Designer universe
Copernicus was responsible for a revolution in scientific thinking.
By overturning the idea that the earth was fixed at the centre of the universe he began a process of demoting the earth’s significance that has resulted in the widespread view that the earth is a fairly typical planet orbiting a fairly typical sun which is positioned in one of the spiral arms of a fairly typical galaxy which, the multiverse theorists will add, is in a fairly typical universe. This cutting of earth down to size is sometimes known as the Copernican Principle.
However, several avenues of research and thought combine to call this principle into serious question. For the remarkable picture that is gradually emerging from modern physics and cosmology is one of a universe whose fundamental forces are amazingly, intricately, and delicately balanced or ‘fine-tuned’ in order for the universe to be able to sustain life. Recent research has shown that many of the fundamental constants of nature, from the energy levels in the carbon atom to the rate at which the universe is expanding, have just the right values for life to exist. Change any of them just a little, and the universe would become hostile to life and incapable of supporting it. The constants are precision-tuned, and it is this fine-tuning that many scientists (and others) think demands an explanation.
