Templeton's Fine-Tuning Review Omits Some of the Biggest Examples

On the web site of the "rich as Croesus" Templeton Foundation, we see a page inviting us to learn more about the weighty topics below:

• Complexity 
• Extended Evolutionary Synthesis  
• Fine-Tuning 
• Forgiveness  
• Free Will  
• Future-Mindedness  
• Hope & Optimism  
• Intellectual Humility  
• Origins of Life 
• Positive Neuroscience  
• Research on Emergence  
• Science of Wellbeing  
• Self-Control  
• The Origins of the Universe  
• The Psychology of Purpose  
• The Science of Awe  
• The Science of Generosity  
• The Science of Gratitude  
• The Science of Immortality  
• Time

I have already published a rather long critique of a document that you can see a link to if you click on the "Extended Evolutionary Synthesis" link. Now let me take a look at the main document you get a link to when you click on the "Fine Tuning" link above. The link takes you to a page that briefly discusses "how the existence of life in the universe similarly relies on improbable cosmic conditions, with physical variables seemingly aligning perfectly to enable the evolution of intelligent beings." The page mainly serves as a brief introduction to an in-depth 52-page document entitled simply "Fine Tuning," which you can read here. Billed as a "full research review," the paper is authored by a science journalist who seems to have previously written very little or nothing on this very complex and specialized topic. The document speaks as if it will be reviewing all of the discovered cases in which the universe seems improbably fine-tuned to allow the existence of creatures such as us. But some of the most dramatic cases are not mentioned. 

The first very big example of cosmic fine-tuning not discussed involves the fine tuning of the Higgs field or Higgs boson. In a TED talk particle physicist Harry Cliff describes the situation like this:

"But there is something deeply mysterious about the Higgs field. Relativity and quantum mechanics tell us that it has two natural settings, a bit like a light switch. It should either be off, so that it has a zero value everywhere in space, or it should be on so it has an absolutely enormous value. In both of these scenarios, atoms could not exist, and therefore all the other interesting stuff that we see around us in the universe would not exist. In reality, the Higgs field is just slightly on, not zero but 10,000 trillion times weaker than its fully on value, a bit like a light switch that's got stuck just before the off position. And this value is crucial. If it were a tiny bit different, then there would be no physical structure in the universe."

This is an extreme case of fine-tuning. Physicists were so bothered by this case of fine-tuning that they spent innumerable hours (plus countless tax dollars) working on a very ornate speculative theory called supersymmetry, designed mainly to explain away this particular case of fine-tuning. But the theory is really just one of those “rob Peter to pay Paul” affairs, as it requires the existence of a whole set of undiscovered particles, the existence of which would be just as big a case of fine-tuning as the fine-tuning that the theory tries to explain away. So far the Large Hadron Collider has failed to confirm the predictions of supersymmetry, leaving it in a state that one commentator has described as a deathbed state.

Scientists are puzzled by why the Higgs field has the strength it has, and they say that it seems to require fine-tuning to at least 15 decimal places. This is a problem called the hierarchy problem or the naturalness problem. It is discussed in this scientific paper entitled The Higgs: so simple yet so unnatural. As a Daily Galaxy article put it, “Using theory as it currently stands, the mass of the Higgs boson can only be explained as the result of a random fine-tuning of the physical constants of the universe at a level of accuracy of one in one quadrillion.”

An article states this about the fine tuning of the Higgs field/Higgs boson:

"One logical option is that nature has chosen the initial value of the Higgs boson mass to precisely offset these quantum fluctuations, to an accuracy of one in 10¹⁶. However, that possibility seems remote at best, because the initial value and the quantum fluctuation have nothing to do with each other. It would be akin to dropping a sharp pencil onto a table and having it land exactly upright, balanced on its point. In physics terms, the configuration of the pencil is unnatural or fine-tuned."

In an article in Symmetry magazine, we have a similar explanation:

"To understand what’s fishy about the observable Higgs mass being so low, first you must know that it is actually the sum of two inputs: the bare Higgs mass (which we don’t know) plus contributions from all the other Standard Model particles, contributions collectively known as 'quantum corrections.'  The second number in the equation is an enormous negative, coming in around minus 10¹⁸ GeV. Compared to that, the result of the equation, 125 GeV, is extremely small, close to zero. That means the first number, the bare Higgs mass, must be almost the opposite, to so nearly cancel it out. To some physicists, this is an unacceptably strange coincidence."

How big a coincidence? The Symmetry article later quotes physicist Lawrence Lee Jr. as saying “the conundrum with the Higgs mass, which would require fine-tuning on the order of 1-in-10³⁴,” which is a coincidence like the coincidence of you correctly guessing the full phone numbers of three consecutive strangers. 

What mention do we have of the hierarchy problem or the fine-tuning issue involving the Higgs mass/ Higgs field in the so-called "full research review" of fine-tuning offered by the Templeton Foundation? None at all. There are a few mentions of the Higgs field, but no mention of any fine-tuning issue regarding it. This is pretty inexcusable, because the hierarchy problem involving an apparent very precise fine-tuning of the Higgs field or Higgs mass has been one of the most widely discussed topics in theoretical physics for many years. Could our author's scholarship on this topic really have failed to bring this issue to her attention? Or was a decision made to make no mention of this example, just to avoid making the case for cosmic fine-tuning look too strong?

Another gigantic example of cosmic fine-tuning that is strangely ignored by the so-called "full research review" of fine tuning by the Templeton Foundation is the matter of the very precise equality of the absolute values of the proton charge and the electron charge. In our universe each proton has a mass 1836 times greater than the mass of each electron. But the electric charge of each proton is one particular value (+ 1.602176634  x 10^-19 Coulomb) that is the very precise opposite of the electric charge of each electron  (-1.602176634  x 10^-19 Coulomb). 

Gravitation is the weakest of the four fundamental forces of physics, being more than a trillion trillion trillion times weaker than electromagnetism. Accordingly, very, very slight changes in electromagnetism would result in forces overwhelming gravity, and preventing large bodies such as the Earth and the Sun from being held together by gravitation. On pages 64-65 of his book "The Symbiotic Universe," astronomer George Greenstein (a professor emeritus at Amherst College) said this about the equality of the proton and electron charges (which have precisely the same absolute value): 

"Relatively small things like stones, people, and the like would fly apart if the two charges differed by as little as one part in 100 billion. Large structures like the Earth and the Sun require for their existence a yet more perfect balance of one part in a billion billion." 

In fact, experiments do indicate that the charge of the proton and the electron match to eighteen decimal places. So here we have a case of cosmic fine-tuning in which the numbers are fine-tuned to eighteen decimal places, with our existence very much depending on such a case of fine-tuning. If such a fine-tuning existed to only sixteen decimal places, things like the Sun would not even hold together, because the electromagnetic repulsion of their particle charges would be greater than the gravitational attraction holding such bodies together. 

What mention do we have of this very impressive case of cosmic fine-tuning in the Templeton Foundation's so-called "full research review" of fine tuning? None at all. 

Things are a tiny bit better in the document's mentioning of dark energy. We have some mention of dark energy seeming to be fine-tuned. We read the following:

"But why should empty space have some intrinsic energy? The answer is that even in a vacuum, 'virtual' particles are constantly popping up, lasting for a fleeting moment, before disappearing again —known as 'quantum fluctuations.'...It is possible to calculate how much quantum energy should theoretically reside in a single cubic centimeter of empty space using particle-physics models; the answer is a mind-bogglingly large amount, 10⁹³ grams. Strangely, however, this value is way more than the dark-energy mass density that astronomers actually measure, which only adds up to a meagre 10^-28 grams—120 powers of ten less than theory had suggested. It is thus highly confusing that the measured value is so small. Physicists have calculated that if the dark-energy mass density had been only about ten times greater than its measured value today, galaxies, planets, and life wouldn’t have been able to form—which seems a shockingly small margin."

Although correctly giving us almost all of the relevant facts, this explanation almost completely fails to explain this fine-tuning of dark energy in any kind of way that a reader will understand or remember. A better way to explain it is like in the example below. Let us imagine you have a computer that is programmed to generate a random number between 1 and 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Now, if the random number is between 1 and 10, then the universe will allow your existence, but if the random number is greater than 10, the universe will not allow your existence. What is the likelihood of you existing under such conditions? Less than 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That is the kind of math that we are involved in with the fine-tuning of dark energy. Because theory predicts dark energy with a value 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times greater than the maximum that would allow us to exist, there would seem in this regard to be some fantastically improbable good luck involved, something more unlikely than you throwing a box of Alpha Bits on the ground, and them spelling out a meaningful correctly spelled paragraph. 

The Templeton Foundation's "full research review" of the topic of fine-tuning very much drops the ball in its discussion of the cosmological flatness problem. Cosmologists became aware of this problem in the late 1970's. They realized that the universe's expansion rate had to be fine-tuned to something like 50 decimal places near the time of the Big Bang in order to end up with a universe like ours. Another way to describe this fine-tuning is to describe two parameters (a "critical density" just sufficient to barely cause an expanding universe to begin to one day contract, and an "actual density" that is the average density of matter), and to point out that at the beginning these two apparently independent numbers had to be equal to 1 part in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000  to end up with a universe like the one we live in. The "full research review" attempts to quickly dispose of this "flatness problem" by evoking a little triumphal legend. We read this:

"This is referred to as the 'flatness problem'—another example that has been cited as evidence of fine tuning (Rees, 2000; Martin, 2020). The consensus resolution to the flatness problem is 'inflation theory,' which asserts that the infant universe went through a short period of rapid expansion. Inflation lasted for only a fraction of a second, flattening cosmic curvature in that moment."  

But it is extremely wrong to be suggesting here that scientists managed to get rid of this example of very precise cosmic fine-tuning in the early universe by creating some "inflation theory."  Cosmologists and physicists have invented hundreds of versions of such inflation theories, and they all require as much or more fine-tuning than the expansion rate fine-tuning that scientists were trying to get rid of. Quite a few parameters have to be very precisely fine-tuned in order for you to get any working theory of primordial cosmic inflation.  So there is no reduction in the cosmic fine-tuning. It is simply removing a gigantic amount of fine-tuning in one place (the universe's expansion rate) at the cost of adding a whole bunch more fine-tuning in various other places.  It's like someone paying off a $30,000 hospital debt by authorizing a $10,000 charge on his Master Card, another $10,000 charge on his Visa Card, and another $10,000 charge on his American Express Card.  No actual reduction in debt has occurred. Similarly, no actual reduction in cosmic fine-tuning requirements occur if we postulate an "inflation theory" imagining primordial exponential expansion. 

Judging from a 2016 cosmology paper,  the cosmic inflation theory requires not just one type of fine-tuning, but three types of fine-tuning. The paper says, “Provided one permits a reasonable amount of fine tuning (precisely three fine tunings are needed), one can get a flat enough effective potential in the Einstein frame to grant inflation whose predictions are consistent with observations.” Speaking about the cosmic inflation theory, Cal Tech physicist Sean Carroll says here, “When perturbations are taken into account, inflation only occurs in a negligibly small fraction of cosmological histories,” and then spells that out as a fraction less than 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. A 2019 paper states "the theory of inflation requires finely tuned initial conditions" and that it "is therefore far from clear that inflation truly solves the fine-tuning puzzles that it was designed for." Another paper (referring to fine-tuning required by the cosmic inflation theory) says, "The staggering amount of fine-tuning which is required disturbs many cosmologists." 

A 2022 scientific paper notes that "generic inflationary models make a prediction that has not yet been observed — the existence of a background of primordial gravitational waves," and notes the failure of many years of attempts to detect such primordial gravitational waves, despite ever-more-expensive and ever-more-sensitive equipment. Noting the complete failure of searches for the primordial B-modes, a scientist recently stated, "If, however, future measurements continue to find no gravitational-wave signal, it will likely imply that we must seriously reconsider our inflationary models or perhaps dismiss inflation altogether, which would be a significant paradigm shift."  A more candid version of that statement would say something like this: "All these observational failures are making it pretty clear that cosmologists have been wasting their time for forty years messing around with groundless theories of primordial cosmic inflation." Suggesting a floundering of cosmic inflation theoretics, a 2019 article states, "Models such as natural and quadratic inflation that were popular several years ago no longer seem tenable, says theorist Marc Kamionkowski of Johns Hopkins University." A 2018 paper quotes physicist Phillip Gibbs as saying, "The problem is that no particular model of inflation has been shown to work yet," and states this:

"Inflationary theories require that there be a mysterious pre-gravity energy field (called the 'inflaton')...The Big Bang theory is derived from general relativity, which is entirely a gravity theory. To require that a gravity theory incorporates a pre-gravity phase within its cosmology, however brief in duration, sounds very much like nonsense. Moreover, cosmic inflation is an ad hoc theory '… contrived with the goal of arranging for the density perturbations to come out right' [Guth (1997), page 238]. Cosmic inflation, in its many different ad hoc forms, appears to be a deeply flawed theory, as nicely elaborated by one of its founders [Steinhardt (2011)].” 

In his paper "Does Inflation Solve the Hot Big Bang Model’s

Fine Tuning Problems?" C. D. McCoy states on page 21, "Insofar as the HBB [Hot Big Bang] model’s fine-tuning problems are probability problems, the likely verdict, for not only now but the foreseeable future, is that inflationary theory fails to solve them, even on the weakest reasonable standard of success."

Clearly the Templeton Foundation's "full research review" of the topic of fine-tuning has erred by telling us the simple legend that some unproven cosmic inflation theory got rid of fine-tuning required at the beginning of the universe.  The document should have told us that such an alleged "removal" was obtained at the price of introducing a wildly speculative poorly-performing theoretical regime that required about as much fine-tuning as the fine-tuning it was trying to get rid of. 

The Templeton Foundation's "full research review" of the topic of fine-tuning refers 40 times to cosmic fine-tuning denialist Fred C. Adams, often referring to a 2019 paper he wrote on the topic of cosmic fine-tuning. Unfortunately, that paper was guilty of quite a few errors, as I discuss at length in my 2019 post "Where Adams Goes Wrong on Cosmic Fine-Tuning." 

In the "Conclusion" section of the Templeton Foundation's "full research review" of the topic of fine-tuning, we are very greatly misinformed. We are told this:

"The parameter that can vary the least is the mass of the down quark. If this were too heavy or too light, it would prevent atomic nuclei from being stable. It is estimated to be able to vary only by a factor of 7, which some consider extremely constraining." 

No, the mass of the down quark is not anything close to "the parameter that can vary the least."  There are four parameters that require fine-tuning many trillions of times greater than any fine-tuning required by the down quark mass:

(1) The Higgs field/Higgs mass situation described above requires fine-tuning to better than 1 part in a quadrillion, or even greater fine tuning, for above I quoted a physicist saying it would "require fine-tuning on the order of 1-in-10³⁴,” which is a coincidence like the coincidence of you correctly guessing the full phone numbers of three consecutive strangers. 

(2) The fine-tuning of dark energy apparently involves fine-tuning something on the order of 1 part in 10 to the hundredth power.

(3) The fine-tuning of the absolute value of the proton charge and the electron charge requires fine-tuning on the order of 1 part in 10 to the twentieth power or thirtieth power, to allow stable planets and stars.

(4) The fine-tuning of the universe's initial expansion rate requires fine-tuning on the order of 1 part in 10 to the fiftieth power, regardless of whether there did or did not occur any "cosmic inflation" near the time of the Big Bang, because any successful "cosmic inflation" requires multiple types of fine-tuning with a collective unlikelihood on the order of 1 part in 10 to the fiftieth power.

All of these fine tuning requirements are very gigantically greater than any fine-tuning requirement involvement involving the down quark mass, very erroneously cited as the most stringent fine-tuning requirement by our Templeton Foundation's "full research review" of the topic of fine-tuning. Besides very incorrectly citing the down quark mass as "the parameter that can vary the least," as if it was the strongest example of cosmic fine-tuning, the Templeton Foundation's "full research review" of fine-tuning has suggested that the fine-tuning in quark masses is not very great, allowing variation by "a factor of 7," in other words 700%.  But at the end of their paper “Viability of Carbon-Based Life as a Function of the Light Quark Mass,” Epelbaum and others state that the “formation of carbon and oxygen in our Universe would survive a change” of about 2% in the quark mass or about 2% in the fine-structure constant, but that “beyond such relatively small changes, the anthropic principle appears necessary at this time to explain the observed reaction rate of the triple-alpha process.” This suggests very precise quark mass fine-tuning with disastrous results from a change of a mere 2%, fine-tuning far more stringent than something that can vary by 700%. Similarly, we read this in a scientific paper entitled "Stellar Production Rates of Carbon and Its Abundance in the Universe":

"We conclude that a change of more than 0.5 % in the strength of the strong interaction or more than 4 % change in the strength of the Coulomb force would destroy either nearly all C [carbon] or all O [oxygen] in every star. This implies that irrespective of stellar evolution the contribution of each star to the abundance of C or O in the ISM [interstellar medium] would be negligible. Therefore, for the above cases the creation of carbon-based life in our universe would be strongly disfavoured."

This is another fine-tuning requirement many times more stringent than the example incorrectly cited in the Templeton review as the best example of fine-tuning. 

The document ends up by stating, "If we decide to consider fine tuning to be a real conundrum, then, as discussed in Chapter 3, the most popular explanations are either to accept it as a lucky coincidence or to subscribe to an infinite multiverse."  Mention of a "lucky coincidence" is inappropriate, as cosmic fine-tuning involves many different "hit the distant bulls-eye" situations, not just one.  As for infinite multiverses, the moment you appeal to such an infinite multiverse as an act of desperation, you've confessed an overwhelming impression of purpose in the universe's arrangement. The utter futility and worthlessness of the multiverse as an explanation for cosmic fine-tuning is discussed here. Imagining some infinity of other universes does nothing to increase the probability of our universe being habitable, just as imagining an infinity of lottery gamblers does nothing whatsoever to increase your odds of winning a billion dollars in the Powerball lottery. And why should we be interested in "the most popular explanations" rather than the most plausible and simple explanation? 

An extremely great defect of the Templeton Foundation's "full research review" of the topic of fine-tuning is its complete failure to consider the topic of fine-tuning in biological organisms. Looking only in physics or cosmology for evidence of teleology in nature and ignoring equally abundant evidence (or even greater evidence) in biology is like being a doctor and only examining a patient above his neck, ignoring his chest, arms and legs.  

I suggest that the Templeton Foundation take maybe a few millionths of the billions that it has in its bank account, and pay for someone to redo its problematic so-called "full research review" of the very important topic of fine-tuning in nature. Writing on this extremely deep and complicated issue is best done by those who have been studying this weighty and extremely complex question for many years, which the young author of the Templeton Foundation's review shows no signs of having done.  Alas, the Templeton Foundation also fails us when we click on its link for the topic of Complexity. We get links to three so-called "full research reviews," none of which even gets halfway to first base in describing the vast levels of complexity in biological organisms, or the basic facts of physical complexity in human bodies. The readers of these lengthy reviews will learn very little about the stratospheric levels of complexity in the human body and other organisms. It's rather as if the Templeton Foundation was more interested in sweeping our physical complexity under the rug than describing it. An example of one of the obtuse statements in one of these reviews is this statement: "At the most basic level, we can understand what we are by examining our place in a taxonomic tree." No, looking at some speculative ancestry tree does not give any understanding at all about the vast physical complexity and hierarchical organization of our bodies, nor does it gives us any understanding of who we are in a mental sense (there being the most gigantic intellectual difference between humans and all other organisms).