The God Hypothesis qualifies as the best scientific explanation for the origins of existence

Welcome back. The beginning of the universe In the past rounds I demonstrated that our best physics suggests there is no (temporally) first cause of the universe, and there is only a beginning in the sense of our spacetime block having a finite boundary in the earlier than direction. So this knocks out Kalam-esque claims for the 'cause of the universe'. Now PRO opts for Leibnizian style concerns about explanation of the universe.[1] So the universe requires some sort of metaphysical cause or explanation. There seem to be several (independent, and sufficient for rebuttal) options here. Deny the PSR. Certain bits of physics (like Bell’s inequality)[1], seem to violate PSR in that there are no explanations for particular events rather than particular other events. Even if we had no empirical refutation, our evidential support for the PSR is in a narrow set of circumstances – extrapolating from these to the universe itself is unwarranted. (related to 1) Hold the universe (or this particular universe) is a brute fact. Brute facts are explanatorily not great, but we’d need a better explanation in the offing somewhere, and Theism would only be superior if we held (stipulated to be) metaphysically necessary entities as superior explanations, which seems tenuous. Besides: You can always claim the universe itself is necessary. For all I know it is. PRO might want to accuse me of the taxi-cab fallacy (whatever that is). If so, he’s in error. What is really going on is PRO is gesturing at (although never explicitly stating) a particular line of argument, I clarify it and show a variety of ways this argument would not be successful, and then PRO changes tack to another sort-of-but-never-presented argument. So here we are again. PRO went on to argue this explanation/first cause/whatever of the universe must be a sort of God, thanks to a crazy false dichotomy that the only possible explanations are abstract objects or disembodied minds. When I point to some third option (like a universe-generating aether), he says that isn’t on: “I have to be able to falsify this metaphysical claim or it cannot be considered a scientific explanation. Remember the title of the debate is about the best SCIENTIFIC explanation not philosophical one[sic]. The God hythopothesis [sic] is falsfiable[sic] making it one of the reasons why its[sic] a scienctific[sic] explanation even though the cause is metaphysical in nature.” I don’t think many philosophers of science are Popperian falsificationists anymore.[2] But even granting that there is no reason why with respect to this datum God is better falsifiable over metaphysical objects like universe generators. The available data simply underdetermines whether it is God or some non-naturalistic whatever. Anyway, to make it falsifiable, just suppose it is some Dharmic conception of the divine which would be falsified by the lack of the right sort of transcendental experience. PRO repeats his assertion that the ‘spacetime continuum’ somehow shows naturalistic causes to be impossible. He’s never argued for this, and I’ve refuted my own charitable reconstructions. He also repeats his claim that infinite regresses are impossible (not answering the hypertask possibility I raised back in R1). PRO has not provided any good cosmological-style evidence for the existence of God. And even if he did, the data woefully underdetermines whether it would be God or something else entirely. Fine tuning[3] I demonstrated in previous rounds that we lack access to say whether our universe is fine tuned, that a multiverse ensemble is a plausible counter offer, and besides, the fine tuner need not be omniscient (or even conscious). PRO misunderstands the first objection. Although he points to ‘all these other possibilities’ that are not life permitting, we don’t know whether they are real possibilities. We have no idea how the ‘values were set’ at the universes generation: perhaps it is necessarily just this way, or maybe the possibilities range to wholly alien physics. If we use physical or metaphysical possibility, we have no access to say the universe is finely tuned (as we know of no such possibilities that are not life permitting), if we use epistemic possibility, we have to consider the epistemic space of all possible laws of physics, which is impossible. So we have no ground to say the universe is fine-tuned in the ‘out of the space of possibilities the universe could have turned out, life permitting universes are really small’. PRO wants to rule out multiverses because it is not explanation: but surely it is. Seeing ourselves in life permitting universe is unsurprising if there are vast numbers of universes and the weak anthropic principle, in the same way it’d be unsurprising to see me keep drawing royal flushes if a mad alien race meant annihilated the universe if I didn’t draw one. So yes, if there are multiverses, a life permitting universe does ‘just have to exist’. PRO answered the wrong bit of my ‘no grounds for omniscience’ claim. Here’s what I wrote: “PRO asserts this round (again) that you’d need infinite knowledge to be able to know what the right constants would be because they are from an infinite range of values. Again this is false. The only thing a putative cosmic designer would need to know is the solution for what values are needed, which will be no more than a few numbers. To rebut omniscience, I merely need to show some proposition this designer need not know yet still be able to create a life permitting universe. This is really easy (“I like cake” would be one among the uncountable set of propositions). So PRO has no case for omniscience (although such a case would require PRO to show there really is fine tuning, which he has not done).” PRO quotes the italicized part, the introductory sentence, and repeats his claim about infinite knowledge etc. Sadly, he neglected to deal with the rest of the paragraph, which refutes him. Origin of life etc. No further remarks, as PRO has declined to advance it. References (1) http://en.wikipedia.org... (2) Collins, R (2009) The teleological argument: an exploration of he fine-tuning of the universe. In Craig W. L., and Morland, J. P. (eds) The Blackwell Companion to Natural theology. Blackwell publishing; Oxford [1] Note that at no stage has PRO actually presented any formal argument for any of his contentions, so I am having to do PROs work for him. [3] PROs R4 remarks on this argument are completely confused, likely in his desire to reduce them to Craigs ‘chance’, ‘necessity’, or ‘design’ triumvirate. I recommend Collins (2009)(2)