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1,700 Physicists Voted on God vs. The Multiverse (Here's What Happened) — Transcript

by Stephen Meyer · 2,787 words · 421 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00The idea of finetuning is that there are
0:02a number of parameters uh that are that
0:06fall within very narrow ranges
0:09outside of which life and even stable
0:12galaxies and even basic chemistry would
0:16be impossible. and the um existence of
0:21those extremely finely tuned parameters
0:24and their importance for there being a
0:27life- friendly universe provides
0:28evidence of a finetuner
0:31>> and this is uh the idea in the the
0:34theistic argument is that we have a lot
0:37of ordinary experience uh our uniform
0:40and repeated experience which is the
0:42basis of all scientific uh reasoning
0:45shows that when we see finely ly tuned
0:47systems, invariably they are the product
0:50of a mind. Whether we're talking about a
0:51French recipe or an internal combustion
0:54engine or the way in which a piece of
0:56software runs a piece of hardware, that
0:59type of fine-tuning where there's a vast
1:01ensemble of possibilities, only very few
1:04of which will yield a propitious
1:06outcome. Those are systems which
1:09invariably are the products of mind. And
1:12so when we see that feature of a vast
1:14ensemble of possibilities only very few
1:17of which will yield a life- friendly
1:19universe it is a a natural conclusion
1:22based on our ordinary experience of
1:25cause and effect to infer that there was
1:27a designing intelligence. us for example
1:29Sir Fred Hy who was one of the first
1:32scientists to to discover some of the
1:35fundamental fine-tuning parameters those
1:37related to the the uh formation of
1:39carbon in the universe um said that a
1:42common sense interpretation of the data
1:45suggests that a super intellect has
1:47monkeyed with physics um and this
1:49>> and and blind chance is not something
1:51worth speaking of I mean you give us an
1:53example of one of these apart from
1:55>> Frank we've been talking in a
1:56cosmological context we have an
1:58expanding universe would I argue from a
2:00beginning um that expansion is
2:04fine-tuned and accepted value is about
2:05one part in 10 to the 90th power
2:07>> so if it differed from that value by one
2:10part in 10 to the 90 we
2:12>> get we'd either get a heat death or we
2:14get a big crunch
2:15>> okay something that's inhospitable to
2:17the possibility of life
2:18>> and another thing to say about the
2:19finetuning is there are different
2:20classes of finetuning evidence okay
2:22there's the finetuning of the strength
2:25of the fundamental forces measured by
2:28There are constants. I won't go I
2:30explain what the constants of physics
2:31are in the book but u uh so there's the
2:34finetuning of the laws and constants of
2:36physics but there's also the finetuning
2:38of the initial conditions of the
2:40universe the configuration of mass
2:41energy at the big bang going forward and
2:45both there are multiple parameters but
2:47there are at least two different
2:48categories or types of fine-tuning and
2:51some of the different models that have
2:52been proposed to um explain the
2:55fine-tuning uh will explain one class
2:58but not the other or the other and not
3:00the one. And so that's a another thing
3:02to keep in mind.
3:03>> Okay. And and so for you, this again is
3:05part of a you know an overall case for
3:09why God
3:10>> it's a sign of intelligence.
3:11>> It's a sign of intelligence.
3:12>> We we find when we find finely tuned
3:14systems we can look around the room find
3:15any number of them. Um we apply the same
3:18reasoning to
3:19>> we should apply the same reasoning and
3:20realize that this that there's mind
3:22behind it. And I have to say, Phil, this
3:25even among many of the atheist sort of
3:26thinkers I've spoken to, Richard
3:28Dawkins, um, Peter Milikin, others, they
3:31they've often said, actually, if there's
3:32one argument that has given me pause for
3:34thought, the fine tuning of the universe
3:35is pretty remarkable. Um, now do you in
3:38any way sort of question the fact of
3:41fine-tuning, even if you perhaps are
3:43going to go in a different direction in
3:44terms of explaining that that
3:46fine-tuning? Well, I think it's better
3:48for me to reveal not what I think, but
3:50what physicists think because I've done
3:52some surveys with physicists about what
3:54they think. So, how about we do that?
3:55>> Yeah, let's find out.
3:56>> Okay. So, I done two surveys. One was at
3:59a conference in Copenhagen organized by
4:01the Neils Institute had leading
4:03physicists there.
4:04>> Um and so that was um yeah very very
4:08high top names in the field um but a
4:11smaller sample size. I think we had
4:12about 80 replies. We've then teamed up
4:14with the American Physical Society and
4:16we've done what I think is the largest
4:18survey of physicists ever. I think it's
4:2017 about roughly 1,700 replies we've
4:23got. Um so why don't I reveal what the
4:26results are? I've come prepared. So this
4:29is what physicists actually think. So
4:31let's start um with the Copenhagen
4:34survey which we've actually published
4:35now. The other one has not been
4:36published yet but I hope by the time
4:38this goes out it will be. Okay. So we we
4:41now we gave them various options to
4:43explain the finetuning and we're going
4:45to go from the bottom up. Okay. And one
4:47thing to put this in perspective is just
4:49consider what how many scientists
4:52believe in God. Okay. Um so there have
4:55been a lot of surveys done in the US
4:56because that's where we have data. So
4:57that's why I'm going to quote. Um for
4:59the general population it's it varies
5:01survey to survey but it's something like
5:0370 to 85% believe in God. For scientists
5:06as a whole again it varies a bit. So
5:08something between 30 and 40%. So it's a
5:10big drop. And then when you go to what
5:12are called the eminent scientists, the
5:14top people in the field, they surveyed,
5:15let's say, members of the National
5:16Academy of Science, um they got I think
5:197% believed in God. So another big drop.
5:22Okay. So here here are the results from
5:24our Copenhagen survey. Um the the least
5:28popular uh option by the scientists was
5:32selected as the intelligent design
5:33option. It got 3% support. Now notice
5:36that's much much lower than even the
5:38numbers that believe in God from the the
5:40other survey, right? It's less than
5:42half. Um then so that got 3%. The next
5:45one was necessity. Um so this is the
5:48idea that the constants are just have to
5:51be what they are, right?
5:52>> So there's no point arguing about, you
5:54know, how improbable they are that
5:56there's some mathematical reason why
5:58they have to be what they are. You might
6:00not know what it is,
6:01>> but how many took that?
6:02>> So that got 9%.
6:04>> Okay. Uh the next was a Darwinian
6:07selection.
6:08>> Okay,
6:08>> so that got 10%. So the idea here is
6:10we've seen this problem before. If you
6:12throw genes together randomly, you're
6:14not going to get a functional organism.
6:16And most I think most scientists think
6:19that Darwin solved that problem. Now
6:21obviously Steven doesn't think so. So
6:22this one's not going to be popular with
6:23him. But um the idea is
6:26>> kind of Darwinian on a more sort of
6:28>> Yeah. The idea is that the universe can
6:29reproduce itself.
6:30>> I see.
6:31>> Okay. So one way that like for example
6:33Lee Simmon has come up with a particular
6:35mechanism but you could imagine other
6:36mechanisms but the idea in Simon's model
6:39is that the um a black hole could give
6:42birth to a new universe. So if
6:44singularities are replaced by bounces
6:46which seems to be implied by some mod
6:48taking us back to our previous
6:49conversation but but that that there's
6:50some explanation in the evolution of the
6:53universe uh states that that allow that
6:56we find ourselves in one that is
6:58>> yeah it select it selects for ones that
6:59can reproduce themselves. So selecting
7:01for more black holes, not for life. Life
7:02just becomes a sort of happy byproduct.
7:04>> Okay. So that's that's Darwin selection.
7:06So that got 10%. Okay. So number two, um
7:10I've I've admitted here no opinion and
7:12other.
7:13>> Okay. Um number two, do you want to
7:15guess what number two was?
7:17>> Multiverse.
7:18>> Yes.
7:18>> Okay.
7:18>> Multiverse was number two. Okay. So that
7:20got 24%.
7:22>> And just again if just for the sake of
7:24those who perhaps don't know what we're
7:25talking about in that regard, uh could
7:27you perhaps briefly explain the
7:28multiverse hypothesis?
7:29>> Yeah. So we actually it's anthropic
7:31selection in the multiverse. So
7:32multiverse is that it's like if imagine
7:35the lottery right super unlikely that
7:37someone wins the lottery unless lots of
7:40lottery tickets are sold. If lots of
7:41lottery tickets are sold quite likely
7:43that someone wins the lottery and then
7:45the anthropic selection comes in whereby
7:47so the idea is you could only observe
7:50the universe that has life emitting
7:52values. So you will there's a selection
7:54bias. It's not what's the most likely
7:56universe. Our universe could be
7:57incredibly unlikely. is what's the most
7:59likely universe to be observed because
8:00you have to observe the one that's life
8:02permitting. So, so that's why we call it
8:04anthropic selection in a multiverse.
8:06Right? So, that was the second most
8:08popular sort of way of of uh making
8:12sense of fine-tuning of the universe for
8:13life.
8:13>> Correct. Okay.
8:14>> Correct. Yeah.
8:14>> What was the number one then?
8:16>> Any guess?
8:17>> Uh I don't know. Go on.
8:19>> Okay. It's that there the constant
8:21nature are brute facts that need no
8:23further explanation. That there's
8:24nothing to be explained
8:25>> and that's different to them being
8:26necessary.
8:27>> Yeah. Yeah. No. So necessary is
8:28different to a brute fad. Okay.
8:29>> Um so necessary means they have to be
8:31what they are.
8:32>> So imagine like a coin flip, right? So
8:35you could take a coin flip and say,
8:37okay, it could land heads or tails. It
8:39landed heads. What's the grand
8:41metaphysical explanation for land? There
8:43isn't none. Just deal with it. It landed
8:44heads.
8:45>> No, who cares, right? It's heads. That's
8:48what it came out.
8:49>> And so it's just a brute fact. It's not
8:51that it had to come out heads. Whereas
8:53necessity means it has to come out
8:54heads, right? there's some reason why it
8:56had to come our heads. Right? So that
8:58that was our survey of of the experts.
9:01Interesting. Then when we did the
9:02American Physical Society, that's much
9:04broader. Much much broader. We had, you
9:06know, 1,700 replies and um so there the
9:10the results are pretty similar. Okay.
9:13They're not radically different. Um so
9:15intelligent design I expected to be I
9:17thought well look the population of
9:20elite scientists let's say 7% believing
9:22in God and the broader scientific
9:25community is maybe 35% believe in God.
9:26So I thought it would go up by five but
9:28it only went up by three. It was 9%
9:30belief in intelligent design. Okay. So
9:33it was number two from the bottom rather
9:35than number one from the n rather than
9:37at the bottom. Okay. U then necessity
9:40actually was the one that got the
9:41biggest boost. Now we actually rephrased
9:43it. I should I because when we spoke to
9:45the American Physical Society went oh
9:46necessity is a philosophical term so we
9:49rephrased it to there's a principle that
9:51sort of forbids finding
9:52>> yeah that the laws are producing the
9:55their own
9:55>> finding well it's that there's some
9:58reason why they there's some reason
10:00>> the contingent features of the laws
10:01whether it be their initial conditions
10:04>> well we don't say that it's it's more
10:05that there's a reason why they have to
10:07take on the values that they do from
10:08coming from physics okay right so that
10:10got 19% so that that got the
10:13difference between the the professionals
10:15and and the broader one. Then the
10:17Darwinian selection had 6% rather than
10:2010%. And Multiverse went down a little
10:24bit. Um 24% to 21% and yet again brute
10:28was up on top. Now here's one of
10:31important thing I want to take away from
10:33this. Okay? Because we're often told
10:36that you have to choose between an
10:37intelligent designer or a multiverse.
10:41Okay? And this is what physics is
10:43telling us. Okay. But if you actually
10:46ask physicists what they think, they
10:49think that neither of these two options
10:51is well if you add up those two in both
10:53surveys they came to less than a third.
10:56>> Less than a third back that option,
10:58right? And and and so actually
11:02physicists don't think you need to
11:03appeal to intelligent designer or a
11:05multiverse. Not not by a majority. I
11:07mean some do obviously, right? So, so
11:09this is important because the narrative
11:11that we're being told is that these are
11:13your two choices. And in fact, um, many
11:16physicists think that's not correct.
11:18>> I'd just be interested in your response
11:19to this interesting survey that was
11:21done.
11:22>> I I think um it's an argument from
11:26authority and it's an argument adopulum.
11:29Okay, we're going to take a vote, right?
11:31Nothing in what was said responded to
11:34the basic logic of the fine-tuning
11:35argument, which is that when we find
11:37fine-tuning as a feature of systems and
11:41we know how they arose, they invariably
11:43arose from the activity of an
11:45intelligent mind. So we could identify
11:49to see if the the consensus view of the
11:52scientists that there's nothing there to
11:54be explained whether they would apply
11:55that reasoning to any other fine-tuned
11:57system that we might see in say our
11:59terrestrial environment. If a section of
12:02software had to be very finely tuned to
12:04produce a certain programming output,
12:07would we say well the software is just a
12:10brute fact of the system or would we
12:13want instead to attribute it to a
12:15programmer? Similarly, uh if we saw that
12:19there were a whole lot of ways of
12:21arranging the parts of an internal
12:23combustion engine, but only very few of
12:27those configured just right will result
12:29in the engine working, would we want to
12:31say there's nothing there to explain? I
12:34I think if we're going to appeal to the
12:36consensus of a community, we also need
12:39to be aware of what the assumptions of
12:40the community are about how they are to
12:42practice their discipline. And this
12:44applies to both materialists and
12:46theistic uh scientists. And that is that
12:48there's been a long-standing convention
12:50in science from about the late 19th
12:52century soon after the Darwinian
12:54revolution that science must limit
12:58itself to materialistic explanations
13:00only. It has a fancy name. It's called
13:02the principle of methodological
13:04naturalism. I think it's very much at
13:06work in the proliferation of
13:08naturalistic pre- Big bang models, all
13:10the things we were talking about. But
13:12many scientists have been quite open and
13:14honest about the role of this convention
13:17in in affecting their own thinking about
13:21the God question. For example, Richard
13:23Lewenton uh the really famous Harvard
13:25evolutionary biologist was quoted
13:27several years ago as saying we take the
13:30side of science. He's talking about the
13:32the historic conflict between science
13:34and religion. And he said, "We take the
13:36side of science in spite of its many um
13:40counterintuitive constructs in sight in
13:43in spite of its unsubstantiated just so
13:46stories. Think the multiverse for
13:49example um because we have a prior
13:52commitment to materialism." And he said
13:54that commitment is absolute. We cannot
13:56allow a divine foot in the door. So you
13:59have something like the fine-tuning
14:01evidence which as I've argued in the
14:03previous session occurs repeatedly in
14:05attempts to model the universe without a
14:07beginning. So you've got this very
14:09fundamental feature of reality that
14:12recurs we recurringly encounter and
14:16rather than saying something needs to be
14:18explained or we
14:20we say nothing needs to be explained or
14:22we come up with a multiverse theory and
14:23yes intelligent design is at the bottom
14:25of the heap but it's at the bottom of
14:27the heap among a community of people who
14:29accept that it is their duty as
14:31scientists to limit themselves to
14:34strictly materialistic explanations
14:35only. So I don't think we can assess the
14:38rationality of the fine-tuning argument
14:41by an appeal to the consensus of a
14:43community.
14:43>> In a sense, I'm also hearing here that
14:45that good scientists don't always make
14:47good philosophers of science. There may
14:49be some extra that needs to be done.

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