Fine Tuning Argument - Essay Example

Moreover, there would only the low density hydrogen would be present which would be get dispersed over time. Consequently, fine tuning argues that such a universe would not have allowed the evolution of life. On the other hand, had the expansion speed been a bit lower, the universe would have collapsed immediately thereby no life could be sustained. In the light of this argument, a life sustaining universe is seen to have emerged because of the presence of just the right conditions (Van Inwagen, 1993).

Other parameters that seem to have been fined tuned include the magnitudes of forces, the proton to neutron mass differences and the evenness of early universe (Van Inwagen, 1993). Fine tuning argument advances a hypothesis that the universe resulted from purposeful design (Van Inwagen, 1993). Despite the fact that the designing agent must not have been God, fine tuning holds that God is a center of the fine tuning of different aspects. Peter van Inwagen is one of the proponents of the fine tuning and supports an argument by giving an analogy that if a machine has dials, these dials must be set in a particular way so that it runs in the desired way (Van Inwagen, 1993). . Van Inwagen gives an analogy where one is presented with a bundle of 1,048,576 straws of varying length and a decree has been issued that unless one pulls the shortest string you are instantly killed.

Fortunately one pulls a straw and finds that he is alive and having the shortest straw. According to Van Inwagen, the most reasonable explanation is that the person never drew the straw at random but rather the situation was rigged somehow by unknown benefactor concerned to the person gets the shortest straw. Although van Inwagen notes that there was a probability to pick another straw given that the probability in drawing any of the straws in the bundle, it is not reasonable to argue that something happened due to chance.

He argued that whatever is selected is usually the good option and can only be explained that a certain force rigged in the person’s favor. He further asserted that no better explanation existed for the other possibilities that were not picked (van Inwagen, 1993). This demonstrates that everything is fine tuned to behave in a specific way or to give certain desired results. The analogy used by van Inwagen has been criticized with most of the critics describing the rigging hypothesis as silly.

Cowan and Spiegel (2009) note that there various areas of weakness to the analogy of straw lottery and fine tuning. The level of one to accept the explanation that they choose the shortest straw due to the forces of unknown benefactor depends on a prior probability of existence of unknown benefactor who is the agent in rigging the lottery. Given that different belief system, low prior probability of the existence of unknown benefactor translates to the fact