He Tries to Revive Interest in the Already-Falsified Theory of Cosmological Natural Selection

Scientists have long been bothered by why the physical conditions, laws and fundamental constants of the universe seem to be so fine-tuned to allow the existence of planets such as ours and living beings such as us. On page 235 of his book Chaos and Harmony, a University of Virginia professor of astronomy (Trinh Xuan Thuan) stated this:

"The evolution of the cosmos is determined by initial conditions (such as the initial rate of expansion and the initial mass of matter), as well as by fifteen or so numbers called physical constants (such as the speed of the light and the mass of the electron). We have by now measured these physical constants with extremely high precision, but we have failed to come up with any theory explaining why they have their particular values. One of the most surprising discoveries of modern cosmology is the realization that the initial conditions and physical constants of the universe had to be adjusted with exquisite precision if they are to allow the emergence of conscious observers. This realization is referred to as the 'anthropic principle'...Change the initial conditions and physical constants ever so slightly, and the universe would be empty and sterile; we would not be around to discuss it. The precision of this fine-tuning is nothing short of stunning. The initial rate of expansion of the universe, to take just one example, had to have been tweaked to a precision comparable to that of an archer trying to land an arrow in a 1-square-centimeter target located on the fringes of the universe, 15 billion light years away!"

One excellent book is the rather poorly titled book “Modern Physics and Ancient Faith” by Stephen M. Barr, a physics professor at the University of Delaware (which doesn't at all brush away religious thinking as an ancient relic, despite the title). In that book there is an interesting discussion of “anthropic coincidences” that are necessary for our existence. One example given is that of a parameter called v. On pages 126-127 the book makes these interesting comments:

"The long technical name of the parameter v is 'the vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field.'....The value of v is a great puzzle to particle theorists; in fact, it is one of the central puzzles of physics. What is puzzling is that in reasonably simple theories v seems to want to come out to be, not 1, but a number like 10¹⁷, i.e, 100,000,000,000,000,000...As far as the possibility of life emerging in our universe is concerned, it would be a disaster for v to be 100,000,000,000,000,000. It would also be a disaster if it were 100,000,000,000,000, or if it were 100,000,000, or if it were 100,000, or if it were 100. Indeed, it would be a disaster if it were 10, or 5, or even 1.5. It would probably be a disaster if v were even slightly different from the value it happens to have in the real world."

So nature “hit the bullseye,” a very distant bullseye, it would seem. This is only one of many astonishing “coincidences” required for our existence. Barr lists seven other such cases, one of which is even more dramatic: the fine-tuning of the cosmological constant. As Barr puts it on page 130 of his book:

"In order for life to be possible, then, it appears that the cosmological constant, whether it is positive or negative, must be extremely close to zero – in fact, it must be zero to at least 120 decimal places. This is one of the most precise fine-tunings in all of physics."

It would be very hard to overestimate how thoroughly all major objects in our universe depend upon the fundamental constants being just right. It is not merely that the existence of extremely organized things such as mammals depends on a fine-tuning of fundamental constants. It is also that the existence of objects such as stars and planets depend on such a fine-tuning.  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. Because of the dependency of stars on a very delicate fine-tuning of fundamental constants, you can state it this way: a random universe would be both lifeless and lightless. 

In an attempt to explain such things, physicist Lee Smolin long ago  advanced a groundless theory he calls  cosmological natural selection, a theory it seems no other scientist endorsed.  It's a theory of a cyclical universe in which the laws of the universe change in each cycle. At the center of the theory is black holes. 

 In his book Time Reborn, Smolin describes the theory as follows:

"The basic hypothesis of cosmological natural selection is that universes reproduce by the creation of new universes inside black holes. Our universe is thus a descendant of another universe, born in one of its black holes, and every black hole in our universe is the seed of a new universe. This is a scenario within which we can apply the principles of natural selection."

Smolin claims to have a theory of how the physics of the universe could evolve through natural selection. But how on earth can we get anything like natural selection out of the idea of new universes being created by the formation of black holes? Smolin gave the following ridiculously strained reasoning: (1) he claimed that the physics that favors a habitable universe are similar to the physics that favor the production of black holes; (2) he claimed that a new universe produced by a black hole might have slightly different physics from its parent universe; (3) he claimed that random variations in physics that would tend to produce universes that produce more black holes would cause such universes to produce more offspring (more universes); (4) he claimed that as a result of this “increased reproduction rate” of some types of universes, we therefore would gradually see the evolution of physical laws and constants that tend to favor the appearance of life and also the production of black holes.

The speculations described above hinge upon the linchpin claim that a new universe can be produced from the collapse of a huge star to form a black hole. Some analysts let Smolin get away with making this claim, but there is no reason why that should be done. The idea that a new universe can be produced from the collapse of a black hole is a complete fantasy, with no basis in fact. We have no observations to support such a theory. Nor is there any physics or mathematics to support such a theory. There is no way to write an equation in which you put a new universe on the right side of an equal sign. 

The idea of universes being produced from black holes is a very silly one. A typical black hole arises from the collapse of a star with only about 20 solar masses. A universe like ours has a mass-energy of at least 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 solar masses. Claiming a new universe can arise from a black hole is like claiming a planet can arise from a grain of sand. Black holes don't create universes; they are instead something that arise when the biggest stars die. 

Also contrary to observations is Smolin's groundless speculation about a black hole collapse causing a local fluctuation in fundamental constants of a universe, a speculation essential to his theory.  Our universe has plenty of black holes. But we see no local fluctuations in the fundamental constants of the universe anywhere. 

Smolin claimed that one advantage of his theory of cosmological natural selection is that it makes a falsifiable prediction. In a 2004 paper (page 38) he lists one such prediction:

“There is at least one example of a falsifiable theory satisfying these conditions, which is cosmological natural selection. Among the properties ...that make the theory falsifiable is that the upper mass limit of neutron stars is less than 1.6 solar masses. This and other predictions of CNS have yet to be falsified, but they could easily be by observations in progress.”

But by now this prediction has proven to be incorrect. In September 2019 a science news story reported on observations of one of the most massive neutron stars ever found. We are told, “The researchers, members of the NANOGrav Physics Frontiers Center, discovered that a rapidly rotating millisecond pulsar, called J0740+6620, is the most massive neutron star ever measured, packing 2.17 times the mass of our Sun into a sphere only 30 kilometers across.” A 2021 story lists the mass of this neutron star as 2.14 solar masses. 

Later there was a science news headline of "Black Widow Pulsar Sets Mass Record." A Sky and Telescope story  tells us this: 

"The pulsar PSR J0952-0607, which is some 20,000 light-years away in the constellation Sextans, already holds the title of second-fastest-known rotator, spinning around its axis 707 times per second. Now, it has also shattered the record for most massive neutron star known, weighing in at 2.35 solar masses."

 A CNN story confirms; it states, "The PSR J0952-0607 star is 2.35 times the mass of the sun." 

So the theory of cosmological natural selection has been falsified. Its creator Smolin told us exactly what observations would falsify it; and just such observations occurred. The theory of cosmological natural selection has attracted very little attention from physicists, and a search for the term on the Cornell physics paper server produces only five matches, none published later than 2013. Smolin (the creator of the theory) rather seems to have lost interest in it. A search for his papers on that same server shows none in the past 13 years that advocate for the theory. Smolin has moved on to some other theory he calls "biocosmology," one I discuss in my post here. 

But recently there appeared an article trying to revive the dead horse that is the theory of cosmological natural selection. It's an article by Jeff Shainline, one entitled "The universe is fine-tuned for technology, not just life."

Shainline confesses this:

"There are problems with CNS [cosmological natural selection] as Smolin originally formulated the idea, since it states that parameters should be optimized to maximize production of black holes made by stars. Empirically testing the claim suggests that this is probably not the case. The parameters of the universe don’t appear especially finely tuned to maximize black-hole production via stars."

But then Shainline tries to offer an "epicycle" to patch up the already falsified theory. He refers us to the 2008 paper "POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS OF THE QUANTUM THEORY OF GRAVITY: An Introduction to the Meduso-Anthropic Principle" that you can read here. It's a paper that starts out like this: "If we assume that the constants of nature fluctuate near the singularity when a black hole forms (assuming, also, that physical black holes really do form singularities) then a process of evolution of universes becomes possible."  Such a statement should have been something like this:  "If we assume that the constants of nature fluctuate near the singularity when a black hole forms (assuming, also, that physical black holes really do form singularities) -- and if we also assume senselessly that a black hole destroying a star would create a new universe, and we also senselessly assume that such a new universe would have some fluctuations of the universe's fundamental  constants arising at just one spot in the old universe merely because some black hole had formed -- then a process of evolution

of universes becomes possible." 

The quotation below from the paper gives a passage that seems laughable:

"The conjecture which I believe modifies Professor Smolin’s conclusions is the following: 

SUCCESSFUL ADVANCED INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATIONS WILL EVENTUALLY CREATE BLACK HOLES. 

The synthesis of this with Smolin’s two conjectures is what I call the meduso-anthropic principle. Before exploring the implications, let us consider the plausibility of this conjecture. 

SUBCONJECTURE 1: SUCCESSFUL ADVANCED INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATIONS WILL EVENTUALLY WANT TO MAKE BLACK HOLES

 and 

SUBCONJECTURE 2: SUCCESSFUL INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATIONS WILL EVENTUALLY BE ABLE TO PRODUCE BLACK HOLES. 

It is fairly clear, at least, that the conjecture follows from the two subconjectures. (This paper is not on the mathematical level of rigor)."

No, it does not make sense at all to think that successful advanced industrial civilizations would want to make black holes. Black holes do not serve any purpose. And the creation of a black hole would be beyond the power of any civilization. It would require gathering up and concentrating twenty solar masses, which is the same amount of matter as in about 600,000 Earth-sized planets. That would be beyond the reach of any imaginable technology. 

The paper Shainline has referred us to is nonsense. But at least Shainline has got one thing right. His title is, "The universe is fine-tuned for technology, not just life." And that is correct. 

My diagram below illustrates the point. A barely habitable universe (allowing only the simplest of life, and only short-lived organisms) requires much less fine-tuning than a moderately habitable universe. And a luxury-permitting universe like the one we live in requires much more fine-tuning than a universe that is merely moderately habitable. 

Our universe is not just a universe that allows some type of life. It is a universe allowing the existence of high-tech technological civilizations, and creatures that have long lifetimes in stable environments. That type of universe (allowing the existence of elements such as gold, silver, iron,  copper and the "rare earth" elements used in computers) requires much more fine-tuning than a universe merely allowing the simplest life and organisms with short lifetimes. 

For an in-depth discussion of why luxury results such as we have in our universe defeat all multiverse explanations of our universe's habitability, read my post "Our Luxury Results Debunk the Multiverse As an Explanation." 

With a speculation such as Smolin's, you cannot simply start out by imagining a universe like ours with black holes, and then speculate that when such black holes are created, they produce other universes. To explain cosmic fine-tuning by appealing to black holes, you would have to first start out with some random universe that has no fine-tuning.  Then you might ask yourself: would such a random universe ever have black holes in the first place? The answer is: no, it would not. 

Just as living beings require a universe with incredibly high fine-tuning, black holes themselves require a universe with incredibly high fine-tuning. Study the infographic visual at the beginning of this post (discussing how black holes are formed), and also study Greenstein's quote about the fine-tuning needed for the existence of stars. Black holes only arise when stars much more massive than the sun finish burning up their nuclear fuel. But the existence of such stars requires very special physics fine-tuning fantastically unlikely to exist by chance.  As I once stated in another post, random universes are both lifeless and lightless. 

So what would happen if you started out with a random universe? There would be no stars brightly burning by thermonuclear fusion (which requires very precise fine-tuning), and no black holes arising when such stars entered the last stage of their lifetimes. So Smolin's phantasmagorical sequence of events could never get started. 

The reasoning above is based on assumptions of black holes forming as they form in our universe, from the collapse of super-massive stars. But there's another way to get black holes in random universes. If the  vacuum energy density can have random values in random universes, then you would have universes in which empty space would be far denser than steel, because of a cosmological constant gigantically many times larger than the convenient "almost nothing" cosmological constant we have. In such universes, black holes might be forming all the time, because of the collapse of super-dense concentrations of matter. The problem is that once you consider this way of forming black holes, then you destroy a crucial pillar of Smolin's theory of cosmological natural selection -- that universes producing black holes would be like universes compatible with life. 

Trying to recruit black holes to explain the universe's fine-tuning is like trying to recruit a rock to be your university's next physics professor. 

A theory of a physicist may be very much a "castle on a cloud"