That sentence is too muddled to analyze. What does “a purpose” mean? And why should the universe be the sort of thing that has one? And if it is somehow producing the effect (“continuing to exist”), what is the causal model?

Then, and only then, can you deduce evidential outcome tests for the model through an inference model like Bayes.

Certainly Carrier would agree that the fine-tuning argument is “here to stay”. But Carrier shows that the conclusion of that argument is in favor of atheism.

Craig’s last line there it seems he thinks that the number of constants that need to be adjusted makes a difference as to the conclusion of the fine tuning argument. As if 6 constants will conclude that atheism is true…but some unspecified amount (7? 12? 4000?) will make a conclusion that theism is true.

Will Craig, or someone, will have to show the math as to how that conclusion changes, because I am not seeing it.

Any library with WorldCat Interlibrary Loan will be able to. And that’s nearly every library in the U.S (I don’t know about Australia). You can also get the book on kindle for under nine dollars U.S. (and nearly any mobile device can run the kindle app now).

Then respond to the arguments in my chapter.

“You simply need to read my chapter on this”

Deal. If the library can track down a copy.

You simply need to read my chapter on this (chapter twelve of The End of Christianity). Everything you are ineptly attempting to argue is already refuted there, and I write chapters like that specifically so I don’t have to keep repeating myself. So address my actual arguments there, or admit you can’t and go away.

I didn’t say that Ikeda and Jeffreys argued as such. I made that point in response to your claim that “A finely tuned universe is a 100% expected observation on atheism”. That claim is false.

It is only false if you can come up with a way to get a life bearing universe without a god or fine tuning.

So, please present one. Or admit you can’t.

If the universe weren’t life permitting, then we wouldn’t be here to observe it. That’s the anthropic principle. That’s still not the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life: in the set of possible universes, the subset of life-permitting universes is very small. Ikeda and Jeffries don’t take into account the fact that life-permitting universes are rare in the set of possible universes.

An analogy. Suppose I survive an explosion at close range. The schrapnel destroys the entire room around me, except for a remarkably me-shaped outline around where you are standing.

a) I exist after the explosion.
b) The explosion was me-friendly – the initial conditions of the explosion were such that, without the schrapnel pieces needing to be guided on their post-explosion trajectory, they “naturally” (i.e. ballistically) miss my body.
c) I would not survive an unguided explosion unless the initial conditions were me-friendly.

From this, I conclude that my survival of the explosion is not evidence against the hypothesis that the explosion pieces were unguided post-explosion.

Now consider premise d …
d) In the set of initial conditions for the explosion, the subset that are me-friendly is very small.

My point: c) and d) are not the same. c) is essentially a tautology. d) is not necessarily true. c) would still be true if the explosion were a balloon popping, but d) would be false in that case. d) suggests we investigate the possibility that the explosion was rigged in our favour.

I didn’t say that Ikeda and Jeffreys argued as such. I made that point in response to your claim that “A finely tuned universe is a 100% expected observation on atheism”. That claim is false.

p(A life permitting universe | Atheism, life exists) = 1 (by the anthropic principle)
p(A life permitting universe | Atheism) is not 1, since there is a possible world in which a universe exists with no life-forms and no God.

I gave a Bayesian argument to show that, even assuming the premises of Ikeda and Jeffreys including the anthropic principle, the fine-tuning of the universe increases the probability that the physics of our universe (parameters, initial conditions, laws of nature) were not effected indifferently of the requirements of intelligent life (with caveats). So, Bayesian Man, where did I go wrong?

Frank Wilczek: “At present, and for the past 35 years or so, the irreducible laws of physics – that is, the laws which we don’t know how to derive from other ones – can be summarized in the so-called standard model. So the standard model appears, for the present, to be the most appropriate a priori context in which to frame the definition of fundamental constants. … A fundamental constant is a parameter whose value we must supply in order to specify the Lagrangian of the standard model. … Like the standard model of fundamental physics, the standard model of cosmology requires us to specify the values of a few parameters. Given those parameters, the equations of the standard model of cosmology describe important features of the content and large-scale structure of the universe”. (http://www.frankwilczek.com/Wilczek_Easy_Pieces/416_Fundamental_Constants.pdf)

He’s a Nobel prize winning particle physicist. But do go on. It entertains me to see a historian make a complete fool of himself while discussing physics with a physicist. Tell us about the “trivia” of the standard model. Explain why they should be discounted in a discussion of the fundamental properties of our universe. What, according to you, are the “six” “core” constants of nature? I ask again … what are you talking about?

Your first paragraph is false. Jeffreys’ argument does reference what the universe would be like if things were different: we wouldn’t be here to observe it. That’s in their math. That is, in fact, crucial to their argument.

Your second paragraph does not address their argument, which is that we know of no way a life-bearing universe can exist without a God unless it is finely tuned. Certainly, if you can describe a non-fine-tuned universe (which was not created or designed or governed by any God) that would produce intelligent life, then you can have the beginning of a counter-argument to their point. So, can you?

(They are not arguing, BTW, that “life exists explains why a life-permitting universe exists,” and if you think that is what they are arguing, you neither understand their argument nor even how Bayes’ Theorem works generally.)

Your third paragraph suggests you don’t know what the fundamental constants are, or what of them remain when we discount the trivia of the Standard Model parameters. But that’s a red herring, since the number of constants is irrelevant to the Ikeda-Jeffreys-Sober argument. Which you still show no sign of understanding.

Nope. b) is a statement about the properties of this universe. Fine-tuning cases are about how the universe would have been if this or that constant were slightly different, so they are not statements about this universe. They are counterfactuals. Ikeda And Jeffreys’ argument makes no reference to what the universe would be like if things were different, and so doesn’t address fine-tuning.

“A finely tuned universe is a 100% expected observation on atheism”. Given that life exists, a life-friendly universe is expected, given atheism. That’s what Ikeda and Jeffrey’s proved. The question that fine-tuning raises is why a life and its life-permitting universe exists at all. That is not expected on atheism, since on atheism there is no a priori expectation for what exists. That life exists cannot be the explanation for why a life-permitting universe exists at all.

What “core six”? What are you talking about? There never were only six fundamental constants. Did you misinterpret the title of Rees’ book “Just Six Numbers”?

“you are falsely assuming the Standard Model properties are random and not derivative of more basic constants”. Nope. The fine-tuning of the constants of the standard model can be translated into limits on GUT parameters, and string theory merely changes the label on these constants from “parameters of the Lagrangian” to “parameters of the solution” with out affecting their need to be fine-tuned. As such, string theory has “has anthropic principle written all over it” (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1112.4647v2.pdf). String theory provides the meta-theory against which the parameters of the standard model can be seen as randomly (or at least non-determinately) assigned parameters.

However, it is not the case that given naturalism and the fact that we are alive we should expect to observe that “in the set of possible universes, the subset that permits the existence of intelligent life is very small”, which is actually very surprising! and is what fine tuning is really about.

But that’s the problem–we do not have any observations of other universes; and we could only ever observe a fine-tuned one. Thus “in the set of possible universes, the subset that permits the existence of intelligent life is very small” has no effect whatever on the probability that this universe is or is not designed. It is a logical fallacy to argue from “in the set of possible universes, the subset that permits the existence of intelligent life is very small” to the conclusion that this universe was more likely designed than not. And that is what Ikeda & Jefferys demonstrate. And as I show in The End of Christianity, they’re right (their argument was even independently demonstrated by Sober).

So, it seems to me that when we take ‘F’ to be: “in the set of possible universes, the subset that permits the existence of intelligent life is very small”, it is not the case that P(F|LN)=1, contra Ikeda/Jefferys. In fact, on this view P(F|LN)<<1 and P(L|NF) < P(L|N).

Your math is wrong.

First, what we observe is U (a finely tuned universe). And P(U|~design) does in fact = 1. Because P(~U|~design) = 0 (i.e. we could never observe a non finely tuned universe, because we would never be in one).

If we talk about naturalism specifically as a hypothesis, N, then P(~U|N) = 0 (because we could never observe ~U, as we would then not exist), which entails P(U|N) = 1. It makes no difference whatever that “in the set of possible universes, the subset that permits the existence of intelligent life is very small.”

In fact, P(F|design) is also very small–in fact, it’s exactly the same as P(F|~design), because regardless of whether god exists or not and regardless of whether U was designed or not, F is still always true. Therefore F can never be evidence for one or the other.

“If i observe that I am alive, I should observe a universe that has constants/laws that allow for life.”

But it doesn’t follow from atheism that “I will observe that I am alive in a finely tuned universe” (for all we know, a universe without any life would exist)

Yes, it does. Because on atheism you can only ever exist in a finely tuned universe (there is no other kind of universe you could ever find yourself in). That “a universe without any life could exist” is moot because we can never, ever, be in such a universe, and thus we can never, ever observe being in such a universe. Therefore, the probability of observing such a universe on atheism is zero (we can allow for the exception of one day being able to observe such a universe from this one, but that’s not relevant here, since such an observation would then also be 100% expected on atheism…unless it was accomplished by demonstrably divine assistance, and not just some godless physics).

Nor that “the subset of possible universes that permits the existence of intelligent life is very small”

That “the subset of possible universes that permits the existence of intelligent life is very small” is equally true on theism and naturalism. It’s not as if, if God exists, that it would cease to be the case that “the subset of possible universes that permits the existence of intelligent life is very small.” So that cannot be evidence of anything.