The Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe

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This tension was resolved by a Belgian priest and physicist, Georges Lemaitre, who agreed with Friedman. Then Lemaitre ventured further into metaphoric space by relying on observations showing light from distant galaxies as well as data from Edwin Hubble’s telescope both of which showed the distances to other galaxies. Taken together these findings demonstrated that galaxies are speeding away from one another. And while Friedmann had shown that the universe could change, Lemaitre showed that it had changed by arguing that galaxies were not merely speeding away into preexisting space but that space itself was expanding. In any case, the fact that Meyer’s hypothesis doesn’t actually answer the questions science asks, and that it opens up a universe of new questions (where did God come from, how does God do what God does, what does the mathematics of God look like, etc.) in the process of not answering them, should give us reason to pause, at least. In The Return of the God Hypothesis, Stephen Meyer presents a variety of other scientists who may not have agreed with Hoyle but in one way or another contribute to Meyer’s thesis that science points to the existence of the Judeo-Christian God.

If, as Meyer asserts, the God hypothesis is the single best explanation for why the universe is the way it is, can we then infer anything about the nature of that deity? Meyer discusses the three main possibilities: pantheism, deism, and theism. Regarding “ How Could the Big Bang Arise From Nothing?” by Alastair Wilson at The Conversation (January 3, 2022). Consider Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity. Until barely a hundred years ago we didn’t know that space, time, mass, and energy were mathematically related. We didn’t know that these aspects of the physical world were intertwined in mathematically determined and measurable ways, and that a value in one domain couldn’t be “changed” without influencing the other domains as well. Note that this is subtly different from a probability argument. The argument is that it is the consistency of our experience regarding the origin of artificially encoded information that compels us to accept an intelligent origin of apparently naturally occurring encoded information. But no, we aren’t sure that the universe had a beginning. We admit that things – matter, energy, physical laws, the nature of space and time itself – were likely very different when the stuff of a billion trillion stars occupied a volume vastly smaller than a pinhead. (How many stars can dance on the head of a pin? All of them, it seems.) But we don’t know how they were different. Nor do we know what came before, nor what prompted the expansion, nor whether it happened exactly once or infinitely many times, or indeed whether or not it’s happening right now elsewhere in our own universe. We speak informally of the Big Bang as the beginning of our universe, but all we really know with confidence is that it was a moment in an evolving series of physical states. We don’t know what states came before, nor what states will follow our own.What did Hawking et al mean by “in some sense?” I don’t know, and Meyer doesn’t pursue it. But it’s hard to conclude that a beginning “in some sense” is the same as, simply, “a beginning.” And in fact, later Meyer quotes Ellis as observing that some cosmologists now see, in Meyer’s words, “singularity theorems as an interesting piece of pure mathematics, but not as proofs of the beginning of our actual universe.” (again, emphasis mine) What does “thorough” mean, in this context? How does “Despite a thorough search” differ from “Thus far?” What aspect of knowledge does Meyer believe we have exhausted, in our thorough but failed search? The discovery of the functional digital information in DNA and RNA molecules in even the simplest living cells provides strong grounds for inferring that intelligence played a role in the origin of the information necessary to produce the first living organism. I believe Meyer does his readers a disservice by not accurately portraying the range of multiple-universe theories currently proposed, given that rejecting all of them is critical to his thesis. Meyer requires that there not be an infinite number of universes, either one following another throughout eternity or any number existing simultaneously in parallel. This is perhaps the strongest challenge to his argument from improbability, and it deserves to be treated with more rigor.

That strikes me as a very bold claim. To make it, one has to believe both of the following: first, that we can accurately predict the nature of a universe that follows laws other than the laws that govern our own universe; and, secondly, that we have a reasonable understanding of the range of conditions under which intelligent life might arise, and the nature of that life, in universes both like and unlike our own.

Scientific discoveries because of, not in spite of, the religious beliefs of early modern scientists

Meyer has written a book that could have been written at any time during our long quest for understanding. The details would change, the sophistication would vary, but the product would be similar: a man standing on the edge of the unknown surveys the wisest men around him and concludes that, since they have no wholly satisfactory answers, one or another god is the most plausible explanation. Return of the God Hypothesis balances the author’s personal intellectual journey with objective fact-based analysis in an engaging style. Weaving sound historical inquiry with the latest theories in physics and biology into a rich explanatory tapestry, this book shows how science is rediscovering the foundational worldview principles that launched modern science in the first place — the inescapably resilient God hypothesis. A must-read and a convincing argument. Michael A. Flannery, author of Nature’s Prophet: Alfred Russel Wallace and His Evolution from Natural Selection to Natural Theology. Professor emeritus, UAB Libraries, University of Alabama at Birmingham. return-of-the-god-hypothesis-meyer Links This seems to be such an obviously poor and illogical argument that I find myself wondering if I am missing something profound. But let’s break it down. We are aware of numerous examples of the encoding of “functional” information in a structured form, from computer programs to grammars to all sorts of artificial symbolic schemes. Then we get to the science. Meyer asserts, based on three “scientific discoveries,” these key ideas underlying his argument:

Meyer argues in his book and in his numerous public appearances that, in our consistent and repeated experience, every instance of such functional information storage is the result of a guiding intelligence. It follows, he argues, that the storage of functional information in DNA must also be the product of a guiding intelligence. Meyer lays out similar devastating arguments against other theorists who have waded in on this issue, especially Lawrence Krauss and Max Tegmark. Above all, Meyer shows that while these men may be brilliant scientists, they turn out to be very poor philosophers. Premise Three: Intelligent design constitutes the best, most causally adequate explanation for the origin of the specified information in the cell. Given how new and incomplete our own knowledge is of the universe we inhabit and the rules that govern it, we should be skeptical that we’re capable of anticipating the infinite range of alternative universes that might arise through the modification of various physical constants. Certainly, we have not invested thousands of cosmologist-years in studying these hypothetical alternatives. Meyer’s challenge to the current consensus is comparable in magnitude to that of Copernicus’ in 1543.Like Copernicus, Meyer compels us to rethink our entire understanding of the cosmos. His book provides overwhelming evidence in supportof “the God hypothesis. Leonard Sax, MD, PhD, University of Pennsylvania; New York Times bestselling author.The New York Times bestselling author of Darwin’s Doubt, Stephen Meyer, presents groundbreaking scientific evidence of the existence of God, based on breakthroughs in physics, cosmology, and biology. The God Hypothesis Versus Atheist Science Denial” by Michael Egnor at Evolution News (April 5, 2021). This book is the crowning opus in a masterful and transformative trilogy in which Stephen Meyer challenges the pretensions of presumptive naturalism in science. As Meyer shows, the God hypothesis is indispensable to science. Its return, and the re-enchantment of the world with it, is most welcome. Bruce L. Gordon, Ph.D. in Philosophy of Physics, Northwestern University; Professor, History and Philosophy of Science, Houston Baptist University The distinguished theoretical physicist Sir John Polkinghorne believes that cosmic fine-tuning provides very powerful evidence of design. Brian Josephson, another British Nobel Prize-winning physicist, has stated frankly that he is 80 percent confident that some kind of intelligent agency was involved in the creation of life. The same evidence caused the outspoken philosopher Antony Flew to reject his own long-time atheistic teachings, which he had clung to for most of his life, in favor of deism. As Christian astronomer Luke Barnes writes: “Fine tuning suggests that, at the deepest level that physics has reached, the universe is well put together. . . . The whole system seems well thought out, something that someone planned and created.”