The Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe

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This seems important to me because it suggests that, contrary to Meyer’s oft-repeated claims, the God Hypothesis actually has no true explanatory power. Rather, it merely claims to name an actor – and an ill-defined actor at that. I wonder, how is Meyer’s claim stronger than this one: I find Meyer’s defense of each of these claims wanting, but, before I critique them, let me make two brief comments, one about the nature of Meyer’s three claims, and the other about the overall thesis of his book. Given how new and incomplete our own knowledge is of the universe we inhabit and the rules that govern it, we should be skeptical that we’re capable of anticipating the infinite range of alternative universes that might arise through the modification of various physical constants. Certainly, we have not invested thousands of cosmologist-years in studying these hypothetical alternatives. Our experience with all of these is that they are the product of intelligence. Specifically, they are the product of human intelligence. With The Return of the God Hypothesis, Meyer has once again written a hefty book in size and subject. Nonetheless, it is a pleasure to read because of the way that his inviting voice brings light to bear on complicated and profoundly influential subjects. And while a short review cannot do justice to most books, this limitation applies five-fold to this abundantly rich book. Indeed, with this book, Meyer completes a compelling trilogy which refutes the prevailing materialism of the intelligentsia while also completing his one long argument that, in the words of Solomon, “from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator.”

Meyer not only meticulously documents his scientific case for the God hypothesis, but he presents the story of the discoveries that support it in an engaging way. The arguments Meyer makes helped fuel my own personal transition from atheistic materialism to a rational belief in classical theism. Günter Bechly,Ph.D. in paleontology, Eberhard-KarlsUniversity of Tübingen; Former Scientific Curator, State Museum of Natural History, Stuttgart, Germany; Senior scientist, Biologic Institute. The actual scientific evidence we have, however, indicates that God has played an active role in his creation throughout time. For example, vast amounts of new information had to have been introduced when the first complex animal body plans appeared during the Cambrian Explosion, some half-billion years ago. The fossil record shows clear evidence of mass extinctions followed rapidly by the appearance of entirely novel forms of life. That comports with a God who is always working, as the Lord Jesus said: “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working” (John 5:17). Stephen Meyer’s fine new book is aptly summarized by the opening line of Beethoven’s magnificent musical composition ‘Die Himmel rühmen des Ewigen Ehre’: ‘The heavens praise the glory of the Eternal.’ He mounts a powerful case that the best, the most reasonable, explanation for the full suite of scientific evidence about the origin and fine tuning of the universe and life is — as he puts it — ‘the God hypothesis.’” Matti Leisola, DSc, Professor Emeritus of Bioprocess Engineering, Aalto University, Finland Building on his previous best-selling works, Signature in the Cell and Darwin’s Doubt, which examined the implications of biological information, Meyer now brings cosmic fine tuning and the origination of the universe in a Hot Big Bang singularity into the discussion to argue persuasively that the single best explanation for all three phenomena is a personal God who transcends the spacetime continuum and has intervened throughout cosmic history to ensure that creatures shaped in his image would one day appear on earth.Meyer concludes his treatise by mixing it up with formidable materialist opponents like Stephen Hawking. Hawking argued that since gravity at the subatomic level might have worked differently during the earliest stages of the universe, it could be the source of the origin of the universe; however, in making his mathematical calculations about the early universe, he needed to introduce the concept of “imaginary time.” But this way of eliminating the need for a temporal beginning of the universe “ did not correspond to anything in the real physical universe,” Meyer emphatically writes, echoing the objection of other physicists and philosophers. Besides as Hawking admitted, “imaginary time” was merely an expedient to support his claim. But wait. That is – at best – a circular argument. If we include DNA in our initial inventory of “functional” information, then it’s no longer our uniform and repeated experience that such information is the product of intelligence. Rather, it’s our uniform and repeated experience that man-made encoding of information is man-made. That says nothing about not-man-made encoding of information.

Meyer takes on other materialist theories like the “Wheeler-DeWitt equation” and “The Mathematical Universe Hypothesis” which seek to explain away the uniqueness of our universe. He concludes with the 19 th century physicist, Ludwig Boltzmann’s postmodernist, many worlds’ cosmology in which “Boltzmann Brains” could self-assemble as the result of chance arrangements of atoms due to random quantum fluctuations. Accordingly such fluctuations at the subatomic level may cause bizarre outcomes like the Statue of Liberty waving at passers-by and, though such events may not happen in our universe, given enough universes and time, such things will happen and happen endlessly!In exploring the current state of origin-of-life research, Meyer shows that despite the best attempts of materialist scientists to re-create the first chemical steps toward life, they have been unable to do so, but in the process have inadvertently shown that an inordinate amount of intelligent design—far in excess of current human capability—is required to bring a living organism into existence. Indeed, by calling on experts in organic chemistry, Meyer shows that even the first steps toward creating a biomolecular assemblage require many intervening stages that cannot be achieved naturalistically. He writes: This book makes it clear that far from being an unscientific claim, intelligent design is valid science. Brian Josephson, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Cambridge, Fellow of the Royal Society, Nobel Laureate in Physics Meyer’s book is a masterclass… John C. Walton Ph.D., Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh About the Book Meyer shows how the theistic world view, creation theology and design argument have long been part of the structure of western science and motivated key figures who invented it in its modern form — including Kepler, Boyle and Newton. But Meyer also shows that today’s science makes the ‘God hypothesis’ as compelling today as it ever was. Stephen D. Snobelen, Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge; Associate Professor, History of Science, University of King’s College, Halifax

To make their case for the adequacy of a strictly materialistic approach to explanation in science and philosophy, defenders of this approach must first show that “gaps” in our knowledge of the materialistic causes of key events in the history of life and the universe can be filled with knowledge of an actual materialistic process capable of producing the events in question. (p. 613).” Dr. Neil English is busy writing his latest book, Choosing Binoculars: A Guide for Stargazers, Birders and Outdoor Enthusiasts, which will hit the bookshelves in late 2023. The discovery of the functional digital information in DNA and RNA molecules in even the simplest living cells provides strong grounds for inferring that intelligence played a role in the origin of the information necessary to produce the first living organism. Meyer masterfully summarizes the current evidence from cosmology, physics and biology showing that the more we learn about the universe and nature, the more relevant the ‘God hypothesis’ becomes. Dr. Anthony Futerman, Joseph Meyerhoff Professor of Biochemistry, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel Consider Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity. Until barely a hundred years ago we didn’t know that space, time, mass, and energy were mathematically related. We didn’t know that these aspects of the physical world were intertwined in mathematically determined and measurable ways, and that a value in one domain couldn’t be “changed” without influencing the other domains as well.Regarding “ How Could the Big Bang Arise From Nothing?” by Alastair Wilson at The Conversation (January 3, 2022). But no, we aren’t sure that the universe had a beginning. We admit that things – matter, energy, physical laws, the nature of space and time itself – were likely very different when the stuff of a billion trillion stars occupied a volume vastly smaller than a pinhead. (How many stars can dance on the head of a pin? All of them, it seems.) But we don’t know how they were different. Nor do we know what came before, nor what prompted the expansion, nor whether it happened exactly once or infinitely many times, or indeed whether or not it’s happening right now elsewhere in our own universe. We speak informally of the Big Bang as the beginning of our universe, but all we really know with confidence is that it was a moment in an evolving series of physical states. We don’t know what states came before, nor what states will follow our own.