Episode 47 – Responding to El Daheeh

Responding to El Daheeh

Peace be upon you. I am not a follower of El Daheeh's programme, but an episode that generated much discussion caught my attention. I watched it and understood his method. Therefore, my response is not to that episode alone, but to his approach in general.

Presenting El Daheeh's argument: "What Beautiful Coincidences"

The episode is titled "What Beautiful Coincidences." El Daheeh begins by saying that some events appear extremely, extremely unlikely, but when the assumptions are changed, their probability increases and may even become almost inevitable.

He gives the example of a coin. If its two sides are different and it is tossed, either side has a (50%) chance of appearing. But if one assumes that both sides are the same, then the designated image on the coin has a (100%) chance of appearing. Fine; and therefore, El Daheeh?

He says: look at the universe in which we live. Its physical constants are tuned with the greatest precision; if one of them differed, the universe would collapse, and there would be no planets, no life, nothing. This makes us think that the universe was made for us.

He says that it need not have been made for us; rather, a small change in probabilities explains this precise tuning of the universe's physical constants. What is that small change? Assume an infinite number of universes—what is called, in English, multiple universes, the "Multiverse"—each with different physical constants. By coincidence, our universe happened to have constants suitable for our life. Thus nobody intended to tune the universe in which we live; our universe came by coincidence. A small change in the assumptions—infinitely many universes—has produced a major change in the conclusion: the universe came by coincidence.

Examining El Daheeh's argument scientifically and rationally

Before giving a general description of this claim, let us examine it scientifically.

1. Where did matter come from?

If I said to you:

• Do you see this room? What is the probability that the number (5) appears (10) times at the same time?
• Appears where?
• On spinning wheels.
• What wheels?
• Lottery wheels, of course!
• There are no lottery wheels in the room!
• No, assume that there are lottery wheels.
• Assumed by whom?

Fine, and who turns the wheels?

• No, assume that there are (10) boys turning them.
• Sorry, let us return to your question without extra assumptions. The probability that the number (5) appears (10) times in an empty room like this is exactly (0%).

El Daheeh has begun by playing the game of assuming wheels and boys in an empty room. When you ask me, "What is the probability that a universe exists with precisely tuned physical constants suitable for life?" I say: first let us stop at the probability that a universe exists at all, before speaking of "constants" and "tuning."

Without a Creator, there is no universe to begin with: no wheels, no room, indeed no matter from which a universe could be made. It is empty talk to discuss probabilities when there is no matter over which probabilities can operate.

You may say: El Daheeh did not deny the Creator; he is discussing mathematics and probabilities. No; let us put our ideas in order. We cannot pass over the question of matter from which you claim your infinite universes were formed. You face one of two choices:

Either you must acknowledge a God merely to solve the problem of the existence of matter. Then you will say that this God creates matter only and leaves it to interact and assemble in an unintended random fashion, until one of its products happens to suit our life. That is a ridiculous contradiction. It imagines an endlessly creative God whose wisdom, power, and knowledge appear in the smallest particles of matter and in the arrangement of its components, yet who afterwards acts pointlessly and creates abundantly without a purpose. A single atom of that matter refutes this absurd picture.

Or you say: there is no God. Then where did matter come from?

• It brought itself into existence.
• Is that science or nonsense?
• No, it is scientific speech, and we shall call it the "theory of spontaneous emergence of matter."

First, friends, note that not everything bearing the word "theory" is respectable or weighty. I explained in detail in the episode "The Pancake Theory" and the episode "All Roads Lead to Myth" that the word "theory" is placed before laughable foolishness to give it prestige, though it is only a disgrace.

Second, remember Louis Pasteur and, before him, Francesco Redi in the seventeenth century, who established the falsity of the theory of "spontaneous generation of living beings from inanimate things"? Backward people in Europe used to think that flies arose by themselves from rubbish and mice from rotten meat. Louis and Redi before him showed the falsity of that backward theory: living creatures such as flies actually arise from microscopic living origins such as fly eggs.

Whoever says today that matter arises from nothing, that matter creates itself, is more backward than those medieval Europeans. He is saying not merely that living beings arise spontaneously from inanimate things, but that inanimate things arise spontaneously from nothing. In the example of the room and wheels, it is as if, when we asked where the wheels and boys were, he said: assume that they arise spontaneously; we will call that the "self-generating wheels" theory and the "self-generating boys" theory. Is this science or nonsense?

Let us ask ourselves: what forced them into this nonsense and these theories? What made the existence of matter a problem, precise physical constants a problem, the beginning of life on earth a problem, and the existence of perfectly made living beings a problem? What made all of it a problem was their rejection of the one correct, rational, innate, logical, scientific explanation: all of it must have a Creator.

When you exclude that sole explanation, everything collapses and existence itself becomes a problem. You then need delirium, irrationality, and pretence in order to solve these problems, and this nonsense is called theories. As we have explained in more than (25) episodes about the theory of "chance evolution," the priests of false science fixed the desired conclusion in advance—that living beings have no Creator—and then wandered every path, opposing reason and science in order to prove it.

"Self-emergence of matter," "infinite universes," "self-emergence of the living cell," and "chance evolution" are all atheistic fantasies meant to patch the gaps left by denying a Creator. What El Daheeh and people like him do is present these laughable fantasies one by one in separate episodes and try to persuade you of them. It is as though he says: leave aside the origin of matter and evolution; let us focus on fine-tuning, and persuade you separately that it contains no evidence for a Creator.

If you accept that, another episode will try to persuade you that the perfection of living creatures contains no evidence either. In the end, all evidence for the Creator's existence will collapse in your own mind through myths and foolishness called theories. This is the first point: before El Daheeh draws you into probability, ask him where the matter on which he keeps calculating probabilities came from. Notice how he skips this most important question and leads you into a maze of misleading talk, as we shall see.

2. The nature of infinite universes

Point (2): the infinite universes of which you speak, El Daheeh—other than the universe in which we live—are they tuned or untuned? Are they harmonious and governed by specific physical rules, or not? Again, the answer must be one of two things.

Either they are untuned—random universes with no planets or galaxies because matter cannot arrange itself, or perhaps with planets smashed into one another and destroyed. Consider this scenario: you are sitting at your desk, and piles of iron and wires are dropped onto it every second while you push them away. Suddenly an iPhone lands on the desk, with all the applications installed, charged and ready to use. Would you conclude that the device assembled itself, charged itself, and acquired its applications by coincidence?

Friends, whoever cannot believe that nonsense, how can he believe that this universe—far more complex than that device without comparison—comes by coincidence? And in this case we return to the first point: regardless, as long as matter is being dropped on you, even disordered matter, it must have a maker; how much more an expertly made phone. That is the first possibility, El Daheeh: the universes of which you speak are not tuned.

The second possibility is that they are tuned and harmonious, but with physical constants different from our universe, so life cannot exist there. If you saw a car fit for human use and billions upon billions of other harmonious vehicles whose parts are integrated but which are not fit for human use, would you conclude that this car and all the vehicles came by coincidence? Or that an all-knowing maker stands behind them? If there are infinite harmonious universes, that means an infinite number of proofs of a precise, wise, powerful, knowing God.

3. Physical constants and laws as an agent

Let us now take the third point. El Daheeh repeats the phrase "physical constants." Can there even be something called physical constants without a Creator? Even if we overlook that nothing cannot create matter, will nothing make matter move in regularity rather than confusion? One of the most foolish jokes of atheists is to make the order that points to an ordering God a substitute for God.

Imagine that every day you put one dinar on your desk: one dinar on the first day, one on the second, and so on. After (10) days, someone comes and says:

• No one put this money here.
• Why not? He says: I discovered how this money came: one dinar every day. Therefore the thing that brought it into existence is the law, "one dinar every day." Is this man a scholar or a fraud?

Laws, brothers, are merely attempts to describe phenomena that happen regularly; they are not agents. Light does not choose to travel at (300,000) kilometres per second, nor does a law of the speed of light make it travel at that speed. A "law" is a description; it is not an acting, willing, choosing being that knows what it does and does it regularly. When light travels at a constant speed, reason requires an agent who made it travel at that speed and with regularity.

When I strike a keyboard at (100) words per minute, I write a poem. Imagine someone looks at the poem and says that no one wrote it. How then did it come? He says: it was written by the law "(100) words per minute." This is the silliness practised by the physicist who denies God, Stephen Hawking, promoter of the multiverse myth that El Daheeh repeats. Hawking says in his book "The Grand Design": "Because there is a law of gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing."

The mere existence of a law, brothers, means that there is someone who made it a law and ordered things in this way. It is evidence of an originator, not a substitute for one. Law means that nothing in this universe proceeds pointlessly. Notice that, in addition to skipping where matter came from, El Daheeh makes you imagine that our universe could exist in a passing moment, its cosmic physical constants set, and that would be enough. Then this stability would continue automatically thanks to the law of gravity, the law of the speed of light, and so on, as though a law were an agent with powers.

4. Oversimplifying the complexity of the universe

The fourth point is that El Daheeh employs a laughable oversimplification when he compares the universe in all its immense complexity to a rise or fall in the stock market, profit and loss. Brothers, do you know what the order of the universe means? Take its simplest aspect: more than (90) natural elements have been discovered on earth. Neutrons and protons are arranged in nuclei of exact sizes, attracting electrons in orbits at the necessary distances. These elements interact through constant chemical laws to give compounds required for life; once more, these laws require an acting, ordering, perfecting agent.

Earth's gravity has the necessary measure, so that we neither float in the air nor have our feet glued to the ground. The earth turns at a precise speed so that night and day alternate for sleep and work. Its exact distance from the sun prevents us from burning or freezing. The evaporation point of water, air density, and the proportions of elements in the air all suit our life. Thousands of billions of planets and stars move at suitable speeds in specified orbits, with extreme precision.

Even if we pass over the question, "Where did matter come from?" and even if we pass over, "Who set the constants and who fixed them?", you still need to calculate for me, at the level of one atom such as hydrogen, the probability that the hydrogen nucleus has exactly its present size—not smaller or larger. What is the probability that the electron is at this distance from the nucleus, not smaller by one or two angstroms or part of an angstrom, and not greater by one or two parts, or one of a million to the endless possibilities available in three-dimensional orbits? Why these exact dimensions and proportional relationships, which prepared hydrogen for reactions and for its fitting place in the composition of materials for living beings? Go to carbon, nitrogen, and the remaining elements. This is while we speak only of the simplest units making up matter. A single atom has no meaningful probability of its particles arranging themselves randomly in this way.

Yet El Daheeh compares not one atom but the whole universe, with everything in it, to binary assumptions: losing and winning, the two sides of a coin. He comes to convince you that one may suppose a number—(1) over (10) to some power—and that as long as there is a number, there is a probability. Is that foolishness or science, friends?

5. Are multiple universes experimental science?

The fifth point: is the multiverse assumption experimental science? Are these automatic, coincidental infinite universes observed, sensed science, or are their effects observed? Can you answer us, multiverse proponents? Can you answer us? What are these universes made of? What type of atoms do they have? How many elements? What laws describe their order? Atoms require extremely precise physical constants to bind their neutrons, protons, and electrons; a slight change in the relationship of these particles gives us a nuclear explosion. Are these rules preserved in the other universes? How can they be? If they are not preserved, what alternative constants exist there? Why do these universes not collide with one another? How have they not destroyed our universe if they are infinite? Do universes not expand? If they expand, why do they not collide with one another and with ours? Or will you say there is an enormous empty space? Where did this empty space—the place—come from? Does your multiverse answer any of these questions?

So is it experimental, observed, sensed science, or are its effects observed? Or is it a foolish answer from someone cornered by the question: who brought the universe into existence, if not the Creator? The cornered person says "multiverse" and nothing more, as though we were discussing a few soap bubbles. Brothers, we do not deny the possibility that there may be many other universes; perhaps yes, perhaps no. What we deny is the assumption that they exist by coincidence in order to explain fine-tuning.

An objector may say: you too claim the existence of a God, although He is not observed by experimental science. I reply: we have not confined knowledge to experimental science as you do. Knowledge arises from reason, innate disposition, truthful report, the senses, and experiment. All of these produce science and also produce certainty about unseen realities, as we explained in detail in the episode "The Kidnapped Child." Reason requires the chain of causes to end in a first cause that does not depend on anything for its existence and to which the laws of matter do not apply. We therefore cannot require that it be observed by experimental science, or we enter an infinite regress with no beginning. This is rationally impossible, as we explained in "Why Must There Be a Creator?" Science observes the effects of this Creator and indicates His knowledge, power, and wisdom. If you deny observation of the effects, you deny science itself. The issue is not that believing in one Creator is easier than believing in infinite universes. It is not a matter of ease; it is reason versus unreason, science versus nonsense.

6. Using vague statistical terminology

The sixth point is that El Daheeh uses vague, fanciful talk about an undefined point, such as his talk of the Normal Distribution against the Cauchy distribution. He says that what happened to him once every (3.5) million times under a normal distribution will happen once in (16) under a Cauchy distribution. What exactly was happening, and what particular point are you talking about, El Daheeh?

Of course, as an Associate Professor, I deal continually with statistics and curves and publish about them in my scientific papers. I know that El Daheeh's words are disconnected snippets pasted together, merely using terms to impress. The point is that he tells you in the end: of course you do not understand anything; what matters is ... then he gives a general rule. To grant his words credibility, he speaks in a foreign language. This makes him appear educated and as though he reads science in its original sources; he mentions foreign scholars' names, so if Richard or John said it, it must be true. You do not understand, but the esteemed foreigner said it, so rent your mind to this foreigner, because you, dear Arab follower, are a beast who understands nothing, while Western foreigners are the ones who understand. A person defeated inwardly and ashamed of his religion and community finds every foreign word dazzling.

Friends, it is not this multiverse nonsense, nor the atheist theories whose only concern is denying the Creator, that took human beings into space or enabled beneficial procedures for human health. These atheist theories are entirely without value, as we explained, for example, in the episode "Is the Theory of Evolution Really Useful to Humanity?"

7. The fallacy of reasoning from human existence

The seventh point: to convince you that the universe came by coincidence, El Daheeh brings another argument. The universe could have been anything, but because we are in it, that puts constraints on the cosmic constants, not the reverse. Do you know what that means? You want to travel from Cairo to Istanbul, for example. Therefore, the parts of an aeroplane will come into existence from nothing and assemble, then carry you, fly without falling to earth or escaping the atmosphere into space, and land calmly on the proper runway at Istanbul airport without crashing. All this will occur by coincidence because you want to go to Istanbul, not the reverse—not because an aeroplane has to exist and all of this must occur deliberately for you to be able to go to Istanbul. "Because we are in it, that puts constraints on the cosmic constants, not the reverse."

Summary of "small changes in assumptions"

Brothers, let us now gather the matter together. El Daheeh tells you: if you assume the two sides of a coin are the same, then when you toss it the probability of the designated image is (100%). A small change in assumptions produces a large change in probabilities; therefore our universe may have come by coincidence through a small change in assumptions. What appears practically impossible can turn out to be something very expected.

Let us see the small change in assumptions:

1. Matter brought itself into existence from nothing.
2. Nothingness made protons, neutrons, electrons, and particles smaller than these from this matter.
3. Nothingness organised the relationships among these atomic particles.
4. Nothingness created the necessary number of kinds of atoms and made them interact under constant laws to produce the needed compounds.
5. Nothingness brought planets, stars, and galaxies out of these atoms and compounds.
6. Nothingness made every one of them orbit in its own course.
7. Nothingness created the physical constants necessary in the universe and on earth.
8. Nothingness fixed these constants and prevented them from changing.
9. We will make assumptions like these eight, or others, for an infinite number of universes about which we know nothing.
10. We will assume that nothingness kept our universe from colliding with these universes despite its expansion and movement amid this infinite number of universes.
11. We will assume that nothingness created the place in which all this occurs.
12. We will assume many other hypotheses so that nothingness produces life and its diversity.

Do you see? A small change in assumptions is supposed to lead to the conclusion that a universe precisely tuned came by coincidence. Do you see, friends, the problem when you follow people who are not trustworthy: they begin with amusement and foolishness and end by casting doubt on your religion. In any case, praise be to God that many young people responded to this claim with rejection and disapproval. In this episode I wanted to show how his words contradict reason and science, so that we know that true science cannot bring anything that conflicts with our religion. Praise be to God.

Conclusion and Quranic verses

After all this, friends, remember God’s words: “Indeed, Allah holds the heavens and the earth, lest they cease. And if they should cease, no one could hold them after Him. Indeed, He is Forbearing and Forgiving.” [Fatir 35:41] “The work of Allah, who perfected all things. Indeed, He is Acquainted with that which you do.” [An-Naml 27:88] And understand the meaning of God’s words: “Allah—there is no deity except Him, the Ever-Living, the Sustainer of all existence.” [Al-Baqarah 2:255] He sustains His creation, and nothing can do without Him for even the blink of an eye. Peace and God’s mercy be upon you.