Re: Fine tuning the changing standards
- From: "Puppet_Sock" <puppet_sock@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 7 Apr 2006 15:46:54 -0700
Kermit wrote:
I often hear from Creationists that the universe could have been made
with any physical laws, and the universal constants could have had any
value. OK... they then insist that this particular universe is
exceedingly unlikely, and that this would be some some of proof that
there is a creator, and he doesn't like gays or liberals. This all
seems to be a bit of a leap, but I'm used to that.
Then many of the same Creationists will - on a different thread -
insist that the universal constants were very different just a few
thousand years ago. The speed of light was much slower, by a factor of
millions or more; radioactive decay was much higher, etc. All with
incredible consequences which they deny, but my question is this: If
the universe is "fine-tuned" for humans and is highly unlikely because
the *tiniest* little deviation would never have allowed life, then how
can these very same values be changed by several orders of magnitude
within historical times without unhealthy consequences?
Well, the creationists *ought* to answer: What else are miracles for?
As to the science view on changing parameters: To date, people
have looked for such changes. Short term measurements, say
anything based on stuff inside the solar system, have not shown
any changes in things like the speed of light, radioactive processes,
and such like. For example, there's the Oklo reactor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklo_reactor
which sure seems to indicate all the parameters involved in nuclear
processes were right where they are now some 1.8 billion years
in the past. There are some very interesting papers that have
been published based on measurements of isotope ratios in
Oklo that seem to very tightly bound possible changes to these
parameters.
Looking at astronomy observations, there seems to be some
hints that the speed of light may have changed. These are
somewhat controversial at the moment, and people are being
quite careful to examine them in detail before deciding.
And these measurements have caused people to reexamine
the Oklo data, and that is causing some, well, discussion
I guess is the polite term.
At present, we don't have any good theories on how the constants
of nature could have changed. The speed of light, for example,
is assumed constant in relativity and quantum mechanics.
So we don't have any good theories to predict how fast they
could change, nor how the changes would move around the
universe. So it's hard to know what to expect from such change.
If it were simply like dialing a new value of the speed of light,
this might cause a lot of remarkably bizzare things. For
example, you might radically change the output from the
sun, as the energy produced is done so through e=mc^2.
So, changing c by 1 percent could change the output of
the sun by about 2 percent. (Just naively, it's much more
complicated than that of course.) That would not be enough
to cook us, but would probably get noticed. If c were to
double, you'd have 4 times the output from the sun, and
that would be enough to cook us. Assuming the sun could
maintain it's physical shape and not blow itself apart.
There are other constants of nature, for example the
constants of radioactive decay. Were these to change
significantly, there are Uranium deposits that might
well go critical, or even explode. No evidence of this
is seen, Oklo being the only known natural reactor.
Were electromagnetic constants to change, such as
the strength of interaction of charges, then the character
of molecules changes pretty drastically. And living
things probably do very badly under such conditions.
Just as an example, if you replaced all the water in
your body with heavy water, you'd be dead. I misremember
the lethal dose of heavy water, though I seem to recall
it's a significant fraction of your body weight. Heavy
water reacts at different rates to regular water, so many
of the enzymes in our bodies don't work properly.
So if the reaction rates changed due to the constants
of nature changing it's unlikely that living things would
be able to keep living through it.
As to the question of fine tuning and life, consider that
this is one more evidence for evolution. Consider a
population in which some members are better adapted
to the existing conditions, and some less. One of the
more widely available "existing conditions" is the
set of constants of nature such as the speed of
light, the mass of an electron, of a proton, and so on.
The less well adapted are going to do poorly compared
to the more adapted, and so populations will naturally
tune on the constants of nature, provided they are
constant. So it's not surprising we depend on such
things as the rates of chemical reactions. Or that
water is wet. We've adapted to it.
Socks
.
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