Aliens, the Multiverse, or God? — Science and God | 5 Minute Video — Transcript

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1. 0:02Does a design require a designer?
2. 0:06Keep that question in mind as we look at some new
3. 0:08scientific discoveries about the  origin of life and the universe.
4. 0:12Since Charles Darwin published  his theory of evolution in 1859,
5. 0:17many scientists have denied  that design requires a designer.
6. 0:22Darwinists have long claimed the mechanism of  natural selection could generate the appearance
7. 0:27or “illusion” of design without  being directed or guided in any way.
8. 0:32Recently, however, even staunch Darwinists  have acknowledged that living things may
9. 0:36have certain features that display evidence  of actual intelligent design—though their
10. 0:42ideas about who designed life on  earth are, well, a bit out there.
11. 0:47Some prominent scientists have proposed that
12. 0:49space aliens designed and then  transported life to Earth.
13. 0:54Evolutionary biologist and noted atheist Richard  Dawkins has even floated this idea, suggesting
14. 1:00that extraterrestrials may be responsible for a  possible “signature of intelligence” in life.
15. 1:05Indeed, no less a scientific genius than  Francis Crick, who helped discover DNA,
16. 1:11also proposed the idea that ET’s seeded life on  earth to set the evolutionary process in motion.
17. 1:17If true, we have an intergalactic  Johnny Appleseed to thank
18. 1:21for starting the chain reaction that has  taken us from inanimate matter to Shakespeare.
19. 1:26So why have these scientists considered  this seemingly far-fetched possibility?
20. 1:31Because they have encountered a  big mystery they can’t explain.
21. 1:35It turns out that even the simplest  living cells aren’t simple at all,
22. 1:39and that discovery has made it extremely  difficult to explain the origin of life.
23. 1:44Recall from biology class that Crick and his  partner James Watson discovered the structure
24. 1:49of the DNA molecule. When they did, they also  realized that the chemical subunits in DNA
25. 1:55function like letters in a written language  or digital symbols in computer code.
26. 2:00As Bill Gates has explained  “DNA is like a computer program,
27. 2:04but far, far more advanced than  any software we’ve ever created.”
28. 2:08….which kind of suggests a master programmer.
29. 2:12Could such an intelligent designer have been  an alien as Crick and Dawkins have suggested?
30. 2:18Perhaps. But there are problems  with this explanation. Big ones.
31. 2:22First, the spaceship theory does not actually  solve the problem of the ultimate origin of life.
32. 2:28In fact, it dodges the whole question of  where this super smart alien came from.
33. 2:33How did he evolve? How did the first  life—and the genetic information necessary
34. 2:37to produce it—first arise on his planet?
35. 2:41But there is something else the  ET hypothesis does not explain.
36. 2:45Modern physics has revealed evidence of  design in the very fabric of the universe.
37. 2:50Physicists have discovered that the  fundamental physical parameters of our universe
38. 2:54have been finely tuned, against all odds, to  make our universe capable of hosting life.
39. 3:01Even the slightest alterations in the values  of key factors—such as the strength of gravity
40. 3:06or electromagnetism or the masses of elementary  particles—would render life impossible.
41. 3:12We live in a kind of “Goldilocks universe”
42. 3:15where the fundamental forces of physics have  just the right balance and the properties of
43. 3:19matter have just the right characteristics  and configurations to make life possible.
44. 3:25To illustrate this idea, the late Cambridge  physicist Sir John Polkinghorne imagined a
45. 3:30universe-creating machine with numerous dials,  each representing some critical parameter.
46. 3:36The various dials each have an almost infinite  range of settings. Yet all are set just right.
47. 3:41Not surprisingly Polkinghorne and many  physicists have concluded that the
48. 3:46improbable cosmic “fine-tuning” of our actual  universe points to a cosmic “fine-tuner.”
49. 3:52As legendary Cambridge astrophysicist Sir Fred  Hoyle argued: “A common sense interpretation of
50. 3:58the facts suggests that a super-intellect” has  “monkeyed with physics” to make life possible.
51. 4:05Could this super-intellect have been an alien?
52. 4:08Not a chance.
53. 4:09Cosmic fine-tuning has been present  from the beginning of the universe
54. 4:13and, thus, cannot be explained by any  agent that arises after the beginning.
55. 4:17Instead, fine-tuning is better explained by  an intelligent agent outside the universe who
56. 4:23could design its structure as a whole. To avoid  this conclusion, some physicists have postulated
57. 4:29another speculative hypothesis: the existence  of a vast number of other parallel universes.
58. 4:36This so-called “multiverse”  idea portrays our universe
59. 4:39as the outcome of a cosmic lottery in  which some universe generating mechanism
60. 4:44spits out billions and billions of  universes—so many that our universe with
61. 4:49its improbable combination of life-conducive  factors would eventually have to arise.
62. 4:55Yet, advocates of the multiverse overlook an  obvious problem. All such proposals—whether
63. 5:00based on something called “inflationary  cosmology” or “string theory”—postulate
64. 5:06universe generating mechanisms that themselves  require prior unexplained fine-tuning—thus
65. 5:13taking us back to the need for an ultimate or  transcendent fine-tuner or designing intelligence.
66. 5:20Many of us call this intelligence… God.
67. 5:24I’m Stephen Meyer, Discovery Institute Senior  Fellow and author of Return of The God Hypothesis,
68. 5:31for Prager University.