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Mind 2001 110(440):1027-1038; doi:10.1093/mind/110.440.1027
© 2001 by Mind Association
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Probabilities and the Fine-Tuning Argument: a Sceptical View

Timothy McGrew1, Lydia McGrew2 and Eric Vestrup3

1 Department of Philosophy, Western Michigan University, 320 Moore Hall, Kalamazoo, MI 49008, USA. mcgrew@wmich.edu 2 Kalamazoo, MI USA. mcgrew@wmich.edu 3 Department of Mathematics, DePaul University, 2320 N. Kenmore, Chicago, IL 60614, USA. evestrup@mediaone.net

Proponents of the Fine-Tuning Argument frequently assume that the narrowness of the life-friendly range of fundamental physical constants implies a low probability for the origin of the universe ‘by chance’. We cast this argument in a more rigorous form than is customary and conclude that the narrow intervals do not yield a probability at all because the resulting measure function is non-normalizable. We then consider various attempts to circumvent this problem and argue that they fail.


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