Category: Fine tuning

ID Foundations, 17a: Footnotes on Conservation of Information, search across a space of possibilities, Active Information, Universal Plausibility/ Probability Bounds, guided search, drifting/ growing target zones/ islands of function, Kolmogorov complexity, etc.

(previous, here) There has been a recent flurry of web commentary on design theory concepts linked to the concept of functionally specific, complex organisation and/or associated information (FSCO/I) introduced across the 1970′s into the 1980′s  by Orgel and Wicken et al. (As is documented here.) This flurry seems to be connected to the announcement of… more

VIDEO: Dr Guillermo Gonzalez surveys and briefly, simply explains several fine tuning cases behind the cosmological design inference

Dr Gonzalez — the Astrophysicist half of the Privileged Planet team — recently presented this lecture in which he surveys and briefly, simply explains several key fine tuning cases: embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt Again, useful food for thought. END PS: For more on fine tuning, cf VJT’s recent post on a new form of… more

Is Atheism Rationally Justifiable?

First, I’d like to thank Mr. Arrington for granting me posting privileges.  I consider it quite an honor, and I hope this post (and any future posts) warrants this trust. Second, the following is an argument I think will help us to focus on a fundamental issue that lies behind ever so many of the… more

Why is our solar system so bizarre?, science journalists ask

“Scientists have studied the process of planetary formation in hopes of grasping how our solar system came to be, but the answers have not been simple.” more

Oxford mathematician John Lennox on fine tuning in the universe

“We should note that the preceding arguments are not ‘God of the gaps’ arguments; it is advance in science, not ignorance of science, that has revealed this fine-tuning to us.” more

He said it: Beethoven on fine tuning of the universe

Well, he should know about fine tuning … more

Why does the Higgs boson matter so much?

But won’t they be tempted to see it, whether or not it is there? more

Many of Victor Stenger’s “no fine-tuning” claims dubbed “highly problematic”

“This paper can be viewed as a critique of Stenger’s book, or read independently.” more

Recently published statistics indicate that the odds are overwhelming that you do not in fact exist

A striking graphic demonstrates the unlikelihood. more

What effect will NASA cutbacks have on public perceptions of science and religion?

“The 2012 budget request for NASA paints a far less rosy picture of the next 5 years, and the outcome for 2013 is expected to be even worse.” more

Why the ID community maybe SHOULD celebrate Carl Sagan day …

Sagan played a key role in establishing that the “science” of popular media is mostly bunk directed at supporting atheism and that any evidence-based assessment of life in our cosmos is the province of “religion.” more

Water is just another of those things in our randomly mutated universe, right? But wait, read this …

In a non-Darwin world, would media releases discussing this stuff keep using the term “weird?” Why is it weird? more

New Scientist talks about “fine-tuned for life”

Really! But banana palms still don’t grow in Toronto. more

ID Foundations, 6: Introducing* the cosmological design inference

The water cycle: key to a viable terrestrial planet

ID 101/Foundations, 6: Introducing and explaining the cosmological design inference on fine tuning, with onward reference links (including on Stenger’s attempted rebuttals) more

Martin Rees wins Templeton Prize

A fine tuning and multiverse advocate, Martin J. Rees, today won the 2011 Templeton Prize. The astrophysicist with no religion won the Prize originally “for Progress in Religion.” The 2011 Templeton Prize was announced today. LONDON, APRIL 6 – Martin J. Rees, a theoretical astrophysicist whose profound insights on the cosmos have provoked vital questions… more

Multiverse: Recent studies suggest that some alternative universes “may not be so inhospitable” – assuming they exist

Well, the supernatural may be “outside the scope of science,” but universes whose existence is not demonstrated, which are imagined principally to get out of a jam with the evidence from this universe, are reasonably doubted, despite thought experiments. The tentative tone here is well justified. It should be used more often. more

Bruce Gordon’s Article on Stephen Hawking

Universal Laws Nature

In a recent Washington Times article, written by the Discovery Institute’s polymath Bruce Gordon, Gordon discusses the soundness of Stephen Hawking’s argument made recently which states that the universe could have been brought into existence merely by the laws of nature. Stephen Hawking‘s new book, “The Grand Design,” co-authored with Leonard Mlodinow, contends that God… more