Posted on 06/18/2013 5:22:54 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last week, in Nice, France, I was privileged to participate along with 30 scholars, mostly scientists and mathematicians, in a conference on the question of whether the universe was designed, or at least fine-tuned, to make life, especially intelligent life. Participants — from Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Berkeley, and Columbia, among other American and European universities — included believers in God, agonistics, and atheists.
It was clear that the scientific consensus was that, at the very least, the universe is exquisitely fine-tuned to allow for the possibility of life. It appears that we live in a “Goldilocks universe,” in which both the arrangement of matter at the cosmic beginning and the values of various physical parameters — such as the speed of light, the strength of gravitational attraction, and the expansion rate of the universe — are just right for life. And unless one is frightened of the term, it also appears the universe is designed for biogenesis and human life.
Regarding fine-tuning, one could write a book just citing the arguments for it made by some of the most distinguished scientists in the world. Here is just a tiny sample, collated by physicist Gerald Schroeder, who holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he later taught physics.
Michael Turner, astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and Fermilab: “The precision is as if one could throw a dart across the entire universe and hit a bullseye one millimeter in diameter on the other side.” Paul Davies, professor of theoretical physics at Adelaide University: “The really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge, and would be total chaos if any of the natural ‘constants’ were off even slightly.
Roger Penrose, the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, writes that the likelihood of the universe having usable energy (low entropy) at its creation is “one part out of ten to the power of ten to the power of 123.” That is “a million billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion zeros.”
Steven Weinberg, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, and an anti-religious agnostic, notes that “the existence of life of any kind seems to require a cancellation between different contributions to the vacuum energy, accurate to about 120 decimal places.” As the website explains, “This means that if the energies of the Big Bang were, in arbitrary units, not:
1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
But instead:
1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001
There would be no life of any sort in the entire universe.”
Unless one is a closed-minded atheist (there are open-minded atheists), it is not valid on a purely scientific basis to deny that the universe is improbably fine-tuned to create life, let alone intelligent life.
Additionally, it is atheistic dogma, not science, to dismiss design as unscientific. The argument that science cannot suggest that intelligence comes from intelligence or design from an intelligent designer is simply a tautology. It is dogma masquerading as science.
And now, many atheist scientists have inadvertently provided logical proof of this.
They have put forward the notion of a multiverse — the idea that there are many, perhaps an infinite number of, other universes. This idea renders meaningless the fine-tuning and, of course, the design arguments. After all, with an infinite number of universes, a universe with parameters friendly to intelligent life is more likely to arise somewhere by chance.
But there is not a shred of evidence of the existence of these other universes — nor could there be, since contact with another universe is impossible.
Therefore, only one conclusion can be drawn: The fact that atheists have resorted to the multiverse argument constitutes a tacit admission that they have lost the argument about design in this universe. The evidence in this universe for design — or, if you will, the fine-tuning that cannot be explained by chance or by “enough time” — is so compelling that the only way around it is to suggest that our universe is only one of an infinite number of universes.
Honest atheists — scientists and lay people — must now acknowledge that science itself argues overwhelmingly for a Designing Intelligence. And honest believers must acknowledge that the existence of a Designing Intelligence is not necessarily the same as the existence of benevolent God.
To posit the existence of a Creator requires only reason. To posit the existence of a good God requires faith.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His most recent book is Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
have they pronounced the universe gay, yet?
An empty universe is terrifying, so they invent infinite ones to make each action they make and the thousands of “mirrors” to magnify their existence.
they can figure down to the last atom, how the universe was formed and what happened before, during and after the big bang, including any other membranes, strings and other universes....
but there is know way of making a cogent argument against the existence of a creator....or proof that there is for that matter. it is faith and there is no way to measure it.
why cant they just keep their (lack of)believe system to themselves unless they have solid proof...which they can’t.
Um... no it doesn't. I disagree with the atheists 100% but this statement is logical fallacy, X does not mean therefore Y.
We cant be intellectually honest and let our side get away with statements like that. Just because the other side screams "yer mother wears army boots" does not mean our argument is correct, is just means THEY have no argument.
If the Universe were arranged any other way, nobody would exist to discuss it. Look up "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle".
The “Multiverse” theory is just a newer variant of the old “a million monkeys typing for a million years could produce the works of Shakespeare” argument.
“Hope & Change”
Anything to keep from having to acknowledge God.
Faith & science bump....
The more they deny the existence of GOD, the more mystical they get. Doesn’t make sense.
I think the multiverse is in a closet somewhere sitting next to “dark matter”.
searching for “evidence of multiverse” generates 382,000 hits
-—An empty universe is terrifying
You might do well to read about the
“House of Mirrors” concept in Psychology.
http://www.theemotionmachine.com/consciousness-is-a-house-of-mirrors
For me personally, Anthropic principles fail to explain why our universe is in one such fine-tuned state, when “all things being equal”, it was much more likely to develop into chaos.
The multiverse hypothesis is a contrived attempt to reconcile our elegant reality with blind chance, at odds with our universal observation that reality follows one path or another, but not all paths.
I think a more obvious solution to the enigma is that all things are NOT EQUAL, and that the path that results in life was preferred from the beginning.
Anthropic principles attempt to mask this blatantly teleological principle with the language of probability, illogically “proving” the a priori necessity of the cause from the a posteriori necessity of the effect.
When this faulty logic is removed, we are once again left with pure teleology: the universe was made for man.
Thank you for this.
Belief in multiverse requires faith, as there is no proof of multiple universes. What a tangled web they are weaving all in the name of dispelling faith.
If there are enough universes in the “multiverse”, at least one might be the Secular Utopia they all dream about.
bookmark
No, you miss the point. First and foremost, we are here, I had to be at work by 8:30, so, we do exist. Acknowledging that we exist, you start to focus in on the window of parameters that must exist for us to be. As the article says, for that to happen by chance, would be like to hit a 1mm bullseye from across the universe (it does not say whether the thrower was actually targeting the bullseye or not). So, because we are here, and because all of the parameters have to be so finely tuned that it eliminates “tuning by chance”, the only alternative is that the “fine tuning” was designed.
There is only one universe. When a scientists talks about a ‘universe’ that is impossible to verify through experience, the scientist is no longer acting as a scientist, but as someone with a mission - destroy the possibility of creation.
They decry faith, but this is faith - “there’s another universe out there, but there is absolutely no way to communicate with it, to see it, or to have any proof at all of its existence. You’ll have to take my word for it”
Get over it. The universe is as it is, perfect, and no man on earth can explain it.
I love this stuff. It equates to thinking about thinking, The unverse is jello. It is not many things. It is one thing. Touch it at any point and it quivers throughout, albeit infinetesimally.
We are part of the whole which blinked into existence at the whim of its creator and will, assuredly, blink out either at his will or when he is otherwise distracted.
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