Heh! I definitely wouldn't dust off the word "balderdash" for this, but I am very skeptical of arguments (for anything!) that build on our current understandings of the origin of life.
It seems like such a still-developing field, one in which any new discovery could rewrite everything we know. If this is true, then it feels like any sweeping conclusion is what our friends the Ents would call "hasty".
I know that some people claim the opposite of this — that the field has definitively proven that early life is nigh-impossible to arise by chance — but it's exactly that sort of claim that I'm imagining is too hasty.
Am I making a mistake here? I must emphasize that this is in no way my field, and my reasoning here is only by means of dimly-remembered historical analogies. But if anyone can tell me why I'm wrong without going into biochemistry details (which I'm not prepared to adjudicate), I'd be grateful.
There are lots of options for making the process easier. And as you say we could discover something new that would change everything. Nevertheless the stuff that looks like it might help seems like the kind of thing that gets you the first five miles of a million mile journal.
I don't think this is Barr's strongest argument. I personally made a note of it because I liked the infinities angle which shows up in many different places in the book when you start talking about things related to the observer effect and the weak anthropic principle.
I appreciated the quantity of Barr's arguments as much as their quantity.
The larger issue is that this feels like arguing against materialism by, well, using materialism. That seems to imply materialism is actually pretty important producing an inclination towards God of the Gap arguments that will always keep shrinking and diminishing God unintentionally as time goes by.
I also don't think it works very well. If the universe was designed for life, well, looking around it's pretty clear even if life is very common around most stars the universe is still mostly hostile to life. Even most of earth is pretty hostile to intelligent life absent a lot of effort and skill. If you want to invoke design, it's quite easy to imagine designs more friendly towards lots of life and lots of intelligent life. Most fantasy and science fiction takes this approach.
This then implies an imperfect designer or a designer with some other agenda. At that point many fine tuning advocates suddenly drop their pretensions of "I'm just tossing out an objective scientific hypothesis and following that path through here".
Personally the fine tuning argument hits me like a ton of bricks just taking a gander at Biochemistry.
> [...] this book, by rejecting materialism, leads naturally to an assumption of dualism.
The are other assumptions, for example materialism + God (at t = 0)
Heh! I definitely wouldn't dust off the word "balderdash" for this, but I am very skeptical of arguments (for anything!) that build on our current understandings of the origin of life.
It seems like such a still-developing field, one in which any new discovery could rewrite everything we know. If this is true, then it feels like any sweeping conclusion is what our friends the Ents would call "hasty".
I know that some people claim the opposite of this — that the field has definitively proven that early life is nigh-impossible to arise by chance — but it's exactly that sort of claim that I'm imagining is too hasty.
Am I making a mistake here? I must emphasize that this is in no way my field, and my reasoning here is only by means of dimly-remembered historical analogies. But if anyone can tell me why I'm wrong without going into biochemistry details (which I'm not prepared to adjudicate), I'd be grateful.
There are lots of options for making the process easier. And as you say we could discover something new that would change everything. Nevertheless the stuff that looks like it might help seems like the kind of thing that gets you the first five miles of a million mile journal.
I don't think this is Barr's strongest argument. I personally made a note of it because I liked the infinities angle which shows up in many different places in the book when you start talking about things related to the observer effect and the weak anthropic principle.
I appreciated the quantity of Barr's arguments as much as their quantity.
Every time I read one of your posts, I like you more.
1. Sean Carroll had a good podcast on 'fine tuning' and the argument is a bit weaker than it sounds when presented in the science popularizing press. I would summarize it as discomfort with numbers that are very tiny but not zero. (see https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/10/06/331-solo-fine-tuning-god-and-the-multiverse/)
2. The origin of life or abiogenesis question requires less a 'first life form' and more a self replicating molecule. (see https://youtu.be/XX7PdJIGiCw?si=5YfJot7hFL2YxDNx&t=175. esp around 5:40 mark)
The larger issue is that this feels like arguing against materialism by, well, using materialism. That seems to imply materialism is actually pretty important producing an inclination towards God of the Gap arguments that will always keep shrinking and diminishing God unintentionally as time goes by.
I also don't think it works very well. If the universe was designed for life, well, looking around it's pretty clear even if life is very common around most stars the universe is still mostly hostile to life. Even most of earth is pretty hostile to intelligent life absent a lot of effort and skill. If you want to invoke design, it's quite easy to imagine designs more friendly towards lots of life and lots of intelligent life. Most fantasy and science fiction takes this approach.
This then implies an imperfect designer or a designer with some other agenda. At that point many fine tuning advocates suddenly drop their pretensions of "I'm just tossing out an objective scientific hypothesis and following that path through here".