One of the mainstays of the Intelligent Design movement is the idea that if any of the laws of physics were not exactly as we find them in our universe, galaxies, stars, and indeed life-bearing planets, could not have come into being.

Not so.

Calculations find that many universes could sustain stars
Fred Adams sees stars in the most unlikely places.

His calculations suggest that, contrary to some previous claims, stars are not only common in our cosmos but are also ablaze in myriad other universes, where the laws of physics may be drastically different. Even in a cosmos where balls of gas and dust never collapse and ignite to make conventional stars, radiation produced by black holes and clumps of invisible material called dark matter may play the same role as stars, says Adams, a theorist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

By allowing all three of the parameters, rather than a single parameter, to vary, Adams created a simulation that may embrace a larger number of possible universes, he says. He finds that stars are stable entities in roughly one-fourth of the universes he considered. "That's a sizable amount of real estate."

Had Adams found that the range of parameters that allowed for stars was very small, that would have suggested that the laws of physics in our universe have been "fine-tuned" to allow for star formation, Aguirre notes. Instead, Adams' study shows that our universe doesn't seem particularly special in that regard.

"This open-minded approach can serve, in some cases, as a counter-argument to claims that our universe is fine-tuned for life."

Another argument for creation bites the (star) dust.

We call it petrol, you might call it gas, but whatever it is you'll know that the price has been going up and up and up... until recently that is, when oil prices have fallen back and prices at the pump have started to go down a little. So who gets credit for this reduction? Who else? God, that's who.

Petrol pump pilgrims keep faith
A prayer group in Washington DC is claiming the credit for the recent sharp drop in the US price of petrol.

Rocky Twyman, 59, a veteran community campaigner, started Pray At The Pump meetings at petrol stations in April.

Since then, the average price of what the US calls gasoline has fallen from more than $4 a gallon to $3.80.

"We don't have anybody else to turn to but God," Mr Twyman told the BBC. "We have to turn these problems over to God and not to man."

His first pilgrimage to the pump was prompted by fellow volunteers at the First Seventh Day Adventist Church in Petworth, a working-class neighbourhood of the US capital, who were struggling with higher gasoline prices.

He led them down the block to the local Shell gas station to pray. And over the months since then, he has held similar prayer meetings at pumps all over the US.

Prayer warriors

"We were down in Huntsville, Alabama. We finished praying," Mr Twyman said. "Immediately the owners came out and changed the gas prices. They brought it down. We had marvellous success down in St Louis, Missouri."

This week the group returned to the site of their first prayer meeting to celebrate. Singing "We shall overcome," they changed the words of the well-known hymn to "We'll have lower gas prices".

Mr Twyman is sceptical that market forces might be responsible for the lower prices. But he and his prayer warriors have changed their motoring habits.

"We believe not just in prayer - because we believe that faith without works is dead. So we've encouraged people to car-pool more and organise their days more, because it's a combination of faith with these other factors."

Pray At The Pump plans to build on its success and drive gasoline prices even lower. In the words of Rocky Twyman: "We just thank God for blessing us with small victories and we expect greater things to come."

Of particular note is the fact that this moron is 'sceptical that market forces might be responsible for the lower prices'. So what made the prices so high in the first place? Pixies? Of course, he never blames God for bringing on the massive price hikes which preceded this does he? No, no, that would be Satan's fault, right?

See what has happened here? Some idiot preacher has enough common sense and craftiness to realise that sooner or later the price of oil really did have to fall, simply because its peak was caused by speculation in the market rather than actual shortage of supply. So he started to pray that this would happen, in the full knowledge that it would happen anyway, with or without prayer. It's like praying for rain - during a drought, if you pray long enough, it is guaranteed that it will rain. Eventually. And so it goes on, with these prayer groups demonstrating apparent success, and probably converting more gullible fools as they do so.

Expect more stories like this when the housing market starts to pick up again. "I dun prayed fer the credit crunch t' end and the good Lord heard ma voice. Praise Jeeeeesus."

I don't think further comment from me is necessary other than, "Get a fucking grip on reality, you stupid, deluded, ignorant bastards."

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Footnote:
This article, posted in May before the prices began to fall, notes that the prayer gatherings are not entirely welcomed by the fuel station owners: "Last week, as one of the demonstrations was winding down, an angry gas station manager in Petworth chased them from the property, Twyman said, annoyed that the activists were hampering business." And page two of the article just confirms what I mentioned about the rain. This same group did exactly what I suggested - praying for rain, only for rain to eventually fall. It's always easy to take credit if something is certain to happen.