Unearthing the Evidence: Examining the Strong Nuclear Force Constant

[wolram]

i came across this site

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/6830/evidence.html

it gives a list, example...

strong nuclear force constant
if larger: no hydrogen; nuclei essential for life would be unstable.
if smaller: no elements other than hydrogen

what do you think?

 

[meteor]

A series of claims without any proof, those creationists are really a bad thing
Evidently, with other parameters, the universe would be different, but my bet is that life would arise equally

 

[Phobos]

Extracted from "The Creator and the Cosmos" by Hugh Ross Ph.D.

Hugh Ross is one of the easier to listen to Creationists given his better understanding of astronomy. However, he is still trying to force fit Bible literalism and science (mostly astronomy) together. His "Global Flood" was a universal changing of the laws of physics.

But to be fair, we should address the specific points in the link provided. First off, notice how each is "if larger...if smaller". Well, how much larger/smaller? The site says "More than two dozen parameters for the universe must have values falling within narrowly defined ranges for life of any kind to exist." They need to define how narrow.

If the universe is only 1 million years younger, then does that undo everything? No. Actually, that claim of theirs is bogus...the universe was younger...substantially (completely) younger in the past and yet we're still here. And it will be older, and hopefully we'll still be here.

oh wait, look at that claim again...
"More than two dozen parameters for the universe must have values falling within narrowly defined ranges for life of any kind to exist."

ANY kind of life? That's quite the claim since no one knows what other possible may exist in the universe. We're just beginning to search. As Bible literalists are want to do, they are focusing on OUR particular kind of life (modern humans).

I'd like to address each of those claims in the link provided (perhaps other members can help out here given my time contraints). But I'll mention that Carl Sagan had a chapter about this in his book Pale Blue Dot. "Narrowly defined" may not be that narrow...there are other possible configurations of the laws of physics that would still allow for enough time for our kind of life to form in an Earth-like environment.

 

[Phobos]

And then there's the Anthropic Principle. They obviously hold the Strong form to be true in that the universe is as it is for the specific purpose of having humans in it. In the same Sagan book I mention above, he jokes that the universe is also balanced in such a way to allow rocks to exist, so perhaps we should call it a Lithic Principle.

The Weak Anthropic Principle adherents would point out that humans evolved to fit the universe, so of course it appears to fit well. I like Douglas Adams' tidbit on this...

by Douglas Adams
This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in—an interesting hole I find myself in—fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it’s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise.

 

[wolram]

hummmm, from my selfish point of view i only care about
the existence of humanity, I am not a fan of creationalists
but i can not find anything here that is untrue.
maybe there are two ways of looking at it, humans are idealy
adapted to the universe, or the universe is idealy adapted
to humans.

 

[meteor]

Andrei Linde proposed in 1983 the model of chaotic inflation. In it, there's a "mother" universe, and multitude of bubble universes inflating from the mother universe, each of these bubble universes with different parameters. In this model, we inhabit the bubble universe that has conditions for life

 

[Nereid]

Deeply profound or a boring quasi-tautology?

There's not much doubt that things are finely tuned, or tightly constrained. As Phobos said, you can take your pick of flavour of the Anthropic Principle.

Seems to me the 'logic' could go either way:
- what an amazing coincidence! if the parameters were just the tiniest bit different we wouldn't be here!
- duh, the parameters have to be like that, otherwise we wouldn't be here to notice!

Since we don't have any other universes (yet) to observe, 'life' under other parameters remains just theory ... and the realm of scifi authors (that in 'Diaspora' is one of my favourites).