science of everything
27 - 04/26 /15:14
A science documentary comes to theaters April 30. The Story of Everything claims that modern science has reality all wrong. We know science is wrong … because of science.
The Story of Everything opens with figures who gave science a purely materialist view of reality. “Science” claims biologist Richard Dawkins, has been emancipated from the idea of a Creator. Physicist Lawrence Krauss announces, “Existence is a cosmic accident.” Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson dismisses a Creator as a quaint absurdity.
The Story of Everything explains that these scientists have not been paying attention.
The Story of Everything opens with figures who gave science a purely materialist view of reality. “Science” claims biologist Richard Dawkins, has been emancipated from the idea of a Creator. Physicist Lawrence Krauss announces, “Existence is a cosmic accident.” Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson dismisses a Creator as a quaint absurdity.
The Story of Everything explains that these scientists have not been paying attention.
The Big Bang, which Albert Einstein grudgingly accepted, was theoretically demonstrated by Stephen Hawking in the 1960’s. Soon after Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected the background radiation—decisive evidence of the event.
“Any entity capable of causing the universe,” says philosopher of Science Stephen Meyer, “must be external to the universe itself. It must … transcend time and space.” In discovering the Big Bang science directs us to the Prime Mover.
Recently it has been discovered that our universe reflects a long list of properties, all of which must be finely tuned for anything to exist. If gravity were infinitesimally stronger, all matter would have collapsed in on itself. If infinitesimally weaker, stars and galaxies could never have formed.
To support life, Earth orbits at the precisely right distance from a star of just the right size, possessing just the right magnetic field with a precise gravity to hold in place an atmosphere of just the right density.
A most arresting argument against materialism has been the discovery of the astonishing complexity of even the simplest forms of life. How could such complex structures possibly have evolved its way into existence? Each double helix of DNA contains vast arrays of chemical subunits that function like computer code. DNA, vital to every living cell, accomplishes nothing other than provide instructions to the cell on how to construct itself and how to create new cells.
Here is a problem for materialists. In Darwin’s day, scientists assumed cells contained only a kind of undifferentiated protoplasm. The discovery of DNA reveals that each cell encloses a sophisticated data storage, transmission and processing system that materialism can’t explain.
The Big Bang, fine-tuning and DNA indicate the universe arose not from nothing but from something. Something intelligent. But there the documentary stops.
The Story of Everything concludes with “the beauty problem.” Many organisms display a beauty beyond anything relevant for survival. Richard Dawkins famously said, “The universe has just those properties one would expect if there were no design, no purpose, only blind pitiless indifference.”
Our universe is far more beautiful and far more complex than anything humans can imagine. The idea that material reality results from random, blind indifference has become an implausible claim.
Blessings,
Dan Nygaard