In “God, Design, and Fine-Tuning”, Robin Collins argues for the Intelligent Design of the universe from the Fine-Tuning Argument. Collins’ argument is probabilistic in nature; however, it fails due to its misuse of probability theory. Aided by the work of both Bradley Monton and Mark Colyvan, I will show why Collins’ argument fails. It can be shown that this line of reasoning concludes that the existence of a life permitting universe is zero. Essentially, Collins’ argument does not prove what he claims it does and is too strong to account for the existence of a life permitting universe because it not only misuses probability, but is rendered useless due to the paradoxes inherent in probability theory.
Collins’ representation of the Fine-Tuning Argument is as follows:
1) Fine-Tuning is not improbable under theism.
2) Fine-Tuning is very improbable under the Atheistic Single Universe Hypothesis.
3) Prime Principle of Confirmation: When considering two competing hypotheses, an observation counts as evidence in favor of the hypothesis under which the observation has the highest probability (or is the least improbable) (Collins 8).
4) / From premises 1 and 2 and the Prime Principle of Confirmation, it follows that the existence of Fine-Tuning provides “strong evidence” for the design hypothesis over the Atheistic Single Universe Hypothesis (Collins 2003).
Collins claims that Fine-Tuning is likely under Theism because a deity (such as the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) would be very interested in creating and very likely to create a fine-tuned, life permitting universe. Although the Intelligent Design Hypothesis relies upon the existence of God, Collins does not claim to have any direct evidence of the nature or existenc...
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...at the value of k is non-zero (Colyvan 329). However, such a range cannot be picked in a non-arbitrary was. It seems that no natural sense of possibility (e.g. logical possibility or physical possibility) seems likely to produce a range that fits the requirements of the Fine-Tuning Argument through any sort of non-arbitrary means.
If fine-tuning is to provide evidence for the intelligent design of the universe, it seems that arguments based in probabilistic reasoning are not the most tenable due to the many objections raised throughout this essay. While fine-tuning may very well serve as evidence for intelligent design, the proponents of such a view must either form a novel argument that does not rely on probability theory as the current Fine-Tuning Argument has or find a way to resolve the probabilistic paradoxes that the current argument has been plagued with.
However, David Hume, succeeds in objecting this argument by claiming that the experience is a necessary factor for understanding the creation of the universe. Lastly, I argued that Paley’s argument was not sufficient for proving God’s existence with the argument by design because we cannot assume the world will comply and work the way we wish
Within William Rowe’s Chapter two of “The Cosmological Argument”, Rowe reconstructs Samuel Clark's Cosmological Argument by making explicit the way in which the Principle of Sufficient Reason, or PSR, operates in the argument as well as providing contradictions of two important criticisms from Rowe’s argument.
William Paley’s teleological argument (also known as the argument from design) is an attempt to prove the existence of god. This argument succeeds in proving that while existence was created by an aggregation of forces, to define these forces, as a conscious, rational, and ultimately godlike is dubious. Although the conclusions are valid, the argument makes several logical errors. The teleological argument relies on inductive reasoning, rendering the argument itself valid, but unsound. The argument fails to apply its own line of reasoning to itself, resulting in infinite regression. Beyond the scope of its logical flaws, the arguments content lacks accurate comparisons. The argument hinges on a watch metaphor, and as will be shown, this metaphor will prove inaccurate in explaining the creation of the universe.
John Polkinghorne’s The Universe as Creation does its best to not convince the reader of Intelligent Design, but rather to dissuade the reader from the notion that although the is intelligently designed, but in this way, it has made science possible.
Dr. William Lane Craig supports the idea of existence of God. He gives six major arguments, in order to defend his position. The first argument is quite fare, Craig says that God is the best reason of existence of everything. He gives the idea, that the debates between all the people, cannot reach the compromise, because the best explanation of the reasons of existence of everything is God, and nothing can be explained without taking Him into consideration. The second argument of Craig is from a cosmological point of view: he says that the existence of the universe is the best proof of the existence of God. Because, the process of the creation of the universe is so ideally harmonious, that it seems impossible to appear accidentally. The third argument is about the fine tuning of the universe. The universe is designed in such a way that people always have aim of life, and the life of people and the nature are interconnected. The fourth argument of Dr. Craig is about the morality: God is the best explanation of the existence of the morality and moral values in people’s lives. The...
According to Philo Cleanthes’s argument of design does not work because it is a bad comparison. Arguing that the universe is like a machine as imaginative as it may seem, does not work, because it is a comparison of a part of a whole and that is problematic because there is no way to compare a part of something, to that something is part of that something is completely unknown. By saying “observing the growth of a hair, can we learn anything concerning the generation of a man?” in page 24, Philo reveals a fatal weakness in Cleanthes’s comparison. Just like it is impossible to know the generation of a human being by observing how his hair grows, it is impossible to understand the universe in its entirety by understanding how a machine. Philo contends that Cleanthes’s comparison may be too narrow for a universe with so much diversity, in page 25 “When nature has so extremely diversified her manner of operation in this small globe; can we imagine that she incessantly copies herself throughout so immense a
McCloskey starts with disputing the Cosmological argument. McCloskey states, "The mere existence of the world constitutes no reason for believing in the existence of such a being" (McCloskey, 1968). Evans and Manis argue that for everything to exist there had to be a creator that created them. "Ultimately, the explanation of any contingent beings existence will be incomplete unless it culmi...
William Paley set out to create a logical argument called “The Watchmaker Argument” which proves the existence of a creator, and therefore, the existence of God. In “Natural Theology”, Paley argues that due to the complex nature and resemblance of purpose in reality, the universe must have had a creator. Paley’s argument would seem to make sense, however, when put under modern day scrutiny, it does not hold up to the degree that it was originally intended to. Throughout this essay, I will argue that Paley’s watchmaker analogy is not a logical argument by pointing out the major flaws contained in it, and how they coexist to prove the argument is false. I will firstly give a quick overview of my argument, followed by Paley’s argument for reference.
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.
...etts Institute of Technology. (2014, February 20). Closing the 'free will' loophole: Using distant quasars to test Bell's theorem. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 23, 2014 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140220112515.htm
evidentiary fact in science, just like all other facts of biology, physics, chemistry, etc. It
The "Intelligent Design" pbs.org. PBS, 5 Aug. 2005. Web. The Web. The Web. 21 Mar. 2012.
NOTE: This paper was written for an English class and a non astronomy audience. Thus, several arguments were left out to make the material easier to understand for the target audience. These arguments would include (but are not limited to) dark energy, dark matter, and the inflationary model of the universe. If I later have time I may revise this paper to cover such topics and be more comprehensive.
There are different viewpoints on the question “what is the universe made of?” I think that both science and religion offer their own explanation to this topic and they sometimes overlap, which creates contradictions. Therefore, I do not agree with Stephen Jay Gould’s non-overlapping magisterial, which claims that there is a fine line separating science from religion. That being said, I think the conflict between science and religion is only in the study of evolution. It is possible for a scientist to be religious if he is not studying evolution, because science is very broad and it has various studies. In this essay, I will talk about the conflict between religion and science by comparing the arguments from Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins. I argue that science and religion do overlap but only in some area concerning evolution and the cosmic design. Furthermore, when these overlaps are present it means that there are conflicts and one must choose between science and religion.
Talking on both sides of the debate, each side feels as though the other has no scientific reasoning come up with their theory. In reading the article written by Shipman, the evolutionists believe that intelligent design has no concrete evidence on how the world was crea...