The Existence of God is More Probable than Not

In my final argument, I will systematically destroy the fine-tuning arguments of my opponent. The basic fine-tuning argument was summarized in one of the rebuttals of my opponent. PRO makes the following claims:A. There are only 3 possibilities1. "fine-tuning" is a physical necessity. For example there may exist a "theory of everything" that is not yet known that forces natures constants to be what they are. This essentially means that the Universe is not fine-tuned at all, because there are no longer variable parameters that can be freely chosen, since the values of the parameters are forced by the physical model of everything.2. The fine-tuning of the universe is an accident3. The universe is fine-tuned because of GodB. Fine tuning is not a physical necessity In other words, there really IS fine-tuning. Possibility 1. is not true.C. God is a more likely explanation for fine-tuning than coincidenceI will show that each of these statements is wrong or unfounded. PRO has given arguments for these statements but these will be, or already have been disproved. STATEMENT A: God of the gapsPRO: "No it’s not a false-dichotmoy because I gave more than 2 options to choose from. What we’re looking for is the best-explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe. So far, the only options we have are 1) Physical Necessity (Theory of Everything) 2) Chance 3) Design. I’ve already proved why 1 and 2 are false in my opening argument. I don’t merely assume anything. Remember I gave good reasons for thinking why 3 is the best-explanation for the fine-tuning in my opening argument."First, whether it is a false dichotomy or a false trichotomy depends on the formulation and is mostly semantics. But either way, it is a fallacy. There is clearly a fourth option:4. There is no reason for the "fine-tuning"Some people may find this fourth possibility unsatisfying. Clearly we would like to have an explanation, but it does not have to exist just because we want it to exist. And "God" is not really an explanation anyway. If "God" is the explanation for the Universe, then what is the explanation of "God"? Some say that "God" is its own explanation (I don't know if PRO subscribes to this), but then one might as well say that the universe is its own explanation and get rid of the notion of God. Sometimes people refer to arguments like this as "God of the Gaps". Whatever cannot be explained, is caused by God. This is a fallacy as explained in [1]. "Some would claim the answer to these questions is that there is a God who chose to create the universe that way. It is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. In this view it is accepted that some entity exists that needs no creator, and that entity is called God. This is known as the first-cause argument for the existence of God. We claim, however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings."--Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinaw [2]CONCLUSION: STATEMENT A IS FALSE.STATEMENT B: PRO: "Yes there is proof that the universe is fine-tuned. I gave two arguments in round 3 of my rebuttal that showed how the Universe is fine-tuned. 1) The 25 parameters and 2) Martin Rees 6 constants that are necessary for the Universe to exist. To say otherwise is without Justification."The 25 parameters/6 constants are part of the mathematical model that describes nature. Historically, physical theories have changed over time. Newtonian mechanics is a valuable model, but with high speeds, Einstein's relatively theory is more accurate.But for small particles, Einstein's theory does not explain everything, so we need quantum mechanics, etc.etc. This is one of the reasons why the number of parameters keeps changing. But the number of parameters is just part of the model, not necessarily part of nature. Most physicists will make a clear distinction between nature and our mathematical models of nature. PRO: "My opponent needs to show why the Universe isn’t fine-tuned despite the overwhelming evidence that has been proved beyond a doubt by leading Cosmologists."Most physicist believe that the current models are useful, and that these models have a number of free parameters in it. However, many physicists would not agree that these free parameters are a fundamental property of nature. Rather, they just seem an artefact of the mathematical model that is just an approximation of nature. Because of the current models, the universe appears to be fine-tuned. But that does not mean that it actually is. CONCLUSION: ALTHOUGH STATEMENT B COULD BE TRUE, IT HAS NOT BEEN PROVED.STATEMENT CSuppose for the sake of the argument, that statements A and B are correct. So we assume that either God created the universe, or the fine-tuning of the universe is a coincidence. My opponent illustrated his argument with PRO: "In this parable, an individual faces a firing squad, and fifty expert marksmen aim their tifles to carry out the deed. The order is given, the shots ring out, and yet somehow all the bullets miss and the condemned individual walks away unscathed.How could such a remarkable event be explained? Leslie suggests that there are two possible alternatives ... In the first place, there may have been thousands of executions being carried out in that same day, and even the best marksman will occasionally miss. So the odds just happen to be in favor of this one individual, and all fifty of the marksmen fail to hit the target. The other option is that something more directed is going on, and the apparent poor aim of the fifty experts was actually intentional. Which seems more plausible?"I first will explain this parable in terms of probability theory and then explain why the same reasoning does not apply to the fine-tuning argument. Let me recall some basics and notation from probability theory.p(A): probability the event A happensAc: the complement of an event A, this is the event that event A does not happenp(A,B): probability that events A and B both happen.p(A|B): probability that A happens, given that probability B happens.formulas: p(A,B)=p(A|B)p(B), p(A)+p(Ac)=1, p(A,B)+p(Ac,B)=p(B) etc.Now let B be the statement "all marksmen miss", and A the statement "the marksman conspire to miss deliberately". Given that all the marksmen miss, the probability that they conspired is p(A|B). We have p(B|A)=1, because if the shooters conspire, they WILL miss.Let x=p(B|Ac). This is the probability that the shooters miss, given that they are not conspiring.Let y=p(A) be the probability that the marksmen conspire.We havep(B)=p(A,B)+p(Ac,B)=p(B|A)p(A)+p(B|Ac)p(Ac)=y+x(1-y).So p(B|A)=p(A,B)/p(B)=p(B|A)p(A)/p(B)=y/(y+x(1-y)).Suppose that x=.01 (1% probability that the shooters miss), and y=.1 (10% probability that the marksmen conspire)then we have p(B|A)=.1/(.1+.01*.9)=100/109. So it is quite likely that they conspired, given the that shooters miss.However, if we change the numbers a bit, and take x=.1 (10% prob. that the shooters miss),and y=.01 (1% prob. that the shooters conspire) then we get p(B|A)=.01/(.01+.1*.99)=10/109. So it is NOT likely that they conspired, given that the shooters miss.In the parable, there are hidden assumptions that the likelihood of the marksmen missing is small if they do not conspire,and that the probability that the marksmen conspire is not too small.Now back to the fine-tuning argument. A is the statement "God Exists", B is the statement "the universe is fine-tuned".Again in this case we may assume that p(B|A)=1 (if God exists, he WILL fine-tune the universe).The fine-tuning argument says, x=p(B|Ac) is very small, so p(A|B) must be large. This conclusion is not correct, because p(A|B) ALSO depends on the value of y. If y is also very small, then p(A|B) would be small as well.So: Even if the probability that the universe supports life is very small, we still cannot conclude that it is likely God Exist. To come to that conclusion, we already must assume that the probability that God exists is somewhat likely even if we did not know that the universe is fine-tuned. But making such an assumption almost would be like a circle reasoning.CONCLUSION: THE ARGUMENT FOR STATEMENT C IS A FALLACY.FINAL CONCLUSIONAll the arguments that the existence of God is likely are wrong. The "probability that God exists" is not well-defined, because there is no experiment that has "God" or "no God" as possible outcome. So the statement "The existence of God is more probable than not" does not even make sense. Therefore, one should vote for CON.I thank my opponent for this discussion. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org...[2] Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design.