Opus 2023-061: The Fun and Futility of Digging

I came across the discussion of the fine tuning of the universe ten or fifteen years ago listening to a William Lane Craig podcast.  Craig demonstrates a grasp of theology, philosophy and, to my surprise, science.  He explained the many laws of physics and universal constants that are at work in time and space as we know it.  One of the most startling statements he made was to the effect that earth was most likely the only place advanced life existed because all the fine tuning was necessary for life on Earth and did not allow for the same conditions anywhere else.  Craig is generally reliable so I took it, but my eyebrows were raised for a long time.

Then that idea was repeated by Eric Metaxas in his book Is Atheism Dead?  I would recommend his book because it explains things as simply as it can be explained.  Check your local library.

At the other end of the spectrum is the increasingly complex structure of the cell that is being discovered as the instruments of research keep improving.  When science can look deeper they don’t find the final answer.  What they seem to find is another level.  Since they still don’t understand much of what they already know exists this must really be frustrating.

Most of this research is being done by people who have a vested interest in proving God does not exist.  Stephen Meyer investigates from a believer’s standpoint.  He is one of those nerds with a Ph.D. that qualifies him to comment.  He has written several books.  The one I am reading is Darwin’s Doubt.  One of the points he keeps making is that the researchers keep running into a wall with their religious convictions in evolution.  It doesn’t work.  It doesn’t fit the facts.  It doesn’t meet the demands of real science.  If they were honest scientists they would come up with a new hypothesis and go a different way.  They might even find a way to include the possibility of God without compromising their inquiry.  Instead they come up with theories that depend totally on a creative imagination and have no data to back them up.

I must confess that much of the actual science is above my head but there is enough detail that you can see how things fit and don’t fit.  I continue to maintain that people who believe in God have nothing to fear from good science and people who pursue honest research have nothing to fear from God, at least in their science.

In his discussion of the codes built into the DNA the numbers are beyond the imagination.  The possibilities of combinations are staggering.  They gradually are uncovering what certain parts of the code, arranged a specific way do.  For instance I think they can tell you what part of the gene controls hair color.  As I ponder that awesome discovery I speculate.  I wonder if the day ever comes when science unravels the DNA code completely will they discover that every single code on DNA has some significance.  When you consider how many possible combinations there are that should give you an idea of how far away they are from the mystery of life.

Keep digging boys and girls.  

Metaxas, Eric.  Is Atheism Dead?.  Washington, D.C.:  Salem Books, 2021.

Meyer, Stephen C.  Darwin’s Doubt.  New York:  Harper One, 2013.

homo unius libri