In Which Abstruse Physics Principles Provoke A "Neener Neener Neener" from Your Obedient Serpent

[athelind]

Evidence Emerges That Laws of Physics Are Not Fine-Tuned For Life

I admit it: even the weak versions of the Anthropic Principle make me twitch. Yes, if we're observing the universe, its physical conditions must allow us to exist; fine, that's kind of a "duh". Stronger versions get increasingly ... problematic ... as their proponents start dwelling

Comments

[paka]

I thought Einstein was the person who first said that if you go looking for God out there in the universe, you will find Him - not necessarily because God exists so much as due to observer bias?

[scarfman]

What gets me is the subtitle of the article, stating that the article's subject claims to have shown "the value of the cosmological constant suggests that the laws of nature could not have been fine-tuned for life by an omnipotent being". Granted, the given he's proceeding from is that the intent of the Creator(s) was to set conditions for life to develop independently instead of to create life Itself. But it's still an assumption, and which part of "omnipotent" didn't he understand?
He hasn't proven the universe wasn't created by Yahweh; he's just shown that, if it was, Yahweh could have done a better job. A supreme being who constantly gave Pharoah mood swings to better showcase how much assistance the Isrealites were getting is a supreme being arbitrary enough to say, "It's the second evening. I wanted to get to the earth and the seas tomorrow so I need to wrap up the firmament and the waters now. I don't need the cosmological constant to be perfect, it's within tolerances if it's here. That'll do."

[kinkyturtle]

As well as when they start saying that if you disagree with them, you're not fit to be an American citizen *coughBushtheelderandBushtheyoungercough*

[araquan]

Honestly, I'm cool if religious people want to square the Bible up with science that way, that's fine, it's when they start talking about the literal existence of Hell and the Earth being 6000 years old and so forth that I have a problem.

Pretty much.

[soreth]

My first thought on the matter is something along the lines of "Not optimized? Well, the universe has already shown a general tendency to favor producing uphill struggles instead of any kind of friendliness." If there's a creator, it doesn't want to make things easy for anybody.