|
 he more we learn
about the world, the less significance humanity holds. This, at
least, is the gospel of materialists in
the scientific realm. Didn't Copernicus dethrone the earth from
the center of the universe? Didn't Darwin uncover our simian origins?
Consider the past two weeks' science headlines: The completion of
the human genome reveals that the number of genes it takes to make
Madonna (30,000 to 40,000) isn't much more than twice the number
it takes to make a fruit fly. (Intellectually speaking, the little
aphid may have an edge.) Add to this new, compelling evidence that
millions of years ago mass extinctions were caused by more than
one catastrophic collision with meteorites, wiping out the dinosaurs
and most other species — and clearing the way (just a tad emphatically)
for furry critters on the sidelines to enjoy a little breathing
space so they could evolve into…us.
These are most humbling facts because they underline the contingency
of life. And how different things might have turned out had the
slightest of ingredients or the most innocuous of occurrences in
natural history been different. Stephen Jay Gould once opined that
if one could replay the entire scenario of earth's evolutionary
history, with the very same cosmic laws and ingredients, the odds
are huge against anything like animals ever coming into existence,
let alone human beings. Life has been a daunting and humbling succession
of happy accidents, he wrote.
Should all of this make religious conservatives glum? Suppose it's
true — that we are here because of a string of happy accidents.
Is it just blind chance? Is atheism the most logical world view
to adopt? I don't think so.
I know a lot of conservatives are into "intelligent design" theory.
And more power to those specialists who can come up with a rigorous
one that is testable. But the problem with
| “Suppose
it's true — that we are here because of a string of happy
accidents. Is it just blind chance? Is atheism the most
logical world view to adopt? I don't think so.” |
|
the search for a theory of intelligent design is that even a fairly
rigorous hypothesis (for example William Dembski's information-based
theory) can't tell us whether we were designed by the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob — or a giant blancmange from the planet Skyron
(i.e., a superb Monty Python skit if you've never seen it). I have
no doubt that believing Christians, Jews, and Muslims can see design
in the world — but that's partly because they already believe
in a designer based on scripture.
Scientific materialists aren't impressed by arguments from design
— but they are impressed by stark reminders of the world's
contingency.
In the 1960s, British astronomer Fred Hoyle, an avowed atheist —
was studying the nuclear reactions that lead to the formation of
carbon in the cores of stars. Carbon is the basis of organic life.
What struck Hoyle, as he later wrote in his book The Intelligent
Universe, was the fact that the key nuclear reaction inside
stellar cores that creates carbon can only come about because of
a fluke of nature. Three helium nuclei have to collide at high speed,
simultaneously, and at certain energy-levels. It's just our good
luck that one of these energy levels happens to correspond with
the energy levels that helium nuclei house inside massive stars.
Huge amounts of carbon are created in these beasts before they explode
and litter outer space with carbon, where it subsequently proves
particularly useful in the formation of planets, like Earth. Hoyle
later wrote that nothing shook his "lack of faith" more than this
discovery. Indeed, he thought the entire universe might be a "put
up" job. (Unfortunately, Hoyle's subsequent speculations have led
him closer to the blancmange than to Jehovah.)
But doesn't this support the argument from design? Well, sure. My
point is that the world's contingency — and not any apparent
design — is what gives most non-religious people pause
to consider there may be a metaphysical explanation to life. The
world need not have turned out this way. And insofar as conservatives
want to challenge materialist scientists on their own terms when
it comes to the metaphysical — the argument from contingency
is more persuasive than the argument from design.
|
