An alternative approach to explaining the hierarchy problem is to invoke the anthropic principle: One assumes that there are many other patches of the universe (or multiverse) in which physics is very different.
Barr and others argued[citation needed] that if one only allows the electroweak symmetry breaking scale to vary between universes, keeping all other parameters fixed, atomic physics would change in ways that would not allow life as we know it.
[citation needed] The hypothetical universe without the weak interaction is meant to serve as a counter-example to the anthropic approach to the hierarchy problem.
In the weakless universe of Harnik, Kribs, and Perez[1] this is overcome by ensuring a high primordial deuterium to hydrogen ratio during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN).
The resulting efficiency of production and dispersion of heavy elements (in particular, oxygen) into the interstellar medium for subsequent incorporation into habitable planets has been questioned by Clavelli and White.