"Howard J. Van Till" wrote:
> Doug Hayworth wrote:
>
> > In my admittedly cursory reading on the Anthropic Principle (AP), I have
> > been uncomfortable with the use of the term "fine-tuning". This term seems
> > to connote that God (on this list, we are all agreed that if there is
> > anything that can be called fine tuning, it is God who does it) somehow
> > adjusts something that was formerly only crudely "tuned". Conceptions of
> > the AP that require this meaning do not appeal to me, since they imply that
> > there is some background or foundational order in the Creation that is less
> > than perfect or complete. As a Christian, I would prefer the term
> > "finely-established" or "finely-created" to imply that God established in
> > his initial creation a confluence of orderliness brought about his purposes
> > in genesis of the cosmos, our solar system, earth, and its creatures. I
> > don't think God had to adjust things (i.e., fine-tune) later.
> >
> > In practice, how do philosophers and apologists of the AP use the term
> > "fine-tuning"? What do you folks think?
> >
> > I seem to remember that Howard Van Till addressed aspects of the AP at the
> > Waco conference. If so, perhaps he has some wisdom here.
>
> I agree with Doug's sentiments here. As I see it, the term "fine tuning"
> does not entail the idea of adjusting something what was already in
> existence, but simply refers to the condition of having a set of parameter
> values that is "just right" to bring the universe from its initial state to
> its present state along a pathway of continuous development.
>
> Interesting to me is the fact that fine tuning is necessary only in the
> context of presuming that the universe (the Creation) satisfies the Robust
> Formational Economy Principle and has an evolutionary formational history.
> Episodic creationism, on the other hand, should see evidence for fine tuning
> and the Anthropic Principle as surprising, since occasional acts of divine
> adjustment could presumably make up for any lack of original tuning.
>
Or to put it another way, the anthropic coincidences without evolution
are at best just numerology, like the pattern hidden in the digits of pi in
Sagan's _Contact_. This is why High Ross's approach, which places great emphasis
on these coincidences as evidence of design, but denies human evolution, doesn't
make much sense.
Shalom,
George
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