Firing Squads and Fine-Tuning: Sober on the Design Argument

Abstract

Elliott Sober has recently argued that the cosmological design argument is unsound, since our observation of cosmic fine-tuning is subject to an observation selection effect (OSE). I argue that this view commits Sober to rejecting patently correct design inferences in more mundane scenarios. I show that Sober's view, that there are OSEs in those mundane cases, rests on a confusion about what information an agent ought to treat as background when evaluating likelihoods. Applying this analysis to the design argument shows that our observation of fine-tuning is not rendered uninformative by an OSE. 1. Design and the Anthropic Objection 2. Previous responses to the Anthropic Objection 3. Variations: experimental squads and survivor reunions 4. Why there is no OSE in firing squad cases 5. Application to the design argument

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