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Posted on 02/19/2002 2:59:38 PM PST by Cameron
The God Hypothesis:
Discovering Design in our "Just Right" Goldilocks Universe
by Michael A. Corey
(Rowman & Littlefield, 256 pp., $27)
GOD'S EXISTENCE is not required by the premises of quantum mechanics or general relativity, the great theories of twentieth-century physics --but then again, it is not contravened by their conclusions either. What else can we do but watch and wait?
The agnostic straddle. It is hardly a posture calculated to set the blood racing. In the early 1970s Jacques Monod and Steven Weinberg thus declared themselves in favor of atheism, each man eager to communicate his discovery that the universe is without plan or purpose. Any number of philosophers have embraced their platform, often clambering onto it by brute force. Were God to exist, Thomas Nagel remarked, he would not only be surprised, but disappointed.
A great many ordinary men and women have found both atheism and agnosticism dispiriting--evidence, perhaps, of their remarkable capacity for intellectual ingratitude. The fact remains that the intellectual's pendulum has swung along rather a tight little arc for much of the twentieth century: atheism, the agnostic straddle, atheism, the agnostic straddle.
The revival of natural theology in the past twenty-five years has enabled that pendulum to achieve an unexpected amplitude, its tip moving beyond atheism and the agnostic straddle to something like religious awe, if not religious faith.
It has been largely the consolidation of theoretical cosmology that has powered the upward swing. Edwin Hubble's discovery that the universe seemed to be expanding in every direction electrified the community of cosmologists in the late 1920s, and cosmologists were again electrified when it became clear that these facts followed from Einstein's general theory of relativity. Thereafter, their excitement diminished, if only because the idea that the universe was expanding suggested inexorably that it was expanding from an origin of some sort, a big bang, as the astronomer Fred Hoyle sniffed contemptuously.
In 1963 Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson inadvertently noticed the background microwave radiation predicted by Big Bang cosmology; when Robert Dicke confirmed the significance of their observation, competing steady-state theories of creation descended at once into desuetude. And thereafter a speculative story became a credible secular myth.
But if credible, the myth was also incomplete. The universe, cosmologists affirmed, erupted into existence fifteen billion years ago. Details were available, some going back to the first three minutes of creation. Well and good. But the metaphoric assimilation of the Big Bang to the general run of eruptions conveyed an entirely misleading sense of similarity. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius took place in space and time; the Big Bang marks the spot at which time and space taper to a singularity and then vanish altogether.
It follows that the universe came into existence from nothing whatsoever, and for no good reason that anyone could discern, least of all cosmologists. Even the most ardent village atheist became uneasily aware that Big Bang cosmology and the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis shared a family resemblance too obvious profitably to be denied.
Thereafter, natural theology, long thought dead of inanition, began appearing at any number of colloquia in mathematical physics, often welcomed by the same physicists who had recently been heard reading its funeral obsequies aloud. In "The God Hypothesis: Discovering Design in our "Just Right" Goldilocks Universe," Michael A. Corey is concerned to convey their news without worrying overmuch about the details. His message is simple. There is a God, a figure at once omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, and necessary. Science has established his existence.
How very embarrassing that this should have been overlooked.
AT THE very heart of revived natural theology are what the physicist Brandon Carter called "anthropic coincidences." Certain structural features of the universe, Carter argued, seemed finally tuned to permit the emergence of life. This is a declaration, to be sure, that suggests far more than it asserts. Structural features? Finely tuned? Permit? When the metaphors are squeezed dry, what more is at issue beyond the observation that life is a contingent affair? This is not a thesis in dispute.
Still, it often happens that commonplace observations, when sharpened, prompt questions that they had long concealed. The laws of physics draw a connection between the nature of certain material objects and their behavior. Falling from a great height, an astrophysicist no less than an airplane accelerates toward the center of the earth. Newton's law of gravitational attraction provides an account of this tendency in terms of mass and distance (or heft and separation). In order to gain traction on the real world, the law requires a fixed constant, a number that remains unchanged as mass and distance vary. Such is Newton's universal gravitational constant.
There are many comparable constants throughout mathematical physics, and they appear to have no very obvious mathematical properties. They are what they are. But if arbitrary, they are also crucial. Were they to vary from the values that they have, this happy universe--such is the claim--would be too small or too large or too gaseous or otherwise too flaccid to sustain life. And these are circumstances that, if true, plainly require an explanation.
Carter was a capable physicist; instead of being chuckled over and dismissed by a handful of specialists, the paper that he wrote in 1974 was widely read, Fred Hoyle, Freeman Dyson, Martin Rees, Stephen Hawking, Paul Davies, Steven Weinberg, Robert Jastrow, and John Gribbin all contributing to the general chatter. Very few physicists took the inferential trail to its conclusion in faith; what is notable is that any of them took the trail at all.
THE ASTRONOMER Fred Hoyle is a case in point, his atheism in the end corrected by his pleased astonishment at his own existence. Living systems are based on carbon, he observed, and carbon is formed within stars by a process of nucleosynthesis. (The theory of nucleosynthesis is, indeed, partly his creation.) Two helium atoms fuse to form a beryllium intermediate, which then fuses again with another helium atom to form carbon. The process is unstable because beryllium intermediates are short-lived.
In 1953 Edwin Salpeter discovered that the resonance between helium and intermediate beryllium atoms, like the relation between an opera singer and the glass she shatters, is precisely tuned to facilitate beryllium production. Hoyle then discovered a second nuclear resonance, this one acting between beryllium and helium, and finely tuned as well.
Without carbon, no life. And without specific nuclear resonance levels, no carbon. And yet there he was, Hoyle affirmed, carbon based to the core. Nature, he said in a remark widely quoted, seems to be "a put-up job."
INFERENCES now have a tendency to go off like a string of firecrackers, some of them wet. Hoyle had himself discovered the scenario that made carbon synthesis possible. He thus assigned to what he called a "Supercalculating Intellect" powers that resembled his own. Mindful, perhaps, of the ancient wisdom that God alone knows who God is, he did not go further. Corey is, on the other hand, quite certain that Hoyle's Supercalculating Intellect is, in fact, a transcendental deity--the Deity, to afford Him a promotion in punctuation.
And Corey is certain, moreover, that he quite knows His motives. The Deity, in setting nuclear resonance levels, undertook his affairs "in order to create carbon based life forms."
Did He indeed? It is by no means obvious. For all we know, the Deity's concern may have lain with the pleasurable intricacies of nucleosynthesis, the emergence of life proving, like so many other things, an inadvertent consequence of his tinkering. For that matter, what sense does it make to invoke the Deity's long term goals, when it is His existence that is at issue? If nothing else, natural theology would seem to be a trickier business than physicists may have imagined.
AS IT HAPPENS, the gravamen of Corey's argument lies less with what the Deity may have had in mind and more with the obstacles He presumably needed to overcome. "The cumulative effect of this fine tuning," Corey argues, "is that, against all the odds, carbon was able to be manufactured in sufficient quantities inside stellar interiors to make our lives possible." That is the heart of the matter: against all the odds. And the obvious question that follows: Just how do we know this?
Corey does not address the question specifically, but he offers an answer nonetheless. It is, in fact, the answer Hoyle provides as well. They both suppose that something like an imaginary lottery (or roulette wheel) governs the distribution of values to the nuclear resonance levels of beryllium or helium. The wheel is spun. And thereafter the right resonance levels appear. The odds now reflect the pattern familiar in any probabilistic process--one specified outcome weighed against all the rest. If nuclear resonance levels are, in fact, unique, their emergence on the scene would have the satisfying aspect of a miracle.
It is a miracle, of course, whose luster is apt to dim considerably if other nuclear resonance levels might have done the job and thus won the lottery. And this is precisely what we do not know. The nuclear resonance levels specified by Hoyle are sufficient for the production of carbon. The evidence is all around us. It is entirely less clear that they are necessary as well. Corey and Hoyle make the argument that they are necessary because, if changed slightly, nucleosynthesis would stop. "Overall, it is safe to say"--Corey is speaking, Hoyle nodding--"that given the utter precision displayed by these nuclear resonances with respect to the synthesis of carbon, not even one of them could have been slightly different without destroying their precious carbon yield." This is true, but inconclusive. Mountain peaks are isolated but not unique. Corey and Hoyle may well be right in their conclusions. It is their argument that does not inspire confidence.
THE TROUBLE is not merely a matter of the logical niceties. Revived natural theology has staked its claims on probability. There is nothing amiss in this. Like the rest of us, physicists calculate the odds when they cannot calculate anything better. The model to which they appeal may be an imaginary lottery, roulette wheel, or even a flipped coin, but imaginary is the governing word. Whatever the model, it corresponds to no plausible physical mechanism. The situation is very different in molecular biology, which is one reason criticism of neo-Darwinism very often has biting power. When biologists speculate on the origins of life, they have in mind a scenario in which various chemicals slosh around randomly in some clearly defined physical medium. What does the sloshing with respect to nuclear resonance?
Or with respect to anything else? Current dogma suggests that many of the constants of mathematical physics were fixed from the first, and so constitute a part of the initial conditions of the Big Bang. Corey does not demur; it is a conclusion that he endorses. What then is left of the anthropic claim that the fundamental constants have the value that they do despite "all odds"? In the beginning there was no time, no place, no lottery at all.
MATHEMATICAL physics currently trades in four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak forces governing the nucleus and radioactive decay. In general relativity and quantum mechanics, it contains two great but incompatible theories. This is clearly an embarrassment of riches. If possible, unification of these forces and theories is desirable. And not only unification, but unification in the form of a complete and consistent theoretical structure.
Such a theory, thoughtful physicists imagine, might serve to show that the anthropic coincidences are an illusion in that they are not coincidences at all. The point is familiar. Egyptian engineers working under the pharaohs knew that the angles of a triangle sum to more or less one hundred and eighty degrees. The number appears as a free parameter in their theories, something given by experience and experiment. The Greeks, on the other hand, could prove what the Egyptians could only calculate. No one would today think to ask why the interior angles of a Euclidean triangle sum to precisely one hundred and eighty degrees. The question is closed because the answer is necessary.
THE GRAND HOPE of modern mathematical physicists is that something similar will happen in modern mathematical physics. The Standard Model of particle physics contains a great many numerical slots that must be filled in by hand. This is never counted as a satisfaction, but a more powerful physical theory might show how those numerical slots are naturally filled, their particular values determined ultimately by the theory's fundamental principles. If this proves so, the anthropic coincidences will lose their power to vex and confound.
Nonetheless, the creation of a complete and consistent physical theory will not put an end to revived natural theology. Questions once asked about the fundamental constants of mathematical physics are bound to reappear as questions about the nature of its laws. The constants of mathematical physics may make possible the existence of life, but the laws of mathematical physics make possible the existence of matter. They have, those laws, an overwhelmingly specific character. Other laws, under which not much exists, are at least imaginable. What explanation can mathematical physics itself provide for the fact that the laws of nature are arranged as they are and that they have the form that they do? It is hardly an unreasonable question.
Steven Weinberg has suggested that a final theory must be logically isolated in the sense that any perturbation of its essential features would destroy the theory's coherence. Logical isolation is by no means a clear concept, and it is one of the ironies of modern mathematical physics that the logical properties of the great physical theories are no less mysterious than the physical properties of the universe they are meant to explain. Let us leave the details to those who cherish them.
The tactic is clear enough. The laws of a final theory determine its parameters; its logical structure determines its laws. No further transcendental inference is required, if only because that final theory explains itself.
This is very elegant. It is also entirely unpersuasive. A theory that is logically isolated is not necessarily a theory that is logically unique. Other theories may be possible, some governing imaginary worlds in which light alone exists, others worlds in which there is nothing whatsoever. The world in which we find ourselves is one in which galaxies wink and matter fills the cup of creation. What brings about the happy circumstance that the laws making this possible are precisely the laws making it real? The old familiar circle.
ALL THIS leaves us where we so often find ourselves. We are confronted with certain open questions. We do not know the answers, but what is worse, we have no clear idea--no idea whatsoever--of how they might be answered. But perhaps that is where we should be left: in the dark, tortured by confusing hints, intimations of immortality, and a sense that, dear God, we really do not yet understand.
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David Berlinski is a senior fellow of Discovery Institute and the author of "A Tour of the Calculus" and "The Advent of the Algorithm." His most recent book is Newton's Gift (Free Press).
Yes, I do. The analogy that applies to chemical processes just as it applies to the works of Shakespeare, in the sense that randomness forms either, is that in DNA chemical processes store data just as in Hamlet data is stored.
Therefor the same math applies to randomness forming either Hamlet or useful DNA because we are using the math to illustrate the improbability of structured, organized data self-forming randomly in a chaotic, natural, unintelligent, unaided environment.
The link in Post #310 shows the results of mathematical calculations for the improbability of 17 Billion environments over 17 Billion years ever randomly forming the first line of data in Hamlet as being essentially 1 (valid to 14 decimal places). That doesn't bode well for the chances of a single planet forming more than the first sentence in even less time (the Earth is not 17 Billion years old), much less the collected works of Shakespeare or something even more complex such as the DNA code for life itself.
Yes. It is out of bounds because one does not find it in any random, lifeless, primal environment. It is also something that requires intelligence to create, thus injecting intelligent intervention into any environment in which it is applied.
If you think that such software can self-form in a natural, unaided, non-intelligent environment, then I suggest that you either show an example of such an event or go back and view the math listed in the link that I conveniently provided for you in Post #310. Once you understand the math, you'll see that your claim is invalid and in error.
I'm not claiming that the platipus is devoid of cousins or has no evolutionary tree (although I think it would be an interesting challenge to see you try to provide said tree).
My claim is that the platipus is an example of a big design introduction. It has at least two unique features for mammals, in fact, such as poison spurs on its feet and an electro-sensing bill.
Such big design introductions are predicted by Intelligent Design.
If you have evidence to the contrary, then please present it.
But they only happen in the gaps. You may now have the last word, which will be the same as your last four posts on the subject.
The link in Post #310 shows the results of mathematical calculations for the improbability of 17 Billion environments over 17 Billion years ever randomly forming the first line of data in Hamlet as being essentially 1 (valid to 14 decimal places). That doesn't bode well for the chances of a single planet forming more than the first sentence in even less time (the Earth is not 17 Billion years old), much less the collected works of Shakespeare or something even more complex such as the DNA code for life itself.
That is not what your #310 shows. It shows that virtual monkeys could not produce a sentence of Hamlet. It says nothing about the speed with which complex chemicals might arise on an early Earth. It was explained over 100 posts ago that there are substantial factors at work in chemistry which make the formation of complex, self-replicating, information-storing chemicals far more likely than "random" chance would suggest.
Even in a "chaotic, natural, unaided" environment, there are strong selection pressures in favor of complex organic compounds. Life is not as unlikely as you might suppose.
Actually, some moles have electrical sensors on their snouts; helps 'em find nice, juicy worms, doncha know.
Who is arguing about a supernatural being besides you?
I pointed out that genetic engineers are examples of Intelligent Design because those engineers program DNA. If you care to dispute this evidence of Intelligent Design, then feel free to try, but don't try to con me into arguing about a supernatural being.
I'm showing you evidence of Intelligence creating Life. This is predicted by Intelligent Design Theory. It is not predicted by Evolutionary Theory. If that evidence destroys your own personal values, then too bad, but that's a mere by-product of the scientific process.
Again, Post 310 does not prove that. It shows that a line of text from Hamlet did not appear in a specified finite interval. That does not mean that it would not appear in a longer finite interval - say, 10^70 years. It follows that we should expect self-organizing computer programs to appear at "random", if given a sufficiently long finite period of time.
And, of course, the method for the generation of the "random" characters - monkeys on typewriters - bears no relation to the method by which "random" chemical interactions take place. Chemical interactions produce complex compounds far faster - but you knew that already.
"But they only happen in the gaps."
It is your claim that there is a gap, not mine. I'm merely showing you evidence that supports the Intelligent Design prediction of some occassional "big design introductions".
If there are gaps in the fossil record that would refute my evidence if only the right bones were found, then it is up to you to find them and prove me wrong by presenting evidence to support your point, but claiming that there is a gap without presenting any proof of said gap FAILS to support your contention and likewise fails to contradict mine.
In other words, it is up to you to prove that there is a gap. I see no such gap. I claim no such gap. I offer proof of no such gap in the fossil record.
What I do claim is that the platipus appears to be an example of a big design introduction that is predictable by using Intelligent Design Theory and not predictable when using Evolutionary Theory.
It is not 1^{359} like he suggests, but is likely a more reasonable number.
"Again, Post 310 does not prove that. It shows that a line of text from Hamlet did not appear in a specified finite interval. That does not mean that it would not appear in a longer finite interval - say, 10^70 years." - cracker
Then you didn't understand the math. The math SPECIFICALLY shows that you can calculate the odds of probability/improbability for the longer time period.
You have not done so. If you aren't willing to use math to refute the math that I posted, then you are unscientific. come back when you are willing to post the probability/improbability calculations for your longer time period and then we'll discuss the chances of the first sentence of Hamlet self-forming randomly.
By that point you might even understand how much the improbability increases and the corresponding probability decreases if you increase the size of that sentence by even one letter.
Until you can work the math, you've got nothing to contribute on this point.
I'm showing you evidence of Intelligence creating Life. This is predicted by Intelligent Design Theory. It is not predicted by Evolutionary Theory. If that evidence destroys your own personal values, then too bad, but that's a mere by-product of the scientific process.
Perhaps you need to obfuscate a little more. Why don't you state your Theory of Intelligent Design. Does it have anything to do with the origin of life on Earth? When? Who is the Designer - and how do we know? I'll note that you've already given us some answers, such as the Designer's preference for efficiency and ease, so how do you know these things?
Did the designer create the universe too, or just the life on Earth? If we find life on Mars or Europa, did the Designer create that too? Was it a separate creation, or all at once?
Does ID refute any portion of evolution? Is it mutually exclusive with evolution? Why is it a superior theory?
Given that you are advocating a theory with a readily identifiable set of proponents (creationists), who have a fairly clear statement of what they beleive (God is the Designer) and why (the Bible says so), you have a large burden to meet if you are going to assert "that's not me - I'm different". At the least, you should pick a new name for your version of the theory.
Hasn't this been settled by observation? What was Miller about?
That's incorrect. Watson isn't referring to the probability / improbability of chemicals to self-form. Instead, he is referring to the ability of chemicals to randomly form, store, and sequence data in an organized manner.
It is DATA "self-forming", not chemicals that are in question. Whether the data that we are looking for is the first sentence of Hamlet or the first gene in DNA, Watson's math applies equally.
To sequence that data, whether into a story in a book or into a working gene in DNA, the mathematical odds of the event happening randomly, without Intelligent Intervention, are precisely the same.
Ergo, it is you who is guilty of oversimplifying, not Watson.
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By that point you might even understand how much the improbability increases and the corresponding probability decreases if you increase the size of that sentence by even one letter.
Dodge again. The math is clear - just as it is staggeringly unlikely that the correct alphabetical sequence will appear in 10^17 yers, it is VERY probable that it will appear in 10^70 years. Maybe you better go back to read the article. Or at least explain why I'm wrong.
As to why it becomes more difficult, that's easy too: add another character, and the difficulty increases by a factor of 34. Big deal - I guess this means we both got out of 6th grade.
Why not perform your own calculations to back up your claims? Also, please explain how we have MORE than 17 Billion years for advanced order to randomly form in either DNA or even in as trivial an example as the very first sentence in Hamlet?
Is either event "very probable" mathematically per your claims? Well, we wouldn't know it from your calculations or lack thereof.
That's not scientific. That's just tossing out a claim without support.
From the article:
Place your bets now -- our monkeys are fast typists and can type the required number of characters in a single second (there are 41 keystrokes)! On average, how long will it be before one of our monkeys produces a line matching the above sentence? Well, there are 32 keys...
32^41 = 5.142201741629e+061
one year's worth of continuous attempts. The answer that it prints looks like this:
0.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999386721844366784484760952487499968756116464000
In our hypothesising above, we imagined 17 billion galaxies, each with 17 billion planets, each with 17 billion monkeys, each of which was producing a line of text per second for 17 billion years. And the answer is as follows:
2747173049143991138247931294711870033017962496000
Once again, in case you don't feel like counting, the answer is 49 digits long. Now, there is no guarantee that our monkeys are going to type something different every time, but even if we managed to rig up the experiment so that they never tried the same thing twice, they have still only produced 1/18,718,157,355,362 of the possible alternatives.
Multiplying 17 billion by 18,718,157,355,362 gives us the expected number of years to produce all possible strings once:
318208675041154000000000, or 3.2e23.
Thus, if we had 10^25 years, we'd be sure of getting them all. If we had 10^50 years, we'd get Hamlet's string a lot.
Satisfied?
Now, admit you were wrong.
And, of course, for you to respond to my refutations of your junkyard car and computer virus analogies, or for you to re-explain occam's razor, or to explain how human geneticists prove that aliens designed us, or how probabilities in combinatorial chemistry are similar to the monkey problem.
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