The Fallacies of Intelligent Design Theory
Stenger created a computer program, MonkeyGod, available on the Web for public use, in which he generated 100 "toy" universes by randomly varying the values of these three physical constants over a total range of ten orders of magnitude around their existing values. He was interested in seeing how many universes had lifetimes sufficient to allow for the stellar evolution and heavy element nucleosynthesis consistent with the formation of some kind of life. He found that over half the universes have stars that live long enough (a billion years or more) for some type of complexity to form. No miracle was needed to generate life in these cases.
The "fine-tuning" argument of ID advocates rests on the assumption that life is possible for only a very narrow, improbable range of physical parameters. This assumption was found by Stenger to be completely unjustified. No outside agent is conceptually required to explain the origin of the universe. Thus, a significant flaw of purposeful design is the unwarranted assumption that the only possible type of life is the particular form of carbon-based life we have here on earth. Life of some sort would likely have happened regardless of the form the universe took. Possibilities other than amino acid chemistry and DNA cannot be ruled out. Given the known laws of physics and chemistry, we can imagine life based on silicon or other elements chemically similar to carbon.
Extrapolating Back in Time
Since we live in this universe, we know it possesses qualities suitable for our existence. Humans evolved eyes sensitive to the region of the electromagnetic spectrum from red to violet because the atmosphere is transparent in that range. Yet ID advocates would have us think that the causal action was the opposite, that the atmosphere of earth was designed to be transparent from red to violet because human eyes would be sensitive in that range. By this logic, rabbits were designed with white tails so hunters could more readily spot them.
As physicists extrapolate the variable "maximum entropy" back in time, the results are quite interesting. At the Planck time (10-43 seconds after the Big Bang) the maximum entropy was equal to that of a black hole 10-33 centimeters in diameter. As no light or other information can escape a black hole, physicists infer that black holes are filled by total chaos, or maximum entropy. If there was a time when the universe had the entropy of a black hole, it had to be in a state of complete disorder at that time.
So we can conclude that there could not have been any grand design at the Planck time. Thus, if the universe was created, it was immediately placed in a state of complete and utter chaos without even the space, time, and forces needed to produce the ultimate order, which then could only be generated by chance. It was without order - without design. Any structure must have happened after the Planck time. There is a good deal of doubt that this is what most theists would regard as "creation." Of course, if a creator existed, any information inserted into the universe prior to the Planck time would have been lost.
In short, no miracle - no violation of any known principles of physics - was required to produce the universe. In fact, the data would suggest the opposite, with the parameters of the universe appearing to be exactly what would be expected if design were absent.
Astronomers have measured the masses of galaxies, their average separation, and their speeds of recession. When these numbers are used to calculate the total energy of the universe, the answer turns out to be zero, with the positive kinetic energy of motion or of mass exactly balanced by the negative potential energy of gravitational attraction. But how can matter appear from empty space, i.e., from a vacuum? A plausible answer is contained in the article on this website that discusses design and the big bang.
In the case of the universe, the very complexity and inherent defects of structures indicate a very real lack of intelligent design. What we observe is what would be expected to result from natural forces working with no particular purpose in mind. For example, the laws of gravity predicted the existence of black holes as a necessary consequence of gravity and mass. By contrast, a designer is not the necessary consequence of anything we observe. For black holes, a specific set of observations (particular forms of radiation emitted from certain densities of mass, a specific kind of gravitational lensing of background light, etc.) provided the observational evidence. We now have the same sort of proof of black holes as we do of the existence of gravitational and magnetic fields, which are just as invisible. There is no such analogy for examining the designer theory. ID does not predict any physical features of the universe that we can check. The few observations that it does predict - such as a loving, mighty hand in our lives and in the design of our environment - fail to be seen.
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The Case for Design Based on the Anthropic Coincidences: Pages 1, 2, 3, (4), 5
