Science and Theology

FROM DENIAL TO BELIEF IN GOD one of them, and the result would be lethal. To see the problem, imagine playing God with the cosmos. Before you is a designer machine that lets you tinker with the basics of physics. Twiddle this knob, and you make all electrons a bit lighter; twiddle that one, and you make gravity a bit stronger, and so on. It happens that you need to set 30-something knobs to describe the world about us fully. The point is that some of those metaphorical knobs must be tuned precisely, or the universe would be sterile. For example, neutrons are just a tad heavier than protons. If it were the other way around, atoms could not exist because all the protons in the universe would have decayed into neutrons shortly after the Big Bang. There are no protons, then no atomic nuclei, and no atoms. No atoms, no chemistry, no life. Like Baby Bear’s porridge in the story of Goldilocks, the universe seems just right for life. So what’s going on? Fueling the controversy is an unanswered question lurking at the heart of science—the origin of the laws of physics. Where do they come from? Why do they have the form that they do? Traditionally, scientists have treated the laws of physics as “given,” elegant mathematical relationships that were somehow imprinted on the universe at its birth and fixed after that. Inquiry into the origin and nature of the laws was not regarded as a proper part of science. Illusory Impression But the embarrassment of the Goldilocks enigma has prompted a rethink. The Cambridge cosmologist Martin Rees, president of ‘The Royal Society,’ suggests