Is there any intelligent design in the universe? book 1 chap 2

The Principles of Nature
and its ethical implications

1. Different models or metaphors
about the origin and evolution of
the universe throughout history
2. Evidences of the existence of a
project or intelligent design in the
universe
CHAPTER 2 IS THERE ANY INTELLIGENT DESIGN OR PROJECT
BEHIND THE PROCESS OF FORMATION AND
EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE?

 The metaphor of
procreation
 The geological and
atomistic model
 The metaphor of the artisan
 The model of emanation
 The metaphysics of light
 Modern mechanicism
DIFFERENT MODELS OR METAPHORS ABOUT THE ORIGIN AND
EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE THROUGHOUT HISTORY
 Materialist mechanicism
 Evolutionary mechanicism
 The Big BangTheory
 The principle of objectivity
and the limitation of
science
 The dogma of the
exclusion of design and
intentional ends

The metaphor of procreation
The geological and atomistic model
The metaphor of the artisan
The mythological progenitors
The Logos or creative fire of Heraclitus
The water ofThales
The air of Anaximenes
The atoms of Democritus and Lucretius
The God mathematician of Pythagoras
The ordering intelligence of Socrates
The Platonic Demiurge (artisan)
The supreme form or God and the prime
matter in Aristotle

The oldest model may be the one
that uses the metaphor of human
procreation.
Almost all mythologies tell stories of
lineages of ancestors, kings and
queens, gods and goddesses, primal
fathers and mothers who bore not only
the human race but also the whole of
nature.
Thus, they believed that Heaven was
the father who, with rain, inseminated
and vivified Mother Earth, or that
Father Sun gave life to all living
creatures with their rays.
Later, in reaction to this crude
anthropomorphism and the proliferation of sagas
of primal fathers, heroes or gods, thinkers tended
toward a monistic view of the origin of the
universe, reconverting some of those ancient gods
into more impersonal and abstract principles.
For example, the One of Xenophanes, the
spherical Being of Parmenides, the Logos or
creative fire of Heraclitus, the Hindu Absolute
Brahman, and the ChineseTao and Heaven. In
general, according to these models, nature was
originated by a immanent first cause through a
natural process of procreation, emanation or
spontaneous generation.
The metaphor of procreation

The first Ionian physicists, with a panpsychist
view of matter and starting from the classical
four elements, water, air, earth and fire,
elaborated diverse theories about the primitive
element from which all things come out and to
which they are reduced.
They used for the first time physical or
geological explanations. For example,
Anaximenes said that air —the original element
according to him— by heating is rarified and
converted to fire, and when cooled, it
condenses and turns into water, and when
condensed further into the earth.They also
explained the nature of stars and other natural
phenomena such as lightning, thunder and
earthquakes, through fires, vapors, winds,
whirlpools and vortices.
I designate this second type of explanation as
geological model rather than natural model, since
procreation —used as a metaphor in the previous
model— is as natural as vapors or winds.
Within this model can be included Democritus
atomism.According to the later metaphor of
Lucretius, the world is composed of atoms that flutter
and group at random by colliding with each other in an
empty space, like particles of dust that float in the air
at random easily observable when a ray of sun comes
into a dark room.
The characteristics of this geological model are its
material monism and the belief that the world was
originated by chance, fortuitous accidents, or by a
concatenation of immediate and physical causes such
as warming, cooling, eddies and shocks.
The geological and atomistic model

Another model that tried to explain the origin
and formation of the universe is the one that uses
the metaphor of the artisan, or the variants of the
architect, geometer and mathematicianGod.
Perhaps the oldest is the biblical metaphor of the
potter God who modeled man with clay.
Pythagoras asserted that the primordial
element from which all things came was numbers,
and that proportions or numerical reasons were
the ultimate essence of things.Therefore, he
believed that all beings and things are made of
numbers or units, which are both geometric points
and extensive units.This type of vision gave rise to
the belief in a geometer and mathematicianGod
who had constructed a cosmos ordered by
numerical reasons.
Socrates distinguished between random
things that had no apparent purpose or
utility and things made by artisans, which
were indeed made for an end and had an
obvious utility.The former were fruits of
chance and the latter were works of an
intelligence.
Thus, in observing nature, and in particular
the form of the human body, its organs, and
its disposition in the body, Socrates came to
the conclusion that, in the face of the
evidence that the organs fulfill a certain
function or utility, they were the work of an
ordering intelligence that had made them for
a purpose.
The metaphor of the artisan

«Besides that, does not seem to
you the work of providence that the
sight being somewhat delicate has
been closed with eyelids, which open
when you have to use it, while they
are closed during sleep? And that, so
that the winds do not damage it, they
have been implanted like a sieve the
eyelashes? And they have flanging
with eyebrows the top of the eyes, so
that even the sweat from his
forehead the harm? (…)
And that the mouth, by which animals
command inside as much as they desire, is
placed close to the eyes and nose, and
instead, as the excrements repugn us have
diverted their ducts and carried them as far
as possible from the senses?
I ask you, when you see all these things
constructed with such show of foresight
can you doubt whether they are products
of chance or intelligence?»
Jenofonte, Recuerdos de Sócrates, Gredos,
Madrid, 1993, pp. 46-47.
The intelligent designer of Socrates

«When I was a young man, I wanted to know
that which is called the research of nature. (...)
And one day I heard someone say while reading a
book, of Anaxagoras, as he said, that it is the
mind that puts everything in order and the cause
of all things.
I rejoiced over this cause and it seemed to me
that, in a way, it was an advantage that the mind
was the cause of all things. I thought that if that
were so, the ordering intelligence would
command and place each and every thing in the
best place for them. (...)
With great diligence I took the books
and read them as quickly as I could.
But I abandoned at once my wonderful
hope, O my friend! As I advanced in
reading, I saw that my man used the
mind for nothing, nor charged the
mind with any cause in regard to the
ordering of things, but instead he
assigns causes to the air, ether, and
many other strange things.»
Jenofonte, Recuerdos de Sócrates, Gredos,
Madrid, 1993, pp. 46-47.
Disappointment of Socrates with the natural philosophy of Anaxagoras
For this reason, Socrates soon became disillusioned with the natural philosophy ofAnaxagoras,
because, though he put the mind or intelligence (nous) as the prime cause of the universe, latter
while explaining the process of formation of the universe, he only adduced accidental or random
material causes, forgetting intelligence.

Plato and Aristotle inherited this view
of the nature of Socrates.The main
characteristic of this artisan model is to
consider nature and the cosmos as the
work of an intelligent craftsman, as
evidenced by the order of the cosmos
and the manifest purpose of the design
of the body and the organs of living
beings.
On the other hand, this metaphor led
to the belief that the creator is a
separate external cause of his work, and
of a different nature, thus promoting a
dualistic view of the world.
Plato separated the world of the ideas and
geometric forms from the material world; the
first being the world of the ideal and perfect
prototypes, whose apex is the Idea of Good
(God); and the second the world of material
things, which are imperfect and defective
copies of ideal models. Although he tried, he
could not explain how the world of copies was
derived from the world of originals.
Only inTimaeus he outlines the theory of a
Demiurge or Artificer (artisan) who modeled
the material world by taking as models the
eternal prototypes.
The Platonic Demiurge (artisan)

Aristotle, did not admit the separate existence of
the world of ideal prototypes, but thought that
these ideal models were within the things
themselves.Thus, he alleged that all things were
composed of form and matter.The form was the
essence of the thing, its entelechy or soul, and also
an inner force that pushed each thing to reach its
perfection and its end. Matter was a substrate,
similar to the clay of a potter, with the potentiality
to acquire any form.
All forms or souls constituted a hierarchy headed
by the supreme form, God, whose function was to
move the world to its end.The origin of matter was a
hypothetical prime matter, but he gave no
explanation of the process of world-formation, but
simply assumed that the world was eternal.
The medieval Arab, Jewish, and
Christian philosophers assumed this
dualism of Aristotle, supposing that God
was a pure, immaterial spirit, who first
created a primordial and formless matter,
and then from it God gave form to all
things. It was the biblical metaphor of the
potter God who first creates the clay
mass out of nothing and then makes
various vessels with it.
This belief became almost a dogma of
faith, but as we shall see later not all of
them agreed with something so
problematic as to assert that matter can
be created out of nothing.
The supreme form or God and the prime matter in Aristotle

The model of emanation
(Monist vision that combines the model of
the artisan with a first procreative cause)
The metaphysics of light
(Robert Grosseteste)
The model of the seminal logos of the Stoics
The model of emanation of Plotinus
The Fountain of Life of Ibn Gabirol
The first formal and material principle of Bruno
Creation of the universe through the
spherical irradiation of light (subtle
matter) from a point

The Stoics were the first to try to give an
explanation of the formation of the universe by
combining the artisan model with the model of
a first procreative cause that gave birth to all
things.They associated the Socratic concept of
an intelligent and provident artisan, who
molded nature with a purpose, with the
concept of the Logos of Heraclitus, an ordering
reason and a kind of artistic fire who forged all
things.
The Stoics, also using the concept of form
and matter of Aristotle, affirmed that all things
were composed of an active principle or
pneuma and a passive principle or matter.
For them, this pneuma or soul was like the
Heraclitan logos-fire, a continuum of subtle
matter that penetrated and impregnated the
thicker matter, and which could be transformed
into matter and vice versa. So they could
explain that the origin of all beings and things
was due to a specific seminal logos of each
thing, which was like their reason or plan.
It was a monistic vision in which matter and
spirit were an interchangeable continuum.This
idea of a subtle matter penetrating a thicker
matter greatly influenced the elaboration of the
scientific concept of fields of forces of modern
physics.
The model of the seminal logos of the Stoics

Plotinus attempted to systematize
and complete Platonism by also
offering a monistic view of the origin
and development of the world by
combining the model of the Platonic
artificer or Demiurge with the model
of a first progenitor and procreative
cause.
Everything proceeds from the One
(God) by emanation because of His
perfection or excess of power, similar
to how seeds and offspring are
produced by mature plants and
animals, or light and heat emanate
from the sun.
The first emanation from the One is the
Intelligence, which includes the world of Platonic
ideal models.Then comes the Soul of the World and
the particular souls created by it, and in the end
matter, the farthest procession from the One, which
is like an empty space capable of receiving any form,
or a blank canvas on which anything can be drawn.
There is a line of Jewish and Christian
philosophers who, influenced by this Neoplatonism
of Plotinus and by Stoic ideas —and not in
agreement with the traditionalAristotelian and
Christian dualism— tried to elaborate a monistic
explanation of how from God, or a first intelligent
cause, all things came into being, including matter.
The model of emanation of Plotinus

Ibn Gabirol, in his book, The Fountain of Life,
explains that all things are reduced to three roots,
God, the universal form and universal matter. He
argued that, since all things are composed of form
and matter, and both cannot exist one without the
other, then not only sensitive things had form and
matter, but suprasensitive (spiritual) forms should
possess also a more subtle material support.
Thus, all these types of forms and matters
should be reduced to two unique roots, one
universal matter and one universal form. Although
it keeps God apart from these two roots and
continues to hold the doctrine of creation from
nothing, Ibn Gabirol elevates matter to the
category of root or co-cause.
Later on, Bruno, againstAristotelian
dualism, maintained that if God was
the first principle and cause of all
things, He should be both the formal
principle and the material principle;
that is to say, both substances, spiritual
and material, would have to come from
God himself.
Hence, until Spinoza, who affirmed
that God was both thought and matter,
and, contrary to Cartesian dualism,
these were like two aspects or
attributes of the same homogeneous
substance of God.
The Fountain of Life of Ibn Gabirol and the first formal and material principle of Bruno

Robert Grosseteste, anAugustinian and Neoplatonic
Franciscan monk who pioneered experimental scientific
research in the Christian Middle Ages, developed a curious
theory of the creation of the world called the metaphysics of
light.
St. Augustine had placed the world of Platonic ideal
prototypes in the mind of God, and then, using the concept of
the Stoic seminal logos, he thought that God first created a
primordial matter from nothing and then He planted in it
those seminal logos or reasons.
St. Augustine, using Plotinus's metaphor of light emanating
from the sun, said that just as the light of the sun bathing
objects that are in the darkness makes their forms visible, so
the truth or ideal models that are in the mind of God are like a
light that illuminates the dark matter and gives it a form.
The metaphysics of light

Grosseteste, influenced by Ibn Gabirol, thought that the
suprasensitive things or ideal models also possessed a very
subtle material support. He considered that light could be a
kind of intermediate matter between that very subtle
spiritual matter and the thicker matter of sensitive things.
He imagined that there would be a substantial gradation
and continuity between God, the ideal prototypes, that very
subtle spiritual matter which is its material support, the
physical light and, lastly, the sensitive matter.
Thus, Grosseteste thought that the world was originated
by the spherical radiation of that subtle matter from a point.
This subtle matter, which was like a kind of spiritual light full
of virtues or forces, was what caused the multiplication of
the Augustinian and Stoic seminal logos, thus creating the
space and the physical light first and then all material things.
Creation by the spherical radiation of a very subtle light

The metaphysics of light was a
popular theory among natural
philosophers, physicists and
astronomers who initiated the
scientific revolution of the
seventeenth century, as can be
seen, for example, in this letter of
Galileo to P. Dini:
«I will say that it seems to me that in nature
there is a very subtle, very tenuous and very fast
substance which, spreading through the universe,
penetrates it through all parts without opposition,
warms, vivifies and fecundates all living creatures;
and from this spirit it seems that the senses
themselves prove to us that the body of the Sun is
the principal irradiator, from which an immense
light spreads through the universe, accompanied
by such a calorific spirit and penetrating all
vegetable bodies, gives life and fertilizes them.»
Galileo Galilei, Carta a Piero Dini del 23 de Marzo de
1615, Carta a Cristina de Lorena y otros textos sobre ciencia
y religión, Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 1987, p. 57.
Galileo and the metaphysics of light

In addition, all the scientists who
participated in the so-called scientific
revolution of the seventeenth century,
such as Copernicus, Gilbert, Kepler,
Galileo, Newton and Descartes, were
Platonists or Pythagoreans convinced
that God had projected and created the
world using geometry and
mathematics, and that, therefore,
nature was written in mathematical
language, as can be seen in this famous
quote from Galileo:
«Philosophy is written in this vast book
that is continually offered to our eyes (I
mean the universe), which, however, cannot
be understood if one has not learned to
understand its language and to know the
alphabet in which it is written. And it is
written in the language of mathematics, its
characters being triangles, circles and other
geometric figures, without which it is
impossible to understand a single word.»
Galileo Galilei, Il Saggiatore,VI, 232, cit. en
Wenceslao Castañares y José Luis González Quirós,
Diccionario de citas, Noesis, Madrid, 1993, p. 170.
God created the world using geometry and mathematics

Newton, influenced by the Renaissance alchemists,
thought that matter was interrelated by mysterious
inherent forces of attraction and repulsion.
In fact, although the universal gravitational force of
attraction can be measured very precisely, even today it is
still a mystery how it can act at a distance.
Similarly, modern concepts of force fields were
elaborated by imagining a continuum of subtle matter or
ether that penetrated matter, much like the stoic
pneuma. Although scientists now do not wander about
the physical nature of the fields —which remains as an
unexplained mystery— but only deal with the formulas or
mathematical equations that govern them.
Newton and the mysterious force of gravity

Paracelsus, and later the German Romantic
philosophers and scientists held ideas very similar
to that of Stoics and Augustinian seminal logos or
reasons. For them, both living beings and minerals
possessed an Archeus, entelechy, vital principle or
internal logos, which was both its idea, plan or
design and a force that guided its growth and
propelled them towards its end.
This search for the Archeus of living things led
German biologists to suppose the existence of a
genome, or genetic code inside the cells, which
contained the plan or design of the living being.
This research bore fruit later with the discovery of
chromosomes and DNA.
Paracelsus and German Romantic scientists

Modern mechanicism: Descartes
Materialist mechanicism
Evolutionary mechanicism: Darwin
(Application of geological model to biology)
The watchmaker God who created the universe as a
great machinery (universe-clock) and that works
according to immutable and eternal laws of nature
decreed by God himself.
The machinery of the universe and its laws are
eternal and uncreated.
The services of the watchmaker (mechanisms
and laws without an engineer) are ignored.
Species have evolved from one to another due to
small variations and natural selection

Descartes, who was contrary to the beliefs in virtues and occult
forces of the Renaissance, elaborated a vision of the creation of the
world, combining a more modern variant of the artisan model —a
watchmaker God— with the atomist model.
He thought that the universe was like a huge clock, created by
God, that worked according to laws also invented by him.After
creation,God merely gave it a first impulse, and then the clock
continued to operate alone by inertia based on shocks and
pressures between its pieces, similar to the balls, cogwheels,
pulleys or levers of the clocks and machines that were
manufactured in his time.
For this reason,Cartesian scientists thought that Newton's
gravitational force of attraction, acting from a distance, was a hoax
of wizards and alchemists. For, consistent with their atomistic
vision, the only forces operating in the world are those derived from
shocks or pressures by direct contact.
Modern mechanicism: Descartes

Descartes further
accentuated Aristotle's dualism,
asserting that all living things,
including animals and the
human body, were purely
material machines, fully falling
into the category of extensive
thing, or material substance.
But, instead, God and the
human spirit, belonged to
another completely different
spiritual substance, the thinking
thing.
The Cartesian substantial dualism
In order to solve the problem —indeed
unsolvable— of how the human soul, a substance
completely different from matter, could govern or
control a purely material body, Descartes said that
the connection is made in a mysterious way
through the pineal gland.

The mechanistic scientists who inherited this view of
Descartes soon disregarded the services of the watchmaker,
simply assuming that the clock-universe was eternal and had
always been in constant motion, maintaining only the
machinery of the clock and its laws.
Forgetting that logic and the most elementary common
sense tells us that every machine necessarily implies that
someone has designed and built it to function according to
certain laws and to serve one or several purposes.
Unless one believes, of course, that pieces of material
colliding with each other at random can first originate the
machine parts, and then these, by the same method, can be
assembled to build a machine that miraculously works
according to laws that appear from no one knows where.
Materialist mechanicism

Likewise, they easily removed spiritual
substances or human souls, saying that they
were those ghosts or homunculi that we
imagine are inside the machines moving the
levers and pulleys.
In this way, the Cartesian dualistic model
became a materialistic mechanicism, a mixture
between the model of the universe-clock
governed by laws, but without a watchmaker,
and the geological or atomistic model of
random pressures and shocks.
This paradigm has been very influential,
although not universally accepted, in science.
Current reductionists are the inheritors of this
vision.
The ghost inside the machine

Darwin was the one who later extended the geological model
to biology.While he was enthusiastic reading a book of geology
of Lyell, he traveled to the Galapagos islands and there he
observed how the same species of birds varied according to the
climate and circumstances of each island.
Applying the principles of Lyell's geology to biology, he
concluded that species evolved from one another through small
natural variations over a long period of time due to geological
causes such as changes in climate, food, or other environmental
conditions.
Darwin then studied the breeders of plants and animals, and
observed how they selected the best breeding individuals to
improve the breeds. However, this type of selection was not
useful to Darwin because it was a selection guided by intelligent
people. So, he looked for another type of selection in which only
natural or geological causes intervened.
Evolutionary mechanicism: Darwin

In the end, Darwin read a book by Malthus stating
that —because human beings multiply in a geometric
proportion and food production only grows in
arithmetic proportion— it was unavoidable “the
permanent struggle for the living space and food” and
that diseases and premature deaths caused by wars
and human vices are a natural phenomenon that
helps to decimate the population, thus ensuring the
survival of the fittest.
This was the great idea that provided Darwin with
his evolutionary mechanicism, the so-called natural
selection; organisms compete for limited food
sources, surviving and multiplying only those
endowed with the most favorable variations.
T. R. Malthus, Essays on the Principle of Population, 3
The survival of the fittest

The Big Bang Model
Hybrid of the atomist geological model
(chance) and the materialistic mechanicism
model (clock without watchmaker)
Lemaître: Primitive atom (cosmic egg)
Gamow: Compact neutron mass
Explosion of energy
Quantum fields

Currently, the most popular and widely accepted view of the
origin of the universe is the famous Big Bang theory.
The original idea comes from the Belgian priest and astronomer
Lemaître, who, in 1927, when observing the ongoing move away of
the galaxies, suggested that at first the whole mass of the universe
was concentrated in a gigantic atom or cosmic egg, as he himself
called it, which then fragmented in a manner analogous to the
disintegration of a radioactive atom.
Lemaître thought that God had created that cosmic egg that then
exploded throwing its pieces in all directions, similar to the explosion
of a rocket of fireworks.
Note the similarity of this image to the theory of the metaphysics
of light of a spherical radiation from a central point. In addition to
that, the belief in a primitive cosmic egg from which the world was
born, like a chicken comes out of the egg, is a classic mythological
idea that was present in many primitive cultures.
The Big Bang Model

If, as quantum physics asserts, particles
are packs of energy or waves of a
quantum field of forces, then we would
have to think that what was at the
beginning was a great outburst of energy
or simply a great unified field of forces.
The Big Bang Model
The theory was later developed and popularized by
Gamow, who argued that the egg would consist of a
compact and extraordinarily dense mass of neutrons that
exploded violently, forming a soup of protons and
electrons, and later all elements, starting with the
simplest and most abundant, such as hydrogen, and
ending with the heaviest.
A more logical and plausible process than the original
idea of Lemaître of an egg of heavy matter that is broken
or disintegrated.
Gamow gave the current name to this theory, which
has since been called the Big BangTheory.Then there
have been continual revisions of the nature of that
primordial egg as they are discovered or assuming the
existence of a seemingly endless series of subparticles.

The Big Bang theory uses the geological model to explain
how particles, atoms, molecules, stars and galaxies have been
formed.That is, they have emerged spontaneously, in the
same way as geological formations such as volcanoes,
mountains, rivers, sediments, etc. Everything was the result of
chance, due to a concatenation of physical causes, such as
shocks, pressures, warming, cooling or other environmental
conditions.
But using only this geological model, it is very difficult to
explain the formation of regularities, systems and organized
structures. Pure chance seems intuitively to lead to pure chaos.
We cannot even speak of formation, evolution, progress or
development, because all these concepts denote a certain
direction. Explosions, shocks or any other type of fortuitous
accident do not generate durable or stable directions or
regularities, only reversible and arbitrary processes.
For this reason, in order to explain
the process of formation of the
universe, the model of the Cartesian
universe-clock is still used, this time
without a watchmaker.
That is, it is said that the formation
of the universe was not only the
result of chance, but also the result of
necessity derived of the laws of
nature.
Laws that appear to have been
there somewhere when the Big Bang
occurred or were inherent in energy
or force fields.
Hybrid of the atomist geological model (chance) and the materialistic mechanicism
model (clock without watchmaker)

However, it is strictly forbidden to speak of
intentions, designs, plans, projects and ends, because
—according to Monod— it violates the principle of the
objectivity of science which, in his opinion, goes back
to Galileo and Descartes. Only purely scientific
explanations are allowed, not hybrid explanations or
mixed with animistic superstitions or metaphysical
speculations.
It is true that Galileo fought againstAristotle's use of
final causes in his physics and astronomy, who even
went so far as to say that the stones fell to the ground
because its aim was to crave for its natural place, the
earth; or that the movement of the stars was because
the purpose of stars was to long for its immobile
motors, which constituted a hierarchy of celestial
intelligences.
Jacques Monod, El azar y la necesidad, Tusquets Editores,
Barcelona, 1970, p. 30.
The principle of objectivity and the limitation of science
But this did not mean that Galileo did not believe
in final causes and designs, as can be seen in the
letter quoted above. Galileo's claim was that physics
should get rid of these fantasticAristotelian final
causes. Both he and Kepler, Newton, and Descartes
speculated on final causes and metaphysical
hypotheses, some of which, by the way, were very
useful for their scientific discoveries.
To emphasize only the objective qualities of
things in their investigations and experiments, that
is, only what can be measured with instruments,
was part of their program of mathematization of
nature, which was to create virtual mathematical
models, using certain measurable aspects of things
and discarding the rest. But this did not mean that
things could not have other qualities.

In others words, objectivity in
science means that scientific
research should only be concerned
with studying the machine, its parts
and mechanisms, knowing how it
works and according to which
mathematical laws.
Knowing who designed it and for
what purposes should not be
questions that fall into the field of
science, because these things cannot
be tested with experiments.

«The scientific image of the world around
me is very deficient. It provides a lot of
information about the facts (...) but it keeps
a sepulchral silence on each and every one of
the aspects that have to do with the heart,
especially what really matters to me. (…)
Knows nothing of the beautiful or the ugly,
the good or the bad, God and eternity.
Sometimes science tries to give an answer to
these questions, but its answers are often so
silly that we feel inclined not to take them
seriously. (...)
The scientific vision of the world does
not contain aesthetic or ethical values,
nor does it say a word about our
ultimate goal or ultimate destiny, nor
does it want to know anything —it would
only lack— about God.
Where do I come from, where do I go?
Science is unable to explain minimally
why music can delight us, or why and
how an old song can make us cry.»
Erwin Schrödinder, Cuestiones Cuánticas, ed.
K. Wilber, Kairós, Barcelona, 1987, pp. 128-130.
Schrödinger, the creator of quantum wave mechanics, expresses this limitation of
science very well.

Since then, science has been just using
the concepts of mechanisms and laws of
nature without associating to them a
rational intelligence that has designed
those mechanisms or invented those laws,
against the most elementary common
sense.
Many scientists now say that in nature
there are no meanings, no designs, no
ends, there is only what can be measured.
This is a pure metaphysical belief derived
from the atomistic and mechanistic hybrid
model that has become a dogma of faith of
the materialistic scientists.
Mechanistic scientists decided to
dispense with the clockmaker simply by
assuming that the machine and the laws
governing its operation were eternal and
therefore not created, forgetting that every
machine and its laws are the fruit of
intelligent design.
The dogma of the exclusion of design and intentional ends

In the emergence scientific explanations we can appreciate the hybrid mixture of
models that give rise to fragrant contradictions
They speak of a matter with the spontaneous
ability to organize in systems that pursue stability, of
wise and sophisticated mechanisms that create
marvels of engineering and design, and of organisms
that —with an extraordinary foresight— fulfill a
function oriented towards the stability of whole
system.
If it is really believed that the universe has
emerged in a fortuitous and accidental way, it is not
possible to speak of highly organized systems or
sophisticated mechanisms, nor of fundamental and
universal laws.
In any case we could speak only of certain local,
partial and momentary regularities, not universal and
eternal. Chaos should be the universal, and order the
rare and anecdotal.
On the one hand, they maintain the geological
model of accidental and fortuitous spontaneous
generation, and, on the other, they speak of a
creative universe that is self-organizing.
The trick is to change the old names to new
ones so it looks like they are not talking about
the same things. Instead of talking about final
causes or teleology, they talk about teleonomy.
Instead of the old souls, entelechies or vital
principles, they speak of self-organizing
principles, higher level laws, or emerging levels
of consciousness.
Another trick is to attribute intentions, goals
and creative abilities to mechanisms, which are
supposed to be pure matter without intelligence
or consciousness.

They speak of living beings as highly complex
machines, with sophisticated mechanisms that
give them great abilities to self-regulate and
adapt to their environment, and that in their
DNA is contained information on all its
characteristics.
The evolution occurs because purely random
mutations of the DNA —that is, failures in the
transcription or copying of the genetic
information— produce small variations in the
individuals.
And when some of these variations make the
individuals successful in their struggle for
survival, maximizing their reproductive
capacity, then they become generalized in
populations and become dominant.
So, according to Dawkins, the protagonists of
the story are mutant and selfish genes that only
seek to reproduce with frenzy, that is, produce as
many copies as possible and become dominant.
These genes were the ones who invented and
created humans to use them as their disposable
machines to fulfill their malevolent and selfish
purposes.
It is not serious to speak of sophisticated
machines that have a central computer, or DNA,
which contains all the genetic information without
presupposing an intelligent design, and then, to
top it all, attribute to genes intelligence,
intentions, ends and amazing inventive capacities.
Richard Dawkins, El gen egoísta, Labor, Barcelona, 1979, pp. 42-
47.
The current Neo-Darwinist synthetic theory of evolution is also a hybrid
between a pure random model and a sophisticated mechanicism

 The metaphor of
the Mind of God
 God as a
mathematician
 The Anthropic
Principle
 A perfectly tuned
universe
 The Cosmic Blueprint
 God, as the first cause both
mental and material, who
designed, planned and directed
the process of formation and
evolution of the universe
 Principle of the intelligent
design
EVIDENCES OF THE EXISTENCE OF A PROJECT OR INTELLIGENT
DESIGN IN THE UNIVERSE

EVIDENCES OF THE EXISTENCE OF A PROJECT OR INTELLIGENT
DESIGN IN THE UNIVERSE
If so, if those laws, formulas and
universal constants discovered by
scientists are objective realities present in
nature, then many questions arise such as:
Why does nature obey those laws or
mathematical formulas? Why do these
universal constants have the value they
have and not others? Were those laws and
formulas already present at the time of
the first outburst of energy that gave rise
to the universe?
We might ask ourselves this question:
Are all theories, laws, formulas and
mathematical equations discovered by
scientists pure inventions of their mind
or, on the contrary, are discoveries of
objective laws that exist somehow in
nature?
Some scientists and philosophers of
science claim that they are mere fictions
or useful tools. Realistic scientists
respond that, in that case, the success of
the technological applications of science
would be a miracle.

«If there were anything we could
discover in nature that would give us
any special insight into the work of God,
they would have to be the final laws of
nature. Knowing these laws, we would
be in possession of the book of rules
that govern stars and stones and
anything else.
Therefore, it is natural that Stephen
Hawking was referring to the laws of
nature as “The Mind of God.” (…)
But when the physicist is asked why the universe is
built according to certain physical laws and not others he
may very well answer: “God knows.”
Einstein once commented to his assistant Ernst
Strauss that “what really interests me is whether God had
any choice in creating the world.” (...)
Whatever one's religion, or lack thereof, it is an
irresistible metaphor to speak of the final laws of nature
in terms of the Mind of God.
Steven Weinberg, El sueño de una teoría final, Crítica, Barcelona, 1994,
pp. 192-193.
The physicist Steven Weinberg, despite not believing in any intelligence inherent in nature, asserts
that in the only place where it would be possible to find evidences of intelligence would be in these
final laws of nature, and that such considerations are what make almost irresistible to use the
metaphor of the Mind of God.
The metaphor of the Mind of God

The belief in God as a mathematician
who has designed the universe through
laws and mathematical formulas is part of
the ancient and current tradition of science.
It dates back to Pythagoras and has
remained throughout its history, even to
the present day.
In fact, almost all the great physicists,
astronomers and mathematicians of the
20th Century, such as Planck, Einstein,
Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli or Eddington, share
this Pythagorean or Platonic view of the
universe, as we can see in this Heisenberg
quote:
«I think that, at this point, modern
physics has definitively decided in favor of
Plato.
Because the small portions of matter are
not in fact physical objects in the ordinary
sense of the word; they are forms,
structures, or —in the sense that Plato
gives them— Ideas, which can be described
without ambiguity in a mathematical
language.»
Werner Heisenberg, Cuestiones Cuánticas, ed. K. Wilber,
Kairós, Barcelona, 1987, p. 85.
God as a mathematician

Many scientists, such as Freeman
Dyson, have pointed out the vital
importance of the exact numerical
values of certain constants or forces
for the future of the evolution of the
universe, and especially for the
appearance of life and humans.
This fact has led them to suggest
the existence of a general plan or a
soul of the world.
These accidents or significant
coincidences have become very
popular in science with the name of
Anthropic Principle.
«From these accidents in physics and astronomy, I
conclude that the universe is an unexpectedly
hospitable place for living beings to make it their
home…
The peculiar harmony between the structure of the
universe and the needs of life and intelligence is... a
manifestation of the importance of mind in the scheme
of things.
As individuals, some of us may be willing to go
further... to support the hypothesis that there is a
universal spirit or soul of the world, underlying the
manifestations of intelligence that we observe.»
Freeman Dyson, Trastornando el universo, F.C.E., México, 1982, pp.
282-284.
The Anthropic Principle

A proton has a mass that is 1,836 times that of
an electron, and a neutron weighs slightly more
than a proton.The precision of that slight
difference is crucial.
Stephen Hawking points out that if that
difference “were not about twice the mass of the
electron, we would not have the approximately
two hundred stable nuclides [elements and their
isotopes] that make up the elements and which
are the basis of chemistry and biology.”
In other words, with only a slight
change in the mass of a proton or a
neutron, there would be no chemical
elements, no planets, no suns or
galaxies.
Stephen W. Hawking, Is the end in sight for
theoretical physics?, Physics Bulletin 32, 1980, 15-17.
A Perfectly
Tuned
Universe
The mass of the subatomic particles

If weak nuclear interaction were
slightly stronger, helium, the product
of solar fusion, would not form, and if
it were slightly weaker, there would
be no hydrogen remaining in the Sun.
Dean L. Overman, A case against accident and self-
organization, Rowman and Littlefield Pub.,
Maryland, 1997, pp. 140-141.
If the strong nuclear interaction were 2% more
intense, there would be no hydrogen, and without
hydrogen there would be no Sun to heat us, no
water, essential for life, no living beings whose
organic compounds have an abundance of
hydrogen.
But if the strong nuclear interaction were only 5%
lower, there would only be hydrogen in the universe,
and everything would be extremely simple.
J. Leslie, Universes, Routledge, Londres, 1989, p. 35.
A Perfectly
Tuned
Universe
The nuclear force fields

If the electromagnetic force were slightly
larger, stars like the Sun would be red stars
and would be too cold to give us the heat
we need. But if it were slightly smaller, the
stars would be very hot blue stars and very
brief life, and we would be very hot, but
only for a very short time.
J. Leslie, Universes, Routledge, Londres, 1989, p. 35.
One of the delicate balances that science
has observed is the precise relationship
between gravity and electromagnetism.
Physicist Paul Davies comments: “The
calculations show that changes in the
intensity of either force of only one part in
1040 would mean a catastrophe for stars like
the Sun.”
Paul C.W. Davies, Superforce:The search for a grand unified
theory of nature, Simon and Schuster, NuevaYork, 1984, p.
242.
A Perfectly
Tuned
Universe
Electromagnetism and gravity

The physicist Paul Davies also suggests
the existence of a Cosmic Blueprint
behind the evolution of the universe, in
the form of laws of a higher level or some
creative and self-organizing principle
inherent in nature.
Similar ideas are held by biologist
Rupert Sheldrake, who speculates on the
existence of a higher level unified super
field that includes physical forces fields
and morphic or biological fields.
«The very fact that the universe is
creative, and that the laws have
permitted complex structures to
emerge and develop to the point of
consciousness… is for me powerful
evidence that there is “something
going on” behind it all.The impression
of design is overwhelming.»
Davies, Paul, The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries
in Nature's Creative Ability to Order the Universe. New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1988, p. 203.
The Cosmic Blueprint

Since matter is ultimately reduced to
quantum fields or energy, it is not absurd or
unreasonable to suppose that mental
processes also take place within that
supposedly primal energy.
In fact, desires, emotions, decisions,
thoughts, ideas or concepts are energetic
phenomena similar to forces.
As the UnificationThought holds, one can
speak indistinctly of an energetic mind or of a
mental energy, since both aspects, mental and
material or energetic, cannot be separated.
God, as the first cause both mental and material, who designed, planned
and directed the process of formation and evolution of the universe
Then, to presuppose that there
had to be a rational and planning
intelligence inherent in that first
outburst of energy that gave rise to
the universe is not a mystical,
irrational, or unscientific assumption.
Therefore, it is reasonable to think
that God, as the first cause both
mental and material, could design,
plan, create and direct the process of
formation and evolution of the
universe.

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