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What
Spokesmen
for
Science
Are
NOT
TELLING
by
William Stenger
The universe: evidence for evolut ion, or the handiwork
of a Creator ? A new study resolves the enigma!
1
s
BELI EF
in a living in telli–
gent Creator
unscientific?
l s the scientific method
the only way to view reality?
The existence of a Creator is gen–
erally viewed by spokesmen for the
scientific establishment as incom–
patible with objective reasoning and
the scientific method. What guaran–
tee, if there is a Crcator, do we have
that we are not dupes of "cosmic
practica! jokes" such as being placed
in a young universe "created with an
appearance of age"?
Has that Someone gone to a lot
of troublc to produce fossils, even
with worn-down teeth and arthritic
joints, in arder to trick us humans
into thinking we evolved? Would a
superior Bcing continually meddle
June
1984
with the laws of natu re, thereby
confounding the results of scien–
tific experiments and making such
results meaningless? These qucs–
tions demand answers.
Was There a Beginning?
Modern science has made many
amazing discoveries about our uní–
verse. T hese are nearly always pre–
sented to the layman in the language
of evolution. But do these discoveries
genuinely support evolution-or the
opposite conclusion? J ust what
should we conclude from the evi–
dence of scientific investigation?
T he origin of the universe has
been debated by astronomers, phys–
icists, philosophers and theologians
for centu ries. Has the universe
always existed? Oíd it come into
existence at sorne definite time in
the past? Many theories- theologi–
cal and scientific- have been pro–
posed and. then discarded as new
discoveries were made. In recent
times, one theory-the big bang
theory- has come to be accepted
by many scientists as more consis–
tent with the data than any other.
The big bang theory propases that
the cntire universe exploded into
existence in an instant of time. Phys–
icists now claim to be able to project
backward into the past to within one
billion billion billion billionth of a
second of the big bang
(Science
Digest.
May 1981 ). Using known
laws of physics, they
theoretically
tell what conditions would have been
like within such a small time unit
immediately after tbe big bang.
To accept the big bang theory,
one has to believe that the entire
universe carne into existencc sud–
denly and dramatically in an infin–
itesimally microscopic moment of
time. Does that sound like the slow,
gradual unfolding of evolutionary
processes?
A
few things bother scientists
about the big bang theory. On the
one band, they observe inexplicable
uniformity on the large scale, but, on
the other hand, "clumpiness" on thc
small scale. There is also something
they cal! "flatness" of the universe
that requires special initial condi–
tions. Moreover, the occurrence of
the big bang itself seems to violate
known physical laws.
In puzzling over these problems,
scientists use expressions such as,
"Someone had to time it very prc–
cisely," "The conditions of the uní–
verse were specially arrangcd," and
" How did the universe manage to go
'bang' in such an improbable way? "
(Science News,
September 3,
1983).
So, the origin of the universc
could not possibly be the result of a
cosmological pipe bomb that some–
how produced itself and just blcw
u
p.
l s there an explanation that
agrees with the data? There is! The
real big bang was a well-planned,
deliberatély executed act of
CRE–
ATION! How would you expcct a
superpowerful divine Being to
bring forth an entire universe?
With a small fizzle, a limp thud or
a weak whimper? Of course not!
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