God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor J. Stenger

Author:Victor J. Stenger
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: Atheism, Religion, &NEW, God
Published: 2011-06-27T01:29:00+00:00

150 GOD: THE FAILED HYPOTHESIS

for carbon production by only 20 percent.27 Nobel laureate

physicist Steven Weinberg has noted that this "is not such a close call after all."28

The chemical elements carbon and oxygen are among the eas-

iest to produce in the nuclear reactions that take place in dying stars. The main energy source in stars is the fusion of hydrogen into helium. The helium nucleus, composed of two protons and

two neutrons and symbolized by 2He4, is highly stable—as pre-

dicted by the rules of quantum mechanics.29 Two helium nuclei

can fuse to give a beryllium nucleus,

2He4 + 2He4 4Be8

Another helium then can fuse with the beryllium to produce

carbon,

2He4 + 4Be8 6C12

And yet another helium can fuse with the carbon to give oxygen,

2He4 + 6C12 8O16

Each of these product nuclei is also very stable and so will survive indefinitely. When the star finally runs out of energy these elements among others in the periodic table, especially iron, are distributed into the space between stars, either by evaporation or, in the case of very massive stars, enormous explosions called supernovae.30

In short, no fine-tuning is necessary for the production of

carbon, oxygen, and the other basic elements of life. They are in fact the elements that are among the easiest to form by common

nuclear reactions.

So, too, are the molecular ingredients of life easy to produce.

In a remarkably simple experiment in 1952, which took only

weeks to assemble, graduate student Stanley Miller, working

THE UNCONGENIAL UNIVERSE 151

under the renowned chemist Harold Urey, sent a 60,000-volt

electrical spark, simulating lightning, through a flask containing a gas of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water vapor. At the

time, this was thought to simulate the atmosphere of early Earth.

The by-product contained amino acids, the basic chemical sub-

unit of proteins, and other raw materials of life.31

We now know that Miller's gas mixture did not accurately rep-

resent the Earth's atmosphere at the likely time that life originated. Some theists have seized on this to dismiss the importance of the experiment.32 But, they miss the point, which is that the complex, carbon-based molecules that occur in living matter can

be readily produced by chemical reactions involving simpler sub-

stances. This is another example of how simplicity can beget

complexity, contrary to the claims of creationists.

Astrobiologists have now demonstrated that organic mole-

cules occur under a wide range of conditions, including those

that existed on the early Earth and those existing in space. Space origins are confirmed by the observation of these molecules in

meteorites analyzed immediately after striking Earth so that

effects of contamination by earthly matter are minimal. Perhaps

the first ingredients of life came from space after Earth formed.33

IS T H E V A C U U M ENERGY FINE-TUNED?

Next, let us examine the claim that the vacuum energy of the universe is fine-tuned. Normally we think of the vacuum as being

empty of matter and energy. However, according to general rela-

tivity, gravitational energy can be stored in the curvature of empty space. Furthermore, quantum mechanics implies that a vacuum

could contain a minimum zero-point energy.

Weinberg referred to this as the cosmological constant problem, since any vacuum

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