Science, God and the Unimportant Chasm in Between.

Hi there, beautiful people and welcome to the blissful month that is June. I know it has been quite a while since I last shared any content on my blog. Be that as it may, I hope this meets you all in good health and joy. As for me, I have had a pleasant couple of months during which I got to thinking about life in general and what the future brings in particular. ‘Death,’ I thought, ‘…is the only certain thing I know the future brings.’ ‘But where do we go when we die?’ the latter led my mind through a cascade of unusual thoughts that inspired this post. Of course, coupled with the fact that often times, there seems to be a gulf between what science teaches and what our religious beliefs are. I would like to hear your thoughts on the issue too. Feel free to use the comment section to argue your points, and amicably too.

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics give us an immense amount of insight and understanding on how many things in the world works. They also combine randomly and in countless arrays, their individual resources to make things in the world work. However, it is without any iota of doubt that there still remains a vastness of conundrums and mysteries.

Through the advancement of time, the sum total of human knowledge has escalated in progressions that are well beyond arithmetic. This knowledge doubles roughly every couple of years, maybe even less. It was in a heated argument, the aftermath of igniting our foliage, that I first heard that birds originated from a certain species of winged dinosaurs Archaeopteryx.

Apparently, a combination of data from fossils (majority of which were discovered in China, South-America and some other countries), numerical analyses, genealogies and living species have seemingly been effectively implemented to study how entirely new body plans and behaviors originate, and how distinguished living groups achieved their diversity over several hundreds of millions of years of evolution. This concept of evolution, as well as radiometric dating or radioactive dating (a technique used to date materials such as rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurities were selectively incorporated when they were formed), shows that the earth is in fact billions, not millions nor thousands of years old as would have been the case dating back to the time when a know-it-all spirit-being declared light upon the face of our then void and formless earth.

^{image from pixabay under CCO license}

Human beings, we are smart! When faced with certain occurrences that we find too difficult to understand, we are often too quick to associate such an occurrence to spirituality, or an act of God. Often times, we may be wrong to associate these occurrences to the deed of a deity of some sort. A very typical example is ‘drought’ (which may be caused by a number of possible reasons such as air circulation and weather patterns, soil moisture levels, high rate of evaporation as a result of high land and water temperatures amongst other possible causes), as against a form of comeuppance meted out by a deity for wrong doing which was a popular belief in the time of old in these parts. Science tries to always bring about logic and reason to such an occurrence by exploring possible causes and effects.

I was feeling totally gutted to learn that some communities still engage in the barbaric practice of rejecting, and even killing multiple births, especially twins on the ultra-myopic pretext that these infants are mysterious, evil and a bad omen. But of course, whether one zygote splits to form two embryos, as is the case with ‘identical or monozygotic’ twins, or each egg is fertilized by its own sperm cell, as with ‘fraternal or dizygotic’ twins, the science of the formation of twins vividly disproves that such an occurrence is a curse or an act of God, but instead, is one of the possible outcomes that can ensue when a man and woman engage in coital relations.

Since the age of modern man began several hundred thousand years ago, the world has seen a furtherance of technological innovation and ingenuity ranging from pristine developments such as the wheel and paper to today's high-tech and elaborate gadgets that would blow the mind of any neanderthal, there is assuredly no shortfall of thrilling inventions that have completely altered our manner of living and working. Starting out as novelties, some of these inventions have become imperative to our daily living. It is highly overwhelming. However, to spare the blushes of many devout followers of Christianity, Science has not been able to disprove the existence of an Almighty deity – GOD.

On the same night that we argued, a dear friend of mine suggested that earth must have been formed by mistake, and hence its being different from other planets across the Milky Way. What an exquisite mistake! I thought to myself. Of course, he was being his usual silly self, still, he needed some convincing that a mistake was most unlikely to have been how this big beautiful earth was formed. For one, if not the most suitable reason, is the fact that the earth is a privileged space with a balanced diet of all the ingredients that supports life. In fact, it is statistically impossible and highly unreasonable to think that the earth was created by chance.

Liquid water: The earth has just the right amount of water, not too much and not too little that it risks human survival. The atmospheric pressure is just right for liquid water at earth’s
surface.

“No one knows why Earth has the exact amount of water it does, which is relatively small considering that water molecules outnumber silicate molecules in the galaxy.” "The Earth is remarkable for its precisely-tuned amount of water, not too much to cover the mountains, and not so little that it's a dry desert, as are Mars and Venus, our 'sister' planets," - Geoffrey Marcy, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley
Location. Source

The oceans on Earth have managed to remain liquid while those on other planets freeze or fry. Why? Apparently, because the earth is situated at an ideal position where it gets just enough energy from the sun and does not get frozen by the moon.

"Many details as to why Earth is the only planet with liquid water in our solar system need to be worked out, Certainly the distance to the sun has made it possible.”
-Diana Valencia, graduate of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. Source

Size: Believe it or not, the size of the earth is ideal. If it were smaller, it wouldn't have been able to hold on to our precious atmosphere, also if it were larger, it might be too hot for life.

Moon: The rotation of the earth is stabilized by the moon. The moon achieves this by preventing drastic movements of the earth’s poles which could lead to severe climate change which at some point, could have spelt doom for budding life to form or evolve.

Tectonic plates: Tectonic plates and water are inseparably linked. The earth’s lithosphere (composed of the crust and parts of the uppermost mantle) is divided into tectonic plates. These plates enable water to exist in liquid form by regulating the temperature. Also, water allows for tectonic plates to occur as argued by many scientists.

"Water is what lubricates tectonic plates, which is what leads to the extreme difference between continents and seafloors, the large amount of earthquakes and volcanoes, fresh mountain-building. Venus has no water, no plate tectonics, no deep-sea floor, no steep mountains, no continents, probably few earthquakes or volcanoes. A much less geologically interesting place!" - Mike Brown, the discoverer of “Eris”. Source

^{image from Flickr released to public domain}

Fun Fact: the mantle and core are innermost parts of the earth and are often used interchangeably.
However, the striking difference between them both are the nature of materials they are composed of and the state of the materials. The core consists of iron and nickel which exist as solid while the mantle consists of silicates and is viscous.

It is easy to see that the earth was carefully and specially designed to support life. More appropriately, intelligent life (humanity). It is also worthy to note that till date, till this very microsecond, which have found you reading through this post, life has not been found anywhere else. This begs the big question

WHO DESIGNED THE EARTH??

The earth was designed to support life. Logically, whoever put together this perfect earth must have also created the life that thrives within it. Life in itself is so incredibly complex and vast that countless number of people have made it their lives’ work to study it.

Take for instance, the tiniest particle of matter which is unthinkably elaborate, requires leaves and leaves of remarkably advanced mathematics to describe their quantum-mechanical behavior. And that is just a constituent for perhaps the most simple-looking element of nature. Or is it the way protons and neutrons have their masses, charges, and forces of interaction set so precisely that they attract electrons in just the exactly needed amount to form atoms that combine in just the perfect array of proportions to give rise to elements that are essential for life? I probably shouldn’t delve into the concept of DNA, which carry genetic instructions for growth, development, functioning and reproduction of virtually all known living organisms. Or maybe I should.

The human genome has about 25,000 genes or thereabouts. That’s only one human. The best scientists have been able to come up with is to redesign the genome of a bacterium of about 473 genes (to the best of my knowledge). There’s no telling what science can achieve as far as creating life is concerned, especially with the advent of "Synthetic Biology.” But I can boldly say that the results cannot replicate living organisms, only imitate them. I doubt science has been able to create life from the scratch or from non-life. Artificial intelligence is not human intelligence!

Science is great, technology is awesome…but they haven’t given us any proper insight as to how the first ever life-form came to exist on our world and how consistently, there is an adjustment of the parameters that supports the continuity of life here. How did humans become self-aware? How did we adapt to the constant use of symbolic thinking? How did we come to grasp the secrets of science, literature, medicine, architecture, business, engineering? What enabled Leonardo Da Vinci to create genius works of art, or Michael Jackson to continuously thrill us with his beautiful music and mesmeric dance moves? The Burj Al Arab, the third tallest hotel in the world, was designed to sit atop water. Where did all that knowledge originate from? How did consciousness arise in humans? All these mysteries still remain unanswered by science. Whether a satisfactory explanation will come one day or not, no one knows. Although, I strongly doubt. How is it at all possible that everything came into being with such balance and systemization without the input of some mystic force or an inherent prolific godhead we term God?
Science and God, the truth and the lie? advocates or adversaries?

I would conclude with these excerpts from two of my most helpful references

“I implore you: don’t let your faith, whatever it may be, close you off to the joys and wonders of the natural world. The joys of knowing — of figuring out the answers to questions for ourselves — is one that none of us should be cheated out of.” - Ethan Siegel (Can Science Prove the Existence Of God?)
Source

“Science and religion are two sides of the same deep human impulse to understand the world, to know our place in it, and to marvel at the wonder of life and the infinite cosmos we are surrounded by. Let’s keep them that way, and not let one attempt to usurp the role of the other.” - Amel D. Aczel (Why Science Does Not Disprove God.) Source

SOURCES.