Life and Fine-tuning of the universe.

TalkOrigins did an interesting piece on the "fine tuning of the universe" notion, in which they varied several physical constants by factors of up to 100 in either direction, and plotted expected stellar lifespans. I can't find it anymore, however, but it was a really neat read - long-lived stars tended to form in almost half of the universes, and some universes had *very* long lived stars.On life in general, moreso, I did - upon a quick search - stumble into this:http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/jun98.htmlThey discuss the concepts of cosmological natural selection, and a number of other issues, such as the likelyhood of even improbable events in an infinite-universe scenario, the necessary correlations between various constants, the possibility of all basic rulesets existing (we only perceive this one because it created us), the logical fallacy of arguing that a simple set of basic rules is unlikely but a far more complex sentient deity is likely, etc.

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Heh, his claims are kinda silly. I'm not going to spam the thread with all of them, but lets just start with the first dozen or so.

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local abundance and distribution of dark matter 0.1

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That number clearly was just pulled out of a hat, as we don't even know whether dark matter exists - let alone whether it has *any* effect on life. If it *does* exist, it could very well be *inhibiting* life in the galaxy.

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relative abundances of different exotic mass particles 0.01

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Yeah, all of that gold in the Earth's core is really doing you a heck of a lot good, isn't it? Need all of that radon that comes up from uranium miles down? What about other various radioisotopes - really helping life, eh?I mean, seriously, what is this guy talking about? Life depends on the simplest molecules; *obviously* they're going to be the most common. Furthermore, if other molecules were more common, life would probably depend on them instead. The ratio is pretty irrelevant. And where on earth did this number come from?

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decay rates of different exotic mass particles 0.05

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Another number from a hat. Besides, if they decayed slower, the radiation they released wouldn't be much of a problem. If they decayed more quickly, the dangerous ones would be gone before life developed. This stat, consequently, is pretty irrelevant. I mean, heck, view it this way: some particles *already have* very fast decay rates, and some *already have* very slow decay rates. Is this causing a problem for us?

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density of quasars 0.1

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That makes absolutely no sense. Perhaps he's referring to how common they are? Quasars produce a negligable amount of GCR, and most GCR is blocked by the magnetic field anyways. Even if quasars *were* incredibly more common, in time, the universe would drift apart, and we'd have the same situation we have now, with respect to quasars.

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density of giant galaxies in the early universe 0.1

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Irrelevant (and again, a number from a hat). The universe drifts apart.

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galaxy cluster size 0.1

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Another number from a hat, and again, irrelevant, for the same reason.

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galaxy cluster density 0.1

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Same.

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galaxy cluster location 0.1

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Same.

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galaxy size 0.1

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Same.

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galaxy type 0.1

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I assume he means galaxy type distribution, since we're discussing. What evidence do we have that other types of galaxies are inhospitable to life? I have no reason to believe that spirals are the best. I'd say the big limiting factor would be how often galaxies collide with each other... but that decreases over time no matter what (etc).If you have some of them that you think hold up better than most of these throwaway ones, please provide them. Most of this, however, is numbers from a hat that are completely irrelevant. I could do the same thing about you.Probability of a new poster joining when you did: 0.005
Probability of a new poster choosing a name that includes "General": 0.02
Probability of a new poster chosing a cat avatar: 0.04
Probability of a new poster being a theist: 0.4
Probability of the poster debating about the probability of the universe: 0.2
Probability of the poster starting a thread with this title, given the above: 0.08
Probability of the poster using quote tags instead of qs tags: 0.5
Probability of the poster reading down to this line: 0.01In short, clearly, your presence here is a miracle!

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

But I did rebuttals to the first several of these. Do you care to defend him, and answer my rebuttals? Or was the first several not enough - do you want me to answer *all* 150?Besides, most of his explanations are just plain bad science. For example:

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if too elliptical: star formation would cease before sufficient heavy element build-up for life chemistry
if too irregular: radiation exposure on occasion would be too severe and heavy elements for life chemistry would not be available

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Both of these are completely false. There are plenty of heavy elements in irregularly shaped galaxies, and highly elliptical galaxies have plenty of star formation.This guy is just making stuff up. Please, if you want an argument based on probability like this, get someone who knows what they're talking about more.

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."