Talk:Fine-tuned universe

Section title dispute

User:JackNickol is edit warring to change a section title, he has said on my talk page that The title of the section 'Religious Apologetics' is unnecessarily provoking for people with faith. "Religious Apologetics" simply means the discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse, it does NOT provoke people of faith in any way at all. Theroadislong (talk) 07:06, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

He has also posted on my Talk page and I have advised him to use the article Talk page and also warned him regarding edit warring. I completely agree with your sentiments above, I cannot see any provocation at all. I will continue to keep a close watch on the situation. Regards, David David J Johnson (talk) 11:13, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Apologetics is indeed correct terminology and it's easy to find neutral and reliable sources on the topic (of apologetics), —PaleoNeonate – 11:24, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Problems with this article

This article is very bad, and needs a lot of rewriting. I'll just write a list of some low hanging fruit, as I don't at the moment have the time to go in and fix it all:

• Alternatively, the anthropic principle may be understood to render the observed values tautological and not in need of explanation... no. This is wrong, and acknowledged as wrong by the article; you need the anthropic principle plus a multiverse with different physical constants. It's not surprising that someone will win the lottery as long as a lot of different people are buying different lottery tickets.

You might note your metaphor doesn't actually have an anthropic component. Metaquanta (talk) 03:24, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

@Metaquanta: The analogous survivorship bias is introduced by only considering those that win the lottery, but my analogy isn't relevant, the article already discusses this well enough. Volteer1 (talk) 04:49, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

• Among scientists who find the evidence persuasive, a variety of natural explanations have been proposed, such as the anthropic principle and multiple universes. Same as above, that's one explanation not two.

• by 2012 results from the LHC had ruled out the class of supersymmetric theories that could have explained the fine-tuning What?? Supersymmetry is not anything close to ruled out by experimental results from the LHC, there just weren't any superpartners found at the energy levels the LHC could test.

• In "Examples", Dark energy and the cosmological constant have their own different sections, talking about the exact same thing, but purporting to be different?

• Minor point here (and not really a "problem"), but there are some other good examples that could probably be added, for instance the masses of the up and down quark, for which figure 2 in this paper from Luke Barnes would probably be a good image.

• The fine-tuned universe argument's regarding the formation of life assumes only carbon-based life forms are possible, sometimes referred to as carbon chauvinism. This is just flat out wrong - for instance, what does the number of spacetime dimensions or the value of the cosmological constant care about carbon vs. silicon based life? It's not related at all. If you want there to be a criticism section there is plenty of material to put there - e.g. for something not mentioned in this article, David Albert's arguments against the bayesian paradigm of claiming that the sensitivity of life to changes in physical constants means we can say that those constants taking the value they do is unlikely.

• First, the fine tuning might be an illusion: we don't know the true number of independent physical constants, which could be small and even reduce to one. It's not so much the number, but that we don't know what the fine tuning will be in the truly independent physical constants we eventually get out of our final theory of everything; there could still be fine tuning if there was only one independent physical constant governing the universe.

• And we don't know either the laws of the "potential universe factory", i.e. the range and statistical distribution ruling the "choice" for each constant (including our arbitrary choice of units and precise set of constants) Not that factually incorrect, just badly written. I also don't think our choice units have to do with anything.

• One is an oscillatory universe or a multiverse The cyclic model/"oscillatory universe" is a kind of multiverse, they aren't different things. This point needs to be made a lot more clear; "multiverse" here also includes that the physical constants in our universe are just different far away, farther than light will have had (or possibly will ever have had) time to reach us. This is kind of implied in the "Multiverse" section but under jargon that would not be familiar to the average reader.

• While other universes might explain any apparent fine-tuning, fine-tuning itself is not evidence of the multiverse This is a fringe view from a single philosopher (Roger White) cited to a single paper that Scientific American wrote an article on.

Maybe you should read it. Metaquanta (talk) 03:24, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

• Regarding "alien design", we should probably just have a section on explanations to the problem based on design in a naturalistic sense and in a religious sense. "Alien design" makes just as much sense as other wacky/fringe/out there ideas like the simulation hypothesis as an explanation, they are the same kind of response to the problem as the religious one, just with the "designer" perhaps not being God in the traditional religious sense.

Volteer1 (talk) 04:27, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Just make sure any change is sourced to reliable secondary sources...even if some of the material presently in the article may not be. This article is one where individual editors have strong opinions, and I see a lot of personal opinion or original research (or at least unsourced research) in your notes above. Please edit carefully. -Jordgette [talk] 14:27, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I think for now I'll just remove the incorrect things that are either unsourced, or not supported by the sources cited (e.g. the supersymmetry bit). I'll have a better crack at this later when I have the time. Volteer1 (talk) 14:41, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Article needs a history section

I was brought here from the page for Averroes, who argued for a fine tuned universe based on the properties of Earth, as a teleologic proof of God. (Plenty of water, rivers, temperature, etc.) Others in the past have used the physical chemistry of water as evidence. (High melting point, freezing point, and the density of ice, as well as its overall abundance.)

On the Habitability of Universes without Stable Deuterium

I got reverted, so I am noting it here. On the Habitability of Universes without Stable Deuterium shows complex chemistry is possible, even if a proton could not bond to a neutron. I assume it was considered "original research" because it is a primary source. I think the point is important, so please help finding the appropriate secondary source. Thanks! Sanxiyn (talk) 09:49, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Epsilon

Isn't Epsilon actually the fine-structure constant at the helium fusion part? --Con^spiration 11:01, 23 August 2022 (UTC)