Science Increasingly Makes
the Case for God
The odds of life existing on another
planet grow ever longer.
Intelligent design, anyone?
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Jeff Lampl
On
Christmas day the Wall Street Journal published this great editorial by Eric
Metaxas.
It’s a great read.
You’ll find it gracious, edifying and faith strengthening.
Jeff
In
1966 Time magazine ran a cover story asking: Is God Dead? Many have accepted the
cultural narrative that he’s obsolete—that as science progresses, there is
less need for a “God” to explain the universe. Yet it turns out that the
rumors of God’s death were premature. More amazing is that the relatively
recent case for his existence comes from a surprising place—science itself.
Here’s
the story: The same year Time featured the now-famous headline, the astronomer
Carl Sagan announced that there were two important criteria for a planet to
support life: The right kind of star, and a planet the right distance from that
star. Given the roughly octillion—1 followed by 24 zeros—planets in the
universe, there should have been about septillion—1 followed by 21
zeros—planets capable of supporting life.
With
such spectacular odds, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a large,
expensive collection of private and publicly funded projects launched in the
1960s, was sure to turn up something soon. Scientists listened with a vast radio
telescopic network for signals that resembled coded intelligence and were not
merely random. But as years passed, the silence from the rest of the universe
was deafening. Congress defunded SETI in 1993, but the search continues with
private funds. As of 2014, researches have discovered precisely bubkis—0
followed by nothing.
What
happened? As our knowledge of the universe increased, it became clear that there
were far more factors necessary for life than Sagan supposed. His two parameters
grew to 10 and then 20 and then 50, and so the number of potentially
life-supporting planets decreased accordingly. The number dropped to a few
thousand planets and kept on plummeting.
Even
SETI proponents acknowledged the problem. Peter Schenkel wrote in a 2006 piece
for Skeptical Inquirer magazine: “In light of new findings and insights, it
seems appropriate to put excessive euphoria to rest . . . . . We should quietly
admit that the early estimates . . . . . may no longer be tenable.”
As
factors continued to be discovered, the number of possible planets hit zero, and
kept going. In other words, the odds turned against any planet in the universe
supporting life, including this one. Probability
said that even we shouldn’t be here.
Today
there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support
life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls
apart. Without a massive planet like Jupiter nearby, whose gravity will draw
away asteroids, a thousand times as many would hit Earth’s surface. The odds
against life in the universe are simply astonishing.
Yet
here we are, not only existing, but talking about existing. What can account for
it? Can every one of those many parameters have been perfect by accident? At
what point is it fair to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the
result of random forces? Doesn’t assuming that an intelligence created these
perfect conditions require far less faith than believing that a life-sustaining
Earth just happened to beat the inconceivable odds to come into being?
There’s
more. The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing
compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For
example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental
forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak”
nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the
big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if
the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had
been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in
100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free
to gulp.
Multiply
that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds
against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the
notion that it all “just happened” defies common sense. It would be like
tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row.
Really?
Fred
Hoyle, the astronomer who coined the term “big bang,” said that his atheism
was “greatly shaken” at these developments. He later wrote that “a
common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has
monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology . . . . The
numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this
conclusion almost beyond question.”
Theoretical
physicist Paul Davies has said that “the appearance of design is
overwhelming” and Oxford professor Dr. John Lennox has said “the more we get
to know about our universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a Creator . .
. gains in credibility as the best explanation of why we are here.”
The
greatest miracle of all time, without any close seconds, is the universe. It is
the miracle of all miracles, one that ineluctably points with the combined
brightness of every star to something—or Someone—beyond itself.
Mr.
Metaxas is the author, most recently, of “Miracles: What They Are, Why They
Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life” ( Dutton Adult, 2014).
For
more:
follow on Twitter @jefflampl
