Summations Only

This is, of course, not true. Nor, of course, does it accurately represent Stenger.

No. See message 300 above. Yes, Stenger's book does attempt to rebut fine-tuning without resorting to the multiverse. Still, Stenger's comments in favor of the multiverse show that he wants to keep the multiverse in reserve even though he agrees it is "an untested hypothesis." This just shows Stenger is writing as an atheist and not as a scientist. A scientist will take a position and stick with it. Stenger was not able to do that.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Fix 2nd quote box.

Could you try to make your ad hominem arguments more coherent? All I can really tell from this mess is that you'd like to make one.

Because designtheorist is literate enough to misinterpret scientists, but not scientifically literate enough to misinterpret actual science.

There are scientific papers written on these topics. Typically, the degree of fine-tuning is expressed as a percentage of the range of values possible for each parameter. I accept that you do not have this information readily available to you, but I would think it would be possible for you to consider the issue based on percentages and the number of parameters - which is exactly what I proposed you do. It is unanswerable with the evidence available to you. Certainly, rare outcomes happen randomly in nature all the time but they do not typically build on one another. If more evidence were available to you, would you attempt a scientific assessment? What would it take for you to conclude that fine-tuning could not be a result of random chance?

Oh, I dunno. I don't feel like I have a good measure of his scientific literacy.I feel like this is a matter of a religious person preferring testimony over empirical evidence.ABE:Okay. He's clearly a charlatan.ABE2:Its one of the religious tricks: "Let me identify who will accept my evidence without question, that way I'll know who is susceptible to gullibility before I actually have to expose myself."Its the same trick that other predators use. Like, sexual ones n'stuff. Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

You can show this with links to the papers rather than just asserting it. That sounds like a charlatan. You are lying about what evidence is available. This is you dangling a supposed carrot. This is you hyping your supposed evidence before you actually present it. The evidence would speak for itself, it don't need no hype. That's how we know you're lying.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

Does your proposal model reality? Can you present an argument that it does?It is true that papers are written in this way. But there is no basis for assuming that the parameters are variable over that range or that every value is equally probable, or that any combination of parameters is independent. In fact, we don't know if they are variable at all.Yes it is possible to assume that every value of a parameter that we've never seen change at all is equally probable and that there is a rheostat that we can use to adjust it with, but our consideration would be pure speculation as would any conclusion so reached.What you are asking us to do is ignore some of the most basic criticisms of fine tuning, without giving us any rationale other than to follow you down a rabbit hole that may not model reality. And to what end? You haven't presented an argument that fine tuning implies design anyway.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Not at all. I'm asking you to follow the reasoning of the physicists, many of them atheists, who have written about these parameters. It is important to understand the data and the logic in the papers. Once you understand the argument, you can back up and challenge the argument with Stenger's reasoning or any other challenges you care to muster.Your argument seems to be that you don't want to know the evidence because once you know the evidence you are in a rabbit hole of Wonderland and you cannot get out. This is just another way of saying "Don't confuse me with facts."

You have not interacted with any of the arguments I put forward showing Stenger is way out of bounds regarding the gravitational field. Did you even read any of the links I provided?I'm not misinterpreting scientists (if Stenger even qualifies anymore). Stenger himself admitted that his views conflicted with physics textbooks. I'm simply pointing out some of the areas where he is off the beaten path.Can you imagine Einstein agreeing that the gravitational field may not be real or can be anything we want it to be? No, you cannot. It's ridiculous in the extreme.You cannot defend the kind of nonsense Stenger puts out and expect to be taken seriously.

Hi, DT. You missed the point of my post. The salient points were two questions that expose the problems with your technique. Your response was to restate the technique whose flaws I was exposing. This is a prime example of what I was talking about earlier, that you're not engaging the criticisms we're providing.Here are the two questions I asked:

1. How do they determine what ranges of values are possible for each parameter?
2. And, how do they determine what the probability of each possible value is?

Standard practice in science is to record values from a sample of data points (in this case, the sample would be a bunch of universes), and assume that the values in the entire population of interest (in this case, the population would be all universes) are distributed the same way as in the sample. Then, you can use the statistics of your sample to infer the parameters of your population.But, this obviously doesn't apply in this context, since the sample can only have a single data point. With only one data point, you can't resolve a probability distribution.So, how do you determine what the probability distribution looks like? I don't know how to express fine-tuning in terms of percentages and numbers of parameters.It seems like you expect me to accept that each parameter has a specific value that corresponds with its "fine-tuned" value. You then expect me to accept that the number of different parameters whose values fall within a certain vicinity to their fine-tuned values would somehow indicate the likelihood of design.But, how do we decide which values for each parameter represent "fine-tuned" values?
Do we determine it based on how conducive it is to supporting life? That seems rather circular to me. But, let's run with it.So, how do we know which parameter values are most conducive to supporting life?
Do we examine a bunch of universes, and see which ones support the most life?
Do we take random life forms from our universe and subject them to the conditions of different universes?
Or, do we just assume that parameter values close to our universe's values are the best for supporting life?Do you see the problems yet?

Yes, I can but I really think some context would be helpful to you first. I recommend you read two books: Just Six Numbers by Sir Martin Rees and The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? by Paul Davies. Neither of the authors are religious.Martin Rees is a winner of the Gruber Prize in Cosmology and the Crafoord Prize. He is also former president of the Royal Society. Paul Davies is a winner of Kelvin Medal and the Faraday Prize.These are popular books that are probably available at your local library. The physics in them are standard physics, not the kind of hooey you get from Victor Stenger.

None of them reply to my point or Stenger's, which you seem to find unanswerable. Of course you did, don't be silly.

I can see that Fine Tuning seems to require an explanation, but it doesn't require that we have to have a good explanation right now, and I agree with Rees and others in thinking that the multiverse is presently the best explanation we have.If your argument goes anywhere beyond that you'll have to present it because the evidence that you've mentioned so far won't get you there.

I've read a few papers, and I don't find that they address the questions I've asked. Do you disagree?I note here that you neither cite any papers nor offer any discussion, nor make any attempts to answer any of my questions. My working hypothesis is that the reason you never deliver or answer questions is that you are a fraud and actually have no answer.To get the ball rolling, I'll cite one such article.http://arxiv.org/pdf/0807.3697v1.pdfStars In Other Universes: Stellar structure with different fundamental constants. Fred C. AdamsIn this paper the Adams looks at a few parameters that he postulates determine whether stars can exist with different parameters. The constants chosen are the gravitational constant, the fine structure
constant, and a composite parameter that determines nuclear fusion rates.While the author concludes that stars can be produced in about 1/4 of the parameter space, the author makes no attempt to argue that the parameters can actually be varied.So this paper does not answer my question. Perhaps you do know of some better papers to look at, but without answering my questions, these kinds of papers don't prove or disprove diddly squat. If you ever got around to actually providing any evidence, then you'd have some basis to say this. But in fact you have not argued or even denied that my questions are relevant; you've merely avoided them, as per usual. And right on cue, you attempt to shift your burden of persuasion to me.Why is it that when put up time comes around, designtheorist is always found waiting for that library to re-open after the Christmas holidays, even when the calendar tells us it's baseball season?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.