Perhaps you possess scientific insights that are private while the rest of us are happy with what is publicly understood from the natural sciences - the discussion on what is often termed fine tuning has been around for a long time so I am not inclined to go over such material. You appear to think otherwise? You also think nothing of stating (if I understand your comments correctly) that science has shown how life originated on this planet. Again this is contrary to all of the chemistry that I understand - I suggest you see a difference between sheer unsupported speculation and sound science. Nonetheless I am tempted to comment on, what to me, is an obvious tremendous faith you display in your version of the natural sciences.
Well, I’ll need to make sure our pastors are updated on some of these precision measurements. I’d hate to think that they are giving guidance for the daily lives of our church community without the latest precision on quantum field fluctuation constants!
Okay, that was sarcasm – a dangerous habit on blogs if it is not explicitly noted to be so. But seriously, our pastors do attend to science, and to so much more that is beyond scientific reach as well. There is nothing outside the purview of God’s sovereignty.
I possess no private scientific insights. But I work hard to stay current on the latest in scientific knowledge and insights in almost all scientific areas. You could too by just looking at Science Daily http://www.sciencedaily.com Everyday amazing discoveries in all areas of science are available for you to learn. The knowledge gaps that you describe are shrinking and are not the same as few years ago. Regarding the current science on how life originated on this planet, I just finished reading a 2015 book entitled “A New History of Life- the radical new discoveries about the origins and evolution of life on Earth,” by Peter Ward and Joe Kirshvink. The knowledge in the field of genetics is expanding every day. The basic chemistry of life is being more and more understood. Gaps are being closed and new gaps in knowledge are being created. Science is advancing in all directions and while it is impossible to be an expert on the cutting edge in all of it, it is not impossible to be current in the present scientific understanding of things you mentioned - fining tuning, and how life originated.
Seriously, everyone should have a basic awareness in the advancements of scientific knowledge. It is critical for daily life. The new knowledge obtained in the last few years is important for understanding the way we think, the way we treat people, the way we go about our daily lives.
A general grasp of various areas of the sciences is useful, but hardly a basis for faith or non-faith, and certainly is a dangerous outlook if a person decides to base ones life on such knowledge. I find myself at a loss to understand people (this may be you, or not, I do not know) who have a general grasp of science but an appallingly poor understanding of theological issues, yet feel themselves qualified to pontificate on truth and how we should be as human beings.
I have followed, for example, thinking on the chemistry proposed to show how life may have originated - there are reviews as well as research papers on this fascinating topic - overall we are left with speculation that at times is simply wild. I am not against people speculating and having their say, but I am against people claiming that science has provided a truth regarding such matters. I for one see this approach bringing good science into disrepute, especially if such work is used in forums such as this one, with the pretense of claiming truth content in such work. Science has clear criteria that must be met before something is pronounced as true. These areas are light years of meeting such criteria.
Basic awareness is one thing. Being glued to the latest and always changing advancements of frontier sciences is quite another. And common sense / basic teachings that have been around independently of modern science is even another thing yet. Not that these are all entirely separate either --there is messy overlap and relevance to be had across all these things.
Somebody once commented (or quoted somebody else here recently) that all good science does nothing more than confirm what common sense had already supplied. Now I don’t entirely buy that for a second --we could fill books with counterexamples: common sense (and science) both agreed at one time that the earth does not move … etc… and many more things like QM that ended up being nearly the opposite of common sense. But before hastily ushering “common sense” off the stage in disgrace, we need to understand the important truth that remains. And that is that we could also probably fill books with examples where common sense is and remains an essential ingredient of wisdom well ahead of science in so many areas as well. And the wonderful thing about that is that God gave that to all of us (no science labs or fancy Christian theology required), we are all without excuse. For example, my dad when he was alive, believed in conservation and stewardship – care of earth’s precious resources long before “global warming” or “climate change” had become buzzwords – long before any science about those dire situations had been settled. Theology informed him of all that he needed to know about that, and now the rest of those who wait on science came stumbling in to find folks like him smiling and waiting already where he needed to be. And if/when science keeps stumbling around in the dark (for example with wild promises about limitless energy supplies or cold fusion or other dreams that may or may not ever materialize) we will still be patiently living exactly where it is that our theology has already informed us about. Is gasoline a finite and now scarce resource? I try to drive less and ride bike more. Is gasoline not so scarce because technology will now sell us on digging deeper and in yet more places to keep the drug coming? No problem … I smile, and get on my bicycle anyway because, you see, my theology remains worlds ahead of your science and I already know what is the right thing to do. You can keep stumbling around in the dark if you want, but eventually (if science ever does deliver before its derivative technologies totally wreck the world) you will find me waiting and welcoming you to where generations of theological and indeed even common wisdom had already brought us. It isn’t that I’m ignoring science (I am a high school science teacher after all), but I just recognize its nontrivial limitations. It is part of our culture today which, like everything else, must be brought into obedience to Christ.
And regarding your unbridled (and widely shared) optimism – “certainty” it would seem – about these “rapidly shrinking” gaps. I’m beginning to wonder about that too. Again, not that “shrinking gaps” is threatening to theology, because God is God of everything, not just of gaps. But even so, the argument, already defeated on the theological level, is beginning to sound stretched even on its own terms. Being excited that our understanding of the universe is rapidly closing in on completion because we now have some precision on its age is about like thinking you are close to understanding how a human being works because you have been able to accurately measure his height (and know his age too!). Or when neuroscience is able to show which parts of the brain light up when a person is experiencing x, y, or z, strikes me as being similar to aliens observing that on earth there is increased motorized (“neural”) activity in certain urban centers that correlates to external stimulus (like the sunrise); and then being excited that they now, from these observations, they have have nearly arrived at complete understanding of the intricacies of city life.
If there is one “science” lesson that we science enthusiasts should be able to appreciate, it is that persistent “law” of nonprivileged position. We have stubbornly resisted ideas over the centuries that we aren’t the center of this or that, (and here is where science really has shown itself useful!), we have found those notions overturned one after the other. But science enthusiasts seem to suddenly forget this very notion that was so very hard won when it comes to all this frenzied “closing gaps” thinking. Every past era when they thought their understanding of things was nearing completion something would overturn everything. But now, we imagine that for the first time in history, we alone must actually be drawing closer to that “horizon” that has forever remained “on the horizon” for our forebears. And we imagine that we (and we privileged ones alone!) must be close to actually reaching that horizon and peaking over the edge! But following how history has always worked, I have more confidence that our expanding knowledge is only revealing yet farther (and now bigger) horizons of what we still don’t know. So far from shrinking gaps, I’m beginning to wonder if the gaps aren’t expanding (and thanks — in large part to science)!
Well, my ramble is cut short by my need to scuttle off to church in dire need of my weekly dose of that messy thing called human life fed by eternal wisdom of the ages. You are right, science is an exciting enterprise indeed – and it is Christ that gives me hope that all things (including science) will serve his purposes in the end.
Patrick, I always like your thought provoking words. Just to add more to your reflexions, I would like to ask you what is your interpretation of the multiverse theory. This hypothesis serves some astrohysicists to guess that amongst the infinite number of universes, one had to be capable to sustain life, amongst other really fantastic wonders that we see in our universe. The multiverse hypothesis is proposed by S. Hawkings and others to explain how our universe is so very finely tuned.
By the way, it would also by interesting to hear how the multiverse theory impact the discussions on theology and death, by the theologians at Biologos.
To me, multiverse theory is trying to explain why the only universe we can observe exists the way it does. Since there is only one observable universe and we happen to be in a little volume of it during a few years (of cognitive ability) of its 13.8 billion year existence, we can never know what is outside our observable universe. Multiverse theory postulates that besides our own, there is and has been and will be an infinite number of universes both the same as ours and every possible difference than ours. Sort of like saying our universe isn’t special nor unique because there are an infinite number of universes. Until something testable or something observable in this universe is discovered, multiverse theory is pure speculation. But a lot of things in science is pure speculation until discoveries are made. Inflation theory is one that comes to mind, the Higgs Boson is another. The Multiverse theory is trying to explain why our universe is the way it is. It is presently an untestable theory but it does sort of makes some sense as a possibility. I’ll let the theologians weigh in on the theological aspects of the multiverse theory.
Thank you for your response
I am going to disagree with the standard scientific view here.
Evolution is based on Variation. That means differences are important. It does not maker any scientific or common sense to day that group differences are important but individual differences are not. Everyone is special, because everyone is unique and represents possible variation(s.)
“Nothing before the Big Bang. Ok I fully agree. Are you sure? Nothing except _____ . Go ahead fill in the blank.”
Yes, I am sure. Are you?
What I expect you think I should reply is, “No thing but God.” The problem with that is that God is not a “thing,” on the same level as space, time, matter, energy or anything else. God does not exist as created things exist. Tillich called God the Ground of Being. I prefer the Source of the universe,
This does not mean that God is impersonal, because God is relational and Personal. What it means is that the universe cannot exist without God, but the universe is not God. This is what Christians believe based on the Biblical and scientific witness.
As Augustine observed a long time ago before we knew about the Big Bang, humans cannot say what existed and what happened before the Beginning of time. It does not compute.
Strictly speaking humans cannot even use the words “before the Beginning” because it indicates that there was time before the Beginning of time, when in fact, both theologically and scientifically, there was only nihilo.
We can say that God eternally “exists,” because God is self existing and not dependent on the universe, but not how God existed, since self existence is beyond our ken. We can say that God does not exist within our universe or is dependent on our universe, because before the Big Bang our universe and our Reality was Nihilo.
Wow, that is quite a lot to warp my scientific mind around.
Let’s just concentrate on before the Big Bang. We agree that pre-Big Bang (pre-Inflation), there was nihilo - nothing. No time, space, energy, matter nor anything else. No problem there. Now you add that nothing really means nothing but God. God is not nothing and is also not something. You say that God is the Source of the Universe so then are you now agreeing that something came out of nothing just like physicists like Larry Krause are postulating? If so, a universe created by God would look exactly like a universe created by a quantum fluctuation from nothing. In both cases we have our observable universe (something) created from nothing. So we both agree that the universe (something) came from nothing. I think we understand each other. 
@Patrick
One of the arguments of Creationists against evolution is entropy. They argue that humans could not evolve in a universe that falling apart because of entropy. Apparently you agree with them.
Scientists point out that entropy applies only to closed systems, so it does not apply to the earth, nor to the universe, which are not closed systems. Therefore your entropy argument does not hold water.
Tell me how is E = mc squared is not constant and finely tuned?
Isn’t it true that the neutron’s mass is just slightly larger than that of the proton and electron which makes possible stable nuclei and chemistry?
Isn’t true that the nuclear energy level of carbon is set at just the right level to produce heavier elements in the stars needed for life?
You need to understand trough your superior knowledge of science that 1) Everything is not controlled or determined by quantum physics, 2) Quantum physics is not random, 3) Quantum physics does not control particles which the size of atoms and larger, and 4) The forces of energy are not random, nor mechanical, nor fluctuating.
On the other hand there is randomness in evolution, (but not as random as some seem to think,) yet this source of change and novelty is offset by natural selection which provides rational order and continuity to the finely tuned ecological evolutionary system.
Please provide some sources of your information so I can check it out since it contradicts all the sources that I have.
Scientists predict that life on earth will be destroyed when the sun expands to engulf the earth, not because of entropy or anything else. They say eventually the universe will collapse and time will stop after the universe contracts into nothing.
The Creationists argument against evolution due to increasing entropy fails because the entropy of a closed system (the universe) is always increasing towards disorder. But the Earth is not a closed system. Earth has the sun pouring in energy. Earth’s entropy is decreasing as evolutionary processes create ordered (cells) out of disordered molecules. The entrophy arguement is proven science. It is also why time only goes forward not backward - irreversible forward processes. And since entrophy and information transfer are linked, the creationist’s arguement concerning evolutionary information transfer in DNA goes out the window too.
FYI: the universe is a closed system.
E=mc^2 is not a constant but an equation to show the equivalence of matter and energy.
c is not a constant either. Light is slower in traveling through fiber than in air. c is maximum in a vacuum (empty space). The exact value of c in empty space is proportional to the number of particles/antiparticles popping into existence as light travel through it.
A neutron is a proton plus an electron. It isn’t stable as it decay’s randomly (radioactivity)
No, carbon is produced in stars as part of the Carbon-nitrogen -oxygen fusion processes in all stars. Heavier elements are rarer and but are produced in precise ratios towards the end of a stars life including supernova explosions. The atoms in your left hand were created in different stars than the atoms in your right hand. A star died so that you could live.
Yes, the Sun will grow in diameter as it ages. But it will decrease in mass. So 5 billion years from now the sun will be bigger but since it is less massive, the earth’s orbit will be further out from the sun.
No the universe will not collapse, it will expand forever increasingly faster and faster. The cosmic background radiation will red-shift to longer and longer wavelengths (lower temperature) to be completely undetectable. Stars will burn out and stop forming. The universe in a trillion years will just be a cold dark place. Space would have expanded so much that particle/anti-particle existence would be rarer and lower energy.
Did I miss anything?
“What would be the characteristics of a universe that was created from nothing, just with the laws of physics and without any supernatural shenanigans? The characteristics of the universe would be precisely those of the ones we live in.” Larry Krause
The question is From where do you think the laws of physics originated? From a quantum fluctuation or from nihilo?
A neutron is not a proton plus an electron. A neutron is a particle with no charge.
Forgive me, I wasn’t accurate enough.
A neutron is two down quarks and one up quark, all of different colors. And yes, no electric charge. A neutron will beta decay into a proton, a electron AND an electron anti-neutrino via a W boson.
The answer can be either, neither, or both.
Human logic indicates that the laws of physics came from neither a quantum fluctuation nor from nihilo, so human reason indicates that Larry Krause’s theory is mistaken.
If the laws of physics came from neither a quantum fluctuation nor from nihilo, Larry Krause would be right!
‘As Stephen Hawking has noted, “The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. … The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.” Brief History of Time, 1988, p. 125.’
See the rest of the Wikipedia article on “Fine-tuned Universe” for more information on how the universe is fine tuned. Most scientists do not agree you, Patrick.
Roger,
I loved that book. The key word in that sentence is “seem” to have been. I agree that the universe may look like it was designed and created for a purpose. But to me, that might be our minds seeing patterns that might not really be there.