Evidence Emerges That Laws of Physics Are Not Fine-Tuned For Life?

One of the more curious debates in science focuses on the laws of physics and why they seem fine-tuned for life.

The problem is that the laws of physics contain various constants that have very specific, mysterious values that nobody can explain. These constants are balanced in such a way that life has evolved at least once, in one small part of the Universe.

But why do the constants have these values? Various scientists have calculated that even the tiniest of changes to these constants would make life impossible. That raises the question of why they are so finely balanced

One explanation is that this is pure accident and that there is no deeper reason for the coincidence. Another idea is that there is some deeper law of nature, which we have yet to discover, that sets the constants as they are. Yet another is that the constants can take more or less any value in an infinite multitude of universes. In ours, they are just right, which is why we have been able to evolve to observe them.

None of these arguments is easy to prove or disprove, although that may change as other evidence accrues, says Don Page, a theoretical physicist at the University of Alberta in Canada.

But there is a fourth line of thought which Page says is easier to attack. This is the idea that the constants have been fine-tuned by some unseen omnipotent being who has set them up in a way that maximises the amount of life that form. So instead of directly creating life, God simply sets the conditions to maximise the chances of it forming.

Today, Page says this idea is potentially falsifiable and says we already have evidence that does the trick.