"I seem to have touched a raw nerve with my last post."
You touched two of them. One concerned your suggestion that I should not
discuss my unfounded speculations in public, which you seem to have
recanted.
The other you are still probing, and it still hurts. It concerns your
implied claim that your unfounded speculation concerning the non-fluxuation
of the physical constants is more scientific than my unfounded speculation
that they did fluxuate. Considering that we are both arguing in a vacuum on
this issue (no pun intended) I cannot see that your position is any more
scientific than mine, despite your personal opinion to the contrary. You
might want to take your own advice in this matter.
"My objection to your speculation about varying physical constants is, I
think, well-founded."
I have already admitted that I could be wrong; I will now admit that my
phrasing was ill-chosen. But you are letting yourself get wrapped up in
words instead of dealing with the substance of the issue.
"Here's the problem (for me) with what you wrote: You have claimed that the
mere fact of unification means 'the physical constants were not fixed...'."
Actually, I never made that claim, though I did not make myself clear
either. That's why I presented that scenario in my first response. Even
so, I don't see how that is necessarily illogical. The physical constants
are based on the physical laws, which are based on the four fundamental
forces, which are derived from space-time. If the four forces were united
into one force, the physical laws would be very different from what they are
now, and so would be the physical constants, even if they weren't
fluctuating. If, however, space-time was fluctuating unpredictably at this
period of time, so would the nature of the unified force, and so would the
physical laws, and so would the physical constants. It is just simple logic
(which is all we have to go on without a Theory of Everything.
"I dispute this."
But your only (stated) grounds for doing so is the mathematics of the
electroweak theory. Unfortunately, the conditions of the universe during
the Electoweak Era were vastly different than they were during the Planck
Era. Relatively speaking, the universe was ten billion times older, over a
trillion trillion times larger and at least a million times cooler. If the
constants had been fluctuating during the Planck Era, they would probably be
fixed by the Electroweak Era, which again is probably why the electroweak
theory makes no prediction on that topic.
"It is not necessary for a theory of grand unification."
I never said it was; I only said that I doubted that a grand unified theory
would contradict it.
You certainly have heard of YEC arguments which try to fit the history of
the universe into 6,000-10,000 years by positing that constants like the
speed of light, or the universal gravitational constant, have not always
been what they are now."
That's what this is all about; not whether I am engaging in groundless
speculation, but your concern that creationists may use this information to
promote their assinine decaying constants hypothesis. You needn't be
concerned, though. Even if the physical constants have changed since some
very time, it would appear that at most the largest change is going to be
about 10%, if even that large. For their hypothesis to work, the
creationists would beed changes of several hundred to several thousand
percent.
"Although you confine your claim about changing constants to the Planck era,
you are still using a 'just so' story to try to blunt the implications of
the argument for design from fine-tuning."
Any claims about what happened during the Planck Era are going to be
"just-so" stories, including your own, including Randy's. What counts then
is whose claims are more logical. Considering the conditions that we know
of, I would consider it illogical if the constants were NOT changing.
"But still your speculation has no scientific support,..."
I would dispute that, considering what I have already said, but let's say
that is true, for the sake of argument.
"...so from the standpoint of science it is just a personal opinion."
Then the same is true of your claims as well, for the same reason.
"However, to my knowledge no such theory exists yet."
Exactly, which is why your claim that the constants did not fluctuate during
the Planck Era is as much speculation as my claim that they were
fluctuating. Only time will show who is right.
"In the absence of the same, I think it is far more speculative to assume
that the values changed than to assume that they were 'givens', or 'initial
conditions' at the beginning."
Not if the universe were an infinitesimally tiny quantum object controlled
by the uncertainty principle. Under those circumstances the physical
constants either did not exist at all or had to be fluctuating; the
alternative would violate basic quantum principles.
Kevin L. O'Brien