On Science Never “Proving God”
This quote was overheard on the “Stars of Cosmology, Part 2″ episode of the Scientific American podcast. This is a podcast with several famous physicists (i.e. the “stars” of physics cosmology) discussing the future of cosmology, particularly inflation.
The context of this quote is right after discussing the possibility of infinite universes where most are inhospitable to life and the only ones that have astronomers and physicists questioning, “why are the laws of physics perfectly hospitable for life?” are the ones that randomly happened to be hospitable to life.
Let me add one more thing that could be seen at the LCH, that could make most of us unhappy if it’s seen. We could see evidence for more fine tuning in nature than we’ve already seen in the cosmological constant. And that would be taken as evidence for this multiverse anthropic picture where the laws of physics are not determined by fundamental principles but rather by a wide variety of things happening and certain things selecting for life.
I think this quote illustrates how science is still dependent upon “faith” as, I suppose, all human endeavors are. Science is built on the faith that the universe is understandable, non-whimsical, and explainable. Therefore, if you can’t explain why the universe just happens to have been created to support life, you must therefore conclude there are an infinite number of universes and we just happen to be in one of the ones that supports life, even though you have no real evidence for these other universes.
I am not complaining when I state this. This actually seems like the only reasonable assumption science could make given the scientific assumptions.
However, I would have liked to have asked them what they think of Roger Penrose’s arguments that the athropic argument is insufficient to explain phenomenon like this on it’s own. (I will try to remember to do a post on Penrose’ ideas some other time.)
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Bookslinger
January 24, 2010
If Elohim is the God of this universe, and if He is one in a long line of gods, and if we grow up to be like Him (gods and goddess with spirit children and repeat His pattern), that alone implies that there has been and will be an infinite number of universes (each god-couple having one or more of their own universes).
For there to be only one universe, that one which we perceive now, and taking into account a multiplicity of Gods, that would imply that Elohim is the God of this galaxy (or this group/bubble of galaxies that we perceive as universe), and that there are an infinte number of galaxies (or groups/bubbles of galaxies) in “the” all-encompassing and exhaustive universe.
The scriptures state that this earth and “the heavens” will eventually pass away, like being wrapped like a scroll. I wonder if “the heavens” means this galaxy, or this universe. It gives me a mental picture of this whole universe being collapsed into a black hole, kind of like an undoing or reversal of the Big Bang.
The more I study the scriptures and cosmology, the more I see possible reconciliations between the two.
Bruce Nielson
January 24, 2010
I read a book about the Omega point theory. It never occured to me that the Big Crunch might be the same as “being wrapped like a scroll” though the phrase fits well.
Adam Greenwood
January 25, 2010
Books.,
true, but the multiple universes these scientists are talking about are not inhabited, productive ones. In effect, scientists are wondering why our universe works so well to have people in it, and there answer is that, well, if our universe is as improbable as a million dice all turning up 6s, its not because Someone is loading the dice, its because the million dice have been rolled a million million million times.
Bruce Nielson
January 25, 2010
Freeman Dyson, the famous physicist, made a comment on “Speaking of Faith” to the effect that there used to be an argument that if you find a watch in the desert, you don’t assume it appeared there by chance, you assume it was created. (Attributed to another famous scientist whose name eludes me.)
Dyson says this argument applies to two things, life on earth and the existence of the universe itself. He said that for life on earth, evolution is now an alternative answer (a la Dawkins) but that there is still no answer for the universe itself.
The Anthropic principle is an attempt to address this by assuming the existence of an “evolution of universes” so to speak whereby every possibility exists and we only know the one that was seemingly “fine tuned” for life.
Even the scientists I am quoting find this answer unsatisfying. They are hoping for a fundamental reason for why things are the way they are.