> > Why not ? After all that would be a far better explanation. We see the life as it exists now BECAUSE the universe allowed it to evolve.
>
> Randy: I think this is where our disagreement is. I'm arguing a different set
> of facts. The entire hinge of the ID argument is that values outside
> narrow ranges for these physical constants PREVENT life from evolving
> because they prevent life from existing at all.
>
> Pim:And I have tried to show to you that 1) the range might not be that
narrow
To establish the point for which I am arguing the width of the range is
unimportant. However broad or narrow the range happens to be for any
particular form of life these forms of life cannot, by definition, exist
outside these values. That factor is what determines the boundaries for
the ranges.
Pim:2) we do not understand if life outside this range is possible,
But we do, that is the definition of the range in the ID argument. Let
me restate my earlier argument this way with an additional qualifier:
In a universe with no oxygen it is impossible for life that can only
breathe oxygen to begin and then develop an adaptation to the lack of
oxygen in the universe.
Pim:perhaps not in the form we are used to but since we might be the
product of the physical constants, that is not surprising. Your argument
hinges on the presumption that no life form at all is possible outside this narrow range.
>
> Now even if you are right, the fact that we are here could still be chance, anything outside the range and we would not have been here to
discuss it.
>
>
> Randy: What I'm saying is that it's impossible for life to adapt to conditions which prevent it from
> living because it would die before it could reproduce and leave adapted offspring. Here's another way to put it:
>
> Randy: In a universe with no oxygen it is impossible for oxygen-breathing life
> to begin and then develop an adaptation to the lack of oxygen.
>
> But that assumes that oxygen is the only gas which could be used for breathing.
>
>
> Pim:Other life forms which would have a better chance under different
> constants were not so lucky. The problem is this, is the adaptation of the `lifeforms to the physical constants what we are seeing right
now or is it the other way around that the universe was adapted for the life forms. For the former there are some good mechanisms but for
the latter ?
>
> Randy: Of course, it has to be the former. From the scientific perspective the physical constants are, by definition, constant and
therefore incapable of any adaptation or change.
>
> In this universe at least but science does recognize the possibility that a universe's constants might be fixed during its 'birth'.
>
Let me close with this-I agree that the ID argument must deal with
the possibilities of life forms besides carbon-based ones. But whatever
form of life we wish to discuss must be compatible with the physical
constants in the universe in which it forms. Life has no opportunity to
live where it, by definition, CANNOt live until it develops an adaption to
the factors that have already killed it.