Science vs creation. Evolution vs Creation, who's right?

Question

Why does the universe seem so fine-tuned for the emergence of life, including intelligent life capable of asking that "why" question? Believers say that God did it, while evolutionists and science are trying to come up with complicated extradimensional multiverse theories to explain our lucky break. The laws of physics just happen to permit life, is no explanation. The attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God sees the universe marvelously aqrranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. I'm not trying to change your views here, I'm just posting a question for you to put forth an answer whatever it might be.

Answer 1

Back in 7th grade I had a teacher that suggested that it is a little bit of both. God (Prime Mover) more or less nudged things along and let time and nature do the rest.

Answer 2

Complicated extradimensional and multiverse ideas have nothing to do with the origin of life or evolution. What we know is that complex molecules can form spontaneously, given conditions which are similar to those on early earth. Debate has been ongoing and very open for the last couple of decades to determine the process by which the first self-replicating molecules came into existence. So far there seems to be no major reason for challenging the possibility of this natural process.
Evolution occurred because of natural selection and a huge, huge amount of time. All is in accordance with the laws of physics and what we have learned about bio-chemistry. It is natural to wonder at the complexity and diversity of life and only human to feel that it had to be the result of a conscious process, but it has been demonstrated quite thoroughly that it can, and did, occur naturally. It was a process that was both non-intelligent and non-random.
Christine, I don't think your "Living Sustainably" professor would get much agreement from the science department. Creationism is wrong. Plain and simple. And concerning the time differences between the scientific and creationist views, the creationists are breathtakingly wrong. NOTHING about creationism compliments or supplements the scientific view. Sorry, but your prof is a fence-sitting apologist for creationism who believes that everything is negotiable. He doesn't seem to know either view very well, judging by what he said. Wonderful? Maybe. Knowledgeable in this field? Doubtful.

Answer 3

I saw a real interesting TV program about a tribe of people in Indonesia who spend almost all their time in the water. They have gigantic lung capacity, they can dive and hold their breath about twice as long as an average human being. For their lifestyle, being able to hold the breath a long time is a key to survival, so over the generations the genes that have been passed on have been those that favor large lungs. That is natural selection. That is among our species, human beings. You can see unnatural selection every day at a nursery or a pet shop. It is not a very difficult concept. All "Evolution Of The Species" was about was how the species developed once life began--Charles Darwin never considered himself anything other than a Christian believer, he never doubted the divine creation of life by God.

The best point that religious advocates have is, as you said, the remarkable coincidence that the laws of physics happen to support life. But this is not whats in the Bible. The Bible does not discuss the laws of physics. A literal reading shows the world to be only 6000 years old, and that is absurd. If one can interpret 6000 years to be the 4 billion years that science says it is, one is being absurdly, ridiculously intellectually dishonest. So the Bible was a nice try, but its no accurate guide to scientific reality. The real scientific and spiritual truth seems yet to be discovered. The Bible isn't it, however.

Answer 4

The universe isn't fine tuned for life at all - out of all 3 appropriately positioned planets in our solar system, only 1, Earth, currently supports life while 1 may have sustained simple life briefly before it's atmosphere wasted away, Mars, and the other has atmosphere so thick its surface reaches temperatures over boiling point. If the universe was finely tuned by some intelligent entity then what possible purpose do planets without life fullfill?

Why can't you people just accept that, under the right conditions, living matter is naturally occuring and if it uses a flawed information store such as DNA/RNA then it is subject to mutation and natural selection: evolution.

Answer 5

1) If the universe would not support life, you wouldn't be around to ask why not.

2) Just because an answer is simple doesn't mean it's anywhere near correct.

3) There are plenty of explanations. Some are just kind of complicated. That's how it works. Not everything is simple.

4) There's no evidence for god. We may have gotten lucky with this universe, but maybe that's also the only way things could have been. We just don't know enough yet - but we will someday.

Answer 6

I saw a real interesting TV program about a tribe of people in Indonesia who spend almost all their time in the water. They have gigantic lung capacity, they can dive and hold their breath about twice as long as an average human being. For their lifestyle, being able to hold the breath a long time is a key to survival, so over the generations the genes that have been passed on have been those that favor large lungs. That is natural selection. That is among our species, human beings. You can see unnatural selection every day at a nursery or a pet shop. It is not a very difficult concept. All "Evolution Of The Species" was about was how the species developed once life began--Charles Darwin never considered himself anything other than a Christian believer, he never doubted the divine creation of life by God.

The best point that religious advocates have is, as you said, the remarkable coincidence that the laws of physics happen to support life. But this is not whats in the Bible. The Bible does not discuss the laws of physics. A literal reading shows the world to be only 6000 years old, and that is absurd. If one can interpret 6000 years to be the 4 billion years that science says it is, one is being absurdly, ridiculously intellectually dishonest. So the Bible was a nice try, but its no accurate guide to scientific reality. The real scientific and spiritual truth seems yet to be discovered. The Bible isn't it, however.

Answer 7

The answer is often referred to as the anthropic answer; i.e., we are only around to ask such a question because the certain physical laws permit the expansion of the universe and the clumping together of hydrogen atoms to form a sun powered by nuclear fusion.

However, some mathematics which do describe astrophysical phenomena also predict the existence of other universes, many of which may not operate by our physical laws. By this accounting, if there were a near infinite number of universes which vary in physical constants, then surely it is not unreasonable that at least one would have physical laws that permit the existence of a cosmos such as ours.

Once we move beyond such physical constants as the strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity, etc., nothing else in our universe seems like an intelligent plan. As far as debates of evolution vs. creation, take for instance that curious primate, H. sapiens. Less than 2% of the genomic sequences in his genome are involved in protein construction (genes). The rest of the genome is a landscape of "fossil genes," genetic remnants from ancestral forms which have been deactivated. It looks like something you would expect from the clumsy hand of natural selection rather than any kind of intelligent design.

Answer 8

In order to decide Science vs. creation, you have to have a question. Are you asking for the proof of God and that the order of the Universe is evidence for it? If so, I would agree. But in this argument, science gives us the evidence we need to prove that god exists, not something you call 'creation'. However, neither science nor 'creation' tells us much about what exactly God is.

The fact you say science 'is no explanation' is because science is not really concerned with higher order religious questions such as why does life exist and so on. If gives us a great explanation from point A to point B, but that is all.

I am bothered a lot by your use of the word creation. Creation implies the Bible, and the Bible is stupid.

Answer 9

great, another question on evolution vs creation...

Hadn't seen one in a while ! (no, just kidding, had one yesterday too)

Are you expecting a real answer to your question? are you expecting someone to come forth with an unbiaised answer AND proof that his answer is correct? Is an explanation of your existence absolutely necessary for you to live your life fully?

Of course not.

However, I'm posting this answer to aknolegde something you said in your question.
The laws of physics (which are not "laws", but a modelisation of what we SEE in the world) happen to permit life. It's good to know that, since if it didn't, then our scientists would be real idiots.
So yes, science doesn't provide a "why", because from science's point of view, there is no "why" to be provided.


Now, something else I'd like to point out :
Science is defined as a bunch of theories put together, while "god" or religion, is defined as a bunch of beliefs put together.
If one theory in science is false, science finds another one to patch up the hole. If science finds out its own theories were false, then it changes to include the new information and aknoledges that it had been wrong until then. If it finds itself wrong, it ADAPTS
However, a bunch of beliefs CANNOT adapt. If a religion finds itself wrong, it should die. In the middle ages, the Pope always said that the world was flat, and that earth was in the middle of the universe. Now we KNOW that it's not the case. Therefore, that particular religion should have died.

Well, I'm digressing a bit, aren't I?

Well, to come back to your question : there is NO answer. One of the 2 might be right, or none at all. It might have been something else entirely, or maybe life only started last year and all our memory were implanted. Maybe we're all part of the matrix and feeding machines with our body heat (that part of the movie goes against the rules of thermodinamics, by the way). Who knows? certainly not me. I'm like plato : chained in a cave, and I can only see what happens outside the cave by watching the shadows moving on the wall in front of me.
Yes, still digressing, I know. I'm saying that we cannot know which is right or IF either one is right since none of us was there when it happenned.
BUT : 1) science doesn't say that it happenned like that, it only says that it could have happenned like that, and that it probably happenned like that (evolutionist theory)
2) Creationalists are Believers who say it happened like that (even if they don't know, as I just prooved) because they believe. Therefore it necessarily hapened as they believed (isn't there something fondamentally flawed in this logic?)

Therefore, I would recommend trusting those who use logic instead of only their beliefs before stating something like that. For my part, I believe in the evolutionist theory. Not because I believe in it, but because it "seems more logical". But you will NEVER hear me state outright that evolution is the way it happened. And anyone who pretends to KNOW (one way or another) is an idiot.

Answer 10

Farin3 has the right answer. Life in the universe is very rare, so all you can say is life is possible, but the universe is definitely not fine tuned for life.
To put it another way, if God designed the universe he certainly could have made it a lot more inhabitable.

Answer 11

Excuse me, but "the laws of physics just happen to p[ermit life" *is* the explanation. If they didn't we wouldn't be here to ask about it!

How, in contrast, does saying "god did it" explain anything at all?? This is the emptiest of mere assertions, and until you have a rigorus and testable theory of the origin of god you are talking through your hat and wasting everybody's time.

Scientists actually do have hypotheses (not yet theories) of how universes come into being, and because you find them incomprehensible does not mean they are worthless.

It is truly pathetic how believers think they should be put on an equal footing with scientists!