Objection · Case 08 · Science
Narrow range compared to what? The constants have no known probability distribution, so calling the life-permitting range small assumes a measure that physics doesn’t supply.
One objection from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Response
This is the normalizability problem, and it is the most important technical objection to fine-tuning. The reply from defenders such as Barnes and Robin Collins is that one can work with the range of values current theories treat as possible and show that the life-permitting subrange is tiny relative to it, and that for several constants (the cosmological constant especially) the comparison is to a natural scale set by the theory itself. Critics reply that a natural scale is not a probability. This is a real, unresolved debate among physicists and philosophers, and it is the specific dispute behind the phrase a minority of physicists dispute how the case is framed.
About this exhibit
This objection is to Luke Barnes’s review of the fine-tuning literature.
Barnes, an astrophysicist, surveyed the technical literature and catalogued cases where small changes to the constants or the starting conditions produce a sterile universe. He wrote the review…
Under Claim 07: The basic constants of physics sit in narrow ranges that allow stars, chemistry, and life, and shifting them even slightly would rule life out.