Thursday, September 5, 2019

THE FINE-TUNING OF THE UNIVERSE




In Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose, world renowned chemist, Marcos Eberlin, wrote that the fine-tuning of the universe provides ample evidence of an intelligent Designer:

  • Currently, it is believed there are at least twenty-six physical constants in the universe whose precise values must be carefully set to allow for life. These constants are things like the speed of light (c), the gravitational constant (G), and the Planck constant (h). All their values, uniquely suited to allow (though not cause) the amazing display of biochemistry we explore in this book, fall under an idea scientists call “fine tuning.”

Eberlin cites the late atheist Fred Hoyle in support of the idea that the universe must have been planned:

  • ...physicist Fred Hoyle noted that they [the constants] were so carefully tuned for life that they appeared to be “a fix,” that is, planned. He was moved to conclude, “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.”

For an example of a constant, Eberlin cites the Earth:

  • Our earth is ideally suited in many ways to host life. With its carefully timed twenty-four-hour rotation, its large stabilizing moon, its location in the Milky Way’s galactic habitable zone, its perfect distance from a special star, and its neighborly gas giant planets that protect it from many of space’s dangers, Earth is curiously life-friendly.

If any of these settings were changed, life would have been impossible. Eberlin lists the many properties of water, which makes it critical for life, and concludes:

  • The list could go on and on. These many properties and values had to be precisely balanced—in advance—to create the dozens of exquisite anomalies of water that make life on Earth possible. It looks like it was planned ahead of time.

Perhaps everything was planned ahead of time. I think that the resulting harmony found in the universe has prompted researchers to find the single source of all else. For some of us, the Source is obvious.

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