Writer Eric Metaxas presents a brief but cogent version of the fine-tuning argument for the existence of God in a Prager University video. In the video Metaxas discusses how the number of astrophysical parameters that must be met by any planet in order for that planet to be suitable for sustaining life is so high as to make it quite possible that, despite the optimism often expressed in the popular science media, it's quite possible that there are no other planets in our galaxy capable of supporting living things.
He also argues that the exquisitely fine-tuned parameters, constants and forces which comprise the fabric of the universe and which make our universe capable of sustaining life also make it astronomically improbable that a universe like ours would exist solely by chance.
Here's the video:
Actually, the video doesn't even begin to capture the unimaginable precision with which these parameters are set.
If the initial explosion of the big bang had differed in strength by as little as one part in 10^60, the universe would have either quickly collapsed back on itself, or expanded too rapidly for stars to form. In either case, life would be impossible.
An accuracy of one part in 10^60 can be compared to firing a bullet at a one-inch target on the other side of the observable universe, twenty billion light years away, and hitting the target.
Calculations have shown that if gravity had been stronger or weaker by just one part in 10^40, then life-sustaining stars like the sun could not exist. Life would thus be all but impossible.
To give an idea of the magnitude of this improbability I'll borrow an illustration given by astronomer Hugh Ross in talking about a parameter that's fine-tuned to one part in 10^37. This is such an incredibly sensitive precision, Ross says, that it's hard to visualize.
Here's an analogy: Cover the entire North American continent in dimes all the way up to the moon, a height of about 239,000 miles (In comparison, the money to pay for the U.S. federal government debt would cover one square mile less than two feet deep with dimes.). Next, pile dimes from here to the moon on a billion other continents the same size as North America. Paint one dime red and mix it into the billions of piles of dimes. Blindfold a friend and ask him to pick out one dime. The odds that he will pick the red dime are one in 10^37.
Other parameters are set with an exactitude even more breath-taking. Dark energy, for example, is fine-tuned to one part in 10^120, and the initial distribution of mass/energy at the birth of the universe could not have deviated from its actual value by more than one part in 10^10^123.
And these examples make up only a fraction of the examples that scientists have discovered over the last couple of decades.
So how does one escape the conclusion that this universe had to have been intentionally engineered? We'll discuss it tomorrow.