The Case for a Creator (26 page)

Then I cheered from afar in the mid-1970s as Drake and Sagan beamed a message of greeting to the great globular cluster M13, which is a concentration of a quarter million stars in the constellation Hercules. While I knew there wasn’t much practical science involved with this intragalactic phone call—it would take more than twenty-two thousand years for the message to reach its destination—nevertheless there was something romantic and adventurous about trying to communicate with the civilizations that most assuredly populated those distant stars.

All of this helped form my perspective as I would gaze over the years at the twinkling stars in the dark heavens. But now my attitude was changing. After studying the latest evidence from various scientific disciplines—from astronomy to cosmology to geology to oceanography to microbiology—my conclusions were being tugged in the opposite direction.

It’s turning out that the Earth is anything but ordinary, that our sun is far from average, and that even the position of our planet in the galaxy is eerily fortuitous. The idea that the universe is a flourishing hothouse of advanced civilizations is now being undermined by surprising new scientific discoveries and fresh thinking.

In short, new findings are suggesting that we
are
special. More and more scientists are studying the mind-boggling convergence of scores of extraordinary “coincidences” that make intelligent life possible on Earth and concluding that this can’t possibly be an accident. They’re seeing signs of design, a kind of unlikely fine-tuning for life similar to the fine-tuning of physics that we explored in the previous chapter.

In fact, said one noted researcher, “new evidence which could potentially have refuted the [design] hypothesis has only ended up confirming it.”
¹¹
Once again, we find the evidence of science pointing in the direction of a Creator.

And rather than our lives being purposeless, scientists for the first time are uncovering concrete evidence that suggests at least one surprising purpose for which we were created—that is, to discover and learn about the surroundings in which we have been placed.

In other words, as we’ll see in this chapter, one purpose for which we were designed is to do science itself.

RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME

As the new millennium dawned, geologist Peter D. Ward and astronomer Donald Brownlee, both professors at the University of Washington in Seattle, published a provocative and highly successful book that raised this disquieting question about Earth: “What if it is utterly unique: the only planet with animals in this galaxy or even in the visible universe . . . ?”
¹²

Their book,
Rare Earth
, marshals evidence from a wide range of scientific disciplines to build its case that “not only intelligent life, but even the simplest of animal life, is exceedingly rare in our galaxy and in the universe.”
¹³
They called the conclusion “inescapable” that “Earth is a rare place indeed.”
¹⁴

Although Ward and Brownlee uncritically buy into the idea that microbial life may very well be more prevalent, a view they draw from the way life seemed to have effortlessly developed on Earth “about as soon as environmental conditions allowed its survival,”
¹⁵
their conviction that the existence of complex life is “extraordinarily rare” is bolstered by convincing data divorced from any theological framework.

Calling their book “carefully reasoned and scientifically astute,” Don Johanson, director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, remarked: “In spite of our wishful thinking, there just may not be other Mozarts or Monets.”
¹⁶
David Levy, of comet Shoemaker-Levy fame, added, “As we know it on Earth, complex life might be very rare, and very precious.”
¹⁷
Said the
Times of London
: “If they are right it could be time to reverse a process that has been going on since Copernicus.”
¹⁸

More and more scientists are observing the stunning ways in which our planet—against all odds—manages to fulfill a large number of finely balanced criteria that are absolutely crucial to supporting a habitat suitable for humankind.

“Rather than being one planet among billions, Earth now appears to be the uncommon Earth,” said science educators Jimmy H. Davis and Harry L. Poe. “The data imply that Earth may be the only planet ‘in the right place at the right time.’ ”
¹⁹

A BOLD AND AUDACIOUS CLAIM

Earth’s location, its size, its composition, its structure, its atmosphere, its temperature, its internal dynamics, and its many intricate cycles that are essential to life—the carbon cycle, the oxygen cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the phosphorous cycle, the sulfur cycle, the calcium cycle, the sodium cycle, and so on—testify to the degree to which our planet is exquisitely and precariously balanced.
²⁰

As they begin their influential textbook
Earth
, Frank Press of the National Academy of Sciences and Raymond Siever of Harvard University write about what they call “the uniqueness of planet Earth.”
²¹

They note how its atmosphere filters out harmful ultraviolet radiation while working with the oceans to moderate the climate through the storing and redistributing of solar energy, and how the Earth is just large enough so that its gravity retains the atmosphere and yet just small enough not to keep too many harmful gases. Then they describe the Earth’s interior as . . .

. . . a gigantic but delicately balanced heat engine fueled by radioactivity. . . . Were it running more slowly . . . the continents might not have evolved to their present form. . . . Iron may never have melted and sunk to the liquid core, and the magnetic field would never have developed. . . . If there had been more radioactive fuel, and therefore a faster running engine, volcanic dust would have blotted out the sun, the atmosphere would have been oppressively dense, and the surface would have been racked by daily earthquakes and volcanic explosions.
²²

These kind of highly choreographed geological processes—and there are lots of them—leave me shaking my head at the astounding ways in which our biosphere is precisely tuned for life. Even more interesting, though, is the “why” question behind them. What accounts for all of these astounding “coincidences?”

Press and Siever, while marveling that Earth “is a very special place,” don’t broach the possibility of design.
²³
Ward and Brownlee skirt the issue in
Rare Earth
, preferring instead to occasionally pepper in words like “sheer luck” and “a rare chance happening.”
²⁴
At a conference, Ward remarked: “We are just incredibly lucky. Somebody had to win the big lottery, and we were it.”

But does luck really explain why Earth enjoys this incredible convergence of extremely unlikely circumstances that have allowed human beings to flourish? Going far back into time, Christians have reached a far different conclusion: Earth was created by God as the stage upon which the human drama would be played out. What’s amazing about modern science, including new discoveries just within the last few years, is that this view of the universe seems to be far better supported today than in ancient times.

Consider the conclusion of Michael J. Denton, a senior research fellow in human molecular genetics at the University of Otago in New Zealand, in his 1998 book
Nature’s Destiny
:

No other theory or concept ever imagined by man can equal in boldness and audacity this great claim . . . that all the starry heavens, that every species of life, that every characteristic of reality exists [to create a livable habitat] for mankind. . . . But most remarkably, given its audacity, it is a claim which is very far from a discredited prescientific myth. In fact, no observation has ever laid the presumption to rest. And today, four centuries after the scientific revolution, the doctrine is again reemerging. In these last decades of the twentieth century, its credibility is being enhanced by discoveries in several branches of fundamental science.
²⁵

How true are those words? Do the special conditions that allow for life on Earth demand a designer? To pursue reliable answers, I arranged a rendezvous at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago with two experts who had just collaborated on a ground-breaking book concerning this very topic. This would be a perfect opportunity to explore the stunning uniqueness of our planet.

INTERVIEW #5: GUILLERMO GONZALEZ, PHD, AND JAY WESLEY RICHARDS, PHD

Tall, blond Jay Wesley Richards, dressed in a navy blazer, is an Ivy League philosopher who speaks in rapid-fire bursts with unflagging enthusiasm. Guillermo Gonzalez, clad in a short-sleeve shirt, his thinning hair cropped short, is a nuts-and-bolts astronomer who talks in professorial tones on such topics as, “Chemical Abundance Trends among RV Tauri Stars.”

Together, they authored
The Privileged Planet
, which documents astonishing evidence pointing toward a designer for Earth—and toward at least one apparent purpose for humankind.

Gonzalez is informally known as a “star guy.” After graduating
summa cum laude
with degrees in astronomy and physics from the University of Arizona, he later earned his master’s degree and doctorate in astronomy from the University of Washington at Seattle. Now an assistant professor at Iowa State University, his research centers on low and intermediate mass stars and theories about stellar and planetary evolution.

He’s a hands-on and yet conceptually sophisticated scientist, having logged countless hours doing research through telescopes at Cerro Tololo International Observatory, located at an altitude of 6,600 feet in Chile, and four other locations. He is adept at analyzing photometric and spectroscopic data. A member of the International Astronomical Union and the American Scientific Affiliation, the low-key but engaging Gonzalez has seen dozens of his articles published in technical journals and featured on the covers of such popular magazines as
Scientific American
.

An academic overachiever with a sincere, self-effacing personality, Richards holds three advanced degrees in philosophy and theology, including a doctorate from Princeton Theological Seminary. He authored
The Untamed God
and has edited or contributed to such books as
Unapologetic Apologetics
,
Signs of Intelligence
,
and
Are We Spiritual Machines?
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from
Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
to
the
Washington Post
to the
Princeton Theological Review
. As vice president of the Discovery Institute, Richards is considered a bright star in the burgeoning Intelligent Design movement.

Each of us clutching a soft drink, we met in an airlines hospitality suite, with Richards and Gonzalez sitting across from me at a granite conference table under florescent lights in a simple room devoid of character. Anxious to proceed, I barely let them settle into their chairs before unleashing my first question.

THE COPERNICAN PRINCIPLE

I turned toward Richards. “I was taught in school that our planet is unexceptional, that we revolve around a typical star in an average, mundane part of the universe, and that there’s nothing particularly unusual or special about Earth,” I began. “Isn’t that the view of most scientists today?”

“Yes, that’s the so-called Principle of Mediocrity or the Copernican Principle,” Richards replied. “Open any introductory astronomy textbook and you’ll see it stated over and over that we should assume there’s nothing special about our situation, our location in the universe, or the particular features of the Earth, the solar system, or humans themselves.”

“But,” I interjected, “isn’t that appropriate in some sense?”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “We shouldn’t assume that the Earth, our solar system, or our sun is unique in every possible way. We wouldn’t be able to do science if every place in the universe had a different law of gravity or atoms had a different mass. That’s fine.”

“Then where does the problem come in?” I asked.

“The problem is that the Copernican Principle has taken a metaphysically bloated form, which essentially says our metaphysical status is as insignificant as our astronomical location. In other words, we’re not here for a purpose, we’re not special in any way, and we don’t occupy a privileged place in the cosmos.”

I interrupted again. “Yet isn’t it true that Copernicus’s discovery—that the sun doesn’t revolve around the Earth, but that the Earth revolves around the sun—quite naturally demoted humankind?”

Richards nodded wearily as if he had heard that comment a lot. “Let’s go back to the beginning,” he said. He stood, removed his jacket, and draped it over an unoccupied chair. Sitting back down, he continued.

“The story is that the ancients—Aristotle, Ptolemy, medieval Christians—all thought we were at the center of the universe, sort of the throne of the cosmos, the most important place that everything revolved around. Then Copernicus and Kepler came along and said they can explain the movement of the planets better by assuming that the sun is at the center and that the planets—including Earth—revolve around it. So we’ve been displaced from the center and removed from our position of privilege.