Title Author Date

Recent Article Critical of Fine-tuning Argument for God's Existence Himma, Kenneth Jun 17, 2003

Proponents of fine-tuning arguments attempt to infer the existence of God
from the presumably improbable fact that the universe is able to support
life. Life would not be possible if any of approximately two-dozen
fundamental laws and properties of the universe had been even slightly
different; this, according to the argument, shows the existence of a
creator who deliberately created the universe for the purpose of
supporting life. In this essay, I consider the Confirmatory Version of
the argument, which relies on the following principle of confirmation
theory: if an observation O is more likely to occur under hypothesis H1
than under hypothesis H2, then O supports accepting H1 over H2. In "Prior Probabilities and Confirmation Theory: A Problem with the Fine-Tuning Argument"
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, vol. 51, no. 4 (June
2002), 175-194, I argue that the application of this principle under conditions similar to those
forming the context of the Confirmatory Version is vulnerable to
straightforward counterexamples and attempt to explain the proper
application conditions for this principle.

The article can be downloaded free of charge at:

http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/0020-7047/contents

If you think this would be of interest to your readers, please feel free
to
cite, discuss, criticize, or post a link to the document.

Best, Ken

Kenneth Einar Himma
Department of Philosophy and Information School
University of Washington
Box 353350
Seattle, WA 98195

Title Author Date

Recent Article Critical of Fine-tuning Argument for God's Existence TalkReason , Jun 17, 2003

Ken,

Thank you for pointing us to your stimulating article, which
may be of interest to some of our readers.

Talk Reason