This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 7 |
After reading the link contained in the criticism of Multiverse theory, I relocated the item to the 'possible arguments' section. The other two items did not contain criticisms, therefore the item statement needed relocation. Also, the article did not make the statement as a factual refutation of a Multiverse theory. Rather, as a probability argument. 10k monkeys vs. Shakespere, etc.-- ghost 20:21, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
It's been suggested that Fine-tuning should be merged into this article. The articles look like duplicates to me, but I don't know the subject well. What do you think? Kerowyn 03:18, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Fine-tuning seems to be a seperate subject altogther, the somewhat controversial process of adding small "fixes" to a physical model to account for observed effects out of sync with the model. The strereotypical example being the cosmological constant, which, when it was first created, had no explaination other than to reconcile the model with what was believed at the time to be reality.
Whether or not it's scientific, it bears at least partial mention and representation in its own article, being that it's not the same as fine tuning]] Alexnye 04:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Does it bother anyone that the I/J argument isn't peer reviewed? I'm worried that the referee would of had a field day with the science. If it is in a journal somewhere, it would be nice to see a citation. I only mention this because Richard Swinburne reaches the exact opposite conclusion (also via Baysian) in his book "The existence of God."
Bradley, M.C. “The Fine-Tuning Argument: the Bayesian Version.” Religious Studies 38 (2002) 375-404.
I would also like a link added to Richard Swinburn's book, for balance, or at least a summary of why he reaches the opposite conclusion. As it stands, the Wikipedia article goes into detail on the I/J argument, but basically glosses over any counter-argument. I for one would like to see and evaluate the arguments/counterarguments for myself. Robert Preisser
Regarding the Swinburne reference, I'm looking at the summary Bayesian inference on p189 of The Existence of God (search Google Books to see this). There is no mention of conditioning on L, and as such, his argument does not address one of the main points of I-J: that for a Bayesian inference to be justified, evidence and hypotheses must be conditioned on *all* background knowledge. For this reason, I don't agree with mentioning Swinburne's writing as representative of the counter-argument to I-J. By all means cite someone else, but I haven't come across any pro-FT arguments that attempt to address this rather important point. Such is the cutting-edge of the FT argument...
I'm not going to change the article text at this stage (mainly because I only have an old edition of Swinburne in paper form), but this really wants clearing up by someone who can confirm the above. CC.
I've tried to clean up this I/J stuff. a. The section is not just about I/J but about Bayesean argumnets in general so I've re-titled it accordingly. b. The argument has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal (and IMHO is bogus, but this is not the place to discsuss this). So it certainly can't be called a "theorem" - they have a "proposition". c. Whoever summarised it confused F which in their notation means life-friendly with being fine-tuned (in their notation P(F|N)) d. A paper which has been published in a partisan propagandist book and on the author's website really doesn't deserve such prominence in the article. I don't like removing other Editors' work so I have kept most of the text in the footnote. NBeale 09:12, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
I think I could improve some of the writing in the Nature of the Constants section in this article to make it more readable and on-topic and less sprawling. I'm going to make some edits to this, so please feel free to critique my edits. Twelvethirteen 18:43, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I didn't change the wording of the pragmatic vs ontological nature of reductionism, though I think this could be more clear too. I just don't want to alter the meaning of it accidentally. cheerz Twelvethirteen 19:12, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
The appearance of fine-tuning is an artifact of the reductionist method. The point of "(meaning our group behavior is due to individual behavior which is due to the parts of the individual which are made of atoms which are made of particles whose behavior is specified by laws of physics that contain within them a few fundamental constants that can be measured to varying degrees of precision)" was to explain "the precise interplay of physical constants being necessary for known life" in that the reductionist method results in the direct known connection between the constants and the nature of everything including the existence of life as we know it. There is no surprise or anything tricky or any big deal that reductionism necessitates that the fundamental rules believed to naturally be 100% of the cause of all behavior in the observed universe would include life among "all behavior". It is only the misunderstanding of science and the belief in the supernatural that produces the "wow, so scientists admit life is caused by carefully chosen parameters" effect. WAS 4.250 10:14, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
I have removed a recent external link to a book advert; the data for adding the link as a reference is: Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe, by Martin J. Rees, ISBN 0465036732. I post this here for discussion on whether the book should be added to the article. KillerChihuahua ?!? 09:56, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Writing a popular-level book on "just six numbers" does not make one the eminent scholar on fine-tuning. Fred Hoyle actually published a prediction for a nuclear resonance based on the anthropic principle. This makes his work of more scientific importance than Rees' layman's jaunt through basic cosmological speculation. -- ScienceApologist 18:32, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Felonious, i don't think you made your case that the edits i put in are POV. i am taking no position on intelligent design other than that what these guys are usually trying to do is to push non-science into the science classroom. this whole concept of fine-tuned universe exists solely because some scientists plausibly believe that it is quite odd or, at least, remarkable that the constants of nature such as the fine-structure constant happen to take on the values that they have and that the existence of the universe, as we observe it, depends on those constants taking on very nearly the value that they have. the word "remarkable" is simply what it is. if it wasn't remarkable, no one would be talking about this "fine-tuning" and there would be no WP article on it. the rest of the changes have to do with what the fundamental physical constants really are and everything that i wrote that focuses that set to the dimensionless constants is in keeping perfectly with the present state of physics as expressed by John Baez, Frank Wilczek, John D. Barrow, Michael Duff, Gabriele Veneziano, and practically any other physicist that you will get on moderated newsgroups such as sci.physics.research and their various blogs. r b-j 00:57, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
this whole Fine-tuned universe concept that is the topic of this article is a viewpoint. people can certainly and have taken the POV that the universe is not necessarily fine-tuned at all. if it wasn't "remarkable" in the minds of phyicists (such as Barrow) and other people that have simply brought up the subject that the parameters of the universe seem to oddly take on values that allow for the creation of matter and of the elemental diversity (some additional physics in novae had to happen for elements heavier than iron to be created), of structures such as galaxies, stars, planets, so that beings that are like humans can sit around and think about all of this, from the POV of anyone who would bring this subject up, it is remarkable. it's a simple word. it's not making a big POV claim. it's essentially a tautology. tautologies don't say much, using them to "prove" other assertions is a logical fallacy, but disputing them (if you accept their premises) is also logically flawed. what is your problem with it, Felonious?
the whole idea of a fine-tuned universe concept is that it ostensibly is remarkable. if it isn't remarkable the article has no reason to exist. r b-j 02:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree with RBJ. This is exactly the context in which the word "remarkable" is used objectively; it is hard to see why someone would think it is a point of view, just because it was on a list of words to be avoided. Is there an alternative point of view, that the precise relationships of physical constants that allow the conditions for life is NOT remarkable? I don't think so. Dicklyon 04:45, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps the biggest problem in POV issues here is the title. The expression "fine-tuned" involves the past participle of the verb "to tune," which is something an agent does to a system. I'm not really familiar with this field or its terminology, but this one sounds like a name that was "designed" to bias the discussion of the concept. Are there other terms used for it? Dicklyon 18:26, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
It now says:
So I got ref 2 to see what it says. I haven't read the whole thing, but it doesn't seem to be getting to the point of contradicting the position that the physical constants have "remarkably precise" tuning. Rather, it is all about refuting a theological connection. The current sentence seems to be implying that the "implication" of "remarkably precise" is a theological connection. This is stupid.
Please tell me if I got it wrong. Does the reference apply if I take out "and its implications", which is itself a loaded POV phrase? Dicklyon 05:55, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Felonious, please don't remove talk comments, even if you suspect they were put in by a sock puppet, which seems not to be the case. Dicklyon 15:49, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
The quote and reference that I added about Larry Abbott saying "remarkably precise" has been re-attributed in recent edits to Michael Corey (just because he quoted it in his book), and has been dragged into a theological argument. This is really lame. Can you guys who screwed it up please take another look and try to unwind it into something more sensible, leaving theology out of it? Dicklyon 22:59, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I've put it back to something that is at least "less screwed up", and changed the ref to make it more clear that the quote is from a guy who writes for scientific american, not a guy that writes about God. Dicklyon 23:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Your being an engineer possibly explains your misconception that "If the "fine-tuned universe" is a topic, then it must be because the precision involved is remarkable". It is "a topic" for psychological reasons. WAS 4.250 16:41, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Since the current topic is so closely related to the anthropic principle concept, it would be good to know the history of that, too. That article refers back to Barrow and Tipler 1986, but not much older. Quick GBS shows John Wheeler may have originated the idea [6]. Does anyone have more info on this topic? Dicklyon 20:17, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
while i actually agree more with Dick, i don't think we should try to sweep under the rug that there is a real difference between Dick's and FeloniousMonk's version and not just a difference in usage. one says that this observation of fine-tuning is, for the most part, accepted, and the other says it is not accepted within "mainstream science". while, i think that everybody here agrees that ID is not accepted within mainstream science, there is a bona fide dispute here whether fine-tuning is. i don't even think there is agreement among editors what, precisely, fine-tuned universe is referring to. there are some editors equating the notion of fine-tuning to ID and others (e.g. me) who clearly do not. i continue to maintain that Fine-tuned universe means the observation that the universal constants take on these particular numerical values such that: 1. no physicist knows why (causal) these dimensionless quantities take on the values that they do and 2. if they were not very nearly those particular values, matter, the universe, and life would not exist as we know it. the observation of these two facts are well accepted (as far as i can tell) in the physics community and these observations are "notable" or "remarkable" enough that they are given the name as of this article. fine-tuned universe is about the observation (and is widely accepted) while ID is an explanation for this observation which is not widely accepted within the science community. the multiverse hypothesis combined with weak anthropic principle is another explanation. i think this is a content disagreement that needs to be hammered out without Felonious simply reverting resorting to wordplay or relying on his opinion that the other version is "better". from the very beginning he has not justified that and has relied his admin status and the ability to silence opposing view to define the article and the meaning of terms. r b-j 15:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
"and that small changes in these relationships would correspond to very different universe" should be "and that small changes in these relationships would correspond to a very different universe", right? Info D 13:45, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
The series box in Intelligent design includes Fine-tuned universe as part of the series. Perhaps we should add the box to this page as well. Rares 07:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
If this is not OR, it needs cites.
However, this line of reasoning begs the question of what "fine tuned" conditions might have been necessary to lead to the spontaneous existence or creation of an omnipotent God. Thus, this argument may be seen as explaining one "improbable" situation (the observed existence of the universe with a set of physical constants capable of creating complex life) by supposing an even more improbable situation (the existence of a meta-universe and whatever structure or meta-physical laws would be necessary to allow for the spontaneous creation or existence of a supreme being which was complex enough to create our own universe). This line of argument, therefore, may be subject to criticism from proponents of Occam's Razor.
Removed from article 11/6/2006 •Jim62sch• 10:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
There was a lot of un-sourced stuff in this section which (to put it at its kindest) was PoV that did not distinguish speculation from fact and was badly ill-informed. I have put it roughly in a shape aligned with the pre-eminent scientist to have written a book in this field Martin Rees who is President of the Royal Society. The comment attributed to Steven Gould is unsourced and frankly incredible, and most of the rest should be sourced or deleted. It was 'not' a "good edit" alas. NBeale 22:38, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
In addition the Ikeda/Jeffries "argument" is simply a posting on a website. It is inappropriate to give it this much prominence when major books by global experts only get a few lines. Jeffries is barely notable, not a member of the NAS and Ikeda isn't even notable. At most it rates a sentence. NBeale 23:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
There were some uncited and very POV statements in the critics part of the Premise section. I have adjusted them to NPOV (eg is claimed that) and noted that they need citations. However the sentence: The argument loses much of its meaning and appeal if it is restated in the alternative terms "If the constants of the universe weren't exactly what they are, Saturn wouldn't have rings around it." is risible and should be deleted. You might as well say that an argument that God does not exist loses much of its meaning and force if it is restated in the alternative terms of "A Boeing 747 does not exist". Can anyone suggest a rational reason why that (unsourced) sentence should be retained? NBeale 18:33, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Victor Stenger is notable and is a critic of fine-tuning (well actually any ID stuff). He has a reasonable number of books to his name and quotes or is quoted by others in this field so I've segued him into this article. Please use talk before blanking these edits. BTW: He's not in Wikipedia as ... well one reason is I haven't yet finished my draft article as I'm fairly new to Wikipedia WRT creating new WP:LIVING pages and got bogged down on bibliography references and see-also stuff as his books are cited reasonably often and trying to avoid copyvio on biographical data. Ttiotsw 09:37, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Explaining my edit, http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Fine-tuned_universe&diff=93233733&oldid=93228420 I changed the "are"s in the second sentence to "may be"s i.e. it is now "Some of these may be fully compatible with known scientific facts (notwithstanding their use of metaphysical ideas which maybe considered to be beyond the domain of science). " as it already was weasel with the "some" so I added may be. In the last sentence I changed the "some" at the start of the sentence to "Many" i.e. it is now "Many other religious creation views are either incompatible with, or indifferent to, scientific understandings. The reason being that so far it's just mentioned "some" and only two other examples (Christianity and Judeism) are discussed and thus the majority that are left is..."Many" plus you seriously can't get away with the word "creation" in a sentence that talks about compatibility with "science". Ttiotsw 22:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree that a list of proposed examples of "fine-tuning" of physical constants would be a good idea, but there doesn't seem to be any difference between this and a list of "anthropic coincidences", which seems to be the more common term; I think it would be better to fork the list to list of anthropic coincidences or something like that, leaving a link (and one or two common examples) from here and from anthropic principle. Ben Standeven 20:42, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 7 |
After reading the link contained in the criticism of Multiverse theory, I relocated the item to the 'possible arguments' section. The other two items did not contain criticisms, therefore the item statement needed relocation. Also, the article did not make the statement as a factual refutation of a Multiverse theory. Rather, as a probability argument. 10k monkeys vs. Shakespere, etc.-- ghost 20:21, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
It's been suggested that Fine-tuning should be merged into this article. The articles look like duplicates to me, but I don't know the subject well. What do you think? Kerowyn 03:18, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Fine-tuning seems to be a seperate subject altogther, the somewhat controversial process of adding small "fixes" to a physical model to account for observed effects out of sync with the model. The strereotypical example being the cosmological constant, which, when it was first created, had no explaination other than to reconcile the model with what was believed at the time to be reality.
Whether or not it's scientific, it bears at least partial mention and representation in its own article, being that it's not the same as fine tuning]] Alexnye 04:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Does it bother anyone that the I/J argument isn't peer reviewed? I'm worried that the referee would of had a field day with the science. If it is in a journal somewhere, it would be nice to see a citation. I only mention this because Richard Swinburne reaches the exact opposite conclusion (also via Baysian) in his book "The existence of God."
Bradley, M.C. “The Fine-Tuning Argument: the Bayesian Version.” Religious Studies 38 (2002) 375-404.
I would also like a link added to Richard Swinburn's book, for balance, or at least a summary of why he reaches the opposite conclusion. As it stands, the Wikipedia article goes into detail on the I/J argument, but basically glosses over any counter-argument. I for one would like to see and evaluate the arguments/counterarguments for myself. Robert Preisser
Regarding the Swinburne reference, I'm looking at the summary Bayesian inference on p189 of The Existence of God (search Google Books to see this). There is no mention of conditioning on L, and as such, his argument does not address one of the main points of I-J: that for a Bayesian inference to be justified, evidence and hypotheses must be conditioned on *all* background knowledge. For this reason, I don't agree with mentioning Swinburne's writing as representative of the counter-argument to I-J. By all means cite someone else, but I haven't come across any pro-FT arguments that attempt to address this rather important point. Such is the cutting-edge of the FT argument...
I'm not going to change the article text at this stage (mainly because I only have an old edition of Swinburne in paper form), but this really wants clearing up by someone who can confirm the above. CC.
I've tried to clean up this I/J stuff. a. The section is not just about I/J but about Bayesean argumnets in general so I've re-titled it accordingly. b. The argument has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal (and IMHO is bogus, but this is not the place to discsuss this). So it certainly can't be called a "theorem" - they have a "proposition". c. Whoever summarised it confused F which in their notation means life-friendly with being fine-tuned (in their notation P(F|N)) d. A paper which has been published in a partisan propagandist book and on the author's website really doesn't deserve such prominence in the article. I don't like removing other Editors' work so I have kept most of the text in the footnote. NBeale 09:12, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
I think I could improve some of the writing in the Nature of the Constants section in this article to make it more readable and on-topic and less sprawling. I'm going to make some edits to this, so please feel free to critique my edits. Twelvethirteen 18:43, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I didn't change the wording of the pragmatic vs ontological nature of reductionism, though I think this could be more clear too. I just don't want to alter the meaning of it accidentally. cheerz Twelvethirteen 19:12, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
The appearance of fine-tuning is an artifact of the reductionist method. The point of "(meaning our group behavior is due to individual behavior which is due to the parts of the individual which are made of atoms which are made of particles whose behavior is specified by laws of physics that contain within them a few fundamental constants that can be measured to varying degrees of precision)" was to explain "the precise interplay of physical constants being necessary for known life" in that the reductionist method results in the direct known connection between the constants and the nature of everything including the existence of life as we know it. There is no surprise or anything tricky or any big deal that reductionism necessitates that the fundamental rules believed to naturally be 100% of the cause of all behavior in the observed universe would include life among "all behavior". It is only the misunderstanding of science and the belief in the supernatural that produces the "wow, so scientists admit life is caused by carefully chosen parameters" effect. WAS 4.250 10:14, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
I have removed a recent external link to a book advert; the data for adding the link as a reference is: Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe, by Martin J. Rees, ISBN 0465036732. I post this here for discussion on whether the book should be added to the article. KillerChihuahua ?!? 09:56, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Writing a popular-level book on "just six numbers" does not make one the eminent scholar on fine-tuning. Fred Hoyle actually published a prediction for a nuclear resonance based on the anthropic principle. This makes his work of more scientific importance than Rees' layman's jaunt through basic cosmological speculation. -- ScienceApologist 18:32, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Felonious, i don't think you made your case that the edits i put in are POV. i am taking no position on intelligent design other than that what these guys are usually trying to do is to push non-science into the science classroom. this whole concept of fine-tuned universe exists solely because some scientists plausibly believe that it is quite odd or, at least, remarkable that the constants of nature such as the fine-structure constant happen to take on the values that they have and that the existence of the universe, as we observe it, depends on those constants taking on very nearly the value that they have. the word "remarkable" is simply what it is. if it wasn't remarkable, no one would be talking about this "fine-tuning" and there would be no WP article on it. the rest of the changes have to do with what the fundamental physical constants really are and everything that i wrote that focuses that set to the dimensionless constants is in keeping perfectly with the present state of physics as expressed by John Baez, Frank Wilczek, John D. Barrow, Michael Duff, Gabriele Veneziano, and practically any other physicist that you will get on moderated newsgroups such as sci.physics.research and their various blogs. r b-j 00:57, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
this whole Fine-tuned universe concept that is the topic of this article is a viewpoint. people can certainly and have taken the POV that the universe is not necessarily fine-tuned at all. if it wasn't "remarkable" in the minds of phyicists (such as Barrow) and other people that have simply brought up the subject that the parameters of the universe seem to oddly take on values that allow for the creation of matter and of the elemental diversity (some additional physics in novae had to happen for elements heavier than iron to be created), of structures such as galaxies, stars, planets, so that beings that are like humans can sit around and think about all of this, from the POV of anyone who would bring this subject up, it is remarkable. it's a simple word. it's not making a big POV claim. it's essentially a tautology. tautologies don't say much, using them to "prove" other assertions is a logical fallacy, but disputing them (if you accept their premises) is also logically flawed. what is your problem with it, Felonious?
the whole idea of a fine-tuned universe concept is that it ostensibly is remarkable. if it isn't remarkable the article has no reason to exist. r b-j 02:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree with RBJ. This is exactly the context in which the word "remarkable" is used objectively; it is hard to see why someone would think it is a point of view, just because it was on a list of words to be avoided. Is there an alternative point of view, that the precise relationships of physical constants that allow the conditions for life is NOT remarkable? I don't think so. Dicklyon 04:45, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps the biggest problem in POV issues here is the title. The expression "fine-tuned" involves the past participle of the verb "to tune," which is something an agent does to a system. I'm not really familiar with this field or its terminology, but this one sounds like a name that was "designed" to bias the discussion of the concept. Are there other terms used for it? Dicklyon 18:26, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
It now says:
So I got ref 2 to see what it says. I haven't read the whole thing, but it doesn't seem to be getting to the point of contradicting the position that the physical constants have "remarkably precise" tuning. Rather, it is all about refuting a theological connection. The current sentence seems to be implying that the "implication" of "remarkably precise" is a theological connection. This is stupid.
Please tell me if I got it wrong. Does the reference apply if I take out "and its implications", which is itself a loaded POV phrase? Dicklyon 05:55, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Felonious, please don't remove talk comments, even if you suspect they were put in by a sock puppet, which seems not to be the case. Dicklyon 15:49, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
The quote and reference that I added about Larry Abbott saying "remarkably precise" has been re-attributed in recent edits to Michael Corey (just because he quoted it in his book), and has been dragged into a theological argument. This is really lame. Can you guys who screwed it up please take another look and try to unwind it into something more sensible, leaving theology out of it? Dicklyon 22:59, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I've put it back to something that is at least "less screwed up", and changed the ref to make it more clear that the quote is from a guy who writes for scientific american, not a guy that writes about God. Dicklyon 23:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Your being an engineer possibly explains your misconception that "If the "fine-tuned universe" is a topic, then it must be because the precision involved is remarkable". It is "a topic" for psychological reasons. WAS 4.250 16:41, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Since the current topic is so closely related to the anthropic principle concept, it would be good to know the history of that, too. That article refers back to Barrow and Tipler 1986, but not much older. Quick GBS shows John Wheeler may have originated the idea [6]. Does anyone have more info on this topic? Dicklyon 20:17, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
while i actually agree more with Dick, i don't think we should try to sweep under the rug that there is a real difference between Dick's and FeloniousMonk's version and not just a difference in usage. one says that this observation of fine-tuning is, for the most part, accepted, and the other says it is not accepted within "mainstream science". while, i think that everybody here agrees that ID is not accepted within mainstream science, there is a bona fide dispute here whether fine-tuning is. i don't even think there is agreement among editors what, precisely, fine-tuned universe is referring to. there are some editors equating the notion of fine-tuning to ID and others (e.g. me) who clearly do not. i continue to maintain that Fine-tuned universe means the observation that the universal constants take on these particular numerical values such that: 1. no physicist knows why (causal) these dimensionless quantities take on the values that they do and 2. if they were not very nearly those particular values, matter, the universe, and life would not exist as we know it. the observation of these two facts are well accepted (as far as i can tell) in the physics community and these observations are "notable" or "remarkable" enough that they are given the name as of this article. fine-tuned universe is about the observation (and is widely accepted) while ID is an explanation for this observation which is not widely accepted within the science community. the multiverse hypothesis combined with weak anthropic principle is another explanation. i think this is a content disagreement that needs to be hammered out without Felonious simply reverting resorting to wordplay or relying on his opinion that the other version is "better". from the very beginning he has not justified that and has relied his admin status and the ability to silence opposing view to define the article and the meaning of terms. r b-j 15:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
"and that small changes in these relationships would correspond to very different universe" should be "and that small changes in these relationships would correspond to a very different universe", right? Info D 13:45, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
The series box in Intelligent design includes Fine-tuned universe as part of the series. Perhaps we should add the box to this page as well. Rares 07:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
If this is not OR, it needs cites.
However, this line of reasoning begs the question of what "fine tuned" conditions might have been necessary to lead to the spontaneous existence or creation of an omnipotent God. Thus, this argument may be seen as explaining one "improbable" situation (the observed existence of the universe with a set of physical constants capable of creating complex life) by supposing an even more improbable situation (the existence of a meta-universe and whatever structure or meta-physical laws would be necessary to allow for the spontaneous creation or existence of a supreme being which was complex enough to create our own universe). This line of argument, therefore, may be subject to criticism from proponents of Occam's Razor.
Removed from article 11/6/2006 •Jim62sch• 10:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
There was a lot of un-sourced stuff in this section which (to put it at its kindest) was PoV that did not distinguish speculation from fact and was badly ill-informed. I have put it roughly in a shape aligned with the pre-eminent scientist to have written a book in this field Martin Rees who is President of the Royal Society. The comment attributed to Steven Gould is unsourced and frankly incredible, and most of the rest should be sourced or deleted. It was 'not' a "good edit" alas. NBeale 22:38, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
In addition the Ikeda/Jeffries "argument" is simply a posting on a website. It is inappropriate to give it this much prominence when major books by global experts only get a few lines. Jeffries is barely notable, not a member of the NAS and Ikeda isn't even notable. At most it rates a sentence. NBeale 23:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
There were some uncited and very POV statements in the critics part of the Premise section. I have adjusted them to NPOV (eg is claimed that) and noted that they need citations. However the sentence: The argument loses much of its meaning and appeal if it is restated in the alternative terms "If the constants of the universe weren't exactly what they are, Saturn wouldn't have rings around it." is risible and should be deleted. You might as well say that an argument that God does not exist loses much of its meaning and force if it is restated in the alternative terms of "A Boeing 747 does not exist". Can anyone suggest a rational reason why that (unsourced) sentence should be retained? NBeale 18:33, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Victor Stenger is notable and is a critic of fine-tuning (well actually any ID stuff). He has a reasonable number of books to his name and quotes or is quoted by others in this field so I've segued him into this article. Please use talk before blanking these edits. BTW: He's not in Wikipedia as ... well one reason is I haven't yet finished my draft article as I'm fairly new to Wikipedia WRT creating new WP:LIVING pages and got bogged down on bibliography references and see-also stuff as his books are cited reasonably often and trying to avoid copyvio on biographical data. Ttiotsw 09:37, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Explaining my edit, http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Fine-tuned_universe&diff=93233733&oldid=93228420 I changed the "are"s in the second sentence to "may be"s i.e. it is now "Some of these may be fully compatible with known scientific facts (notwithstanding their use of metaphysical ideas which maybe considered to be beyond the domain of science). " as it already was weasel with the "some" so I added may be. In the last sentence I changed the "some" at the start of the sentence to "Many" i.e. it is now "Many other religious creation views are either incompatible with, or indifferent to, scientific understandings. The reason being that so far it's just mentioned "some" and only two other examples (Christianity and Judeism) are discussed and thus the majority that are left is..."Many" plus you seriously can't get away with the word "creation" in a sentence that talks about compatibility with "science". Ttiotsw 22:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree that a list of proposed examples of "fine-tuning" of physical constants would be a good idea, but there doesn't seem to be any difference between this and a list of "anthropic coincidences", which seems to be the more common term; I think it would be better to fork the list to list of anthropic coincidences or something like that, leaving a link (and one or two common examples) from here and from anthropic principle. Ben Standeven 20:42, 21 December 2006 (UTC)