A Clockwork Universe: A Finely Calibrated Reality

As a Quality Manager having spent three decades helping to regulate, balance and run companies I realize how hard it is to keep things running smoothly, efficiently like clockwork. Things like complex or even simple systems need to be within certain ranges, weight, measurement and continuity to have them run optimally. This implies design and fine-tuning. It also assumes that there is active maintenance on said systems. This is not indicative of the tenets of atheism. It isn't commensurate or compatible with a deistic worldview. It is indicative of a creation with an intelligent designer who is actively interfacing with his design. 

Even the simplest system with few parts takes enormous amounts of energy and design foresight to maintain. When we start talking about the complexity of genetics, the periodic chart and a myriad of other possible interactions and permutations genetically or chemically, the probability of the universe the way we see it today exponentially drops near zero. In other words, it is statistically impossible. Below I list some of the things that occur in the universe that defy a reasonable explanation other than God.

Water is absolutely essential for life. Yet it is so rare in the cosmos as to be statistically nonexistent. In other words, just as, when doing an inventory of your house, you would not include pennies that accidentally fell between the cushions of the living room couch, so too water is so rare that it wouldn’t make the list in a cosmic inventory. Almost all spaces between stars are too cold for water, and stars are too hot. Only on planets orbiting at just the right distance from their suns is water possible. Its formation depends on the fine- tuning of all the constants in the rest of this list.

Carbon Resonance is required to make carbon, which is the all-essential molecule for life. This resonance is a level of energy required to complete an extremely complicated process of atomic fusion that produces carbon. If the resonance were a fraction of a percent lower or higher, the process wouldn’t work, and carbon would not be created. Life would then be impossible.

The carbon resonance in turn depends on the strong nuclear force, which holds protons and neutrons together in the nucleus. This too is extremely delicate, meaning it would not work to create the possibility for life if it were not at precisely the right value, neither slightly more nor slightly less. If it were just 10% weaker, the basic elements would never have formed. If it were only 4 percent stronger, stars would last for so short a time that life would never have had a chance to evolve.

Even the weak nuclear force seems to have been tuned to just the right level. After the first second following the Big Bang, cosmologists estimate that the ratio of protons to neutrons was six to one. This ratio was necessary for life. If it had been much weaker than it is, that ratio would never have been achieved, and life would not have been possible. A stronger force by a factor of ten would also have prevented life.

Gravity was essential for the development of the present universe and the life it supports. If it had been just a tiny bit stronger than it is, all the matter exploding out of the Big Bang would have been sucked back into a black hole, snuffing out any possibility of life. If it had been just a wee bit weaker, that initial matter created by the primal explosion would have dispersed so quickly that it never would have collected into stars, one of which eventually created an environment for life.

The ratio of the electromagnetic force to the force of gravity measures the relationship of the force that holds atoms together (by keeping electrons in orbit around the nucleus) to the force between atoms. If that ratio had been only slightly smaller, the universe would not have lasted long enough for creatures larger than insects.

The weights of the parts of the atom make an enormous difference. If the neutron were lighter than it is by a fraction of 1%, isolated protons would be able to decay into neutrons, which means they would not be available for the creation of critically important atoms. Life would be impossible.

The overall density of energy and matter in the universe, conventionally the gravitational attraction of the matter and energy would pull the universe back in upon itself. If it were slightly smaller, the universe would expand too fast, and the gravitational pull of the matter would not be strong enough for the formation of galaxies.

Concerning initial entropy, cosmologist Roger Penrose said that just after the Big Bang there was such a high degree of order that matter was spread out throughout its initial volume with an astounding evenness. There are many ways in which this could have been different, but only in this one way was there a possibility for eventual life to develop. This was a fine-tuning that raises all sorts of questions.

A very special planet is needed for life. As we saw in in a previous paragraph, the planet has to be just the right distance from a star to have a temperature that would permit liquid water. It seems to need a large moon to be able to stabilize its rotation and to need a larger protective planet further away to steer comets and asteroids in another direction. It also needs certain plate tectonics to provide both oceans and dry land. No one knows whether other planets in the universe have this combination of features that supports life. But ours has all the right characteristics.

We take air for granted. But the density of the air we breathe is 1027 times the average density' of matter in the universe. “Places in the Universe with a density at least as large as the air in a room are cosmically rare.” We are in this extremely rare location in an unthinkably vast cosmos.

The inference that needs to be taken from this information is that what we see in the universe is not that of random, pointless chance and mutation but rather a calibrated machine that runs like a clock but is vastly more complex.