Rare Earth: The Moon

I’m at home today with a sick child who decided she wants to watch science programs about the universe.  As a nerd that is fascinated by cosmology, this made me extremely happy!  One of the programs she wanted to see is called, “The Day the Moon was Gone”, which can be watched here.  What I found fascinating about this video is just how dependent the Earth is on the moon to support complex life, which I think is part of an emerging cumulative case that can be made for the Earth being fine-tuned for life.

The current hypothesis on how the moon formed is that a Mars-sized planet was flung to Earth by Jupiter’s gravitational forces.  Moon rocks and the Earth’s crust share oxygen isotope ratios not found anywhere else in the solar system.  This is evidence that the moon and Earth were either a single body or somehow came in contact with one another in such a way that they share surface material.

Plate Tectonics

The “impactor” hit the Earth while the Earth was still molten, which may have allowed just the right amount of iron to be added back into the Earth’s core.  If too much iron had been added, Earth’s gravity would be stronger making running, throwing, and growing more difficult, but probably not a life-ender for simple life-forms.  Not enough iron and the Earth would have cooled too quickly for plate tectonics to have formed, which would have preventing life from forming.  Plate tectonics are vital for life for the following reasons:

·      Plate tectonics created continents for life on land and shallow seas.

·      Gases released from volcanic activity and cracks in the crust created the atmosphere.

·      Plate movements cycle nutrients that make oceanic life possible.

·      Plate tectonics creates a silicate/carbonate cycle that regulates the Earth’s temperature and CO2 content.

Tides

The Sun is 400 times farther away than the moon, but has a strong gravitational pull on the Earth.  The moon is ¼ of the size of the Earth, which is relatively large for a moon; practically its own planet.  The large mass of the moon is needed to have enough gravitational impact to affect the Earth and to counter the impact of the sun’s gravity.  Without the gravitational influence of the moon, the sun would create large tidal bulges across the Earth that would create daily, world-wide, tsunamis. 

The factors of 400x distance to the sun and ¼ size of the Earth create almost perfect solar eclipse that was instrumental in determining the composition of the sun through spectrum analysis, and by extension, the composition of other stars in the universe.  The solar eclipses were also used to test the Theory of General Relativity in its infancy.  A slightly imperfect eclipse turns out to be perfect for learning more about our universe.

 Climate
It’s also believed that the impact from the moon gave the Earth its current tilt angle and rotation speed.  The tilt and slight wobble around the axis gives the Earth the four seasons.  Without the moon, the Earth’s tilt would wobble so much around the axis that the climate change would be too extreme and too fast for complex life to adapt; one area’s tropics would be tomorrow’s ice sheet.

While the Earth was still molten, the moon’s gravity caused a tidal bulge of lava, which created a drag on the Earth’s rotation causing it to slow down.  The result is Earth’s rotation slowed from 8 hours per day to 24 hours per day.  The faster rotation would result in stronger winds and violent storms, and also shorter day/night cycles which would be difficult to complex life to form.  A faster rotation would also cause the magnetic field to increase, which would result in less radiation hitting the Earth.  Conversely, too slow of a rotation would weaken the magnetic field and allow too much radiation into the atmosphere.

Heavy Metals

This isn’t related to the moon, but is an interesting piece of information covered in the video.  There was a period called the Heavy Bombardment, where the Earth and the moon underwent significant impacts from asteroids after the Earth had cooled to the point of having a hard crust.  This allowed heavy metals such as iron, lead, uranium, gold, etc, to be near the surface and accessible to humans.  If the bombardment had occurred much sooner, the Earth would have still be molten causing the heavy metals to sink to the core.  Much later and life would have been obliterated.  The Heavy Bombardment isn’t critical for life to form, but it has been critical in human life flourishing.

 

As Hugh Ross says, maybe this Thanksgiving we should say thanks for not only the food that sustains our lives, but also the moon.

 

The Case for Idolatry: Why Evangelical Christians Can Worship Idols

While perusing Wintery Knight’sblog, I saw a repost from another blog which is probably one of the best parodies I’ve seen in a long time.  Here comes a repost-repost!

The article is called, “The Casefor Idolatry: Why Evangelical Christians Can Worship Idols” written by Andrew Wilson.  It is well-worth reading the entire post.  As Christians, we tend to weigh sins as if some are worse than others, but the nice thing about this post is that any sin we try to justify can be inserted into the parody.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to worship idols. It’s not that my parents raised me that way, because they didn’t; I was brought up in a loving, secure, Christian home. But from childhood until today, my heart has been drawn to idolatry….For many years, I was taught that idolatry was sinful. As a good Christian, I fought the desire to commit idolatry, and repented when I got it wrong. But the desire to worship idols never went away…..So it has been such a blessing to discover that worshipping one God, and him alone, isn’t for everyone. There are thousands of Christians out there who have found faithful, loving ways of expressing worship both to God and to idols, without compromising either their faith or their view of Scripture. In recent years, I have finally summoned the courage to admit that I am one of them. Let me give you a few reasons why I believe that idolatry and Christianity are compatible.”

Wilson then goes on to list some of the reasons he has come to accept that idolatry is compatible with his Christian faith:

·      A number of scholars have provided strong cases for “a Christlike approach of humility, openness and inclusion towards our idolatrous brothers and sisters.”

·      Most of the passages on idolatry come from the Old Testament, which also says we can’t eat shellfish or bacon, yet who doesn’t love crab legs or bacon?  We are in the new covenant now.

·      Jesus loved everyone and never said anything about idols in the Gospels.

·      New research in neuroscience has shown that some people are wired for idolatry.  Anyone who argues with established science is ignorant.  Example:  My father is an alcoholic; therefore, I’m more likely to be an alcoholic…If I choose to drink, I didn’t really have a choice. 

·      Paul has been misunderstood and misused by the church.  In Romans 1, Paul is not talking about people who naturally worship God, but those who exchange God’s glory for idols.  As long as we don’t exchange God’s glory, we’re cool!

·      In Paul’s time, idolatry involved physically bowing to a statue, which is out of date and doesn’t apply anymore.  The modern day notions of idolatry involve someone prioritizing what they want over God…completely different.  The culture has changed and so must the Christian viewpoint.

Wilson concludes the article by imploring Christians to have a new and inclusive perspective on idolatry.

“I hope you will all search the scriptures, search your hearts, and consider the evidence afresh - and avoid judging those who disagree in the meantime! Maybe, just maybe, we can make space in the church for those who, like me, have spent a lifetime wrestling with the challenge of idolatry.”

  

Susskind’s Response to Mithani and Vilenkin: Let’s Play Pretend

Alex Vilenkin has been a staunch supporter of a temporally finite universe.  In spite of the numerous papers and lectures he has given showing that the universe cannot avoid a beginning and the “eternal” models are only eternal into the future, many atheists refuse to acknowledge that all of physical reality had a beginning and are still arguing that it is has an eternal past.  Even Alan Guth, who is the “G” in the BGV Theorem, says they have been able to “prove” the universe had a beginning, yet he still thinks it may be eternal.  I have often wondered what other scientists say about Vilenkin’s work, since if he had made a significant error in his analyses of the other models, surely someone would have said something more than quibble over what constitutes a beginning.

I came across a short paper by Leonard Susskind where he responds to the paper, “Did the universe have a beginning?” by Mithani and Vilenkin which I summarized here (spoiler- the answer is Yes!).  Susskind is a popular physicist that makes frequent appearances on science programs like Nova.  In this paper, he “will argue the opposite point of view; namely, for all practical purposes, the universe was past-eternal.” 

 

He uses a thought experiment of a semi-infinite city called, Hilbertville, to represent the multi-verse.  It has a boundary at x=0, but the goes to infinity at x>0.  The observers of Hilbertville are trying to see the boundary of the city.  Those close to the boundary can see it, but those who are very far away cannot.  Since most of the observers will statistically be too far away to see the boundary of the city, he concludes the city may as well not have a boundary and the same goes for a beginning to the universe.

“Combing the Mithani-Vilenkin's observations with the ones in this note, we may conclude that there is a beginning, but in any kind of inflating cosmology the odds strongly (infinitely) favor the beginning to be so far in the past that it is effectively at minus infinity.”

Susskind didn’t say Mithani and Vilenkin were wrong in their analyses of other model types.  Susskind agreed the evidence indicates there was a beginning.  Instead he said the beginning of the universe (or multi-verse) was probably so far in the past that the universe may as well be eternal for us observers on Earth.  That’s akin to saying ‘the evidence says there was a beginning, and while I acknowledge that’s the evidence, I can still pretend there wasn’t a beginning and ignore all implications of a beginning’.  Atheists get upset when Christians quote Romans 1 and claim they suppress the knowledge of God, but with a response like this, can you blame us?

 

Vilenkin and Mithani: Did the Universe Have a Beginning?

Frequently when debating with an atheist I will bring up the beginning of the universe as evidence for a creator and the typical response is, “We don’t know that the universe had a beginning.”  Their claim is that models exist that are eternal, so the universe may not have had a beginning.  So far, this claim has not been supported by the math.  Alex Vilenkin and Audrey Mithani wrote a paper called, “Did the universe have a beginning?” where they examine,

“three candidate scenarios which seem to allow the possibility that the universe could have existed forever with no initial singularity: eternal inflation, cyclic evolution, and the emergent universe.”

 

                                          

Here is what they wrote about each type of model:

Eternal Inflation Models

These models theorize that there was a period of exponential inflation during the very early phases of the Big Bang.  These type of models solve several questions surrounding the standard Big Bang model, which makes it a likely candidate for being plausible.  One of the consequences of these models is that they predict a multi-verse.  Once started inflation will continue into the infinite future.  The science magazines love to talk about this prediction as possible evidence for a multi-verse, but there’s a catch; the BGV Theorem has shown that if on average the universe is expanding, the universe/multiverse had a beginning. 

“Therefore, although inflation may be eternal in the future, it cannot be extended indefinitely to the past.”

Cyclic Models

Another type of model examined is the cyclic model.  These are the models that have an infinite series of big bangs followed by big crunches.  Entropy gives these models a couple of problems:

1).  With each bang/crunch cycle, the entropy continues to increase.  If the universe were eternal, we should have run out of usable energy and entered a state of “thermal death”.

2).  One way to avoid the thermal death scenario is to have each subsequent expansion get bigger and bigger for an infinite amount of time.  If this were to happen, the universe would on average be expanding more than it is contracting, which brings you back to the BGV theorem and a beginning.

Emergent Universe Models

In the emergent universe scenario, the universe is in a static quantum state until the “cosmic egg” decides to crack open.  This would bypass the requirement of the BGV theorem such that the average state of the universe would not be one of expansion.  In order for this type of model to succeed, a couple of conditions must be met.

“First, the universe should be stable, so that quantum fluctuations will not push it to expansion or contraction. In addition, it should contain some mechanism to exit the stationary regime and begin inflation.”

Vilenkin and Mithani demonstrate that quantum instability exists because there is a non-zero probability of quantum collapse, so the universe could not have existed in a quantum state for an infinite amount of time.

“Since the tunneling probability is nonzero, the simple harmonic universe cannot last forever…..there do not seem to be any matter sources that admit solutions that are immune to collapse”

Summary

While in scientific terms we are not 100% certain that the universe had a beginning, since nothing in science is considered to be 100% certain, all of the evidence we have suggests that it does.  This paper demonstrates that “eternal” models can only be eternal in one direction; the future. 

“At this point, it seems that the answer to this question is probably yes.  Here we have addressed three scenarios which seemed to offer a way to avoid a beginning, and have found that none of them can actually be eternal in the past.”

Suffering – An Interesting Perspective

One of the most difficult topics Christians deal with is suffering; how can God be good and allow suffering?  Many times we find the answers lacking.  We rationalize human suffering using free will arguments, man’s sin, and acknowledging  that we live in a broken world, but a frequent question that comes up is why would God allow animal suffering when the animals don’t sin, don’t have free will, and have done nothing to cause their suffering?  Here is an example of such a question that was asked on Reddit and I’d like to share what I found to be a very eloquent answer.

 

“Why did God's original design for the world include millions of years of suffering and death through the brutal process of evolution by natural selection? Why did God call this original design "very good"? Note that you cannot say that the fall of man caused death and suffering, because death and suffering existed before the fall.”

 

The person giving the answer is Daniel Hedin, who goes by /u/EsquilaxHortensis on Reddit.  He is hired by businesses to use his falcons to scare off pests that eat crops, attack customers, and/or clog up airplane turbines.  I don’t know him; he doesn’t know me.  He gave me permission to publish this.

I'd like to share some thoughts on this. You can skip down a ways to a more direct answer, since first I want to ruminate a bit on the subjective experience of death.

First I want to establish my credentials. See, I hunt animals with birds of prey, both for sport and professionally. I kill a lot of things, and almost always with my bare hands. Doing it humanely is of paramount importance to me, so typically I aim for a knock to the head to stun, followed by decapitation, though different animals have better deaths with other techniques. And, sometimes, the death is just ugly no matter how I handle it. So, I know something about violent death from the dealing side.

From the receiving side, too; when I was about 15 I was riding an ATV in the desert and one way or another managed to flip it over such that it rolled back onto me. I was pinned beneath it, the wind knocked out of me and my lungs pressed so hard that I couldn't draw breath. The scalding-hot metal of the machinery was pressed into me; I have scars still on my left hand and leg from where I was branded. There were others with me, but a little too far away, and even had I been able to cry out, which was just physically impossible, they likely wouldn't have been able to hear me.

I was, myself, stunned. My mind felt as jammed up and immobile as my body. I was aware that I was in a great deal of pain, but wasn't really experiencing it. I was also aware that I could not survive long in that position and that unless something happened I would be dead soon. Moments like that aren't made for philosophy; I remembered that I'd thought about such a moment in the past and had certain things I wanted to think about when the time came. Those thoughts were not accessible. There was only the terrible, grinding, stupefying present. Thankfully, I couldn't really feel fear, either. I managed to whisper "God..." but I can't quite call it a prayer in the normal sense, as I wasn't capable of entering into a prayer-state. It was at most a pointer toward the things I wished I could think and say.

I remember the moment very clearly, yet somehow can't remember who came to get the vehicle off of me. Don't get me wrong; I'm sure it was one of the people who was out riding that day and not divine intervention. The point is that I know something about violent death on the receiving end, too.

And as an observer. I work with animals. They die sometimes despite my best efforts, and it's always heartbreaking. Some raptors are very intelligent in terms of relationships and planning and tactics. One thing I have learned, though, is that death just isn't real for them. One falcon that I hand-raised, who sees me as her parent and who used to snuggle in bed with me when she was very little, almost choked to death at one point. She had been in the process, very barely drawing breath for almost half an hour before I arrived and was able to help her. What I found was that her eyes were wide open in stark terror, her little frame shaking, pain and confusion in every line of her body. Thankfully I had a multi-tool and was able to pull the blockage out of her throat. Less than a minute later, she was eating again as though nothing had happened. To her, perhaps, nothing had. There was no recognition that she almost ended permanently, only some unpleasant stimuli that were no longer troubling her.

Between her experience and mine is where I find almost all of the prey I dispatch. They are pumped on adrenaline and/or in shock, stunned and almost entirely insensate. They'll escape if they can, instinctually, but for the most part I think that the experience can be described as stressful more than anything else. And that stress is over the moment I can end it. And when I do, all they lose is the moment. Not their past, not their future; they are not aware of these things. They have no concept of death or loss. Most animals with what we'd call a consciousness live in the moment, and most of their moments are good enough. Adding another year to a cat's life doesn't make their subjective experience happier, just longer. What does it matter to my cat if he lives another ten days or another ten years? A higher quantity of moments mostly like the ones he has already experienced? And if he dies poorly, has that devalued the life that he has lived? What is the value of the life that he has lived?

Indeed, what is the value, the point, of any experience? Taking an atheist view, all life is qualitatively the same as a breaking wave or a falling stone: particles behaving as they must in probabilistic patterns. We happen to be more complex than most, leading to such things as emergent consciousness, but other than our feelings, why is a duck trying to avoid a falcon any different from a plant growing toward the light? We attach a lot of importance to the subjective experience of pain, but all that is is a mechanism by which self-replicators avoid damage that might cause them to not spam their environments with self-replicas as well. Of course pain is unpleasant; that's the point! Pain is good for the replicator in most cases or it wouldn't happen. And in the case of death it's usually over quickly at least. Those cases where the intentions of the system go awry and lead to prolonged suffering are exceptions and should be regarded as such.

Now to actually respond to you

The larger question, of course, is whether or not this system of reality is worth it, given the "problem of pain". I have two responses to this. One is logically sound and satisfies intellectual objections, but feels rather unsatisfying on its own. The other satisfies the shortcomings of the first, for me at least.

So then,

The intellectual answer to the Problem of Evil

Well, this is very simple, actually. No one has ever shown there to be a "Logical Problem of Evil". The argument is usually framed like this:

P1.  If an omnipotent, loving God exists, needless suffering would not exist.

             P2.  Needless suffering exists.
               C.  Therefore, an omnipotent, loving God does not exist.

The problem, of course, is premise 2. Simply put, we cannot evaluate whether needless suffering exists. We do not know the underlying framework of our reality, the ultimate fate of our universe, the truth about an afterlife, or the consequences of our actions or experience.

Some will object that an "omnipotent" God could have done things completely differently, but this doesn't stand to reason. Even an omnipotent being does not act except in accordance with its own nature. If a deity decides, for one reason or another, that this is the best way of doing things, that our suffering will be worthwhile, who are we to object? We're talking here about a transhumanly intelligent entity with access to information and wisdom that we cannot begin to comprehend. The idea that we somehow know better and have room to criticize is absurd.

This answer sucks, though, because all it does is refute an argument and give the impression of some lofty, detached deity with inscrutable goals who does not deign to consider the suffering of those trapped in his nightmarish matrix. And that's not what the Christian God looks like at all.

My Christian response to the emotional problem of suffering

This deity cared enough about us to intervene. That alone speaks volumes, but the way that it went about doing so is what's truly amazing. This incomprehensibly vast, powerful entity decided to experience our reality as we do, as one of us, in the person of Jesus. Jesus, who knew hunger, who knew subjugation, who knew hard work with too little sleep, who knew the loss of loved ones, who knew the most painful, humiliating means of execution that all the Powers of the world could give. We cannot speak of a detached deity who does not care about our pain. He knows.

He came into a world where the idea of a "good man" looked something like Tony Stark, cold and selfish, where the standard mode of regarding the people in the next country over was as potential slaves, where unwanted infants were thrown into dung hills to die of exposure, where there was no concept of a charitable hospital, where those who wronged you were to be wronged in return, where it was normal and expected that the strong would do what they could and the weak would suffer what they must.

And he turned that whole world on its head. He taught that the rich should give what they had to the poor, that the hungry should be fed, the sick healed, and one's enemies -- not just one's neighbors -- should be loved even unto the point of self-sacrifice. That the infant matters as much as the parent, that the slave matters as much as the emperor. He suffered with us and taught us to ease each other's suffering. He calls us to fix the world and make all as it should be. And he says that what's coming is going to make all of our pain worthwhile.

Today, when people find the idea of murdering infants to be detestable, that's because of Jesus. When we have the idea that leaders should be humble, that's because of Jesus. When we have the idea that rich people are almost obligated to give to charity, that's because of Jesus. When we have the idea that forgiveness is healthy and not just an occasional political necessity, that's because of Jesus.

In Jesus we see revealed the face of the deity who ordered things as they are ordered. The only question is one of trust. When I look to him I find that I'm not just willing to base my life on a positive response, but ecstatic to. This is a chance worth taking, sister.

Alex Rosenberg Rejects Theism Because the Probability of Sapient Life is “vanishingly small”.

The debate between Sean Carroll and William Lane Craig was excellent, full of good information, full of interesting arguments, and full of surprises.  One surprise was that Sean Carroll chose Dr. Alex Rosenberg as one of his supporting speakers.  In February 2013, Craig debated Rosenberg at Purdue University and pummeled him.  You know you are going to have a bad day when you agree to a debate and then proclaim in that debate that debating is not a good venue to exchange ideas, as Rosenberg did. 

Rosenberg is a co-director of the Center for Philosophy of Biology at Duke University.  As a philosopher, one would think he could give logically sound reasons for why he does not believe in God.  Rosenberg claimed the purpose of his talk was to show “the incompatibility of Darwin’s theory of natural selection and theism.”  Obviously this has nothing to do with the debate topic of God & Cosmology (aka a red herring), but maybe Carroll wanted a philosopher to give a good argument against theism even if the argument has nothing to do with cosmology.  So how does Rosenberg claim that evolution is incompatible with theism? 

 

“An omniscient God would therefore know that…..the probability of the emergence of life was low, the probability of the emergence of vertebrate life was even lower, the probability of the emergence of mammalian life was minuscule, the probability of the emergence of sentient life was even smaller, and of sapient life was vanishingly small.  God would have known this.”

There you have it.  The probability of human life evolving is so extremely small that God could not possibly have been involved.  Regardless on one’s view on evolution, I don’t see how it follows logically that if the probability of sapient life forming naturally is “vanishingly small” that this means God was not involved.  It seems the extremely low probability would show outside help may be needed.  If human life evolving naturally is extremely improbable, yet not enough to show God was involved, what could God have done to show that he was involved in the creation of life?  Here’s what Rosenberg says,

“God could have created us by a means so fiendishly clever, that involved so many complications, that involved so many laws of nature, and boundary conditions working together that we, as smart as we are, will never be able to figure out what that process was.  We will never be smart enough to identify the laws that governed our evolution from the basic distribution of matter from the beginning of the universe.”

Then he later says,

“Biology is much harder than quantum mechanics.  Why is it harder than quantum mechanics?  Because for one thing it involves the operation of quantum principles, the operation of classical physical principles, the operation of chemical thermodynamic laws, on a conjuries of initial conditions so complicated, so fine, so different across various environments that we now know relatively less about life on our planet than we know about the cosmology of the universe.”

In other words, God could have used the laws of physics and the fine-tuning of the universe to show that he exists….and that is what he did.  By the end of his talk, all I could say was “Amen!”

Roger Penrose on entropy: How did he calculate that?

 

One of the fine-tuning arguments frequently used is the low entropy state of the universe at the Big Bang.  This was calculated by Roger Penrose to be 1:10¹⁰¹²³.  How does he do this?  He explains it in his book, The Emperor’s New Mind.  Here is the section of the book that discusses it.   Penrose uses the Bekenstein-Hawking formula for the entropy of a particle in a black hole to determine the entropy of a particle at the singularity of the Big Bang as if the entire universe were a giant black hole.  He calculates this to be 10⁴³.  There are estimated to be 10⁸⁰ particles in the observable universe. 

 

10⁸⁰ x 10⁴³ = 10¹²³ . 

Entropy is on a logarithmic scale, so that is how he arrives at 10¹⁰¹²³. 

V = total phase-space volume available

W = original phase-space volume

V/W = 10¹⁰¹²³

 

Therefore, the accuracy of the low entropy value was 1:10¹⁰¹²³.  Penrose says,

“This is an extraordinary figure. One could not possibly even write the number down in full, in the ordinary denary notation: it would be `1' followed by 10<sup>123</sup> successive `0 's! Even if we were to write a `0' on each separate proton and on each separate neutron in the entire universe-and we could throw in all the other particles as well for good measure-we should fall far short of writing down the figure needed. The precision needed to set the universe on its course is seen to be in no way inferior to all that extraordinary precision that we have already become accustomed to in the superb dynamical equations (Newton's, Maxwell's, Einstein's) which govern the behaviour of things from moment to moment.”

 

If there are more particles in the universe than 10⁸⁰ (like an infinite number), all the more extraordinary!!

Sean Carroll pointed out in his debate with William Lane Craig that this low entropy value was not a requirement for life to exist and, therefore, should not be considered finely tuned by a creator.  As I discussed here, Robin Collins addresses this in his paper claiming that without a low entropy at the Big Bang, we would not know that our universe had a beginning and some of our fundamental laws of physics would not have been discovered.

The Fine-Tuning for Discoverability

The recent debate with Sean Carroll and William Lane Craig on February 21, 2014 had a different format than most debates.  Craig and Carroll debated on a Friday night, but then each brought two other people with them to write companion paper’s to support/refute the various positions and give a talk the following morning.  Sean Carroll brought Tim Mauldin and Alex Rosenberg.  William Lane Craig brought Robin Collins and James Sinclair.  I haven’t had time to look at the debate in depth yet, but on the surface it was a great exchange with lots of scientific details.  Sean Carroll held his own quite well, and holding your own against WLC is almost a default victory.  Not all of the videos are posted yet.  I can say the talk Tim Mauldin gave was a snooze….a giant ‘we don’t know anything and don’t need God either’. 

William Lane Craig

Sean Carroll

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the arguments Craig uses that points to an intelligent creator is the fine-tuning for life.  Carroll claims we have no evidence to suggest the universe is fine-tuned for life.  An example he uses is Roger Penrose’s staggering calculation for the minimum entropy value at the Big Bang….1:10¹⁰¹²³.  You could put a zero on every particle in the observable universe with more to spare.  It’s an unfathomably small number!!!  Carroll claims that the entropy of the early universe did not need to be that low for life to form, so it is actually an argument against the fine-tuning by a creator.  Queue Robin Collins.

Robin Collins

Robin Collins is an expert in the fine-tuning of universe.  His talk is not out on video yet, but he has published his companion paper called “The Fine-Tuning for Discoverability”.  He calls it the Discoverability Thesis.

 

“Discoverability Thesis: This thesis is that the universe is non-accidentally structured in such a way as to be highly discoverable.”

 

 

In other words, not only is the universe fine-tuned for life, but it is also finely tuned to allow for intelligent agents to be able to understand it.  Many of the fundamental constants and early universe conditions are not necessary for life, but are necessary if we are to be able to learn about the universe and life.  Collins claims to have found at least a dozen examples of fine-tuning for discoverability.

The low entropy condition at the Big Bang is one of them.  Carroll is correct in saying that the entropy could be higher and still support life, but having a low entropy helps our discoverability in two ways:

1)     A low entropy allows us to see other galaxies and a larger universe.  Without a low entropy, we would only see our galaxy.  We wouldn’t know that the universe was expanding or that it had a beginning.

2)    Without a low entropy in the beginning, the universe would not have a uniform distribution.  We wouldn’t be able to discover some of the fundamental laws that govern the universe, like General Relativity which assumes a uniform distribution throughout the universe.

The beginning of the universe points to a transcendent cause.  A universe that follows laws and can be rationally understood indicates a rational mind formed those laws. 

Another example of tuning for discoverability is the constant, α, that governs the electromagnetic force. 

“A small increase in α would have resulted in all open wood fires going out; yet harnessing fire was essential to the development of civilization, technology, and science – e.g., the forging of metals….. Going in the other direction, if α were decreased, light microscopes would have proportionality less resolving power without the size of living cells or other microscopic objects changing (when measured in atomic units).”

So a larger α means no open wood flames and a smaller α means we would not be able to examine living cells, both of which are very significant to discoverability and technological advancement.

Another example of fine-tuning discoverability is radioactive decay compared to the strength of gravity.  This allows us to study geology, archeology, and paleontology….all crucial in learning about life, the Earth, and history.

“the ability to use radioactive dating – which plays a crucial role in geology, archeology, and paleontology -- depends on the density of radioactive elements in the crust of the planet on which observers evolve. As the strength of gravity is decreased (e.g., as measured by the force between two protons a unit distance apart), the density of radioactive elements must decrease to keep the number of volcanoes per unit area from increasing, which would decrease livability.”

Some atheists, including Carroll, have claimed that extra, unnecessary particles show that the universe was not created by an intelligent agent since a designer would not include such unnecessary features.  This is merely a “Naturalism of the gaps” argument….. ‘I don’t know why a creator would do this, so there is no creator’.  One example is the muon.  Collins argues that the muon has played a very important role in our ability to learn about our universe and other particles.  He sites this article in Symmetry Magazine:

“The muon is one of 16 fundamental particles that make up everything—all matter, all forces, all energy—in the visible universe….The muon’s puzzling appearance and subsequent identification as a unique and autonomous particle perplexed scientists and revolutionized the field of particle physics. It was the precursor to the three generations of matter and opened the door for the discovery of quarks and other particles.”

“Today scientists can manipulate the muon and use it as a tool not only for particle physics research but also for cosmology, archeology and public safety. They have used muons to test special relativity and time dilation and to probe the interiors of pyramids for secret chambers. Today scientists use muons to image novel materials such as high-temperature superconductors, to study chemical reactions, to look for hidden nuclear weapons and even to determine things as delicate as the size of a proton.”

There is even talk of building a muon collider.  For an unnecessary particle, a lot has been learned because of it and this isn’t the end of what we will learn from the muon! 

Collins goes on to discuss the cosmic microwave background radiation and the dark energy coincidence problem, but that will have to be another post.  Needless to say, his paper is full of good info!!

How does the discoverability point to an intelligent creator?  If the entropy were higher, we would not know that our universe had a beginning and required a transcendent cause.  We also would not know some of the fundamental laws that govern our universe, which a rational universe provides evidence for a rational creator.  If the constant that governs the electromagnetic force, α, were higher, we wouldn’t have fire or anything that results from fire.  If α were lower, we would not be able to see living cells in a microscope.  If you want to know why that points to an intelligent mind, see Steven Meyer’s video on the cell.  Radioactive decay has allowed us to study geology, archeology, and paleontology….all crucial in learning about life, the Earth, and history.  The muon has opened the door to understand our universe at the particle level.

The more I learn, the more Romans 1 amazes me.  God truly has revealed his existence through what he has made.