Speaking as an astronomer I find the current Big Bang "standard model" to be
a satisfying fit to the observations we have obtained so far. We see a
tiniest seedling of spacetime balloon in an instant into a universe far
larger than we can hope ever to observe. We see it fill instantaneously and
everywhere with light and particles. We see it expand and cool and give
birth to numberless galaxies of stars. And we see stars explode and seed the
atoms of life throughout the galaxies. We see our own Sun and planet form,
single-celled life jumping into formation soon after our Earth enshawls
itself with cool oceans. We see life enriching the air with oxygen,
multicelled organisms growing, cosmic impacts rupturing and stirring the mix
of life forms. Out of it all a simian consciousness brews forth language and
tools, music and art, telescopes and relativity -- and at last a "standard
model" of the universe.
Some think we have thus "explained" the universe with our magic show of
knowledge. But far from "explaining" it or the emergence of life and
consciousness, our model reveals a process so vast, so complex, and so
startling in its configurations that we can only marvel at the radical
mystery of it glimpsed at every turn and at every scale -- from the "dancing
point" electrons to expanses of space beyond our ability to measure. Our
finest equations and models we fling across the face of this Great Mystery
(as Native Americans prefer to call it). Yet ultimately our equations only
deepen the mystery, for they cry to us, "Why do the fundamental interplays
of energy and mass and space and time happen as they do and not some other
way? What keeps them the same through vast times? Why are the 'commonplace'
but inconceivably complex architectures of particles that make us up even
possible at all? From what could that primordial seedling of spacetime have
sprung? If we were to know whence it came, then from what did that spring?"
As I see it, we've been given two great "texts" that explore the
deepest of mysteries -- the Bible, and the observable universe. Our task --
at least the one I'm interested in -- is to make sense of both, using all
the tools at our command. One clearly requires evolution. Both require God.
Hope this helps.
George Fisher
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George W. Fisher, Professor of Geology
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Johns Hopkins University Baltimore MD 21218
Phone: 410-516-7237 FAX: 410-516-7933
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