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The original argument, formulated most famously by Archdeacon Paley back in 1803[1], says simply that the world around us--specifically, the apparent design features we observe in living organisms--have all the hallmarks of intelligent design, and that this design is best explained by attributing them to the work of a Designer, namely, we might go on to say, "God." Of course, the theistic conclusion of this argument has been made a lot less intuitively plausible since the development of a well-confirmed naturalistic alternative, namely the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection. But the trends of philosophical fashion are rarely so simple. Just as one set of scientific developments has been seen as undermining an argument for God's existence, another set of developments has opened up a rich new seam of possibilities. The design argument has shifted ground without abandoning its basic principle. This shift has given rise to a new variant of the design argument, which I will refer to as the fine-tuning argument. In this article, I will argue that the reasoning that underpins the fine-tuning argument is far more robust than it is usually given credit for. To do this, I intend to defend the argument against a few very common objections. I should probably clarify two points before I go any further. The first is that I've picked on one particular article--a post by Nathan Urban from the talk.origins archive--as a kind of 'spokesperson' for the objections I intend to criticise. Perhaps this is unfair, in which case I apologise to Nathan. But I ought to make clear that the objections I want to examine have been put forward by many different people, both philosophers and scientists, from across the whole spectrum of religious belief. And I've chosen that particular talk.origins post for three reasons: It goes through all the various objections in one short article. It's a well thought-out, articulate and readable exposition of the position. Most importantly, it's freely available on the internet[2], so readers can just surf over there and see what all the fuss is about. My second point is that I've nailed my colours to the mast rather obviously in the title of this paper. I don't believe in God. It follows, then, that although I think the fine-tuning argument is very strong, at the end of the day I don't think it points to the conclusion that God exists. My aim in this article is neither to defend a theistic conclusion to the fine-tuning argument, nor to demolish it. My aim is rather to demonstrate that many of the usual attempts at demolition are simply inadequate, but a theistic conclusion is nevertheless unjustified. The fine-tuning argument The empirical premises for 'fine-tuning' have been passed over from scientists investigating what the cosmologist Sir Martin Rees[3] calls the "deep forces that shape the universe." These forces boil down to six factors which were determined at the birth of the universe. Roughly speaking, they are: The strength of gravity. The strength of the force that binds atomic nuclei together. The amount of material in the universe. The strength of cosmic 'antigravity.' The amount of irregularity in the distribution of mass in the early stages of the universe The number of spatial dimensions. Other writers have come up with different summaries of these 'fine-tuned' factors. For instance, John Leslie, in his book Universes[4], lists many different factors, and Max Tegmark[5] pointed to the number of dimensions (three spatial, one temporal) as another factor that makes our universe uniquely conducive to the development of life. The precise, measured values of these factors make our universe what it is. If any one of them was even a tiny bit different--if, say, gravity was a tiny bit stronger, or if there was very slightly less material in the universe--the universe wouldn't be the way it is. This is what scientists mean when they say that the universe looks 'fine-tuned.' In fact, "these six numbers constitute a 'recipe' for a universe.
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