Talk:Fine-tuned universe

NPOV

I suggest changing the title to "Arguments Against Fine Tuning" which will get us to a NPOV faster than trying to revise the content of the article. Honestly, I love Wikipedia, but the bias in articles like this one make it more or less useless on some topics. Most of the article is made up of bricks, bricks, bricks--large bricks tied to the topic to try to sink it forever at the bottom of the sea. You see it for a moment when the article opens and after that it's submerged: you just watch it's shape shrinking, distorted as it sinks out of view.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.67.242.251 (talk) 20:58, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I dunno. Doesn't seem so biased against fine tuning to me. It begins with the Paul Davies quote. The Victor Stenger opposition has to be cited because there isn't complete agreement that the notion of fine-tuning is correct at all. I thought the edits from the 81.129.136.144 IP were a little biased but not the inclusion of Stenger's position. 70.109.188.245 (talk) 05:24, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Please confine your edits to specific proposals for improving the article. This is not a forum for general discussion.--Charles (talk) 10:19, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I read through the main article on the multiverse and the article on the invisible pink unicorn to get a sense of weighting and proportion. My suggestion is that, like other articles on Wikipedia, the bulk of this article be spent on the definition, exposition and explanation of its topic. I do not mean that the bulk of it be spent on advocacy for the idea but rather on the exposition of the idea: that the universe is 'fine tuned'. Who advocates it? On what basis? What was the genesis of the idea. Spend most of the time here. The lion's share of the article simply cannot be given to repudiate the scant space the development of the idea has been allowed. On the previous 2 articles sited we are looking at something like an 80:20 split (exposition:opposition)--here we see something more like a 20:80 split with the 'religious argument' being given the unique honor of having a headed counter-argument immediately following (not to mention the Alien theory which I believe has already been criticized for its strategic placement).

Regarding the opening, I think a smart way to introduce the topic is to refer to the 'appearance of fine tuning' which neither repudiates nor concludes that this appearance constitutes the real situation.

Again, I stand by the content of my previous comment. Were the article titled "The Not Fine-Tuned Universe" I would find the content very balanced. Just enough dissent with the bulk of the article providing a detailed introduction to the individuals and ideas of those who think there is good reason to believe that the Universe is not fine tuned and why--in detail. Sorry, it's backwards. 5.67.242.251 (talk) 00:41, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

You are welcome to edit the article and include additional exposition and explanation, including who advocates for the idea, what they said, what exactly they mean or imply (e.g. Davies support for fine-tuning is not religious, at all) and what parameters appear fine-tuned and what would be different if the parameters were different. I would agree that too much space is spent on Stenger and, long ago, when cited counter arguments to naturalistic explanations or the idiotic explanations like Alien Design, those counter arguments were deleted, yet the counter arguments to religious explanations (essentially teleological) remain.

Wikipedia has changed from neutral POV to a POV that favors science. Some of that is okay, but, if you think this article lacks neutrality in the POV, you should check out Intelligent design.

As it is, I think that this article and Anthropic principle are doing pretty well regarding POV. Certainly better than the ID article, which is blatantly biased, simply because the editors defending it insist that the Discovery Institute solely define what ID is, even though the term has existed decades before the DI or any of their founders or members ever existed. I wouldn't recommend trying to correct the bias at the ID article. Some of those editors are nasty and they have admins as friends. 70.109.188.117 (talk) 16:15, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

or life as it is understood

"Life as it is understood" is a completely vacuous phrase until it's been introduced and defined by some stated criteria.

When I hear physicists or biologists using this phrase, I often wonder if they mean "a universe where Captain Kirk could conceivably score some green nookie". We're so implicitly anthropocentric.

We look at the landscape of 10^500 vacuum states and somehow decide that few of these contain life "as we know it" without worrying our pretty heads about how many of these lifeless-as-we-know-it universes contain xeno-physics physicists who--if the concept of 'who' even translates--are peering over the multiverse partition and viewing our particular configuration as contrary to life as they know it.

Nicely done, now we're all special--not that we could conduct an experiment to demonstrate this xeno-physics communication gap either way, because where it concerns the Universe, "as we know it" is explicitly N=1 pseudo-science.

Whenever did we prove that the existence of chemistry in a universe (and the stars and planets and biology as we know it) is a prerequisite to natural selection?

"Natural selection without the magic of the carbon atom just couldn't work. Q.E.D." So it's written in the stars.

Sheesh, we can't even figure out if our own physics is conducive to life as we know it, so I wouldn't be rushing to conclude we've achieved much separation between "life as we know it" and "life as it is understood" with that clever little introduction of the passive voice.

The fine-tuning argument hinges on initial assumptions about the general nature of life every bit as much as our periodic table hinges on precise mass ratios of subatomic particles. For the purposes of the fine-tuning argument, one's definition of life must certainly include every universe capable of posing the fine-tuning question, whether they grok carbon or not, or you've finessed your census severely (i.e. all sentient universes overestimate their precious uniqueness). — MaxEnt 03:16, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Why remove specific information about what might be fine-tuned?

I am taking issue with User:GDallimore removal of sourced and reliable information drawn from a publication of an undeniable authority in the field. Just because User:GDallimore thinks there is undue wp:weight, does not make it so. Someone else complained earlier that Victor Stenger receives undue weight in this article regarding Stenger's criticism that the Universe is not fine-tuned at all. By muzzling the very observations of specific ostensible fine-tuning, while at the same time, allowing for specific refutation of fine-tuning demonstrates a clear non-neutral POV. This must not become either an article that supports the notion of fine-tuning nor implicitly rejects the notion. 65.183.156.110 (talk) 18:27, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I have kept out of this discussion so far, but I have to agree with 65.183.156.110 comments above. In a subject which can raise strong opinions on either side of the argument, all opinions should be quoted and respected. It is certainly not a question of undue wp:weight to have detailed proposals of each side of the discussion. User:GDallimore must respect this and take their discussion to the Talk page, instead of reverting - that's the way to an edit war. The article must reflect both sides in a neutral POV way. Regards to all, David J Johnson (talk) 18:46, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I did NOT remove sourced content. I summarised an overlong series of specific quotes from one single source which has not had any independent review. Anyone wanting the current version needs to justify quoting huge swaths of a primary source. GDallimore (Talk) 23:59, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Most of the references in the section are to a secondary, not primary, source. -Jordgette [talk] 01:12, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

They are primary in the sense that they do nothing but quote the original without commentary. Commentary is what is vital here to justify lifting so much material directly from a single source. GDallimore (Talk) 11:33, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

That's not true at all:

___________________

From reference [13]:

...

Indeed, recognizing the improbable connections that hold together the universe as we know it requires flinging the widest of intellectual nets, encompassing everything from quantum weirdness to biological imperatives to galactic clumping. Of Rees's six numbers, two relate to basic forces, two determine the size and large-scale texture of the universe, and two fix the properties of space itself. Rees's six numbers are:

ε, the .007 figure, which describes the strength of the force that binds atomic nuclei together and determines how all atoms on Earth are made.

N, equal to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. The number measures the strength of the forces that hold atoms together divided by the force of gravity between them. It means that gravity is vastly weaker than intra-atomic attraction. If the number were smaller than this vast amount, "only a short-lived, miniature universe could exist," says Rees.

Ω, which measures the density of material in the universe— including galaxies, diffuse gas, and dark matter. The number reveals the relative importance of gravity in an expanding universe. If gravity were too strong, the universe would have collapsed long before life could have evolved. Had it been too weak, no galaxies or stars could have formed.

λ, the newest addition to the list, discovered in 1998. It describes the strength of a previously unsuspected force, a kind of cosmic antigravity, that controls the expansion of the universe. Fortunately, it is very small, with no discernable effect on cosmic structures that are smaller than a billion light-years across. If the force were stronger, it would have stopped stars and galaxies— and life— from forming.

Q, which represents the amplitude of complex irregularities or ripples in the expanding universe that seed the growth of such structures as planets and galaxies. It is a ratio equal to 1/100,000. If the ratio were smaller, the universe would be a lifeless cloud of cold gas. If it were larger, "great gobs of matter would have condensed into huge black holes," says Rees. Such a universe would be so violent that no stars or solar systems could survive.

D, the number of spatial dimensions in our universe— that is, three. "Life could not exist if it were two or four," contends Rees. If each of the six numbers Rees has identified were dependent upon the others— in the same sense that, say, the number of arms and fingers in a family depends upon the number of family members— the fact that they allow for the existence of life would seem less of a shock. "At the moment, however," says Rees, "we cannot predict any of them from the value of the others." So unless theoreticians discover some unifying theory, each number compounds the unlikeliness of each of the other numbers.

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From the Wikipedia article:

...

Martin Rees formulates the fine-tuning of the Universe in terms of the following six dimensionless physical constants.

N, the ratio of the strengths of gravity to that of electromagnetism, is approximately 10³⁶. According to Rees, if it were significantly smaller, only a small and short-lived universe could exist.

Epsilon (ε), the strength of the force binding nucleons into nuclei, is 0.007. If it were 0.006, only hydrogen could exist, and complex chemistry would be impossible. If it were 0.008, no hydrogen would exist, as all the hydrogen would have been fused shortly after the big bang.

Omega (Ω), also known as the Density parameter, is the relative importance of gravity and expansion energy in the Universe. If gravity were too strong compared with dark energy and the initial metric expansion, the universe would have collapsed before life could have evolved. On the other side, if gravity were too weak, no stars would have formed.

Lambda (λ) is the cosmological constant. It describes the ratio of the density of dark energy to the critical energy density of the universe, given certain reasonable assumptions such as positing that dark energy density is a constant. In terms of Planck units, and as a natural dimensionless value, the cosmological constant, λ, is on the order of 10⁻¹²². This is so small that it has no significant effect on cosmic structures that are smaller than a billion light-years across. If the cosmological constant was not extremely small, stars and other astronomical structures would not be able to form.

Q, the ratio of the gravitational energy required to pull a large galaxy apart to the energy equivalent of its mass, is around 10⁻⁵. If it is too small, no stars can form. If it is too large, no stars can survive because the universe is too violent, according to Rees.

D, the number of spatial dimensions in spacetime, is 3. Rees claims that life could not exist if there were 2 or 4.

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Doesn't look like verbatim copying to me. But, the six numbers are mentioned and discussed. 65.183.156.110 (talk) 13:18, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

You haven't answered the question at all: where are the six numbers discussed independently of the source based on reliable sources?

Responding to what you've actually said - you say the article is not identical to the second source. I never said it was. Rather, I'd assumed the bits that aren't mentioned in the second source (which is free to read on the web) are from the original book (which is not). If the extra material is not from the original book, it needs removing immediately as being original research. But I was assuming good faith on that, not having access to the book. But that doesn't avoid the problem that it's just quoting the book without commentary.

Importantly, you seem to have missed the point that the commentary needs to be on whether the book's example are good and worthwhile and whether they are disputed. Reporting one person's view on fine-tuning in extensive detail is what the problem is. That is what is undue about it - going back to the second comment in this thread "It is certainly not a question of undue wp:weight to have detailed proposals of each side of the discussion". That is absolutely correct. I have not problem with that explanation of NPOV at all. But where's the discussion about these six specific examples from the other side of the argument? Nowhere. Without it, these examples need cutting back to a brief summary or it is giving one source and one side of the argument, undue weight.

I repeat for clarity, none of the sources include any discussion about the validity of these examples proposed by one author, either for or against. The second source merely reports the book without any criticism or commentary. Consequently, as I've already mentioned, it is no different from the book, it's only use being that it confirms the content of the book which not everyone will have access to. The third source is merely confirming the value of the cosmological constant and doesn't actually add anything at all to the discussion. GDallimore (Talk) 14:10, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

You wrote (previously to 14:10, 8 November 2014) five sentences, all of them declaratory. None of them a question. So I am not sure how I "haven't answered the question at all" when none was asked. I did respond to the phrase: "...they do nothing but quote the original...", which in context I take to mean the content that you were deleting. And my response is that the claim is false.

Now, the question that you just now ask: "where are the six numbers discussed independently of the source based on reliable sources?", I am not answering. First of all, you didn't ask it, nor previously demand that Martin Rees needed additional sources. That, Geoff, is what we on the other side of the pond call "moving the goalposts". The text, as it is, is well cited from a reliable source. Just as Victor Stenger claims stand on their own, so do Rees's. Deleting one without the other is not NPOV. Deleting them both just reduces the information that the article delivers. It is neither necessary nor constructive to delete either. 65.183.156.110 (talk) 13:45, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

First, I object to being stalked on the Internet. You don't know me and my sig is GDallimore. Stalking someone is what we who live in polite society call behaving like a fuckwit and I shall treat you as such from here on in.

Second, just because you haven't understood the problem with the section doesn't mean I have moved the goalposts. It is your understanding that has changed, not my position which has and has always been that an entire section devoted to a detailed commentary on the work of one author without any criticism of that position is giving that one author undue weight. And I quote: "I summarised an overlong series of specific quotes from one single source which has not had any independent review." The fact it was not phrased directly as a question is irrelevant when the question is obviously implied and to feign ignorance and complain otherwise is called wikilawyering or, in other words, behaving like a fuckwit... again... try to actually pay attention to the simple argument being made here and respond to it.

And so, finally, I repeat for the hard-of-hearing-stalker-man: I DID NOT delete the material. I cut it back to a suitable length.

You're the one banging on about Stenger's position and it seems to me that an appropriate solution would be to give this author as much weight as Stenger, which means briefly summarising his position, which is EXACTLY what I did. Perhaps my only mistake was not to move that summary into the next section of the article alongside the summary of Stenger's views.

Note, also, that the position put forward by Stenger has a sourced criticism. Seems to me that Stenger's position and the criticism of it is ripe for expansion in the name of NPOV. That would be a worthwhile addition to an encyclopedia. Not this extensive quoting of one person's book. GDallimore (Talk) 16:44, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Rees's explanation of a complicated and controversial phenomenon is extensively covered in the mainstream media, and has hundreds of cites in the Google Scholar, so it certainly carries WP:WEIGHT. Leaning on his explanation to show why some people believe in a fine-tuned universe is IMHO a reasonable way to structure that part of the article. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 04:57, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

The "argument from imperfection" issue.

So here is the entire paragraph that has some controversy and that I have just deleted:

The argument from imperfection suggests that if the Universe were designed to be fine-tuned for life, it should be the best one possible and that evidence suggests that it is not. In fact, most of the Universe is highly hostile to life. This objection is based on the proposition that a best possible universe must be saturated with life at a given point in time.

Now there are a couple of problems. First of all, the wiki article that is linked Evolutionary argument against naturalism is not at all the same as the "Argument from imperfection" argument implied by the link. In fact, these two arguments are on opposite sides. Alvin Plantinga is not at all the same as Avital Pilpel and the two are taking opposite positions on the issue of fine tuning. Linking Pilpel's argument to Plantinga's argument is neither accurate nor forthright. Additionally, Pilpel's SKEPTIC magazine article does have an online source (at Pilpel's website) that is readily available and this was not linked in the reference.

So, before returning this paragraph back to the article, I suggest two things:

1. That we actually read both sources, and find out where they speak to each other, put that in this wiki article and cite it.

2. That we not misappropriate any cite, especially to sources that do not say what the cite implies. That's just not honest editing.

76.118.23.40 (talk) 21:43, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea how I missed that one. Good catch.--TMD Talk Page. 19:03, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Skeptical view

The skeptical view on this article should be expanded.

• Mark Colyvan, Jay Garfield, Graham Priest. (2005). Problems with the Argument from Fine Tuning. Synthese 145: 325-38.
• McGrew, T., L. McGrew and E. Vestrup: 2001, ‘Probabilities and the Fine-Tuning Argument: A Sceptical View, Mind 110, 1027–1037.

AlanSkeptic (talk) 01:07, 19 December 2014 (UTC)