Before I review the book, I want to confess that I am not a scientist, nor strong in science and math. If I don't word statements in the review quite Before I review the book, I want to confess that I am not a scientist, nor strong in science and math. If I don't word statements in the review quite scientifically, it is my fault, not Dr. Meyer's. Terms like quarks, fermion, abduction, cyclic ekpyrotic model, inflationary string landscape hypothesis, gravitinos, imaginary time, and singularity leave me confused despite Dr. Meyer's explanation.
"We are living in an age where there is a great revival of natural theology taking place. That revival of natural theology is taking place not on the whole among theologians, who have lost their nerve in that area, but among the scientists." John Polkinghorne, quoted on 163.
I appreciated this book despite not understanding the more technical information. Meyer starts with why and how modern science originated in the Judeo-Christian West, rather than in other areas of the world. The belief in a God who was rational and benevolent lent early scientists the idea that nature would be understandable and could be studied. Many early scientists, such as Newton, Boyle, Bacon, Descartes, and Kepler, were staunch believers in God.
Meyer then goes on to explain the reasons for many scientists challenging the theistic premise of science, but their still building on the foundational ideas. He takes it step by step with one challenge building on another. As a philosopher of science, he approaches the philosophical discussion historically, dispassionately, and logically.
The three areas that he believes most clearly support the idea of a theistic source are the origin of the universe, the fine tuning of the universe, and the origin of life, particularly the origin of information in the DNA of every living creature. He describes how scientists ascertained that the universe had a beginning through physics and math, leading to the theory of the Big Bang. This was devastating to many scientists in the Twentieth century, including Eistein, who ascribed to an immortal universe because a beginning required a cause. Many of the scientific efforts to avoid the idea of a beginning have led to ideas that challenge the reliability of science and of believing our own minds. Meyer uses logic and the challenges of other scientists to question their assumptions and their findings. (I have wondered for years how some science required observation, measurement, experimentation, and repeatability while other types of science relied on logic and math where observation, measurement, testing, and repeatability were impossible. Meyer explains.)
I was already aware that life on earth depended on a number of characteristics such as our placement in the Milky Way, the size of our moon, the availability of water, the earth's being a rocky planet rather than a gas planet, the unique blend of gases making up our air, and around fifteen other understandable parameters. Meyers goes into the precise fine tuning of the cosmological constant, "the hyper-exponential fine tuning of the initial distribution of mass-energy," and the precise masses of quarks. He presents several such precise measurements and the extremely small tolerances that are required for our existence., indicating that a Mind to measure, plan, and prepare these numerous fine tolerances makes more sense than blind chance.
Third, Meyer points out that the discovery of information in DNA raises the question of where that information comes from. Every living cell contains vast amounts of information that remind many scientists of very advanced computer code. Darwin posited natural selection as the source of changes between different types of animals, but he knew nothing of DNA, nor did he offer a suggestion for the origin of the first cell. Meyer points out that remains in the fossil record indicate an explosion of different life forms during the Cambrian period, rather than the gradual change due to mutation that Darwin believed. In that brief time period, the number of mutations to change life forms could not have arisen.
Toward the end of the book, Meyer discusses the objections that other scientists have raised or probably will raise to his assertions and his responses.
I especially appreciated his historical approach to the questions of origins, rather than an approach heavy on formulae. He includes formulae but uses words to explain them. I also liked his chapter on why these questions are important and how he struggled with these questions as a teenager, even despairing about the uselessness of life. Meyer includes diagrams, pictures, notes, and an index, a bibliography. This is a well thought out scientific approach, not a theological approach. Although I am not an Old Age creation believer, I benefited from this book.
"To the hard-line physicist, the multiverse may not be entirely respectable, but it is at least preferable to invoking a Creator. Indeed, anthropically inclined physicists like Susskind and Weinberg are attracted the multiverse precisely because it seems to dispense with God as the explanation of cosmic design." Bernard Carr, quoted on 345
"So long as the universe had a beginning, we would suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end; it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator." Dr. Stephen Hawking, quoted on 350
One thing that becomes very evident in this book is the reason that many scientists are so insistent on pursuing a materialistic approach to science is their own hostility to the idea of a Creator. The idea of a Creator carries with it the idea of accountability to that Creator. It is better in their minds to believe the ideas that do away with the reliability of science and the human ability to reason and pursue knowledge than to accept that a Creator may have started it all....more
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