William Lane Craig and atheist Daniel Dennett discuss cosmology and fine-tuning

This audio records a part of the Greer-Heard debate in 2007, between prominent atheist Daniel Dennett and lame theistic evolutionist Alister McGrath. Craig was one of the respondents, and this was the best part of the event. It is a little bit advanced, but I have found that if you listen to things like this over and over with your friends and family, and then try to explain it to non-Christians, you’ll get it.

By the way, this is mostly original material from Craig, dated 2007, and he delivers the speech perfectly, so it’s entertaining to listen to.

Craig presents three arguments for a Creator and Designer of the universe:

• the contingency argument
• the kalam cosmological argument
• the teleological argument

He also discusses Dennett’s published responses to these arguments.

Dennett’s response to Craig’s paper

Here is my snarky paraphrase of Dennett’s reponse: (this is very snarky, because Dennett was just awful)

• Craig’s three arguments are bulletproof, the premises are plausible, and grounded by the best cutting edge science we know today.
• I cannot find anything wrong with his arguments right now, but maybe later when I go home it will come to me what’s wrong with them.
• But atheism is true even if all the evidence is against it today. I know it’s true by my blind faith.
• The world is so mysterious, and all the science of today will be overturned tomorrow so that atheism will be rational again. I have blind faith that this new evidence will be discovered any minute.
• Just because the cause of the beginning of time is eternal and the cause of the beginning of space is non-physical, the cause doesn’t have to be God.
• “Maybe the cause of the universe is the idea of an apple, or the square root of 7″. (HE LITERALLY SAID THAT!)
• The principle of triangulation might have brought the entire physical universe into being out of nothing.
• I don’t understand anything about non-physical causation, even though I cannot even speak meaningful sentences unless I have a non-physical mind that is causing my body to emit the meaningful sentences in a non-determined manner.
• Alexander Vilenkin is much smarter than Craig and if he were here he would beat him up good with phantom arguments.
• Alan Guth is much smarter than Craig and if he were here he would beat him up good with phantom arguments.
• This science stuff is so complicated to me – so Craig can’t be right about it even though he’s published about it and debated it all with the best atheists on the planet.
• If God is outside of time, then this is just deism, not theism. (This part is correct, but Craig believes that God enters into time at the moment of creation – so that it is not a deistic God)
• If deism is true, then I can still be an atheist, because a Creator and Designer of the universe is compatible with atheism.
• I’m pretty sure that Craig doesn’t have any good arguments that can argue for Christianity – certainly not an historical argument for the resurrection of Jesus based on minimal facts, that he’s defended against the most prominent historians on the planet in public debates and in prestigous books and research journals.

I was in the second row at the Baylor Conference on intelligent design when Guth debated Craig on the origin of the universe. Guth admitted afterwards that the universe did require a cause.

I do not recommend purchasing the whole 2007 debate, because McGrath is a squish. You’re better off with the 2005 and 2008 sets. The 2006 one is OK, but not great. I don’t have the 2009 one yet, but it looks good.

Filed under: Podcasts, Big Bang, Black Hole, Contingency, Cosmological, Creation, Daniel Dennett, Debate, Debates, Multiverse, Smolin, Star Formation, String Theory, Teleological, William Lane Craig

Why does the cause of the universe have to be God?

From Cold Case Christianity. (H/T Tweet from Apologetics 315)

Excerpt:

Big Bang cosmology, often referred to as the Standard Cosmological Model, demonstrates that everything we see in the universe (all space, time, and matter) had a beginning and came from nothing. If this is true, the first cause of the universe must itself be non-spatial, a-temporal, and immaterial.

[...]There are two kinds of forces in the universe: personal forces and impersonal forces. Impersonal forces, like the force of gravity, have no choice about how they affect their environment. They enter, their effect is realized. Imagine a gravity free room in which everything is simply floating in midair. Now introduce the impersonal force of gravity. What happens? We would expect the effect of gravity to be felt immediately. The instant gravity enters this room every object will be drawn to the floor. Impersonal forces cannot decide when to act; if they are present, their effect is felt. This truth has a great impact on the way we understand the first cause of the universe.

If the cause of the universe is an impersonal force, its effect (the appearance of everything from nothing) would be realized the instant the force was present. If that were the case, the first cause of the universe could be no older than the universe itself. The appearance of the cause (the impersonal force) and its effect (the creation of space, time and matter) would be simultaneous events; one would be no older than the other. But if that’s the case, we would once again find ourselves looking for what  caused the first cause to appear in the first place! See the problem? The first cause of the universe must itself be uncaused and eternal in order for us to avoid the illogical and endless pursuit of a prior cause. Unless we are willing to accept the irrational premise that the cause of the universe is itself only as old as the universe itself, we are going to have to admit that this cause cannot be an impersonal force. The cause of the universe had the ability to decide to bring the universe into existence, and the ability to decide is an attribute of personhood.

The rest of the post takes a look at what can be deduced about the cause of the universe from the effect: the creation of the universe according to what science tells us.

This is a straightforward argument. We start with science. Science tells us what happened at the beginning of the universe. And then we ask ourselves what kind of cause can account for the effect that science detected. If you limit yourself to pure logic and pure experimental science, then there is one possible explanation: a supernatural cause brought the entire physical universe into being. All attempts to evade what good science tells us about the universe takes one of two forms; 1) speculating about unobservable, untestable entities or 2) hoping that all the good science we have today will be overturned tomorrow by different science. Those are the 3 options: God, speculation without evidence or speculation without evidence.

Related posts

• William Lane Craig lectures against naturalism at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland
• William Lane Craig lectures on naturalistic alternatives to the Big Bang
• William Lane Craig debates Peter Millican on the existence of God
• Physicist Michael Strauss discusses Christianity and science at Stanford University
• Three ways that the progress of science conflicts with naturalistic speculations
• Henry F. Schaefer: Stephen Hawking, the Big Bang and God
• Stephen C. Meyer: does the Big Bang cosmology support God or atheism?
• What conditions support the minimum requirements for complex life?
• William Lane Craig debates Lawrence Krauss: Does God Exist?
• Lawrence Krauss debates “A Universe From Nothing” with an astrophysicist
• William Lane Craig debates Victor Stenger: Does God Exist?

Filed under: News, Argument, Big Bang, Christianity, Cosmological Argument, Cosmology, Creation, Eternal Universe, Evidence, Fine Tuning, Galaxy, God, Lecture, Oscillating Universe, Particle Physics, Philosophy of Science, Physicist, Physics, Proof, Science, Star Formation, Supernova, Teleological Argument, Theism, Universe, William Lane Craig

New paper finds that mass of asteroid belts affect habitability of planets

Science Daily reports. (H/T Evolution News via ECM)

Excerpt:

They suggest that the size and location of an asteroid belt, shaped by the evolution of the Sun’s protoplanetary disk and by the gravitational influence of a nearby giant Jupiter-like planet, may determine whether complex life will evolve on an Earth-like planet.

This might sound surprising because asteroids are considered a nuisance due to their potential to impact Earth and trigger mass extinctions. But an emerging view proposes that asteroid collisions with planets may provide a boost to the birth and evolution of complex life.

Asteroids may have delivered water and organic compounds to the early Earth. According to the theory of punctuated equilibrium, occasional asteroid impacts might accelerate the rate of biological evolution by disrupting a planet’s environment to the point where species must try new adaptation strategies.

The astronomers based their conclusion on an analysis of theoretical models and archival observations of extrasolar Jupiter-sized planets and debris disks around young stars. “Our study shows that only a tiny fraction of planetary systems observed to date seem to have giant planets in the right location to produce an asteroid belt of the appropriate size, offering the potential for life on a nearby rocky planet,” said Martin, the study’s lead author. “Our study suggests that our solar system may be rather special.”

There’s a long list of factors that have to be present for a planet to support life – and more keep appearing every day. Here’s another recent one from the journal Nature.

Related posts

• Three ways that the progress of science conflicts with naturalistic speculations
• What conditions support the minimum requirements for complex life?
• Guillermo Gonzalez lectures at UC Davis on the requirements for life
• Does the progress of science lead to theism or atheism?
• Walter Bradley explains three scientific arguments for God’s existence
• Brian Auten interviews Jay Richards about Christian apologetics
• Harvard astrophysicist backs the Rare Earth hypothesis

Filed under: News, Aliens, Are We Alone, Astrobiology, Carbon, Carbon-based Life, CHZ, Circumstellar Habitable Zone, Class M Planet, Copernican Principle, Cosmology, Exoplanet, Galactic Habitable Zone, GHZ, Habitability, Intelligent Design, Main Sequence Star, Moon, Orbit, Oxygen Atmosphere, Planetary Rotation, Rare Earth, Star Formation, Star Trek, Terrestrial Planet, The Privileged Planet, Tilt, Universal Solvent

Physicist Michael Strauss discusses Christianity and science at Stanford University

This is one of my favorite lectures, by one of the people I admire the most for his scientific work and robust, evangelical Christian faith.

About Michael Strauss:

His full biography is here. (I removed his links from my excerpt text below)

Excerpt:

I had an interest in science and theology, so in 1977 I chose to go to Biola University where I could study both subjects in detail. I thoroughly enjoyed college and participated in intramural sports, was elected to student government, served as a resident assistant, competed in forensics, and studied a lot. As I neared college graduation my dual interest continued so I applied to seminary and to graduate school. After graduating summa cum laude from Biola, I decided to pursue a graduate degree in physics at UCLA.

During my first few years of graduate school, I developed an increased interest in quantum mechanics and subatomic physics and decided to do research in a field that dealt with these subjects. I joined a High Energy Physics experimental group doing research at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to actively participate in research at SLAC. I graduated in 1988 with my Ph.D in High Energy Physics (a.k.a. Elementary Particle Physics). If you would like to know more about High Energy Physics, the Particle Data Group at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory has a very nice interactive adventure that teaches you all about the subject. My research advisor was professor Charles Buchanan and my disertation was titled “A Study of Lambda Polarization and Phi Spin Alignment in Electron-Positron Annihilation at 29 GeV as a Probe of Color Field Behavior.”

After graduation, I accepted a post-doctoral research position with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. I continued to do research at SLAC where I joined the SLD experiment. My research interests centered on the SLD silicon pixel vertex detector. I wrote most of the offline software for this device, and did physics analysis which used the vertex detector, including tagging b quark events for flavor specific QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics) analysis. In the seven years I was employed by UMASS, I only spent 3 days on the Amherst campus. The rest of the time was spent in California.

[...]In August 1995, I accepted a job as an Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Oklahoma (OU) in Norman, Oklahoma. The University of Oklahoma has a vibrant high energy physics research group involved in experiments at the Fermi National Accelerator Center (Fermilab), and CERN. I joined the DØ experiment at Fermilab where I continue to do research in elementary particle physics. As a member of the DØ collaboration I have made contributions to the testing of silicon sensors for the upgraded vertex detector, to the track finding algorithms, to a measurement of the photon production cross section which probes the gluon content of protons, and to other QCD measurements. I am currently studying properties of B mesons that contain a b-quark, the production cross section of jets coming from quarks and gluons, and other QCD analyses. At CERN, I am a collaborator on the ATLAS detector.

I received tenure in 2001 and was promoted to the rank of Professor in the summer of 2010. Most of the time at OU I have taught introductory physics classes to physics majors, engineers, and life science majors. In these classes I have used a number of interactive techniques to facilitate student participation and learning. I have been privileged to win a few awards for my teaching. In 1999, the Associated Students selected me as the Outstanding Professor in the College of Arts and Science, and in 2000 I was awarded the BP AMOCO Foundation Good Teaching Award. In 2002, I was given the Regents Award for Superior Teaching. I received the Carlisle Mabrey and Lurine Mabrey Presidential Professorship in 2006 which is given to “faculty members who excel in all their professional activities and who relate those activities to the students they teach and mentor.”

He seems to have done a fine job of integrating his faith with a solid career in physics research. It would be nice if we were churning out more like him, but that would require the church to get serious about the integration between science and faith.

The lecture:

Dr. Strauss delivered this lecture at Stanford University in 1999. It is fairly easy to understand, and it even includes useful dating tips, one of which I was able to try out recently at IHOP, and it worked.

UPDATE: I pulled the MP3 audio from the lecture in case anyone wants just the audio.

Summary:

What does science tell us about God?
- the discoveries of Copernicus made humans less significant in the universe
- the discoveries of Darwin should that humans are an accident
- but this all pre-modern science
- what do the latest findings of science say about God?

Evidence #1: the origin of the universe
- the steady state model supports atheism, but was disproved by the latest discoveries
- the oscillating model supports atheism, but was disproved by the latest discoveries
- the big bang model supports theism, and it is supported by multiple recent discoveries
- the quantum gravity model supports atheism, but it pure theory and has never been tested or confirmed by experiment and observation

Evidence #2: the fine-tuning of physical constants for life
- there are over 100 examples of constants that must be selected within a narrow range in order for the universe to support the minimal requirements for life
- example: mass density
- example: strong nuclear force (what he studies)
- example: carbon formation

Evidence #3: the fine-tuning of our planet for habitability
- the type of galaxy and our location in it
- our solar system and our star
- our planet
- our moon

Positive arguments for Christian theism

• The kalam cosmological argument and the Big Bang theory
• The fine-tuning argument from cosmological constants and quantities
• The origin of life, part 1 of 2: the building blocks of life
• The origin of life, part 2 of 2: biological information
• The sudden origin of phyla in the Cambrian explosion
• Galactic habitable zones and circumstellar habitable zones
• Irreducible complexity in molecular machines
• The creative limits of natural selection and random mutation
• Angus Menuge’s ontological argument from reason
• Alvin Plantinga’s epistemological argument from reason
• William Lane Craig’s moral argument

Filed under: Videos, Argument, Big Bang, Christianity, Cosmological Argument, Cosmology, Creation, Eternal Universe, Evidence Proof, Fine Tuning, Galaxy, God, Learn, Lecture, Michael Strauss, Oscillating Universe, Particle Physics, Philosophy of Science, Physicist, Physics, Science, Stanford University, Star Formation, Strong force, Subatomic Particles, Supernova, Teleological Argument, Theism, Top Quark, Universe

What conditions support the minimum requirements for complex life?

You need to have a certain amount of elemental diversity to support the minimal requirements of living systems. For example, you need carbon, hence “carbon-based life”.

The Circumstellar Habitable Zone (CHZ)

Human bodies are made of carbon, and many other heavy elements. You need many different heavy elements in order to make up your physical body. Our star, the Sun, is also made of heavy elements. You also need heavy elements in order to crate a metal-rich star like our Sun. A heavy metal-rich star is required in order to support complex carbon-based life in any solar system. The metal-rich star is required because you need to make sure that it can burn stably for a LONG period of time. A metal-rich star also allows you to have a habitable planet far enough from that metal-rich star so that the planet can support liquid water on the planet’s surface. The zone where a planet can have liquid water at the surface is called the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ). A solar system is therefore a lot like a campfire – you can’t get too close or you get set on fire, and you can’t get too far or you freeze to death. With planets, you need to keep away so your water doesn’t evaporate from the surface, but not so far away that your water freezes. Liquid water on the surface is needed in order to act as a universal solvent in the chemistry of life.

Circumstellar Habitable Zone

Here, watch a clip from The Privileged Planet: (Clip 4 of 12, full playlist here)

A metal-rich star like the Sun is very massive, which allows planets to stay in orbit much further away. Notice that the smaller the star, the closer you have to go to the star. If you go too close to the star then your planet is “tidally locked” – your planet no longer spins on it’s axis – and that’s very bad for life)

The Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ)

So, where do you get the heavy elements you need for your heavy metal-rich star?

You have to get the heavy elements for your star from supernova explosions – explosions that occur when certain stars die. That’s where heavy elements come from. But you can’t be TOO CLOSE to the dying stars, because you will get hit by nasty radiation and explosions. So to get the heavy elements, your solar system needs to be in the galactic habitable zone (GHZ) – the zone where you can pickup the heavy elements you need but not get hit by radiation and explosions. The GHZ lies between the spiral arms of a spiral galaxy. You can be too close to the center of the galaxy, it’s too dense there and you will get hit with massive radiation that will break down your life chemistry. And you can’t be to far from the center, because you won’t get enough heavy elements from the lower number of dying stars in the spiral arms.

Galactic Habitable Zone

Here, watch a clip from The Privileged Planet: (Clip 10 of 12, full playlist here)

The GHZ is based on a discovery made by astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, which made the front cover of Scientific American in 2001. That’s right, the cover of Scientific American. That’s when this was discovered.

By the way, you can watch a lecture with Guillermo Gonzalez explaining his ideas further. The lecture was delivered at UC Davis in 2007. That link has a link to the playlist of the lecture, a bio of the speaker, and a summary of all the topics he discussed in the lecture. An excellent place to learn the requirements for a suitable habitat for life. The GHZ and CHZ are ONLY TWO of the requirements for a habitat for life – there are a lot more requirements! Once you list them all out, the odds of getting even one place that is suitable are quite low. If you like this sort of evidence, I recommend the DVD of “The Privileged Planet”, which you can get on Amazon. Or just watch it for free on YouTube.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

• The kalam cosmological argument and the Big Bang theory
• The fine-tuning argument from cosmological constants and quantities
• The origin of life, part 1 of 2: the building blocks of life
• The origin of life, part 2 of 2: biological information
• The sudden origin of phyla in the Cambrian explosion
• Galactic habitable zones and circumstellar habitable zones
• Irreducible complexity in molecular machines
• The creative limits of natural selection and random mutation
• Angus Menuge’s ontological argument from reason
• Alvin Plantinga’s epistemological argument from reason
• William Lane Craig’s moral argument

Filed under: Polemics, Aliens, Apologetics, Are We Alone, Astrobiology, Carbon, Carbon-based Life, CHZ, Circumstellar Habitable Zone, Class M Planet, Copernican Principle, Cosmology, Exoplanet, Galactic Habitable Zone, GHZ, Guillermo Gonzalez, Habitability, Intelligent Design, Jay Richards, Main Sequence Star, Moon, Orbit, Oxygen Atmosphere, Planetary Rotation, Rare Earth, Star Formation, Star Trek, Terrestrial Planet, The Privileged Planet, Tilt, Universal Solvent