I have heard this argument often before so without reading the chapter I'll give you my understanding then read the chapter to see if there is anything I haven't addressed.
Its claimed that the conditions of the universe are all so finely tuned that they just couldn't have come about by chance; that if any of many fundamental constants were not just as they are matter couldn't have existed and stars couldn't form. Atomic structures could not behave as they do. If we didn't have a planet just the right distance from the sun, have the right atmosphere, have the right amount of each chemical, life couldn't develop.
This is a bit like finding it so incredible that it just couldn't happen. But the incredulity of an individual has no bearing on what could be possible.
But we are here. We are evidence that it has happened. If it had never happened then we would never know.
Look at this another way. Take a deck of cards and shuffle them well. Lay out the 52 cards in the order they happen to be in. The probability of getting that exact sequence of cards is extremely remote. The odds against it happening are 81 million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion to one. An extremely remote possibility I'm sure you will agree, but it has just happened right in front of your eyes. Pick up the cards again, shuffle and lay them out again and we get another combination of cards that is just as unlikely with the same low probability. The chances of getting the first layout of card followed by the second layout of card is even more remote.
But they have just happened.
I think Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, summed it up the best:
A puddle wakes up one morning and thinks: "This is a very interesting world I find myself in. It fits me very neatly. In fact it fits me so neatly... I mean really precise isn't it?... It must have been made to have me in it."
I see that you do not tackle the card analogy which makes the point that no matter how remote the possibility of this universe coming into existence the fact is that we are here and able to look at this throw of cards. If we weren't here we wouldn't be able to look at it. It doesn't matter how remote the possibility is; you can say shuffle and lay out the cards twice, three times, ten times. Looking at it after it has happened you can always say that a particular combination of cards is always likely.
I heard the card approach on a podcast but I just did a search and found it explained a bit differently and more vividly than I have done:
http://www.epicidiot.com/evo_cre/13cards.htm
You talk about the multiverse notion saying that it has no support and has been invented to find a way out of the finely-tuned hypothesis. Well, it is just a notion as many scientific theories start off then we try to get data that supports it. It seems unlikely that we ever will. But it is a proposal that there could be an almost infinite number of universes.
We could also put forward the idea that the timescale since this universe started of 14.5 billion years is a microsecond on another scale and universes are coming in and out of existence on this scale at the rate of a million a second, with time stopping and starting over again.
When it comes down to it, it is an area we just don't know about, we might never know. Because we don't know something doesn't mean that God must have done it; it means we just don't know. We don't have answers to lots of questions. For everything we don't know it's illogical to say God must have done it then.
On page 7 you say that you also believe that God interferes with the process of how plants and animals are formed. Well this would be an excellent proof of God's existence and if adequately demonstrated it would be enough to convince any non-believer. But all the forces we see are accounted for in nature. Everything we are able to look at unfolds just as we would expect it to if it were solely governed by evolution.
There was a prayer study carried out over a number of years in the US by the Templeton foundation; they were sure that an effect would be measured. This study was a proper scientific study with control groups, etc. People recovering from heart surgery were prayed for. Praying was found to make no difference.
This would have been a good cause for God to give some assistance and change events, but if he exists he decided not to.
Here is a report on the study from the New York Times.
Next: Antony's initial response...