(This post is also available as a seperate page of Reducibly Complex, the link to which can be found below the banner at the top of this page.)
ABSTRACT
Do you believe in God? Do you have evidence to back up your belief? In an article on www.everystudent.com, six reasons are given as evidence for the belief in God. In this article, I address the first four reasons as they pertain to science and I show that each of these four reasons have errors in their claims and none have testable evidence pointing to the existence of God.
INTRODUCTION
I discovered an article on everystudent.com that I felt I needed to address. The article is called “Is There God?” (which I will refer to as ITG) and it claims to provide six reasons to believe in the existence of God. While I will not address every point made, I will at least address the scientific claims in the first four reasons. I will start with the introduction to the article.
If a person opposes even the possibility of there being a God, then any evidence can be rationalized or explained away.
I don’t oppose the possibility that there is a god, but I do oppose the possible gods that religions are based on. I don’t feel that the nature of god is something that a mere mortal has the mental capacity to fathom. But this is not the part of this statement that bothers me. What bothers me is “any evidence can be rationalized or explained away.” Evidence implies facts, and I am not “explaining away” facts, I am showing that they aren’t actually facts. If you want to provide me with evidence, make sure that it is ACTUAL evidence.
Before you look at the facts surrounding God’s existence…
This is the reason I make such a fuss about people “proving” God’s existence; the word fact is used, but we will examine these “facts” to find if they are indeed factual.
Reason 1: Does God exist? The complexity of our planet points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it today.
This oint hints at the intelligent design argument of irreducible complexity (of which this website’s name is an antonym). There are several sections to this point. The first starts…
The Earth…its size is perfect. The Earth’s size and corresponding gravity holds a thin layer of mostly nitrogen and oxygen gases, only extending about 50 miles above the Earth’s surface. If Earth were smaller, an atmosphere would be impossible, like the planet Mercury. If Earth were larger, its atmosphere would contain free hydrogen, like Jupiter. Earth is the only known planet equipped with an atmosphere of the right mixture of gases to sustain plant, animal and human life.
There are several points that can be made about this argument. Yes, the size of the earth IS perfect; and, yes, of course our atmosphere is perfect for life as we know it. But that doesn’t prove God’s existence in any way. The thing that people have to realize is that this is the only planet that we know of (so far) that has the conditions that would meet the needs of carbon-based life forms like ourselves. Our planet is the correct distance from the sun to support life and the primordial atmosphere happened to be one in which life could emerge. But that doesn’t mean that there are not other planets out there that have or had similar conditions. New exoplanets (planets outside our solar system) are being discovered all the time. It is only a matter of time before we find one similar in size, at a similar distance to its parent star, and with a similar atmosphere to our own. Whether it has life there is a separate question, but it is possible.
The real thing to remember is that Earth had the correct conditions for carbon-based life to emerge. Once that happened, all life since has been a process of evolution. Were we to have a similar atmosphere on a planet half the size of earth, evolution would have selected for forms of life best suited to the gravitational effects of such a planet. We (that is to say, all terraform life) are the size, shape, color, etc. that we are because of the evolutionary pressures on this particular planet.
To be pedantic for a moment, it should be noted that Venus is smaller than earth (only slightly, it has a diameter 95% the size of the Earth’s) and it has a very robust atmosphere. So to say that “if Earth were smaller, an atmosphere would be impossible” is not true. Furthermore, Mercury is used as evidence that a smaller planet cannot have an atmosphere. However, Mercury DOES have an atmosphere. It is a thin one, yes, but this is not just because of Mercury’s size; it is also because of Mercury’s close proximity to the sun. This proximity means its atmosphere is largely affected by (blown-away by) solar wind. I won’t address a planet larger than earth because I don’t know how an atmosphere containing “free hydrogen” is an argument in favor of God’s existence.
I do know what they are trying to say about the free hydrogen argument, because they say it in the next sentence when stating that “Earth is the only known planet equipped with an atmosphere of the right mixture of gases to sustain plant, animal and human life.” But, as this argument states itself, Earth is the only known planet equipped with an atmosphere to sustain life. There are, to date, 429 confirmed exoplanet discoveries, with most of these being discovered in the past 15 years. As new technology is beginning to allow us to analyze these planets’ atmospheres, it is only a matter of time before a planet of similar size to Earth’s with a similar atmosphere and similar distance to its parent star is discovered. When that day finally comes, this argument will be completely null.
One last note about this, which is that Earth’s atmosphere when life began was not at all what it is today. The atmosphere has been shaped in a large way because of the evolution of life on Earth. (“characteristics of the present atmosphere show clearly that a primordial atmosphere either never existed or was completely lost.”) I only include this to make sure that it is understood that we don’t need an atmosphere like our current one for life to occur, but one like the primordial atmosphere (or lack thereof) would do.
ITG continues:
The Earth is located the right distance from the sun. Consider the temperature swings we encounter, roughly -30 degrees to +120 degrees. If the Earth were any further away from the sun, we would all freeze. Any closer and we would burn up. Even a fractional variance in the Earth’s position to the sun would make life on Earth impossible. The Earth remains this perfect distance from the sun while it rotates around the sun at a speed of nearly 67,000 mph. It is also rotating on its axis, allowing the entire surface of the Earth to be properly warmed and cooled every day.
I really should have included this in the quote above, because I’ve already addressed a lot of it. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the temperature of the earth (and I’m assuming they are using Fahrenheit scale) is exactly perfect for life as we know it. However, suppose that, primordial conditions being the same, the earth were slightly further from the sun or slightly closer. So long as the conditions were such that life could arise in the first place, the distance from the sun is irrelevant. Life, once it started, would go through the process of selection in the same manner as it has for billions of years - life forms would be selected for if they could survive according to the conditions of the earth in this hypothetical distance from the sun, regardless of that distance. This is why we are interested to find if there was at one point life on Mars. It is possible that conditions on Mars were at one point such that life could arise. Once this happened, the distance of Mars from the sun was irrelevant to evolution. While it may be true that such life forms, if they existed at all, have since gone extinct, this would be a result of natural selection. The difference in this case would be that no life forms were selected for; the conditions that allowed for life to arise in the first place had ceased to be, and no life forms were capable of adapting to the change.
Being pedantic again, the earth does not “[remain a] perfect distance from the sun.” The earth, like all our planets, is in an elliptical orbit around the sun. The earth does this with an average distance of 1.496 x 1011 meters (about 149 million kilometers), a minimum distance of about 146 million kilometers, and a maximum distance of about 152 million kilometers.
And our moon is the perfect size and distance from the Earth for its gravitational pull. The moon creates important ocean tides and movement so ocean waters do not stagnate, and yet our massive oceans are restrained from spilling over across the continents.
Well, yes, our moon is the perfect size for its gravitational pull. Anything and everything is the perfect size for its gravitational pull. Every particle in the universe has its own gravitational pull relative to its mass. Saying that the moon is the perfect size for its gravitational pull is sort of redundant. As far as preventing oceans waters from stagnating, we could argue about whether this is completely because of the moon (it isn’t: atmospheric storms, plate tectonics, and many others also keep the ocean’s moving). And our oceans are not restrained from spilling over across the continents by God (which is, I think, the point of this statement), but by gravity. Water flows (duh) downhill. Where are the lowest points of elevation on the planet? Where do we find oceans? Don’t you think there’s a correlation there?
I seriously struggle to find the point of what’s being said here. Our moon prevents the oceans from spilling over the continents and killing us and this supposedly proves God’s existence? Okay, so what if the oceans did spill over the continents. Would that prevent aquatic life from surviving, or would aquatic life adapt to this situation. Would it perhaps thrive because of it? Or would selection actually make it more difficult for aquatic life in this situation? Wouldn’t this just mean that life would be more scarce, more prolific, or extinct based on the pressures of selection through the course of Earth’s history? Isn’t this a more interesting thing to ponder than “Isn’t the fact that the moon prevents the waters from becoming stagnate despite the fact that the oceans do not crash over the land wonderful evidence that a God is watching out for our well-being?” Hey, at least my questions encourage a search for truth rather than serving as an endpoint (”Well, I guess God did it.”).
On to the second section of this first reason…
Water…colorless, odorless and without taste, and yet no living thing can survive without it. Plants, animals and human beings consist mostly of water (about two-thirds of the human body is water).
I would argue that water is NOT colorless, odorless, or without taste. It has color, though small volumes prevent the color being detected (in lager volumes water has a blueish tinge). I would argue that water has odor, though we humans do not have the olfactory ability to sense its odor (some animals can “smell” their way to water). I would also argue that water has taste, whether we have the capacity to taste it or not. It could simply be that the smell and taste of water is so common (i.e. we taste and smell water so much just as a part of being alive) that our brains have “tuned-out” the signal.
“You’ll see why the characteristics of water are uniquely suited to life:”
Oh, I can’t wait!! Actually I can for a moment to point out that water is not uniquely suited to life; rather, life as we know it is uniquely suited to water.
It has an unusually high boiling point and freezing point. Water allows us to live in an environment of fluctuating temperature changes, while keeping our bodies a steady 98.6 degrees.
Sorry, but it is not water that does this. This is called Thermoregulation. Water is part of it, of course (sweat, for instance), but the vast majority of the work is done in the in the liver, the brain, the heart, and the muscles.
This argument only speaks to life as thermoregulated animals know it. What about plants, fungi, cold-blooded animals, bacteria, and viruses. They manage to survive without even bothering with thermoregulation.
And I fail to grasp, yet again, how this is evidence for the existence of a god.
Water is a universal solvent. This property of water means that thousands of chemicals, minerals and nutrients can be carried throughout our bodies and into the smallest blood vessels.
Water is also chemically neutral. Without affecting the makeup of the substances it carries, water enables food, medicines and minerals to be absorbed and used by the body.
Water has a unique surface tension. Water in plants can therefore flow upward against gravity, bringing life-giving water and nutrients to the top of even the tallest trees.
Water freezes from the top down and floats, so fish can live in the winter.
I have no serious issue with any of this except the last sentence. I assume this is supposed to say that water freezes from the top down and ice floats, so fish can live in the COLD CLIMATES. I would argue that life evolved and adapted to the conditions in which any organism typically lives, whether it be submerged in iced-over bodies of water or in the hot and humid climates of the tropics. The fact that fish can live in waters covered by ice only means that these species of fish have been selected for their adaptive traits that allowed them to survive in these conditions and that their progeny will survive or perish based on these same selective pressures.
Ninety-seven percent of the Earth’s water is in the oceans. But on our Earth, there is a system designed which removes salt from the water and then distributes that water throughout the globe. Evaporation takes the ocean waters, leaving the salt, and forms clouds which are easily moved by the wind to disperse water over the land, for vegetation, animals and people. It is a system of purification and supply that sustains life on this planet, a system of recycled and reused water.
Again, there is nothing in this to really get worked up over. It’s obviously not as simple as this statement makes it seem, but I digress…
What I am left with from this section is this: WHERE in any of this is the EVIDENCE of god? All you’re doing is listing a bunch of facts about the world, or in this case, about water. How is this evidence of God? This use of real facts as non-evidence of God is the most frustrating part about reading ITG.
Section 3 of reason number 1…
The human brain…simultaneously processes an amazing amount of information. Your brain takes in all the colors and objects you see, the temperature around you, the pressure of your feet against the floor, the sounds around you, the dryness of your mouth, even the texture of your keyboard. Your brain holds and processes all your emotions, thoughts and memories. At the same time your brain keeps track of the ongoing functions of your body like your breathing pattern, eyelid movement, hunger and movement of the muscles in your hands.
The human brain processes more than a million messages a second. Your brain weighs the importance of all this data, filtering out the relatively unimportant. This screening function is what allows you to focus and operate effectively in your world. The brain functions differently than other organs. There is an intelligence to it, the ability to reason, to produce feelings, to dream and plan, to take action, and relate to other people.
Yes, the human brain is fascinating. But so is the canine brain, or the feline brain, or the Tursiops truncatus (common bottlenose dolphin) brain, or the brains of reptiles, or thousands of other examples. The human brain is just one type that has gained some abilities that other animals’ brains have not. However, thousands of other species’ brains have abilities that our brain does not. Just because we are unique does not mean we are special; and it does not prove God’s existence.
The eye…can distinguish among seven million colors. It has automatic focusing and handles an astounding 1.5 million messages — simultaneously. Evolution focuses on mutations and changes from and within existing organisms. Yet evolution alone does not fully explain the initial source of the eye or the brain — the start of living organisms from nonliving matter.
Some of this argument is okay, some of it is close to okay, and some of it is spot-on but incredibly misleading. The distinguishing between colors and millions of messages all is okay. The bit about evolution’s “focus” is close (evolution focuses on mutations and changes from within all past and present species of organisms, not “existing organisms”).
But it’s that last sentence where I have to put on the brakes a bit. It’s true that evolution does not explain the start of living organisms from nonliving matter. The initial source of life happened through the process known as abiogenesis, and evolution doesn’t even ATTEMPT to explain this. Evolution simply explains the continuation of life after the moment of abiogenesis. From Wikipedia: “abiogenesis [...] is the theory of how life on Earth could have arisen from inanimate matter. It should not be confused with evolution, which is the study of how groups of already living things change over time.” (Wikipedia: “Abiogenesis”, March 1st, 2010).
Given that life started at some point through abiogenesis, evolution DOES explain, quite beautifully, the source of the eye and the brain. I can’t help but think that this argument was formulated after the author read about Michael Behe’s discredited hypothesis of Irreducible Complexity. Sure, the eye and the brain are complex neural organs, but not so complex that their origin cannot be explained by evolution. From pbs.org’s description of the evolution of the eye:
The simple light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancestral creature gave it some tiny survival advantage, perhaps allowing it to evade a predator. Random changes then created a depression in the light-sensitive patch, a deepening pit that made “vision” a little sharper. At the same time, the pit’s opening gradually narrowed, so light entered through a small aperture, like a pinhole camera.
Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight. Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye. Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye. It could have arisen as a double-layered transparent tissue containing increasing amounts of liquid that gave it the convex curvature of the human eye.
In fact, eyes corresponding to every stage in this sequence have been found in existing living species. The existence of this range of less complex light-sensitive structures supports scientists’ hypotheses about how complex eyes like ours could evolve.
Even if the argument that evolution couldn’t explain the origin of the eye or brain, it doesn’t prove a thing about God. What other natural causes could there be for the origin of the eye? Just because we may not know the natural cause, doesn’t mean there isn’t one or that God had something to do with it. As Dr. Michael Shermer once stated: “Before we say that something is for out of this world, we should first make sure that it’s not in this world.” (Dr. Michael Shermer, TED speech).
This brings us to the end of the first reason given as evidence for the existence of God, a long and painful one. The remaining arguments are shorter.
Reason 2: Does God exist? The universe had a start - what caused it?
Scientists are convinced that our universe began with one enormous explosion of energy and light, which we now call the Big Bang. This was the singular start to everything that exists: the beginning of the universe, the start of space, and even the initial start of time itself.
Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow, a self-described agnostic, stated, “The seed of everything that has happened in the Universe was planted in that first instant; every star, every planet and every living creature in the Universe came into being as a result of events that were set in motion in the moment of the cosmic explosion…The Universe flashed into being, and we cannot find out what caused that to happen.”
Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in Physics, said at the moment of this explosion, “the universe was about a hundred thousands million degrees Centigrade…and the universe was filled with light.”
The universe has not always existed. It had a start…what caused that? Scientists have no explanation for the sudden explosion of light and matter.
I am going to address this reason in combination with reason #3.
Reason 3: Does God exist? The universe operates by uniform laws of nature. Why does it?
Much of life may seem uncertain, but look at what we can count on day after day: gravity remains consistent, a hot cup of coffee left on a counter will get cold, the earth rotates in the same 24 hours, and the speed of light doesn’t change — on earth or in galaxies far from us.
How is it that we can identify laws of nature that never change? Why is the universe so orderly, so reliable?
“The greatest scientists have been struck by how strange this is. There is no logical necessity for a universe that obeys rules, let alone one that abides by the rules of mathematics. This astonishment springs from the recognition that the universe doesn’t have to behave this way. It is easy to imagine a universe in which conditions change unpredictably from instant to instant, or even a universe in which things pop in and out of existence.”
Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner for quantum electrodynamics, said, “Why nature is mathematical is a mystery…The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle.”
The trouble with reasons 2 and 3 is that they are not scientific explanations. Both of these reasons use some of the mysteries of the world to show what science has not explained and then extrapolate from this lack of explanation that, since we don’t know why it happened, it must have been God.
The first thing I want to point out in this is a misunderstanding of scientific law. Many people believe, and ITG seems to imply, that a scientific law is something that can never change - a rule of the universe, if you will. However, this is not how science uses scientific laws. A scientific law is a concise verbal or mathematical (equational) statement(s) that express a fundamental scientific principle. For instance, the Law of Conservation of Mass states that mass cannot be created nor destroyed. This expression does not attempt to explain observations, but merely summarizes past observations while making a prediction for future observations. We can identify these laws because we have made the past observations that lead us to this conclusion.
However, scientific laws are as susceptible to modification or dismissal as are theories or hypotheses. For instance, Newton’s laws of motion, while not proven wrong, were at the very least improved upon by Einstein. Newton’s laws were based on past observations. However, as new observations were made, these laws were changed based on the totality of the evidence.
The bottom line is this: science laws explain, neatly and concisely, past observations. They are useful for making predictions for future observations. They are not an explanation for why things happen as they do. Why the universe has uniformity is not explained by science. But let us not confuse the explained with the unexplainable; just because we cannot yet explain it doesn’t mean it cannot be explained. Science is, after all, a venture into the unknown - an attempt to explain the mysteries of the world. If we were to stop and say “we cannot explain it, so it cannot be explained,” we would have no need for science. The very goal of science is to discover an explanation for the things we cannot currently understand.
While it may be true that we do not yet know why the universe started with the big bang, or why the universe conforms to certain laws, this does not mean we will never know why. We have, time and time again, used science to explain what we have not previously known. For instance, we once did not know why it was that the sun always rose in the east and always set in the west. Observations of this phenomenon occurred daily over the course of thousands of years. It could, in a sense, be considered a law of its own; call it the “Law of Solar Travel.” This law would have explained that “The sun rises in the east, travels across the sky, and sets in the west.” This law would have explained, neatly and concisely, the past observations of the sun and would predict, accurately and consistently, future observations of the sun’s travel across the sky. Perhaps religionists would have told us “But we have no explanation as to why the universe conforms to the Law of Solar Travel.” But, as science and technology advanced, our knowledge of the world advanced. There eventually became a realization that the sun was not traveling daily from east to west, but that the earth was instead rotating about its axis and the sun appeared in the sky only when the point of observation was on the side of the earth facing the sun. The Law of Solar Travel would have been modified to meet the new observations.
And so the case may be (and I predict WILL be) with our current scientific laws. Some of them may never change, others may be modified or discarded as new observations are made. Some day, we may make observations and discoveries that lead us to explanations to some of the why questions we now have. Inevitibly, many of these observations will provoke new questions that will need to be answered.
What we cannot do is simply stop asking the questions, which is exactly what ITG would ask that you do. The author might tell you “Science cannot explain these things. Isn’t this evidence for God?” Rubbish. Science hasn’t explained these things. This is evidence that we need to look closer at our world and find out the real reasons, not the fairytale ones; just because it isn’t currently explained, doesn’t mean God did it.
As an aside, I don’t think Richard Feynman would appreciate his quote about mathmatical laws being “a kind of miracle” being taken out of context in this fashion. If ITG means to show that Feynman believed in God, or just to show that even he believed in miracles, I think the author is sorely mistaken. Furthermore, Feynman himself addressed the very point of these two arguments for the existence of God:
God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand. Now, when you finally discover how something works, you get some laws which you’re taking away from God; you don’t need him anymore. But you need him for the other mysteries. So therefore you leave him to create the universe because we haven’t figured that out yet; you need him for understanding those things which you don’t believe the laws will explain, such as consciousness, or why you only live to a certain length of time — life and death — stuff like that. God is always associated with those things that you do not understand. Therefore I don’t think that the laws can be considered to be like God because they have been figured out. (Richard Feynman, quoted by P. C. W. Davies and J. Brown in Superstrings: A Theory of Everything,p. 208.)
Reason 4: Does God exist? The DNA code informs, programs a cell’s behavior.
All instruction, all teaching, all training comes with intent. Someone who writes an instruction manual does so with purpose. Did you know that in every cell of our bodies there exists a very detailed instruction code, much like a miniature computer program? As you may know, a computer program is made up of ones and zeros, like this: 110010101011000. The way they are arranged tell the computer program what to do. The DNA code in each of our cells is very similar. It’s made up of four chemicals that scientists abbreviate as A, T, G, and C. These are arranged in the human cell like this: CGTGTGACTCGCTCCTGAT and so on. There are three billion of these letters in every human cell!!
Well, just like you can program your phone to beep for specific reasons, DNA instructs the cell. DNA is a three-billion-lettered program telling the cell to act in a certain way. It is a full instruction manual.
Why is this so amazing? One has to ask….how did this information program wind up in each human cell? These are not just chemicals. These are chemicals that instruct, that code in a very detailed way exactly how the person’s body should develop.
Natural, biological causes are completely lacking as an explanation when programmed information is involved. You cannot find instruction, precise information like this, without someone intentionally constructing it.
The beauty of DNA replication is inspiring. However, it does not inspire the invocation of God. ITG claims there are no explanations for programmed information in biology. This is just plain wrong. DNA has its origin in the primordial soup that gave rise to life in the first place. DNA may not have existed for millions or billions of years after the origin of life, but it is a product of evolution, and one of the best examples of how poetic our very existence is. For a very very detailed examination of the origin of DNA that traces all the way back to the very origins of life itself, visit www.evolutionofdna.com.
I have only one other thing I would like to say about this: what makes the author so sure that precise instruction of this sort is impossible to find “without someone intentionally constructing it[?]” What evidence does the author have, real evidence, scientific evidence, testable, falsifiable evidence, for this statement? I would argue that the fact that DNA instruction exists at all is not evidence of God, but evidence that you can find precise instructional information without someone intentionally constructing it.
Reasons 5 and 6.
I will omit reasons 5 and 6 because they do not make scientific arguments.
CONCLUSION
As I have stated above, I don’t see how any of the information in ITG is evidence for the existence of God. At the very best, it is evidence that we live in a marvolously interesting and splendid universe, and that through science we have solved only a few of the millions of mysteries of our world. Not one piece of evidence given points to some kind of God in any meaningful, testable, falsifiable way. The claim for the existence of a God is an extrordinary claim, but it is a philosophical one. If the author of ITG wants to play in the realm of science, rather than philosophy, then the author must produce evidence equally extrordinary to the claim itself. Evidence for such a claim must be testable, falsifiable, and overwhelmingly abundant. Considering how unimpressive the evidence given is, I have no reason to be swayed towards the belief in a God of any form.
Please visit our advertisers!
