Here is an incomplete review of fine tuning in the Universe, but it is a good beginnning to understand what is meant. There are about 20 very important very large or very small parameters, and about 80 less important ones. This article covers a few:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128221.500-existence-why-is-the-universe-just-r...

More fine tuning. Another characteristic of water that makes it ideal for life to occur:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.900-waters-quantum-weirdness-makes-life-...


> You guys didn't have peer review? -The current peer review is rather recent. I had some papers taken by reputable journals simple by sending them in and the editor liked them. Three while I was in the army over a two year period, only one with a co-author. My boss in my fellowship, Hellerstein, was internationally known. We submitted a few without any fighting.I published one while a fellow at Baylor, post-army, easily accepted by the J. Physiology. Of course, I wrote nothing but good papers with interesting results.

The important lesson from the prof was this: science is advanced by studying the outliers, the abnormal cases. By studying abnormal universes (even if we can't visit them) they may uncover anomalies that could give us the information we need to resolve quantum and classical mechanics without needing to resort to more outlandish theories.
> 
> You have a point if what is obtained is valid information. To paraphrase you, so little time so many papers to publish to obtain tenure. What is more worthwhile a subject, the imaginary or the real? 
> -If our models are so fantastic, they aren't so imaginary...-> In many ways I am as skeptical as you are. I don't like perpetual tenure, and I think peer review is a disaster. I know, I'm an old fart, who thinks the olden days were better.-You guys didn't have peer review? -I think things would be prompted to change more frequently if Tenure was always tenuous. But traditional peer review is unravelling... the internet allows anyone to publish papers, bypassing review, and allowing technical experts who aren't on the review panels to have access. It's already been happening in Computer Science for some time, there are very few journals for Computer Science.

The important lesson from the prof was this: science is advanced by studying the outliers, the abnormal cases. By studying abnormal universes (even if we can't visit them) they may uncover anomalies that could give us the information we need to resolve quantum and classical mechanics without needing to resort to more outlandish theories.-You have a point if what is obtained is valid information. To paraphrase you, so little time so many papers to publish to obtain tenure. What is more worthwhile a subject, the imaginary or the real? -In many ways I am as skeptical as you are. I don't like perpetual tenure, and I think peer review is a disaster. I know, I'm an old fart, who thinks the olden days were better.


> Why this experiment is significant, is that they were able to create stable universes missing an entire force. Now, could life REALLY exist there? That's a much harder question. Radioactive elements are required for life here-->our geology is just one of many factors assisting us. But these universes created the known elements of life, so the potential is at least there.-In part that is my point. Even if there was a glimmer of hope that life might exist in a universe missing one of our forces, what does that prove? we still have lots to learn about this universe. How does working from the negative help?

"There are formulations of God (Deism, especially what I term "radical" deism.) that wouldn't be challenged by a natural explanation, though I don't see the need to resort to them."
> 
> I agree on both points. Theists need not worry so much about the natural world -and- while you can reasonably embrace both science and a deity, what do we need the deity for?
> 
> "I developed what I can only say is a powerful insight; knowing isn't something that can be contained in words"
> 
> Yep, you can say a lot of things but you can't convey in words what it is to realize a thing without words. I'm convinced it is possible to recognize what is significant, urgent or possible at any moment without the use of any language, internally or inter-personally. Dogs do this all the time as do many other creatures who cannot express what it is they recognize in language. Their kind of knowing is more immediate. We have this capacity too but we tend to let it atrophy by relying too much on language. Too often I suspect people don't know what they think until they sound it out in words. By then of course what they think is filtered, limited and twisted by the language itself into a weak facsimile of the wordless realization they don't even recognize having experienced. Language is a mixed blessing. 
> -Buddhism centers so much on breaking the reliance of language. That short snipped from Hesse I have in my sig is repeated by every Zen teacher I have read or met. Reality comprehended is NOT comprehended by words, it's comprehended... perhaps at the level of the soul, whatever value that word still has in today's society. -The two books I recommend for anyone who asks me about Buddhism are "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind," by Suzuki, and "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching" by Thich Nhat Hanh. The Suzuki book begins giving you meditation techniques, the same ones I've found useful for exploring my inner life. Hanh offers MANY other technical books on meditation. 
 -> You make me curious to go back and re-read some Nietzsche. On the topic of books I'd have to say Pirzig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance" and Alan Watts' "The Wisdom of Insecurity" probably gave me the most to think about. But I also got a lot from reading e.e. cummings' "Six Non-lectures", James Hillman's "Re-visioning Psychology", and Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle".-I consider myself quite fluent in Nietzsche. TSZ is his masterwork by his own admission. I don't get the impression at all that he was the angry atheist I learned about in my youth, and that he simply saw the great mystery for exactly what it was. -I haven't heard of Watts' book, from the reviews at Amazon it should have been on my reading list years ago. It sounds very much like EXACTLY what Buddhism teaches; security only exists in the here and now, attachment to possibilities creates unhappiness. Didn't know about Cummings either. I'll finish Jung and Campbell before I tread the road of Hillman. And Vonnegut... so many books, so little time!!!


> > Another way of putting it is this: If you accept that the big bang model agrees with observation, then you implicitly accept the precision of the mathematics that describe it. The models run in experiments like in what I showed use the exact same equations used to study the Big Bang, they just subtracted a force and observed what happened to the universes. If you label these simulations as "guesses" than you really throw the entire Big Bang mathematical model into question--NOT just this particular experiment. 
> > [EDITED] hopefully for more clarity...
> 
> Now very clear. you ARE a good teacher. But, if the laws were presented before the Big Bang only this universe exists, and that is all we can really know. I still can't accept dealing with a multiverse we cannot see or prove. See my entry in 'protocol' prevous.-And I agree, we can only confirm things we have access to in this universe. (Forgot to mention that.) When I worked with the plant biochemist back in '07, he brought in a mutant henbit. (lamium Amplexicaule) In the shade, chlorophyll seemed to fade from its leaves. The important lesson from the prof was this: science is advanced by studying the outliers, the abnormal cases. By studying abnormal universes (even if we can't visit them) they may uncover anomalies that could give us the information we need to resolve quantum and classical mechanics without needing to resort to more outlandish theories.


> > Another way of putting it is this: If you accept that the big bang model agrees with observation, then you implicitly accept the precision of the mathematics that describe it. The models run in experiments like in what I showed use the exact same equations used to study the Big Bang, they just subtracted a force and observed what happened to the universes. If you label these simulations as "guesses" than you really throw the entire Big Bang mathematical model into question--NOT just this particular experiment. 
> > [EDITED] hopefully for more clarity...
> 
> Now very clear. you ARE a good teacher. But, if the laws were presented before the Big Bang only this universe exists, and that is all we can really know. I still can't accept dealing with a multiverse we cannot see or prove. See my entry in 'protocol' prevous.-I think maybe you're getting hung up on my use of "universes." Each time you run one of these sims, it's a universe under experimental consideration. It has nothing to do with any multiuniverse theory, strings, etc. In fact I've said on multiple occasions that I don't like String Theory.-Why this experiment is significant, is that they were able to create stable universes missing an entire force. Now, could life REALLY exist there? That's a much harder question. Radioactive elements are required for life here-->our geology is just one of many factors assisting us. But these universes created the known elements of life, so the potential is at least there.


> Another way of putting it is this: If you accept that the big bang model agrees with observation, then you implicitly accept the precision of the mathematics that describe it. The models run in experiments like in what I showed use the exact same equations used to study the Big Bang, they just subtracted a force and observed what happened to the universes. If you label these simulations as "guesses" than you really throw the entire Big Bang mathematical model into question--NOT just this particular experiment. 
> [EDITED] hopefully for more clarity...-Now very clear. you ARE a good teacher. But, if the laws were presented before the Big Bang only this universe exists, and that is all we can really know. I still can't accept dealing with a multiverse we cannot see or prove. See my entry in 'protocol' prevous.


> > You're missing my point... by ignoring the other universes that could possibly exist (such as one without the electroweak force) you're engaging in identical folly as the physicists invoking the anthropic principle. One of these "failed" universes could hold a theoretical key... one that could unlock deeper secrets pertaining to our own universe--within our own model. 
> > 
> > It's the same flaw I've seen in abiogenesis research: Stop trying to recreate life "as it was" and just "get it done."
> 
> If you are inventing a supposition you are dealing with pie in the sky. I realize you are a math guy and a computer guy, but computer simulations are as good as the guesses of the folks who write the program. Science is an attempt to find true facts. Having been raised in hard sciences, the computer stuff makes me shake my head in disbelief. 
> -True, all programs are only as good as their programmers and their input data. But if your computer model (like the ones they use for this kind of research) accurately creates a universe that models ours to the degree of precision that we have--remember that WMAP verified what we predicted with computer models--than there should be no problem running experiments while tweaking those models to our heart's content. Establishing theoretical upper and lower bounds such was what was done in the link I posted is very important, because it allows us to build a range of possible theoretical universes, and more importantly, allows us a much more accurate picture of exactly how unique our universe is. -That reads badly... -Another way of putting it is this: If you accept that the big bang model agrees with observation, then you implicitly accept the precision of the mathematics that describe it. The models run in experiments like in what I showed use the exact same equations used to study the Big Bang, they just subtracted a force and observed what happened to the universes. If you label these simulations as "guesses" than you really throw the entire Big Bang mathematical model into question--NOT just this particular experiment. -You can't accept that the model fits reality, and then reject experiments based on tweaking the same model. Their scientific validity cannot be refuted. If there's a flaw here, it exists everywhere in the math, not just in isolated cases.-> As for abiogenesis, at least the folks find RNAzymes to support their theory, but that step is a thousands steps beyond the beginning, but what is the beginning? It is all guesswork, as are the fake universes.-See above.-[EDITED] hopefully for more clarity...


> You're missing my point... by ignoring the other universes that could possibly exist (such as one without the electroweak force) you're engaging in identical folly as the physicists invoking the anthropic principle. One of these "failed" universes could hold a theoretical key... one that could unlock deeper secrets pertaining to our own universe--within our own model. 
> 
> It's the same flaw I've seen in abiogenesis research: Stop trying to recreate life "as it was" and just "get it done."-If you are inventing a supposition you are dealing with pie in the sky. I realize you are a math guy and a computer guy, but computer simulations are as good as the guesses of the folks who write the program. Science is an attempt to find true facts. Having been raised in hard sciences, the computer stuff makes me shake my head in disbelief. -As for abiogenesis, at least the folks find RNAzymes to support their theory, but that step is a thousands steps beyond the beginning, but what is the beginning? It is all guesswork, as are the fake universes.


> > http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0604027
> > 
> > > > 
> > > > Or a different perspective: Insufficient data.
> 
> I view the computer model as human input of known facts in this universe. There is then supposition for an electroweak universe. That is all the paper is, supposition. Supposition is NEVER proof that such a universe can ever exist. String Theory is theory, not proof of anything. And how do we learn about life's origin here by supposing differences elsewhere that may be just fairy tales?-You're missing my point... by ignoring the other universes that could possibly exist (such as one without the electroweak force) you're engaging in identical folly as the physicists invoking the anthropic principle. One of these "failed" universes could hold a theoretical key... one that could unlock deeper secrets pertaining to our own universe--within our own model. -It's the same flaw I've seen in abiogenesis research: Stop trying to recreate life "as it was" and just "get it done."


> The Anthropic Principle, which I view as circular reasoning, really says what you have said, but slightly differently: we are here because we are here and it is all those conditions you stated and a whole bunch more, which we can identify, that show us all the pre-conditions that were met to allow us to be here. And we are smart enough to do all that science of identification. Are we talking about serendipity or purpose when we look at the fine-tuning of the universe and of the Earth, a tuning which allows life? -
Here is an incomplete review of fine tuning in the Universe, but it is a good beginnning to understand what is meant. There are about 20 very important very large or very small parameters, and about 80 less important ones. This article covers a few:-
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128221.500-existence-why-is-the-universe-just-right-for-us.html?page=1

[I'm still experimenting with ways of formatting quotes. Is there any standard protocol here?]-Set up 'quote message' and leave the quote you want and type in the your thoughts. Be sure to leave the '>' before line you are responding to, to make it italics. Delete what you wish.
> 
> David, you may be right to say my assumption requires lots of faith but I don't think that is quite on par with the level of faith required to opt for a deity.-I don't agree. I think they are equal.
> 
> It is also different because you MUST consider the possibility of a natural explanation. You must rule it out in order to turn to a deity. Even if I can't figure out exactly how the inorganic became the organic there is no logical necessity to considering the action of a deity. I frankly can't conceive of the circumstances that would make that a compelling hypothesis.-As folks here know I was agnostic after medical school. After 20 years of reading and studying cosmology, standard model, particle physics, and demolishing Darwin, I reached my own conclusion, universal intelligence, and wrote my book. It was published seven years ago, and I'm thinking about a revision based on scientific progress.

Sorry, what's a "YEC"?-A young earth creationist