Answering the Lottery fallacy fallacy 1
The fine tuning argument is not driven by the improbability of just any universe coming into existence, like the probability of someone winning the lottery, which might be high. Instead the argument is driven by the specified probability of a life-permitting universe coming into existence. A useful illustration that’s sometimes used is that of a gigantic swimming pool, filled with hundreds of billions of white marbles (representing life-prohibiting universes or failed universes), but containing only one black marble (representing a successful and life permitting universe). While it is true that the probability of pulling out any particular marble is the same as that of pulling out any other particular marble and provided we are going to pull out a marble, then the probability of pulling out a marble is 1 (i.e. it is certain that it will happen), it is also true that the probability of pulling out a black marble is mind bogglingly lower than the probability of pulling out a white marble.
1. http://rightreason.org/2010/the-lottery-fallacy-fallacy/
The fine tuning argument is not driven by the improbability of just any universe coming into existence, like the probability of someone winning the lottery, which might be high. Instead the argument is driven by the specified probability of a life-permitting universe coming into existence. A useful illustration that’s sometimes used is that of a gigantic swimming pool, filled with hundreds of billions of white marbles (representing life-prohibiting universes or failed universes), but containing only one black marble (representing a successful and life permitting universe). While it is true that the probability of pulling out any particular marble is the same as that of pulling out any other particular marble and provided we are going to pull out a marble, then the probability of pulling out a marble is 1 (i.e. it is certain that it will happen), it is also true that the probability of pulling out a black marble is mind bogglingly lower than the probability of pulling out a white marble.
1. http://rightreason.org/2010/the-lottery-fallacy-fallacy/