Has this website

http://www.reasons.org/fine-tuning-life-universe

been brought up on here before ? (Couldn't find it in a quick search). It's got smiling pictures of people with PhD's so it must contain some awesome content that will make critical thinkers quake in their boots. (Or maybe they're smiling because they have vibrating eggs up their arses).

Many of those constants are not dimensionless and thus have a value that depends arbitrarily on the system of units used, such as the speed of light, age of the universe. This eliminates much of the so called "fine tuning".

Hugh Ross is a lying ass. I *guarantee* that, while those nice little mainstream papers might discuss the phenomena he lists, maybe one-tenth of them make mention to the necessity of their values for producing life.

A sampling of choice bullshit from the buffet:

7. Ratio of number of protons to number of electrons - No idea what this means. This is certainly not a constant in chemistry.

16. Age of the universe - Since when is this a characteristic with a "specific value"?

32. Polarity of the water molecule
82. Water's temperature of maximum density
83. Water's heat of fusion
84. Water's heat of vaporization
88. Dioxygen's kinetic oxidation rate of organic molecules
89. Level of paramagnetic behavior in dioxygen - Pure padding. These are all meta-characteristics, dependent directly on the values of atomic and subatomic characteristics already mentioned.

Some of the physical and cosmological items seem dodgy, but I don't profess the requisite expertise.

Some that I can really attest to:

14. entropy level of the universe: it is not a constant, the entropy level increases as the universe expands.
15. velocity of light: light does not have velocity, but speed which is constant. One of velocity's components is speed, the other is direction. Light can propagate in all directions.
17. Uniformity of radiation: don't know what this means, but there are a few types of radiation, like alpha radiation, beta radiation, gamma radiation...
19. Average distance between galaxies: there is no average distance.
20. Average distance between galaxy clusters: there is no average distance.
21. Average distance between stars: again no average distance.

Okay stopped there! I can't read any more of that shit.

LOL, the majority of crap on that list are just random facts. Not fucking "constants" of nature that cannot be violated. As Darkchilde points out above, especially the distances are fucking ludicrously stupid... who the fuck cares about the distance between random stellar objects? It's completely unimportant. The distance between stars could be ten million times what it is now and it would still not prevent the formation of plantes and basic chemistry upon them. ROFL.

The proton to electron ratio? I'd guess it's related to conservation of charge(and should obviously therefore take into account the charge of other charged particles) and therefore possibly a nessecity, not a constant that needs "tuning". What an utter list of pure shite.

Darkchilde wrote:21. Average distance between stars: again no average distance.

Yeah, those binary stars obviously confirm to this fune-tuned "average". What a bunch of fucktards.

And how about these non-constants as well.

9 Expansion rate of the universe
10 Mass density of the universe

HUGH ROSS launched his career at age seven when he went to the library to find out why stars are hot. Physics and astronomy captured his curiosity and never let go. At age seventeen he became the youngest person ever to serve as director of observations for Vancouver's Royal Astronomical Society. With the help of a provincial scholarship and a National Research Council (NRC) of Canada fellowship, he completed his undergraduate degree in physics (University of British Columbia) and graduate degrees in astronomy (University of Toronto). The NRC also sent him to the United States for postdoctoral studies. At Caltech he researched quasi-stellar objects, or "quasars," some of the most distant and ancient objects in the universe.

Not all of Hugh's discoveries involved astrophysics. Prompted by curiosity, he studied the world's religions and "holy books" and found only one book that proved scientifically and historically accurate: the Bible

i dont understand how a man who is supposedly well educated can make such a statement!!!!

I just realised just how stupid it is to claim that the number of protons to the number of electrons is "fine tuned". In order for them to claim this, they must KNOW how many fucking protons and electrons there are, in the entire universe.

Jesus fisting Christ, what the fuck.... they are just making shit up out of thin air. It's like they randomly clicked links on wikipedia and decied what ever scientific fact they could find is a "constant" that was finely tuned. LOL.

I hereby declare the ratio between the total number of grains of sand I have ever had under my toe and fingernails, in relation to the number of neutrinos passing through all the clouds in the northern hemisphere of Neptune this very instant, to be direct evidence that the cosmos could not have been finely tuned and that god does not exist.

That's an awful lot of puddlethink going on there.

From what I understand of these guys is that they accept the old age of the earth and universe but inexplicably, dont accept evolution. Although that said on astronomy they are not bthat bad are they? the reason I ask is that they gave an in depth refutation of YEC Russell Humphreys white hole cosmology the refutation is correct right?

blindfaith wrote:
i dont understand how a man who is supposedly well educated can make such a statement!!!!

There's two flavours of answer. Honest stupidity and dishonesty. And potentially a mix of the two.

Strong nuclear force constant
Weak nuclear force constant
Gravitational force constant
Electromagnetic force constant

Of these first four, only gravity is potentially independent according to current scientific knowledge. At sufficient energy levels, the electromagnetic force and weak nuclear force are indistinguishable and have been given the name electroweak force. This has been known for decades and, indeed, several physicists received a Nobel prize for their work on it in 1979.

As yet, there is no widely accept unification of the strong nuclear force with electroweak force althouth several models have been proposed which are all mathematically consistent. Unfortunately, the forces are only supposed to unify above 100 GeV which we cannot yet attain.

Ratio of electromagnetic force constant to gravitational force constant

And here the duplicity really begins. For reference, the electromagnetic force is on the order of 1042 times stronger than gravity. No the constant is not exactly known, because we have not calculated either the electromagnetic constant or the gravitational constant to the requisite 42 decimal places.

At any rate, the ratio is unimportant unless "Dr" Ross wishes to propose somehow a shift of 42 orders of magnitude because the ratio is only important at the atomic level.

In essence, what he is proposing by regarding the constant as fixed and invariant is that gravity MUST be weak lest matter condense into a superdense agglomeration. This ignores the theoretical pre-inflationary time where all matter WAS just such a superdense agglomeration. It expanded, energy levels dropped, baryons formed. Live with it doc.

Ratio of proton to electron mass

I'm not up on quantum chromodynamics but I do know that the rest mass of the proton is much higher than that of its constituent quarks. High energy gluons (thanks Wikipedia!) exchanged between the quarks make up most of the mass of the proton and hence the mass of a proton is almost completely determined by the strong nuclear force constant.

Electrons are, of course, a fundamental particle not composed of anything smaller (that we know of). Thus, the ratio of proton to electron mass is directly determined by the strong nuclear force constant and is thus constrained.

It would be similar to a biologist claiming femur length and quadricep length were not linked somehow.

Ratio of number of protons to number of electrons

By this, Ross wants to imply that if the number were significantly imbalanced then large objects could not accrete due to gravity. It's a restatement of the "ratio of electromagnetic force to gravitational force" above when you consider local structures eg. the Sun.

However, there is no known reason why there should be a net equivalency (or indeed any particular ration whatsoever) between the number of protons and the number of electrons. Any ratio that is determined implies precisely nothing.

PS the universe is largely ionised...

Ratio of proton to electron charge

And if this ration weren't 1:1 then the subatomic structure of protons would be different which would mean that the strong nuclear force were different. Given that our best models so far do tend to link strong, weak & electromagnetic forces, that linkage almost certainly defines the above ratio.

Expansion rate of the universe

Others have pointed out that there is no necessarily fixed value for this rate. A different rate has different implications for spacetime but, as various theories DO in fact propose different rates yet none of them poof us out of existence, I'll go ahead and state that the value for this rate can take on quite a large range.

Mass density of the universe

*yawn* E = mc2
First law of thermodynamics
Expansion rate determines energy density & thus mass density.

This "value" is precisely equivalent to the one above.

Baryon (proton and neutron) density of the universe

So the good doctor has solved the problem of CP violation and baryon assymetry?

The standard model predicts that there should be no matter in the universe since particles & antiparticles should be equal in quantity. There is an imbalance, on the order of 1 in 30 billion which has given rise to all of the observed matter in the universe.

However, it is not yet known if that number is some fundamental constant (highly unlikely) or if it a result of some, as yet unknown, interaction between particles at energies which we cannot generate.

Space energy or dark energy density of the universe

The good doctor really needs to first determine if there is actually any dark matter or dark energy before expounding on the need for a value for same.

The need for dark matter is directly tied to our understanding of gravity which, since we do not yet have a grand unified theory of all fundamental forces, is necessarily incomplete. Declaring that the value for dark matter/energy is thus fixed is vastly premature.

Ratio of space energy density to mass density

Didn't we cover this above? I'm sure Einstein had some sort of equation which linked mass & energy.

Entropy level of the universe

Obviously not a constant since entropy is always increasing.

Velocity of light

This was addressed above. It appears the good doctor cannot even get basic terminology correct.

Furthermore, it is a basic consequence of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that light can, er, travel faster than light for extremely small periods of time. It could also move slower.

Age of the universe

Utterly irrelevant and getting more irrelevant by the second.

Uniformity of radiation
Homogeneity of the universe

An expanding universe will necessarily achieve both of the above. It's honestly not hard to perform the requisite thought experiment to determine that it is so.

Average distance between galaxies
Average distance between galaxy clusters
Average distance between stars
Average size and distribution of galaxy clusters
Numbers, sizes, and locations of cosmic voids

None of the above have any bearing given that the universe is homogenous. Again, the requisite thought experiment is not hard. Local variations may exist but again, are not relevant. Unless you happen to live in one of those local variations!

Electromagnetic fine structure constant

And this is the ratio of a whole heap of other constants, most of which have been discussed above. To say that this is free to vary implies that one or more of the other constants are free to vary. Perhaps the good doctor would be so kind as to tell us which one that is?

Gravitational fine-structure constant

It's the Gravitational Coupling Constant btw and again it is the ratio of several other constants.

Decay rate of protons

If you want to suggest that protons decay then you also have to accept that the strong, weak & electromagnetic forces are all manifestations of a single unified force. This does not help Ross' argument at all.

Ground state energy level for helium-4
Carbon-12 to oxygen-16 nuclear energy level ratio
Decay rate for beryllium-8

Determined by the strong nuclear force via quantum chromodynamics and thus not free to vary unless the fundamental constant is also varied.

Ratio of neutron mass to proton mass

Not free to vary - determined by interactions between their constituent quarks. To propose that the values could be any different, Ross must propose that 2u1d quarks do not make up a proton & 1u2d quarks do not make up a neutron.

Initial excess of nucleons over antinucleons

There is no evidence for such an initial excess. We've covered this in baryon density above.

Polarity of the water molecule

Um, hydrogen is less positively charged than oxygen? Duh!
To think that this could be different is to propose that H2O does not make water.

Epoch for hypernova eruptions
Number and type of hypernova eruptions
Epoch for supernova eruptions
Number and types of supernova eruptions
Epoch for white dwarf binaries
Density of white dwarf binaries

All of the above are a function of the Main Sequence of stars which itself is a function of Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen fusion cycle which is a function of the strong nuclear force and gravity. The values are thus not free to vary.

Ratio of exotic matter to ordinary matter

Prove exotic matter exists first.

Number of effective dimensions in the early universe
Number of effective dimensions in the present universe

So now we're on to string theory? It's lovely how he mixes & matches the Standard Model with string theory as he sees fit, even though the two have not been reconciled.

Mass values for the active neutrinos
Number of different species of active neutrinos
Number of active neutrinos in the universe

All directly proportional to the decay rate of the Z boson. If Ross would like to propose that the decay rate an vary then he has a huge problem on his hands. This is because the Z boson is one of the mediators of the weak nuclear force and a longer decay time would mean that the weak nuclear force would act over distances greater than a single nucleus.

Mass value for the sterile neutrino
Number of sterile neutrinos in the universe

Prove they exist first. This has not yet been demonstrated.

Decay rates of exotic mass particles

Prove they exist first.

Magnitude of the temperature ripples in cosmic background radiation

Directly proportional to, and consistent with, the random fluctuations in a very hot gas expanded to the size of the universe.

Size of the relativistic dilation factor

Proportional to the speed of light. Ross is really stretching here.

Magnitude of the Heisenberg uncertainty

Hint: that's why they call it quantum theory. If you want the magnitude of the uncertainty to be smaller, propose a smaller fundamental particle set and solve all of the requisite equations.

Quantity of gas deposited into the deep intergalactic medium by the first supernovae

Directly proportional to the gravitational constant.

Positive nature of cosmic pressures
Positive nature of cosmic energy densities

We talked about the value for the expansion of the universe above already. There is currently expansion - this may change.

Density of quasars

Gravity again!

Decay rate of cold dark matter particles
Relative abundances of different exotic mass particles
Degree to which exotic matter self interacts

Prove they exist.

Epoch at which the first stars (metal-free pop III stars) begin to form
Epoch at which the first stars (metal-free pop III stars cease to form
Number density of metal-free pop III stars
Average mass of metal-free pop III stars
Epoch for the formation of the first galaxies
Epoch for the formation of the first quasars

Much like the earlier Gish Gallop on epocs, all of these can be traced back to interactions between the strong nuclear force & gravity.

Amount, rate, and epoch of decay of embedded defects

Perturbations in the cosmic background radiation are consistent with random fluctuations in the expansion of a very hot gas. Embedded defects are just such fluctuations writ large.

Ratio of warm exotic matter density to cold exotic matter density
Ratio of hot exotic matter density to cold exotic matter density

Prove they exist first.

Level of quantization of the cosmic spacetime fabric

Explaining this requires explaining the entirety of quantum mechanics. If it is free to vary, quantum mechanics is wrong and must be replaced. Is Ross seriously proposing that?

Flatness of universe's geometry

Space time curvature is determined by whether or not the universe is open or closed. This has not yet been determined and may change - see above on expansion of the universe.

Average rate of increase in galaxy sizes
Change in average rate of increase in galaxy sizes throughout cosmic history

Um, galaxy size doesn't increase. This is obvious from a simple thought experiment.

- if the universe is expanding then there is less local matter to accrete into a galaxy
- core clusters of galaxies tend to form supermassive black holes which will tend to reduce overall size

Constancy of dark energy factors
Epoch for star formation peak
Location of exotic matter relative to ordinary matter

More repetition of above

Strength of primordial cosmic magnetic field

*cough* electroweak *cough*

Level of primordial magnetohydrodynamic turbulence

This one I have no clue about sorry.

Level of charge-parity violation

As CP violations cannot currently account for the abundance of baryonic matter, this value has not yet been demonstrated to be fundamental.

Number of galaxies in the observable universe

Another one along the lines of "if things were different then things would be different".

Polarization level of the cosmic background radiation

Proportional to the gravitational constant...

Date for completion of second reionization event of the universe

I've seen 1077 years in the future for this but seen as high as 10200 years. A cosmic phase transition is theoretically possible but it hardly has any bearing on life. This is because, for such an event to occur, protons must decay and thus all baryonic matter would be gone before it happened.

Date of subsidence of gamma-ray burst production
Relative density of intermediate mass stars in the early history of the universe

Yet more repeats.

Water's temperature of maximum density
Water's heat of fusion
Water's heat of vaporization

Didn't we cover polarisation of water up above somewhere?

Number density of clumpuscules (dense clouds of cold molecular hydrogen gas) in the universe
Average mass of clumpuscules in the universe
Location of clumpuscules in the universe

And again, more repetition. Random fluctuations + gravity explain this.

Dioxygen's kinetic oxidation rate of organic molecules

Chemstry??? Please - did he think we'd miss this?

Level of paramagnetic behavior in dioxygen

I have no clue why he thinks this is important. Perhaps someone can help out.

Density of ultra-dwarf galaxies (or supermassive globular clusters) in the middle-aged universe

We've covered this enough already.

Degree of space-time warping and twisting by general relativistic factors

Speed of light...

Percentage of the initial mass function of the universe made up of intermediate mass stars

Um, zero? How can stars exist when there are no baryons?

[quote]Strength of the cosmic primordial magnetic field

Direct repeat of a term above.

........................................

Overall, the vast majority of the values proposed for fine tuning depend on a very small number of constants. So, while the list may look impressive, there really aren't all that many truly fundamental constants:

1. Gravitational constant
2. Speed of light in a vacuum
3. Electroweak-strong force (if the theories are correct. If they aren't, protons don't decay)
4. Plank constant (related to quantisation of space-time)
5. Fundamental charge of an electron/proton (only since free quarks have not been found and are postulated not to exist)

That's all I can think of right now, I'm sure I've missed some. It's a long way short of 93 though.

Age of the universe

That one is stupid even by the standard of creationist arguments.

By the same reasoning, the fact that it is 2010 right now proves that the universe is fine-tuned for my personal existence. If the amount of time that has passed since the Big Bang was only 2x10^-7% less, I wouldn't have been born yet. Hence, the fact that it is not 1877 right now, and it is instead a year in which I exist, is proof that the universe revolves around me. In fact, the universe is fine-tuned for me to be writing this very message - if the current time was only a few minutes earlier or later, I'd be doing something else right now. And had the time been different by a mere 8 hours; a totally trivial amount when you consider the age of the universe, I'd be asleep right now, precluding me from doing anything at all!