WAS THE UNIVERSE CREATED BY AN INTELLIGENT GOD OR BY A RANDOM NATURAL CAUSE?
If you are an atheist, agnostic, or simply undecided, and are reading this article, you may be skipping to chapter 2 without reading chapter 1. If you have not done so already, I encourage you to first read the article titled, "Why should I believe God exists in the first place?" That article provides the evidence for a creator of the universe. This article starts where that one left off. Specifically, knowing that there is a creator to the universe, how do we know that the creator is an intelligent entity? Some of the topics covered in that first article will be revisited here in more detail, so if you still are not completely convinced after finishing the first article, I encourage you to read on.
Let me begin by bringing you up to speed on where we are. We know that some causal entity created the universe. We also know a few things about it. Specifically, we know that since it created our universe, it must exist outside our universe. As a result, it is not subject to the physical laws of our universe. We also know that this entity is eternal in the sense that it existed before time began. Time was created with the universe itself (i.e., at the Big Bang), so whatever created the universe also created time.
There are a few things about this creative entity, though, that we do not know yet. For example, we don't know if it is natural or supernatural (although if it is "natural", it must be subject to some "natural" laws that exist outside our universe since it is not subject to the laws of our universe). We also do not know if this entity is an intelligent agent, or simply some mindless, random phenomenon. This article is going to explore these questions, particularly focusing on the intelligence issue. If the entity is intelligent, it is not a "natural" phenomenon (as we are using that term in this context).
The primary evidence for an intelligent causal entity comes from what is known as the "fine-tuning" of the universe. There are a number of parameters in both physics and astronomy that have to be set at precisely the right levels for life (as we know it) to exist. The odds against all these parameters existing by random chance are impossibly mind-boggling, and yet they all exist in perfect harmony in our universe. The key question, then, is "How did this happen?" How did all these physical laws happen to get set precisely where we needed them to be?
Robin Collins, PhD, gave a good illustration in the book, The Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel (2004).
I like to use the analogy of astronauts landing on Mars and finding an enclosed biosphere, sort of like the domed structure that was built in Arizona a few years ago. At the control panel they find that all the dials for its environment are set just right for life. The oxygen ratio is perfect; the temperature is seventy degrees; the humidity is fifty percent; there's a system for replenishing the air; there are systems for producing food, generating energy, and disposing of wastes. Each dial has a huge range of possible settings, and you can see if you were to adjust one or more of them just a little bit, the environment would go out of whack and life would be impossible. ... You'd conclude that this biosphere was not there by accident. Volcanoes didn't erupt and spew out the right compounds that just happened to assemble themselves into the biosphere. Some intelligent being had intentionally and carefully designed and prepared it to support living creatures.
Robin Collins, PhD, in Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, pp. 130-31 (2004).
All the various physical parameters of the universe theoretically could have been set virtually anywhere within a huge range. But if any of them had been set anywhere other than where they are, we couldn't be here. Now what is more reasonable to believe, that all these factors just happened to randomly fall into place, or that some intelligent agent hand-selected them so that life could be created? That is what this article is going to explore.
Many theists (i.e., people who believe in God) use the fine-tuning of the universe as evidence that God exists. There is nothing wrong with that conclusion, but you will probably never convince an atheist of God's existence based upon fine-tuning alone. The reason for this is simple. While we know about all these examples of fine-tuning, we still have no idea of their cause. In other words, we know that gravity is set at the precise degree of force that is necessary for life. We don't know, however, what caused it to be set that way. Theists look to other things in our universe that exhibit the same degree of fine-tuning (i.e., complex machines, computer programs, etc.) and observe that every single one of them required an intelligent agent to be created. They therefore conclude, by analogy, that an intelligent agent must have caused all the fine-tuning in our universe. Atheists, however, will argue that you cannot conclude anything from the lack of evidence. In other words, tomorrow we may discover some "natural" phenomenon that explains all the fine-tuning. Until we know definitively what the explanation is, they will not draw any conclusions from the lack of a proven explanation.
I make a subtle, but important distinction in this article. Because of the cosmological evidence (explored in detail in the previous article), I start with the assumption that a creative entity does exist. As a result, I am not seeking to prove the existence of a creative entity by the fine-tuning. Rather, I am merely trying to learn more about a creative entity that I already know exists. This puts less of a burden on the fine-tuning evidence. We already know something is out there. Now we just want to know if that "something" is intelligent (i.e., capable of selecting certain parameters that make life possible) or random (i.e., without rhyme or reason to the parameters it sets in place).
I want to respond to one typical atheistic objection before we get into the specifics. Some atheists have argued that it makes no sense to draw any conclusions based upon the alleged fine-tuning of the universe because there are no other known universes to compare ours to. Essentially, this argument goes like this: How can you possibly know that the universe is really fine-tuned if we don't know what a less finely tuned universe looks like? Without examining other universes, we have no reason to believe anything other than the particular configuration of our universe is even possible. We know that a particular complex watch is complex because we have less complex watches to compare it with. We know what a more advanced automobile is because we have seen less advanced automobiles.
So what is the problem with this argument? Just because something is one of a kind, that does not mean we cannot recognize its complexity. For example, think of the first automobile ever invented. At the time, it certainly appeared to be immensely complex. But did people know this because they compared it to other automobiles? No, of course not (because there were no other automobiles to compare it to). So how could people possibly recognize its complexity? According to the atheistic argument against the fine-tuning of the universe, they couldn't. But of course we know that in reality people can recognize complexity, even in a unique machine, by comparing it to the complexity we see in other arenas. Even before the first car was invented, people recognized complexity in other machines. This enabled them to recognize the complexity of the first car. Thus, we have the ability to recognize the fine-tuning of the universe because we have seen fine-tuning elsewhere. We don't need to see other universes before we can draw conclusions.
Now turning to the evidence. I am going to discuss two different types of fine-tuning to the universe. The first is the precision with which the laws of physics must be set in order to even generate a universe capable of sustaining life. The second is the improbability of finding a place within that universe to support life, even if all the general laws of physics are present.
It would be virtually impossible to discuss all the necessary parameters in one article. For example, Dr. Hugh Ross found as many as 34 finely tuned laws of physics and 75 finely tuned parameters necessary for a planet within that universe to support life. Instead, I have selected a few examples from each category that I think best illustrate the point.
The Laws of Physics
OK, it's time for our science lesson to begin. I'll try to "liven" things up as much as possible to keep you from falling asleep. But let's face it; physics generally isn't a very humorous subject. Let's start where all good stories should start, at the beginning.
When the universe was created by the Big Bang, the laws of physics acted to help create galaxies, stars, and planets. These laws helped gather up a whole bunch of matter that was scattered around the universe and pack it all together to make everything you see in the cosmos. Without physics, none of this would have been possible. Now, none of these laws existed before the Big Bang. They were created at the same time as the universe itself. As a result, when these laws were created, they could have varied over an enormous spectrum. The force of gravity, for example, could have been enormous or barely perceptible. When you take a look at the wide range of possibilities, you start to realize just how incredibly lucky we are to exist at all. Let's look at a few examples.
Stars
Have you ever heard the phrase, "carbon-based life form?" The phrase probably brings to mind some freaky-looking alien from "Lost in Space" talking about the Robinson family. A lot of science fiction stories include aliens referring to humans as "carbon-based life forms." That's because all life as we know it requires carbon. Hence, we are quite literally "carbon-based life forms". While some people hypothesize that some type of life could have formed without carbon, there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support that idea. Anyone who insists on the possibility of non-carbon based life really missed his or her calling (unless they are a science fiction novelist, that is).
Carbon isn't the only thing we need to live. We also need oxygen. So where do we get these things from? Stars produce both carbon and oxygen. The nuclear force within a star helps to make them. Lucky for us we just happen to be orbiting a star. However, carbon and oxygen need to be created in a very specific ratio in order for life to exist. If the nuclear force inside a star were off by just one percent, the result would be a thirty- to a thousand-fold change in the production of oxygen and carbon. This would drastically throw off the ratio necessary for life, making our existence increasingly unlikely.1
The mass of a neutron within a star is also critical. If we were to increase that mass by only one part in seven hundred, nuclear fusion would not happen and there would be no energy source for life.2
Gravity
We all at least have a general understanding of gravity. We know, for example, that we cannot simply leap off a tall building and fly like Superman. Gravity pulls us down.3 It also pulls us down at a very specific rate. Now imagine for a moment if the pull of gravity were stronger. Could your bones withstand it? Eventually, if you increased the force of gravity enough, you'd be crushed. Likewise, if you decreased the force of gravity, you (and everything else on Earth for that matter) would fly right off the planet into outer space. So gravity is obviously set exactly where it needs to be. Most people don't realize, though, how precise that setting actually is.
Robin Collins, who I quoted above, likes to provide an example that is pretty easy to understand. Picture a ruler that extends all the way across the universe. That ruler is broken up into one-inch increments. I think it goes without saying that it would be a pretty long ruler. In fact, it would be billions and billions of inches long.
For the purposes of our illustration the ruler represents the range of possible forces where gravity could have been set. One end of the ruler is where gravity is now and the other end is roughly equivalent to the force that binds protons and neutrons together (the strongest known bonding force). Obviously, these two forces are pretty far apart (from one end of the universe to the other on our ruler).
Now move the force of gravity only one inch on that ruler. This may not seem like much of a change (one inch out of billions and billions of inches) but the result would increase gravity by a billion-fold. That means that the one-inch movement would increase gravity to one billion times greater that it is today. Human beings would be crushed like road kill, all as a result of a miniscule change. On the grand scale of possible force strengths, gravity is set with inconceivable precision.
Now imagine if gravity were increased only one thousand-fold (the equivalent of moving one millionth of an inch on our ruler). The force of gravity would compact all the matter on Earth to the point that our planet's diameter would only be forty feet across, not nearly large enough to support an ecosystem. If gravity were increased just three thousand times (i.e., three millionths of an inch on our ruler), stars could not exist longer than a billion years (compared to an estimated lifetime of ten billion years for our sun), also rendering life statistically impossible.4 I think it's safe to say (pun fully intended), "Thank God gravity is set where it is!"
The cosmological constant
I can imagine the confused looks on a lot of people's faces right now, especially if you read my first article. After all, in that article I mentioned that Einstein called the cosmological constant his "biggest blunder". How can I possibly be using such an enormous "blunder" as evidence for fine-tuning? Well, it turns out that Einstein wasn't entirely wrong.
When Einstein first proposed his theory of General Relativity, he realized there was a problem. His theory would have required the universe to be either expanding or contracting, but the overwhelming majority of scientific thought at that time believed that the universe was static (i.e., neither expanding nor contracting). So Einstein inserted the "cosmological constant" into his equations. It was a "fudge factor" that would allow the universe to remain static even though the rest of his calculations were correct. Once scientists discovered that the universe really was expanding, Einstein called the cosmological constant his "biggest blunder".
But Einstein may have spoken too quickly. True, the universe is not static. It is expanding. But there is still some phenomenon out there that is controlling the rate of expansion. This is essentially the modern version of Einstein's cosmological constant.
So what exactly is the cosmological constant? Well, in simple terms, it's the energy density of space. Imagine that clowns at a circus are getting ready for their routine where they pack about 30 clowns inside one tiny car. Now when the first clown gets into the car, they're obviously not packed very tightly. Then another clown gets in, then another, then another. As more and more clowns get into the car, the car gets more and more tightly packed with clowns. In short, the density of the clowns in the car increases. When we talk about the density of energy in space, we are basically talking about the same thing; i.e., the amount of energy packed into space.
Now as space expands, there is more area in which to "pack" the energy, so it should get less dense (just like increasing the size of the car would result in the clowns being packed in less tightly). But as space expands, it releases "vacuum energy". This energy then causes even more expansion. In short, the energy density of space (or the cosmological constant) controls the rate at which space expands. As space continues to expand, the expansion rate will continue to increase.
Now the cosmological constant could have been set anywhere. It could have been positive (meaning it would act as a repulsing force and space would expand) or it could have been negative (meaning it would act as an attractive force and space would collapse). It could have been large (meaning space would expand or contract very quickly) or it could have been small (meaning space would expand or contract much more slowly).
If the cosmological constant were both large and positive, the repulsive force would have been far too great for matter to clump together at the dawn of our universe. Galaxies, stars, and planets never could have formed because all the pieces of matter necessary to build them would have kept getting pushed farther and farther away from each other. If the cosmological constant were large and negative, the attractive force would have been so great that the universe would have collapsed inward and ceased to exist. It just so happens that the cosmological constant is exactly where it needs to be, positive but small. If it were off from its current setting even a little, you wouldn't be sitting here reading this article.
So what is the probability of the cosmological constant being precisely where it is, given the large number of possible values it could have had? Imagine if you were standing in space and threw a dart randomly toward the earth. The odds of randomly getting the right cosmological constant are about the same as you hitting a bulls' eye on earth that is one trillionth of a trillionth of an inch in diameter.5
This is only a sampling of the large number of precisely set physical laws. Dr. Hugh Ross cited at least 34 examples of finely tuned laws.6 But even based just on the examples I described, the probability of the universe having been created without intelligence is ridiculously low.
But that's not the only problem. Even assuming that a universe capable of sustaining life could be created randomly, not just anywhere in that universe will be able to support life. You still need to have the right conditions in the right place.
Location, location, location
What are the three most important things in real estate? Anyone who has ever bought their own home (and several people who haven't) could probably recite the standard tag line by heart, "location, location, location". Well guess what? The same is true in astronomy.
I'll tell you what. I've got a prime little piece of real estate to offer you. It's a little planet right near the center of a galaxy, orbiting a beautiful star. As a matter of fact, its actually close to a couple different stars, so it gets pulled by both of them and you get to see two beautiful sunsets each day. And because it's right in the middle of the galaxy, it's centrally located to all four quadrants, alpha, beta, gamma, and delta. So no matter where your friends live, you're not too far away. What a bargain! Are you ready to buy?
Well, if you have a death wish, maybe this little planet of mine is a great bargain for you. But if you were looking to do anything other than commit quick suicide, I wouldn't recommend it. I already discussed how incredibly improbable it is that a universe capable of sustaining life could be created by random chance. But even once you've crossed that hurdle, you still have to find the right location. In fact, if you were to look at the statistics alone you'd say that even in a universe with all the right physical laws in place, it should still be impossible for life to be created. Lets just say it's not a bet you'd like to place in Vegas.
Take our universe for example. We know it has all the required laws to sustain life, because here we are. But does that mean life could just pop up anywhere? Not by a long shot.
For starters, you've got to be in a galaxy. After all, galaxies are where we find all the stars and planets, and most life forms don't react too well to just floating around in empty space. Well guess what? Not just any galaxy will do. There are different types of galaxies: (1) spiral galaxies, (2) elliptical galaxies, and (3) irregular galaxies.
Spiral galaxies
Spiral galaxies are those like our Milky Way. They have a big bulge in the center and a disk with spiral "arms" extending outward. Obviously, because we live in one of these galaxies, they are capable of supporting life. But you can't be just anywhere in a spiral galaxy. For starters, you have to stay away from those spiral arms. These "arms" contain a large concentration of stars. Now when stars get old, they tend to explode in something called a "supernova". This doesn't exactly generate a comfortable sensation in anything in the area. In fact, supernovae tend to destroy everything in their path. Because there are a lot of stars in the spiral arms, there are also a lot of supernovae. There simply wouldn't be enough time for life to develop on a planet before it got wiped out. In "Star Wars", when Han Solo explained to Luke Skywalker about why he needed precise calculations before jumping to light speed, he said, "Without precise calculations you could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova, and that would end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?" Truer words have never been spoken. Life and supernovae don't mix.
Fortunately for us, we happen to be situated nicely between two spiral arms. But before you jump to the conclusion that we're OK as long as we avoid those arms, you should know that the arms aren't the only place in the galaxy with the whole supernova problem. The center of the galaxy also has a lot of stars, and hence too many supernovae for life. But just to make matters interesting, the center of the galaxy gets even more hostile. In the center of most (if not all) galaxies is a large black hole. Whenever something gets pulled into or near a black hole, a lot of energy is released. This results in high radiation levels in that area. Again, most life forms don't react too well to radiation.
OK. So we need to avoid the arms and we need to avoid the center. Is there anything else we should know? Well, you also need to find a place in the galaxy with enough "heavy elements". You see the Big Bang produced largely hydrogen and helium. These are not "heavy elements", but they are what the earliest stars were made of. Our sun, though, contains iron, oxygen, magnesium, and silicone. These are called "heavy elements". We need heavy elements to create life. If you try to make life using just hydrogen and helium, you won't get very far (although you may be able to get your voice to sound very squeaky shortly before you blow up).
The earliest stars actually created the heavy elements by "cooking" them, somewhat like making food in an oven. Inside the star, the hydrogen and helium were "cooked" until they formed the heavy elements. Then, when the stars exploded, these heavy elements were dispersed into the universe, where they formed newer stars. These newer stars "cooked" more heavy elements, which were dispersed when those stars exploded, forming new stars, et cetera. Eventually, you get stars with enough heavy elements to generate life.
Now the center of the galaxy has seen a lot of supernova activity, so it's rich in heavy elements. Unfortunately, all the exploding stars and radiation make life impossible. The outer reaches of the galaxy don't have nearly as many stars, so they haven't seen too many supernovae. As a result, they don't have all the explosions or radiation. But they also don't have enough heavy elements to generate life. This means that life, if its going to be generated at all, has to be situated somewhere in the middle, and even then it has to be between the spiral arms.
Now within that narrow geographical territory, you have to hope you can find a star that has a pretty circular orbit around the center of the galaxy. A lot of stars have irregular orbits, meaning they don't exactly travel in a circle. If a star has an irregular orbit, it may be sitting in between spiral arms today, but tomorrow it will travel into the dangerous spiral arms and likely get destroyed.7
So even within a "life-friendly" spiral galaxy, there are very few places where life could take a foothold. But what about the other two types of galaxies?
Elliptical and irregular galaxies
Elliptical galaxies are egg shaped. Most galaxies in the universe are elliptical. A star in an elliptical galaxy is going to have a very irregular orbit around the center. At some point in time, they visit virtually every region within the galaxy. The centers of elliptical galaxies have dangerous supernovae and radiation just like the center of spiral galaxies. This means that in elliptical galaxies there simply will not be enough time for life to be generated before a star travels into the "wrong part of town", so to speak. Also, elliptical galaxies tend to be low on heavy elements.
Irregular galaxies have no discernible form. There are no "safe zones" in an irregular galaxy at all. Supernovae are going off throughout the entire area far too often for life to be created on any individual planet.
Only spiral galaxies have any reasonable chance to incubate life, but even then the number of factors that must fall into place should be prohibitive. The fact that we are here at all is a remarkable stroke of good luck (or did luck really have anything to do with it?).
Other considerations
Even if you could meet all the requirements we've already talked about, there are still more problems. For example, galaxies are filled with "globular clusters". These are areas with a large concentration of stars. On the surface, it may look like a globular cluster is a good place to find life. After all, the more stars in an area, the more chances there are that there may be life around one of those stars. Right? Wrong.
Globular clusters are actually among the worst places to find life. They are some of the oldest things in our galaxy. Remember that the earliest stars were made up of hydrogen and helium. They didn't have the "heavy elements" necessary to create life. Stars in globular clusters tend to be pretty old, so they also don't have enough of the heavy elements.
Also, each star in a cluster will have its own gravitational pull. Because there are so many stars in close proximity to one another, it would be almost impossible for a planet to remain in a stable, circular orbit around any one star. It would constantly be getting pulled toward one star, then another. This would send the planet into extremes of cold and heat and make life impossible.8
Earth is extremely fortunate in other ways as well. One of the theories about why the dinosaurs died off is that a large comet hit the Earth. The impact altered the climate and killed off the dinosaurs. You hear about comets traveling through the sky pretty often on the news. Usually the anchor tells us where on the Earth is the best place to see them, etc.9 So if a comet wiped out the dinosaurs, and if they pass us as frequently as they do, why don't we get hit more often?
Well, if a comet was a soccer ball, and Earth was the goal, Jupiter would be our goalie. True, a large enough comet could wipe out all life on Earth. But Jupiter is kind enough to take the hits for us. Jupiter stands between oncoming comets and us. It is three hundred times the mass of the earth. It's not just Jupiter's sheer size that makes it an attractive target, but with all that mass comes a whole lot of gravitational pull. Jupiter actually pulls comets toward itself! Earth does the same, but since it is a much smaller body of matter, Earth's gravitational pull is not nearly as great (besides, a comet has to get past Jupiter first before we even have to worry about it). The physical set up of our individual solar system buys Earth a heck of a lot more time to generate life. We also have an asteroid belt inside our solar system between Jupiter and Mars, but Mars and Venus are kind enough to take the asteroid hits for us. We have such friendly neighboring planets, don't we?10
Finally, lets talk about the moon. The Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees on its axis. It is this tilt that gives us our seasons. As the Earth orbits the sun, one hemisphere is always a little bit closer to the sun than the other. This is why when it's summer in the northern hemisphere it's winter in the southern hemisphere (and vice versa). Now, if we didn't have a moon, the Earth's tilt would vary wildly, creating drastic changes in our climate. For example, one part of the Earth could be exposed to the sun for an extended period of time while another is kept in total darkness. Our seasons make life possible. No seasons, no life. The orbit of the moon actually helps to stabilize the tilt of the Earth's axis, so our seasons don't get out of whack. If we didn't have our moon, we wouldn't have life.11
Dr. Hugh Ross found 75 examples about the Earth's position within our galaxy that are all necessary for life. These parameters, like the laws of physics, are all extremely fine-tuned. The probability of any planet having all 75 parameters necessary to support life is 1 chance in 1099. For those of us who are not mathematically inclined, 1099 is a simplified way of writing 1 with 99 zeros after it. That's an enormous number. If you don't think so, go ahead and write it out. I'll wait...
And you thought placing a bet on a 10 to 1 underdog was a bad bet. How do you feel about a 1099 to 1 underdog?
Just wait, it gets worse. There are only an estimated 1023 planets in the universe (in other words, the number 1 followed by 23 zeroes; also a very large number, but astronomically smaller than 1099). That means that even with a universe, like ours, that is set up to accommodate life, the odds are still against there being a single planet in that universe that can actually support life!12
Let me give you an example that should help you picture the problem. Let's say you are looking through a stack of 100 pennies for one from 1915. Now you know that there is one, and only one 1915 penny in the stack. So you randomly pick up the first penny to have a look. Before you get a chance to pick up another penny, your spouse calls you down to dinner and you don't get to finish. Are you likely to have found the right penny after only looking at one? Probably not. This isn't to say you couldn't have found the right one, but if you did you would have defied the odds and gotten extremely lucky. After all, there were still 99 pennies you hadn't looked at yet.
The same is true about the existence of Earth in our universe (although the odds are astoundingly worse). As I said before, the odds of just one planet having all the necessary parameters for life is 1 chance in 1099. If we had a universe with 1099 planets in it, we would expect to find one suitable for life. But we only have 1023 planets in our universe. Essentially, when looking for a suitable planet, we only get to look through 1023, just like we only looked at one out of the 100 pennies. We shouldn't expect to find the 1915-penny after only looking at one, and we likewise shouldn't expect to find a habitable planet in our universe with only 1023 planets to choose from.
Just how unlikely is it to find a habitable planet with only 1023 to choose from? With the pennies we had a 1% chance of getting the right penny on our first pick (there were 100 pennies, and only one was correct). Those aren't odds too many people would like to face. Now what if I told you that there was only a one thousandth of one percent chance of finding a life-capable planet in our universe? Would that be enough to convince you that we couldn't be here by random chance? What if there was only a one trillionth of one percent chance? In reality, the odds are inconceivably worse. The probability of us actually finding a habitable planet in our universe is 10-76. Imagine a decimal point followed by 73 zeroes, then a one, and then the percent sign. That is the probability of finding a habitable planet in our universe.13 Any self-respecting mathematician would tell you that those odds are so overwhelmingly improbable that they are essentially impossible. In other words, the chance of this happening is zero.14 And remember, these horrible odds only come into play after you have overcome the overwhelming odds against the finely tuned laws of physics! But despite all these overwhelming odds, here we are. Doesn't it make you want to ask, "why"?
Intelligence vs. random naturalism
Remember the original question posed by this article. We already know that something caused the universe to come into existence. Now we want to learn a bit about that "something", specifically, whether or not it is intelligent. Intelligence, in the context of creation, is defined by the ability to make selections among various alternatives. It has a goal in mind and makes the best possible choices to reach that goal.
A random, naturalistic cause would have no way of selecting which of various alternatives would be better. After all, random processes have no way of "knowing" which factors are better suited for the creation of life. Naturalistic processes have no "end goal" in mind. They cannot "select" certain factors in order to create life because they are not "striving" to create life to begin with. They have no consciousness, no intent, and no will.
Proponents of Darwinian macroevolution love to point this out. They provide example after example in which the body part of some organism could have been designed much more efficiently. The reason for the "poor" design, they explain, is because macroevolution is undirected aside from the process of natural selection. A species will adapt in order to meet its current needs, but macroevolution cannot think 2 or 3 steps ahead on the evolutionary ladder. It only confronts what is before it here and now. It has no "will", and therefore cannot look to the future. In the same way, a naturalistic explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe cannot have a "will". It cannot take action with the ultimate goal, somewhere down the line, of creating life.
So the question that confronts us, based upon the evidence, is whether a naturalistic explanation could reasonably account for overcoming the odds against life in our universe. The answer to this question lies in our analogy with the 1915-penny. Lets say you want to put that penny in a jar. How will you be more likely to get the penny in the jar, by blindfolding yourself and randomly picking out one of the 100 pennies, or by looking at each penny individually and hand-selecting the one from 1915? The first method would be the same as a naturalistic cause for the universe. You just blindly pick a penny and hope you get lucky. The second requires intelligence. Which would be more likely to get you the correct penny? If you say the second (which is obviously correct), then you have to concede that intelligence is also the more likely explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe.
Let me give you another example that I have bantered around with various atheists, the royal flush. For those non-Poker players out there, the "royal flush" is the highest possible hand in poker. It consists of the cards 10, J, Q, K, A, all of the same suit. Some theists have used the odds against getting a royal flush as an analogy to explain the overwhelming odds against all the laws of our universe lining up correctly (where the royal flush represents the life-friendly state of our universe). Many atheists have responded, though, by pointing out that the odds of getting a royal flush are exactly the same as getting any other combination of 5 cards. In other words, you are just as likely to get 10, J, Q, K, A as 3, 6, 9, J Q. So the royal flush doesn't appear all that improbable after all, does it? After all, we get worthless hands all the time.
This argument, though, misses the point. The atheists point out that the odds of randomly getting our current particular set up for the universe are the same as the odds of getting any other random set up. Using the poker analogy, they show that the odds of getting any individual poker hand are the same as getting any other individual hand. That, of course, is true. The odds of the cosmological constant, for example, ending up at the particular setting where it is now are the same as the odds of it ending up at any other particular setting. But we are not comparing the odds of two different specific settings. Instead, we need to compare the odds of our current particular setting against the odds of getting ANY of an incalculable number of other possible settings. After all, with our particular set up, life exists. But with any other set up, it does not. It is just like the difference between getting a royal flush and getting any other hand when only a royal flush will win. With a royal flush you win, but with ANY other hand, you lose.
So the question is not, "what are the odds of getting any poker hand", like the atheists ask. But rather, "How are we more likely to get a royal flush (i.e., one particular hand), by randomly selecting five cards, or by searching through the deck and hand-selecting the five cards we need?" Obviously, hand selection will be more likely to get us the cards we need. That's precisely why if you were to try hand-picking your cards at your poker table, you'd be accused of cheating and kicked out of the casino; because you are unfairly increasing your odds of winning (cheating)! That's not to say we can't get a royal flush randomly, only that the odds are against it. And as I illustrated above, the odds of life existing in our universe are infinitely worse than the odds of getting a royal flush to the exclusion of all other possible hands.
Naturalistic responses
Obviously, the fact that intelligence is the most likely explanation for fine-tuning doesn't sit too well with atheists and agnostics. That's why many scientists have tried to come up with purely naturalistic theories to explain the fine-tuning.
One such response is called the "weak anthropic principle". This basically states that if the universe were not fine-tuned for life, humans would not be around to observe it. The fact that we are around to observe it means that it requires no explanation. In other words, "we're here, so there has to be an answer (even if we don't know it) and there's no point to looking for it."
When I was growing up, one of my favorite movies was "Superman" with Christopher Reeve. It has, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest movie lines in recent history. After Lois Lane falls from a precariously perched helicopter, Superman swoops up, catches both her and the falling helicopter, and flies them both back up to the top of the building from which they fell. When Superman grabs Lois, he says, "Don't worry Miss, I've got you." To which Lois replies (and here's the great line), "You've got me. Who's got you?"
Suppose Lois Lane was so terrified when she was falling that she kept her eyes shut. She didn't work up the courage to open them until after she was safely on the roof and Superman had flown away. Do you think she would simply say, "Well, the odds were overwhelming that I should have fallen to my death, but since I'm alive and sitting on this roof, something must have happened, so I guess I don't really need an explanation"? Of course not. Every fiber in her being and every reporter's instinct she possesses would demand to know why she didn't fall. The simple fact that the end result was good doesn't mean we shouldn't look for how that result came about. This is the problem with the "weak anthropic principle". It tries to dismiss the argument without really addressing the merits.
Probably one of the most attractive theories currently proposed is inflation theory. This idea states that while our particular universe has only been around for a finite period of time, it is only one of a countless number of universes. According to the theory, outside our universe is something called "superspace". Inside that superspace is something called an "inflation field". This inflation field basically acts to generate multiple universes, kind of like tiny soap bubbles forming on the surface of the ocean (the "ocean" is superspace and the "bubbles" are all the universes). Because there are so many universes, eventually there was bound to be one with all the right parameters for life. We just happen to live in that one.
Unlike our universe, superspace is supposedly infinite in size and eternal. It existed before time began. Because our universe was created in superspace, superspace obviously exists outside our universe. Do you notice anything familiar about all of this? Superspace and the inflation field are simply an attempt at a natural, random explanation for God. What were we able to conclude about the entity that caused the universe in the last article? It exists outside our universe, is not subject to the laws of our universe, and is eternal (existing before time began). At the conclusion of the last article, I pointed out that these are all characteristics that are typically attributed to God.
Now look at the description of superspace. It has all the same characteristics! Why is this important? Because it means that inflation theory concedes that everything I said in my last article is 100% correct. Instead of denying that such an eternal causal entity exists, inflation theory tries to argue that it is a natural entity as opposed to a supernatural entity. You can't escape the conclusion that the universe has a cause. The best many scientists can do is try to explain away that cause.
The question then becomes whether there is evidence for the existence of superspace and inflation fields. The answer is, "no, there isn't", or at least none that would distinguish them from God. All we know is that there is some causal entity for the universe, whether that entity is God, an inflation field, or something else. The difference between God and an inflation field is that God is intelligent, whereas an inflation field is not. When we are deciding whether to accept inflation theory, then, we need to ask ourselves whether we have evidence that the causal entity for the universe is intelligent. If so, inflation theory cannot be correct.
Obviously, if our universe is the only one in existence, the evidence is overwhelming that its cause was an intelligent agent. This gets back to the analogy of selecting one penny at random while blindfolded as opposed to looking through the pennies one at a time until we find the one we are looking for. The universe is fine-tuned. Even most (but not all) atheists concede that. If ours is the only universe in existence, the odds are simply too overwhelming that all the parameters would have fallen into place, with only one "crack at the bat", without some intelligent agent hand-selecting them.
But what if our universe isn't the only one? This would have the advantage of giving us more "cracks at the bat". If we didn't get all the parameters right the first time, we'd just "try, try again". So does this open up the possibility that we don't need an intelligent agent to account for our existence?
First of all, you should understand that there is not one shred of evidence that there are universes other than our own. Not one iota. It is only a theory thought up by a scientist named Andre Lindé.
Second, even assuming there are multiple universes, something still has to make them all. The "machine" necessary to create multiple universes would have to be immensely more fine-tuned that any individual universe it creates. Robin Collins, PhD, explained four very broad categories of components that such a machine would require:
"First, ... you'd need a mechanism to supply the energy for the bubble universes. That would be the inflation field that [Andre Lindé] has hypothesized, which effectively acts like a reservoir of unlimited energy. Second, he would need a mechanism to form the bubbles. This would be Einstein's equation of general relativity. ... Third, he would need a mechanism to convert the energy of the inflation field to the normal mass/energy that we find in our universe. Fourth, he would need a mechanism to allow enough variation in the constants of physics among the various universes."
Robin Collins, PhD, in Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, pp. 142-43 (2004).
Now take a look at these four requirements.
First, you need an energy source in order to "run the machine". Any machine needs batteries, or at least a cord we can plug into a wall outlet. The "universe-making machine" is no different. Supposedly, the inflation field provides the energy for the "universe-making machine". But remember, the inflation field is hypothetical. There is absolutely no evidence that such a field even exists.
Second, you need the actual mechanism to form the universes. Basically, this means we need the working parts for our machine, kind of like a car needs an engine. Supposedly, Einstein's theory of general relativity satisfies this requirement, so we can check this one off our list.
Third, you need an "energy converter." Picture your car again. We all hear about how oil supplies affect the price of gasoline. But if you try to put raw oil in your gas tank, you won't get very far. The crude oil needs to be "refined" into gasoline. It needs to be converted. The same is true for our "universe-making machine". The type of energy used by the inflation field is not going to be the same as the energy used in our universe, so it needs to be converted. There is no evidence of the existence of any such energy converter. After all, we don't even have proof that the inflation field exists in the first place. How can we have evidence of a mechanism to convert energy coming from the field if we don't even have proof that the field itself exists?
Fourth, you would need some mechanism that causes variation in the laws of physics from universe to universe. It wouldn't do any good if our "universe-making machine" just kept pumping out the same universe over and over again. It needs to vary the laws of physics for each universe until it gets the right combination. Some scientists have proposed something called "string theory" to explain this variation. Again, though, string theory is just a guess. There is absolutely no evidence in support of it. It's just some scientist's creative idea.
So in the end, at best scientists have evidence for one out of the four broad requirements they would need for inflation theory to even be plausible. Some people might object and say they actually have evidence for two (because string theory provides the mechanism for variation), but remember that string theory itself is only a guess. All we've done is pile guesswork on top of more guesswork. In the end, we are no closer to our objective.
Keep in mind that it also isn't enough for the "universe-making machine" simply to have all these parts. All the parts also have to be working together. After all, I can have everything I need to build a car, but until I actually put it together, I won't be driving anywhere. Scientists have no evidence whatsoever showing what would cause all these various components of the machine to work together in harmony.
Also, think for a moment about exactly how many universes you would have to create in order to get just one like ours. Look at the odds against the cosmological constant being correct. For the time being, forget about everything else. You would have to make trillions upon trillions upon trillions of universes just to get the cosmological constant right! The number of universes that this machine would have to generate is beyond comprehension.
Now I do not claim (as some scholars have) that the fine-tuning of the "universe-making machine" means that it too would have to be designed. For example, Robin Collins states that even if inflation theory is 100% correct, it only moves the requirement for intelligence up one level, from the creation of the universe itself to the creation of the universe-making machine. I disagree. Why? Because if the "universe-making machine" existed before our universe, that means it existed before time. As I mentioned in the article "Why should I believe God exists in the first place?" only something that "came into existence" requires a cause. If something has always been in existence, it does not have a cause. Anything that existed before time is eternal, and therefore it has no cause. In the last article, I used this logic in relation to God to show why the "What designed the designer?" argument is flawed. However, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If God existed prior to time, there is no need to look for a cause for God. Similarly, if the "universe-making machine" existed prior to time, it too does not need a cause. Essentially, this finely tuned machine would have always existed, just as I argue that the infinitely complex God has always existed. The universe itself, though, is not eternal; therefore it does need a cause. Because it requires a cause, its fine-tuning must be explained.
So I do not go so far as to claim that the fine-tuning of the "universe-making machine" means that it must have been intelligently designed, but that really is irrelevant. If you examine each necessary element for the machine, as I did above, you should notice one glaring problem. There is virtually no evidence for any of it. It is entirely hypothetical. But that's not the only problem with inflation theory.
First, there is a logical problem with inflation theory. Supposedly, the inflation field will just "try, try again" until it creates the right universe. But in order to try something several times, you need the time to do it. If your first grade teacher told you to write "I will not put gum in Suzie's hair" 100 times on the blackboard, but only gave you 30 seconds to do it, you would run out of time before you could finish. In short, you need time in order to make repeated efforts at anything. But the inflation field theoretically exists outside our universe. As we learned in the last article, time exists within our universe. In essence, inflation theory would be like your teacher telling you to write a phrase on the blackboard trillions upon trillions of times, but giving you zero seconds to do it. It can't be done. You need time, but time does not exist in this theoretical "superspace".
Also, keep in mind that even if inflation theory could explain the existence of a life-friendly universe like ours, it does not explain the overwhelming statistical improbability, observed by Dr. Hugh Ross, that our planet should even exist within our universe! All inflation theory does is try to provide a way that the laws of physics could be randomly varied throughout multiple universes. But the laws of physics are only half the battle. You still have to find the right location within that universe. The simple truth is that, statistically, even in our life-friendly universe, we should not exist. There aren't enough planets in our universe for us to expect to find even one capable of sustaining life. But here we are. Inflation theory does nothing to explain that dichotomy.
Some skeptics may claim that if the "universe-making machine" was to pump out a life-friendly universe, but for one reason or another life did not take hold, it could just keep trying until it makes another one. Hopefully, the next life-friendly universe would have enough planets for at least one to be habitable. If not, the machine could just try again. But this argument ignores our present reality. In regard to our current universe (i.e., the actual universe where we currently find ourselves), the "universe-making machine" didn't pump out a universe with enough planets to generate life. It pumped out a universe with a woefully inadequate number of planets, but we're still here. Regardless of whether or not inflation theory is correct, we still overcame what should have been insurmountable odds by existing in this current universe.
Notice that none of the above responses denies that the universe is fine-tuned. That fact is inescapable. Rather they try, albeit unsuccessfully, to come up with a naturalistic explanation for the fine-tuning. In the end, though, their "explanations" are nothing more than beautiful examples of the creativity of the human mind. They have no proof. They are nothing more than idle speculation. Please understand that by no means am I discouraging scientific exploration. Scientists should continue to look into inflation theory to see if it leads anywhere. But for now we should not pretend that it is anything more than it really is: a fancy idea concocted in someone's mind without any evidence that it is even possible.
I have one final note on the evidence for an intelligent creator. I have heard many atheists argue that it is pointless to try to find a logical explanation for a chance event (this is somewhat similar to the weak anthropic principle discussed previously). To understand what atheists mean by this, take the example of a lottery winner. We would all agree that the odds of winning the lottery are extremely low, and yet it does happen. If we were to look at a lottery winner after the fact, then try to look backwards in time and try to explain why that particular person won as opposed to anyone else, we would not be able to come up with a logical explanation. After all, the fact that this particular person won was nothing more than a chance event, and chance events defy logical explanation. They therefore say that it is pointless to look back on creation and try to come up with a logical explanation.
The basic foundation for this argument is correct, but unfortunately for atheists it involves circular reasoning. Keep in mind that atheists believe the creation was a chance event. But this argument starts out by assuming creation was a chance event. After assuming something to be true, you can't then use it to prove what you just assumed to be true.
Allow me to illustrate what I mean. The only reason we know that there is no logical explanation for why one particular person should win the lottery is because we know going in that the lottery is purely a chance event. Before the numbers are ever drawn, we know that they will be randomly selected. Obviously, once we know that, it does not make sense to go back after the fact and try to find a logical explanation for the result.
But if we look at the creation dilemma objectively we see that, unlike the lottery, we do not know whether or not it was created randomly. That is precisely the question we are trying to answer. The best atheists can say is if the universe was randomly created, then there is no point to looking for a logical explanation. But we don't know that it was randomly created! So this atheistic argument is useless.
A better illustration using the lottery would be to suppose one of your friends walked up to you the day after the lottery and showed you a piece of paper on which he had written all the winning numbers from the previous evening. He then tells you how much he regrets not buying a ticket last night because he accurately guessed all the numbers ahead of time, and he could have won millions of dollars.
Now you don't know whether your friend really predicted all the right numbers ahead of time or if he just wrote down the winning numbers after he checked this morning's newspaper and is "pulling your leg". If he is telling the truth, then this really was a chance event. But if he got the numbers out of the newspaper, then he used intelligence.
Do you see how this is a better analogy? In my analogy, all our information comes AFTER the event, just like our information about creation. If we could have been present at the time creation happened, then we would know whether or not it was really a chance event, just like being present when the lottery numbers are drawn shows us that it is a random event. But we weren't present at creation, just as in my analogy we weren't present when our friend wrote down the numbers.
So when all our information comes after the fact, the best we can do is ask ourselves, "What is the more likely explanation?" In this case, is it more likely that your friend actually wrote down all the numbers ahead of time, or is it more likely that he got them out of that morning's paper? Obviously, the latter is the more likely scenario. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that intelligence is also the more likely explanation for creation. Is it possible that your friend wrote down all the numbers in advance? Of course it is. People win the lottery all the time. But it is not the more likely scenario. And the odds of randomly bringing together everything we need for life in our universe are far worse than the odds of winning the lottery.
So where are you going to put your faith? And make no mistake about it; denying the existence of God requires far more faith than believing in Him. Many people who cite these responses as reasons to deny God are simply using them as tools to justify clinging to their unbelief in the face of contrary evidence. It makes people sleep better at night to think that there "could" be a naturalistic explanation, even if there is no evidence to support their belief and the current evidence actually points the other way. The mere fact that I can imagine something doesn't make it true.
Conclusion
So have we proven the existence of God? Let's take a look back at the last two articles and summarize what we've discovered. We know that there is an intelligent agent out there somewhere that is responsible for creating the entire universe. This agent exists (or at least is capable of existing) outside the confines of our universe. It is also eternal, having existed quite literally before time began.
Keep in mind that this isn't just some passive intelligence floating around somewhere. This is an intelligence that is capable of action. It can interact with our universe to do whatever it wants to do. After all, look around you. This intelligent agent created everything you see. There is nothing in your frame of existence that this agent did not put there, either directly or indirectly. It set the laws of physics as it wanted them. If it had the power to choose where to set the laws of physics initially, obviously it could change them if it wanted to. How would you react if you actually saw someone defying gravity, or if you suddenly saw a bush wither and die instantly right in front of your eyes? Would you think it was a miracle?
Do you believe miracles are possible? After everything you've read in these two articles, how can you not? Maybe you've never seen one. Maybe you don't believe the stories you've heard about alleged "miracles". That's fine. But based on what we know about this intelligent creator, we know that the creator is at least capable of performing acts that we would consider to be "miraculous". We may not know, based on this evidence alone, whether the creator has ever chosen to perform a miracle, but we know it could if it wanted to. Ladies and gentlemen, what I've just described to you is God.
You may be asking yourself, "If everything you've said is true, why are there still atheists in the world?" Think about it for a minute. Belief in God isn't simply a matter of changing your mind then going on with life as usual. There are consequences to that belief, especially if you go all the way to Christianity. It isn't just your beliefs that have to change, but also your lifestyle. If people were to start believing in God, they'd have to give up their gambling, drinking, premarital sex, greed, and countless other vices. We like our vices. We don't want to give them up. The result is that most atheists demand 100% certainty for proof of God's existence, despite the fact that they don't demand that high level of proof for anything else in their lives.15
Let me ask you a question. Before you got into a car the last time you drove somewhere, did you think that you were going to get into a crash and die? Probably not. After all, if you did, you never would have gotten into the car. Were you 100% sure that you weren't going to crash and die? Of course not. We all know that there is a risk involved every time we drive a car. But we weigh the odds and make our decision based on those odds. We may die, but the odds are against it, so we get in the car anyway.
Let's say someone accused of murder is caught standing over the victim's body while pulling a knife out of the dead man's chest. At the same time he is saying, "Now you finally got what you deserved." Lets also say a witness claims to have seen the defendant stab the victim to death. Now the defendant takes the stand and says, "I didn't do it. Actually, my evil twin and I were separated at birth and given to different families. He looks exactly like me, although nobody knows where he is. He actually stabbed the victim. I just happened to come along and pull out the knife. I didn't like Mr. Body, but I didn't kill him."
Is this defendant going to be convicted in a court of law? Let me tell you from ample experience as a criminal defense attorney that the answer is "yes". Can we ever "know" with 100% certainty that there isn't really an evil twin out there somewhere who committed the crime? No. But a jury will make its decision based upon the odds, and the odds are overwhelming (even though not 100% certain) that this defendant killed the victim.
So what does all this mean? It is my contention (and please understand that I'm sure most atheists and agnostics would disagree with me) that the problem for atheists and agnostics isn't that the evidence for God is lacking, like they claim. In fact, the evidence is overwhelming. Rather, most atheists and agnostics do not want to believe. They are comfortable in their lifestyle. If they were to be truly honest with themselves, they would have to admit that the burden of proof they are setting for the existence of God is far greater than the burden they place on anything else they believe in. But as long as they do not have 100% certainty they can justify remaining in their vice-ridden lifestyle.
I can see some atheists objecting to these comments, saying, "Hey, I'm a good person. How dare you judge me and say I'm living a vice-ridden lifestyle!" Far be it from me to judge you. I don't judge you. I've been just as sinful. But you're kidding yourself if you don't think (assuming God exists) that you would be considered a sinner. Jesus said that if you even look at another person with a lustful eye, you have committed adultery. Likewise, if you desire something someone else has, you're no different than a thief. If you're angry with someone, you're the same as a murderer. There are hardly any of the 10 commandments that we haven't all broken in some way. Maybe you are a good person as judged by human standards, but we're not judged by human standards. If you don't accept Jesus, you're judged by whether or not you live up to the example set by an infinitely holy and perfect God. Are you perfect? If not, you're in trouble.
The difference between Christians and non-Christians isn't that Christians are any better. We sin just like everyone else. However, (1) we are trying to do better, and (2) (most importantly) we are forgiven. I'll spare you the rest of the theology lesson for now. That comes in a later article. All I ask now is that you be completely honest with yourself. Have you convinced yourself that you need 100% certainty of God's existence before you become a believer? If that's the case, you need to ask yourself two follow up questions: (1) Do I really require 100% proof of everything else I claim to "know" in my life; and (2) What kind of proof would satisfy me?
I think your answer to that second question will be very illuminating. If you have trouble thinking of an answer, it probably means that you wouldn't be satisfied by anything. You would try to explain away everything, even if Jesus himself descended on a cloud and said, "Hey you, yeah you! Believe in me!" That's a sure sign that you're not really looking for the truth, but rather trying to find ways to be comfortable in your non-belief.
Open up your mind. You need to change your perspective. When you read this article, did you find yourself constantly trying to poke holes in my argument, or did you approach it from the perspective of actually trying to learn something? If all you wanted to do was poke holes then you are probably just looking for reasons to stay an atheist or agnostic. You do not want to believe. All you are interested in is defeating the arguments against you, no matter how illogical your responses become. I'm not saying you shouldn't examine everything with a critical eye, but did the thought ever cross your mind while reading this that maybe, just maybe God does exist? Did you even open yourself up to that possibility? Or did you just work your way through the article trying to think up creative responses to everything I said?
Take a step back. Did you really approach this article in an objective fashion? If so, and if you are consistent with the burden of proof you set for everything else in your life, there is only one conclusion you can come to. An intelligent, eternal, creative God exists.
We still haven't come all the way to Christianity. The next step is to show you why the Bible is a reliable source of information, and why we can believe what it tells us about God. That is the topic for the next series of three articles. Just like we did in this article, our goal will be to learn more about our creator. For the first time, we will crack open the Bible, but only after I show you that it can be trusted. I encourage you to read on.
Footnotes
1 Robin Collins, PhD, in Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, p. 131 (2004).
2 Id. at 134 (2004).
3 Technically, saying gravity "pulls" us is a misnomer, but for the sake of keeping it simple, I'm using the common understanding of the "pull" of gravity here.
4 Id. at 131-32 (2004).
5 Id. at 133-34 (2004).
6 Hugh Ross, PhD, Big Bang Refined by Fire (1998).
7 Guillermo Gonzalez, PhD & Jay Wesley Richards, PhD, in Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, pp. 168-70 (2004).
8 Id. at 167-68 (2004).
9 By "often" I don't mean that comets come by every day. But I, for one, can remember several highly publicized comets in my lifetime alone (since 1972), which is obviously barely a blip on the radar screen when compared to the age of the Earth. My point is that if you use the entire age of the Earth as your frame of reference, comets come by pretty "often".
10 Id. at 173-74 (2004).
11 Id. at 178-79 (2004).
12 Dr. Hugh Ross, Big Bang Refined by Fire (1998).
13 For anyone interested (and who ever took a statistics class and actually remembers it), here's the math. A binomial probability distribution was used - assuming that each planet's ability to sustain life is independent of all other planets'.
p(x) = nCx px qn-x
p = 1/1099 = probability of success (where success is defined as "the ability to sustain life")
n = 1023 = number of trials (number of planets looked at)
x = 1 = number of successes (how many of the planets we want to be "successes")
q = 1 - 1/1099 = 1099/1099 - 1/1099 = 1099 - 1/1099 = probability of failure (not a success)
nCx = 1023! / 1!(1023 - 1)! = 1023
p(x=1) = (1023) * (10-99)1 * (1 - 10-99)10^23-1 = 10-76 = probability that exactly one planet out of the 1023 planets succeeds in having the ability to sustain life
14 Note that what we have actually computed here is the probability of one and only one planet in the universe being capable of sustaining life. It is theoretically possible that we could get really lucky and have 2, or 3, or even 1023 planets turn out to be life sustaining. Of course, the odds of having exactly two successful planets are less than the odds of having one. The odds of having exactly three successful planets are even less than two, and so on up to 1023. We would compute the odds of having one or more habitable planets by adding up the probabilities of all these possibilities. Because the odds continually decrease, though, this doesn't significantly increase the likelihood of success, and we are still looking at zero chance of finding any habitable planets.
15 Many atheists I have spoken with deny that they require 100% proof, but in my experience (and I don't think there's an atheistic argument I haven't heard) if you break down the logic of their arguments, in practice they do require a 100% standard.
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