Mysterious Chris S. posted this and I have provided a summary of the lecture below.
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 ofB 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 Christian scholars who are experts in experimental science.
Note: there is a period of 19 minutes of Q&A at the end of the lecture.
The lecture:
Summary:
It used to be true that most of the great scientists were believers in God
But now science has advanced and we have better instruments – is it still true?
Today, many people believe that science has shows that the universe and Earth are not special
We used to believe that the Earth was the center of the universe, and Darwin showed we are not designed
The problem with this view is that it is based on old science, not modern science
Three topics: origin of the universe, fine-tuning of the universe, the Rare Earth hypothesis
Experimental evidence for the origin of the universe:
- #1: Hubble discovered that the universe expands because of redshifting of light from distant galaxies
- #2: Measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation show the universe had a beginnning
- #3: Measurements of the light element (hydrogen and helium) abundances confirm an origin of the universe
- The best explanation for an absolute origin of space, time, matter and energy is a supernatural cause
Experimental evidence for the design of the universe:
- #1: The amount of matter: a bit less = no stars and galaxies, a bit more = universe recollapses
- #2: The strong force: a bit more = only hydrogen, a bit more = little or no hydrogen
- #3: Carbon resonance level: a bit higher = no carbon, a bit lower = no carbon
Experimental evidence for galactic, stellar and planetary habitability:
- #1: Galaxy: produces high number of heavy elements and low radiation
- #2: Star: long stable lifetime, burns bright, bachelor star, third generation star (10 billion years must elapsed),
- #3: Planet: mass of planet, stable orbit, liquid water, tectonic activity, tilt, moon
Naturalistic explanations:
- Humans evolve to the point where they reach back in time and create finely-tuned universe
- Eternally existing multiverse
Hawking and Mlodinow response to Rare Earth:
- There are lots of planets so one must support life
- Odds of a planet that supports life are low even with 10^22 planets
Hawking and Mlodinow proposal of M-theory multiverse:
- There is no experimental evidence for M-theory being true
- M-theory is not testable now and is not likely to be testable in the future
- But science is about making testable predictions, not about blind speculation
Hawking and Mlodinow no-boundary proposal:
- This theory requires the laws of physics to exist prior to the universe
- But where do you get laws of physics before there is any physical world?
- There is no experimental evidence for no-boundary proposal
- All the evidence we have now (redshift, CMBR, H-He abundances) is for Big Bang
What science has revealed provide abundant evidence for a transcendent Creator and Designer
Related posts
- 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
- The unexpected applicability of mathematics to nature
WINTERY KNIGHT 