The Universe is Precisely Ordered and Suited for Life

There is a property of the universe that requires an explanation.  Every aspect of the universe interlocks precisely with every other aspect.  It is like a mechanical watch of extremely fine design, tuning, and complexity.  However, calling the universe like a clock is like saying that the sun is like a candle.  The analogy works to some degree, but it fails when you start to think about the magnitude.  Not only does the universe interlock precisely, it also interlocks in a precise way to allow for life.  It is logically obligatory that the universe can support life, because we are here to observe it.  This is called the Weak Anthropic Principle.  However, it is valuable to note that if you perturb the fundamental nature of the universe slightly in any of a large number of ways, life could not exist.  Here are some examples:

  1. Gravity is roughly 1039 times weaker than electromagnetism.  If gravity had been 1033 times weaker than electromagnetism, stars would be a billion times less massive and would burn a million times faster.
  2. The nuclear weak force is 1028 times the strength of gravity.  Had the weak force been slightly weaker, all the hydrogen in the universe would have been turned to helium (making water impossible, for example).
  3. A stronger nuclear strong force (by as little as 2 percent) would have prevented the formation of protons--yielding a universe without atoms.  Decreasing it by 5 percent would have given us a universe without stars.
  4. If the difference in mass between a proton and a neutron were not exactly as it is -- roughly twice the mass of an electron-- then all neutrons would have become protons or vice versa.  Say good-bye to chemistry as we know it -- and to life.
  5. The very nature of water -- so vital to life -- is something of a mystery.  Unique among the molecules, water is lighter in its solid than liquid form: Ice floats.  If it did not, the oceans would freeze from the bottom up and earth would now be covered with solid ice.  This property in turn is traceable to unique properties of the hydrogen atom.
  6. The synthesis of carbon -- the vital core of all organic molecules -- on a significant scale involves what scientists view as an "astonishing" coincidence in the ratio of the strong force to electromagnetism.  This ration makes it possible for carbon-12 to reach an excited state of exactly 7.65 MeV at the temperature typical of the center of stars, which creates a resonance involving helium-4, beryllium-8, and carbon-12 -- allowing the necessary binding to take place during a tiny window of opportunity 10-17 seconds long.

These examples come from Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence, pp. 29-30.  He refers to more examples in John Leslie, Universes, but I have not looked at these other examples.  This is a variation of the argument of God's existence from design, which has been defended by many.  The most famous example is included in the five ways of St. Thomas Aquinas.

My arguments no longer depend upon this section.  However, I still find it interesting, so I have left it on the web.  It should be taken as additional evidence for the omniscience and omnipotence of God and make it difficult to believe that we are an accident.

This page was last changed on 2006/11/04