Victor J. Stenger

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Victor J. Stenger (born January 29, 1935) is emeritus professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii and adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado. Stenger used to work in particle physics but is principally known as a critic and skeptic of Intelligent Design and other ideas of pseudoscience. He is also skeptical about fine-tuning of cosmological constants, disagreeing with scientists such as Martin Rees[1]. He has published a number of books intended for general audiences on the subjects of physics and cosmology and philosophy, religion, and pseudoscience (Has Science Found God?, The Comprehensible Cosmos, Timeless Reality, The Unconscious Quantum, Physics and Psychics, and Not by Design).

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[edit] Work and career

Stenger's early life was in Bayonne, New Jersey. In 1956, he received his Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Newark College of Engineering (now New Jersey Institute of Technology).

[edit] University career

Stenger moved to Los Angeles on a Hughes Aircraft Company fellowship, and in 1959 received a Master of Science degree in physics from UCLA. He completed his PhD in Physics in 1963. He then took a position on the faculty of the University of Hawaii, retiring to Colorado in 2000. His current position is emeritus professor of physics at the University of Hawaii and adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado. Stenger is a fellow of CSICOP and a research fellow of the Center for Inquiry. Stenger has also held visiting positions on the faculties of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, Oxford in England (twice), and has been a visiting researcher at Rutherford Laboratory[citation needed] in England, the National Nuclear Physics Laboratory in Frascati, Italy, and the University of Florence in Italy.

[edit] Research career

Stenger's research career has spanned the period of great progress in elementary particle physics that has ultimately led to the current standard model. He participated in experiments that helped establish the properties of strange particles, quarks, gluons, and neutrinos,[citation needed] and also helped pioneer the emerging fields of very high-energy gamma ray and neutrino astronomy. In his last project before retiring, Stenger collaborated on the Super-Kamiokande underground experiment in Japan that showed for the first time that the neutrino has mass[2].

[edit] Skeptic

Victor Stenger's publications are principally popular-level books and articles that interface between physics and cosmology and philosophy, religion, and pseudoscience. These include: Not By Design: The Origin of the Universe (1988); Physics and Psychics: The Search for a World Beyond the Senses (1990); The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology (1995); Timeless Reality: Symmetry, Simplicity, and Multiple Universes (2000); Has Science Found God? The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe (2003); and The Comprehensible Cosmos: Where Do the Laws of Physics Come from?. His most recent book, God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist, was published in 2007.

[edit] Skepticism of fine-tuning

Stenger is a vocal critic of the theory of a "Fine-tuned universe," which claims that life in the universe could only have occurred with finely-tuned universal physical constants. In his 1995 book The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology, he presented a computer program intended to refute the theory called MonkeyGod[3][4]. This program has four adjustable parameters,

  • a the fine structure constant e2/h/ c
  • as the strong interaction strength at low energy
  • me the mass of the electron
  • mp the mass of the proton

and through adjusting these the reader is able to compute the following quantities: the (Bohr) radius and binding energy of the hydrogen atom, the radius of a nucleon (proton or neutron) and its binding energy in a nucleus, the lifetime and mass of a typical star, and the radius, length of day, and length of year for a typical planet. It also computes the numbers N1 and N2 mentioned in the text of [5]. Stenger suggests that the results of the MonkeyGod program indicate that for quite a wide range of starting values there are a number of possible universes that may have the prerequisites needed for life. This work has not been peer-reviewed and its validity is controversial.

"One way to 'sensibly' explain the anthropic coincidences within the framework of existing knowledge of physics and cosmology is to view our universe as just one of a very large number of mini-universes in an infinite super-universe.1 Each mini-universe has a different set of constants and physical laws. Some might have life of different form than us, others might have no life at all or something even more complex that we cannot even imagine. Obviously we are in one of those universes with life."

Ray Kurzweil in his book The Singularity Is Near (page 499), calls Stenger a "detractor" of fine-tuning, and through Stenger's claims, cast doubts on the implications of fine-tuning.

James Hannam expresses doubt as to the validity of the model used by Stenger[6]. He states that the model "...assumes exactly the same laws of physics that we have but with different numbers...", "...only a tiny number of the effects that the constants he uses have and in particular he makes no effort to consider chemistry" and "...only uses four constants whereas even Martin Rees insists there are six. With more added, the number of possible universe will increase exponentially.".

Richard Carrier defends the underlying model of Monkeygod in a response to Hannam titled, Response to James Hannam's 'In Defense of the Fine Tuning Design Argument' (2001)[7].

However though the peer-reviewed publication of the MonkeyGod model is in Philo, a professional philosophy journal published by the Center for Inquiry where Stenger is a Fellow, this article has only been cited once, by Stenger himself[8] by contrast Martin Rees's Just Six Numbers which argues for anthropic fine-tuning is cited by 65 others including 4 papers which themselves are cited over 10 times[9].

[edit] Degrees

  • B.S., Electrical Engineering, Newark College of Engineering (now New Jersey Institute of Technology), 1956.
  • M.S., Physics, UCLA, 1958.
  • Ph. D., Physics, UCLA, 1963. Thesis: Low Energy K+d Scattering and the I = 0 KN Interaction (Harold K. Ticho, advisor)

[edit] Professional and community positions

  • President, Humanists Hawaii 1990-1994
  • Member of American Physical Society
  • Member of Editorial Board, Free Inquiry
  • Member of Society of Humanist Philosophers
  • Fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
  • President, Colorado Citizens for Science 2002-date

[edit] References

  1. ^ Martin Rees's book Just Six Numbers argues in favour of fine-tuning, as do scientists such as John Barrow, John Polkinghorne and Paul Davis
  2. ^ http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/~jgl/nuosc_story.html
  3. ^ http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Cosmo/MonkeyGod.pdf
  4. ^ http://spot.colorado.edu/~vstenger/Cosmo/anthro_philo.pdf
  5. ^ John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. Oxford: Oxford University Press (1986):
  6. ^ http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_hannam/fta.html
  7. ^ http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/finetuning.html
  8. ^ [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=%22natural+explanations+for+the+anthropic+coincidences%22&btnG=Search citations for Stengers article]
  9. ^ [1]

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Singly authored books

  • 1988 Not by Design: The Origin of the Universe, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0879754516
  • 1990 Physics and Psychics: The Search for a World Beyond the Senses, Prometheus Books, ISBN 087975575X.
  • 1995 The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology, Prometheus Books, ISBN 1573920223.
  • 2000 Timeless Reality: Symmetry, Simplicity, and Multiple Universes, Prometheus Books, ISBN 1573928593.
  • 2003 Has Science Found God? The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe, Prometheus Books, ISBN 1591020182.
  • 2006 The Comprehensible Cosmos: Where Do The Laws Of Physics Come From?, Prometheus Books, ISBN 1591024242.
  • 2007 God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist, Prometheus Books, ISBN 1591024811.

[edit] Singly authored articles in significant peer reviewed publications

  • "K-N Interactions in the I=0 State at Low Energies" with W.E. Slater et al., Phys. Rev. 134, B1111 (1964). Publication of PhD thesis work.
  • "The Production of Very High Energy Photons and Neutrinos from Cosmic Proton Sources," Astrophys. J. 284, 810 (1984).
  • "Photinos from Cosmic Sources,” Nature 317, 411 (1985).
  • "The Extraterrestrial Flux Sensitivity of Underground and Undersea Muon Detectors,” Il Nuovo Cimento 9C, 479 (1986).
  • "The Universe: the ultimate free lunch," European Journal of Physics 11 (1990) 236-243.
  • "Bioenergetic Fields." The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring/Summer 1999.
  • "Natural Explanations for the Anthropic Coincidences." Philo 3(2000): 50-67.

[edit] Future or planned publications

  • "The Anthropic Principle." Chapter in Science, Religion, and Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Controversy, edited by Arri Eisen and Gary Laderman (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2006). To be published.
  • "Physics, Cosmology, and the New Creationism." Chapter for Scientists Confront Creationism II to be published by W.W. Norton. 2007.
  • "Reality" and "Clock Time." Entries for The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd Edition. To be published by Macmillan Reference USA (Thomson Gale).
  • "Time, Arrow of," "Time, Asymmetry of," "Time, Operational Definition of,"Universe, Origin of," "Plank time," Time, Symmetry of," "Time, Units of." Entries for The Encyclopedia of Time to be published by Sage Publications.
  • "A Scenario for a Natural Origin of Our Universe," to be published in Philo (2007).

[edit] Other contributions

Since 1998 Stenger has written a regular column called, "Reality Check," in Skeptical Briefs. This is the quarterly newsletter of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICP).[10]

[edit] See also

The following are people who quote Stenger's work or may be of interest to readers.

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