WILL SCIENCE SOMEDAY RULE
OUT THE POSSIBILITY OF GOD?
By Natalie Wolchover | LiveScience.com – Tue,
Sep 18, 2012
Over
the past few centuries, science can be said to
have gradually chipped away at the traditional grounds for believing in God.
Much of what once seemed mysterious — the existence of humanity, the
life-bearing perfection of Earth, the workings of the universe — can now be explained by biology, astronomy, physics and other
domains of science.
Although
cosmic mysteries remain, Sean Carroll, a
theoretical cosmologist at the California Institute of Technology, says
there's good reason to think science will ultimately arrive at a complete
understanding of the universe that leaves no grounds for God whatsoever.
Carroll
argues that God's sphere of influence has shrunk drastically in modern times,
as physics and cosmology have expanded in their ability to explain the origin
and evolution
of the universe. "As we learn more about the universe, there's
less and less need to look outside it for help," he told Life's Little
Mysteries.
He
thinks the sphere of supernatural influence will eventually shrink to nil. But could science
really eventually explain everything?
Beginning
of time
Gobs
of evidence have been collected in favor of the Big Bang model of cosmology, or
the notion that the universe expanded from a hot, infinitely dense state to its
current cooler, more expansive state over the course of 13.7 billion years.
Cosmologists can model what happened from 10^-43 seconds after the Big Bang
until now, but the split-second before that remains murky. Some theologians have tried to equate the moment of the Big Bang with
the description of the creation of the world found in the Bible and other
religious texts; they argue that something — i.e., God — must have initiated
the explosive
event.
However,
in Carroll's opinion, progress in cosmology will eventually eliminate any
perceived need for a Big Bang trigger-puller.
As
he explained in a
recent article in the "Blackwell Companion to Science and
Christianity" (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), a foremost goal of modern physics
is to formulate a working theory that describes the entire universe, from
subatomic to astronomical scales, within a single framework. Such a theory,
called "quantum gravity," will necessarily account for what happened
at the moment of the Big Bang. Some versions of quantum gravity theory that
have been proposed by cosmologists predict that the Big Bang, rather than being
the starting point of time, was just "a transitional stage in an eternal
universe," in Carroll's words. For example, one model holds that the
universe acts like a balloon that inflates and deflates over and over under its
own steam. If, in fact, time had no beginning, this shuts the book on Genesis.
[Big
Bang Was Actually a Phase Change, New Theory Says]
Other
versions of quantum gravity theory currently being explored by cosmologists
predict that time did start at the Big Bang. But these
versions of events don't cast a role for God either. Not only do they describe
the evolution of the universe since the Big Bang, but they also account
for how time was able to get underway in the first place. As
such, these quantum gravity theories still constitute complete, self-contained
descriptions of the history of the universe. "Nothing in the fact that
there is a first moment of time, in other words, necessitates that an external
something is required to bring the universe about at that moment," Carroll
wrote.
Another
way to put it is that contemporary physics theories, though still under
development and awaiting future experimental testing, are turning out to be
capable of explaining why Big Bangs occur, without the need for a supernatural
jumpstart. As Alex Filippenko, an astrophysicist at the University of
California, Berkeley, said in a
conference talk earlier this year, "The Big
Bang could've occurred as a result of just the laws of physics being
there. With the laws of physics, you can get universes."
Parallel
universes
But
there are other potential grounds for God. Physicists have observed that many
of the physical constants that define our universe, from the mass of the
electron to the density of dark energy, are eerily perfect for supporting life.
Alter one of these constants by a hair, and the universe becomes
unrecognizable. "For example, if the mass of the neutron were a bit
larger (in comparison to the mass of the proton) than its actual value,
hydrogen would not fuse into deuterium and conventional stars would be impossible,"
Carroll said. And thus, so would life as we know it. [7
Theories on the Origin of Life]
Theologians
often seize upon the so-called "fine-tuning" of the physical
constants as evidence that God must have had a hand in them; it seems he chose
the constants just for us. But contemporary physics explains our seemingly
supernatural good luck in a different way.
Some
versions of quantum gravity theory, including string theory, predict that our
life-giving universe is but one of an
infinite number of universes that altogether make up the multiverse.
Among these infinite universes, the full range of values of all the physical
constants are represented, and only some of the universes have values for the constants
that enable the formation of stars, planets and life as we know it. We find
ourselves in one of the lucky universes (because where else?). [Parallel
Universes Explained in 200 Words]
Some theologians counter that it is far simpler to
invoke God than to postulate the existence of infinitely many universes in
order to explain our universe's life-giving perfection. To them,
Carroll retorts that the multiverse wasn't postulated as a complicated way to
explain fine-tuning. On the contrary, it follows as a natural consequence of
our best, most elegant theories.
Once
again, if or when these theories prove correct, "a multiverse happens,
whether you like it or not," he wrote. And there goes God's hand in
things. [Poll:
Do You Believe in God?]
The
reason why
Another
role for God is as a raison d'être for the universe. Even if
cosmologists manage to explain how the
universe began, and why it seems so
fine-tuned for life, the question might remain why there is something as
opposed to nothing. To many people, the answer to the question is God. According
to Carroll, this answer pales under scrutiny. There can be no answer to
such a question, he says.
"Most
scientists … suspect that the search for ultimate explanations eventually
terminates in some final theory of the world, along with the phrase 'and that's
just how it is,'" Carroll wrote. People who find this unsatisfying are
failing to treat the entire universe as something unique — "something for
which a different set of standards is appropriate." A complete scientific
theory that accounts for everything in the universe doesn't need an external
explanation in the same way that specific things within the universe need
external explanations. In fact, Carroll argues, wrapping another layer of
explanation (i.e., God) around a self-contained theory of everything would just
be an unnecessary complication. (The theory already works without God.)
Judged
by the standards of any other scientific theory, the "God hypothesis"
does not do very well, Carroll argues. But he grants that "the idea of God
has functions other than those of a scientific hypothesis."
Psychology
research suggests that belief
in the supernatural acts as societal glue and motivates people to follow
the rules; further, belief in the afterlife helps people grieve and staves off
fears of death.
"We're
not designed at the level of theoretical physics," Daniel Kruger, an
evolutionary psychologist at the University of Michigan, told LiveScience last
year. What matters to most people "is what happens at the human
scale, relationships to other people, things we experience in a lifetime."
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