Well that is because I made the thread with the assumption that the participants are already familiar with the concept of FT, that understand the argument as typically presented by theists and that they would ether agree or disagree on whether if design isa a better explanation than the MV Hypothesis for the fine tuning of the universe.
Neither ID nor 'Fine Tuning' are viable falsifiable hypothesis as far as science is concerned. The anthropic principle and its variations represent philosophical assumption and not explanatory science. Fine Tuning is based IF theological/philosophical statements and not science.
This paragraph describes the multiverse explanation (also called multiverse antropic principle) which I argue that design is a better explanation. .
Possible naturalistic explanations
There are
fine tuning arguments that are
naturalistic.
[29][
page needed] As modern cosmology developed, various hypotheses have been proposed. One is an
oscillatory universe or a
multiverse, where fundamental physical constants are postulated to resolve themselves to
random values in different
iterations of reality.
[30] Under this hypothesis, separate parts of reality would have wildly different characteristics. In such scenarios, the appearance of fine-tuning is explained as a consequence of the weak
anthropic principle and
selection bias(specifically
survivor bias) that only those universes with fundamental constants hospitable to life (such as the universe we observe) would have living beings emerge and evolve capable of contemplating the questions of origins and of fine-tuning. All other universes would go utterly unbeheld by any such beings.
Multiverse
Main article:
Multiverse
The Multiverse hypothesis proposes the existence of many universes with different physical constants, some of which are hospitable to intelligent life (see
multiverse: anthropic principle). Because we are intelligent beings, it is unsurprising that we find ourselves in a hospitable universe if there is such a multiverse. The Multiverse hypothesis is therefore thought to provide an elegant explanation of the finding that we exist despite the required fine-tuning. (See
[31] for a detailed discussion of the arguments for and against this suggested explanation.)
The multiverse idea has led to considerable research into the
anthropic principle and has been of particular interest to
particle physicists, because
theories of everything do apparently generate large numbers of universes in which the physical constants vary widely. As yet, there is no evidence for the existence of a multiverse, but some versions of the theory do make predictions that some researchers studying
M-theory and gravity leaks hope to see some evidence of soon.
[32] Some multiverse theories are not
falsifiable, thus scientists may be reluctant to call any multiverse theory "scientific".
UNC-Chapel Hill professor
Laura Mersini-Houghton claims that the
WMAP cold spot may provide testable empirical evidence for a
parallel universe,
[33] although this claim was recently refuted as the WMAP cold spot was found to be nothing more than a statistical artifact.
[34] Variants on this approach include
Lee Smolin's notion of cosmological
natural selection, the
Ekpyrotic universe, and the Bubble universe theory.
Critics of the multiverse-related explanations argue that there is no independent evidence that other universes exist. Some criticize the inference from fine-tuning for life to a multiverse as fallacious,
[35] whereas others defend it against that challenge.
[36]
Top-down cosmology
Stephen Hawking, along with Thomas Hertog of
CERN, proposed that the Universe's initial conditions consisted of a
superposition of many possible initial conditions, only a small fraction of which contributed to the conditions we see today.
[37] According to their theory, it is inevitable that we find our Universe's "fine-tuned" physical constants, as the current Universe "selects" only those past histories that led to the present conditions. In this way, top-down cosmology provides an anthropic explanation for why we find ourselves in a universe that allows matter and life, without invoking the
ontic existence of the Multiverse."
The possible multiverse is not equivalent and there is no relationship to the anthropic principle. Richard Dawkins description of the anthropic principle justifies the multiverse from his perspective
