Those interested in science/theology debates may want to check out
Patrick Glynn's article "Beyond the Death of God" in the latest (May 6)
issue of National Review, p. 28f. His main point comes in these two
paragraphs:
BEGIN QUOTE
The principle was first promulgated by cosmologist Brandon Carter in a
now-famous lecture to the International Astronomic Union in 1974. Carter
pointed to what he called the number of astonishing "coincidences" among
the universal constants--values such as Planck's constant, h, or the
gravitational constant, G. It turns out that infinitesimal changes in the
values of any of these constants would have resulted in a universe
profoundly different from our own and radically inhospitable to life.
Since Carter first gave a name to this class observations, the list of
such 'coincidences' or 'lucky' accidents has vastly expanded. The
relative masses of subatomic particles, the precise rate of expansion of
the universe in the tiny fractions of a second after the Big Bang, the
precise strengths of the nuclear weak force, the nuclear strong force,
and electromagnetism--scientists now understand that minuscule
alterations (often as little as one part per million) in these values and
relationships, or in scores of others, would have cause catastrophic
derailments in the series of events following the universe's beginning.
Depending on how one tinkered with these values, one could have emerged
with a starless universe or no 'universe' at all. And even the slightest
tinkering with a single one of these values, most scientists now agree,
would have foreclosed the possibility of life.
END QUOTE
The conclusion that some have drawn from this is called the Anthropic
Principle: "far from being an 'accident,' the existence of human life is
something for which the entire universe appears to have been intricately
fine-tuned from the start."
The result could be a wrenching about face in how science portrays man's
place in the universe. Both the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions
(some would add Freud) were controversial primarily because they
marginalized man and attacked the central place Christianity had for him
in creation. This completely turns the tables, creating a universe that
seems to be precisely fine-tuned just so we can be here.
Feel free to pass this on.
--Mike Perry, Seattle, WA
Inkling@aol.com