Return of the God Hypothesis

This ‘weighty’ book is Meyer’s third, and something of a blockbuster divided into five parts. His second book Signature in the Cell won the Times Literary Supplement “Book of the year.” As introduced in Part I (The rise and fall of theistic science), students of evolution adhere to various viewpoints. The most simplistic is perhaps that of Richard Dawkins and the “New Atheists” who hold that the Darwinian hypothesis of Natural Selection explains everything based on materialistic (scientistic) evidence. Generally speaking, they regard any mention of “intelligent design” as evidence that those exploring such views are basically misguided, narrow-minded creationists, who lack any credible scientific credentials, and may, or must, be influenced by narrow religious beliefs.

However, as Meyer clearly has impressive scientific credentials, there are various “small a” atheists who are willing to debate with him, look closely at the evidence and treat intelligent design arguments with more respect. The reason that evidence for “intelligent design” is difficult to ignore or dismiss out of hand is that many of the intelligent design arguments revolve around the evidence that natural laws (Gravity, Electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces) are “fine-tuned” to the extent that any subtle changes would collapse the system and destroy the familiar cosmos and biosphere.

This theme is explored in Part II (Return of the God Hypothesis), where we learn that “the ratio of the electromagnetic force to gravity must be accurate to 1 part in 10⁴⁰,” and “the ratio of the weak nuclear force constant to the strong nuclear force have to be set with a precision of one part in 10,000³⁹.” Needless to say, these are incredibly precise constraints on cosmic stability. Although the aforementioned laws fall squarely in the province of physics, they are universal and so also underpin chemistry and biology, which also have their own laws, intricacies and apparently highly complex, intelligent organisation. Central to understanding the role of intelligent design is always the intriguing questions of the origin of the universe, the origin of life and quite possibly the origin of human self-consciousness, without which such intelligent debates would not occur. Simply put, as noted below, humans are intelligent and part of the universe!

Meyer is conscientious and comprehensive in his coverage of the many cosmological theories and models of how the Universe came to be. He introduces most major figures in the field, particularly cosmologists, with portrait photographs and brief biographical notes. Despite the complexities involved in understanding some models, Meyer manages to explain most with admirable clarity that lay readers can understand. For example, most people are familiar with the idea that the universe began with a ‘big bang’ and that this has been ‘confirmed’ by recognising the echo of that event in the background radiation detected equally in all directions, and suggesting, by the latest estimates, the age of the universe is 13.8 billion years. Quoting Paul Davies, we learn that “the big bang represents the creation event; the creation (my italics) of not only all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of space-time itself.”

The Singularity concepts of Hawking and colleagues essentially also confirms a beginning (see below). The notion that the universe had a beginning is fundamentally important to the intelligent design argument, because it contrasts with other models such as the ‘eternal’ steady state universe, initially ‘assumed’ by Einstein before he was converted to the dynamic and expanding universe (big bang) model. Sir Fred Hoyle, one of the more famous adherents of the steady state universe admitted that he shunned the big bang model because of its “theistic implications” rather than due to a sober scientific evaluation! Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow famously wrote that “the scientist…[who] has scaled the mountains of ignorance; … about to scale the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, …is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

There are many examples of the fine-tuning of the universe that have given rise to the popular notion of the “Goldilocks Effect” or a life-friendly universe, similar to the Anthropic Principle. There are also examples of anomalous patterns in the organisation of the universe that are difficult to explain. Fred Hoyle took a special interest in why the distribution of carbon in the universe is greater than the laws of chemical synthesis would allow without the intervention of an extreme, nuanced, intelligence. As a result, Hoyle underwent a conversion and was stunned by these and other “cosmic coincidences” … “whereas he previously affirmed atheism and denied any evidence of intelligent design.” As he put it in 1981, “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.” For blind forces we can read “chance” or randomness.

Part III (Inference to the best metaphysical explanation) follows the conscientious evaluation of cosmological theories with an evaluation of the four world views of Materialism, Pantheism, Deism and Theism showing how the role of “God” becomes increasingly relevant from the atheistic position of Materialism to the theistic worldview. Meyer’s argument is that “philosophers of science have argued … that a metaphysical hypothesis, just as much as a scientific one, can be evaluated by evaluating whether the evidence we observe matches what we would logically expect if the hypothesis were true.” Here an astrophysicist friend reminds me that the robustness of hypotheses depends on the extent to which they are based on observation rather than abstract conjecture, and that many cosmological hypotheses are conjectural and cloaked in mathematics, that most people do not understand, or cannot discriminate one from another.

A recurring theme is that the new atheists, sometimes politely, sometimes bluntly, simply reject any suggestions of intelligent design without evaluating them. In contrast Meyer’s efforts to explain such phenomena as fine-tuning and the “Goldilocks Effect” are tightly argued in so far as they consider multiple working hypotheses, and usually conclude that physical laws fail to explain the origin of what we observe by application of said laws. Perhaps understandably when one is up against those who dismiss your ideas out of hand, one needs to make one’s arguments conscientious and convincing. Meyer is slightly repetitive in highlighting Dawkins’ infamous statement that “the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is no bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” (my italics). Besides the likelihood that most people would find this a rather disappointing and pessimistic worldview, one is forced to ask, where human concepts of purpose, good and evil come from. In an example not cited by Meyer, I recall Deepak Chopra in an early debate with cosmologists being challenged for holding that the universe is intelligent and conscious. In reply he asked his challenger if he was intelligent, when said challenger said he was, Chopra replied “show me how” you can step outside the universe! Here, of course, we come to the perennial conundrum of what role human and / or universal consciousness plays in our understanding universal “reality”.

Part IV (Conjectures and Refutations). One of Meyer’s Cambridge advisers warned him to “beware of the sound of one hand clapping” by which he meant don’t fall for an argument without exploring the counterargument. Here, we see one of the weaknesses of the new atheist’s positions: i.e., only their arguments suffice, implying that philosophical challenges can be ignored and dismissed as unscientific. More philosophical thinkers including Einstein and many others, like Meyer, with a grasp of cosmology and the attendant mathematics are more inclined to take all sides of argument and counterargument seriously. They know that a “mathematical equation … [cannot] … create an actual physical universe” even if one hints at some level of organisation. Hypotheses about the universe and its organisation are fundamental to our understanding of the destiny of the planet, life and the human species, both from scientific, philosophical and metaphysical perspectives. Despite Hawking’s initial endorsement of the Big Bang and Singularity hypotheses the argument arises that when the universe was infinitely small it could be subject to the laws of Quantum Mechanics and the so-called “universal wave function”. If this were the case one could postulate an infinite number of potential universes, with different properties from the one that collapsed into the universe we know. Discussion of multiverses is beyond the scope of this review.

Part V (Conclusion) Given the aforementioned discussion it is not surprising that Meyer’s conclusions point to the God Hypothesis. He reminds us that Newton was of like mind and did not regard his theistic beliefs as belonging in a separate metaphysical domain from his science. Nevertheless, sceptics say that any recourse to theism, “involving immanence or involvement in the universe after its creation”, implies a ‘cop out’ ‘God of the Gaps’ argument and that “science” will eventually explain. "The problem is that science, in the sense used by sceptics, has yet to explain such puzzling and unknown phenomena, or why they have challenged human intelligence and the argument for intelligent design for millennia. Ironically science aims to find order and lawfulness in the universe and so, one might ask how such ‘organisation’ comes about in a random, blind pitiless and indifferent universe.

On a final note, it was interesting to this reader to learn how common intelligent design debates have become in the last few decades (see Network 88 and 95). Not only are such discussions held in high profile venues, but they garner much commentary as seen in the reviews and responses to reviews of Meyer’s books. Meyer was therefore impressed that increasingly more traditional scientists acknowledged that “the scientific evidence suggests an activity of mind that is beyond nature.” (Wikipedia). The idea that the universe is indifferent and pitiless, is no less speculative and anthropomorphic than the notion that the universe is purposeful and well-designed, as is human culture. If nothing else, intelligent design issues are attracting increased intelligent debate and show no sign of going away before we unravel the organisational forces and principles that constitute the fabric of the universe including the role of life and consciousness.