The End of Christianity (59 page)

10
. The literature summarizing this evidence is vast beyond imagining, but the very best primers include: Richard Dawkins,
The Greatest Show onEarth: The Evidence for Evolution
(New York: Free Press, 2009); Jerry Coyne,
Why Evolution Is True
(New York: Viking, 2009); Neil Shubin,
Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5 Billion-Year History of the Human Body
(New York: Pantheon, 2008); Donald Prothero,
Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); Sean Carroll,
The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2006); Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart,
The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005); and Ernst Mayr,
What Evolution Is
(New York: Basic, 2001). See also discussion and sources in Carrier,
Sense and Goodness
, 165–76.

11
. See discussion and references in Dembski,
No Free Lunch
, 239–310. There is of course a vast literature on Behe's argument, which argument has been shown to be wrong on almost every single particular (cf.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html
), but Dembski's treatment is sufficient to illustrate Behe's argument, which has not significantly changed.

12
. Conceded in Michael Behe,
The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism
(New York: Free Press, 2007).

13
. Dembski argues in
No Free Lunch
that any single mutation involving more than five hundred bits of specified information is effectively impossible as a result of chance (having a probability on a hypothesis of chance less than 1 in 10
¹⁵⁰
), but that any mutation involving a gain in information
less
than that
is
possible as a result of chance and in fact certainly happens (see 18–22, 161, and 314–21; see also 246 and 306, note 57, and cf. 218–19). To date no one has ever found any feature of any life-form on earth that required any mutation involving more than even fifty bits of new specified information, much less five hundred. Every evolutionary theory of every feature of every life-form so far studied posits only individual stepwise advances far smaller than that. Thus there is no evidence of irreducible complexity nor any established need of such a theory to explain any feature of modern life.

14
. P(NID|CURRENT LiFE.b) = [P(NID|b) x P(CURRENT LiFE|NID.b)] / [P(NID|b) X P(CURRENT LIFE|NID.b)] + [P(EVOLUTION|b) X P(CURRENT LIFE| EVOLUTiON.b)] = [0.25 X 0.5] / [0.25 x 0.5] + [0.75 x 1.0] = 0.125 / (0.125 + 0.75) = 0.125 / 0.875 = 0.143 (rounded) = 14.3 percent, which is less than 15 percent.

15
. See Carrier, “Argument from Biogenesis” and “Statistics and Biogenesis” (cited in note 3).

16
. See extensive analysis of this point in: Nicholas Everitt, The
Non-Existence of God
(New York: Routledge, 2003), 213–26; and John Loftus,
Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2008), 95–110.

17
. P(NID|ORIGIN OF LiFE.b) = [P(NID|b) x P(ORIGIN OF LiFE|NID.b)] / [P(NID|b) x P(ORIGIN OF LiFE|NID.b)] + [P(~NID|b) x P(ORIGIN OF LIFE| ~NID.b)] = [0.25 x 0.5] / [0.25 x 0.5] + [0.75 x 1.0] = 0.125 / (0.125 + 0.75) = 0.125 / 0.875 = 0.143 (rounded) = 14.3 percent, which is less than 15 percent.

18
. For the latest and most extensive presentation of this argument see: Robin Collins, “The Teleological Argument: An Exploration of the Fine-Tuning of the Universe,” in
The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology
, ed. William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 202–81.

19
. I will not address the factual flaws in Collins's paper, many of which are dispatched by Stenger (see note 3). Collins attempts to respond (222–24), but a comparison of what Stenger actually says with Collins's criticisms reveals a shocking panoply of odd blindspots in Collins's analysis. Collins also ignores other recent findings, for example, Fred Adams, “Stars in Other Universes: Stellar Structure with Different Fundamental Constants,”
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
8 (August 2008). Stenger will refute Collins in more detail in his forthcoming book
The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe Is Not Designed for Us
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2011).

20
. Even though that hypothesis has an extremely high prior probability: in our background knowledge
b
we have no knowledge of any law of physics that would prevent there being other universes (and no means of seeing if there are none), so the probability that there are is exactly what that probability would be if the number of universes that exist were selected at random. Of all the possible conditions that could obtain (no universe; just one universe; two universes; three; four; etc., all the way to infinitely many universes), that there would be only one universe is only one out of infinitely many alternatives. This entails it is effectively 100 percent certain an infinite multiverse exists because the probability of there being only one universe is then 1 /
INFINITY
, which is ≈ 0 percent. In fact, for any finite number
n
of universes, the probability of having only that many or less is
n
/
INFINITY
, which is still ≈ 0 percent. If the probability of having any finite number of universes is always ≈ 0 percent, then the probability that there is an infinite multiverse is ≈ 100 percent. This further entails we have no need to explain why there is something rather than nothing: as then nothing (a state of exactly zero universes) also has a probability of 1/
INFINITY
, which is again ≈ 0 percent. The probability that there will be something rather than nothing is therefore ≈ 100 percent. This conclusion can only be averted if something were proved to exist that would change any of these probabilities, thereby making nothing (or only one thing) more likely than any other logical possibility. But we know of no such thing. Therefore, so far as we must conclude given what we actually know, there is an infinite multiverse, and there must necessarily be an infinite multiverse (both to a certainty of ≈ 100 percent). This already entails that P(
LIFE-BEARING UNIVERSE
|~NID.b) ≈ 100 percent. But we don't need this hypothesis, so I will proceed without it.

21
. All of this is formally proven, and in fully decisive detail, by Ikeda and Jefferys and by Sober (see note 3).

22
. In other words, P(
FINELY TUNED UNIVERSE|INTELLIGENT OBSERVERS EXIST
) = 1, so if “intelligent observers exist” is established background knowledge (and it is), then P(
FINELY TUNED UNiVERSE
|~NID.b) = 1 (see following note).

23
. This is undeniable: if only a finely tuned universe can produce life, then by definition P(
FINELY TUNED UNIVERSE
|
INTELLIGENT OBSERVERS EXIST
) = 1, because of (a) the logical fact that “if and only if A, then B” entails “if B, then A” (hence “if and only if a finely tuned universe, then intelligent observers” entails “if intelligent observers, then a finely tuned universe,” which is strict entailment, hence true
regardless
of how that fine-tuning came about; by analogy with “if and only if colors exist, then orange is a color” entails “if orange is a color, then colors exist”; note that this is not the fallacy of affirming the consequent because it properly derives from a biconditional), and because of (b) the fact in conditional probability that P(
INTELLIGENT OBSERVERS EXIST
) = 1 (the probability that we are mistaken about intelligent observers existing is zero, a la Descartes, therefore the probability that they exist is 100 percent) and P(A and B) = P(A|B) × P(B), and 1 × 1 = 1. Collins concedes that if we include in
b
“everything we know about the world, including our existence,” then P(L|~God &
A LIFE-BEARING UNIVERSE IS OBSERVED
) = 100 percent (Collins, “The Teleological Argument,” 207). He thus desperately needs to somehow “not count” such known facts. That's irrational, and he ought to know it's irrational. He tries anyway (e.g., 241–44), by putting “a life-bearing universe is observed” (his LPU) in
e
instead of
b
. But then
b
still contains “observers exist,” which still entails “a life-bearing universe exists,” and anything entailed by a 100 percent probability has itself a probability of 100 percent (as proven above). In other words, since the probability of observing ~LPU if ~LPU is zero (since if ~LPU, observers won't exist), it can never be the case that P(LPU|~God.b) <100 percent as Collins claims (on 207), because if the probability of ~LPU is zero the probability of LPU is 1 (being the converse), and
b
contains “observers exist,” which entails the probability of ~LPU is zero. If (in even greater desperation) Collins tried putting “observers exist” in
e
,
b
would then contain the Cartesian fact “I think, therefore I am,” which then entails
e
. So we're back at 100 percent again. If (in even
greater
desperation) Collins tried putting “I think, therefore I am” in
e
, his conclusion would only be true for people who aren't observers (since
b
then contains no observers), and since the probability of there being people who aren't observers is zero, his calculation would be irrelevant (it would be true only for people who don't exist, i.e., any conclusion that is conditional on “there are no observers” is of no interest to observers).

24
. See Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee,
Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe
(New York: Copernicus, 2000).

25
. John Hawley and Katherine Holcomb,
Foundations of Modern Cosmology
, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 158. The factor calculation is mine, based on the fact that Aristotle's cosmos was inhabitable (and inhabited) throughout and thus had a habitability of one part in one, but our universe has a habitability of less than one part in 10
³⁰
(the volume of the intergalactic void in ratio to the maximum possible volume of planets in an average galaxy summed for all galaxies).

26
. Of course, a
compassionate
God would imply even
more
should be the case about the world he would make (see Carrier,
Sense and Goodness
, 273–75 and 256–57). This means it would be even more improbable that we would observe the world we do if a compassionate God exists, in fact P(
THE WORLD WE OBSERVE| COMPASSIONATE GOD
.b) must be quite low indeed, whereas P(
THE WORLD WE OBSERVE
|~
GOD
.b) is effectively 100 percent. Both conclusions follow with even more force when considering easily removable evils (ibid., 277–89), but one needn't even consider those to get this larger differential.

27
. In other words, P(L|~GOD &
OBSERVERS EXIST
) = 1 (i.e., 1 in 1, not 1 in 10
^1,000,000
), unless it's not true that “~GOD &
OBSERVERS EXIST
” only if L, but how else could life exist if there is no God? If there is no God, then life exists only if L (or whatever improbability actually
is
the case, but substituting any L
_n
for L gives the same result).

28
. In other words, even at most, P(L|GOD &
OBSERVERS EXIST
) = 1, the exact same probability you get if ~GOD.

29
. P(
NID
|
FINE-TUNED UNIVERSE
.b) = [P(NID|b) × P(
FINE-TUNED UNIVERSE
|NID.b)] / [P(NID|b) × P(
FINE-TUNED UNIVERSE
|NID.b)] + [P(~NID|b) × P(
FINE-TUNEDUNIVERSE
|~NID.b)] = [0.25 × 1.0] / [0.25 × 1.0] + [0.75 × 1.0] = 0.25 / (0.25 + 0.75) = 0.25 / 1.0 = 0.25 = 25 percent.

30
. Collins, “The Teleological Argument,” 276–77; Sober, “The Design Argument,” 137–40.

31
. At this point one might try to argue that the
prior probability
(for the universe case) should be based this time on a narrower reference class of “super improbable” events, such as the set of all things William Dembski quantifies with his probability threshold of 1 in 10
¹⁵⁰
(see notes 6 and 13 above), based on the assumption that the ratio of designed-to-chance causes
within that set
should strongly favor design. But even if this could get us to any actual ratio of NID to ~NID (see discussion of prior probability earlier on why, for lack of data, it probably can't), it is still inapplicable to the universe's
origin
because that threshold was based on the size and age of the universe
itself.
We are talking about an event beyond that limiting sphere, and thus must calculate a threshold relative to a larger total set of opportunities, which is precisely what we don't know anything about. For instance, if the universe in some form will continue to exist for 10
^1,000,000
years, then it could easily contain an event as improbable, and that event would as likely be its origin as anything else. In fact, since quantum mechanics entails that a big bang of any size and initial entropy always has some (albeit absurdly small) probability of spontaneously occurring at any time, and since on any long enough timeline any nonzero probability approaches 100 percent no matter how singularly improbable, it could easily be that this has been going on for untold ages, our big bang merely being just one late in the chain. We could be at year 10
^1,000,000
right now, and as this conclusion follows from established facts and there is no known fact to contradict it, it's no more unlikely than the existence of a god (and arguably a great deal more likely). Since we therefore don't know what the applicable probability threshold is, we can't use one (other than by circular logic). To infer design we simply need the result to have features more expected on design than chance, and features that are necessary for observers even to exist will never be such (because those features will appear in both outcomes 100 percent of the time). Dembski's threshold may pertain to events now
in
the universe, however, precisely because those outcomes are
not
necessary. For example, if the total probability of terrestrial biogenesis were 1 in 10
^1,000,000
every fourteen billion years, then we would expect to find ourselves much later in the history of the universe—it would not necessarily be the case that we would observe ourselves only fourteen billion years after the big bang; whereas it
would
necessarily be the case that the universe came to exist with the right properties for us to be observing it at all. Hence the two problems are not commensurate.