Cosmos is fine-tuned to permit human life

From EvoWiki

1 Claim
2 Source
3 Responses
4 Fallacies contained in this claim
5 External Links
6 Related claims
7 Suggested reading
8 Acknowledgments

Claim

If any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different, life would be impossible. This shows that the cosmos is fine-tuned (by a designer) to permit human life.

Source

Ross, Hugh, 1994. Astronomical evidences for a personal, transcendent God. In: Moreland, J.P. (ed.), The Creation Hypothesis, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, pp. 141-172.

Responses

Evolution shows us that rather than the world being adapted to humans, humans are adapted to the world. This is illustrated neatly in the following analogy by the late Douglas Adams:
A puddle wakes up one morning and thinks: "This is a very interesting world I find myself in. It fits me very neatly. In fact it fits me so neatly... I mean really precise isn't it?... It must have been made to have me in it." -- Douglas Adams [1]
There is also a hubris involved with this statement. Our world is well-suited for life forms of many types. This is obvious since so many different types of animals live in it. Even more, there are environments in the world where mankind is not well-suited but many other animals are. For example, much of the Earth is under water and teems with undersea life yet man is not adapted naturally for living under water.
We don't know any universes except ours. Maybe complexity is a basic property. So it is not clear whether the universe is fine-tuned at all, because we do not have the basic physical theory (theory of everything) to decide which universes are at all possible and how they look. Our current physical theories on which our cosmologies are based offer only good approximations but cannot decide this question. It is rather misleading if current theories are used to do so.
With a final physical 'theory of everything' it could turn out that only universes which look like ours are at all logical possible (that is, that the fundamental constants of the universe have no more freedom than the value of pi) or that at least a large fraction of all logical possible universes are suited for life. In this case the apparent fine-tuning for life would neither be pure chance nor would it be a hint to intelligent design, it would rather be inescapable. Therefore cosmologists in general are still undecided on this question.
Even if a small change in constants make the universe uninhabitable for carbon-based life, it cannot yet be ruled out that other forms of life could exist.
Anthropic principles and many-world theories could be used to explain apparent fine tuning.
The argument presumes the significance of human life. It is self-centered human value judgements which make us believe that being fine-tuned to support human life is significant. Why not posit that the cosmos is fine-tuned for bacteria? After all, the majority of life appears to be bacteria, so one could assume that bacteria are the ones benefiting the most from the fine-tuning.
By mass or by volume, the proportion of human life to the total universe is so small that it might as well be considered error. The total portion of the universe that is directly capable of supporting life, let alone human life, is also negligibly small. If the above argument is meant to justify creationism, then why do we not live in a much more hospitable universe, where even 1% of it can reasonably support life? Surely the entire universe isn't needed just to support one planet! See Rare Earth Hypothesis
This argument also overlooks probability mathematics. For example, the odds of drawing an ace of spades out of a shuffled deck of cards are 1:51. Yet the odds of drawing a seemingly random card such as the eight of diamonds are also 1:51! The only reason the ace of spades is hard to draw is because it is pre-specified by humans. God, on the other hand, is omnipotent and could have created life in any universe possible. It would be far more convincing to live in an "impossible universe" rather than an "unlikely universe."
By this same reasoning, we should ask who fine-tuned God. Of all the gods possible, we have an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, creator god who interacts with human beings and even sacrificed himself to die for mankind. Surely he must be fine-tuned for us!

Fallacies contained in this claim

Wrong Direction of Cause and Effect (life adapts to the universe, the universe is not adapted to suit life)
Affirming the Consequent (if God made the universe for us, we should see fine-tuning. We see fine-tuning, thus God made the universe for us)

External Links

Mark Isaak's page for this claim [2]
CreationWiki's comments [3]
Stenger, Victor J., 1997. Intelligent Design: Humans, Cockroaches, and the Laws of Physics. [4]
Stenger, Victor J., 1999 (July). The Anthropic Coincidences: A Natural Explanation. The Skeptical Intelligencer 3(3): 2-17. [5]
van Meurs, Pim, 2005 Privileged Planet: The puddle and the hole, in The Panda's Thumb [6].