The Fine Tuning of the Universe is best explained by a Designer

I accept that I bear the burden of proof since I made the first positive claim. I also accept the definition of Natural Law. Physicist Steven Barr defines fine-tuning as a "neutral description that does not prejudice the issue toward a theistic or non theistic interpretation; it simply means that many aspects of the universe are closely calibrated and make human life possible. " Very prominent physicists, including Stephen Hawking, Martin Rees and Steven Weinberg have all written in defense of fine tuning. While such authorship does not make fine-tuning/design, whether by a Designer, Natural Law or Chance, necessarily a reality, it does lend significant credence. To state my opening argument another way, without a Designer, given the odds, a life-forbidding universe would be much more likely than a life-permitting universe. However, as we all know, we have a life-permitting universe. The evidence for fine-tuning in the universe is quite staggering, and we can start with the Big Bang itself. Steven Hawking explains that the initial conditions of the universe were crucial for anything to exist at all, much less humans: "If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million, million, the universe would have re-collapsed before it ever reached its present size (Hawking, 2002). " Hawking also states that "if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different, stars would have been unable to burn hydrogen and helium, or else they would not have exploded"most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty (Ibid. )" These sorts of constants are called Anthropic Constants, meaning human life could not exist without them, and without going into detail about each one, they include but are not limited to: atomic nuclei bond strength, spatial dimensions of the universe itself, oxygen level on Earth, atmospheric transparency, force of gravity, moon-earth gravitational interaction, carbon dioxide level, centrifugal force of planetary movements, velocity of light, atmospheric water vapor levels, placement of Jupiter in our solar system, thickness of the Earth"s crust, Earth"s rotation rate, degree of axial tilt, atmospheric discharge rate, and amount of seismic activity. The chance that any of these exist is unlikely. The chance that they all exist simultaneously is mind-boggling. CON will likely concede that these constants exist but could have been caused by natural forces, and that is true. But I submit that he is then eliminating the possibility of anything else besides natural forces a priori, and by doing so he is committing an error of philosophical science. In premise three of my initial argument, I submitted that these constants are not the result of natural law (I am assuming here that CON has eliminated random "chance" as a possibility since he didn"t mention it) because the data are contingent, complex, and specified. By contingent I mean that it cannot be explained by automatic processes. While natural laws, such as gravity, act on contingent events, natural laws cannot exhaustively account for them (Demski 1998). This also brings up another question of the very existence of natural laws, but that is likely a topic for another discussion. Complexity is of course a form of probability, i. e. the greater the complexity, the less probability that the event came about by chance. By specification, and this is a rudimentary definition of a complex topic, I mean the pattern of improbable and contingent factors must be specified ahead of time, not fabricated after the fact. CON gives a list of complex things that are not necessarily made by design and states that laws of nature and physics can create complex things from non-intelligent processes. I must interject though that "laws" don"t create anything. They may allow for certain things to be created, but they do not create. For example, the law of gravity didn"t create anything, but it did allow for the creation of things. The same can be said of physics. Physics itself doesn"t create anything; it is by definition a branch of science and cannot create anything. Its laws may allow for things to be created, but it doesn"t create in and of itself. Again we can ask the question of why does physics even work to begin with, but again that is a topic for another debate. CON"s example of evolution also does not hold, since evolution is a scientific theory, and natural laws do not create theories. To conclude my argument for this round, I will summarize by stating that I have given a robust, although non-exhaustive, list of anthropic constants that allow life (or the universe itself) to exist. The elimination of any one of these constants would cause life or the universe itself to not exist. It is therefore much more likely for there to not be a universe than for there to be one. But alas, there is a universe. There is little evidence that these are the result of natural law, unless we rule out intelligent design a priori, which is thereby going against philosophical science, since science is a search for causes and effects. To CON"s point, it is possible that all of these resulted from either random chance or natural causes, but the evidence says otherwise. As Patrick Glynn stated, "the fine-tuning of seemingly heterogeneous values and ratios necessary to get from the big bang to life as we know it involves intricate coordination over vase differences in scale, across multi-billion year tracks of time (Glynn, 1997). "