Posted on 06/23/2003 11:31:49 AM PDT by yonif
http://www.aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/The_Big_Bang_and_the_Big_Question_A_Universe_without_God$.asp | |
The Big Bang and the Big Question: A Universe without God?
Until the early twentieth century, astronomers entertained three possible models of the universe: 1. The universe could be static.
According to this theory, though the mutual gravitational attractions of stars and planets might hold them together in the form of solar systems and galaxies, each of these stellar-terrestrial groups slide through space along its own random trajectory, unrelated to the courses tracked by other groups of stars and planets.
The static model works for atheists and believers: Such a universe could have been created by God at some point in history, but it also could have existed forever without God. 2. The universe could be oscillating.
It might be a cosmic balloon alternately expanding and contracting. For a few billion years it would inflate, expanding into absolute nothingness. But the gravitational attraction of every star and planet pulling on every other would eventually slow this expansion until the whole process would reverse and the balloon would come crashing back in upon itself. All that existed would eventually smash together at the universe's center, releasing huge amounts of heat and light, spewing everything back out in all directions and beginning the expansion phase all over again.
Such a universe could also have been created by God or could have existed forever without God. 3. Finally, the universe could be open.
It might be a cosmic balloon that never implodes. If the total gravitational attraction of all stars and planets could not halt the initial expansion, as in the oscillating model, the universe would spill out into nothingness forever. Eventually the stars would burn out and a curtain of frozen darkness would enshroud all existence. Such a universe could never bring itself back to life. It would come into existence at a moment in history, blaze gloriously, and then pass into irrevocable night.
Crucially, the latter model proposes that before the one-time explosion, all the universe's matter and energy was contained in a singularity, a tiny dot that sat stable in space for eternity before it detonated.
This model proposes a paradox: Objects at rest -- like the initial singularity -- remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force; and yet, since the initial dot contained all matter and energy, nothing (at least, nothing natural) existed outside of this singularity that could have caused it to explode.
The simplest resolution of the paradox is to posit that something supernatural kicked the universe into being. The open model of the universe thus implies a supernatural Creator -- a God. THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY
In 1916 Albert Einstein released the first drafts of his general theory of relativity, and the scientific world went wild. It appeared that Einstein had revealed the deepest secrets of the universe. His equations also caused a few problems -- technical dilemmas, mathematical snags -- but not the sort of thing to interest newspapers or even popular science journals.
Two scientists noticed the glitches. Late in 1917 the Danish astronomer Willem de Sitter reviewed general relativity and returned a detailed response to Einstein, outlining the problem and proposing a radical solution: general relativity could work only if the entire universe was exploding, erupting out in all directions from a central point.
Einstein never responded to de Sitter's critique. Then, in 1922, Soviet mathematician Alexander Friedmann independently derived de Sitter's solution. If Einstein was right, Friedmann predicted, the universe must be expanding in all directions at high speed.
Meanwhile, across the sea, American astronomer Vesto Slipher actually witnessed the universe's explosive outward movement. Using the powerful telescope at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, Slipher discovered that dozens of galaxies were indeed rocketing away from a central point.
Between 1918 and 1922, de Sitter, Friedmann, and Slipher independently shared their findings with Einstein, but he strangely resisted their solution -- as if, in his brilliance, he realized the theological implications of an exploding universe.
Einstein even wrote a letter to Zeitschrift fur Physik, a prestigious technical journal, calling Friedmann's suggestions "suspicious," and to de Sitter Einstein jotted a note, "This circumstance [of an expanding universe] irritates me." In another note, Einstein reassured one of his colleagues, "I have not yet fallen in the hands of priests," a veiled reference to de Sitter, Friedmann, and Slipher. THE HUBBLE DISCOVERY
In 1925, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble dealt the static model of the universe a fatal blow. Using what was then the largest telescope in the world, Hubble revealed that every galaxy within 6 x 1017 miles of the Earth was receding.
Einstein tenaciously refused to acknowledge Hubble's work. He continued teaching the static model for five more years, until, at Hubble's request, he traveled from Berlin to Pasadena to personally examine the evidence. At the trip's conclusion, Einstein reluctantly admitted, "New observations by Hubble ... make it appear likely that the general structure of the universe is not static."
Einstein died in 1955, swayed but still not fully convinced that the universe was expanding. THE SOUND OF THE BIG BANG
Ten years later, in 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were calibrating a supersensitive microwave detector at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey. No matter where the two scientists aimed the instrument, it picked up the same unidentified background noise -- a steady, three-degree Kelvin (3K) hum. On a hunch, the two Bell Labs employees looked over an essay on general relativity by a student of Alexander Friedmann. The essay predicted that the remnants of the universe's most recent explosion should be detectable in the form of weak microwave radiation, "around 5K or thereabouts."
The two scientists realized they had discovered the echo of the biggest explosion in history: "the Big Bang." For this discovery, Penzias and Wilson received the Nobel Prize.
The discovery of the "3K hum" undermined the static model of the universe. There were only two models left: one that worked without God and one that did not.
The last issue to be settled was: Had the primordial universe exploded an infinite number of times (the oscillating model) or only once (the open model)?
Researchers knew the issue could be settled by determining the average density of the universe. If the universe contained the equivalent of about one hydrogen atom per ten cubic feet of space, then the gravitational attraction among all the universe's particles would be strong enough to stop and reverse the expansion. Eventually there would be a "big crunch," which would lead to another big bang (and then to another big crunch, etc.). If, on the other hand, the universe contained less than this density, then the big bang's explosive force would overcome all the gravitational pulls, and everything would sail out into nothingness forever. THE PANIC AND ITS RESOLUTION
Curiously, the death of the static model inspired panic in many quarters of the scientific world. Mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers joined forces to prove the eternity of the universe.
Dr. Robert Jastrow, arguably the greatest astrophysicist of the time and director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Center for Space Studies, was named head of the research project. For fifteen years Jastrow and his team tried to demonstrate the validity of the oscillating model, but the data told a different story.
In 1978 Jastrow released NASA's definitive report, shocking the public with his announcement that the open model was probably correct. On June 25 of that year, Jastrow wrote about his findings to the New York Times Magazine:
This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." ... [But] 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 ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; [and] as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
Dr. James Trefil, a physicist at the University of Virginia, independently confirmed Jastrow's discovery in 1983. Drs. John Barrow, an astronomer at the University of Sussex, and Frank Tipler, a mathematician and physicist at Tulane University, published similar results in 1986. GENESIS CONFIRMED
At the 1990 meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Professor John Mather of Columbia University, an astrophysicist who also serves on the staff of NASA's Goddard Center, presented "the most dramatic support ever" for an open universe.
According to the Boston Globe reporter covering the conference, Mather's keynote address was greeted with thunderous applause, which led the meeting's chairman, Dr. Geoffrey Burbridge, to comment: "It seems clear that the audience is in favor of the book of Genesis - at least, the first verse or so, which seems to have been confirmed."
In 1998, Drs. Ruth Daly, Erick Guerra, and Lin Wan of Princeton University announced to the American Astronomical Society, "We can state with 97.5 percent confidence that the universe will continue to expand forever."
Later that year, Dr. Allan Sandage, a world-renowned astrophysicist on the staff of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, was quoted in The New Republic saying, "The big bang is best understood as a miracle triggered by some kind of transcendent power."
Newsweek columnist George Will began his November 9, 1998, column with this quip: "Soon the American Civil Liberties Union or People for the American Way, or some similar faction of litigious secularism, will file suit against NASA, charging that the Hubble Space Telescope unconstitutionally gives comfort to the religiously inclined." PERMISSION TO BELIEVE
The same year, Newsweek reported a recent and unexpected swing of opinion among the once passionately agnostic: "Forty percent of American scientists now believe in a personal God - not merely an ineffable power and presence in the world, but a deity to whom they can pray."
There are, of course, mathematicians, physicists, astronomers, and cosmologists who choose not to believe in God today. For a variety of reasons, they choose instead to have faith that new natural laws will be discovered or that new evidence will appear and overturn the current model of an open, created universe.
But for many in the scientific community, the evidence is persuasive. For many, modern cosmology offers permission to believe.
LAWRENCE KELEMEN is the author of Permission to Believe: Four Rational Approaches to God's Existence (Targum/Feldheim, 1990) and Permission to Receive: Four Rational Approaches to the Torah's Divine Origin (Targum Press, 1996). He studied at U.C.L.A., Yeshiva University of Los Angeles, and Harvard University. He was also a downhill skiing instructor on the staff of the Mammoth Mountain Ski School in California and served as news director and anchorman for KMMT-FM radio station. Currently he teaches medieval and modern Jewish philosophy at Neve Yerushalayim College of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.
This essay is excerpted from "Jewish Matters: A pocketbook of knowledge and inspiration." "Jewish Matters" includes short essays on topics from relationships, prayer, happiness, and Shabbat, written by top male and female educators from around the world. Deep, funny, and fascinating, "JM" is available in Jewish bookstores, and on Amazon.com , and Chapters.ca. More information and excerpts can be seen at www.jewishmatters.com.
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That "everywhere" has yet to be been found, RW. But so far, the number of other found life support systems is zero.
No, but they are subject to the same laws of probability you outlined. Life or not, why doesn't the same analysis work?
I didn't say these were the chances no chemical reaction could take place
Your equations say that.
Yes, actually, that is what everybody is saying.
No, that's just the strawman they bash about on creationist websites. Randomness plays a role in evolution, but it's biased selection that does the work.
Please tell me of another method you have come accross to make life. Maybe it's just me, but I'm only certain of one method to form life.
Oh, no you don't. You can't talk about the probability that life happened in this way, and pretend that that's the probability that life happened at all. Until you can provably enumerate all the myriad ways, you have no basis for making that calculation. I have no idea what all the ways are to make life, so I don't claim to be able even to make an estimate.
No, actually, it isn't "killing all possible arguements', because that number applies not just to Earth, but to the entire universe.
That universe we now know to be infinite. Put that into your calculations, or they're wrong.
Your arguement is that "Life just wants to be".
Nowhere did I make that argument.
Well, we better get our program in gear. There's a lot of territory to check out, and we have hardly begun. Expect to find life inside every rocky planet.
'biased selection' that does the work of evolution ?
Maybe biased imaginary perception !
I wouldn't know which points are important in this dialog, so I will comment on this one. Anyone who builds a world view on a hypothesis and expects to find it intact after historical exposure is asking too much considering that the hypothesis itself will be changed even in his own mind by tomorrow.
Why is this so difficult for you to comprehend? Life is different from nonlife. Organic is different from non-organic. The conditions that create coal or salt dome are not even CLOSE to the conditions that create life. Coal was here millions of years before we were. And this doesn't even take into consideration COMPLEX life--which coal or salt dome isn't even CLOSE to achieving last I checked, COAL hasn't come up with a way to communicate or travel on it's own.
Your equations say that.
No, actually my equations say life is far more unlikely to happen. Coal or salt-dome might have had a slight chance in coming to be, but it's not life, save for a few people on this board. Maybe it's me, but why can't you comprehend that a lump of coal is infinitely simpler--and therefore more likely, then a wiggling bacteria?? The difference is amazingly obvious.
Randomness plays a role in evolution, but it's biased selection that does the work.
No, actually it's randomness that begins life, and that's what I'm talking about. The calculations I gave you was for one of the simplest creatures on Earth. The chances of the simplest and first signs of life evolving to someone like yourself are almost infinitely greater, if you take into account all the probabilities at any point that something could go wrong-Asteroid, Super Volcano's, meteors, etc. etc. Please, pay attention.
You can't talk about the probability that life happened in this way, and pretend that that's the probability that life happened at all. Until you can provably enumerate all the myriad ways, you have no basis for making that calculation.
ROFL!! You people are too funny. If life COULD evolve any other way, as you have supposed, why don't we see evidence anywhere else? Asteroids, Meteors, other planets, etc. Heck, why don't we see it anywhere here on Earth. Biologically speaking life happen only ONCE, here on Earth. Genetically speaking, we can trace life back to one single source, some 3.8 billion years ago. If, as you suppose, there is a basis for OTHER life forms, made of entirely different processes, why don't we see it here.
No, YOU do the calculations, and YOU figure out if it's YOUR theory. If you have knowledge on how other life forms could come about, then by means share it with the Noble Prize committee.
ROFL!! I guess what's so funny about you, is that you're so ARROGANT to think this is an original idea. That somehow, in between slouching off to flip burgers at the nearby Denny's, you've come up with the secret on how life might have formed elsewhere.
Again, I know of only ONE possible way for life to exist in the universe. If you know or think you know of another way, don't waste your time convincing me of it, ROFL!!, run it over to Cambridge University, Harvard or Stanford. I guarantee you a Noble Prize will be awarded to you!!!
No, the possibilities are YOUR problem, not mine. ROFL!!
Put that into your calculations, or they're wrong.
But all the MATTER in the Universe, ISN'T Infinite. Keep saying it is, and you'll look ignorant.
Besides of all the matter IN the universe, very, very few of them can make life. and the chances of them all coming together, in such a fantastically complex way.
If you would like to know how scientists calculate the mass of the Universe, go here: http://science.howstuffworks.com/framed.htm?parent=question221.htm&url=http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980114d.html
Nowhere did I make that argument.
ROFL!! You are hilarious!! You're NOT making the assumption that life "Just wants To Be", by implying, without scientific reason of course, that life could have begun differently then it did here on Earth? You're not implying that fighting huge amounts of almost impossible odds, life just popped up one day some 3.8 billion years ago?
IF, as you have proposed, life is possible without the impossible odds I've proposed here, then we should see it in different forms everywhere else. On different planets, in meteors, asteroids, etc. Heck, if life is so viable in the universe, it should be overflowing with aliens.
You are the results of decades of science fiction movies, books and TV shows pelting you everyday that life must exist elsewhere, but your logic is flawed. You forget--or never learned--that life is fragile, so nearly impossible to come together, and in a universe so hostile to it--it can't possibly exist anywhere else.
If you're so convinced life COULD exist, from anything else, YOU do the calculations and prove me wrong. Don't be so lazy.
Far more likely, eh? Well, let's check. I'll use your scheme, or rather, the scheme you lifted from another website, uncredited.
A large salt dome contains of order 100 cubic kilometers of salt. Salt is about 2 grams per cubic centimeter, so that's 2x1017 grams of salt.
An atom of sodium weighs typically 23 Daltons, while an atom of chlorine weighs 35 Daltons, so we're talking about 3.4x10^15 moles of salt, which is 2x1039 atoms each of sodium and chlorine.
I don't have very accurate figures for the abundances of sodium and chlorine in the Earth's crust--my CRC handbook is at work--but a consensus number seems to be around 2% for Na and 1% for Cl, counting by atomic abundance, rather than by weight.
Let's start building our salt dome atom by atom, just as your ghost writer started assembling his life molecule. Taking the "tornado in a junkyard" approach, the chances that a sodium atom would show up at the right place (our starting point) is 0.02. Next we need a chlorine atom; nothing else will do. There's another factor of 0.01. It doesn't look too likely, and we only have two lousy atoms in our salt dome!
Now let's repeat the process 2x1039 times. Uh, oh! Looks like our total probability for a salt dome occurring is one chance in 102.4 x 1039! That's a one with 2.4 thousand million million million million million million zeros after it.
Suddenly, a one with four million paltry zeroes after it doesn't seem so bad. And life only had to arise once; there are many salt domes on the face of the Earth. It's amazing that God even had time to create life, so busy must he have been messing about with salt.
Your observation leads inevitably to the "saline principle," which is far more general than the anthropic principle.
Maybe RadioAstronomer can give us some measured limits on the probability of life on other worlds, and tell us just how thoroughly we've checked our solar system.
Let's suppose that the calculation you borrowed is correct. Surely, then, we won't expect to find our kind of life anywhere but here. But if there were some other kind of life, would we see it? Only if its probability is extremely high. For example, if the probability of some hypothetical type of life (different from our own) were one in 100 million per solar system (a much higher probability than any you discussed), there'd be essentially no chance of finding such life forms in our solar system or on Earth. Even so, there'd be thousands of living worlds of that type in every galaxy.
Again, I know of only ONE possible way for life to exist in the universe.
That's the problem. You are assuming that that's the ONLY possible way for life to exist in the universe. You have to prove that assumption. I am not saying that I know there is any other way; I am saying that I don't know all the ways. No more do you. Until you do (and can prove it), you can make no calculation about the overall probability of life.
But all the MATTER in the Universe, ISN'T Infinite. Keep saying it is, and you'll look ignorant.
Four months ago, it was discovered that the geometry of space is flat on the largest scales. This means that space goes on forever, and is uniformly filled with matter. Does that mean that the universe is infinite? That's a matter of semantics; what do you mean by "universe"? Everything that exists, or everything that you can in principle communicate with and travel to? If by universe you mean "everything that exists", then the universe is infinite. If you mean "everything you can ever see or travel to", then the universe (our "Hubble volume" within the infinite space) is finite.
Given that space goes on forever and is filled with galaxies, then the probability of our being somewhere is identically 1, however unlikely life might actually be. It becomes the "lottery winner" effect: most Hubble volumes may be devoid of life, but all life forms will see themselves as living in an inhabited Hubble volume. Wheeler's "anthropic principle" wins after all.
You're not implying that fighting huge amounts of almost impossible odds, life just popped up one day some 3.8 billion years ago?
My argument is that is precisely what it did NOT do. Your borrowed calculation scheme is as bad a failure for life molecules as it is for salt domes.
Heck, if life is so viable in the universe, it should be overflowing with aliens.
So, let me get this straight. The only possible likelihoods are "impossible" and "ubiquitous"?
I vote for "rare, but likely enough over a sufficiently large volume". If we find life anywhere other than Earth in my lifetime, I'll change my vote to "ubiquitous".
To our knowledge, the universe does not require a cause.
Just out of idle curiosity, who do you suppose created extreme pride, arrogance, and wickedness?
The ability of a rogue prion protein, without a genetic code, to become infectious and reproduce is a dramatic and revolutionary medical concept,"
Not quite.
First of all, you're taking two basic elements of Earth, sodium and chlorine, and then juxtaposing it with life, and saying it's far more unlikely that SALT came about then life. The problem with this is elemental; both sodium, which makes up 2.5% of our crust, and chlorine, are elements that make up are our own body. In other words, if salt is really that unlikely, and salt makes up a portion of our own body, then our Body, with it's numerous other elements in it, is far, far more unlikely. It would have to form with other basic elements to form us, after it assembled itself, assumably by random.
Secondly, let's just take TWO of the 20 basic amino acids that make up Life: Lysine and Asparagine. The molecular formula for these amino acids is C6H14N2O2 and C4H8N2O3, respectively. If you say the chances that "a sodium atom would show up at the right place (our starting point) is 0.02" and that "Next we need a chlorine atom; nothing else will do. There's another factor of 0.01."--then what are the chances that Carbon, Helium, Nitrogen, and Oxygen would come together in such a way as to form just TWO of the basic Amino Acids needed for life? THEN, multiply that by 10 because there are 20 basic Amino Acids. NOW, what are the chances that those 20 Amino Acids would form together in such a perfect way as to make a Protein? NOW, what are the chances that the Protein would form with the DNA, to enable itself to reproduce??
It would seem as if all the ingredients in our kitchen got together--in perfect quantities, and baked itself into a cake. Not just any cake, mind you, but a cake that could reproduce itself. AND THEN, this cake started to evolve into a wedding cake, complete with a miniature bachelor and bride at the top.
As Isaac Newton, a man who's intelligence exceeds ours by far, once stated "In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence."
Speaking of our solar system, it reminds me of a funny story of Sir Isaac Newton.
Sir Isaac had an accomplished artisan fashion for him a small scale model of our solar system which was to be put in a room in Newtons home when completed. The assignment was finished and installed on a large table. The workman had done a very commendable job, simulating not only the various sizes of the planets and their relative proximities, but also so constructing the model that everything rotated and orbited when a crank was turned. It was an interesting, even fascinating work, as you can image, particularly to anyone schooled in the sciences.
Newtons atheist-scientist friend came by for a visit. Seeing the model, he was naturally intrigued, and proceeded to examine it with undisguised admiration for the high quality of the workmanship. My! What an exquisite thing this is! he exclaimed. Who made it? Paying little attention to him, Sir Isaac answered, Nobody.
Stopping his inspection, the visitor turned and said: Evidently you did not understand my question. I asked who made this.' Newton, enjoying himself immensely no doubt, replied in a still more serious tone. Nobody. What you see just happened to assume the form it now has. You must think I am a fool! the visitor retorted heatedly, Of course somebody made it, and he is a genius, and I would like to know who he is.
Newton then spoke to his friend in a polite yet firm way: This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?
As I've said before, I admire atheists. The faith they hold is much stronger, by far, then my own, being a Christen.
I start with no such preconception. I merely followed the calculation scheme you borrowed. The likelihood I calculated was the result of that calculation.
In other words, if salt is really that unlikely, and salt makes up a portion of our own body, then our Body, with it's numerous other elements in it, is far, far more unlikely.
Try the calculation and see. I can tell you that the number will be much smaller than the one I calculated above, simply by virtue of the fact that a human body contains far fewer atoms than a salt dome. The number in the exponent will be smaller by a factor of several trillion, so the human body will be more likely by several trillion orders of magnitude. (Furthermore, we're primarily hydrogen, carbon and oxygen, which are more abundant than sodium and chlorine, but that part doesn't matter as much.)
If you don't like that answer, blame the calculation scheme.
then what are the chances that Carbon, Helium, Nitrogen, and Oxygen would come together in such a way as to form just TWO of the basic Amino Acids needed for life?
Well, I must admit that that probability is zero. ;^)
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