Strengthen the strong nuclear force by a few per cent and hydrogen burns to helium right after the Big Bang, leaving a universe with no water. Several other constants sit in similarly narrow bands, the strangest being the cosmological constant: the observed value is smaller than the quantum estimate by something like a factor of 10¹²⁰. That is where the measurable part stops. Three competing responses — a multiverse of differing constants, anthropic selection, and a deeper theory that fixes the values — are so far indistinguishable by any experiment, and none of them requires the notion of design.
Strengthen the strong nuclear force by a few per cent and hydrogen burns to helium right after the Big Bang, leaving a universe with no water. Several other constants sit in similarly narrow bands, the strangest being the cosmological constant: the observed value is smaller than the quantum estimate by something like a factor of 10¹²⁰. That is where the measurable part stops. Three competing responses — a multiverse of differing constants, anthropic selection, and a deeper theory that fixes the values — are so far indistinguishable by any experiment, and none of them requires the notion of design.
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