Debunking 'Fine Tuning' Arguments for God

Description: Today we take a look at the Teleological Argument for the Existence of God, as based on the so-called "fine-tuning" of the physical constants of nature.

The only good thing I can say about this argument is that at least apologists don't have to lie quite so badly to make their case. Agenticity is a powerful psychological bias that affects us all.

Read the script here:

Musical Credit:

"Watchmaker" by Mike "Skitch" Schiciano.

Errata:

1) 8:20 - The area of a triangle is b*h/2. But I wrote down the Pythagorean theorem instead.

2) 8:40 - Surface area of a sphere is 4 pi R^2; not 4/3 pi R^2.

[BennyKleykens]

A blade of grass found in the desert does not make a desert fine-tuned for grass.

[gemmo]

a video, fine-tuned to destroy religious apologetics ;-)

[fedesetrtatio]

He debunked  his debunking claim.  It more like a childish ridicule, than a mature explanation.

[tristanmoore]

One of the best counter-apologetics arguments I've heard. I just got in a debate with people espousing the teleological argument as their ultimate proof of the Christian God over at Glenn Beck's conservative orgy, The Blaze, and I have to say, your video inspired me. Bravo sir

[adeusbandeiras]

I long for a video in which Christians and their points are taken seriously and not treated in a condescending way by Atheists as if they were just religious loonies. I guess is too much to ask.

[CosmicFaust]

The vast majority of Christian responses are basically just flat-out assertions, like "This video didn't debunk anything, lol!" You then challenge them to name a single significant point of contention, and they simply run away. I guess that means we win.

[johanusyolder]

Calling theist's biased and then showing your own obvious bias is what I call hypocrisy.

[uncleanunicorn]

I suppose it's like asking how it is that the Army Corp of Engineers was able to reroute the Mississippi river to exactly follow the borders of the State of Missouri, Amazing! Lol.

[mytuber]

LOL!! Wow, *terrible* attempt at refuting fine-tuning.

[dume]

We live in a place that can support life. A deity could make it so through magic we live in a place that shouldn't be able to support life. So the fact that we live in a place that does support life points more to the idea that it happened by chance not by a magic man in the sky. Ultimately the fine tuning argument is still just a god of the gaps argument. 

[SimenSebastian]

Wow, this is supposed to debunk the remarkable fine tuning of the universe? Stop kidding yourself..

[RecoveringfromReligionWNY]

I want to say f'king awesome to capture the level of satisfaction I received from watching this video, but that would be vulgar. Please accept my heartfelt gratitude for taking the time to make such a detailed, and entertaining video.

[AntiCitizenX]

I can't help but notice that virtually all of the negative comments from Christians are little more than dismissive insults. Not a single one of you people has made a shred of effort to point out even one specific flaw in the entire video.

[weaponizedpizza]

when people say it can't happen by chance because it's that unlikely, I ask them to write the numbers 1 to 100 in whatever order they like, then I tell them the chance of that happening is 1 in 9.33262154x10^157 AKA a very very big number, yet it happened anyway.

[deeduran]

"Fine tuning arguments" evoke rebuttal by the Anthropic Pinciple:
The only universe that we can ever possibly know about is one that's "tuned" to our existence being possible.
Maybe there are countless other universes with different physical constants, but we will never perceive them.

Re: "Can't prove a negative" - Not really the case. It's only a *universal* negative that cannot be proven.
Example: You can prove that there are no frogs in your coffee mug at the moment. Set up a video monitor, and you can prove that there are no frogs in any of your coffee mugs all year. But you cannot prove that there were never any frogs in any coffee mugs anywhere, at any time.

[andrewemerson]

Vera Kistiakowsky (MIT physicist): "The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine."

[thewordofgod]

I didn't hear any refutation of the argument, more like a rant against God, then the absurd assertion that life permitting planets like earth are probable due to billions of stars existing, which is nonsense, it's highly unlikely for anything like earth to exist elsewhere in the universe by chance, we also need things like the tilt of the earth to be as it is, the orbit of the moon to be as it is, the size of the sun, and if you got that you still need the right amount of water and life permitting gases in correct proportions etc. Now calculate how likely it is for chemicals to assemble themselves into living bacteria that turns into people is elsewhere in the universe. But I'm sure this video went over well with the atheist choir.

[GeneJenkins]

If this is supposed to be a "debunking" you've fallen short. In order to do this you'd need to provide the same level of mathematical demonstrations against the theory you are attempting to disprove. This is ridiculously over the top in disrespect which appears to be the most compelling motive behind this video. You've lost the debate on this one!

[cameronpot.]

none of your information is plausible. Fine tuning is placed under Necessity, chance, and design. There was nothing in the beginning of the mass universe to create the effect. Everything has a cause and effect. there was no cause for the universe to be made. except for the fact that there was a creator, so necessity cannot work at all. Chance is impossible, the idea that you have come up with is what is normally called a universe generator. The idea that there is something that frequently pumps out universes and hopefully get a life permitting one. The problem is that would create a single observer on the planet and most. The planet Earth has 6  billion observers, plus that generator would require a lot of extreme fine tuning to begin anywhere, because everything in the cosmological science is balanced on a razors edge. And do you really think we as humans got really really really really really lucky? The chances of that are so slim its next to impossible. There is no scientific evidence for luck at all. Anyone who ignores the fact of tuning has his head in the sand. So this would have to leave the idea of fine tuning to a design. Everywhere we look there is a design and with everything were there is a very special design is a creator.

[chriskahle]

Thank you...thank you! Thanksgiving equals family debate in my family. A family with evangelicals who made these very claims of fine tuning by God. I was looking for good videos and finally found this one. I know this took HOURS and HOURS to make. Just want to say thanks for an incredibly well thought out video. Love the graphics!