A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.
Fred Hoyle, “The Universe: Past
and Present Reflections”, Annual Reviews of Astonomy and Astrophysics,
20 (1982), 16.
"What is a big deal - the biggest deal of all - is how you get something out of nothing. Don't let the cosomologists try to kid you on this one. They have not got a clue either - despite the fact that they are doing a pretty good job of convincing themselves and others that this is really not a problem. "In the beginning," they will say, "there was nothing - no time, space, matter, or energy. Then there was a quantum fluctuation from which ...." Whoa! Stop right there. You see what I mean? First there is nothing, then there is something. And the cosmologists try to bridge the two with a quantum flutter, a tremor of uncertainty that sparks it all off. Then they are away and before you know it, they have pulled a hundred billion galaxies out of their quantum hats"
David Darling, “On creating something from nothing”,
New Scientist, 151 (2047), (1996), p 49.
"Astronomy leads us to an unique event, a universe which
was created out of nothing and delicately balanced to provide exactly the
conditions required to support life. In the absence of an absurdly-improbable
accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest an underlying,
one might say, supernatural plan."
Arno Penzias, quoted by Walter Bradley
in “The Designed ‘Just-so’ Universe”, 1999.
“We can’t understand the universe in any clear way without the supernatural”
Allan Sandage, Astronomer, Interview with
Fred Hereen, quoted in Show Me God, pg 224
For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignrance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
R. Jastrow, God and the Astronomers,1992,
pg 107.
Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God - the design argument of Paley-updated and refurbished. The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your chance: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes, or design that requires only one. ... Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument.
E. Harrison, Masks of the Universe,
1985, 252, 263.
“It is almost as though the universe had been consciously designed”
Richard Morris, The Fate of the Universe,1982,
155.
“The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.”
Freeman Dyson (Princeton Physicist), Disturbing
the Universe, 1979, pg 250.
“If the Universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate that the Universe was created for man to live in.”
John O’Keefe (NASA astronomer), quoted in
R. Jastrow in God and the Astronomers,1992, 118.
As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency -or rather Agency- must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?”
G. Greenstein, Symbiotic Universe:
Life and Mind in the Cosmos, 1988, 27.
“... is for me evidence that there is something going on behind it all. The impression of design is overwhelming.”
P. Davies, Cosmic Blueprint: New
Discoveries in Nature’s Creative Ability to order the Universe,
1988, 203
Goals:
1. Become familiar with some of the key observations in astronomy
2. Understand the cosmological evidences for design
Outline:
1. Basic observations (everyone agrees)
a) light observed from very distant galaxiesb) red shifts
c) cosmic microwave background radiation
d) the universe is amazingly fine-tuned for the existence of life
2. Two BIG problems for naturalism
a) the universe had a beginningb) Essentially zero probability that so many fundamental properties of the universe could be precisely as required for life to exist.
1. Basic observations (everyone agrees)
1. Light and other forms of radiation that originated from sources which are now very large distances (billions of light-years) away(implication - the universe was designed)(implications for creation models)
2. Red shifts - the wavelengths of light from each galaxy are shifted toward the red side of the spectrum by a factor roughly proportional to the distance of the galaxy from us.
(implication - they are receding, or the universe is expanding)
3. Cosmic microwave background radiation, nearly uniform in all directions.
This radiation does not come from a single source, rather it comes from every point in the universe.
(implication - this is the afterglow of a creation event)
“I felt like I was looking God in the face”
R. Isaacman, quoted by John Boslough in Masters of Time - Cosmology at the End of Innocence,1992, pg 45.
4. The universe is amazingly fine-tuned for the existence of life (the “anthropic coincidences”)
2. Two big problems for naturalism in cosmology:
A. there was a beginningB. essentially zero probability that so many fundamental properties of the universe could be precisely as required for life to exist.
Nobel laureate Arno Penzias makes this observation about the enigmatic character of the universe,
"Astronomy leads us to an unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing and delicately balanced to provide exactly the conditions required to support life. In the absence of an absurdly-improbable accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan."
quoted by Walter Bradley in “The Designed ‘Just-so’ Universe”, 1999.
"In my view, the question of origin seems to be left unanswered if we explore from a scientific view alone. Thus, I believe there is a need for some religious or metaphysical explanation. I believe in the concept of God and in His existence."
Charles Townes, Nobel lauriate, quoted by Henry F. Schaeffer III, in “Steven Hawking, the Big Bang, and God”, 1994
A. First BIG problem for
naturalism - there was a beginning!
Even for a die-hard naturalist, naturalism ends prior to 10-43 s after this creation event. There is a singularity, where the laws of the universe break down (can no longer be applied).
The “Big Bang” is a theory of creation! It is not a naturalistic theory of origins!
Philosphically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant to me. ... I should like to find a genuine loophole.”
Arthur S. Eddington, Nature 127, 1931, 450.
Fred Hoyle coined the term “Big Bang” in derision. As he put it
“The big bang theory requires a recent origin of the Universe that openly invites the concept of creation”.Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe, pg 237.
Hoyle confessed his “aesthetic objections to the creation of the universe in the remote past”F. Hoyle, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 108, 1948, 372-382.
"If we accept the big bang theory, and most cosmologists now do, then a ‘creation’ of some sort is forced upon us."
Barry Parker, Creation - the story of the Origin and Evolution of the Universe, p 202
Confronted with the proof of the expansion of the universe, Einstein gave grudging acceptance to the “necessity for a beginning”a) and to “the presence of superior reasoning power”b)
a) quoted by A. Vilbert Douglas in The Journal of the Royal Astronomical Soc. of Canada 50, 1956, 100.“Certainly if you are religious, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis.”
b) quoted by Lincoln Barrett in The Universe and Dr. Einstein,1948, p 672.Robert Wilson quoted by F. Hereen, in Show Me God, pg 157.
What alternatives are available for naturalists in the face of the singularity and beginning of space-time?
i) another dimension to time (imaginary time)
"So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator [the cosmological argument]. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?"S. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, pp. 140-1.
Henry Schaeffer III comments on this:
In Hawking and Hartle’s no boundary proposal, the notion that the universe has neither beginning nor end is something that exists in mathematical terms only. In real time, which is what we as human beings are confined to rather than in Hawking’s use of imaginary time, there will always be a singularity, that is, a beginning of time.
Among his contradictory statements in A Brief History of Time,Hawking actually concedes this. “When one goes back to the real time in which we live, however, there will still appear to be singularities ... . In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to space-time and at which the laws of science break down” (p 136).
quoted by Henry Schaeffer III, in “Steven Hawking, the Big Bang, and God”, 1994
Jane Hawking has commented on this aspect of her husband's work. "Stephen has the feelings that because everything is reduced to a rational, mathematical formula, that must be the truth," Jane explained. He is delving into realms that really do matter to thinking people and, in a way that can have a very disturbing effect on people - and he's not competent."quoted by Henry Schaeffer III, in “Steven Hawking, the Big Bang, and God”, 1994
ii) quantum theory of gravity - allows the universe to come into existence from absolutely nothing?
“It is said that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch.”Alan Guth, quoted by S. Hawking in “A Brief History of Time" pg 129
Start out with no universe at all - absolute nothingness. Absolute nothingness does not equal empty space, because according to general relativity, space is already stuff... Start out with no space, no time, no nothing. Then you make a quantum transition ....
Alan Guth, in a lecture at the "Nature of nature" conference, Baylor Univ. 1999.
"What is a big deal - the biggest deal of all - is how you get something out of nothing. Don't let the cosomologists try to kid you on this one. They have not got a clue either - despite the fact that they are doing a pretty good job of convincing themselves and others that this is really not a problem. "In the beginning," they will say, "there was nothing - no time, space, matter, or energy. Then there was a quantum fluctuation from which ...." Whoa! Stop right there. You see what I mean? First there is nothing, then there is something. And the cosmologists try to bridge the two with a quantum flutter, a tremor of uncertainty that sparks it all off. Then they are away and before you know it, they have pulled a hundred billion galaxies out of their quantum hats"
David Darling, “On Creating Something From Nothing”, New Scientist, 151 (2047), (1996), p 49.
B. Second BIG problem for
naturalism - Essentially
zero probability that so many fundamental properties of the universe could
be precisely as required for life to exist.
1) ripples in the cosmic microwave background (1 part in 90,000)
The pattern demonstrates that the explosion or event was not a haphazard naturalistic event. It shows that it was a designed event. The fluctuations were there from the beginning, they were imposed by a Creator. They had to be just as they were for galaxies to form and life to be possible.
“If your religious, it’s like looking at God”,
George Smoot, quoted by Milton Rothman in Free Inquiry, vol 13, no 1, 1992.1993 pg 12.
“The big bang, the most cataclysmic event we can imagine, on closer inspection appears finely orchestrated”
G. Smoot and Davidson, “Wrinkles in Time” 1993, 135.
“the most important discovery of the century, if not of all time”
S. Hawking quoted by G. Smoot and Davidson, “Wrinkles in Time” 1993, pg 283.
2). the existence of elements necessary for life
“How is it that common elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen happened to have just the right kind of atomic structure that they needed to combine to make the molecules upon which life depends? It is almost as though the universe had been consciously designed.”Richard Morris, The Fate of the Universe, 1982, 155.
“A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”
Fred Hoyle, “The Universe: Past and Present Reflections”, Annual Reviews of Astonomy and Astrophysics, 20 (1982), 16.
“Without such accidents water could not exist as a liquid, chains of carbon atoms could not form complex organic molecules, and hydrogen atoms could not form breakable bridges between molecules”
Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe,1979, 393.
3). ratio of mass of proton to mass of electron (1,836)
If this ratio were slightly different there would be no chemistry, and no life. S. Hawking cites this example as one of the many fundamental numbers in nature, and he says“The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life”.
S. Hawking, A Brief History of Time,1988, pg 125.
4). the magnitude of each of the four fundamental forces
“Every one of these forces must have just the right strength if there is to be any possibility of life. For example, if electrical forces were stronger than they are, then no element heavier than hydrogen could form. ... But electrical repulsion cannot be too weak. If it were, protons would combine too easily, and the sun ... (assuming that it had somehow managed to exist up until now) would expode like a thermonuclear bomb.”5-?). etc, etc.Richard Morris, The Fate of the Universe, 1982, pg 153.
"If the strong nuclear force were even 0.3 % stronger or 2% weaker the universe would never be able to support life."
Barrow and Tipler, Anthropic Cosmological Principle, 318-327, 354-359.
(many books have been written about this, long lists of such facts are now available)
What alternative does a naturalist
have in the face of the anthropic coincidences?
The Anthropic Principle (weak, strong, participatory, final, or WAP, SAP, PAP, and FAP)Barrow and Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
In this view, there must be an infinite number of universes. We exist in the one where all the constants and laws are just right for life, because that is the only one in which life could have evolved!
supported in one form or another by Hawking, Weinberg, Guth, among others
What should we make of this quartet of WAP, SAP, PAP, and FAP? In my not so humble opinion I think the last principle is best called CRAP, the Completely Ridiculous Anthropic Principle.
Martin Gardner, The New York Times Review of Books, 23 (May 8, 1986), 22-25.