Fine Tuning Robin Collins Summary

Robin Collins begins his essay with an analogy of a perfectly sustained biosphere on the surface of Mars as an example of a fine tuned situation and considers the probabilities of the biosphere’s origins. Fine tuning is how we describe a specific arrangement of observations where the final outcome appears more purposefully designed rather than existing by chance or accident. He explains that the likelihood of the sphere coming into existence by a series of natural unplanned processes is much less than the likelihood that some intelligent form designed and created it. Through a series of analogies and reductions, Collins demonstrates how our evidence of fine tuning in the universe is specifically “not improbable under theism [but] very improbable under the atheistic single-universe hypothesis” and continues to present objections and defend his position throughout.

The basis of his argument lies in what he calls the prime principle of confirmation which states how certain observations can count as evidence when their possibility of occurring is more probable under one hypothesis versus another.

In the case for our universe, the existence of fine tuning (our specific set of parameters that allow intelligent life to exist in the universe) seems more probable to be the result of intelligent intentional design consistent with theism as opposed to atheism which simply accepts fine tuning as in inexplicable inarguable fact. Collin’s lists various observations of the universe, such as the initial strength of the Big Bang, and explains that had this or any number or physical attributes of the universe been different, that life would be impossible. This is what leads one to believe or at least accept the possibility of the universe being designed intentionally with intelligent life in

mind.
Common objections to the argument are although the plausibility of fine tuning under theism us much higher than under atheism, this does not prove theism as the final concrete answer to why the universe is how it is. Similarly, atheists may state that fine tuning is the result of some “more fundamental law”, some greater natural force that causes the physical laws of the universe to behave the way they do, but Collins quickly cuts this statement down commenting on its speculative nature and larger than considered scope. Also, it can be asked, ‘Well if all greatly complex things need a designer, who designed God?’ but again, this is refuted by saying God is the type of thing that does not need a designer to be since his complexity comes as a fact of him being God rather than by necessity of design.
Overall, the fine tuning argument states that, given the evidence that our universe may have been created with intelligent life in mind, this is much more believable at the hand of intelligent design (theism) over pure chance (atheism). The logical probabilities between what is observed and what is likely to occur is the driving force behind this argument. Collins even further explains that the simplicity of the argument does not allow it to account for God as the ultimate explanation for all, rather it states that given our observed state of affairs, our universe was more likely to be intimately designed for us by some higher creator than to occur by pure chance or by some higher unexplained law (which, personally, is equally as deniable as any sort of creator).