There is no way to say, a priori, what the probability of the constants might be, and whether it is large or small. … IDers, time and time again, hoist themselves royally by hitching themselves to the indemonstrable low probability argument.

The fine tuning argument, made correctly, is this: life is sensitive to the values of the constants.

It says nothing about probabilities—of which nothing can be said.

Let me repeat: the power of the fine-tuning argument has nothing to do with low probabilities.

In fact (I know, I have said this a million times), the IDers get it bass-ackwards.

Suppose we accept that life is sensitive to the values of the constants. (That is still the going-in position—in spite of Stenger claiming otherwise—all he did was some toy calculations, the old blowhard—you will note the deafening silence from physicists of all stripes, nobody except Stenger (and his non-scientific followers) claims that Stenger solved the fine-tuning problem). But even if you believe Stenger, for the sake of argument let's accept the fine-tuning premise that life is sensitive to the constants.

Consider then two "probability" scenarios:

1) There is no explanation for the constants, they are a low probability random draw

2) There is a theory, as yet undiscovered, that predicts the constants—so in fact they are high (unit) probability

The first scenario favors, at least superficially, the multiverse—because that in fact is exactly what it predicts.

The second possibility—the unit probability—is the one the IDers should champion because *IF* life is sensitive to the values of the constants AND the constants are high (unit) probability, you are then in the situation where habitability of the universe is built right into the fabric of spacetime. You’ll never get any closer to scientific support for design—not with all the vaporware specified-complexity calculations you can imagine.

But still the IDers pursue the low probability case—exactly the opposite of where they should be looking.

If I understand David's point, and perhaps I don't, he would agree that the constants must be rather fine-tuned in order for life to exist. But then we have the question of why they are fine-tuned. He suggests the first scenario is that

There is no explanation for the constants, they are a low probability random draw

The first scenario favors, at least superficially, the multiverse—because that in fact is exactly what it predicts.

Of course, this follows only if we have no other explanation for the constants, such as God deliberately tuning them. But do we know that God didn't deliberately tune them?

The second scenario is that

2) There is a theory, as yet undiscovered, that predicts the constants—so in fact they are high (unit) probability

And he favors this one, since it would show that "habitability of the universe is built right into the fabric of spacetime."

And I think he's right about this. If we find out that the constants must be the way they are, then it is rather amazing that they just happen to be such that they allow life to exist. But then professor Robin Collins argues the same thing.

One criticism of the fine-tuning argument is that, as far as we know, there could be a more fundamental law under which the parameters of physics must have the values they do. Thus, given such a law, it is not improbable that the known parameters of physics fall within the life-permitting range.

Besides being entirely speculative, the problem with postulating such a law is that it simply moves the improbability of the fine-tuning up one level, to that of the postulated physical law itself. Under this hypothesis, what is improbable is that all the conceivable fundamental physical laws there could be, the universe just happens to have the one that constrains the parameters of physics in a life-permitting way. Thus, trying to explain the fine-tuning by postulating this sort of fundamental law is like trying to explain why the pattern of rocks below a cliff spell "Welcome to the mountains Robin Collins" by postulating that an earthquake occurred and that all the rocks on the cliff face were arranged in just the right configuration to fall into the pattern in question. Clearly this explanation merely transfers the improbability up one level, since now it seems enormously improbable that of all the possible configurations the rocks could be in on the cliff face, they are in the one which results in the pattern "Welcome to the mountains Robin Collins."

So yes, given professor Heddle's second scenario, he's in agreement with Collins, at least, that the fine-tuning argument works. The question then, is what about the first scenario?

It seems we are left with two alternatives: The constants were deliberately fine-tuned, or we live in a multiverse. For some reason David thinks that the multiverse is the only choice. Maybe he'll explain why. I'll write about what Collins has to say about the second alternative in another thread.

M. pneumoniae's DNA is very similar to the DNA of other living organisms. It is not the same though. The genome of this species is noted for being very small. And as is always the case there is sequencing of nucleotides that is unique to the species.

Another TT commenter. David S. raised the issue of scientific consensus. It is the scientific consensus that irreducible complexity, a concept made famous by Michael Behe, is implausible. David was lectured about the painstaking accumulation of scientific data that precedes a formulation of consensus which of course is not preordained.

The consensus about M. pneumoniae is that an organism with a much simpler genome once preceded it in the timeline of natural history. Instead of organisms with relatively simple genomes containing hundreds of genes there were organisms with small fractions of this number. 10 genes? 25 genes? 5 genes? Gene duplication is cited as a mechanism for the development of complexity. Consensus.

What is the painstakingly generated data supporting the claim that there is no floor to the number of genes or the complexity of a genome showing irreducible complexity to be bogus? RNA world to the rescue! The consensus was there prior to the RNA world notion which tells you something about consensus. But an RNA "genome" having self-replicating property is the reassurance the consensus crowd needed. Observe the replication and poof- the outcome of a cell is down line in the causal pathway. Natural selection explains it all. Or does it?

What would natural selection winnow in a prebiotic soup? How would that outcome lead to a cell? Consensus is the illegitimate offspring of philosophical bias.

OK, so maybe this won't REALLY be an open thread, but I wanted to get the invitations out in a timely manner.

On March 27, 2010*, I'm having a carbon party. So at 8:30pm to 9:30pm (local time), turn on all your lights, run all your appliances, and turn on all your TVs to celebrate the modern wonder that is electricity!

*I think there's another party scheduled for that day, too, but I think it's a dud compared to the carbon party!.

The term "greenhouse effect" is unfortunate since it results in a false impression of the activity of so-called "greenhouse gases." An actual greenhouse works as a physical barrier to convection (the transfer of heat by currents in a fluid) while the atmosphere really facilitates convection so the impression of actual greenhouse-like activity in the Earth's atmosphere is incorrect.

The WMAP evidence certainly is consistent with an infinite universe, but I would not say it is probably infinite. Two reasons. First, WMAP only shows that is very close to being flat, which still allows for the possibility that it has a small finite curvature, in which case it is finite. Second, a spatially flat universe does not imply an infinite universe.

For a flat universe, there is zero spatial curvature everywhere. The simplest geometrical object to which this corresponds to is a 3-dimensional flat hypersurface that extends to infinity. In this case, the universe is spatially infinite, with a similar mass-energy density to our own everywhere (given the starting assumptions of large-scale homogeneity and isotropy). Not all universes with spatially flat geometries are infinite in extent, however. In fact, there are ten other possibilities in which the hypersurface is locally flat but nonetheless closes back in on itself, thus forming a finite universe, the most familiar is the being the 3-Torus. One way of understanding how a finite universe is compatible with its being locally flat everywhere is to note that spatial curvature is a local notion defined by the intrinsic property of the space at every point. The overall topological structure – which determines whether the universe is finite or infinite – is a global notion that is constrained though usually not completely determined by the local curvature. [Footnote: When embed a two-dimensional closed surface—such as a torus-- in a three dimensional space, it looks curved, leading us to think that if a space is topologically closed, it must be curved. This reasoning is faulty: the embedding space can induce a curvature that is not the same as the intrinsic curvature as it is defined mathematically using the metric. (See Carroll, pp. ____).]

So perhaps we live in an infinite universe, but there are other ways of interpreting the evidence.

The source of their concern: Miller, a practicing Catholic, has made a very public bid in the last decade or so to square religion and science; to mix church and state, in their view. "It's an effort to reconcile a legitimate discipline," says biology professor and prominent atheist blogger PZ Myers, "with foolishness."

A true scientist, the New Atheists argue, must renounce God. Must acknowledge the fundamental incompatibility of an empirical science and a revelatory faith. Miller couldn't disagree more.

Remarkable is it not? The NA attitude does not square well with that which nourishes science- rigorous intellectual endeavor and freedom of thought. But Miller seems to have retained his serenity:

And if the New Atheists' attacks get to him, he doesn't let on. Miller says the long hours he has devoted to baseball and softball umpiring have left him immune to even the sharpest digs. "Do you have any idea what people say to an umpire in a ballgame?" he says.

In his book The Making of the Fittest, Sean Carroll writes “the degree of similarity in DNA is an index of the [evolutionary] relatedness of species.” [98] This can only make sense if we first assume evolution is true. But Carroll's book is a defense of evolution, intended to demonstrate that the theory is true without first assuming it is true. He seeks to prove evolution is true, but he begins with evolutionary reasoning and interpretations. That is circular reasoning. Unfortunately such circular reasoning is a common motif in the evolution genre.

I have pointed out that Michael Behe uses the same argument to support his belief that common descent is true.*

So if Sean Carroll is guilty of circular reasoning, then so is Michael Behe. But is Hunter correct? Are they guilty of circular reasoning. Long ago, in one of my philosophy classes, our professor pointed out that any time we see an argument that seems to be an example of the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, then we might really be looking at an example of abductive reasoning — arguing to the best explanation.

I suggest that this is exactly what both Sean Carroll and Michael Behe have done — argued to the best explanation for the DNA evidence — which they think is common descent. We may or may not agree with them (I happen to agree), but let's not dismiss their argument as merely circular reasoning.

*Apparently somebody doesn't want people to know the content of Behe's argument, and has screwed around with the URL. So let me reprint it:

More compelling evidence for the shared ancestry of humans and other primates comes from their hemoglobin — not just their working hemoglobin, but a broken hemoglobin gene, too. [10] In one region of our genomes humans have five genes for proteins that act at various stages of development (from embryo through adult) as the second (betalike) chain of hemoglobin. This includes the gene for the beta chain itself, two almost identical copies of a gamma chain (which occurs in fetal hemoglobin), and several others. Chimpanzees have the very same genes in the very same order. In the region between the two gamma genes and a gene that works after birth, human DNA contains a broken gene (called a "pseudogene") that closely resembles a working gene for a beta chain, but has features in its sequence that preclude it from coding successfully for a protein.
"Chimp DNA has a very similar pseudogene at the same position. The beginning of the human pseudogene has two particular changes in two nucleotide letters that seems to deactivate the gene. The chimp pseudogene has the exact same changes. A bit further down in the human pseudogene is a deletion mutation, where one particular letter is missing. For technical reasons, the deletion irrevocably messes up the gene's coding. The very same letter is missing in the chimp gene. Toward the end of the human pseudogene another letter is missing. The chimp pseudogene is missing it, too.
"The same mistakes in the same gene in the same positions of both human and chimp DNA. If a common ancestor first sustained the mutational mistakes and subsequently gave rise to those two modern species, that would very readily account for why both species have them now. It's hard to imagine how there could be stronger evidence for common ancestry of chimps and humans.
"That strong evidence from the pseudogene points well beyond the ancestry of humans. Despite some remaining puzzles, [11] there's no reason to doubt that Darwin had this point right, that all creatures on earth are biological relatives. (p. 71-72)

[10] Chang, L.Y., and Slightom, J.L 1984. Isolation and nucleotide sequence analysis of the beta-type globin pseudogene from human, gorilla and chimpanzee. J. Mol. Biol. 180:767-84.
[11] Bapteste, E., Susko, E., Leigh, J., MacLeod, D., Charlebois, R.L., and Doolittle, W.F. 2005. Do orthologous gene phylogenies really support treethinking? BMC Evol. Biol. 5:33.

Large amounts of a powerful greenhouse gas are bubbling up from a long-frozen seabed north of Siberia, raising fears of far bigger leaks that could stoke global warming, scientists said.

It was unclear, however, if the Arctic emissions of methane gas were new or had been going on unnoticed for centuries — since before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century led to wide use of fossil fuels that are blamed for climate change.

The study said about 8 million tonnes of methane a year, equivalent to the annual total previously estimated from all of the world's oceans, were seeping from vast stores long trapped under permafrost below the seabed north of Russia.

"Subsea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap," Natalia Shakhova, a scientist at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, said in a statement. She co-led the study published in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

The experts measured levels of methane, a gas that can be released by rotting vegetation, in water and air at 5,000 sites on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf from 2003-08. In some places, methane was bubbling up from the seabed.

Previously, the sea floor had been considered an impermeable barrier sealing methane, Shakhova said. Current methane concentrations in the Arctic are the highest in 400,000 years.

GLOBAL WARMING

"No one can answer this question," she said of whether the venting was caused by global warming or by natural factors. But a projected rise in temperatures could quicken the thaw.

"It's good that these emissions are documented. But you cannot say they're increasing," Martin Heimann, an expert at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Germany who wrote a separate article on methane in Science, told Reuters.

"These leaks could have been occurring all the time" since the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago, he said. He wrote that the release of 8 million tonnes of methane a year was "negligible" compared to global emissions of about 440 million tonnes.

Shakhova's study said there was an "urgent need" to monitor the region for possible future changes since permafrost traps vast amounts of methane, the second most common greenhouse gas from human activities after carbon dioxide.

Monitoring could resolve if the venting was "a steadily ongoing phenomenon or signals the start of a more massive release period," according to the scientists, based at U.S., Russian and Swedish research institutions.

The release of just a "small fraction of the methane held in (the) East Siberian Arctic Shelf sediments could trigger abrupt climate warming," they wrote.

The shelf has sometimes been above sea level during the earth's history. When submerged, temperatures rise by 12-17 degrees Celsius (22-31 F) since water is warmer than air. Over thousands of years, that may thaw submerged permafrost.

About 60 percent of methane now comes from human activities such as landfills, cattle rearing or rice paddies. Natural sources such as wetlands make up the rest, along with poorly understood sources such as the oceans, wildfires or termites.

Most studies about methane focus on permafrost on land. But the shelf below the Laptev, East Siberian and Russian part of the Chuckchi sea is three times the size of Siberia's wetlands.

Oh the IDiots, those wedgies arguing climate change was a designed process and that that CO2 was the culprit. And all along it was a natural expulsion process. Nature dunnit you IDiots.

Oh the humanity!!! Let's not leave this crisis in a lurch. We need solutions and I have one. First this:

Flatulence-producing foods are typically high in certain polysaccharides, (especially oligosaccharides such as inulin). Those foods include beans, lentils, dairy products, onions, garlic, scallions, leeks, turnips, rutabagas, radishes, sweet potatoes, potatoes, cashews, Jerusalem artichokes, oats, wheat, and yeast in breads. Cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and other cruciferous vegetables that belong to the genus Brassica are commonly reputed to not only increase flatulence, but to increase the pungency of the flatus.

Al Gore needs to reinvest in methane offsets. The Obama administration needs to declare methane a hazardous gas. We need to start a new movement. Tax lentils, broccoli, cabbage. The whole lot of these mother gaia offending botonous creeps. We need money to start this so kindly leave your contributions with chunkdz at the exit.

In his book The Making of the Fittest, Sean Carroll writes “the degree of similarity in DNA is an index of the [evolutionary] relatedness of species.” [98] This can only make sense if we first assume evolution is true. But Carroll's book is a defense of evolution, intended to demonstrate that the theory is true without first assuming it is true. He seeks to prove evolution is true, but he begins with evolutionary reasoning and interpretations. That is circular reasoning. Unfortunately such circular reasoning is a common motif in the evolution genre.

So he really didn't come out and accuse Behe of circular reasoning. However, since Behe uses the same reasoning* to arrive at the same conclusion that Sean Carroll arrived at, then by a simple use of non-circular reasoning we can conclude that Cornelius Hunter has accused Michael Behe of using circular reasoning.

Frankly, I don't really care if Carroll or Behe has used circular reasoning. I don't really care if common descent is true or false. I think it is, but so what? I've been wrong about many things. What I care about is why Hunter has no problem accusing Carroll of using circular reasoning, but wouldn't for the life of him ever accuse Behe of using circular reasoning.

Does this have anything to do with Intelligent Design? I don't know. Behe says it doesn't, but he devoted seven pages of The Edge of Evolution to defending common descent, using the supposed circular reasoning that is a "common motif in the evolution genre."

Cornelius Hunter may or may not think this has something to do with Intelligent Design. He certainly thinks it is worthy of attack.

All I want to know is why doesn't he attack Behe. I have my suspicions. But they involve things such as subterfuge and duplicity. And I get depressed when I start thinking about that stuff.

* Somebody has screwed around with the URL. I guess they don't want people to know the content of Behe's argument. So I'll reprint what I wrote in that thread:

More compelling evidence for the shared ancestry of humans and other primates comes from their hemoglobin — not just their working hemoglobin, but a broken hemoglobin gene, too. [10] In one region of our genomes humans have five genes for proteins that act at various stages of development (from embryo through adult) as the second (betalike) chain of hemoglobin. This includes the gene for the beta chain itself, two almost identical copies of a gamma chain (which occurs in fetal hemoglobin), and several others. Chimpanzees have the very same genes in the very same order. In the region between the two gamma genes and a gene that works after birth, human DNA contains a broken gene (called a "pseudogene") that closely resembles a working gene for a beta chain, but has features in its sequence that preclude it from coding successfully for a protein.
"Chimp DNA has a very similar pseudogene at the same position. The beginning of the human pseudogene has two particular changes in two nucleotide letters that seems to deactivate the gene. The chimp pseudogene has the exact same changes. A bit further down in the human pseudogene is a deletion mutation, where one particular letter is missing. For technical reasons, the deletion irrevocably messes up the gene's coding. The very same letter is missing in the chimp gene. Toward the end of the human pseudogene another letter is missing. The chimp pseudogene is missing it, too.
"The same mistakes in the same gene in the same positions of both human and chimp DNA. If a common ancestor first sustained the mutational mistakes and subsequently gave rise to those two modern species, that would very readily account for why both species have them now. It's hard to imagine how there could be stronger evidence for common ancestry of chimps and humans.
"That strong evidence from the pseudogene points well beyond the ancestry of humans. Despite some remaining puzzles, [11] there's no reason to doubt that Darwin had this point right, that all creatures on earth are biological relatives." (p. 71-72)

[10] Chang, L.Y., and Slightom, J.L 1984. Isolation and nucleotide sequence analysis of the beta-type globin pseudogene from human, gorilla and chimpanzee. J. Mol. Biol. 180:767-84.
[11] Bapteste, E., Susko, E., Leigh, J., MacLeod, D., Charlebois, R.L., and Doolittle, W.F. 2005. Do orthologous gene phylogenies really support treethinking? BMC Evol. Biol. 5:33.

Prominent observers complain that public discourse in America is shallow and unedifying. This debased condition is often attributed to, among other things, the resurgence of religion in public life. Steven Smith argues that this diagnosis has the matter backwards: it is not primarily religion but rather the strictures of secular rationalism that have drained our modern discourse of force and authenticity.

Discussions which rule out entire blocks of thinking a priori are destined to be dull and unedifying. Moreover they cannot be searches for truth as they substitute dogma in a divide which thirsts for delineation of genuine alternatives. Fish writes this:

It is not, Smith tells us, that secular reason can’t do the job (of identifying ultimate meanings and values) we need religion to do; it’s worse; secular reason can’t do its own self-assigned job — of describing the world in ways that allow us to move forward in our projects — without importing, but not acknowledging, the very perspectives it pushes away in disdain.

Fish nails it. Identifying "secular values" entails smuggling intrinsically religious meanings and values into a secular nexus. Moreover attempts to "keep it secular" must deny this core element of secularism affording it an edifice based on a dishonest premise. Consider some of the major discussion points in America today. Global warming well illustrates the point. My own experience confirms the wisdom of Smith for when arguments proceed against global warming policies predictable responses point to data supporting global warming. Not one to hide my reasons I remind others that there is a good deal more to the issue than whether or not a warming trend exists. Opponents of global warming policies need to bear this in mind as well. When vast sums of money are earmarked for legislation in support of a cause's goals, underlying moral issues are always linked to it. To avoid rehashing the many arguments we can simply cut to the chase and point to alternative uses such funding could be put to in illustrating the balanced scale metaphorical description of any final choice. The persistent stuck in neutral arguments about warming indicate that at least some are caught up in the thinking that the tough moral decisions are dictated by temperature graphs. Yup, it's warming or no it is not, is the starting point and not the conclusive dictum required. There are similar problems in the debate about health care and in the "origin of morality" itself- a fine piece of junk science if there ever was one. A book is needed on this. Fish says this more eloquently:

No matter how much information you pile up and how sophisticated are the analytical operations you perform, you will never get one millimeter closer to the moment when you can move from the piled-up information to some lesson or imperative it points to; for it doesn’t point anywhere; it just sits there, inert and empty.

HT: Nullasalus