Science & Spirit: Did Our Universe Evolve?
Did Our Universe Evolve?
Science & Spirit Explores the Origin of the Cosmos
QUINCY, MA — (MARKET WIRE) — January 15, 2007 — Is our universe the product of random encountersand mutations in a cosmos bursting with chemicals? Modern science, saysGeorge
V. Coyne, S.J., director emeritus of the Vatican Observatory, has”revealed a cosmos that is shaped by the interaction of chance, necessity,and opportunity.” To understand this universe, science and religion mustboth play a role, he believes — challenging one another while stayingwithin the boundaries of their given discipline: How life originated is ascientific question, he says, while theology accounts for why there issomething rather than nothing.
But what about where life originated? “For many physicists,” writes WilliamOrem, “it’s hard to talk about the laws of nature without acknowledging thefact that they are precisely what is needed to make the universe capable ofproducing life in the first place.” Orem, who writes for NPR’s “A Moment ofScience,” traces the strengths and shortcomings of the “anthropicprinciple,” which postulates that the universe is fine-tuned for life, and”string theory,” which posits parallel universes and extra dimensions.While string theory “has yet to be experimentally tested or falsified,”Orem explains, “there are a great many who believe it has features ofmathematical interest, which may be key to someday solving some of thedeepest mysteries of the universe.”
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Orem also interviews Max Tegmark, an associate professor of physics at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology and scientific director of FQXi, theFoundational Questions Institute. Tegmark, famous for cutting-edge researchprobing the origin of the cosmos, hopes FQXi will help to legitimizefrontier science that otherwise might not get funded. “Maybe,” he says, “wehumans can actually talk sensibly about the universe as a whole and howthings might have begun 14 billion years ago.”
The current issue of Science & Spirit also features:
-- A look at how baby boomers are reinventing retirement-- The costs -- physical, emotional, and financial -- of America's sleep deprivation epidemic-- Recent research that suggests early humans and chimpanzees interbred, and the potential of future hybrids-- A roundup of books on ethical eating and the moral quandaries behind our food choices Science & Spirit is published six times a year by Heldref Publications. Itis sold on newsstands and by subscription, and can be viewed online atwww.science-spirit.org.
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