Show: Curiosity episode 01 pt. 2

I apologize for taking so long to post this, but here is the second part to my discussion of the first episode of the series Curiosity, which addresses the question, did God create the universe?

Where science seeks to be a universal, measurable and quantifiable explanation of how our world works, religion steps in where science cannot reach to explain those things that cannot be measured by science. The big questions such as who/what created the universe, who/what created us, and our purpose on this earth cannot be answered with cold, hard, scientific fact. Any answer to those questions, by necessity, crosses into the realm of religion and personal belief. The big bang theory is just one more story among many others that can be used by people to explain why we are here.

Most creation myths are cosmogonies, narratives that describe the original ordering of the universe based on observable facts and contemporary ways of thinking. They describe a cultural group’s sense of its past and significant relationship with the deeper powers of the surrounding world and universe, traditionally through symbolism and metaphor (Leeming & Leeming, vii). Just because science has given us a new way of viewing ourselves in relation to the wider universe, it does not mean that there cannot be alternative perspectives on how we came to exist as we are. Science and religion are perfectly capable of existing side by side in people’s perceptions of the world, especially when they believe in an ultimate reality that can transcend science (Leeming & Leeming, vii).

Over the years, science has not actually been able to contribute much more than religion in terms of understanding the ultimate origins of the universe. Leeming & Leeming (1994) credit Philip Freund and other cosmologists with pointing out that “many creation theories of modern science are marked by the myth of a ‘beginningless beginning’… a pre-creation universe in which something existed as a basis for the form eventually taken by the cosmos” (“Creation in Science”, p. 61). In Hawking’s story, this is the singularity that is created from nothing and spontaneously explodes to create the universe.

While the “beginningless beginning” may not sound like much of an explanation for the creation, it can have a profound effect on beliefs about why humans exist. The clearest evidence that Hawking’s program is at its heart just another creation myth comes from his own concluding statement, where he extrapolates the effect of not having a creator god.

We are each free to believe what we want. It is my view that the simplest explanation is, there is no god. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization; there is probably no heaven and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe and for that I am extremely grateful.

For Hawking, his belief in science as the ultimate guide for the way the universe works means that humans have no explicit purpose, but were instead an accident, a natural consequence of the progression of matter over time. The laws of nature are an impersonal, unconscious creator that cannot care about or interfere with what it has created.

The assertion that there was no god that created the universe, however, does not necessarily exclude the possibility of a god that created humans, as Hawking claims. There are many creation stories in which the gods that create humans come along after the world is created. Take the Greek creation myth the Theogony for example, which says that Gaia, the earth, was spontaneously born from chaos, but went on to create the Titans who yielded the Olympians, of whom Zeus was instrumental in the creation of woman (man had been spontaneously generated somewhere in the midst of the story). Other stories have the creation of the universe and the creation of man as having little if anything to do with each other, because the earth is often a given before the creation of people, such as in many native American stories.

If Hawking had truly set out to explain the Big Bang Theory as scientific fact, then he could have easily left his concluding statement out and still had an engaging explanation of a scientific concept that is sometimes difficult to understand. However, since the purpose of his program was in fact to answer the question, “Did God create the universe?” Hawking needed to tell a story, not present scientific fact.

For more information on creation myths from around the world and their commonalities, please refer to:

Leeming, D. and Leeming, M. (1994). A Dictionary of Creation Myths. New York; Oxford University Press.

Show: Curiosity episode 01 pt. 1

Also known as The Benefits of a Liberal Arts Education pt. 1

Discovery channel’s new show Curiosity explores some fundamental questions about human life. In the first episode, aired Sunday August 7^th at 8 pm, Stephen Hawking set out to answer the question, Did God Create the Universe? As a cosmologist who has been investigating the origins of the universe for the majority of his life, Hawking is certainly the right person to explain the current scientific theories about how the universe began. Over the course of the 48 minute long program, he gives an excellent, easy to understand explanation of his perspective on how the universe works. He begins by making the argument that the universe is governed by the laws of nature, such as gravity and other laws that dictate motion and force which are exerted on all matter universally. After explaining some of these fundamental laws of nature he then goes on to explain the big bang theory, and the idea of the singularity, from which the universe began. The singularity, infinitesimally small and infinitesimally dense, a primordial black hole, spontaneously generated (the way protons can according to quantum mechanics) and spontaneously exploded to create the universe. Hawking argues that according to the laws of nature, there did not need to be a creator because the laws of nature allow for the spontaneous generation of matter and that all of the matter (positive energy) and space (negative energy) in the universe adds up to zero, and thus cancels itself out to a perfect balance. Furthermore, Hawking argues that time, which stops in a black hole, was simultaneously created along with space and matter, and thus there could be no time before the singularity. If there was no time before the singularity, then there was no time within which a creator god could have created the universe.

Having watched the episode again, listening much more carefully, I can find no fault with any of Hawking’s logic. I grew up in a household with two organic chemists and have maintained a passion for science ever since, so I am able to understand what Hawking is saying and follow him to the appropriate conclusions. The big bang theory makes a lot of sense as an explanation of how the universe began. However, I do have a problem with Hawking’s assertion that his explanation of how the universe began is scientific fact.

In my understanding, science is supposed to be the quantifiable, measurable study of something. There are the soft sciences, such as anthropology and sociology, which struggle with the ability to meet scientific standards of quantifying and measuring human behavior, and then there are the hard sciences such as chemistry, biology, and physics, which are almost entirely numerically based. In order to be considered a true scientist by today’s standards, there are many procedures that must be followed and carefully detailed records written that chronicle all observations of any scientific study. The whole point behind such careful record keeping is that all scientific experiments are supposed to be repeatable by other scientists, and it is only when they have been repeated enough times that the conclusions drawn from the data can be considered fact, or scientific truth.

When it comes to explaining the origins of the universe, there has to come a point when the science stops being science. By its very nature, the origin of the universe is not something that can be observed or repeated; thus, it cannot be quantified in terms of science. I will not argue that by observing the laws of nature and through careful calculations, conjectures can be made about how matter behaved long before the earth was formed. But even if all of the scientists repeat the same calculations based on the same data, it still remains that the big bang theory is just that, a theory. Until the spontaneous generation of a universe can be observed today, there is simply not enough data to conclusively prove how our universe started.

This raises the question then, can science study god? My answer, which I think many spiritual people will agree with, is that no, science cannot study god because god is not measurable and quantifiable. Hawking’s assertion that there is no god because there was no time for god to exist within prior to the big bang, rests on the assumption that god is subject to the laws of nature. However, for most people that I know who believe in some kind of higher power, the whole point of believing in god is believing in an entity that exists outside of the laws of nature. If god is not subject to the laws of nature, then god does not have to work in ways that can be measured according to our current understanding of nature and science.

If what Hawking describes within the program is thus not considered to be science, because it is not observable and quantifiable, then what is? The entire episode is, in my opinion, a prime example of storytelling. It is the creation myth for the scientific age, beautifully explained and endlessly engaging. It is amazing to listen to the language that Hawking uses to explain his theory, because it sounds remarkably similar to the language that is often used to describe religious beliefs and other creation myths from around the world. In place of “god,” the “laws of nature” is repeated often enough as the ultimate explanation. For Hawking, science has become his religion and nature is his god.

To be continued.