Puzzle Piece 4: The Universe – is it fine-tuned for life?
“Hey Dave, how was your weekend?” asked Jonnie.
“Terrible!” replied Dave.
“Why? What happened?” said Jonnie, concerned.
“I was supposed to make a birthday cake for my sister,” he said. “I wanted to make this massive, multi-layered chocolate cake that I saw on MasterChef, so I got the recipe from the website and got out all my ingredients and started to make it.”
“What happened?”
“Well, I looked at the recipe and thought that I would change it a little, you know, add more cocoa to make it richer, a bit less butter because I didn’t want it to be quite so fattening,” he said.
Jonnie laughed. “You can’t do that, mate! Those recipes are very carefully balanced to produce a specific outcome and you can’t just mess with parts of it!”
“So I’ve found,” Dave sighed. “And to make it worse, I added too much bicarb (bicarbonate soda). Way too much!”
“What’d it turn out like?”
“A hollow, stinky green mushroom!”
“What!? How’d it go green?”
“Well, I mistook the bicarb for sugar and put in a whole cup.”
“Didn’t you realise?”
“I realised I’d made a mistake, but I didn’t want to throw out all the ingredients and start over. It’s an expensive cake! Plus, I figured that a little bicarb makes it rise, so a lot should make it really high and fluffy, right?”
“I guess not?” Jonnie replied.
“No.” Dave said. “Too much actually makes it sink and turn green as the bicarb cooks and burns – and burnt bicarb stinks!”
“That’s why they have a recipe! If you start changing things you don’t end up with a cake, you end up with...well...that!”
“Tell me about it. Next time, I’m gonna do just what the recipe says – nothing more! That is clearly the way to get the best cake and I guess some respect should be given rather than thinking I know better... I am indebted to the great cake makers of MasterChef! Happy?” Dave mocked.
“Mate – it is your cake, your life, do as you please...”
Puzzle Piece 4: The universe – is it fine-tuned for life?
Last time we looked at the universe as a whole and asked ourselves why it exists and we discovered that the standard Big Bang model, which says the universe began to exist from nothing at a moment in the finite past, seems to be the best explanation. We looked at the five easy-to-remember-and-share-with-others pieces of evidence that prove the universe had a beginning, and we used the acronym SURGE to help remember them: Second Law of Thermodynamics, Universal Expansion, Cosmic Background Radiation, Great Galaxy Clusters, and Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. Since these five things show that the universe had a beginning, we then applied them to the Kalam Cosmological Argument - the Muslim bloke, Al-Khazali, who came up with the logical idea that implied the universe had a cause. It stated:
1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause;
2. The universe began to exist; therefore
3. The universe has a cause.
Finally, we briefly explored through video what/who such a cause might be. We discovered that it had to be a timeless (eternal), non-physical (spiritual) and uncaused, being of unimaginable power who is also personal, because only personal things can decide to perform an action, like creating an entire universe! We then left you with two questions for homework that we hope you have deliberated over much! Today, let’s move into a closer examination of the universe and move closer to answering the two questions from last week. For a change, let’s start by asking another question: why does it look as if the universe is fine-tuned for life? Our answer lies in more big words!
The Anthropic Principle:
Imagine that you’re at the beach making a sand castle and, as you dig in the sand, you find a diamond studded Rolex watch. What conclusion do you draw about how that watch got there? Your first thought could be, was it produced by natural forces alone? Did nature make this, like the oyster makes a pearl? Was it a combination of wind and waves and rain that formed a fully functioning chronograph? Of course not! There will be (no – should be) no question in your mind that some intelligent being built it and that some other intelligent being unfortunately lost it (or fortunately for you depending on your honesty and value system – more on this later too!). The point of this is, that as we learn more and more about the universe, scientist are finding that it looks more and more like that diamond studded watch: designed by an intelligent being. The truth of the matter is the universe makes the Rolex look simple by comparison! It is beginning to look like our incredibly complex universe is set up in such a delicate way with the purpose of permitting life on Earth, a little planet in one corner of one galaxy in the unimaginably vast cosmos. A system set up so beautifully that man can exist only on this place in our known universe. Hmmm, it makes one ponder, right? This idea is known as the Anthropic Principle. The word “Anthropic” comes from the Greek word anthropos which means “man” or “human”. The word Anthopic means pertaining to human existence. The Anthropic Principle therefore centres around the concept that the universe is all about humanity’s existence and features in a number of arguments that seek to show that the universe has been specifically designed to support life. We’ll just look at one of those arguments here, the Teleological Argument.
The Teleological Argument:
This argument gets its name from another Greek word, telos, which means “design” or “purpose” and looks like this:
1. Every design has a designer;
2. The universe has highly complex design; therefore
3. The universe has a designer.
Look familiar? It should – it is clearly linked to Al-Khazali’s argument but it takes it one step further and introduces humanity and beings/designers into the picture. Let’s investigate...
Let’s look at premise 1. We instinctively understand the idea that a design has a designer. Let’s hark back to our new Rolex (we will return it to Lost and Found later I promise) – so many intricate components in our chronograph all working together in perfect harmony to accomplish a task tells us that this cannot be the product of random natural forces, but that an intelligent mind designed it. Right? Some will argue that this can randomly happen – but is that a reasonable thing to believe? Take Mount Rushmore in America for example. No one takes seriously the suggestion that wind, rain and erosion carved the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln into the side of the mountain, do they? If they did would you carry on a logical argument with them? We recognise design when we see it, and we know that it only comes from a designer. Designed things have a level of intricacy to them, a way in which multiple things all work together harmoniously. For Mount Rushmore we can clearly see how people worked together to achieve a purpose or goal (telos!), and the universe shows the same signs.
Christian Philosopher J. P. Moreland gives this illustration to help us understand the second premise of the argument* : imagine that you walked into a room that contains a machine, a machine which is capable of producing universes! This machine has over 100 dials, each with a huge range of settings, like the dial that controls the temperature on your oven. On each dial there is one tiny little sliver of those settings that is coloured red, and the rest of the settings are coloured black. For the universe to be capable of supporting life, every single one of those dials needs to be set to red, and if you were to fiddle with the dials you would end all life as we know it, possibly end the entire universe! People have labelled these universal constants, let’s have a squiz at a few of the 100 or so Anthropic Constants and see just what Dr. Moreland is on about.
Anthropic Constants:
1. Oxygen Level – on Earth, oxygen is 21% of our atmosphere, the perfect amount to nurture and sustain life. If the oxygen level rose to 25% spontaneous fires would erupt, and if it dropped to 15% we would all suffocate. So out of the possible amount of oxygen that an atmosphere could hold (from no oxygen to 100% oxygen) a change of 5% either side would render the planet lifeless. Quote that one to your mates!
2. Atmospheric Transparency – our atmosphere has precisely the right level of transparency to allow just enough solar radiation through to the planet’s surface. If the atmosphere were more transparent, too much radiation would get through burning everything, and if it was less transparent not enough would get through, lowering the global temperature; again, rendering us either large fries, or frozen pie!
3. Carbon Dioxide Level – our atmosphere allows a certain amount of carbon dioxide to pass through and dissipate into space. If less were to pass through, the greenhouse effect would intensify and the temperature of the planet would rise to the point where life would be unsustainable (large fries!). If it allowed too much out then photosynthesis would cease and plants would stop producing oxygen and we’d all suffocate. Are we thinking random accident still?
4. Gravity – research physicist Jeffrey Zweerink of UCLA says that if the gravitational force was altered by 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001% (not the largest of margins we have ever seen...) our sun would not have existed, and therefore neither would we. This is because, according to the standard Big Bang model, stars and planets formed when gravity caused matter of different sizes to be drawn together forming larger chunks. These then collided with other chunks to form larger pieces and so on until stars and planets were formed. If the force of gravity were weaker no material would have united and no planets or stars would have formed – everything would have simply continued on expanding after the big bang. If, on the other hand it was stronger, everything would have been sucked back together into what is called the “big crunch”. If such a minute change could have resulted in a busted balloon or something like sucking on lemons – surely it suggests that Someone intelligent put such things in place – surely not random accident. It does make one wonder, doesn’t it?
5. Rotation of the Earth – the Earth’s rotation is just slow enough to allow a suitable length of day and night. If we rotated faster, the velocities of atmospheric winds would be too great, and if it was slower, then the temperature differences would be too vast. Consider Mercury: The sun’s closest planet takes 58 Earth days to rotate completely (we take 1, just FYI). This, coupled with the lack of atmosphere, means that the day side can reach temperatures of 430°C and the night side as low as -163°C. Not necessarily an ideal holiday destination.
These are just five of the constants that cannot be varied by any significant amount (an amount which is often minute!) or life as we know it would be impossible. Writing in 2006, Christian physicist Dr Hugh Ross lists 93 such anthropic constants on his website, Reasons to Believe (www.reasons.org). Since publishing his work, the number has increased to 122, with some physicists going as high as 130. 130 Anthropic Constants that cannot be altered in any significant way or life and the universe simply ceases to exist. This is fabulous evidence for a designer!
It does beg the question for some though; could all this have happened by chance? Is a designer necessary, or is it possible that we just got lucky? Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion, says that the chance is one in a billion. As if that is not unlikely enough to be proof (no one I know would take those odds to the bank) let’s see if he’s even right. The chance of winning Powerball is 1 in 54,979,155. The number of seconds in the history of the universe is 1018 (1 followed by 18 zeros: 1 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000). The estimated number of planets in the whole universe is 1022. The number of subatomic particles in the entire universe is 1080 (that’s 1 followed by 80 zeroes). The probability of all these dials just happening to be set to the red section of their range without help (i.e. purely naturalistically): 10138, or one chance in one followed by 138 zeroes (too many zeros to fit on this page and still have your attention)! In other words, there is zero chance! Robert Jastrow, founding member and onetime head of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, has called this the most powerful evidence for the existence of God ever to come out of science! Nobel Prize winner Arno Penzias, the co-discoverer of the radiation afterglow (the R in SURGE) says, “In the absence of an absurdly-improbable accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan.”
Thus we see from the above brief exploration that the second premise of the Teleological Argument (that the universe has highly complex design) is true and we find ourselves drawn inescapably to the final premise: the universe has a designer. This evidence is so powerful that Antony Flew, the world’s leading philosophical atheist for the last 50 years, recently gave up his atheism and became a theist. He was not a Christian when he died, but he was forced by this argument to acknowledge that the evidence of design in the universe meant a designer.
(Just a brief point to ponder before we go on – a question for you or your mates: If this evidence is so powerful and if there is a designer – what does that mean? Do we owe the designer something? Does the designer care?)
Multiple Universes?
Not all atheists go the way of Professor Flew, however. In order to counter the force of this argument, many atheists offer up the idea that there are multiple universes, not just this one. Some say there are even an infinite number of them! Given an infinite number of universes, we just happened to get lucky and find ourselves in the one with the right set of conditions to allow us to exist. After all, with an infinite number of universes, every possible combination of settings on the universe making machine will have been tried at least once – that 10138 is still a chance. A valid argument some might say, so let’s look at some of the problems with this idea.
Firstly, there isn’t any evidence known at present that proves multiple universes exist. If other universes exist they are beyond our ability to detect because they would operate on a different set of physical laws than ours. Secondly, if multiple universes began to exist, they would need a beginning and a beginner, just like this one (remember the Kalam Cosmological Argument from last Piece). Logically from this we can then conclude that this means that multiple universes don’t eliminate the need for a designer – they multiply it! Thirdly, this theory is so broad that any event can be explained way by it – including Jonnie’s Porsche! To take it one step further - If we ask, for example, “Why did the planes hit the World Trade Centre on September 11?” we need not blame Muslim terrorists: this theory lets us say that we just happen to be in the universe where those planes actually hit the buildings by accident, even though it appears that the attack was designed. Heck, with this theory we can even let Hitler off the hook – we just happen to be in the universe where the Jews secretly conspired with Hitler and sent themselves to their deaths! We know this is nonsense, but sometimes you need to go this far to make a point very clear. In the end, this theory seems to simply be a desperate attempt to avoid the implications of design (hence our question above). It seeks to multiply chances, but in reality it only multiplies absurdities!
Another notion that atheists often bring up to dispute the design concept is an argument made popular by Richard Dawkins. He says intelligent design’s fundamental flaw is this: who designed the designer? If God designed the universe, who designed God? And, who designed that being? And who designed that one? And so on forever. This is what philosophers call an “infinite regress” – it goes back forever without end. But is he right? Is this a flaw in the design argument that fatally undermines it? Hmm...no. As Christian apologist and philosopher Greg Koukl points out in his debate with Michael Shermer, founder of skeptic.com, we don’t need to be able to explain the designer to infer design**. He gives this illustration: say you’re walking on the beach and you see a shoeprint in the sand. You don’t need to know anything about who made the shoe or where it came from to infer that the shoeprint was made by a shoe! Similarly, we don’t need to be able to explain God’s existence to infer that the universe was designed, was put here by a creator. The print is obvious and infers it was put there by someone. Secondly, Jews and Christians have always held, way back, thousands of years before Christ, that God is eternal, an uncreated creator. So Dawkins’ argument simply falls apart – it appears to be just another way of trying to avoid the personal implications of this powerful argument for God’s existence.
In finishing, let’s revisit our argument and tweak it slightly based on what we’ve learned:
1. Every design has a designer;
2. As verified by the Anthropic Principle, we know beyond reasonable doubt that the universe is designed; therefore
3. The universe has a Designer.
Therefore, we must begin to consider the personal implications that go along with such a revelation: Which designer is THE designer? Is there more than one designer? What should be our response to this designer? Next time, we’ll really start to narrow our focus and look at the information contained within life’s cells: DNA, examining what this shows us about our designer. Ponder on that!
* Given in a presentation made at the Saddleback Apologetics Conference 2009
** Debate on The Hugh Hewitt Show, December 2009.
