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Anthropic Explanations in Cosmology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

John Leslie
John Leslie*
Affiliation:
University of Guelph
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Extract

Cosmologists often claim that our universe is “fine tuned” for life. A change by 1% in the strong nuclear force would have meant little carbon would exist, and carbon can seem biologically essential. Again, the riches of chemistry and biochemistry depend on the neutron’s being heavier than the proton by no more than 0.1%. The early cosmic expansion rate may have needed fine tuning to one part in l055 to prevent speedy recollapse and speedy disintegration. To prevent excess turbulence the “smoothness” perhaps needed fine tuning to one part in 10 raised to the power of 10123 (a number far greater than 101230). Etcetera (Leslie 1982, 1983a, 1985, 1986).

The list of such claims is very long. No doubt some of its items are mistakes. Others may be dictated by basic physics so that they are not fine-tunable.

Type
Part I. Physics
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1986 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1986 , 1986 , pp. 87 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1986

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