PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 132/2002 - 18 November 2002
--------------------------------
"Perhaps someday researchers will find wholly natural
explanations
for life and the cosmos. For the moment, though, discoveries
about
these two subjects are inspiring awe and wonder, and many
scientists
are reaching out to spiritual thinkers to help them comprehend
what
they're learning. And as the era of biotechnology dawns,
scientists realize
they're stepping into territory best navigated with the aid of
philosophers and theologians. We are entering the greatest era of
science-religion fusion since the Enlightenment last attempted to
reconcile
the two, three centuries ago."
--Gregg Easterbrook, Wired Magazine, December 2002
(1) SCIENCE TEAMS AWAIT LEONID STORM
Sky & Telescope, 15 November 2002
(2) STARS IN OUR EYES
Daily Mail, 18 November 2002
(3) LEONID PREDICTIONS
Daniel Fischer <dfischer@astro.uni-bonn.de>
(4) TR/J EJECTA LAYER IN BRITAIN
Hermann Burchard <burchar@math.okstate.edu>
(5) AND FINALLY: THE NEW CONVERGENCE
Wired Magazine, December 2002
=============
(1) SCIENCE TEAMS AWAIT LEONID STORM
>From Sky & Telescope, 15 November 2002
http://skyandtelescope.com/news/current/article_794_1.asp
By J. Kelly Beatty
November 15, 2002 | For millions of Europeans and North
Americans, this
year's Leonid meteor shower will provide a not-to-be-missed
treat. But those
brief flashes of incandescence also reveal telltale clues about
the Leonids'
parent comet, 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, and how meteoric dust interacts
with our
atmosphere. So the pressure is on to maximize the Leonids'
scientific
potential, and when this year's display reaches its crescendo,
scores of
researchers around the world will likely be concentrating too
hard on their
experiments to enjoy the show overhead.
European astronomers are well positioned to study the first of
November
19th's two predicted outbursts, which should peak near 4:00
Universal Time.
A team from the European Space Agency is readying equipment on
Pico Veleta
near Granada in southern Spain. Led by Detlef Koschny, the
researchers will
use ultrasensitive video cameras to record detailed light curves
of meteor
flashes. To aid the ESA effort, the nearby 30-meter IRAM radio
telescope
will monitor the Leonid shower's intensity using echoes of radio
transmissions mirrored by ionized gas along the meteors' paths.
Meanwhile, across the Mediterranean, Noah Brosch (Wise
Observatory) has
outfitted the cockpit of a commercial Boeing 757 aircraft with a
pair of
intensified video cameras. To help defray the cost of the
chartered jet, the
flight will also carry some 200 paying passengers. The plane will
depart Tel
Aviv after midnight, then crisscross the Mediterranean between
Israel and
Crete several times over five hours. Brosch hopes to be heading
westward
during the storm's maximum, which won't be observable from Israel
due to
twilight.
The most concentrated scientific effort, by far, will be the
Leonid
Multi-instrument Aircraft Campaign, coordinated by Peter
Jenniskens
(NASA/Ames Research Center). This year's effort pairs NASA's DC-8
research
aircraft with the U.S. Air Force's Flying Infrared Signature
Technology
Aircraft (FISTA), a heavily instrument KC-135 cargo craft. Flying
in tandem
westward over the Atlantic Ocean, the two planes will observe the
cascade of
meteors in stereo using sensitive cameras, spectrometers, and
specially
trained amateur astronomers who will record the meteors' arrival
rates and
magnitudes.
Jenniskens, who hopes to find the spectral signature of organic
compounds in
the flash spectra, has conducted similar airborne efforts during
four of the
past five years. "We are looking for clues about the
diversity of comets and
their impact on the chemistry of life's origin on Earth," he
explains.
Results from the Leonid MAC mission can be viewed in near-real
time on the
"Leonids Live" web site.
Another major scientific effort is taking shape at Kirtland Air
Force Base,
not far from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jack D. Drummond and a
dozen
colleagues from the Starfire Optical Range (SOR) hope to glean
everything
they can from the glowing trains that can linger in the upper
stratosphere
for up to an hour after the passage of a Leonid fireball. This
time, in
addition to a phalanx of camera and video equipment, the SOR's
3.5-meter
telescope will be paired with a high-resolution, high-sensitivity
spectrophotometer on loan from Sandia National Laboratories.
Observers from
the Albuquerque Astronomical Society will help establish the
altitudes at
which the trains form. "We intend to answer once and for all
what creates
the light in those trains," Drummond vows.
Copyright 2002, Sky & Telescope
==============
(2) STARS IN OUR EYES
>From Daily Mail, 18 November 2002
By Nick Craven
>From the earliest recorded time, man has dreaded comets
-seeing their fiery
tails of meteor storms as harbingers of plague, pestilence and
disaster.
After all, what could be more terrifying than the sight of fire
raining down
from the firmament? Proof surely of the wrath of God.
Four thousand years ago, a Babylonian myth, the Epic of
Gilgamesh, put it
like this: "And the seven judges of hell. ..raised their
torches, lighting
the, land with their livid name. 'A stupor of despair went up to
heaven when
the god of the storm turned daylight into darkness, when he
smashed the land
like a cup.'
Hopefully tonight will be rather less cataclysmic, as we are
offered a once
in a lifetime chance to see Nature's most spectacular fireworks
display. By
4am tomorrow; up to 5,000 meteors an hour will be streaking
across the sky,
creating enough light to cast a shadow on the ground behind those
insomniac
stargazers who are lucky to witness the display.
The star performers in this celestial light show are known as the
Leonid
Meteors. They may sound like a Ukrainian football team, but in
fact they are
named after Leo, the constellation from where they appear.
The storm is the result of Earth passing through the debris left
by the
Temple-Tuttle comet. It orbits the sun every 33 years and each
time it
passes, the intense radiation strips material from the comet's
surface
resulting in a huge dust cloud which trails it - in this case the
Leonid
Meteors.
As the comet continues, the dust follows the original orbit, but
spreads out
like the wake of a boat. It is these particles of meteoric dust
which will
hit the Earth's atmosphere at 160,000mph - 70 times faster than a
speeding
bullet =- and vaporise high in the sky, causing intense streaks
of light.
Each display will last from just a few seconds to up to 30
minutes.
The comet itself was first observed in 1865 by astronomers
William Tempel
and Horace Tuttle and every November Earth crosses its orbit. But
because
the density of the dust trail varies every year, tonight will
probably be
the last chance for almost a century to see the trail of debris
left in
Tempel-Tuttle's path over millions of years.
Comets are believed to contain pristine examples of the materials
that
coalesced 4.5 billion years ago to form the solar system itself.
The frozen
balls of ice and rock are rich with carbon-based molecules.
Indeed, some
modern scientists believe that Earth was seeded with the organic
compounds
necessary for life when it was repeatedly pelted with comets
early in its
history.
Ancient peoples came up with a variety of theories to explain
comets and
meteor showers. Many believed they were souls of the dead going
to heaven,
others fire dragons in the sky or shots in a war between angels
and devils.
Back in November 1833, the skies above America lit up with one of
the most
powerful meteor storms in recorded history. Night was transformed
into day
and according to Samuel Rodgers, a travelling preacher from
Antioch,
Virginia: 'I heard one of the children cry out, in a voice
expressive or
alarm, "Come to the door, father, the world is ~ surely
coming to an end!"
'Some really thought that Judgment Day was at hand and fell on
their knees
in penitence confessing all the sins of their past lives and also
I calling
upon God to have mercy.'
The storm was even interpreted by self-styled apocalyptic
preacher William
Miller as a sign that his predictions of a Second Coming were
spot on.
According to his cult of Millerism (a precursor of the Seventh
Day
Adventists), he determined that the Messiah would arrive sometime
between
1843 and 1844. His followers waited, in vain, until March 21,
1844, when
Miller's deadline expired. Some agreed to set a new date of
October 22,
1844, but this, too passed without incident, leading to the
collapse of the
movement.
Outlandish as such beliefs might appear today, it would be
foolish to assume
that such notions have been entirely swept away with the advance
of
astronomical science. For example, in March 1997, 39 members of
the Heaven's
Gate cult in California committed mass suicide alter leaving a
message
saying that the passing Hale-Bopp comet was a 'marker for them to
enter the
Kingdom of Heaven.
Social anthropologist Dr Benny Peiser claims that an obsession
with the end
of the world provides the bedrock on which many of the most
fanatical
modern-day terrorism movements build their ideas.
They see natural phenomena such as comets and meteors as
providing excellent
illustrations of God's power and anger. Leaders of fundamentalist
groups
tell their followers that ancient writings foretell the
destruction of the
Earth by an avenging God. 'By using such language, radical
fundamentalist
leaders instil absolute commitment and fanaticism in their
followers,' said
Dr Peiser, of Liverpool's John Moores University.
'Once you believe that the end is imminent and that your direct
action will
hasten the coming of the end of time, every atrocity is
sanctioned.
Hopefully, as scientists become better at predicting these
events, then the
mysticism - and the potential for harm which that can bring -
will be
reduced.'
Not that the universe is entirely predictable, though. In 1998,
the Leonids
surprised observers with a burst of bright fireballs which were
visible over
Europe about 15 hours ahead of the supposed 'peak' time. This led
to
astronomers hastily re-adjusting their mathematical models.
Despite the tiny size of the Leonid particles, their speed makes
them a
hazard to any equipment such as satellites, which are not
protected by the
Earth's atmosphere. The European Space Agency has issued a
warning to
satellite operators to manoeuvre their 'birds' to present the
narrowest
possible profile to the direction of the shower, and to power
down sensitive
equipment.
The agency has also recommended delaying the launch of any
spacecraft during
this period. For the rest of us, capturing the full majesty of
the Heavens
will require a little less forethought.
The Leonids will appear to come from within the lion's head shape
in the
constellation Leo from 11.30pm, with increasing numbers after 2am
until they
reach a peak two hours later. You will improve your chances of
seeing them
by continuing to scan the night around the constellation,
rather than focusing on one particular point.
The next comparably dense plume of meteors is not expected to
bombard our
atmosphere until 2098 or even 2131, because, say the astronomers,
the
gravitational field of Jupiter is set to send tbe streams of
debris away
from Earth.
'If it's the one time in your life when you're going to see them.
This might
be the year to try,' said Nasa astronomer Don Yeomans.
But equally, the soothsayers could be right about tonight's
heavenly display
marking the end of the World. And what better way to witness the
Armageddon,
looking out your bedroom window with a cup of cocoa in your hand.
Copyright 2002, Daily Mail
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(3) LEONID PREDICTIONS
>From Daniel Fischer <dfischer@astro.uni-bonn.de>
Dear Benny,
at http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror/245.html.
I have summarized
the present knowledge about the upcoming final Leonid meteor
storms and
provided the - in my opinion - most important links. The
"NAMN Notes" are a
particularly good way to start thinking about the topic in
earnest.
Regards,
Daniel
-----
The last two Leonid meteor storms in our time
http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror/245.html
(i.e. until the year 2099) are expected to occur on Tuesday
morning,
November 19: The first one is best seen from Western Europe and
NW Africa,
the other one from Canada, most of the U.S. and Mexico. Again the
precise
predictions by the experts differ on when exactly the storms will
peak and
what strength they will reach, but the forecasts are much closer
together
than they were leading up to the 2001 storms (see Update # 227
[http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror/227.html] for the
confusion
before, 230
[http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror/230.html] for the
final predictions and early impressions of what happened, and 236
story 5
[http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror/236.html] for a
detailled
analysis). Here is what 5 researchers or groups are expecting for
2002:
ZHR (1st peak) ZHR (2nd peak)
Lyytinen et al. 3500 2600
4:03 (106) 10:40 (122)
Mc-Naught
& Asher 1000 6000
(810-2000) (2900-6000)
3:56 ± 5 (105) 10:34 ± 5 (71)
Jenniskens 5900 5400
3:48 (38) 10:23 (36)
Vaubaillon
& Colas 3400 ± 300 3000 ± 300
4:04 (120) 10:47 (180)
Langbroek 2000 - 5700 2400 - 5200
In bold the maximum zenithal hourly rate (ZHR) is given,
sometimes together
with either a range of expected maximum values or error bars:
This is the
number of meteors you would see if there were no Moon, the
limiting
magnitude in the sky were 6.5 mag. and the radiant would be in
the zenith.
Due to the Moon being almost full and the radiant usually sitting
at a
less-than-perfect elevation, you can expect to see perhaps a
third to a
fourth of the ZHR in reality, i.e. a meteor every two seconds on
average or
so, even if the more optimistic models work out. Also given are
the peak
times in UTC and the full width half maximum (FWHM) of the ZHR in
minutes.
Note that the predictions for the first peak (middle column)
differ by a
factor of 6, while for the 2nd peak (right column) they agree
much better:
The first peak will be caused by a dust trail that has gone
around the Sun 7
times and has suffered from planetary perturbations while the 2nd
peak's
dust trail is only 4 revolutions old and probably in better
shape. The
modellers differ in their treatment of the perturbations and
effects working
on the trails, with McNaught & Asher seeing major 'damage' to
the 7-rev.
trail. On the other hand Lyytinen & al. feel that the 4-rev.
trail has been
weakened.
All modellers agree, however, that the older 'European' 7-rev.
trail should
contain larger particles, making for brighter meteors: This
should help a
bit against the full moon. You should further place yourself in a
location
as high as possible (to have less lower atmosphere above you to
scatter the
moonlight) and perhaps an even higher mountain shielding off the
moon, which
will sink lower while the radiant rises in the morning. While the
predictions for the peak times are pretty close together this
time, it
should still be advisable to have about one hour between 'your'
peak and
dawn, to be on the safe side and to watch both flanks of the
peak.
As these will be the final Leonid meteor storms for almost a
century (the
Earth won't pass thru any dust trails before 2099), there is
again great
excitement among amateur and professional astronomers alike. In
Europe,
e.g., scores of dedicated observers are moving to sites with
better weather
forecasts. There will again be an airborne campaign like in 1998,
1999 and
2001, carrying sophisticated equipment above any clouds. And even
the
astronauts aboard the ISS should be prepared this time - with the
space
station passing over Europe for the 1st and over America for the
2nd peak.
(Table based on Langbroek, MNRAS 334 [Aug. 2002] L16-20, McNaught
& Asher,
WGN 30#5 [Okt. 2002] 132-43 and the websites of Lyytinen,
Jenniskens and
Vaubaillon.)
=========
(4) TR/J EJECTA LAYER IN BRITAIN
>From Hermann Burchard <burchar@math.okstate.edu>
Dear Benny,
the abstracts from the Fall UGA meeting posted on CCNet (Michael
Paine), had
many new cases of ejecta layers. Now SCIENCE reports a Tr/J
ejecta layer
from SW Britain. This news I first noticed in DER SPIEGEL, who
reports the
layer is up to 6 inches thick: "eine bis zu 15 Zentimeter
dicke Schicht mit
geschocktem Quarz und smaragdgrünen Sphärulen."
It appears that once people start looking ejecta layers with the
classical
indicators [CCNet articles by Andrew Glikson and others] are
found to be
abundant.
Cheers,
Hermann
Published online November 14, 2002
Submitted on July 17, 2002. Accepted on November 5, 2002
A Late Triassic Impact Ejecta Layer in Southwestern Britain
Gordon Walkden 1*, Julian Parker 1, Simon Kelley 2
1 Department of Geology and Petroleum Geology, Kings College,
University of
Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UD, UK.
2 Department of Earth Sciences, Open University, Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA, UK.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
spherules@abdn.ac.uk.
Despite the 160 or so known terrestrial impact craters of
Phanerozoic age,
equivalent ejecta deposits within distal sedimentary successions
are rare.
We have recognized a Triassic deposit in southwestern Britain
that contains
spherules and shocked quartz, characteristic of an impact ejecta
layer.
Inter- and intragranular potassium feldspar from the deposit
yields an Ar-Ar
age of 214 ± 2.5 million years old. This is within the age range
of several
known Triassic impact craters, the two closest of which, both in
age and
location, are Manicouagan in northeastern Canada and Rochechouart
in central
France. The ejecta deposit provides an important sedimentary
record of an
extraterrestrial impact in the Mesozoic that will help to
decipher the
number and effect of impact events, the source and dynamics of
the event
that left this distinctive sedimentary marker, and the relation
of this
ejecta layer to the timing of extinctions in the fossil record.
Copyright 2002, AAAS
===============
(5) AND FINALLY: THE NEW CONVERGENCE
>From Wired Magazine, December 2002
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.12/convergence.html
By Gregg Easterbrook
The ancient covenant is in pieces: Man knows at last that he is
alone in the
universe's unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by
chance." So
pronounced the Nobel Prize-winning French biologist Jacques Monod
in his
1970 treatise Chance and Necessity, which maintained that God had
been
utterly refuted by science. The divine is fiction, faith is
hokum, existence
is a matter of heartless probability - and this wasn't just
speculation,
Monod maintained, but proven. The essay, which had tremendous
influence on
the intellectual world, seemed to conclude a millennia-old
debate. Theology
was in retreat, unable to explain away Darwin's observations;
intellectual
approval was flowing to thinkers such as the Nobel-winning
physicist Steven
Weinberg, who in 1977 pronounced, "The more the universe
seems
comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless." In 1981,
the National
Academy of Sciences declared, "Religion and science are
separate and
mutually exclusive realms of human thought." Case closed.
And now reopened. In recent years, Allan Sandage, one of the
world's leading
astronomers, has declared that the big bang can be understood
only as a
"miracle." Charles Townes, a Nobel-winning physicist
and coinventor of the
laser, has said that discoveries of physics "seem to reflect
intelligence at
work in natural law." Biologist Christian de Duve, also a
Nobel winner,
points out that science argues neither for nor against the
existence of a
deity: "There is no sense in which atheism is enforced or
established by
science." And biologist Francis Collins, director of the
National Human
Genome Research Institute, insists that "a lot of scientists
really don't
know what they are missing by not exploring their spiritual
feelings."
Ever so gingerly, science has been backing away from its
case-closed
attitude toward the transcendent unknown. Conferences that bring
together
theologians and physicists are hot, recently taking place at
Harvard, the
Smithsonian, and other big-deal institutions. The American
Association for
the Advancement of Science now sponsors a "Dialogue on
Science, Ethics, and
Religion." Science luminaries who in the '70s shrugged at
faith as
gobbledygook - including E. O. Wilson and the late Stephen Jay
Gould and
Carl Sagan - have endorsed some form of reconciliation between
science and
religion.
Why the renewed scientific interest in spiritual thinking? One
reason is the
cyclical nature of intellectual fashions. In philosophy,
metaphysics is
making a comeback after decades ruled by positivism and
analytical theory of
language. These restrained, empirically based ideas have run
their course;
now the pendulum is swinging toward the grand vision of
metaphysics -
someday, surely, to swing away again. Similarly in science, the
pure
materialistic view that reigned through the 20th century, holding
that
everything has a natural explanation, couldn't keep other
viewpoints at bay
forever. The age-old notion that there is more to existence than
meets the
eye suddenly looks like fresh thinking again.
Meanwhile, decades of inconclusive inquiry have left the
science-has-all-the-answers script in tatters. As recently as the
'70s,
intellectuals assumed that hard science was on track to resolve
the two
Really Big Questions: why life exists and how the universe began.
What's
more, both Really Big Answers were assumed to involve strictly
deterministic
forces. But things haven't worked out that way. Instead, the more
scientists
have learned, the more mysterious the Really Big Questions have
become.
Perhaps someday researchers will find wholly natural explanations
for life
and the cosmos. For the moment, though, discoveries about these
two subjects
are inspiring awe and wonder, and many scientists are reaching
out to
spiritual thinkers to help them comprehend what they're learning.
And as the
era of biotechnology dawns, scientists realize they're stepping
into
territory best navigated with the aid of philosophers and
theologians. We
are entering the greatest era of science-religion fusion since
the
Enlightenment last attempted to reconcile the two, three
centuries ago.
Look up into the night sky and scan for the edge of the cosmos.
You won't
find it - nobody has yet. Instruments such as the Hubble Space
Telescope's
deep-field scanner have detected at least 50 billion galaxies,
and every
time the equipment is improved, more galaxies farther away come
into focus.
Space may be infinite - not merely vast, but infinite -
encompassing an
infinite number of galaxies with an infinite number of stars.
All this stuff - enough to form 50 billion galaxies, maybe
fantastically
more - is thought to have emerged roughly 14 billion years ago in
less than
a second, from a point with no physical dimensions. Set aside the
many
competing explanations of the big bang; something made an entire
cosmos out
of nothing. It is this realization - that something transcendent
started it
all - which has hard-science types such as Sandage using terms
like
"miracle."
Initially, scientists found the big bang's miraculous
implications
off-putting. When, in 1927, Catholic abbé and astronomer Georges
Lemaître
first hypothesized that existence began with the detonation of a
"primordial
atom" of infinite density, the idea was ridiculed as a
transparent ploy to
place Genesis on technical grounding. But Lemaître enclosed a
testable
prediction - that if there had been a bang, the galaxies would be
rushing
away from one another. This idea, too, was ridiculed, until Edwin
Hubble
stunned the scientific world by presenting evidence of cosmic
expansion.
>From Hubble's 1929 discovery on, science has taken big bang
thinking
seriously.
In 1965, another sort of big bang echo - the cosmic background
radiation
-was discovered. Soon, it was assumed, cosmologists would be able
to say,
"Here's how everything happened, steps one, two, and
three." Today
cosmologists do think they know a fair amount about steps two and
three -
what the incipient cosmos was like in the instant after the
genesis, how
matter and energy later separated and formed the first galaxies.
But as for
step one, no dice. Nobody knows beyond foggy conjecture what
caused the big
bang, what (if anything) was present before that event, or how
there could
have been a prior condition in which nothing existed.
Explanations of how the mass of an entire universe could pop out
of a void
are especially unsatisfying. Experiments announced in July this
year by the
Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York measured properties of
subatomic
particles known as muons, finding that they behave as though
influenced by
other particles that seem to have materialized from nothingness.
But no
object larger than the tiniest subatomic particle has been
observed to do
this - and these "virtual" particles are volatile
entities that exist for
less than a second, while the big bang made a universe that is
superbly
stable, perhaps even permanent.
About 10 years ago, just as scientists were becoming confident in
big bang
theory, I asked Alan Dressler - one of the world's leading
astronomers, and
currently a consultant on the design of the space telescope
scheduled to
replace the Hubble - what caused the bang. He scrunched his face
and said,
"I can't stand that question!" At the time,
cosmologists tended to assert
that the cause and prior condition were unknowable. The bizarre
physics of
the singularity that preceded the explosion, they explained,
represented an
information wall that blocked (actually, destroyed) all knowledge
of the
prior condition and its physical laws. We would never know.
The more scientists testily insisted that the big bang was
unfathomable, the
more they sounded like medieval priests saying, "Don't ask
me what made
God." Researchers, prominently Alan Guth of MIT, began to
assert that the
big bang could be believed only if its mechanics could be
explained. Indeed,
Guth went on to propose such an explanation. Suffice it to say
that, while
Guth asserts science will eventually figure out the cause, he
still invokes
unknown physical laws in the prior condition. And no matter how
you slice
it, calling on unknown physical laws sounds awfully like
appealing to the
supernatural.
The existence of 50 billion galaxies isn't the only mystery
that's prompting
scientists to rethink their attitudes toward the divine. Beyond
this is the
puzzle of why the universe is hospitable to living creatures.
In recent years, researchers have calculated that if a value
called omega -
the ratio between the average density of the universe and the
density that
would halt cosmic expansion - had not been within about
one-quadrillionth of
1 percent of its actual value immediately after the big bang, the
incipient
universe would have collapsed back on itself or experienced
runaway-relativity effects that would render the fabric of
time-space
weirdly distorted. Instead, the firmament is geometrically smooth
- rather
than distorted - in the argot of cosmology. If gravity were only
slightly
stronger, research shows, stars would flame so fiercely they
would burn out
in a single year; the universe would be a kingdom of cinders,
devoid of
life. If gravity were only slightly weaker, stars couldn't form
and the
cosmos would be a thin, undifferentiated blur. Had the strong
force that
binds atomic nuclei been slightly weaker, all atoms would
disperse into
vapor.
These cosmic coincidences were necessary to create a universe
capable of
sustaining life. But life itself required an equally unlikely
fine-tuning at
the atomic level, yielding vast quantities of carbon. Unlike most
elements,
carbon needs little energy to form exceedingly complicated
molecules, a
requirement of biology. As it happens, a quirk of carbon
chemistry - an
equivalence of nuclear energy levels that allows helium nuclei to
meld
within stars - makes this vital element possible.
To the late astronomer Fred Hoyle, who calculated the conditions
necessary
to create carbon in 1953, the odds of this match occurring by
chance seemed
so phenomenally low that he converted from atheism to a belief
that the
universe reflects a "purposeful intelligence." Hoyle
declared, "The
probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule
as to make
the random concept absurd." That is to say, Hoyle's faith in
chance was
shaken by evidence of purpose, a reversal of the standard
postmodern
experience, and one shared by many of his successors today.
This web of improbable conditions - making not just life but
intelligent
life practically inevitable - came to be known as the anthropic
principle.
To physicist Charles Townes, an anthropic universe resolves a
tension that
has bedeviled physics since the heyday of quantum theory.
"When quantum
mechanics overthrew determinism, many scientists, including
Einstein, wanted
the universe to be deterministic," he points out. "They
didn't like quantum
theory, because it leaves you looking for a spiritual explanation
for why
things turned out the way they did. Religion and science are
going to be
drawn together for a long time trying to figure out the
philosophical
implications of why the universe turned out favorable to
us."
Of course, not every scientist is ready to don choir robes. Hard
science's
attempt to explain our anthropic universe without any reference
to the
divine has led to the emerging theory of the multiverse, or
multiple
universes. Andrei Linde, a researcher at Stanford, has argued for
a decade
that the big bang wasn't unique. Universes bang into existence
all the time,
by the billions. It just happens in dimensions we can't see.
Linde starts from the assumption that if the big bang was a
chance event
driven by some natural mechanism, then such events can be
expected to happen
repeatedly over eons. Ergo, billions of universes. With each
bang, Linde
supposes, physical laws and constants are determined anew by
random forces.
Huge numbers of universes end up with excessive gravity and are
crushed out
of existence; huge numbers end up with weak gravity and no stars;
huge
numbers lack carbon. Once in a while, an anthropic cosmos comes
about.
Several variations on the multiverse theory are popular in
academia because
they suggest how our universe could have beaten the odds without
a guiding
hand. But the multiverse idea rests on assumptions that would be
laughed out
of town if they came from a religious text. Townes has said that
speculation
about billions of invisible universes "strikes me as much
more freewheeling
than any of the church's claims." Tenured professors at
Stanford now
casually discuss entire unobservable universes. Compare that to
religion's
proposal of a single invisible plane of existence: the spirit.
Linde admits that we can't observe or verify other universes in
any way; for
that matter we can't even explain how they might occupy alternate
dimensions. (As a scientific concept, extra dimensions are
ambiguous at
best; none beyond the familiar four have ever been observed, and
it's far
from clear that a higher number is possible.)
Thus, the multiverse theory requires as much suspension of
disbelief as any
religion. Join the church that believes in the existence of
invisible
objects 50 billion galaxies wide! To be fair, the dogmas embraced
by science
tend to be more flexible than those held by theologians. If
empirical
evidence of God were to appear, science probably would accept it
eventually,
if grudgingly; while religion, if presented with an empirical
disproof of
God, might simply refuse to listen. Nevertheless, while cosmology
seems more
and more to have a miraculous aspect, the scientifically approved
alternatives require an article of faith.
Numerous other areas of contemporary science sound like
supernaturalism
dressed up. Researchers studying the motions of spiral galaxies
have found
that the stars and gas clouds within them behave as though
they're subject
to 20 times more force than can be explained by the gravity from
observed
matter. This has led to the assumption - now close to a
scientific consensus
- that much of the cosmos is bound up in an undetectable
substance
provisionally called dark matter. The ratio of dark to regular
matter may be
as high as 6 to 1.
Other experiments suggest that as much as two-thirds of the
content of the
universe may crackle with an equally mysterious dark energy. In
1998,
astronomers were surprised to discover that, contrary to
expectations,
cosmic expansion isn't slowing as the momentum of the big bang
peters out.
Instead, it appears to be speeding up. Something very powerful is
causing
the galaxies to fly apart faster all the time.
Then there's the Higgs field. In an attempt to explain the
ultimate source
of mass, some theorists propose that the universe is permeated by
an
undiscovered field that confers mass on what would otherwise be
zero-mass
particles. The Superconducting Supercollider project, canceled in
1993, was
intended to test this hypothesis.
These and other mystery forces seem to function based on nothing.
That
notion, now a fact of life among physicists and cosmologists,
would have
been considered ridiculous just a few generations ago. Yet
Judeo-Christian
theology has been teaching for millennia that God made the
universe ex
nihilo - out of nothing. Maybe these forces work in a wholly
natural manner
that simply hasn't yet been determined. Certainly, there's a
better chance
of finding observational evidence for theories of physics than
theories of
theology. But for the moment, many believers find physics
trending in their
direction, while physicists themselves are left to ponder
transcendent
effects they can't explain.
Physicists and theologians hold chummy conferences and drink
sherry
together, but most biologists still want little to do with
spiritual
thought, and the feeling is mutual on the part of many believers.
More than
three-quarters of a century after John Scopes stood trial for
teaching
evolution, Darwin's theory remains a flash point. Only in
September,
creationists urged Congress to enact legislation supporting the
teaching of
alternatives to evolution in public schools.
The battle between evolutionary biology and faith isn't
inevitable. As
genome researcher Collins says, "I am unaware of any
irreconcilable conflict
between scientific knowledge about evolution and the idea of a
creator God.
Why couldn't God use the mechanism of evolution to create?"
Mainstream
Protestant denominations and most branches of Judaism accept
Darwin, and in
1996, Pope John Paul II called Darwin's work "more than just
a hypothesis."
Even Christian fundamentalism wasn't always anti-Darwin. When the
American
movement began at the start of the 20th century, its trumpet call
was a
popular series of pamphlets called The Fundamentals, which were
to the
decade of the 1910s what the Left Behind series of evangelical
novels is
today. According to The Fundamentals, evolution illustrated the
subtle
beauty of God's creative power.
The tide began to turn a decade later, however, when William
Jennings Bryan
began preaching against Darwinism. He was influenced by a 1923
book, The New
Geology, which argued that Earth's apparently ancient age was an
artifact
created by God to test people's faith. Moreover, Bryan had just
spent a year
in Germany and was horrified by the incipient Nazi movement,
which used
social Darwinism - now discredited, but then fashionable on the
left as well
as the right - to assert that it was only natural for the strong
to kill the
weak. His crusade against evolutionary theory led to the Scopes
trial in
1925, which cemented into American culture the notion that Darwin
and
religion were opposing forces.
Espousing a theory known as intelligent design, molecular
biologist Michael
Behe and others are attempting to forge a synthesis. Often -
though
inaccurately - described as creationism lite, intelligent design
admits that
evolution operates under current conditions but emphasizes that
Darwin is
silent on how those conditions came to be. Science doesn't have
the
slightest idea how life began. No generally accepted theory
exists, and the
steps leading from a barren primordial world to the fragile
chemistry of
life seem imponderable.
The late biologist Gerald Soffen, who oversaw the life-seeking
experiments
carried out by NASA's Viking probes to Mars, once outlined the
early
milestones in the evolution of living processes: development of
organic
compounds, self-replication of those compounds, appearance of
cells
isolating the compounds from their environment, photosynthesis
enabling
cells to use the sun's energy, and the assembly of DNA.
"It's hard to
imagine how these things could have happened," Soffen told
me before his
death in 2000. "Once you reach the point of a single-cell
organism with
genes, evolution takes command. But the early leaps - they're
very
mysterious."
Intelligent design trades on this insight to propose that only a
designer
could create life in the first place. The theory is spiritual,
but it's not
bound by Scripture, as creationism is. A designer is a
nondenominational,
ecumenical possibility, not a dogmatic formula.
Did a designer set Earth's life processes in motion? Few
questions are more
interesting or intellectually rich. Because the evolution debate
is so
rancorous, however, the how-did-life-begin question is usually
lost amid
shouting matches between orthodox Darwinians and hard-line
creationists.
The biotech era may change this. Biologists and fundamentalists
may still
want to hurl bricks at one another, but there's no dodging the
immediate
questions of biological engineering, stem-cell research,
transgenic animals,
and so on. What is life? Do individual cells have rights? Do
human beings
have the right to alter human DNA? Is it wise to reengineer the
biosphere?
The need to grope our collective way through such quandaries may
force
theologians, church leaders, biologists, and philosophers to
engage one
another. Perhaps this debate will get hopelessly hung up in
doctrine, for
instance on the question of whether life begins when sperm meets
egg. But
there is at least an equal chance that the pressure of solving
biotech
questions will force science and theology to find the reasonable
points of
either field. Unlike cosmology, which poses fascinating questions
whose
answers have no effect on daily life, biotech will affect almost
everyone in
an immediate way. A science-and-religion reconciliation on this
subject may
be needed to write research rules, physician ethics, and,
ultimately, law.
Oh, and what did Einstein think about this issue? He said,
"Science without
religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
Einstein was neither
convinced there is a God nor convinced there is not; he sensed
that it's far
too early in the human quest for knowledge to do more than
speculate on
transcendent questions. Science, which once thought the case for
higher
power was closed, is now trending back toward his view.
------
Gregg Easterbrook is a contributing editor for The Atlantic
Monthly and
author of the book The Here and Now.
Copyright © 1994-2002 Wired Digital, Inc. All rights reserved.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
CCNet is a scholarly electronic network. To
subscribe/unsubscribe, please
contact the moderator Benny J Peiser < b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk
>. Information
circulated on this network is for scholarly and educational use
only. The
attached information may not be copied or reproduced for any
other purposes
without prior permission of the copyright holders. The fully
indexed archive
of the CCNet, from February 1997 on, can be found at
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cccmenu.html.
DISCLAIMER: The opinions,
beliefs and viewpoints expressed in the articles and texts and in
other
CCNet contributions do not necessarily reflect the opinions,
beliefs and
viewpoints of the moderator of this network.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------