[megmogandog]

I think I could've phrased my comment better.

I'm not assuming the constants can be changed; axiomatically, they cannot, because they're fundamental constants of the universe. I'm also not assuming that some agent was around to do the tuning. In its basic form 'fine tuning' just means that if one of the values were even slightly different we wouldn't have anything like the universe we see today, including life. The values of the constants appear as if they were tuned.

It's interesting you bring up evolution, because before that theory came about intelligent design was a reasonable assumption in trying to explain how well-adapted organisms seemed to be to their environments. It was as if someone had designed them for their roles! As it turns out the theory of evolution satisfactorily explains why organisms exhibit the appearance of design.

In a similar way the fundamental constants exhibit the appearance of having been precisely set. It's hard to imagine a scientific theory getting 'behind' the constants the way evolution was able to get 'behind' the appearance of organisms...

[radarsat1]

> if one of the values were even slightly different we wouldn't have anything like the universe we see today

This is a hallmark of a chaotic system. It's not impossible but the chances of sitting exactly on such an unstable point seems very low. It seems more likely that the constants are some optimum in a basin of attraction, a stable point in some higher order dynamic system.

[DebtDeflation]

>because they're fundamental constants of the universe

They're constants but are they fundamental? There are a lot (19?) of free parameters in the Standard Model. We determine them experimentally. But that doesn't mean that there isn't some deeper explanation that results in those values. We just don't know what it is yet.