Scientific Theories and Laws

Some of my Christian brothers and sisters are skeptical of certain scientific theories that they believe somehow challenge the authority or veracity of the Bible. In my previous blog post, I quoted one Christian writer who doubted the scientific theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory that describes the strong force that holds quarks together in neutrons and protons and ultimately holds the nucleus together. I stated that "QCD is a complex and tested mathematical theory that describes the strong nuclear force, or simply the strong force" and further remarked that my defense of QCD brings up an additional question of "What do scientists mean when they say that a theory is correct, or accurately describes a phenomena?" I will address questions of this type in this blog post.

The Strong Force and Colossians 1:17

When I was in elementary school I went to Cedar Lake Camp in north-central Tennessee every summer. It was an awesome experience where I learned to handle a canoe, shoot rifles and bows, play tennis, do woodworking, and many more things. Maybe the best part was that I could buy chocolate soda for a dime. Cedar Lake was a Christian camp where Christian principles from the Bible were discussed. I vividly remember one lesson that was given by my camp counselor because it had to do with science and I was interested in science even as a kid. The counselor stated that the nucleus of an atom is made of neutrons and protons. He further explained that the protons all had a positive electric charge and that electric charges with the same sign repelled each other. He reasoned that because all the positive protons in the nucleus repelled each other the nucleus should be unstable, flying apart due to this strong repulsive force. But the nucleus doesn't do that. It doesn't fly apart. He claimed there was no explanation for this stable nucleus except the explanation given in the New Testament in Colossians 1:17 where the Apostle Paul writes, "He [Jesus] is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (NIV). The mystery of why the nucleus doesn't fly apart was solved: Jesus held it together. The counselor seemed to be implying that the laws of physics could not explain the stability of the nucleus but that Jesus supernaturally held the nucleus together.

This counselor is not the only one who has interpreted Colossians 1:17 in this manner. I get more emails and letters from people asking me about this verse in the Bible than any other verse. One reader recently quoted an article in an issue of Decision magazine that said, "Science can’t explain the forces that hold an atomic nucleus together—the protons and neutrons should repel each other but don’t. ...Physicists for years have toyed with the quantum chromodynamics theory, the notion that particles are bound with a sort of atomic glue. Jesus Christ is the real powder behind gravity, centrifugal and centripetal force."¹ 

It is ironic that I remember that incident from my childhood and now as an adult I have spent over 25 years studying the structure of the proton—what it is made of and what holds it together, including how protons are held together in the nucleus. Part of the irony is that I don't know of any conscious connection between what I heard at camp and the later decisions I made in life to become a particle physicist. The latter was simply a result of following my scientific interests.

An Introduction to the Anthropic Principle and Fine Tuning

Most of the readers of this blog have probably heard about the anthropic principle and the fine-tuning of the universe.  However, because future posts will discuss the ramifications and speculations about fine-tuning, I thought it would be prudent to give a brief overview of these topics. Although not identical, the anthropic principle and the fine-tuning are definitely related.

The anthropic principle takes different forms, but is basically the idea that the universe has the necessary conditions for the existence of any conscious being that is able to observe the universe.  These conditions could, in principle, be very narrow or very broad in their scope. Many of the observations about the anthropic nature of our universe were developed beginning in the 1960's and continue to this day. Perhaps the most definitive book on the subject was written in 1986 by John Barrow and Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. The authors actually develop four anthropic principles with the first one, the Weak Anthropic Principle, being the most well known and uncontroversial principle, "The observed values of all physical and cosmological quantities are not equally probable but they take on values restricted by the requirement that there exist sites where carbon-based life can evolve and by the requirements that the universe be old enough for it to have already done so"¹

Although the parameters required for life to exist could, in theory, span a large or small range, it turns out that many of the parameters necessary for life to exist in our universe must fall within a very narrow region, or the universe would either not exist or not be able to support life. The fact that the conditions for life fall into such a narrow range, plus the many incredible mechanisms that give rise to the needed building blocks of life, constitute the fine-tuning of the universe.

I liken the finely-tuned universe to a panel that controls the parameters of the universe with about 100 knobs that can be set to certain values. If you turn any knob just a little to the right or to the left the result is either a universe that is inhospitable to life or no universe at all.