Argumentum ad Cosmological

Just six numbers govern the shape, size, and texture of our universe. If their values were only fractionally different, we would not exist: in many cases matter itself had not enough time to form.

Astronomer Martin Rees points out that six numbers related to the basic physical constants determine how the universe was created!

The relative strengths of the gravitational and electromagnetic attractions would be a prime example! If these numbers were only slightly different, stars and galaxies would not form, complex chemistry would not be possible, and life could not exist. This raises the interesting philosophical question,

These numbers were arbitrarily set before the big bang. They could have been anything.

Cosmic development was and is highly sensitive to the values of these numbers and that if any one of them were 'untuned' there could be no stars and no life.

These six are:

1 The first is a ratio of the strength of the electrical forces that hold atoms together divided by the force of gravity between them. It is very large, and were it a few zeros shorter, only a short-lived miniature universe could exist and there would be no time for biological evolution.

2 The second number is also a ratio and is the proportion of energy that is released when hydrogen fuses into helium. This number is 0.007, and if it were 0.006 or 0.008 we could not exist.

3 The third number, also a ratio, relates the actual density of matter in the universe to a 'critical' density. This number appears to be about 0.4. If this ratio were too high the universe would have collapsed long ago: if too low, galaxies or stars would not have formed.

4 The fourth number, only recently discovered, is a cosmic 'antigravity' and appears to control the expansion of the universe, too fast, no stars or planets; too slow, gravity would pull it back together, no stars no planets.

5 The fifth number is the ratio of the energy required to break apart a galaxy compared to its 'rest mass energy' and is about 10-5. If this ratio were smaller the universe would be inert and structureless: if much larger the universe would be so violent that no stars or sun systems could survive.

6 The sixth number is the number of spatial dimensions in our world, that is 3. Life could not exist if it were 2 or 4.

Logic would say that the extreme fine-tuning of these numbers is evidence of a beneficent Creator, who formed the universe with the specific intention of creating living sentient systems--life as we know it!