Why Darwin Matters_ The Case Against Intelligent Design - Michael Shermer [28]
What is this supernaturally appealing “anthropic principle”? In The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, the physicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler define the term: “It is not only man that is adapted to the universe. The universe is adapted to man. Imagine a universe in which one or another of the fundamental dimensionless constants of physics is altered by a few percent one way or the other. Man could never come into being in such a universe. That is the central point of the anthropic principle. According to the principle, a life-giving factor lies at the center of the whole machinery and design of the world.”11 Of course, thinking of man as the center of the universe has not had a strong track record in science, but let’s set aside Copernican reservations in favor of contemporary astronomy.
Sir Martin Rees, Britain’s Astronomer Royal, argues that “our emergence from a simple Big Bang was sensitive to six ‘cosmic numbers.’ Had these numbers not been ‘well tuned,’ the gradual unfolding of layer upon layer of complexity would have been quenched.”12 The six cosmic numbers are:
Ω (omega) = 1, the amount of matter in the universe, such that if Ω was greater than one, it would have collapsed long ago, and if Ω was less than one, no galaxies would have formed.
ε (epsilon) = .007, how firmly atomic nuclei bind together, such that if epsilon were .006 or .008, matter could not exist as it does.
D = 3, the number of dimensions in which we live, such that if D were 2 or 4, life could not exist.
N = 1036, the ratio of the strength of gravity to that of electromagnetism, such that if it had just a few less zeros, the universe would be too young and too small for life to evolve.
Q = 1/100,000, the fabric of the universe, such that if Q were smaller, the universe would be featureless, and if Q were larger, the universe would be dominated by giant black holes.
λ (lambda) = 0.7, the cosmological constant, or “antigravity” force, that is causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate, such that if λ were larger, it would have prevented stars and galaxies from forming.
Change these relationships and stars, planets, and life could not exist. Thus, this is not just the best of all possible worlds, it is the only possible world—and a world crafted with remarkable math skills, to boot. Intelligent Design theorists consider these numbers to be complex and specified, and thus the fine-tuned anthropic principle is evidence of design.13
First, the universe is not so finely tuned for life. The vast majority of the universe is empty space, and the vast majority of what little matter there is, is completely inhospitable to life, including most planets. In its 13.7-billion-year history, the anthropic conditions for life were nonexistent for several billion years—it is only during a narrow slice of recent time that the universe became finely tuned for life, and only a minuscule portion of the universe is hospitable. John Barrow and his colleague John Webb also note that the so-called “constants” of nature—the speed of light, gravitation, the mass of the electron—may be inconstant, varying over time from the Big Bang to the present, making the universe finely tuned only now. 14
Second, our universe is not finely tuned for us (the strong anthropic principle), we are finely tuned for it (the weak anthropic principle). It is entirely possible that a completely different form of life could be based on another type of physics. We are carbon chauvinists, Carl Sagan liked to point out; life based on some other element (such as silicon) is