Science and God:
Friends or Foes?
“The first to plead his case
seems right,
Until another comes and
examines him.” Proverbs 18:17
June 1, 2015
Allen Hainline
Ratio Christi Philippines
www.OriginsDiscussion.info
What is the most viewed article of all time for
the Wall-Street Journal?
“Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God.”
by Eric Metaxas
Outline
Philosophical Considerations
5 Ways Science Points to a Creator
Foundation of Physics
1. Origin of universe
2. Initial conditions of the universe
3. Fine-tuning of constants for life
Foundation of Biology
4. Origin of life
Foundational Understanding of Humans
5. Free Will, Consciousness, Reason
Can Science Disprove God?
• Suppose that there were no scientific evidence for God, would
that disprove His existence?
• No! strong evidence for God exists beyond science
– Philosophical arguments (moral argument etc.)
– Fulfilled prophecies
– Religious experience
• If someone claims science has disproven God they are
assuming that science is the only way of knowing things
– But this is self-refuting!
– The claim that science is the only way to know things cannot be shown
scientifically
What is Longest-Standing Debate
Between Christian and non-Christian thinkers?
Is the Universe Eternal?
Claims of Bible:
• Creation Ex-Nihilo (“out of nothing”)
• Beginning even to time – uses phrases like “before time began”
Claims of science up until early 20th century
• Universe is eternal, generally thought to be static
• Therefore, no cause needed
1) Origin of Universe Points to a Creator
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe began to exist
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause
–
A cause outside nature implies a supernatural agent
• Outside of time, space, matter; immeasurably powerful
6
Consensus Science:
Universe had a beginning
“Worst birthday present ever” given to Stephen Hawking
at 70th birthday
• Hawking: “A point of creation would be a place where science
broke down. One would have to appeal to religion and the
hand of God”
• Vilenkin: "All the evidence we have says that the universe had
a beginning.“
• “With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide
behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no
escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.”
• Even time and space cannot be extended into eternal past
– BVG Theorem & Generalized Second Law
– Applies even to speculative multiverse theories!
Arno Penzias – “The best data we have (concerning the
Big Bang) are exactly what I would have predicted had I
had nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the
Psalms and the Bible as a whole.”
Robert Wilson – “Certainly there was something that
set it all off.... I can’t think of a better theory of the origin
of the universe to match Genesis.”
George Smoot – “There is no doubt that a parallel exists
between the big bang as an event and the Christian
notion of creation from nothing.”
2&3) Fine-Tuning of Universe
"The really amazing thing is not that life on
Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that
the entire universe is balanced on a knifeedge, and would be total chaos if any of the
natural 'constants' were off even slightly.”
Dr. Paul Davies, Physicist ASU
What is Fine-Tuning? An Analogy
Arizona Biosphere: everything
had to be constructed and set
just right for it to be selfsustaining. Still failed in 2
years …
Source: Robin Collins
In the last 40 years, scientists
have discovered the universe is
analogous to a biosphere: its
structure must be precisely set
for life to exist. This is called the
fine-tuning of the cosmos.
Fine-Tuning Claim
From most comprehensive review article:
• “In the set of possible physics, the subset that permit the
evolution of life is very small.” Cosmologist Luke Barnes
– 200+ articles affirm this claim
– Applies to:
• Fundamental constants
– Force strengths, particle masses, cosmological parameters
• Laws
• Initial conditions
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2) Initial Conditions Finely-Tuned
Nearly all initial conditions of Big Bang would have resulted in
lifeless universe dominated by black holes
• Roger Penrose computed odds against life: 1 in 10 to power of 10123
• Writing out number requires more 0’s than particles in universe
• Can the multiverse (multiple universes) help here?
• Multiverse “worse than useless in explaining the anthropic fine-tuning”
– Predicts exponentially more exponentially smaller universes that would be
exponentially easier to fine-tune to permit life
Fine-tuning of laws &
constants to support life
Applies to each of 4 fundamental forces and various
particle masses and other fundamental constants
• There is a wide range of possible values
• Only a tiny, tiny fraction of those would permit life of any
kind anywhere in the universe
• On atheism, there is nothing to favor life-permitting
settings but we expect God to favor life
– Thus, fine-tuning provides evidence for theism over atheism
– Universe looks incredibly rigged to permit life of any kind
anywhere
Fine-Tuning of Gravity
If gravity can vary up to strongest force:
– If stronger by 1 in 1034, stars burn out too fast
– If stronger or weaker by 1 in 1036, stars unstable
– If stronger by 1 in 1040, universe dominated by black holes not
stars
“It is an unexplained miracle that gravity is as weak as it
is” Susskind
It seems to be more than coincidence that multiple
independent life-permitting criteria happen to overlap in
the same finely-tuned region!
Stars Fine-Tuned for Longevity
Life needs a long-term stable energy source
– A star is basically a controlled nuclear explosion held
together by gravity
• Why does the explosion last for billions of years?
– Fine-tuning is required! (3 forces, 5 particle masses)
– How much greater is Sun’s energy output per gram than
your body?
• It’s not! Sun outputs 1000x less energy per gram than you
• To get this slow energy release you need that 1 in 1036 tuning
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Comprehending the Fine-Tuning
1 chance in 1036 is equivalent to
– Color one tiny grain of sand red
– Mix it in sandpile in Eurasia up to 5
times the height of moon
– Randomly select the 1 red grain of
sand
Charles Townes – “Intelligent design, as one sees it from
a scientific point of view, seems to be quite real. This is a
very special universe: it's remarkable that it came out
just this way. If the laws of physics weren't just the way
they are, we couldn't be here at all. The sun couldn't be
there, the laws of gravity and nuclear laws and
magnetic theory, quantum mechanics, and so on have to
be just the way they are for us to be here.”
Fine-Tuning Points to God
1.
2.
3.
4.
Fine-tuning due to necessity, chance or design
Not Due to Necessity/Law
Attributing It To Chance Looks Too Improbable
Therefore the fine-tuning is due to design
The most plausible designer at this fundamental level is God
4) Origin of Life
I’ll share 3 (of 12) reasons I’m skeptical of a
naturalistic origin of life
• These are among key reasons that persuaded
– Antony Flew to theism
– Richard Smalley:
“After reading Origins of Life [book]… it is clear
[chemical] evolution could not have occurred”
Nobel Prize winner Richard Smalley in
Chemistry
4.1 Information
Impediment
Its unlikely to form even one protein much less the hundreds
needed in the first cell:
• Doug Axe (Cambridge): ratio of functional to non-functional amino acid
sequences was 10-77 for short protein (150 amino acids long)
– Finding any functional protein was 10-74 based on stable folding requirement
– Number of atoms in Milky Way is about 1065
• What about finding a self-replicating RNA?
– Orgel and Joyce: a single-stranded RNA catalyst can replicate itself if it finds
a perfect RNA template match that’s its exact complement
• No replicator with sufficient fidelity found to date
• Expect length of hundreds of nucleotides
20
4.2 Chirality Problem
Building blocks come equally in 2 forms – right-handed and left-handed
• But life can only use one of the forms - you can’t mix them!
“All speculation on the origin of life on Earth by chance cannot survive the
first criterion of life: proteins are left-handed, sugars in DNA and RNA are
right-handed.” Hubert Yockey
“I spent 25 years looking for a terrestrial mechanism for homochirality and
trying to investigate them and didn't find any supporting evidence.
Terrestrial explanations are impotent or nonviable.“ Organic chemist William
Bonner
Right and left-handed versions of amino acids – credit NASA
4.3 Probability Predicament
“For biological evolution … to take off, efficient systems for
replication and translation are required, but even barebones
cores of these systems appear to be products of extensive
selection.” Eugene Koonin
– Argued that first living cell was likely protein-based
– Yet to get both in first living cell is 1 in 101018 chance
• Other researchers:
– “Occurred in spite of minuscule odds such as 1:10300 and which
is accepted only because we are here. “ Christian Schwabe
– Francis Crick appealed to life on earth being seeded by aliens
• This proposed intelligent design seems implausible due to vast
travel distances
• U. Arizona study predicts less than 1 in a million chance of even
one extra-solar rock
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5) Foundational Understanding of Humans
?
Can naturalism explain humans?
– Let’s examine the issue of whether or not humans have
libertarian free will
• Can we make unforced decisions that affect the world or are we fully
controlled by underlying natural processes?
– On naturalism, ultimately everything has to be determined by
natural processes (even if probabilistically)
– God would favor free will but libertarian free will seems
impossible on naturalism
An Example that Surely Doesn’t Have Free Will
A simple classical1 system where 2
chemicals are brought together and a
chemical reaction occurs
– Clearly no free will going on in this beaker
– What happens is solely determined by
physical laws
– There is no room for “if” statements in the
mathematical equations that describe all
known physical laws
1 Will
later discuss how quantum mechanics affects this
What about bacteria?
Still no free will
– There is no reason to think that a bacterium is more than
a collection of chemicals …
– So same arguments apply
What about a human?
Why on naturalism would a human be more than a collection of chemicals?
• Freely acting on physics requires a component to humans unaffected by
physics
– But on naturalism there is nothing beyond nature (physics)
– To say that physics has produced something not subject to physics is
anti-scientific
• This is how Crick, Rosenberg and other prominent atheists have argued
• Human free will on naturalism is just as impossible as chemicals inside a
beaker freely choosing how to act
What about Quantum Mechanics (QM)?
• Many think QM is non-deterministic
– But QM makes accurate probabilistic predictions about particles
– The Schrödinger equation dictates that quantum states evolve
deterministically
– Free will requires consciousness to make choices we need awareness
• On naturalism there is no reason to think that human thoughts can
control quantum events (or any other physical entities)
– Or at least in ways that aren’t determined by physics
• Neuroscientists don’t think a single neuron is conscious
– If consciousness can physically emerge at all it happens at a larger scale
– But even a neuron is way larger than the scale at which quantum processes
operate
But don’t we have free will?
We all have direct firsthand
knowledge of our free will actions
Mind
Brain
?
Evidence that mental states
affect brain states
• First-hand Personal Experience
• Placebo Effect
• Scientific Studies
“We have literally thousands of
years of experiences of human
and animal consciousness causing
behavior.” John Searles in 2013
PNAS article
No clear evidence to contrary
(no Libet didn’t disprove free will!)
Each possibility poses
problems for naturalism
1. There is a non-physical component to humans related to
consciousness and free will
– Is it solely determined by physics?
• Yes: then by definition it’s not libertarian free will!
• No: Naturalism is falsified; evolution couldn’t account for this non-physical
component; humans are incredibly special; there is something like a nonphysical soul (a center of will)
2. There is no free will – it’s just an illusion
– There would be no purpose in such an illusion if we can’t freely act
• No fitness advantage for natural selection to favor and likely a fitness cost
• No plausible origins account either for consciousness as its useless without free will
– Nothing is blameworthy or praiseworthy in any meaningful sense
– This undermines reason since our thinking is reduced to blind physical
processes
Why not think naturalism will find a
future explanation for free will?
• Appeals to possible future evidence is not evidence
– A lawyer can’t appeal to a judge based merely on possible future
discoveries!
• The first free will event cannot itself have been caused
by free will -> thus it is fully a product of physics
– But if it’s fully a product of physics then it’s not a free will
event!
– A first free will event is an incoherent concept and thus
cannot exist
Summary – 5 Ways Science Points to God
1. Origin of Universe
Fine-tuning to support life
2. Initial conditions – 1 out of 10 to the power of 10123
3. Fundamental constants
4. Origin of Life
5. Existence of libertarian free will
Thank you!