Box” one of the Top 100 Books of the 20th Century!

http://www.nationalreview.com/100best/100_books.html…

With the priceless quote:
George Gilder: “Overthrows Darwin at the end of the 20th century in the same way that quantum theory overthrew Newton at the beginning.”

Comment #13368

Posted by Bayesian Bouffant on January 11, 2005 04:36 PM (e) (s)

NR is rather confused on this as they named “Darwin’s Black Box” one of the Top 100 Books of the 20th Century!

http://www.nationalreview.com/100best/100_books.html……

Must be some mistake - they have it listed in the ‘nonfiction’ section.

Comment #13372

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 11, 2005 04:39 PM (e) (s)

Ahh GWW, I missed you! You have such a way with words.

I missed you, too.  I figured you’d have been raptured up by now.

Comment #13373

Posted by Bayesian Bouffant on January 11, 2005 04:45 PM (e) (s)

http://www.nationalreview.com/100best/100_books.html……

#33 The Double Helix by James Watson

Herman: “Deeply hated by feminists because Watson dares to suggest that the male-female distinction originated in nature, in the DNA code itself.”

I don’t think that’s the reason, and I disagree that this is one of the best 100 non-fiction books of the 20th century. Perhaps they confused it with his Nature articles on the double helical model for DNA.

#17: Sociobiology by Edward O. Wilson

Lind: “Darwin put humanity in its proper place in the animal kingdom. Wilson put human society there, too.”

Seems a bit inconsistent with listing Behe’s book, which only came in at #92.

Comment #13375

Posted by Steve Reuland on January 11, 2005 04:53 PM (e) (s)

David Heddle wrote:

t’s a pet peeve of mine that ID is almost always viewed as an attack on evolution. I take all opportunities to point out that there is an even more fundamental cosmological ID question. If ID in cosmology cannot be satisfactorily refuted, then I view the evolution debate as “in the noise.”

Part of the problem is that the anti-evolution ID arguments (which as Ed points out, are by far the majority) are at best completely unrelated to the cosmological ID arguments.  In some respects, they’re actually contradictory.  The anti-evolution arguments rely on rarity to infer design.  Yet the cosmological arguments rely on regularity.  Surely, if the universe were not conducive to life, and yet here we are anyway, that would be an even better reason to infer design, no?  On the flip side, if it turns out that the origin of life is a virtual certainty given the laws of the universe, then this fits right in with the cosmological fine-tuning arguments.  Hey, the laws of the unvierse were “fine-tuned” to create life!  Yet it would be the precise opposite of what the IDists are currently arguing.

Comment #13384

Posted by CrystalCowboy on January 11, 2005 05:14 PM (e) (s)

Surely, if the universe were not conducive to life, and yet here we are anyway, that would be an even better reason to infer design, no?  On the flip side, if it turns out that the origin of life is a virtual certainty given the laws of the universe, then this fits right in with the cosmological fine-tuning arguments.  Hey, the laws of the unvierse were “fine-tuned” to create life!

Precisely this “heads I win, tails you lose” argument is used by John Polkinghorne, Templeton Prize winner, in support of his version of the Anthropic fallacy.

The Templeton Foundation should demand more for their $1.4 million.

Comment #13392

Posted by David Heddle on January 11, 2005 06:36 PM (e) (s)

Steve and CC,

No, I do not agree that it is a heads I win tails you lose argument. In a nutshell, cosmological ID says: the chance of starting with nothing, and then there was a big-bang that ultimately produced a universe with even a single earth, is nil.

This is perfectly consistent with saying God created the universe for the purpose of placing life on earth, therefore the chance of an earth is unity.

Probability is always like that. A fair coin toss leading to a heads is, in one way of looking at it, 50-50. On the other hand, any coin toss is deterministic—given enough info I can calculate whether heads or tails will result. So in that sense the probability is unity.

Likewise for evolution. Regardless of whether it is right or wrong, it is self-consistent to say that the probability that humans evolved from singled celled organisms is zero, unless God did it, in which case its one.

I don’t see the problem.

Comment #13394

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 11, 2005 06:51 PM (e) (s)

On the other hand, any coin toss is deterministic—given enough info I can calculate whether heads or tails will result.

Enough info about what, David?

Regardless of whether it is right or wrong, it is self-consistent to say that the probability that humans evolved from singled celled organisms is zero, unless God did it, in which case its one.

What did your deity do, exactly?

This is kindergarent level philosophical rubbish, inarticulately worded, incoherent and a compleat waste of time (as Bob and Ray would say).  Because David’s logic stinks, his deity just fell apart into an ash heap.  Time to sweep the floor.

Funny how that works.  Silly Johnsonite Christians.  Always sticking their deity where it doesn’t belong.

Comment #13401

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 11, 2005 07:33 PM (e) (s)

News flash!  Historians now realize: da Vinci was not a human being, but a deity.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/01/11/davinci.designs.reut/index.html

“It is impossible to say how he managed to imagine these things, he was too great a mind to comprehend, but what you can see from the drawings is the process of his thought, filling every inch of paper with ideas,” Barbieri said.

“Even the bicycle, is … exactly like our modern version.”

I heard through the grapevine that da Vinci’s remains will be exumed tomorrow and analyzed to confirm Johnsonite Christian predictions that he was not a DNA-based organism.

Comment #13402

Posted by David Heddle on January 11, 2005 07:47 PM (e) (s)

GWW, on point one: given enough details about the coin, how the coin is flipped, as well as the ambient conditions, one can (in principle) calculate how the toss will result. There is nothing random about it. Still, it makes sesne to say it’s 50-50.

On point two, it does not surprise me that you are incapable of enagaing in a discussion that is one level of abstraction away from whether ID is true or false. Let me try it in baby steps:

REGARDLESS of whether or not you agree with ID. If someone does agree with ID, then, from THEIR point of view, which may of course be FLAWED, then one can, given the aforementioned caveats, NEVERTHELESS understand how it is not unreasonable for them to say, although they be religious fanatics, that the probability of earth by random processes is zero, therefore God must have created the earth, while at the same time saying that since the sovereign omnipotent GOD decided to create the earth, it was in truth a “done deal.”

Comment #13404

Posted by plunge on January 11, 2005 08:06 PM (e) (s)

“In a nutshell, cosmological ID says: the chance of starting with nothing, and then there was a big-bang that ultimately produced a universe with even a single earth, is nil.”

I’ve never even really understood the sort of mind that could make an argument like this.  Isn’t it self-evident that probability is a meaningless concept without having knowledge of all possible options and their likihood (or, even better, a hold on exactly what process determines the outcome of each “toss”?)?  We don’t for the universe, and perhaps never will.  Any calculation of probability is thus plain goofy.  We don’t even know WHAT can vary universe to universe.  Perhaps there are principles, constants, regularities, and so on… of most universes that we have never seen.  The cosmological ID argument basically emasculates itself.

Comment #13405

Posted by David Heddle on January 11, 2005 08:19 PM (e) (s)

Plunge,

Bullshit.

First of all, galaxy formation requires a tight constraint on the expansion rate. Since the expansion rate, in no known theory, is a fundamental constant, it implies something about the probability of our universe. So much so that multiverse alternatives are proposed. In fact, if it wern’t so clear that we are extremely lucky (i.e. small probability) to exist at all, then the zealous appeal for the multiverse alternative would wane considerably.

You wrote:

of most universes that we have never seen

What do you mean “most universes we have never seen? Newsflash: we have only seen one and exactly one. The other universes conveniently cannot communicate with ours. According to non IDers we have to accept that they (other universes) exist on faith. And that we happen to live in one of the rare, fertile universes. Most reasonable people would call such a view a “religion.”

Comment #13406

Posted by WyldPirate on January 11, 2005 08:25 PM (e) (s)

First time reading this blog and I can tell two things right off the bat.

1.) The focus on debunking the fundie creationist trojan horse of ID is an extremely important, but under-the-radar topic, is something that as a scientist I love to see.  The fundamentalists pushing this stuff are the biggest danger to our country today.  They are trying to extend their brainwashing and indoctrination out of the church and into the public arena.  This is a dire threat to America and must be stopped.

2.) Little difference in other similar evolution/science-focused forums I’ve seen for years. There’s always fundies dropping by pretending to be what they aren’t.

Mr. Heddle is one and he doesn’t even know enough to realize that GWW performed the rhetorical equivalent of ripping his head off and defecating into his thoracic cavity.  Moreover, Mr Heddle screws his head back in place and merrily proceeds to make a bigger fool of himself.

“Same as it ever was.”— David Byrne, “Once in a Lifetime”

Comment #13407

Posted by David Heddle on January 11, 2005 08:37 PM (e) (s)

WyldPirate,

I can be wrong in many ways, but anyone who calls me a fundie is an idiot. My blog is noted for its anti-fundie viewpoint. Fundies HATE cosmological ID, because it only makes sense if the universe is old. Fundies only jump on the evolution-ID debate, because they believe they do so while retaining thier belief in a 6000 year old earth.

Pretending to be what they aren’t? I have more than 40 papers in peer reviewed physics journals. (I’ll provide you with a vita if you like) I’d wager my scientific bone fides can hold their own with most of the readers of this blog.

Why don’t you enlighten me, in a impassioned cogent analysis, as to how GWW ripped me a new one?

Comment #13408

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 11, 2005 08:42 PM (e) (s)

Heddle

“One can understand” many things if one is willing to pretend that words have no meanings.

But if words have meanings — which is something we should be able to agree on — then I can not understand how it is reasonable for smoeone to say that “the probability of earth by random processes is zero, therefore God must have created the earth, while at the same time saying that since the sovereign omnipotent GOD decided to create the earth, it was in truth a “done deal.””

Such statements are not “reasonable”, whether a person “agrees” with “ID” or not.  They are expressions of religious faith with no more substance than the tongues spoken by Pentecostals (the fastest growing religion in the US, if I understood the NYT correctly).

And every discussion about deities is “one level of abstraction” away from whether the deities created all of the life forms on earth.

The membrane which separates my lack of a belief in deities from religious faith is infinitely thin.  POP.  I believe in deities.  POP.  No I don’t because there is no evidence for them.  See?

Nothing is simpler than that and that’s all there is to it, no matter how many bells and whistles you want to attach to your religious beliefs.  In nearly every other respect, we go about our lives in precisely the same way: eating food when we are hungry, sleeping when we are tired, communicating  with our mouths and facial expressions and gestures.

But for some people, popping over to the religious side is not enough.  For some people, the fact that they popped over while others (like me) remain uninterested in popping over is a real problem.  Indeed, the unpopped people are the source of all the world’s problems according to some members of this self-proclaimed enlighted class of popped over people (e.g., Johnsonite Christians).  And so they start pretending that the people who didn’t pop over are “stubborn” and “amoral” and they start smearing the good works of people who refuse to admit that popping over is the greatest thing that can happen to anyone.

All that is permitted, of course, but when some of the most extreme elements in society attempt to redefine science in public schools to include popping over, well, that’s just crazy talk.  And so the legal machinery needs to be cranked up to provide legal proof that popping over isn’t science.  Will the Johnsonite Christians be convinced?  Of course not.  They’ll read their script on page 3 where they are instructed to, “Whine about activist judges.”

Anyway, enough of my irrefutable and infallible predictions. 

given enough details about the coin, how the coin is flipped, as well as the ambient conditions, one can (in principle) calculate how the toss will result.

Ah, yes, “in principle.”  Let us be honest and note that as a practical matter, no one can predict at time x with greater than 50% accuracy how the coin I toss into the air at time x+1 will land.  Are you imagining that “in principle” you can read my mind and know beforehand with certainty how I’m going to snap my thumb?

Please.  This sort of schoolyard “logic” leads to the abuse of the English language and little else.

You have no evidence to suggest that your deity or anyone else’s deities ever created anything.  Invoking “mysterious” alien beings to explain phenomena you don’t understand (and likely don’t want to understand) is childish fantasizing.  It is not science and there aren’t any logical exercise which allow Johnsonite Christians to escape from this conclusion.

Comment #13409

Posted by David Heddle on January 11, 2005 08:49 PM (e) (s)

GWW,

I really don’t understand you.

I toss a coin and it lands “heads”.

If you do NOT believe that at some level the coin toss was deterministic, then what do you suppose caused to land “heads”? Was it supernatural?

Deterministic does not require I read you mind. If I know: the intertia tensor of the coin, the position and orientation when it leaves your hand, the humidy and temperature, etc, then i can use Newton’s laws to calculate how it will land.

Comment #13410

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 11, 2005 08:53 PM (e) (s)

David Heddle writes

Fundies HATE cosmological ID, because it only makes sense if the universe is old.

I’ve never seen any creationists mention the phrase “cosmological ID” before so if they really do hate it, they must hate it a lot less than evolutionary biology.

Fundies only jump on the evolution-ID debate, because they believe they do so while retaining thier belief in a 6000 year old earth.

Good Lord — then Flint is right!!!!

Comment #13411

Posted by plunge on January 11, 2005 08:56 PM (e) (s)

“First of all, galaxy formation requires a tight constraint on the expansion rate. Since the expansion rate, in no known theory, is a fundamental constant, it implies something about the probability of our universe.”

No, because it is still determined by whatever fundamental character the universe had to begin with.  Which again, is something no one can with a straight face or at least a decent understanding of math, claim to know the “probability” of.  Again, if you think we can know this, then what are the various outcomes and what are the likihoods of each of them?  Or, alternatively, how is the character of a universe determined.

“What do you mean “most universes we have never seen? Newsflash: we have only seen one and exactly one.”

You are a very confused person.  First you try to bring up an argument about probability, which makes _necessary_ a discussion about other _possible_ universes.  I’m not saying that any universes other than our own exist, but if you are going to claim that there is any probability attached to our universe being the way it is, you MUST be able to discuss what the other possibilities are.  If you concede that there is only one universe for which we have any experience, then you must also concede that we have no way to speak about what goes into determining the original character of the universe.  We cannot use regularities and observations taken from within the context of the universe to conclude things about the cause of the universe, which if there is one, would be outside of that context!

“The other universes conveniently cannot communicate with ours. According to non IDers we have to accept that they (other universes) exist on faith. And that we happen to live in one of the rare, fertile universes. Most reasonable people would call such a view a “religion.””

Most people seem to call a person that drones on and on down a blind alley of a point no one even made… a fool.

Again: YOU raised the concept of proability.  If you think we are talking about something akin to a coin flip, then YOU must be talking about multiple possible universes.  Otherwise you are just pulling our legs.  So don’t spin around and get all huffy about a subject YOU raised.

Comment #13412

Posted by plunge on January 11, 2005 09:00 PM (e) (s)

“Deterministic does not require I read you mind. If I know: the intertia tensor of the coin, the position and orientation when it leaves your hand, the humidy and temperature, etc, then i can use Newton’s laws to calculate how it will land.”

And you know anything even approaching any of this in the case of the universe… how?

Comment #13413

Posted by David Heddle on January 11, 2005 09:02 PM (e) (s)

GWW,

It is my term as far as I know. My point is, On my blog I have been attacked by fundamentalists for posting on the cosmological aspects of ID. Fundies are not amused that there is a fortuitous set of energy levels that allows the process of stellar evolution to produce heavy elements that then seed the surrounding space following a super nova. It actually hurts their view that God created the earth in situ 6000 years ago. For if he did so, why would he so fine-tune the nuclear chemistry? It makes no sense.

The physics/cosmology/astronomy ID arguments only make sense (if they make sense to you at all) if you believe in an old universe. That’s why it’s dumb to call me a fundie, unless you just use fundie to mean Christian.

Even on purely theological matters, I am decidedly non-fundamentalist.

Comment #13414

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 11, 2005 09:06 PM (e) (s)

If I know: the intertia tensor of the coin, the position and orientation when it leaves your hand, the humidy and temperature, etc, then i can use Newton’s laws to calculate how it will land.

There aren’t enough “etc.” in your statement and this page isn’t big enough to hold them all.  And that’s granting you the “late start” where you get to see the coin as it leaves it my hand.  Why not make the prediction before it leaves my hand?  And tell me what you predict.  What is the difference “in principle”?  Hmmm???

My point is that relying on a logical argument about determinism to establish the likelihood that your deity created all the earth’s life forms (or the universe or that little fluffy cloud in the sky) is a very very silly occupation and, frankly, a boring hobby unless you choose to use the argument to badger biologists, in which case it’s boring and annoying.  I don’t understand why anyone would choose to trivialize their religious beliefs by engaging in such low-falootin’ exercises, but I’m not a psychologist.

I’ve nothing more to say, really.  I’m 100% confident that your argument will remain equally silly 500 years from now and that some form of it will inspire several bad Hollywood movies.

Comment #13415

Posted by WyldPirate on January 11, 2005 09:07 PM (e) (s)

Mr. Heddle,

You’re not worth my time.  I’ve seen hundreds of your type before.

I say this because I had read several threads and gathered from them that GWW is a straight-up fellow that knows what he is talking about.  Additionally, I perused your blog for a bit and see that you are obsessed with Xianity.

You may well not be a “fundie” in the standard understanding of the term, but you have taken Luther’s urging to heart to “tell helpful lies” for the advancement of the imaginary Invisible Sky Daddy you so desperately wish to believe in despite the fact that you lack a shred of evidence for said Invisible Sky Daddy’s existence.  From these multiple threads of evidence, I’ve concluded that you are: a.) quite likely intellectually dishonest, b.) have the ever handy movable goalposts that many theists carry and hence c.) you are not worth wasting much thought on in refuting the drivel you would like reply with.

Thanks, but no thanks.  I’ve toyed with your type for years.  I’ll just pull up my seat and a big bag of popcorn and watch you dissemble and others wipe the floor with you.  This sort of thing is an interesting spectator sport. ;)

Comment #13417

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 11, 2005 09:13 PM (e) (s)

David

That’s why it’s dumb to call me a fundie, unless you just use fundie to mean Christian.

Definitely not.

Even on purely theological matters, I am decidedly non-fundamentalist.

Okay.  Message received.  Loud and clear.

I wonder if there any Christians these days who would admit to being a fundamentalist?  That Osama guy kinda tainted the term.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Christianity

Comment #13419

Posted by Steve Reuland on January 11, 2005 09:24 PM (e) (s)

David Heddle wrote:

Likewise for evolution. Regardless of whether it is right or wrong, it is self-consistent to say that the probability that humans evolved from singled celled organisms is zero, unless God did it, in which case its one.

I don’t see the problem.

The problem is, one argument says that the probability that humans evolved is zero because it’s too unlikely given the laws of the universe.  So therefore, God must have invervened to circumvent those laws.  The other argument says that the probability that humans evolved was near unity given the laws of the universe, and because it’s unlikely that a random set of laws could produce this outcome, then God must have designed those laws. 

The two arguments are obviously incompatible.  It’s not the conclusions that are incompatible (I certainly wouldn’t expect the “cultural renewal” team to reach different conclusions), it’s the arguments put forth. 

Of course, you can always say that God designed the laws of the universe just so that He’d eventually have to come back and violate His own laws in order to make life.  But that’s pretty damned contrived.  You can take any phenomenon and claim that God both designed laws to make it possible for it to happen but at the same time had to violate those laws in order to make it happen.  No matter what the facts are, you can find support for this hybrid scenario.  If there is regularity involved, then it supports the first part.  If there’s rarity involved, then it’s supports the second part.  Any imaginable set of data works equally well.

If this be the case, then the actual science means very little, since it can always be spun to support the irrefutable theory that things are the way they are, and that they could only be this way as long as it’s possible for things to be the way things happen to be.

Comment #13421

Posted by Steve Reuland on January 11, 2005 09:27 PM (e) (s)

While I’m at it…

No, I do not agree that it is a heads I win tails you lose argument. In a nutshell, cosmological ID says: the chance of starting with nothing, and then there was a big-bang that ultimately produced a universe with even a single earth, is nil.

If by “nil” you mean, “wildly unlikely”, then I suppose this may be the case.  (With the caveat that I’m not well versed in the fine-tuning arguments, so I don’t know how unlikely it really is.) 

But it’s equally the case that any given set of outcomes is extremely unlikely.  You have to assume that our current outcome was the intended goal of God or whatever before it becomes amazing that we have the outcome that we have.  But that’s basically a case of circular reasoning.

As an analogy, consider various hands in poker.  Any specific 5-card hand is equally likely.  Some hands, like the royal flush, are considered to be very special.  So when we see them, we say, “Wow, a royal flush!  What are the odds!”  The answer is, about 4 times better than for any 5 specific cards, no matter how worthless they are.  (There are 4 ways to make a royal flush, but only 1 way to make 5 specific cards.)  What makes the royal flush special?  Because we say so — those are the rules we adhere to in most poker games.  In some poker games, the royal flush isn’t worth anything.

Unfortunately, the universe as we know it, with at least one Earth crawling with apes, is not something that we can say is “special” without assuming your conclusion.  We can’t say if we’re living in a royal flush or a piece of junk hand, precisely because we have no idea what the ranking should be.  All we can say is that the likelihood of hitting our exact hand is pretty damned low, but that’s true no matter what, and it says exactly nothing about the value of our hand.  Who says that having Earth-like planets with living things on it is the intended outcome?  Unless you start out with the assumption that God exists and that he wants there to be Earth with humans, there’s no reason to assume this.  What if God prefers a universe without atoms?  In that case, we’re a draw hand that missed.  If you’re going to believe a priori that we are the intended consequence of whatever caused the universe to come into being, then what’s the point of calculating the odds anyway?  You’ve already assumed your answer.  Just believe it and be done with it. 

I’m not saying it’s not a proper thing to believe, it’s just that it’s silly, IMO, to believe it on the basis of probability calculations that are meaningless unless you already believe.

Comment #13426

Posted by Flint on January 11, 2005 10:04 PM (e) (s)

I’m not saying it’s not a proper thing to believe, it’s just that it’s silly, IMO, to believe it on the basis of probability calculations that are meaningless unless you already believe.

Maybe this argument is too sophisticated? It seems pretty obvious. Many contests of chance guarantee a winner. The odds against any specific person winning are tiny. The chance of a winner is unity. To that individual, it will seem like a miracle, in defiance of the odds. To everyone else, even though their ‘unlucky number’ was no less likely than anyone else’s and thus equally in defiance of the odds, it won’t be anything special. The odds haven’t changed for anyone. All defied them the same!

And so the optimist thinks we’re living in the best of all possible universes, and the pessimist fears this is true.

Comment #13427

Posted by Tim Brandt on January 11, 2005 11:40 PM (e) (s)

David:

Unfortunately, plunge is right and your probability argument is meaningless.  The fact that we know nothing about the conditions that brought our universe into being, be they natural or supernatural, means that we can’t talk about probability.  In other words, if you don’t know what you’re tossing up in the air, you can’t talk about the probability of it coming up heads, since you don’t know if it has a “heads” side. 

As you may know, this “fine-tuning” problem (we live in a universe just the right density to have not collapsed or blown apart by now, etc, etc.) is a very active area of physics research.  Alan Guth’s inflationary theory and its variants seem to be a pretty good explanation.  Some variants of this actually propose that there is a sort of “foam” of false vacuum, a very energetic and unstable vacuum, which is expanding relentlessly, and that there are regions collapsing into lower energy vacuums all the time, which would release tremendous amounts of energy.  These would actually be universes, infinitely many “big-bangs.”  In this case, since there are infinitely many possible values of the physical constants, the probability of there being a universe just like ours is unity. 

However, the problem remains that this is not testable experimentally at the moment, and may never be.  In that case, you can argue whether it is science or philosophy.  However, the fact is, we do not have anything approaching the amount of information necessary to do a probability calculation for the existence of a universe like ours. 

On a side note, you do have a point about the coin flip being deterministic.  If you were to somehow (divine inspiration?) be told the quantum wave functions of all of the particles in the room, you could calculate whether the coin would come up heads or tails.  Pratically, of course, it is impossible, but in principle, you can calculate the outcome to a very high degree of probability using quantum mechanics.  Which brings a last little note:  if something is not deterministic, as quantum mechanics may very well not be as far as observable quantities like position go, what determines the outcome?  If there is no way to test different possibilities (the atom decided to go there, or God put it there, or it is simply random), then science has nothing to say on the matter.

Comment #13428

Posted by steve on January 12, 2005 12:21 AM (e) (s)

The other day I won a game of poker. So I calculated the odds of my getting that exact winning hand. They were ridiculously low! 1:2,598,960 against! Clearly, god stacked the deck in my favor!

Ugh.

If anyone wants to take a break from this discussion of nonsense cosmology, and check out some real cosmology, the NYT has a good article up today about the fresh detection of remnants of sound waves from the big bang.

http://nytimes.com/2005/01/12/science/space/12cosmos.html…

Comment #13433

Posted by DaveScot on January 12, 2005 03:57 AM (e) (s)

With an as yet undetermined appendage WyldPirate writes:

1.) The focus on debunking the fundie creationist trojan horse of ID is an extremely important, but under-the-radar topic, is something that as a scientist I love to see.  The fundamentalists pushing this stuff are the biggest danger to our country today.  They are trying to extend their brainwashing and indoctrination out of the church and into the public arena.  This is a dire threat to America and must be stopped.

What a load of drama queen nonsense.

Comment #13436

Posted by David Heddle on January 12, 2005 04:56 AM (e) (s)

Sorry guys, but your probability skills are in error. (but you biology types are never very strong in math, are you?)

If all possible universes are equally likely then it is true that, in a random draw, the probability of ours is the same as any other. So in that case we have no right to be surprised in our universe.

However, if only very few of those universes can support life, then we have to chose one of two alternatives (1) we see design or (2) of course we are lucky, or we wouldn’t be here talking about it.

Your poker analogy is more like this: suppose of all poker hands represent universes, but only a royal flush of hearts represents a fertile universe. It is true that the royal flush is no less likely than any other hand, but I would expect cheating (i.e. design) if it was the only hand that meant life and it was the hand I drew.

The non-Iders in physics recognize this too (even if you bio types don’t) which is why multiverse theories are popular. After all, they allow you to pick option number (2) above, for if all possiblle poker hands are  dealt, somebody VERY LUCKY gets the royal flush, and they alone will be alive to ponder their good fortune, even though no design was involved.

Many, many really smart non-ID scientists believe in the paragraph above, or some variation thereof. That’s fine, obviously, but it acknowledges that the probablibility of not just our but ANY life supporting universe is tiny.

See the point: that fact that our universe is “lucky” is model independent. It is not only for IDers. Maybe what you are trying to argue is that, for example, we just don’t know the science deep enough, and that all possible big-bangs will, from fundamental principles, lead to just the right expansion rates tha we get galaxies. (and that is just one restrictive parameter) Maybe, but nobody I know of is even persuing such a theory.

Comment #13437

Posted by Michael on January 12, 2005 06:05 AM (e) (s)

In fact, the observation that the universe is “life friendly” CANNOT be evidence for design under any circumstances.

Given the observation that life exists in the universe and the assumption that the universe is completely naturalistic, then it is an absolute consequence that the natural laws of the universe must be “life friendly”, that is, must be consistent with the existence of life.

A sufficiently powerful designer (deity) could easily sustain life in a universe that was not “life friendly”.  Thus, the observation that the universe is “life friendly” can not be evidence for a designer (deity) and is only neutral under strong restrictions on the intent of the designer (deity).

For more details see this page by Bill Jefferies and myself.

Comment #13439

Posted by David Heddle on January 12, 2005 06:43 AM (e) (s)

Michael,

I would agree with the statement that the observation of life and/or fine-tuning to any degree cannot be used to prove God. But your statement, variations on which I have heard many times, is no more than this: “Given that life exists, and given that nothing supernatural happened, then it must be that the natural laws produced a life-friendly universe.”

You have built into your assumption that nothing supernatural occurred. To me, it renders your argument a rather meaningless tautology. The same as saying:

If you believe that something supernatural might have occurred, then of course ANYTHING that looks like fine tuning (e.g., ice floats)  can, rightly or wrongly, be placed in evidence for design.

But, as I said, I agree you’ll never prove it.

We also will never prove that parallel universes exist.

The other ramification of your argument, as I understand it, is the only evidence for a deity would be that, sort of as a vulgar display of power, he placed us in a universe that was not life friendly.

Comment #13440

Posted by euan on January 12, 2005 06:50 AM (e) (s)

Mr Heddle: There is no such thing as a ‘model independent’ probability. Concluding that the existence of life is fortunate or not depends completely on the model you choose. Also without an explicit probability calculation you are simply talking nonsense. No one knows how to make such a calculation, so you are simply making up values and choosing the ones you like.

One further thing: using statistical probability only makes sense if your ideas are entirely based on naturalism. In a supernatural world there is no such thing as probability because the mapping between the natural order and the order in mathematics does not exist.

Comment #13441

Posted by David Heddle on January 12, 2005 07:04 AM (e) (s)

euan,

Geez Louise. I NEVER said there was a model independent probability — did I write that no matter what your model is the probability of our universe is 4.56x10^-69?

No, I made a much weaker statement, which you are free to critcize, but please criticize what I said. Here it is is again:

The fact that our universe is fortunate is MODEL INDEPENDENT. No physicsist that I know denies that, to name just a few things, the expansion rate, the relative strengths of the fundamental forces, the number of expanding dimensions, and the energy levels of obscure isotopes ocurring inside stars are highly constrained in order for our universe to have galaxies, stars, and rocky planets. That is ABSOLUTELY model independent.

From here, you can invoke design, sheer random luck, or multiple universes to explain how we are here. But you cannot deny the underlying “luck.”

As for the actual value of the probability, I would agree with all of you that it is not possible to calculate without huge error bars, not in the mantissa but in the exponent. However, whatever the number is, the constraints point to it being small.

Comment #13443

Posted by Michael on January 12, 2005 08:31 AM (e) (s)

David Heddle wrote:

(begin quote)

But your statement, variations on which I have heard many times, is no more than this: “Given that life exists, and given that nothing supernatural happened, then it must be that the natural laws produced a life-friendly universe.”

(end quote)

You have completely misinterpreted my statement.  My statement is that “Given that nothing supernatural happened and that life exists then we MUST observe a life-friendly universe.  However, given that something supernatural happened and that life exists we may or may not observe a life-friendly universe.  Therefore the observation of a life-friendly universe can not be evidence for something supernatural.”

Comment #13445

Posted by Bayesian Bouffant on January 12, 2005 09:10 AM (e) (s)

David Heddle wrote:

Sorry guys, but your probability skills are in error. (but you biology types are never very strong in math, are you?)

That looks like the ‘Penrose strategy’ of mocking your opponent as you embarrass yourself.

I would jump in here, but it looks like all the good arguments have already been made and you’re in the repetition cycle.

Comment #13446

Posted by Smokey on January 12, 2005 09:30 AM (e) (s)

David Heddle wrote:

Your poker analogy is more like this: suppose of all poker hands represent universes, but only a royal flush of hearts represents a fertile universe. It is true that the royal flush is no less likely than any other hand, but I would expect cheating (i.e. design) if it was the only hand that meant life and it was the hand I drew.

To draw out (no pun intended) the poker analogy some more, are you saying that, in any given hand, if someone is dealt a royal flush the default assumption should be that they are cheating (i.e., they stacked or “designed” the deck)?  This seems a very questionable assumption.  If someone were dealt several royal flushes in a row, then it would perhaps be fair to conclude something was up, but it seems that as we have only been dealt a single hand in this metaphorical poker game of life, your conclusion is unwarranted.

Comment #13449

Posted by Steve Reuland on January 12, 2005 10:21 AM (e) (s)

David Heddle wrote:

However, if only very few of those universes can support life, then we have to chose one of two alternatives (1) we see design or (2) of course we are lucky, or we wouldn’t be here talking about it.

Your poker analogy is more like this: suppose of all poker hands represent universes, but only a royal flush of hearts represents a fertile universe. It is true that the royal flush is no less likely than any other hand, but I would expect cheating (i.e. design) if it was the only hand that meant life and it was the hand I drew.

But you’re missing my point completely.  You are assuming, a priori, that a “fertile” universe was the goal.  In other words, you’re presupposing teleology.  But that’s exactly the question we’re trying to answer.  What if a “fertile” universe was not the goal at all, but was instead one of a vast number of possibilites, any of which would have pleased the deity?  If our current universe wasn’t the telos, then we weren’t lucky at all.  We exist simply because the universe allows it, which makes the argument a tautology. 

On the other hand, if our universe was the telos, then we’ve already assumed design.  What’s the point of coming up with probabilities?  Let’s say that almost any universe could have created life as we know it.  Starting with an assumption of teleology, as you have, this would seem to be far superior design to what we currently have.  The IDists would simply say that the high probability of having a life-conducive universe is evidence of design, because a high probability of producing life nicely fits the assumed goal of producing life. 

Life-conducing universe likely:  Design!

Life-conducing universe unlikely:  Design!

Assume that our current state of affairs was meant to be, and any causal scenario can be claimed as evidence of design.

The non-Iders in physics recognize this too (even if you bio types don’t) which is why multiverse theories are popular.

This is not a scientific issue I’m bringing up here, it’s a philosophical issue.  It’s a matter of logic.  Appealing to the superiority of physicists, or insulting my math skills, will not help your case.

See the point: that fact that our universe is “lucky” is model independent.

But the “fact” that our universe is “lucky” is not a fact at all, it’s a value judgement.  It requires the panglossian view that the universe was meant to be this way.  Like drawing a royal flush, you must have some prior reason to think that it’s special.  Absent that reason, it’s just another hand, one out of many. 

Maybe what you are trying to argue is that, for example, we just don’t know the science deep enough, and that all possible big-bangs will, from fundamental principles, lead to just the right expansion rates tha we get galaxies. (and that is just one restrictive parameter) Maybe, but nobody I know of is even persuing such a theory.

I would say it’s an absolute certainty that we don’t know the science deep enough, and I do believe that string theorists, among others, have come up with possible scearios in which the laws of our universe are more or less deterministic rather than being picked out of a hat.  I don’t doubt that future discoveries will dramatically change our current understanding, and it’s highly naive to think otherwise.  It wasn’t long ago that our galaxy was thought to be the only galaxy there was.  Go back just a bit further, and it was believed that there was only one sun. 

But the fact that our scientific knowledge is incomplete is not my argument, my argument is that our scientific knowledge is irrelevant to cosmological ID, because no matter what the state of affairs, assuming teleology gives you teleology.  It was once believed that the Earth was the center of the universe.  When that was proven wrong, it didn’t stop the teleologists, and neither will any future discoveries.

Comment #13450

Posted by Flint on January 12, 2005 10:24 AM (e) (s)

I might as well chip in here that the arguments are being presented backwards. We aren’t deducing God because our universe would be impossibly unlikely with Him, but rather we are assuming God, and searching for some reason, ANY reason, in support of this assumption. And so we presume our universe was very unlikely not because we have any conceivable basis for comparison or computation, but because by making this claim, we are rationalizing our conviction that God exists, and must have done something.

Comment #13454

Posted by frank schmidt on January 12, 2005 11:10 AM (e) (s)

A couple of points:

1. A key goal of the Religious right is in making common cause on the basis of politics rather than doctrine, hence the endorsement of ID creationism by a certain wingnut group of Catholics (Santorum, Schlafly, etc.). They don’t necessarily endorse creationism so much as want to get in the same tent with the fundies. The same tendency is seen in the Religious Right’s endorsement of the Israeli settlers in the West Bank. They believe that Jesus will return when Israel is restored, so they want to “support Israel” (i.e., the most rabid expansionists). This is notwithstanding their prediction that unconverted Jews will go straight to hell at the Last Judgement. It’s all tribalism, really.

2. As has been pointed out many times on this and other fora, the probabilistic arguments of the kind presented by David Heddle are fatuous at best and dishonest at worst. Evolution by natural selection is a cumulative probability, not an independent one. This likely applies to physical evolution (e.g., planetary accretion) as well as to biological evolution. Such silliness as “10(69) possible universes that can’t support life” is as insupportable as other creationist arguments.

Comment #13456

Posted by steve c. on January 12, 2005 11:23 AM (e) (s)

BTW, National Review Online’s “The Corner” is a group blog, in which posters speak for themselves rather than for the magazine.  Derbyshire is in the minority there on ID.

Comment #13466

Posted by David Heddle on January 12, 2005 01:38 PM (e) (s)

Smokey,

Your point is valid. Remember that we are dealt ONLY one hand. If I sat down at a poker game, and on the first deal my opponent got a royal flush, then the assumption of a fix is a very good one.

Steve,

OK, I think I see your argument—either a hospitable universe or an inhospitable one would be used to support design, given that life exists – am I getting close?

Frank,

Your comments are meaningless. It is a fact of science and not an invention of ID that  if the expansion rate were slightly different there would be no galaxies. Non-IDers agree. And I have never said anything about 10⁶⁹ possible universes. Nor did I assign a probability to our universe. I only pointed out the uncontested and incontrovertible fact that many fortunate things have happened to give us a universe capable of supporting life. So…

Is that WRONG? 

If the four fundamental forces did not have their relative strengths, then would the universe exist? Could it exist if the electromagnetic force were, say, 5% stronger?

If the universe had a different number of expanding dimensions, would there be an inverse square law to provide for stable orbits? If so, please explain how.

If you messed around just a tad with the energy levels (which would happen if the strength of the forces changed) then stars wouldn’t evolve, explode, and blast elements into space—so where would the heavy elements needed for life come from?

I can list many more.

And please, please explain how, as you said,

Evolution by natural selection is a cumulative probability, not an independent one. This likely applies to physical evolution…

I would love to learn how the universe evolved by natural selection.

Also, what is the point of your comment about Israel? Are you aware that there are many conservative Christians (such as myself) who do NOT believe that Israel plays any role in the end times? You refer to  one particular (in my opinion highly flawed) view called dispensationalism. What the hell does it have to do with this discussion?

Comment #13468

Posted by Smokey on January 12, 2005 02:11 PM (e) (s)

David Heddle wrote:

Your point is valid. Remember that we are dealt ONLY one hand. If I sat down at a poker game, and on the first deal my opponent got a royal flush, then the assumption of a fix is a very good one.

I disagree.  It seems to me that it would be incumbent upon you to show that there is reason to believe that the fix is in, other than the fact that the outcome of the hand was highly unlikely.  You could only base such a judgement on other factors, such as the stakes, the behavior of your opponent, etc… Most importantly, it would depend on who the dealer was.  It is only by positing that the dealer has an incentive to stack the deck against you that your assumption of cheating becomes plausible.  In light of that, I think you should re-read Steve’s post, as it seems not to have made much impression on you the first time.

If you think that your opponent must be cheating anytime he hits a statistically unlikely hand, I don’t think I ever want to play poker with you.

Comment #13470

Posted by Steve Reuland on January 12, 2005 02:16 PM (e) (s)

David Heddle wrote:

OK, I think I see your argument—either a hospitable universe or an inhospitable one would be used to support design, given that life exists – am I getting close?

Yes, that’s pretty much what I’m getting at.

Comment #13471

Posted by TTT on January 12, 2005 02:17 PM (e) (s)

Re: the Frontline debate between ID and science, with William F. Buckley on the ID team:

I watched it and found it very sad to see a man of Buckley’s intellect paint himself into so many of the unreasoning corners of ID cultism.

During the course of the debate, Buckley accepted the extremely well filled-out sequence of radiation and descent among therapsids or “mammal-like reptiles” as legitimate evidence of naturalistic evolution.  However, he immediately demanded that Team Evolution produce another sequence with an equal number of known specimens.  Of course they didn’t have one on-hand, but it doesn’t matter; if they did have one, Buckley would have just asked for *another*, and so on, ad infinitum. 

Buckley also justified teaching ID because it makes kids feel better about themselves—that it makes them out as akin to angels, not monkeys.  The happy lie vs the sad truth…. I guess someone’s a fan of “Miracle on 34th Street”…..

Comment #13473

Posted by David Heddle on January 12, 2005 02:25 PM (e) (s)

Smokey wrote

I disagree.  It seems to me that it would be incumbent upon you to show that there is reason to believe that the fix is in, other than the fact that the outcome of the hand was highly unlikely.

No, as has been pointed out here, all hands are equally unlikely. It’s that particular hand, which has the same a priori probablility as the one I am holding, that makes me suspicious, because it is the best possible hand.

As to whether you would suspect a cheat (I would), I guess we have to agree to disagree.

Comment #13475

Posted by plunge on January 12, 2005 02:40 PM (e) (s)

“If all possible universes are equally likely then it is true that, in a random draw, the probability of ours is the same as any other. So in that case we have no right to be surprised in our universe.”

Here you again jump over the key issue.  How can we know a) the number of possible universes or b) what the likihood of each of them is.

“However, if only very few of those universes can support life, then we have to chose one of two alternatives (1) we see design or (2) of course we are lucky, or we wouldn’t be here talking about it.”

Again, you’ve jumped ahead.  There is no way we can know how many in the set of all possible universes could support life, because we don’t know what the set of possible universes contains.  Period.  Without that, the idea of “lucky” is pure nonsense.

“As for the actual value of the probability, I would agree with all of you that it is not possible to calculate without huge error bars, not in the mantissa but in the exponent. However, whatever the number is, the constraints point to it being small.”

It is not possible to write out AT ALL.  You cannot do probability backwards from one example. 

As an example, pretend I tell you that on one die roll, your roll came up with an H, an 0 and a 2. Now, that’s three “constraints” on what you must roll, right?  So, tell me the probability of your roll.  Show me how you’ll be doing the calculation.

Actually, don’t, because to anyone that’s actually DONE a real probability calculation, you’ll know how laughable the request is.  You can’t do it _because you don’t know what else is on the die_.  For all you know, the same thing could be on every side.  You also don’t know how many sides there even are: it could be two, it could be a million, or it could be some sort of bizarre mobius die that only has one side.  Likewise, the idea of “constraints” is nonsense because you don’t actually know if they were indepedantly determined, or how.  That’s exactly the situation we face with the universe.  Even contingent constraits are contingent on deterministic original “rolls.”  But since we don’t know what the “roll” is like: what sort of die was used, so to speak, it’s madness to speak of probability.

Comment #13476

Posted by Emily on January 12, 2005 02:44 PM (e) (s)

Re: Frontline debate.  None other than the ethically challenged House Majority Whip Tom Delay proclaimed loudly on “This Week” (ABC) a few years back that the reason kids take guns to school and kill other kids is because we teach evolution and not creationism. 

To get back to the discussion at hand, it doesn’t matter where you start in the chain of events.  Creationism is creationism.  ID is ID.

Comment #13484

Posted by Rilke's Grand-daughter on January 12, 2005 03:45 PM (e) (s)

David Heddle,

No, as has been pointed out here, all hands are equally unlikely. It’s that particular hand, which has the same a priori probablility as the one I am holding, that makes me suspicious, because it is the best possible hand.

And has been pointed out to you many times before, your statement is completely invalid.  You do not know how likely or unlikely your ‘hand’ is.

If you believe this to be invalid, it is simple to demonstrate that you are right: show the probability calculation for our current universe.  Show the actual probability of the… Fine-Structure Constant being what it is.  Show the actual probability of the ratio of mass between the electron and the proton being what it is.

If you cannot do this, then you cannot make any statements about the ‘probability’ of our universe.

Emily,

To get back to the discussion at hand, it doesn’t matter where you start in the chain of events.  Creationism is creationism.  ID is ID.

Agreed; but the problem is that the folks in the ID movement are, without exception, creationists of some sort.  It’s the pushing of ID without any supporting science behind it that bothers people.

The concept of ID is being hijacked to serve the ends of a small number of religious fundamentalists.  That’s the problem.

Comment #13485

Posted by David Heddle on January 12, 2005 03:52 PM (e) (s)

The number of possible universes, in multiverse theories,  is assumed to be infinite.

You can make some estimates about probablility—we are not without some knowledge. For example, it is fairly easy to estimate the probability that the planet has the right kind of orbit, around the right kind of star, in the right kind of galaxy, without too much radiation, etc.

As for things like the expansion rate, I agree that you cannot assign a probability for us to get the correct expansion rate.However, consider the following two statements:

1) Any expansion rate within two orders of magnitude of the one we have would do

2) Any expansion rate not differing from ours by one part in 10⁸ would do

say quite different things about the “luck” we have received. (Note: these are just two examples pulled out of the air.) I think most would agree that if (2) is correct, even though we cannot assign the probability, that whatever it is it is lower than in case (1).

Unless of course some fundamental theory can predict the expansion rate from first principles.

Comment #13487

Posted by plunge on January 12, 2005 04:24 PM (e) (s)

“The number of possible universes, in multiverse theories,  is assumed to be infinite.”

First of all, that assumption isn’t based on anything: it’s simply the filter we use because we have no means by which to limit the possibilities. 

You keep citing the fact that some speculate about multiverses as if it were evidence that the basic issues of HOW the characteristics of universes are determined, if at all, and even if there is a single set of fundamental characteristics, had been settled or even had some evidence to help us out.  They haven’t been settled, and there is no such evidence.  The best few have is the hope that we may someday be able to test some of the pretty darn modest ideas about the possibility of multiple universes.

“You can make some estimates about probablility—we are not without some knowledge. For example, it is fairly easy to estimate the probability that the planet has the right kind of orbit, around the right kind of star, in the right kind of galaxy, without too much radiation, etc.”

But only _within_ our universe, which is the whole point.  And, more importantly, we simply do not know whether these different elements are truly indepedant, or whether they are all the way they are because of more fundamental character of the universe that determine them all.  All the constants we know of could boil down to one in the end for all we know.

Comment #13488

Posted by Flint on January 12, 2005 04:25 PM (e) (s)

I’m reminded of a wonderful story by the late R. A. Lafferty, in which some scientists invented a ‘time pendulum’, in the form of a large ball that swung deep into the past, then far into the future. The (human) scientists could watch each transit through the present, and stop it at any such transit.

The story is told from the ‘objective third person’ perspective for excellent reason: Each time the ball passed through the present, the conditions were totally different. The scientists varied from lizards to colony intelligences to slime molds. Finally, they stopped the experiment, concluded that their time pendulum probably had never travelled into the past at all because nothing was any different, and they all slithered away.

Imaginative SF authors have entirely consistent life forms living inside stars, inside black holes, in conditions where liquid helium is common, where radiation is fierce, etc. There is no inherent reason why any of these life forms could not exist. Fred Hoyle himself wrote a novel called ‘The Black Cloud’ about a creature native to open space, and astounded that life could possibly arise on a planet. I recommend any books by Baxter, Clement, and a cast of many.

What David Heddle is doing is dealing himself a poker hand, noting the extremely bad odds of getting that exact hand, *declaring* that it’s the most valuable hand possible (regardless of what’s in it), and thus rationalizing his preconceptions.

Comment #13490

Posted by David Heddle on January 12, 2005 04:54 PM (e) (s)

Ok diminishing returns has set in. This is my last post. As always, feel free to declare victory.

Plunge wrote:

All the constants we know of could boil down to one in the end for all we know.

I have been careful to acknowledge that some super theory could render our “luck” inevitable. However, no such theory is on the horizon so believing in it is no different than believing in God.

Flint wrote:

What David Heddle is doing is dealing himself a poker hand, noting the extremely bad odds of getting that exact hand, *declaring* that it’s the most valuable hand possible (regardless of what’s in it), and thus rationalizing his preconceptions.

Fair enough. The poker hands are all the possible universes. I am declaring that it is extremely valuable to be dealt the royal flush—i.e., a universe that supports life. Guilty as charged.

Comment #13491

Posted by Bob Maurus on January 12, 2005 04:57 PM (e) (s)

Flint,

I used to run into Lafferty and chat with him at Science Fiction conventions. He always seemed to be on the edge of passing out drunk. I remember him at a WorldCon one year hanging on to a lamppost and signing program books in a sweeping scrawl. Definitely one of a kind.

Comment #13492

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 12, 2005 05:20 PM (e) (s)

I used to run into Lafferty and chat with him at Science Fiction conventions.

Ever attend any such conventions in Madison WI in the 80s, Bob?

Comment #13495

Posted by Flint on January 12, 2005 05:46 PM (e) (s)

David Heddle:

OK, I agree, most days I’m glad to be alive myself. I regard the odds for or against this as imponderable and irrelevant, but life is mostly good while it lasts.

Comment #13500

Posted by Steve on January 12, 2005 06:13 PM (e) (s)

<blockquote>Probability is always like that. A fair coin toss leading to a heads is, in one way of looking at it, 50-50. On the other hand, any coin toss is deterministic—given enough info I can calculate whether heads or tails will result. So in that sense the probability is unity.</blockquote>

Uhhmmm no.  The probability is either zero or one.  Lets assume that there is enough info for David to do is calculation.  He does it and the probability of it coming up heads is zero.  We try it again, this time due to some change in the information (rotation, wind, etc.) the probability is 1.

Also, consider the notion that the coin toss is a random event, not that two probabilities are given—{0.5,0.5}.  This also has to be the case even if we have enough information to calculate perfectly the coin toss coming up heads.  In this case, the probabilities are no {0,1} the degenerate case.

Comment #13508

Posted by Wayne Francis on January 12, 2005 08:57 PM (e) (s)

David Heddle wrote:

but you biology types are never very strong in math, are you?

This shows how much you are out of touch.  You think biologists don’t know math?  Biology has strong requirement of mathematics, chemistry physic, statistics, geology and many other areas.

Please tell us your background in mathematics?!  I may have missed it but what exactly are your qualifications?

David Heddle wrote:

We also will never prove that parallel universes exist.

This type of statement amazes me.  Why would you say such a thing?  Just because we don’t have the understanding and technology now why would you think we would never have the understanding and technology? Do you think 100 years ago they would think that we would be able to detect organic molecules from a million light years away?  Do you think that 20 years ago people would seriously consider communication that is instantaneous between any 2 points in the universe?  How long do you think it will take us before we learn how to use properties of space time to do what would be considered by most to be science fiction.

I’m getting the impression from you that deep down you think we’ve come to the limits of science on many levels and that there will be no more advancements.  For your information there is already experiments going with the goals of being able to look back at what happened before the “big bang” kind of like we just peer out into space to look at what happened back in normal space/time.

David Heddle wrote:

Your comments are meaningless. It is a fact of science and not an invention of ID that  if the expansion rate were slightly different there would be no galaxies. Non-IDers agree. And I have never said anything about 1069 possible universes. Nor did I assign a probability to our universe. I only pointed out the uncontested and incontrovertible fact that many fortunate things have happened to give us a universe capable of supporting life. So…

Is that WRONG?

How about saying “Many things have happened to give us a universe capable of supporting life as we know it.

1) putting the word “fortunate” in there implies “favored to/favored to a maximum degree”
While there might be some quantum explanation saying why it is not completely random, I don’t know what the specifics about this is, the word “fortunate” is not needed and to easily makes one mind think of things in a context that they don’t need to be in.
2) I’d like to point out that we need to think that your definition of “Life” is only a subset of what “Life” has to be.  Just because you can’t comprehend other ways life might exists doesn’t mean anything.

David Heddle wrote:

And please, please explain how, as you said,

Evolution by natural selection is a cumulative probability, not an independent one. This likely applies to physical evolution…

I didn’t think this was to hard to understand David….and I’m not any type of mathematician. but creationist often quote odds of a particular protein coming into existence from nothing.  The issue isn’t of a said protein coming into existence from nothing.  Evolution is about the modification of an existing item into another item.

Say we have a enzyme that is ~400 nucleotides long.  This enzyme has function X
Said enzyme independently has ~6.6680144328798542740798517907213e+240 of occurring.  But said enzyme does not occur from nothing.  Said enzyme is the result of a mutation of a previously existing enzyme.  With one mutation the enzyme can have function Y.  This instead of being some astronomical number is only ~1 in 400

David Heddle wrote:

No, as has been pointed out here, all hands are equally unlikely. It’s that particular hand, which has the same a priori probablility as the one I am holding, that makes me suspicious, because it is the best possible hand.

What if the player got a full house?  Would you say they stacked the deck there?  I’d equate our Universe more to a full house then a Royal straight flush.  Are you saying our universe is the best it could be for life?  Sheeesh if you are then you’ve got low standards.

[quote=For example, it is fairly easy to estimate the probability that the planet has the right kind of orbit, around the right kind of star, in the right kind of galaxy, without too much radiation, etc.[/quote]

This is an outdated argument.  There is nothing saying life could exist out at Jupiter.  Just because WE can’t live there natively doesn’t mean all life would be domed out there.  We are finding more and more life here on earth that live in conditions much worse then what we expect to have on the moons of Jupiter.  We see life that can withstand order of magnitudes more radiation then what we are exposed to and they survive just fine.  The more we look on just our own planet the more likely it seems that life isn’t special in the universe but that it may just be the norm.

Comment #13509

Posted by Gregory Gay on January 12, 2005 09:17 PM (e) (s)

David Heddle wrote:

Your poker analogy is more like this: suppose of all poker hands represent universes, but only a royal flush of hearts represents a fertile universe. It is true that the royal flush is no less likely than any other hand, but I would expect cheating (i.e. design) if it was the only hand that meant life and it was the hand I drew.

The problem with this argument, as I see it, David, is that we didn’t draw the hand; it drew us. Life developed in the universe as it is, and it is only natural that the life that has developed therefore ‘fits’ in our univeerse.

It is quite possible that in a hypothetical different universe, silicon-based life forms would be arguing the same kinds of issues, and declaring that their universe was the ‘lucky’ one.

Comment #13510

Posted by Bob Maurus on January 12, 2005 09:27 PM (e) (s)

GWW,

No, although I did spend a year and a half in Lake Geneva, sculpting D&D figures for TSR. The furthest west I ever got for a con was Chicago and St.Louis I think (I’m in Atlanta.)

Comment #13520

Posted by plunge on January 13, 2005 02:11 AM (e) (s)

Anyone else feel they wasted their time?  The guy just does not get what we are saying.  It would be one thing if he disagreed, but basic concepts… they just dont’ seem to register.  Did I explain it badly?  Is it really that hard to understand that you cannot judge probability based on a single observation?

Comment #13530

Posted by David Heddle on January 13,