Modern Science: The Best Evidence for God To Date

A reader on this post which outlines some of  the issues posed to the materialist world-view due to the "Fine Tuning" of the Universe argument kindly linked a series of posts on the Mesora.org website called God vs. The Multiverse.  The four posts take a few minutes to read and absorb but I think that they're well done and outline the issue (and its implications) in its fullness.  

They start off by defining their terms and their goal:

In the proof, we will use inductive reasoning from the fine tuning of the constants in nature and the initial conditions of the big bang, to infer an Intelligent Designer of the universe.  What we mean by 'proof' is that a reasonable person would logically draw the same conclusion after understanding the arguments.  We do not mean 'proof' in the sense of a mathematical proof or deductive reasoning, but rather in the sense of a rational argument.

Our main objectives are to show a path in studying the deep wisdom in the creation as revealed by modern science, and also to present a proof of God from the constants and initial conditions. Because of this dual objective, we will be including many interesting ideas from modern science that are related to the proof, even though it is not contingent upon them.  We will try to be clear about what is necessary for the proof, and what is only to provide a direction to understanding the great wisdom in the universe, as revealed through modern scientific knowledge.

They then go on to explain what is meant by a "Cosmological Constant."  They are the numerical ratios that govern "how heavy an electron is, how fast light moves, how strong gravity is, etc.  All these things are finite quantities, which have particular, unchanging values that we only know through measurements and observations. These quantities are called constants."

Scientists have long wondered at the values at which these ratios are set.  They seem to be quite random.  Where do they come from and why are they so utterly precise that if they were the slightest bit different then the universe as we know it could not have formed and life would not exist?  This has given many scientists sleepless nights.  Theoretical physicist Richard Feynman emoted about this conundrum, saying:

Immediately you would like to know where this number for a coupling comes from: is it related to pi or perhaps to the base of natural logarithms? Nobody knows. It's one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. You might say the "hand of God" wrote that number, and "we don't know how He pushed his pencil." 

They give some good examples of the mystery of these constants:

Stars produce energy by fusing two hydrogen atoms into a single helium atom. During that reaction, 0.007 percent of the mass of the hydrogen atoms is converted into energy.  If the percentage were 0.006, the universe would be filled only with hydrogen.  If it was 0.008, the universe would have no hydrogen, and therefore no water and no stars like the sun. Bingo!

There are about 25 of these constants and simply put, they refute the notion that life as we know it is random. On the contrary, they demonstrate clearly, scientifically, that the universe is the result of design.   Materialist scientists recognized this, and didn't much like it.  But instead of owning up to the overwhelming brute fact of design, they did something rather brilliant - they pushed the problem back - so far back, in fact, that it can never be proven or refuted.  They posited the existence of the "Multiverse" - a hypothesis that posits that perhaps there are an infinite number of interconnected universes, all with different properties.  With that being the case it's not remarkable at all that our particular universe has all of these fine tuned peculiarities - but rather to be expected!  Problem solved.  Or is it?

There are quite a few issues with the Multiverse theory, such as:

• It's non-scientific.  In as much as it is impossible to test, it cannot officially fall within the purview of science.  Yet the same folks who insist that theology must provide testable, scientific proof are generally content accepting this un-provable notion.
• It's incoherent.  Belief in an infinite number of universes sets up necessary logical contradictions.  For instance, in as much as a God is a logical possibility, in one of the universes there must exist an infinite God who actually created the Multiverse itself (and in another there would not be).
• It doesn't follow Occam's Razor - the problem-solving principle created by William of Occam in the 14th Century.  Occam encouraged us to select the least complex of competing hypotheses. The preceding two points highlight the unnecessary complexity introduced by the unsubstantiated belief in a multiverse. 

So there you have it.  As things stand, either there is a Designing Agent (that some of us choose to call God) or there are an infinite number of universes - one of which contains an Infinite God in any event.

Which way do you prefer?

God: He Who Must Not Be Named

A central theme of JK Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is the Ministry of Magic's unshakable desire to categorically ignore the return of the dark lord of Hogwarts - the evil Voldemort.  Poor Harry's pleadings and warnings fall only on (fear-induced) deaf ears of those who would prefer a blissful non-reality over a challenging and scary actuality. Eventually, like in the Munich Agreement or the Greek monetary system, the actual rises up and obliterates the merely hoped for.

This attitude leaped to mind when I read "Humankind's Existentially Lucky Numbers" in last week's NYT's. The writer, George Johnson, gives a good overview of the "Fine Tuning" argument of physics which essentially attempts to understand why it is that the values of each of the "cosmological constants" such as gravitation, electro-magnetism and the weak and strong nuclear forces are so precise as to allow the development of life - an exceedingly unlikely proposition which some scientists have estimated has a 1:10^120 chance of occurring.  (That's a 1 followed by 120 zeros - a number vastly larger than the number of all of the particles in the universe).

Given those odds, it's not hard to understand that scientists are not so willing to just chalk it up to blind luck as Johnson says:

Rejecting the possibility that this was nothing more than a lucky accident, physicists have been looking for some underlying principle — a compelling explanation for why everything could only have unfolded in this particular way.

So we see from this that a) physicists do not have a "compelling explanation" for it, b) it was not due to chance and c) it all had to unfold exactly as it did.

As an example of this conundrum Johnson cites the value of "Alpha:"

If a number called alpha, which governs the strength of electromagnetism, were infinitesimally larger or smaller, stars could not have formed, leaving a lifeless void.  Alpha’s value seems no more predictable than digits randomly spit out by a lottery machine: 0.0072973525698. One of the greatest mysteries of physics, the physicist Richard Feynman called it, “a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man.”

By man yes, but...

Just what could account for it?  Johnson offers three possibilities:

There are several ways to react to this existential dilemma. We can take a cue from the author Douglas Adams and relish the idea that life, the universe and everything are a grand cosmic fluke. If the universal settings were slightly different, we wouldn’t be here considering the mystery. This is a version of what has come to be called the “weak anthropic principle.”

Taking a more mystical turn are adepts of another doctrine: the strong anthropic principle. Drawing on a controversial interpretation of quantum theory, they propose an Escher-like symbiosis. The universe gives rise to conscious observers, who in turn conjure the universe into existence by the dint of their constant gaze.

Finally there are followers of a middle path, who seek to prove that the universe is not accidental but inevitable, with its set of defining numbers as constrained and mutually consistent as the solution to a Sudoku puzzle.

Really?  That's it?  I sort of appreciate the fact that he's willing to give a nod to the "mystical" which in this case seems only to be a quantum theory retread.  But the elephant in the room would seem to be "He who must not be named."  Is it not at least a logical possibility that a conscious designer set these constants in such a fashion as to enable life to develop?  If it's highly unlikely that it's the result of chance and there are (currently) no other viable ways to explain it then why not (at least) suggest it?

I think the answer is found in one of my favorite scientific quotes:

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to understanding the real struggle between Science and the Supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community of unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to naturalism ... for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door." (Richard Lewontin, Geneticist)