Is Victor Stenger Right about Fine-Tuning?

by Bilbo

Recently I discovered that Victor Stenger, emeritus professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii and adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado [why leave Hawaii?], is an outspoken critic of the fine-tuned universe argument. A little of what he has to say in his book, God, the Failed Hypothesis:

Only four parameters are needed to specify the broad features of the universe as it exists today: the masses of the electron and proton and the current strengths of the electromagnetic and strong interactions. [20] (The strength of gravity enters through the proton mass, by convention.) I have studied how the minimum lifetime of a typical star depends on the first three of these parameters. [21] Varying them randomly in a range of ten orders of magnitude around their present values, I find that over half of the stars will have lifetimes exceeding a billion years. Large stars need to live tens of millions of years or more to allow for the fabrication of heavy elements. Smaller stars, such as our sun, also need about a billion years to allow life to develop within their solar system of planets. Earth did not even form until nine billion years after the big bang. The requirement of long-lived stars is easily met for a wide range of possible parameters. The universe is certainly not fine-tuned for this characteristic.

He continues,

One of the many major flaws with most studies of the anthropic coincidences is that the investigators vary a single parameter while assuming all the others remain fixed. They further compound this mistake by proceeding to calculate meaningless probabilities based on the grossly erroneous assumption that all the parameters are independent. [22] In my study I took care to allow all the parameters to vary at the same time.
Physicist Anthony Aguire has independently examined the universes that result when six cosmological parameters are simultaneously varied by orders of magnitude, and found he could construct cosmologies in which "stars, planets, and intelligent life can plausibly arise." [23] Physicist Craig Hogan has done another independent analysis that leads to similar conclusions. [24] And, theoretical physicists as Kyoto University in Japan have shown that heavy elements needed for life will be present in even the earliest stars independent of what the exact parameters for star formation may have been. [25]" p.148

So does professor Stenger make a good point?

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19 Responses to “Is Victor Stenger Right about Fine-Tuning?”

ID guy Says:
February 8th, 2010 at 11:50 am
Bilbo,

Methinks he misses the point.

The point being where/ how did those parameters arise in the first place?

Comment by ID guy — February 8, 2010 @ 11:50 am

David Heddle Says:
February 8th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
No he does not make a good point. If you have to vary all the parameters to find some other stable island of habitability in parameter space the fine tuning argument doesn't change at all.

His general idea is interesting and legitimate–that perhaps the universe is not sensitive to the values of constants–but he never puts any meat on the bone. Just hand-waving.

Comment by David Heddle — February 8, 2010 @ 7:02 pm

Bilbo Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 1:52 am
Thanks David. I've been looking in vain for a full reply to Stenger's arguments. Would you know of any?

Comment by Bilbo — February 9, 2010 @ 1:52 am

nickmatzke Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 4:06 am
Heddle's comment is what is based on unsupported assertions. Stenger didn't hunt around for special combinations of parameters; he says he:

studied how the minimum lifetime of a typical star depends on the first three of these parameters. [21] Varying them randomly in a range of ten orders of magnitude around their present values, I find that over half of the stars will have lifetimes exceeding a billion years.

…this sounds like he randomly sampled the space across 10 orders of magnitude in 3 dimensions, and found long-lived stars with a wide variety of combinations.

Stenger also says many of the fine-tuning arguments rely on assuming many cosmic parameters are independent, but that this is a mistake because they aren't independent. This would be a huge flaw in fine-tuning arguments if true. I am quite sure that e.g. Hugh Ross's/Reason to Believe's extreme versions of these arguments (hundreds of "parameters", very sloppily chosen, e.g. nonindependent, not necessary for life, or not clearly having a narrow acceptable range, even to my inexpert eye) have this flaw.

But I have no expertise to assess the independence-of-parameters question. How many "plausibly" independent cosmological parameters are there? (Of course, future knowledge could always show that two parameters have a common cause.)

As for rebuttals and counter-rebuttals to fine-tuning arguments, I haven't seen much. ID/creationist types are only sort of into cosmic fine-tuning arguments — which deep down rely on the idea that the universe is ancient and operated naturally after its origin, although IDists/creationists typically ignore this point when they do invoke the arguments. So anyway it's not a dominant ID argument, so its not a dominant thing for anti-ID types to fight, and besides perfectly pro-mainstream-evolution people have endorsed cosmic fine-tuning as a theological view, e.g. I think Ken Miller and Francis Collins.

Comment by nickmatzke — February 9, 2010 @ 4:06 am

nickmatzke Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 4:07 am
PS: All that said I have not read Stenger's book, but I do gather he is pretty vehemently anti-religion-in-general, which is not my position.

Comment by nickmatzke — February 9, 2010 @ 4:07 am

Bilbo Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 10:42 am
Thanks Nick. You might be right as to why IDists/Creationists avoid fine-tuned universe arguments. I never paid much attention to them because it seemed that all physicists and astronomers acknowledged that the universe seemed fine-tuned for life, and one either chose to believe in a multi-verse or in God.
So it comes as a surprise to me to find that there are skeptics of the fine-tuning arguments among experts. But yes, Stenger is certainly at the extreme end. He argues in this book that science proves that God does not exist.

Comment by Bilbo — February 9, 2010 @ 10:42 am

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Only four parameters are needed to specify the broad features of the universe as it exists today:
….
One of the many major flaws with most studies of the anthropic coincidences is that the investigators vary a single parameter while assuming all the others remain fixed.

Fine tuning is deeper than "broad features" of the universe, but also scientific discoverability.

Eistein said one of the deepest mysteries was that the universe was comprehensible.

Paul Davies points out:

Most scientists have tacitly assumed that an approximately non-quantum (or "classical" to use the jargon) world would have emerged automatically from the big bang, even from a big bang in which quantum effects dominated. Recently, however, Hartle and Gell-Mannn have challenged this assumption. They argue that the existence of an approximately classical world, in which well-defined material objects exist at distinct loacations in space, and in which there is a well-defined concept of time, requires special cosmic initial conditions. Their calculations indicate that, for the majority of initial states, a generally classical world would not emerge. In that case the separability of the world into distinct objects occupying definite positions in a well-defined background space-time would not be possible. There would be no locality. It seems likely that in such a smeared-out world, one could know nothing without knowing everything .
…

The mystery is all the deeper for the fact that the separability of nature is actually only approximate…

The intelligbility of the world, the fact that we can progressively discover laws and extend our understanding of nature—the very fact that science works–would not be an inevitable and absolute right

Paul Davies
Mind of God

The ID argument is not mere existence, but intelligibility. Gonzalez original title for Privileged Planet was The Correlation of Habitability and Discoverability. Jay Richards persuaded him toward a the more marketable title Privileged Planet.

The main point however is that the ID argument is deeper than mere existence.

What I'm really intereted in is whether God could have made the world in a different way; that is, whether the necessity of logical simplicity leaves any freedom at all.

Albert Einstein
as Quoted by Barrow in Constants of Nature

Davies points out the simplicity of the laws of physics. In mathematical terms we call this "compressibility" of information.

With the question of the universal constants, you have broached one of the most interesting questions that may be asked at all. There are two kinds of constants: apparent and real ones. The apparent ones are simply the outcome of the introduction of arbitrary units, but are eliminable. The real [true] ones are genuine numbers which God had to choose arbitrarily as it were, when He designed to creat this world.
…
My opinion now is — stated briefly — that constants of the second type do not exist and that their apparent existence is caused by the fact that we have not penetrated deeply enough. I therefore believe that such numbers can only be of a basic type, as for instance pi and e.

Einstein as quoted by Barrow

Barrow elaborates:

on 13 October 1945, weith a complet anlysis of the situation. First, he [Einstein] notes that there are just quantities like 2, pi, or e (a numerical constant equal to 2.718) which appear in physical formulae. In a later chapter we shall discuss them further. Einstein notices that they tend to appear in physical formulae but their values are neither very large nor very small. They are never very different from the number 1. They might be ten times greater or smaller but not millions of times greater or smaller. This is something he cannot explain. It just seems like a piece of good luck for physicists.

Barrow commenting on Einstein

and

Now let there be a complete theory of physics in whose fundamental equations the "universal" constants c1, ….cn occur. The quantities may somehow be reduced to gm. cm. sec. The choice of these three units is obviously quite conventional. Each of these c1,…cn has dimensions in these units. We now will choose conditions in such a way that c1, c2, c3 have such dimensions that it is not possible to construct from them a dimensionless product c1^alpha C2^beta c3^gammma. Then one can multiply c4c5, etc. in such a way by factors built from powers of c1,c2,c3 that these new symbols c4^*, c5^*, c6^* are pure numbers. These are the genuine universal constants of the theoretical system which have nothing to do with conventional units.

Einstein as quoted by Barrow

Barrow explains:

Suppose hisc1, c2, c3 are Planck's c, h and G, then there is no way to combine them in powers so you can get a pure number with no dimensions. To do that you need to multiply by some other dimensional constant of Nature. For example, by multiplying G/hc by the square of some mass, for example the mass of a proton, we get the pure number Gm^2,hc say c4^*, which is approximately equal to 10^-38. The 'starred' number we have just created is made by measuring some constant of nature with units of a mass by Planck's mass…..It is these pure 'starred' numbers that Einstein regards as the most fundamental. It does not matter what units are employed to measure them or to express them, they will always have the same value. Where do they come from? What fixes them? Why is Gm^2/hc about equalt to 10^-38, rather than 10^3 or 10^-68. Einstein doesn't know, but he has a strong belief that they are fixed absolutely. There is no lattitude for them to be different.

Barrow commenting on Einstein

finally

Dimensionless constants in the laws of nature, which from the purely logical point of view can just as well have different values, should not exist. To me, with my "trust in God" this appears to be evident, but there will be few who are of the same opinion.

Einstein as quoted by Barrow

more in the next post…

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — February 9, 2010 @ 11:45 am

Bilbo Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 11:53 am
I guess I should add that it's not clear from the context how randomly Stenger varied the constants. Suppose for example that one of the constants is the ratio between the mass of the proton and the electron. It seems that one could randomly increase the mass of the proton, and as long as one increased the mass of the electron correspondingly, the same ratio would obtain. I guess I could try reading the actual papers, but even if I understood them, that would mean a lot more work than I'm prepared to put into this. I was hoping somebody else had already done the work and distilled it down for us lay people.

Comment by Bilbo — February 9, 2010 @ 11:53 am

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Barrow comments

As we leave Einstein's thoughts about the inevitability of the constants of Nature it is interesting to pick up the view of other great physicists who have been drawn to speculate about the significance and attainability of a final understanding of their values. Take George Gamow, the eccentric Russian physicist who risked his life escaping from the Soviet Union to live and work in America, where he became one of the founders of modern cosmology and even contributed to the early understanding of the DNA molecule and the genetic code. Gamow, like all his contemporaries, could see that there were four distinct fources of Nature (gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong forces). The strenght of each would create one of Einstein's pure numbers that define the world. Gamow was not drawn especially into the issue of whether they could have only one quartet of possible values. But for him a full understanding of those values–an ability to calculate or predict them precisely — would be like the waving of the chequuered flag to physicists. They would have attained a complete understanding of of the ofrces of Nature when that day happeed. Gamow is a little depressed at the prospect, like reaching the ened of a great story, or sitting at the summit of a mountain one has striven to scale

Barrow commenting on Gamow

Barrow summarizes what the fine tuning really means, and it speaks to Stenger's argument that there could be many parameters that enable stars to live long. That is not the real point (making stars), the real point is making obvservers (living beings).

The weak anthropic principle applies naturally to help us understand why variable quantities take the range of values that we find them to take in our vicinity of space and time. But there exists 'coincidences' between combinations of quantities which are believed to be true constants of Nature. We will not be able to explain these coincidences by the fact that we live when the Universe is several billion years old, in conditions of relatively low density and temperature.

Barrow

It is these 'coincidences" that constitute the core of some ID arguments.

that the universe (and hence the fundamental parameters on which it depends) must be such as to admit the creation of observers within it at some stage.

Carter as quoted by Barrow regarding the Strong Antrhopic Principle

Barrow's work was criticized by Dembski in some of Dembski's earlier work. But it turns out Barrow had a non-standard view of ID (the intelligent designer uses multiple universes). Barrow wasn't necessarily anti-ID.

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — February 9, 2010 @ 12:09 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Here is a plug for Barrow's The Constants of Nature

As he shows, there is no doubting that we occupy a special and privileged place in the spectrum of all possible universes.

–Focus
From the Back Cover of the book

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — February 9, 2010 @ 12:19 pm

Bilbo Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Hi Sal,
I guess you were posting while I was typing. Would a multiverse provide an explanation for Hartle and Gel-Man?

As to comrehensibility of the universe, since we still don't know everything about its physics, are we sure it's comprehensible? Or does that spring from the foundations of our monotheistic culture?

Comment by Bilbo — February 9, 2010 @ 12:25 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Bilbo asked:

As to comrehensibility of the universe, since we still don't know everything about its physics, are we sure it's comprehensible?

Davies stated the mystery. If there were no fine tuning, we would have to be omnicient in order to know anything. Thankfully we can know a few things without being omniscient. This is possible because of fine tuning. Without fine-tuning knowledge of even a few things would be impossible.

It seems likely that in such a smeared-out world, one could know nothing without knowing everything .
…

The mystery is all the deeper for the fact that the separability of nature is actually only approximate…

The intelligbility of the world, the fact that we can progressively discover laws and extend our understanding of nature—the very fact that science works–would not be an inevitable and absolute right.

The enterprise of science would not be possible without fine-tuning.

Would a multiverse provide an explanation for Hartle and Gel-Man?

I don't know. Curiously, people like Barrow argue that multiverses are a good thing, that the Intelligent Designer uses multiverses as a mechanism to create. Davies makes a similar point, that multiverses don't negate the necessity of some sort of creating agent to build the multiverse mechanism in the first place.

I posted a discussion on a different perspective on the many worlds idea:

Many World's One God, Shift Happens

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — February 9, 2010 @ 12:35 pm

Bilbo Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Thanks for the link and the book recommendation, Sal.

Comment by Bilbo — February 9, 2010 @ 12:59 pm

olegt Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
In my view all of these fine-tuning-or-not arguments are a bit like reading tea leaves. A popular pastime for physicists in the first half of the 20th century was deriving the fine-structure constant α from first principles or just plain old numerology.

Well, it turned out that α wasn't a constant after all: its value varies logarithmically with the energy scale of the process. That's been observed experimentally.

So all these guessing games are just that. In 50 years the current fine-tuning arguments will be abandoned and new ones will spring up.

Comment by olegt — February 9, 2010 @ 1:02 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Well, it turned out that α wasn't a constant after all: its value varies logarithmically with the energy scale of the process. That's been observed experimentally.

If I may ask an ignorant question, if the alpha varies with energy, is there some sort of default value for alpha? That is to say when we are dealing with little or no energy, is there a default value for alpha?

Sorry for the dumb question, but variable alpha is a topic I'm not acquainted with. I've heard it mentioned before, but not in any school texts I have.

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — February 9, 2010 @ 2:31 pm

Pez Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
So all these guessing games are just that. In 50 years the current fine-tuning arguments will be abandoned and new ones will spring up.

But Darwinian evolution is a fact.

Comment by Pez — February 9, 2010 @ 3:24 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
February 11th, 2010 at 10:00 am
I found this in a popular publication:

According to the theory of renormalization group, the value of the fine-structure constant (the strength of the electromagnetic interaction) depends on the energy scale. In fact, it grows logarithmically as the energy is increased. The observed value of α is associated with the energy scale of the electron mass; the energy scale does not run below this because the electron (and the positron) is the lightest charged object whose quantum loops can contribute to the running. Therefore, we can say that 1/137.03604 is the value of the fine-structure constant at zero energy. Moreover, as the energy scale increases, the electromagnetic interaction approaches the strength of the other two interactions, which is important for the theories of grand unification. If quantum electrodynamics were an exact theory, the fine-structure constant would actually diverge at an energy known as the Landau pole. This fact makes quantum electrodynamics inconsistent beyond the perturbative expansions.

One controversial explanation of the value of the fine-structure constant invokes the anthropic principle and argues that the value of the fine-structure is what it is because stable matter and therefore life and intelligent beings could not exist if the value were something else.

http://www.economicexpert.com/...

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — February 11, 2010 @ 10:00 am

Bilbo Says:
February 11th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Hi Sal,

If I understand this, what is constant is not the value of alpha, but the mathematical formula that gives us the value of alpha at various energies. So then the question would be, why this formula instead of some other formula?

I found out that Stenger and Hugh Ross had a debate. Now I need to get a copy of the DVD.

Comment by Bilbo — February 11, 2010 @ 4:16 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
February 11th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
If I understand this, what is constant is not the value of alpha, but the mathematical formula that gives us the value of alpha at various energies. So then the question would be, why this formula instead of some other formula?

My understanding is that the formula for alpha should remain the same even at high energies. So it is other values or something else should change.

But this a question for professional physicists like Olegt and Dave Heddle. I'm just a hobbiest.

Sal

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — February 11, 2010 @ 9:14 pm

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Is Victor Stenger Right about Fine-Tuning?

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