Refuting the ‘Muddle’ of the Puddle analogy…
Famous Sci-Fi Author Douglas Adams attempted to parody the fine-tuning argument for God.
This argues that the Universe is fine-tuned so life such as ours, could emerge here.
He gave the example of puddle that wrongly concludes the hole it is in, is formed for it, specifically for it to exist.
However it is caught by surprise when the sun comes out and the puddle starts drying up.
His point is that, we accidently emerged in this Universe, and we wrongly conclude that the Universe, or Earth were designed for our emergence.
This “puddle analogy” is often approvingly quoted by online Atheists. However, logically it is fallacious and utterly fails to undermine the case for fine tuning of the Universe. Here are a few reasons why:
Example: neutrons are just a tad heavier than protons. If it were the other way around, atoms couldn’t exist, because all the protons in the universe would have decayed into neutrons shortly after the big bang. No protons, then no atomic nucleuses and no atoms. No atoms, no chemistry, no life. Like Baby Bear’s porridge in the story of Goldilocks, the universe seems to be just right for life”
- False equivalence – any kind of hole could form a puddle However, all the endless factors that have to be in place for any kind of life to emerge in the Universe make a life-bearing Universe like ours, incredibly unlikely. Physicist Paul Davies explains how utterly unlikely our Universe is, unlike a puddle which is not in any sense rare or unexpected. “To see the problem, imagine playing God with the cosmos. Before you is a designer machine that lets you tinker with the basics of physics. Twiddle this knob and you make all electrons a bit lighter, twiddle that one and you make gravity a bit stronger, and so on. It happens that you need to set thirty something knobs to fully describe the world about us. The crucial point is that some of those metaphorical knobs must be tuned very precisely, or the universe would be sterile “.
- False analogy– Humans are sentient. They have consciousness. If you were a thinking puddle, you would be justified in assuming that your being where you are – and knowing that you exist- is no coincidence. Sentience, consciousness is utterly inexplicable on any materialist framework and it is this very awareness which is the biggest single reality we can all attest too. The puddle analogy is fallacious as puddles are not sentient.
- Non-sequitur. It does not follow ,that because we are not meant to survive forever in this Universe, that it was not created with us in mind. It is also wrong to assume that because the puddle disappeared the hole was not ‘meant’ for it. None of us and nothing survives in this Universe forever, but that doesn’t mean it is not made appropriate to our existence and needs until our time is up. For instance, imagine a school building was made for pupils originally. Later on it was bought by a private owner, and changed into offices for a business. Does this mean it was not initially designed for pupils to attend?
- Strawman: The puddle apparently expects to live in the hole forever. This is a strawman of the Theist position. When did any Theist believe they would never die? Or that humans would never go extinct? In fact Muslims expect the whole Universe to be destroyed at the end of time.
Which one is it then who will be surprised? The Theist when he dies (knowing life is temporary) or the Atheist finding out that life survives physical death? No human has ever thought they are due to live on earth forever, like this ‘puddle’.
Conclusion: The puddle analogy is best described as a muddle analogy full of logical fallacies.