From Ken MacAllister
Lawrence Krauss, in his review of the Martin Rees book The Power of
Six, states that it is “intellectually lazy” and “dishonest” to believe the
perfect construction of the Universe is the result of divine design
(4 December, p 48).
It is equally “lazy” to try and reduce the fundamental constants of the
cosmos to just six. Bonobo chimpanzees lack the intellect to understand quantum
mechanics, regardless of how it is explained. In the same way, there are no
doubt many concepts that humans cannot understand.
I believe that most of what there is to know about the Universe lies in the
realm of the unknowable. We simply do not have the brain power. It is therefore
incredibly arrogant to assume that a science, created by limited human
intellect, can ever quantify a final answer to any of the big questions about
the cosmos.
The deeper we look into the Universe, both on the minute quantum and grand
cosmic scales, the more complex and bewildering it all becomes. Every answer
only raises a host of new questions.
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If the human brain can contain the mystery of consciousness, then it is
equally possible that the Universe, which is endlessly more complex, may also
contain a consciousness of its own. Call it “God” or “Fred” or “The
Divine”—these are just human labels for an unknowable mystery. It is just
as lazy and limiting to take what we haven’t the intellect to understand and
label it a “remarkable coincidence”.
“Divine Design” is just a theory—as plausible as “String Theory” or “M
Theory”. It should be seen in this way and respected as such by the scientific
community.
Lawrence Krauss responds:
Ken MacAllister misses the point. What is so remarkable about the Universe is
not that it gets more complex and bewildering the more we explore it, but rather
that the plethora of exotic phenomena witnessed on all scales is in fact
comprehensible at all. Indeed, on small scales, the menagerie of elementary
particles that so perplexed particle physicists in the1960s
is now understood to result from the simple
combination of three fundamental objects (quarks) bound by a force sharing
crucial fundamental features with the force that binds positive and negative
electric charges. On large scales, all of the structures we see can be
understood in terms of the simple action of a single force, gravity.
Scientists may be arrogant in assuming that the entire Universe is
comprehensible, but their arrogance is understandable. To date, science has done
a remarkable job in solving cosmic mysteries. There may remain irreducible
puzzles, but we haven’t found them yet.
There is one area where I share some agreement with MacAllister. He states:
“`Divine Design’ . . . is just a theory . . . as plausible as `string theory’ or
`M Theory’ . . . “. It is true that at present, string theory and M theory do
not relate to, or resolve, any observable puzzles in the physical Universe. They
are beautiful mathematical formalisms. For now, that is all they are. Belief in
them is not that different from belief in God, being based in ideas of beauty,
and so on. However, if they are ever to enter into the domain of empirical
science, their path, and that of the mystical notion of Divine design, will
diverge.
Lawrence Krauss — krauss@genesis1.PHYS.CWRU.Edu
Vancouver, British Columbia Canada
