Posted by:
Henry Bemis
(
)
Date: May 08, 2012 08:14PM
Lawrence M. Krauss is a Dawkins-type radical atheist. Unfortunately, it often gets in the way of clear thinking and fair scientific explanation. Here are some transparent examples in the linked article:
“The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis. Everywhere we look, it appears that the world was designed so that we could flourish.”
Casually calling hardcore scientific facts supporting “fine-tuning” an illusion of design, betrays a question-begging attitude about the design debate. When he states that this “illusion” is what science confronts on a daily basis, what he means is not that the illusion confronts science, but the scientific facts that seem to support a design inference is what confronts science. The illusion part is an assumption that is added as an “a priori prejudice” without evidence.
“The position of the Earth around the sun, the presence of organic materials and water and a warm climate — all make life on our planet possible. Yet, with perhaps 100 billion solar systems in our galaxy alone, with ubiquitous water, carbon and hydrogen, it isn't surprising that these conditions would arise somewhere. And as to the diversity of life on Earth — as Darwin described more than 150 years ago and experiments ever since have validated — natural selection in evolving life forms can establish both diversity and order without any governing plan.”
This is disingenuous. The fine-tuning argument for design is NOT about the fine-tuning of life on earth; that indeed can arguably be explained by the vastness of the universe and probability. It about the fine-tuning of the laws of the universe itself, which as a cosmologist, Krauss clearly understands, as do his colleagues in the scientific community.
“As a cosmologist, a scientist who studies the origin and evolution of the universe, I am painfully aware that our illusions nonetheless reflect a deep human need to assume that the existence of the Earth, of life and of the universe and the laws that govern it require something more profound. For many, to live in a universe that may have no purpose, and no creator, is unthinkable.”
The so-called illusion that apparently he himself shares, cannot be explained out of some vague “deep human need.” The “illusion,” if it is one, arises from scientific facts about the nature of reality that suggest design, it has nothing to do with psychology.
“But science has taught us to think the unthinkable. Because when nature is the guide — rather than a priori prejudices, hopes, fears or desires — we are forced out of our comfort zone. One by one, pillars of classical logic have fallen by the wayside as science progressed in the 20th century, from Einstein's realization that measurements of space and time were not absolute but observer-dependent, to quantum mechanics, which not only put fundamental limits on what we can empirically know but also demonstrated that elementary particles and the atoms they form are doing a million seemingly impossible things at once.”
Logical principles (so-called “pillars of logic”) reflect how science reasons from facts. Such principles are built into human nature. They have not failed, and in fact they drive scientific achievement, both past and present. What has happened, and what always happens, is that experiment, coupled with scientific reasoning, sometimes requires “paradigm shift” in our understanding of the world. Ironically, until Krauss addresses the facts supporting the design inference in cosmology, i.e. the fine-tuning thesis, his own “a priori prejudices” are quite ironic. He owes us an explanation as to how such fine-tuning might be explained by natural events. He never provides this. Instead, he sweeps it under the rug as an illusion that we must suppress.
“Even our idea of nothingness has been altered.” “Out of this radically new image of the universe at large scale have also come new ideas about physics at a small scale. The Large Hadron Collider has given tantalizing hints that the origin of mass, and therefore of all that we can see, is a kind of cosmic accident. Experiments in the collider bolster evidence of the existence of the "Higgs field," which apparently just happened to form throughout space in our universe; it is only because all elementary particles interact with this field that they have the mass we observe today.”
No it hasn’t. Theoretical physicists and particularly philosophers of science, understand that the Higgs field, or other fields from which matter may arise spontaneously, is not “nothing.” Nothing means the absence of anything measurable or that might be the subject of experience! And, of course, particle physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider, when they are looking for the Higgs particle, are not looking for nothing. They are looking for a very real aspect of reality that, if found, would have explanatory power with respect to the spontaneous generation of matter. But, again, we are not talking about “nothing” in the sense of the absence of any pre-existing reality.
I have no problem with Krauss or anyone else, addressing the design inference from the point of view of science, and pointing out weaknesses or errors. However, when it is done unfairly, and with the tone of arrogance and finality, as if science had it all figured out,” it is misleading, and suggests a motive other than scientific enlightenment. More importantly, it is simply false. Science has manifestly NOT figured out why the laws of the universe are fine-tuned to support life. It is a subject of hot debate within science and cosomology.