Life could only evolve on a planet whose sun was a steady source of energy lasting for more than the four billion years or so that life's development would take in order to reach the complexity of something like a human being. We know what makes stars in our world burn in this way and it depends upon a sensitive balance between two of the fundamental forces of nature, namely gravity and electromagnetism. If these two forces had strengths that were different from what they actually are, stars would either have burned too feebly to support life or burned so fiercely that they would have exhausted their energy supplies in a mere few millions of years, far too short a time to be of any use.
The stars have a second indispensable role to play, for it is only in their nuclear furnaces that the heavy elements necessary for life, such as carbon, oxygen and many more, can actually be made. We are all made of the ashes of dead stars, creatures of stardust. One of the scientists who unravelled the delicate and beautiful chain of reactions by which the chemical raw materials of life have been made, was Fred Hoyle. When he saw how this was just possible, in a most delicate and beautiful way, because the fundamental nuclear forces are exactly what they are and no different, he said The universe is a put-up job. In other words, it seemed to Hoyle that there must be some Intelligence behind it all. Such a remarkable process could not just be a happy accident.
Science and Theology in a Trinitarian Perspective:
Filed in: science, anthropic, fine-tuning, universe, cosmology, Polkinghorne
1 comment:
Hi Andii,
The Counterbalance website (www.counterbalance.org) has more discussion of anthropic principles like this one. There's text and video there - including Polkinghorne talking about this type of thing.
Do a search for "anthropic" when you get there.
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