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There are those in science

who say the exquisite
nature of the universe,

the exquisite laws
of the universe,

are evidence of a designer.

Does that view
make sense to you?

For 2,500
years, there have been two great

competing stories about
reality in Western culture.

According to one of these
stories, the universe, our planet,

the life it contains,
and especially all of us,

are products of a
pre-existing intelligence,

a purposeful mind or creator.

People
like Galileo, Kepler,

Newton were all
believers in the existence

of an intelligent designer
behind the universe.

Newton, Boyle,
Kepler, the great founders

of modern science, thought
that nature had secrets to reveal.

There were patterns
there to be revealed

that we could understand
because our minds had been made

in the image of the
same rational creator

who had built
rationality and design

and lawful order into the world.

But according to another
story, matter and energy interact

and evolve in a
completely mindless,

undirected way and
arrange themselves

into everything
we see around us.

World famous atheist
Richard Dawkins inspired millions

by popularizing
evolutionary biology.

Once you've got life started,

once natural selection,

Darwinian natural
selection has got going,

then we pretty much
understand the four billion year

history of what's
given rise to us

and all other living creatures.

And that's the
story I want to tell you about.

The things that we hold dear,
including our very existence,

are in a cosmic accident.

It seems so obvious
that if you've got a garden,

there must be a gardener.

But what science has now
achieved is an emancipation

from that impulse to attribute
these things to a creator.

And
this view became popular

because of scientific theories
developed in the 19th century.

Scientists like
Pierre Laplace, Charles Darwin,

and Thomas Henry Huxley
each tried to explain events

in the history of the
universe, like the origin

of the solar system, the
origin of new forms of life,

and even the origin
of the very first life.

By
the end of the 19th century,

a seamless story of the
origin of nearly everything

could be told as a
consequence of slow, gradual,

and purely
naturalistic processes.

By the 19th century,

science had come
to be associated

with a larger philosophical
idea called materialism,

in which you just
presuppose that the material

universe is all there is.

And that's
why many leading scientists

have claimed that science
undermines belief in any intelligent

or purposeful creator
behind the universe.

Yes or
no to this statement.

Science refutes God.

500 years of science
have demonstrated that God,

that vague
notion, is not likely.

I have no problems if,

as we probe the
origins of things,

we bump up into the bearded man.

If that shows up,
we're good to go.

OK?

Not a problem.

There's just no evidence of it.

How
do you respond to that?

It's not what Darwin
thought in the 19th century.

It's a new day in biology.

Things are much more
complex than people thought

when they formulated
these evolutionary ideas.

There's a lot of people

that adopt philosophies
that mimic religions.

If you can
show that life arose

by a completely undirected
evolutionary process,

you're going to be more inclined

toward a more
materialistic worldview.

And that view, if true,

has profound consequences
for whether our lives

have any ultimate
meaning or significance.

Have
you thought about what happens

when your life ends?

Have I thought
about what happens?

Yeah.
Of course, I die.

Yeah.

What do you think happens?

I think I get
buried or cremated.

And that's it?

Nothing after that.

You have a brain which decays.

There's just nothing.

Here we
are, like mites on a plum.

And the plum is
this little planet,

and it goes around an
insignificant local star.

And that star is on the obscure
outskirts of an ordinary galaxy,

which contains 400
billion other stars.

And this galaxy is
just one of something

like 100 billion other galaxies.

So, the idea that
we are central,

that we are the reason
there is a universe, is pathetic.

This
bleak view of the universe

troubles many people.

If we are the products of
purely impersonal materialistic

forces, and if eventually the
universe will experience a heat

death, leaving only cold,
dark matter as scientists tell us,

then there can't be
any lasting meaning

or purpose to our existence.

But is that true?

How likely is it
that this panorama

that appears to me
every time I open my eyes

does not have some very
good reason for its existence?

So, we have two great,

competing stories about reality.

One posits a purposeful
creator behind the universe.

The other envisions
mindless processes

producing everything we see.

But which of these
stories is true?

What explains all of this?

What's the story of everything?

You can say, "Look,
you can go back as far as you want,

but somehow the stuff of
the universe had to come

from somewhere, and
isn't that what God did?”

But that's only true if
the universe was created.

If the universe was always here,

if the universe
was infinitely old,

then there's nothing
for a creator to do.

How did the universe start?

It's an ancient question
that goes back all the way

to the ancient Greeks.

Has the universe always
been here, or is it finite?

A philosophical question
that science began to address

and answer in the
beginning of the 20th century.

And it starts with a
relatively unknown

astronomer named Vesto Slipher.

Slipher is looking
through telescopes,

and he's looking at these nebular
phenomena in the night sky.

Fuzzy
things that never focused

in your telescope.

But what Slipher was able

to discover was
that the light coming

from these nebulae is
shifted in the red direction

of the electromagnetic spectrum.

You shine light through a prism,

it will separate into the
different colors, red to violet.

The red light corresponds to
light with longer wavelengths.

We
call it redshift because light

that has a longer wavelength
tends to be more red in color.

Let's say that you've got
a firetruck going past you

with its siren on.

And as it goes past,
the pitch changes.

So [imitates siren].

As something is
moving away from you,

whatever kind of
waves it's emitting,

whether it's sound
waves or light waves,

are going to be stretched out.

So, since the nebula that
Slipher observed was shifted

in the red direction, it
meant that the nebula

was moving away from us.

Now, a nebula, at the time,

was thought to be just a
gas cloud within our galaxy.

There were some astronomers
who thought it might be at a galaxy

beyond, but that was a debate.

Then, in 1924, the debate
was effectively settled

when Edwin Hubble
used some new techniques

for measuring
astronomical distances.

Hubble started looking at the
Andromeda nebula and realized

that it was at least 900,000
light years away from us,

and yet the distance
across our whole

galaxy was only
300,000 light years.

And so, he realized
that those nebulae

must be separate galaxies.

And then, as he was
looking at the galaxies

with this wonderful
new dome telescope,

he was also then able to
see the beautiful structure,

not just a gaseous smudge
on a photographic plate.

And Hubble then began to study
not just the Andromeda Nebula,

but many of these nebulae, i.e.

galaxies, and discovered
they were all shifted

in the red direction, meaning
they were all moving away from us.

So, it looked as

if space-time itself was
expanding and stretching--

Like a balloon blowing up.

There's a uniform
expansion of almost

all the galaxies moving outward.

But what
do you do when you mentally run

that scenario in reverse?

As we
begin to wind that clock backwards

and think of what the universe
would have been like a thousand

years ago, or a million years
ago, or a billion years ago,

or however far back you go,
eventually you're gonna get

to a place where all of
that expanding material

would have congealed
in the same place,

marking the beginning
of the expansion.

And arguably, the beginning
of the universe itself.

But there
was something else.

Several years earlier, the
physicist Albert Einstein made

a breakthrough in our
understanding of gravity,

one that also pointed to a
beginning of the universe.

But he found this implication
of his theory so disturbing

that he dismissed
it out of hand.

In 1915, he
developed a revolutionary new theory

of gravity called
general relativity.

The
largest change in man's view

of the universe
since Isaac Newton.

Nobody could
foresee its implication.

It
implied that massive bodies

in space literally
curved space itself...

in much the same way that a
bowling ball changes the shape

of a trampoline.

The
distortions of space due

to a massive body like
the sun shaped the course

of lesser objects
like the planets.

That
discovery was so powerful

that Einstein went from
being a nerdy physicist

to a worldwide sensation.

His theory
not only changed our understanding

of the present
structure of the universe,

it also had profound implications
for a long-standing question

about the origin
of the universe.

Einstein's theory implied

that in addition
to gravity, there

must be an outward
pushing force.

Because
if gravity were the only force

in the universe, everything
would have congealed

into one big black hole.

But we don't live in
that kind of universe.

We live in a universe
where there is empty space

between massive bodies.

There must be some
sort of anti-gravity force

or some sort of
outward pushing force

that creates the empty space.

He
struggled and struggled with it.

And finally, he said,
"I'm going to need to put

in an anti-gravity term into my
general equation of relativity,”

and he called it the
cosmological constant.

And
physicists today accept

that there is a
cosmological constant.

There is an outward
pushing force.

But Einstein made
a further move.

He simply chose
an arbitrary value

for this outward
pushing force, one

that was exactly balanced
to the force of gravity,

to suggest that the
universe was static,

neither expanding
nor contracting,

and is therefore
eternal and self-existent.

However, theoretical
physicists began

to work with
Einstein's equations.

And one of the physicists
was the Belgian priest,

Georges Lemaître.

They realized that the
most natural implication

of Einstein's equations was
that the universe was expanding.

But Lemaître was also
aware of the data coming

from Vesto Slipher
about the red shift.

So, Lemaître pulled those
two lines of evidence together

and formulated what is now
known as the Big Bang Theory.

Einstein,
for various philosophical

or theoretical
reasons, was trying

to avoid the
implications of his theory.

But
Lemaître and Einstein met

at a conference in 1927.

They had shared a
taxi cab ride together,

where Lemaître
apparently informed Einstein

about the redshift evidence
that the universe was actually

expanding despite Einstein's
attempt to depict it as static.

Einstein tells him that your
mathematics is impeccable,

but your physical
intuition is abominable.

Einstein accused him of
formulating this, deductively drawing it

from the Christian doctrine
of creation rather than

from the evidence.

Lemaître bristled at
that, showed, no, actually,

I have the evidence on my side.

The universe is expanding.

And your equations, when
solved, point to a beginning.

And so, in 1931,
Einstein went out

to the Hooker Telescope
at Mount Wilson...

and viewed the evidence
of the expanding universe

through Hubble's telescope.

And then, a week or two
later, he does an interview

with the New York Times
and acknowledges that Hubble

and his colleague
Humason had shown

that the universe is not static.

And later, he acknowledged
that his fine-tuning

of the cosmological constant...

was the greatest blunder
of his scientific career.

From
roughly the 1920s till the 60s,

astrophysics
proceeded with a lot

of brilliant people
doing a lot of great work,

but a lot of it was focused
on avoiding the notion

of a beginning.

That
view of the universe was debated,

and many people
argued against it.

Fred Hoyle was a famous physicist
who said, "I'm a Democritean.”

He said, "I believe nothing
comes from nothing.”

His argument was there can't
be a beginning to the universe

because that would be
something coming from nothing.

I
don't like the idea

that something is dependent
on a cause that I can never verify.

Hoyle was, in fact,

so opposed to the
notion of a beginning

that I think he was the
one who coined the name

Big Bang as a sort
of a derogatory name.

Fred Hoyle,
who was, for much of his life,

a secular atheist, he
believed that cosmologists

were being too influenced
by the Genesis 1:1 narrative.

And so,
he formulates another model.

It's called the steady state.

He imagines there's
always been matter,

there's always been energy,
there's always been space and time.

The universe is
infinitely old and

has been creating
matter continually.

So, in the mid-1900s,

there was really a battle
between two rival cosmologies.

Both
theories make predictions,

and Hoyle's prediction was
that no matter how far back

in time you look, it will
look exactly the same.

If the universe
was eternal in time and space,

then there was no
beginning and no time

when all of the galactic material
would have been concentrated

into a single, hot, dense point.

But the Big Bang
predicts that there

would have been such a point.

When
that Big Bang exploded,

the universe was in a
very dense and hot state.

And as it got bigger, it cooled.

And when it cooled far enough,
light was allowed to escape.

So, if
the Big Bang theory was true,

there should be some
evidence of this light in the form

of leftover radiation spread
throughout the universe.

You
can think of it as a glow,

as a fossil left over from
the creation process.

People looked for this radiation,

couldn't find it.

But then, two Bell Labs
physicists were trying

to create a microwave link
from the ground to a satellite.

They'd point this big horn
antenna at the satellite

and record the data.

Well, they were
getting noise and static

and couldn't explain it.

And wherever they
pointed their horn antenna,

they got the static,
and they said,

"There's something
wrong with our antenna.”

In their
desperation to figure out the source

of this signal, they
thought it might have come

from pigeon droppings
that were on this antenna.

They're scraping it off.

Nothing works.

And then,
one of them went to a seminar down

at Princeton by a physicist
named Robert Dickey.

And Robert Dickey
said, "We're looking

for the glow of that
Big Bang radiation.

And today, it would have
cooled down into the microwave.

That would be the wavelength
of light corresponding to that.”

Penzias and Wilson looked
at each other and said,

"I think we found it.”

They wrote up a paper that
they had discovered the radiation

left over from the Big Bang,
and it was such a sensation.

They got the Nobel Prize,
and I would say at that point,

90-some percent of
the physicists all agreed

that the Big Bang model
was the working one.

Hoyle never did.

He insisted that the
steady-state model was better,

and he was going to get
it fixed one of these days.

We scientists
have our predispositions.

And in this case, the predisposition
was to avoid a beginning

to the universe.

And that has been going
on for about a century now.

And yet it's as if, you know,
we are being forced to accept,

by the observations, that
the universe is evolving

and it had a beginning.

Now, in the 1960s,

this whole question of the
implication of general relativity

for the beginning of the
universe was revisited.

And it starts with
Stephen Hawking.

He's studying in Cambridge.

And in the middle of the
PhD, he is diagnosed with ALS,

Lou Gehrig's disease.

Debilitating
neurological disorder.

He's so discouraged that
he might just quit the PhD,

but he's encouraged by people
near him to press on, and he does.

Quite a heroic story, actually.

He's working on
black hole physics.

Black holes, extremely massive,

but compressed down into an
unimaginably small amount of space.

These things are warping
space and time in ways

that you can't even imagine.

It's
causing space around that matter

to curve so tightly that
even light can't get out.

But then, Hawking's
thinking about the history

and origin of the
universe itself.

He realizes that if the
universe is expanding outward

in the forward
direction of time,

then matter is getting
more and more spread out.

And he starts
thinking about, well,

what happens in the
reverse direction of time?

If the matter is more diffused
in the forward direction of time,

it means it's more
concentrated in the reverse

direction of time.

Then, according to Einstein's
theory of general relativity,

the space around matter
should get more tightly curved.

So, as you go back in time,
as matter gets more densely

concentrated, the space
gets more tightly curved,

and you eventually
get to a limiting point

where the matter gets
so densely concentrated

that the space gets
so tightly curved

that eventually you
can't go back any further.

And this, Hawking
calls the singularity,

a point of infinite density
and infinitely tight curvature.

In his PhD thesis in
1966, Hawking presents

an initial defense of that idea.

He gets incredible
praise from his examiners.

The idea of a
space-time singularity,

a beginning to the universe,
that's a mind-blowing conclusion.

But there's a problem.

As you're going
back toward the very beginning

of time, the volume of the
universe is going to zero.

There's no space
to put anything.

Zero size is not something
that can exist in space and time.

Rather, the singularity is the
point outside of space and time.

It's not in space and time.

Before the beginning of time,

there's no universe.

The universe comes into
existence out of the singularity.

There is no matter.

There is no space.

There is no time.

There is no energy.

There's no material stuff
there to do the causing.

Physicist
Robert Dickey said,

"An infinite universe would
relieve us of the necessity

of understanding
the origin of matter

at any finite time in the past.”

Notice that verb, relieve.

That's not a scientific term.

What does Dickey mean?

Well, if the universe
is eternal and infinite,

then we don't even have to ask
the question where it came from.

So, if an infinite universe
relieves us of the necessity,

what does a finite universe do?

We
now know the universe began

to exist finitely long
ago, but whatever begins

to exist is caused to
exist by something else.

Now,
because we're talking about the origin

of the universe itself, by which
we mean the origin of matter,

energy, space, and
time, any entity capable

of causing the universe to come
into existence must be external

to or separate from
the universe itself.

It must exist
independently of matter

and transcend space and time.

And so,
whatever explains the finite

physical universe must
be itself non-physical.

Whatever explains
the finite material

universe must
itself be immaterial...

to get in this way to the
philosophical stopping point

of the first cause.

I
first witnessed astronomers

and cosmologists wrestling
with this problem of the first cause

at a conference
early in my career.

It may not
be the ultimate truth.

At that conference,

I encountered
the work of a great

cosmologist named Allan Sandage.

He was well known
for being a hard-bitten

scientific materialist.

But he'd worked closely
with Edwin Hubble

on verifying the
expansion of the universe

in all quadrants of the sky.

And at this conference,
he announced

that he had come
to a theistic belief,

not in spite of, but because
of the scientific discoveries

concerning the origin of the
universe and its fine tuning.

And I can remember him looking
into the camera and saying--

Here
is evidence for what can only

be described as a
supernatural event.

Super natural event.

And there was a
kind of a beat, a pause

between the words
super and natural.

There's
no way that this could have been

predicted within the realm
of physics as we know it.

Another
astronomer at the conference

who was particularly
distressed by the problem

of the first cause
was Robert Jastrow.

National
Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Though he was an agnostic,

he had recently
published a book called

"God and the Astronomers".

Later, he did a
number of interviews

about the conclusion
of his book.

One
of the things that interests me

that I find most puzzling
in this astronomy we've

been discussing is the fact
that there was a beginning.

The mystery of creation.

If there were no beginning,
we wouldn't have to ask

what happened
before the beginning.

And we wouldn't have to worry
about who created the universe.

But the fact the universe sprang

into being at a definite moment
seems to me theological...

and nothing that could be
answered within science.

There always
has to be a cause for any effect,

and then that cause becomes
an effect of a cause underlying it.

But in the case of the Big Bang,

that calls for an
uncreated creator,

and that would answer to
some people's definition of a god.

I'm
an agnostic, not a believer,

but not an atheist.

Suppose you try to get away
from the theological explanation.

Is there something
else that we can imagine

that would lay these
questions to rest?

Some--

I can't see it.

The last
paragraph of Jastrow's book says

that the natural
scientist or the physicist

has scaled the
peak of ignorance.

As he pulls himself
over the last boulder,

he finds the philosophers
and the theologians

sitting there waiting for him.

The point Jastrow is making
is no scientist wanted there

to be a creation
to the universe.

He wanted it to be eternal.

But that was inevitably
where science was taking us

to, that point where
we had to acknowledge

there was a beginning.

Hawking proves the singularity,

doesn't much like
its implications,

because it seems to point
to a kind of creation event.

So, he spent much of the
rest of his career attempting

to circumvent the
conclusion of his own proof.

And in the process, he
developed these quantum

cosmological ideas
through a tiny loophole.

Hawking and other
physicists recognize

that they can only back
extrapolate to almost the singularity.

They can get to
1E-43 of a second

after the beginning
of the universe.

To say it's a blink of an
eye is a huge exaggeration.

Before that time, they thought
gravity might have worked

differently, according
to quantum mechanics,

the physics that applies
to the tiny subatomic realm.

So, they attempted to develop
an alternative cosmological model

that they called
quantum cosmology.

The hope among some of those
cosmologists is that this model

would eliminate the need
for a beginning of the universe

or would somehow explain
the origin of the universe

without any need to
posit an external creator.

I can recall
Stephen Hawking at Cambridge,

just when the beginnings
of Motor Neurone Disease

were being seen in
his difficulty in walking.

When I was given a pre-
publication edition of his book,

"The Grand Design", I
was quite amazed to come

across what appears to
be a central statement.

Because
there are laws, such as gravity,

the universe can and will
create itself from nothing.

I had an
immediate visceral reaction.

What could that possibly mean?

Because there is a
law such as gravity,

that is because
there is something,

the universe can
create itself from nothing.

And that appears to me
to be a flat contradiction.

Nothing is certainly
not nothing.

Hawking
is saying that the universe

has come out of some
sort of pre-existing laws

of physics that are expressed
as mathematical equations.

The implication of this is
that out of math comes matter,

space, time, and energy.

But these mathematical
equations don't describe anything

yet because there is no
universe yet to describe.

Math has no causal
power by itself.

And one of the developers
of quantum cosmology,

the Russian physicist
Alexander Volinkin,

has reflected deeply on
this kind of paradoxical result.

He says, "In the
absence of space, time,

and matter, what tablets could
these laws be written upon?”

Hawking was sensitive
to the same concern.

He said, "What is it that
breathes fire into the equations

and makes a universe
for them to describe?”

In our experience,
math is conceptual.

It exists in a mind.

So, if we're saying the material
universe came out of a set

of mathematical equations,
are we really saying

that the material universe
came out of a mind?

The basic idea
of fine-tuning is that the universe

is just so, that its properties,
the initial conditions,

the so-called constants of
physics, the laws of nature,

rest on a razor's edge so that
if they were slightly different

than they are in
the actual universe,

the universe would
not be habitable.

That is, it would not
be compatible with life.

Physicist
Sir John Polkinghorne used

to have an excellent
visual illustration

to convey the idea
of the fine-tuning.

He used to ask people
in the audience to imagine

that they were on a
spaceship that had docked

at a space station.

And upon entrance
to the space station,

they discovered
there was a great room

with a huge universe-creating
machine inside.

And it had dials and
knobs and sliders,

each representing one of the
fundamental physical parameters,

where each one of the dials
was set to a very precise value.

Imagine what would
happen if you changed one

of the dials one
click this way or

that, or move a slider
one notch this way or

that, that life in the
universe would suddenly

become impossible.

But it was none other than
Fred Hoyle who first discovered

that our universe is
actually fine-tuned for life.

I'm going to
tell you today a story which,

if you hear it, may
seem very strange to you.

Hoyle was trying to show,

as part of his work on the
steady-state cosmology,

where carbon could
have come from.

And certainly it
would have seemed strange to me,

some 20 years ago, when the path

which led to this work
began to be followed.

When
he himself made a discovery

that shook his
personal philosophy.

So, let me
begin then without more ado.

So, Hoyle
is trying to explain the abundance

of carbon in the universe
because he recognized

that you needed
carbon to build life,

but he can't figure
out for the life

of him how it could
have been built.

Hoyle reasoned
that the Big Bang couldn't do it,

the Quasi-Steady State
universe couldn't do it,

and the only other
laboratories for doing

so were in the bellies of stars.

The understanding
now is that all of the elements

that we have, carbon,
oxygen, so on, were synthesized

inside of stars.

When that star
exploded, goes supernova,

then that gets spread
throughout the universe.

Then, that gets to be
re-accumulated back

into new stars and planets.

He
developed numerous ideas

about how carbon might form
from simpler atoms inside stars.

But for various reasons,
none of them would work.

But then, he comes up with a
theory that works with the physics.

His theory envisions
two elements,

beryllium with an
atomic weight of eight

and helium with an
atomic weight of four,

combining to make carbon
with an atomic weight of 12.

But there's a catch.

When he did the math, the
resulting carbon would have a higher

energy state than
the ordinary carbon

that we have around
us in our solar system.

And this higher energy version
of carbon would have to exist

for beryllium and
helium to come together

to form carbon
in the first place.

So, if you
have a wine glass and you flick it,

it will have a certain
note that it puts out there,

a certain frequency.

If I sing that frequency
back at the wine glass,

it will absorb that sound
much more effectively than

if I just sing some other
random note at the wine glass.

There's a way that a
carbon nucleus could sing,

could wobble
around, could vibrate

and oscillate in
just the right way...

that it would live long enough
to sort of hold itself together

in time to make a stable carbon
nucleus rather than a couple

of things falling apart.

Without this singing
frequency in a carbon atom,

the process just won't work.

Hoyle
realized that there must be a version

of the carbon atom capable of
vibrating at a precise frequency

that would allow it to
absorb the combined energies

of the beryllium and helium
so that carbon could form.

After which time, it would settle
into the stable form of carbon

that we see all around us today.

Now, what
Hoyle did was to say, "All right, well,

if that's the way that carbon's
got to be made in the universe,

carbon better sing at
just this energy level,

otherwise this whole
thing's not gonna work.”

So, he
contracted with a physicist out

at Caltech named Willie Fowler.

So,
Hoyle was invited to Caltech

to give a lecture on
the steady state theory.

The next day, he
came into the laboratory

and began asking us
questions about the energy levels

of the carbon-12 nucleus.

And we kind of gave
him the brush off.

"Get away from us, young fellow.

You bother us.”

See, we didn't know
him all that well.

And there was this funny
little man who thought

that we should stop
all this important work

that we were doing
otherwise and look for this.

He convinced Ward
Whaling, who was an assistant

or associate professor at
that time, to give it a whirl.

And sure enough...

the energy he got was almost
exactly what Hoyle had predicted.

It was really quite
a tour de force

that a man had
walked into the lab,

predicted the existence
of an excited state

of a nucleus from
astrophysical arguments.

We then took
Hoyle very seriously.

That
confirmed Hoyle's suspicion

about how carbon
might have been made,

but it turned out to be
the tip of the iceberg

of a deeper problem.

The
fact that carbon sings

at just this energy level itself
depends on other properties.

The
fine-tuning of the energy levels

was the whole cascading effect
of other fine-tuning parameters

that were discovered
that had to be just right.

Each one of these
different parameters falls

within a very narrow tolerance.

We can
put fairly precise values

on how finely tuned
they have to be.

The probability of the strength
of gravity being just right,

one part in 10 to
the power of 35.

The odds of the
weight of a proton to an electron.

One part in 1,000.

The ratio between
the gravitational attraction

and the electromagnetic
attraction.

One part
in 10 to the power of 4.

The
gravitational force compared

with the weak nuclear force.

One part
in 10 to the 10,000.

One part
in 10 to the 21st power.

Initial expansion
rate of the universe.

One
part in 10 to the 17.

Not too
strong, not too weak, not too fast,

not too slow, not too
heavy, not too light.

Everything's got
to be just right.

The Goldilocks universe.

It's not just
that life would be different or

that history would be different,

but that the universe
would not be compatible

with any sort of
chemically based life.

The
probability of getting these specific

parameters right is
infinitesimally small.

Unless it's also claimed

that instruction happens
by sort of divine providence,

ex machina, to be just such.

I felt obliged to take
seriously the proposition

that life is a cosmic
phenomenon.

By
a cosmic phenomenon,

Hoyle meant that life in the
universe was a consequence

of the precise fine-tuning
of the physical parameters

of the entire universe.

So, the concept
of life as a cosmic phenomenon,

if it's correct, should
have many consequences.

The question then was
what does one do about it?

And at
the end of this investigation,

Hoyle shifted.

And he attributes his conversion
from an aggressive form

of scientific atheism
to affirming some kind

of intelligent design
behind the universe,

to his discovery,
his own discovery

of these fine-tuning parameters.

He's later quoted as saying that
a common-sense interpretation

of the evidence suggests that
a super-intellect has monkeyed

with physics and chemistry
to make life possible.

Think of it like this.

Suppose that I'm a detective
arriving on the scene of a crime.

I'm at a bank, and
there's been a heist, OK?

The safe is open,
all the money is gone,

and I say, "All right, let's
have a look at security footage.”

And I'm watching
on the little screen,

and the burglars come in,
and they walk up to the safe,

and there is a 12-digit
code, and they walk up

and punch in the correct code.

Opens up, and off they go.

Here's two possible
explanations.

Maybe these are
really lucky robbers,

but they just guess the first
12-digit code that comes to mind,

and hey presto,
they take the money.

Here's another option.

It's an inside job.

Someone who already
knew the code told

the robbers what the code is.

Let's pause the video just as
the lead thief puts his finger up

in order to put the code in.

What would we expect
to happen according

to the first hypothesis,
the they got lucky?

Well, if they're just
guessing the code,

then we'd expect them
to put in the wrong code.

We can't really predict
what code you would put in,

but we can predict
with a high degree

of certainty you put
in the wrong one.

And so, our expectation
there that naturally forms

from that scenario doesn't
match with what actually happens.

On the other hand, if we
knew it was an inside job

and we stopped the video
just before they put in the code,

we would expect them
to put in the right code

and get into the vault.

It's
possible by random means

that some process
would have stumbled

on exactly the parameters needed

to create a
life-friendly universe.

But our overwhelming
expectation,

if we consider the odds,
is that without guidance,

we would get a
life-unfriendly universe.

But that's not the kind
of universe we see.

Instead, we see the kind
of universe we would expect

if it had been
intentionally set up for life,

suggesting that it was intended.

Fine-tuning
implies a fine-tuner.

But there's
another type of fine-tuning.

And that's the fine-tuning
of the initial arrangement

of matter at the very
beginning of the universe.

If you thought the idea of a Big
Bang was one of order emerging

from chaos, get
that out of your mind.

It's exactly the opposite.

What we have is
an initial moment

of exquisite
precision and order.

One of the
remarkable things about the universe we

see around us is there's a
direction, so to speak, of time.

This fact that
processes go one way

but not the other is captured
in a physical quantity called

entropy, which very roughly,
in a sort of hand-wavy way,

measures the amount
of disorder in a system.

The more chaotic,

the more random the
distribution, the higher the entropy.

The more ordered the
system, the lower the entropy.

You have a glass of coffee,
and you have a glass of milk.

It's highly ordered.

Then, you mix them together.

They're completely
disordered and random.

We see things happening
seemingly only in a way

that entropy increases.

No one has
ever put a spoon into coffee

and stirred it and separated
the milk out from the coffee.

Never happened.

What's going on
with all of this?

Since entropy
is increasing continuously,

that means that if
we go into the past,

entropy had to be decreasing.

To allow
things to be this orderly now,

how orderly must the universe
have been at the beginning?

This is where
a very interesting argument

from Roger Penrose comes in.

What Penrose worked out was, OK,

if we consider the
full set of possibilities

for the way you
could start a universe,

our sort of universe is an
extraordinarily small piece

of that set of possibilities.

He has calculated

that initial entropy
fine-tuning as one chance

in 10 to the 10th power
raised again to the 123rd power.

It's called a
hyper-exponential number.

What that's
telling us is there's something

remarkably special about
the start of our universe.

There has to be something
about the arrangement of the stuff,

whatever the stuff was,
very early in the universe,

which is not the typical way you

would expect a
universe to start.

You could
understand this by analogy.

In the old days, when civil
engineers were building a tunnel

through a mountainside, they
would configure a charge just right

to make sure that the
blast removed the rock

where they wanted
it to be removed.

And very small adjustments
in the initial positioning

of those explosive charges
would make very big differences

in where the hole appeared
in the mountainside.

Analogously, that's what's
going on with the fine-tuning

of the initial entropy
of the universe.

You can just
think of it this way.

The amount of disorder is
so small that it's nearly perfect.

There's a famous passage in the

"General Scholium
to the Principia",

which is an epilogue

that Newton wrote in
one of the later editions

to his great work on
universal gravitation.

He's describing the beautiful
balance of the planets,

the sun, the comets that
create this stable order.

In this passage, he says, "This
most beautiful system of sun,

planets, and comets could
only proceed from the counsel

and dominion of an
intelligent and powerful being.”

Even in
a highly fine-tuned universe,

you still need a heck
of a lot more to go right

in a planetary environment in
order for not only complex life

in general, but human
life in particular to exist.

Our solar
system, especially in view

of what we now have learned
about other solar systems,

really ends up looking
quite remarkable.

Our solar system has
terrestrial planets...

in neat, circular orbits.

And then, you get
to these gas giants...

that are also in
neat, circular orbits.

They serve as guards.

They serve as sentinels for
our solar system so that they,

very often, take hits for
us from these comets...

that if they were not
there would find their way

into our neighborhood and
have an unfortunate tendency

to sterilize life on our planet.

For example,
the comet Shoemaker-Levy,

it ended up in Jupiter.

Jupiter and Saturn,

these planets that for a long
time were associated with Greek

and Roman gods, actually
do play a role in protecting us.

And
all of this around a stable,

energetic, metal-rich star.

Just these makes the
solar system pretty unique.

Beyond that, our own planet
within the solar system is situated

in what we call the
circumstellar habitable zone.

If we were
too close, radiation would kill us.

If we were too far away, our
planet wouldn't have the right

materials to support
life in the way it does.

It's the right tilt
and has the right

rotation rate so that
we have seasons.

You
need a large moon in order

to stabilize the
planet's tilt on its axis.

In
addition, what the moon

does is that recirculates
the ocean through the tides

to allow oxygen to
get to deeper levels.

You need
the right kind of atmosphere,

the right thickness
of the atmosphere,

the right mass for the planet
in order to hold the right kind

of atmosphere in
place, and then you

need the right kind of geology.

We have a molten
magma in the Earth that rotates.

That creates a magnetic shield.

That has an
important consequence

because the magnetic field
of the Earth is our blanket,

our shield against dangerous,
deadly cosmic radiation

that would otherwise
modify our DNA,

preventing us from
perhaps ever coming to exist.

It's not at all obvious

that that necessarily
has to happen.

In some ways, Mars
is the perfect example

of how precisely things
have to be fine-tuned

at a local level in
order to have life.

Remember, Mars is the
most Earth-like planet known

in the universe.

Mars is in an otherwise
habitable solar system.

It's very close to the
Goldilocks zone in its orbit.

It's close to the
same mass as Earth.

It has many of the
same materials.

And yet a few things
didn't go quite right.

And as a result,
it's lifeless while

Earth is suffused with life.

It's a remarkably
exquisite system of design

in which all of these pieces
have to work together in order

to produce a small abode on
the surface of a single small planet

where life can exist.

One
of the most curious attempts

to get a round
inference to design

in the universe is to push
it all off onto the concept

of a multiverse.

The idea
that there are billions and billions

and billions of other
universes out there,

which had different combinations

of fundamental
physical parameters

and different
initial conditions,

and we just happen
to be in the lucky one.

Given enough universes,

presumably at least one or a
few of those universes will exist

in such a way that
complex life can exist.

The nice thing
about the multiverse explanation

is it shows that this
fine-tuning business seems

to be pointing beyond
the universe as we know it.

There's got to be
something else.

There's got to be a
bigger story out there.

The multiverse,
as an appeal to a materialistic,

naturalistic explanation, loses
any of its original attraction.

Anything that's outside
of this nature is essentially,

manifestly supernatural.

And so, we're appealing
to something supernatural

to avoid the supernatural.

Leonard Susskind,

a prominent physicist
at Stanford, says, "Look,

if we don't posit this kind
of a multiverse model,

we're hard pressed to
answer the arguments

of the ID proponents as to
how to explain the fine-tuning.”

But there's a problem with that.

For the multiverse
explanation to work,

there must be some kind of
universe-generating mechanism,

a kind of common cause of
all the universes so that we

can portray each of the
universes as the outcome

of a kind of cosmic lottery.

And these
universe-generating machines,

where they're constantly
generating universes

with slightly different
parameters and laws of physics.

And this is the sleeper.

All the speculative
cosmological models

that have been invoked to
explain how you might generate new

universes, whether those
models are based on string theory

or something called
inflationary cosmology,

all those models
require exquisite,

prior fine-tuning in the
universe-generating mechanism

that is proposed.

If a
monkey clicked on a typewriter

for an infinite amount
of time, in theory

it would eventually
type out Hamlet.

But if the typewriter
didn't have the letter H,

then it wouldn't stand a chance.

Just as the parts of the
typewriter need to be fine-tuned

to include all the
letters of the alphabet

to make possible typing
different words and sentences,

so too, all proposed
universe-generating mechanisms

would require fine-tuning
to make it possible

to generate different
universes with different

initial conditions
and laws of physics.

The
multiverse doesn't actually get rid

of the fine-tuning or explain
the origin of the fine-tuning.

You really just push the fine-tuning
problem back one generation

without solving it.

And yet we know of one cause
that does produce fine-tuning

in our experience.

Whenever we see
what we call fine-tuning,

we always trace that type
of a system back to a mind,

whether we're talking about
a finely tuned French recipe,

a finely tuned internal
combustion engine,

or a finely tuned radio dial.

The ability
to look at a set of possibilities

and to choose an outcome is
almost by definition intentional.

It's something that
a mind does that sort

of mindless matter doesn't do.

So, given
that the multiverse doesn't actually

provide an ultimate
explanation for fine-tuning,

the best explanation
for fine-tuning

is still intelligent design.

The multiverse
is like this gateway drug.

Once you're lost
in the multiverse,

you might as well
be in a simulation.

Some
people have argued

that our universe is
actually a simulation,

that there's perhaps
some extraordinary

computer that's
running a simulation.

We're part of that simulation.

The simulation theory?

That belongs in the movies.

Come on, that's ridiculous.

We're not living
in a simulation.

There's no evidence of
a discrete film being run

in the background.

This is not what
I would consider,

or what you would consider,
sophisticated discourse.

Has nothing to do with science.

I think what all
these things have in common,

the simulation
theory, the multiverse,

you can't trust what's
in front of your eyes.

The
multiverse, simulation hypothesis,

we're living in a computer,
all those sorts of things,

there's nothing
wrong with any of this.

It just shouldn't be
mistaken for anything serious.

We're not
only seeing evidence of design

at the macroscopic
scale of the entire universe

and in the fundamental
parameters of physics

that affect the
whole of the cosmos,

but we're now seeing
design in the microcosm

and the tiny recesses
of living cells.

Back in
the middle of the 19th century,

the cell was thought to
be a little piece of jelly,

so it seemed to
be pretty simple.

Thomas Henry Huxley said

that the living
cell is a simple,

homogenous globule of
undifferentiated protoplasm.

It's just a simple
enclosure with some Jello

or goo on the inside.

But
modern science has shown

that the cell is an enormously
complex nanoscale factory.

And when you study biochemistry,
you come across machinery,

literally molecular machines.

One of my favorites is
the bacterial flagellum.

It is quite literally
an outboard motor

that bacteria use to swim.

It's got a propeller, this
long whip-like strand.

And the propeller is
attached to the drive shaft

by something called the U-joint,
which is attached to the motor.

And the motor is hooked
onto the cell membrane

by something called the stator.

The stator requires
bushing to push up

through the
membrane of the cell.

And altogether, there are
30 parts that are needed for it.

In some
species, the flagellar motor is rotating

at 100,000 rpm, and
it can change direction

in a quarter of a turn.

It's an absolutely amazing piece

of high technology
in a low form of life.

Another great
example of a molecular machine

in the cell is the ATP synthase.

It's a true turbine

that generates energy
for use in the cell

in much the same way a turbine
in a dam generates electricity.

It's an engine
with a barrel-shaped rotor made

of protein subunits.

As the rotor spins, it turns
a drive shaft with a specially

placed bump that opens a
specifically shaped compartment.

Once opened, this compartment
receives two molecules

and combines them to form
another energy-rich molecule

called ATP, the
power plant for the cell.

And
there's a whole host

of molecular
machines inside cells.

turbines, rotary
engines, sliding clamps,

machines for copying
digital information.

We've got kinesin
motors that are running

along that are basically UPS
trucks that are delivering things.

Motor proteins that walk step
by step as they tow vesicles

of material along tracks
made of other special proteins.

Darwin knew nothing

of these sophisticated multi-part
machines in the 19th century,

and his theory is not
equipped to explain them.

Darwin himself said, "If
it could be demonstrated

that there was any system
that could not be put together

by numerous, successive,
slight modifications,

my theory would
absolutely break down.”

In the bacterial
flagellar motor,

if you take away
the drive shaft or

if you take away the propeller
or the U-joint, it's broken.

If any key component of
the flagellar motor is removed,

it stops functioning.

This means simpler evolutionary
precursors wouldn't have worked.

So, natural selection
wouldn't have preserved them,

halting evolution
before the fully

functional motor could develop.

On the flip side, when you
see a system that's put together

with a number of components
matched to each other,

you recognize that's
the product of a mind.

The
Darwinian mechanism of mutation

and selection, which has
long been posed as a kind

of designer-substitute mechanism,
cannot build those systems.

Then, perhaps they look designed

because they really
were designed.

But there's an even
deeper consideration

that points to intelligent
design and biology.

One of the
most brilliant theories

of modern science was formulated
by an American, JD Watson,

and an Englishman, FHC Crick.

As soon as we met,

we found that although we
had very different backgrounds,

we had a lot of
things in common.

Francis
Crick was a PhD student

at Cambridge University,
working in physics,

not even in biology.

He teamed up with a 23-year-old
American named James Watson.

Neither of us were trained

for what really
interested us now.

We both wanted to find the gene.

We weren't organic chemists.

We weren't anything else.

And they
began to work on what was at the time

deemed to be kind of the
holy grail of biological research.

By the early 1950s, many
scientists were suspecting

that DNA had something
to do with the transmission

of hereditary information,
but didn't know

what the structure of DNA was.

And so, Watson and Crick
began a kind of odyssey

to try to crack this problem.

And by the spring of 1953, they
had actually formulated a model

that elucidated the structure
of the DNA molecule.

They showed that it had a
beautiful double helix structure.

And along the spine
of the molecule,

on the interior, there were
chemical subunits, four of them.

One, two, three, four.

Now represented
with the letters A, T, G, and C.

A would pair with T.

And then, you have
two other genetic letters.

C would pair up with G.

So, you had the double helix.

So, the discovery of
the structure suggested

that one strand of DNA had
a complementary strand...

that could in turn function
as a template for rebuilding

or copying the original strand.

And this suggested
a duplication process.

I don't think
I worried too much about what

the structure might tell us.

I just thought we
ought to find out.

And when we had
found out, of course,

it struck us with a
tremendous impact,

just how beautiful
and exciting it was.

Because there before
us was the answer to one

of the fundamental problems in
biology, how do genes replicate?

And it was very simple,
and you couldn't miss it.

We used to occasionally
just, Jim and I,

just sit and look
at the molecule

and think how beautiful it was.

Interestingly,
Crick had been a code breaker

in World War II.

In 1957, he then formulates
something called the sequence

hypothesis, which in many
ways, I think is a more significant

achievement than even the
original elucidation of the structure.

Crick realizes that the four
chemical subunits along the spine

of the double helix, on
the interior of the helix,

are functioning like alphabetic
characters in a written text.

That is to say that it's
not the physical properties

of these subunits.

It's not their molecular
weight or their shape,

but rather it's their
arrangement in accord

with an independent
symbol convention

that molecular biologists
eventually elucidate,

called the genetic code,
that gives them their ability

to transmit information.

What also happened

around the same time
was Gamow had shown

that you could take those
letters, As, Cs, Gs, and Ts,

and you could represent them
in binary code, zeros and ones.

So, it had an uncanny
resemblance to a digital bit string.

It looked very much like
an information carrier.

But for what?

Crick
anticipated this, too.

He thought these bases
were carrying information

for the construction
of proteins.

A cell is filled with proteins
that are performing the tasks

inside the cells.

They're
like the tools in a toolbox.

You have a hammer,
a wrench, a saw.

Each of those different tools
perform different functions

because of the different
three-dimensional shapes

that they have.

The same thing
is true of proteins.

Proteins catalyze
reactions at super-fast rates,

those are called
enzyme proteins,

they build the structural
parts of molecular machines,

and they also help to process
information on the DNA molecule.

So, proteins do all
these important jobs,

but they do those jobs
because they have very specific

three-dimensional
conformations or shapes.

Now that raises the question,
how do they acquire those shapes?

Well, they get those
precise shapes if and only

if the amino acid subunits,
the constituent parts out

of which they're made, are
arranged in very specific ways.

And there's
20 amino acids in the same way

that you've got 26
letters in the alphabet.

So, the order of the amino acids

in a protein is like the
letters in a sentence.

They have to be in
the right order to work.

But
what causes the amino acids

to get arranged properly
so that they will fold properly

into the right shapes?

And the answer to
that was the discovery

that the DNA molecule
contains information...

instructions for
directing the construction

of those protein molecules
that do all those important jobs.

In
those stretches of DNA,

you have very particular
sequences of A's, C's, G's,

and T's that tell cells how to
make amino acid sequences

that fold and become
functional proteins.

And molecular biologists now
have a very good understanding

of how the information in
DNA directs the process

of protein synthesis.

First, the cell uses a large protein
machine called a polymerase

to make a copy of the
information on the DNA.

The polymerase separates
the DNA into two strands.

One strand serves as
a template for creating

a complementary RNA copy.

The resulting copy, called a
messenger RNA transcript,

detaches and then
approaches and passes

through the nuclear
pore complex.

Then the transcript with the
genetic assembly instructions

arrives at a two-part chemical
factory called the ribosome,

the site of protein synthesis.

As the messenger RNA transcript
passes through the ribosome,

a mechanical assembly line
builds a specifically sequenced chain

of amino acids using the
instructions on the transcript.

These amino acids are
transported to the ribosome

by molecules
called transfer RNAs,

which link specific
sequences of bases

to corresponding amino acids
in accord with the genetic code.

The sequential arrangement
of the amino acids determines

whether the chain will
fold into a functional protein,

and if so, which type.

Once the chain is folded
into a functional protein,

it is ready to perform
its job inside the cell.

That's in fact what's
going on inside cells.

The discovery meant

that you had to explain
not just the origin

of the cell viewed as a
kind of amorphous blob,

but rather as an enclosure
of a sophisticated information

storage device and a sophisticated
information transmission

and processing system.

They
inherited all the traits

of the cell they came from.

And this same sort of process
goes on in all living creatures.

It's not just a
bunch of protoplasm anymore.

The cell is utterly amazing.

How can you look
at this and not think,

how in the world did this start?

Because molecules don't come
together to do that on their own.

OK.

But what I'd like to know is,
where'd the first cell come from?

In a way, you're
asking where life itself began.

We don't know that.

I first
encountered the mystery about the origin

of the first life at a
conference that I attended

when I was a young scientist.

There was a discussion
between scientists

who were committed to the
standard chemical evolutionary model

for how life arose
from simpler chemicals

in the so-called prebiotic soup,

and other scientists who
had become skeptical

of the standard model.

One of those scientists on the
panel was a man named Dean

Kenyon, a biophysicist with a
Stanford PhD, he'd worked at NASA,

and he'd written the best-
selling advanced graduate-level

textbook on how life first arose
from these prebiotic chemicals,

"Biochemical Predestination".

But leading up
to the conference,

he began to doubt
his own theory.

My own
research work on origin

of first life was one
of the main factors

that led me to begin to
question this general viewpoint

about origins.

As time went on there, I
began to be more aware

of some of the
problems involved.

Actually, some students brought
me a book in which my own work,

"Biochemical
Predestination", was critiqued.

I thought I could easily refute
this refutation of my work.

And so, I said, "Well,
I'll take the summer

to look at this material.

It looks very interesting.”

Here, the question of
origin of genetic information

looked increasingly
problematical.

By the time the summer
was over, I had decided

that I could not
refute this criticism.

Things added up to the time
for a critical reexamination.

And his
old idea was that the subunits

of the large information-
carrying biological molecules,

like the proteins and the
DNA, would have self-organized

because of forces of attraction
between the constituent parts

of those large molecules.

In chemistry, sodium and
chloride combine to form salt.

NA has a plus charge.

Cl has a minus charge.

They attract, and they form a
nicely ordered crystal lattice.

However, as he got
deeply into the chemistry,

Kenyon realized that DNA
wasn't that kind of molecule.

In the DNA
molecule, we have A, T, C, and G.

And the specific order in which
they occur does not depend

on the chemical
binding affinities

between or among
those various bases.

I used
to use a visual illustration

with my students to
get the idea across.

I would use a little
magnetic chalkboard

and stick letters to
it, magnetic letters.

In the case of the magnetic
letters in the chalkboard,

there were magnetic
forces that explained

why the letters stuck
to the backboard.

But those forces didn't explain
the arrangement of the letters

that spelled out some message.

Instead, that was explained
only by an exogenous source

of information, namely, I
had arranged the letters.

So, the magnetic forces
explain why the letters stuck

to the backboard, but
not their arrangement.

And in the same way, there
are forces of attraction in DNA

that explain why the bases stick

to the sugar phosphate backbone,

but not forces that explain the
arrangement of the characters.

And so,
my doubt just reached, I guess,

for me, the intellectual
breaking point.

If one could get at the
origin of the messages,

the encoded messages
within the living machinery,

then you would really be on to
something far more intellectually

satisfying than this
chemical evolution theory.

And at this conference,

he publicly repudiated
his own theory.

I don't think
you have to jump off the end

of the rational world
to move in the direction

of a frankly theistic
understanding of the origin of life.

Since
Kenyon announced his doubts,

there have been
many other attempts

to simulate how the molecular
compounds necessary for life,

like proteins and DNA, or even
simpler chemical building blocks

of those compounds,
might have evolved

under realistic prebiotic
conditions on the early Earth.

But those laboratory simulations
invariably require a cheat.

Human interference.

When you do organic synthesis,
when you make a compound,

you need to generally
start with pure compounds

because the
impurities cause a lot

of deleterious
reactions to occur.

Once you've made your
compound, you've got to stop it

at exactly the right time
before it decomposes,

more human interference.

Now, what you have to
do is you have to separate it

from all the other
compounds that formed.

Separations are
really hard, really hard.

Huge human involvement.

Now you have to identify it.

You have to know what
it is and characterize it

in order to bring it
on to the next step.

How do you go on?

And the poor early
Earth was mindless.

It didn't know what it
was supposed to make.

Molecules have never been
known to move toward life.

Never, ever, ever.

Molecules don't evolve
toward life. They don't.

Attempts to
simulate how life could have arisen

from a prebiotic environment
involve an element

that never gets acknowledged.

And that element
is intelligence.

We need to
address more fundamental questions.

What's the origin of the code?

And I know
that philosophers of science

and scientists find it
difficult to really grasp what

information is because
it has a couple of levels.

In
classical information theory,

there isn't a way to
distinguish a series of symbols

that are merely improbable
from a series of symbols

that are improbable
and also functional.

The difference between the
monkey typing out random gibberish,

which would be a highly complex
arrangement of characters,

but not one that
conveys any meaning

or performs a
communication function,

and, say, a line
of poetry, like,

"Time and tide wait for no man.”

If you compare those two
symbol strings side by side,

you'll see that they both
are highly improbable.

But something is
present in the one string

of characters that's
not present in the other.

And that's what
we call specificity.

Or sometimes it's called
specified complexity.

The arrangement of
the characters is specific

to perform a function.

Now,
what's interesting in life,

you have things that
are not just complex and

that there's lots of parts, it's

that they're arranged
in a particular way

that allows them to do
something remarkable.

And that is the thing
that makes the complexity

not just ordinary complexity...

but specified complexity.

And DNA is a great example
of specified complexity.

And when we're
talking about information contained

in the genetic code
in DNA, we are talking

about a level of
semantic information.

Because in DNA, the sequence
is coding for something.

In that sense, it has meaning.

A
scientist named Henry Quastler,

who was one of the pioneers in
applying the information sciences

to analyzing the information
that's stored in DNA, he says,

"The creation of new
information is habitually associated

with conscious activity.”

We
associate information

with a rational
intelligence behind it.

That's true at all levels.

And as we grow up, we learn.

We read books.

We see words.

We learn language.

And everything
points towards the fact

that this does not
arise spontaneously.

Bill Gates
says that DNA is like a software

program, only much more
complex than any we've ever created.

What do we know about
the origin of software?

It always comes from a
mind, from a programmer.

In fact, whenever
we see information

and we trace it
back to its source,

whether we're looking at
a section of software code

or a hieroglyphic inscription
or a paragraph in a book

or information embedded
in a radio signal,

if we trace the information
back to its ultimate source,

we always come to a
mind, not a material process.

So, the discovery of
information in a digital

or alphabetic form at
the foundation of life

in molecules like DNA and
RNA is a powerful indicator

of a designing intelligence
playing a role in the origin

of that information, and
therefore in the origin of life itself.

That's
where all our experience

of the universe points.

We see the word exit, immediately
we infer to a mind behind it.

A Chinese archaeologist sees
a couple of strokes on the wall

of a cave and says,
"Human intelligence.”

And I say, "Don't be
so stupid, two strokes.”

Ah, yes, but they are the
Chinese symbol for a human being.

And so, there must have
been an intelligence behind that.

We look inside the cell.

We have a whole
theory which describes

these controlled
transfers of information.

And the only examples
we know of this sort

of controlled transfers
of information is systems

that intelligent agents
have developed.

When we look
at how information gets processed

in the cell, you get the string
of information being ejected out

of the nucleus, but
that string of information

on its own does not give
you, in any way, shape,

or form, the product we
need to get work done.

It has to be picked up
by another mechanism

that knows how
to read that string

and convert what it sees there
into what is needed over here

to get the work done that
that thing over there needs.

That gave me pause
and made me go,

"Wait a minute, I've
seen this before.”

We do this all the time
in computer science.

Some of the ideas that
we were seeing in biology

that resonated with me were
such notions as error correction.

By any chance,

if there's something
that is done incorrectly,

there's even another
protein that's able

to proofread and fix this.

The
existing code can be recoded,

it can be rewritten, it
can be edited on the fly.

The information
processing system

in the cell uses design
strategies reminiscent

of high-tech digital computing
with one key difference.

The design logic in the
cell exceeds anything

human engineers have produced.

We know now that DNA,

you can read it
once in one direction.

You can read it in
that direction again,

but if you start here, you get a
different gene expressed than

if you start here, even
though those overlap.

You can read
the same segment of DNA forward

to get one protein and
backwards to get another.

We've never
been able to yet make anything like

that happen with computers.

The
code in the computer program,

it only does one thing.

You can't read
it back and forth.

You read it one way,
and that's what it does.

That's all it does.

In DNA, we
have codes within codes within codes.

They're interdigitated.

They are multi-level, overlapping.

We're dealing with
a system that exhibits

a manifold complex design.

The
level of complexity that we see,

I stand back and go,
"Wow, that's really elegant.”

As
soon as the immense miracle

of the cell is exposed,
it's an ongoing process.

We're far from a complete
description of even the simplest cell.

We see these are
not random structures.

They haven't been
cobbled together.

They haven't been
pieced together

by some sort of
stochastic mechanism.

They're exquisitely and
ingeniously put together

in a certain way, and if
they're not put together

in that certain way,
they don't work.

Let's take a look at what's

around us on planet Earth.

Do we see what looks like
the bare bones, minimalistic,

cobbling together
something by accident

for the sheer purpose
of ruthless survival?

Or do we see something
much more extravagant,

beautiful in its expression?

This is actually a big problem
in evolutionary biology.

It's called the problem
of gratuitous beauty.

Many organisms have beauty
beyond anything that's relevant

for their survival.

This
deserves an explanation.

Many people have tried to
give a utilitarian explanation.

Oh, yeah, well, it's
some adaptive reason,

or there's some
sexual selection.

But I think the answer
requires something more.

The one who realized
the answer requires

something more was Aristotle.

He said, "No, it's the result of
some kind of rational structure

to the universe, dare
say even an intelligence.”

So, the exuberance
is one that appears

to be designed to
elicit our attention.

It's one that seems to
be reaching out to us.

Now, here I am waxing.

It would seem to be mystical.

I must
say that these are observations,

they're appeals to intuition,
but not to be dismissed

for that reason.

Not to be dismissed.

There's something
interesting going on.

There's something in science

called the beauty principle

that says true theories often
convey a mathematical beauty

or structural harmony.

Upon looking at their
model of the DNA molecule,

Francis Crick was
quoted as saying,

"It's so beautiful,
it's got to be right.”

You find
that all the time in the literature

today, people saying, "Beauty
is truth, and truth beauty.”

If we find a set of equations
that is just beautiful,

then it must be true.

Sometimes the
path toward the truth leads

through beauty.

And that is an important window.

We need to be
willing to open that.

There's really
two fundamental hypotheses

about reality.

One is that the story
of everything is purpose,

that behind everything
there is an author.

The alternative is
that none of that is true.

We're the result of blind
and impersonal processes

that did not have us in mind.

So, ultimately, these questions
about the origin of matter,

the origin of life, the
origin of the universe,

come down to that fundamental
question and those two options.

Richard
Dawkins has very famously said

that the universe
has, at bottom,

just those properties one would
expect if there were no design,

no purpose, only blind,
pitiless indifference.

That's an interesting claim.

What I find interesting about
it is that it's the right kind

of claim to be trying to make.

We want to take our
metaphysical hypotheses

and see what consequences
they have, what they point

to, how well they
account for various things.

One of the most important
questions any of us can ask,

when should I change my mind?

Or to put it a
little bit differently,

if I am wrong, how
am I going to find out?

Consider you're walking
through the woods.

In a stretch of woods that you
had thought totally uninhabited,

you stumble upon an
old, sort of rundown cabin.

Looking at it, you
think it's just a relic left

over from a long time ago.

Then you go up to the door,
and you push it, and it opens.

And as you step inside,
you see a cup of tea,

still hot, steeping
on a little table

in the middle of the cabin.

When Richard Dawkins says the
universe has exactly the features

that we would expect if there
were at bottom no reason,

no purpose, what he's saying
is that there should be no signs

of intelligence in the universe.

Where Dawkins goes wrong
is that there actually is a cup

of tea on the table.

And so much more.

Recent scientific discoveries
point in the direction

that none of the leading
scientific materialists expected.

No one
expected that the physical universe

of matter, space,
time, and energy

would have a definite beginning.

No one expected that the
universe would be finely tuned

against all odds to
make life possible.

Dawkins himself has confessed
to being knocked sideways

with wonder at the
miniaturized intricacy

of the data processing
machinery inside the cell.

We're not living in a vast,
meaningless universe.

From the forces holding the
cosmos together to the instructions

in the DNA in our own
bodies, we see evidence

that everything was
intended for a purpose,

that the story of
everything is not blind,

pitiless indifference, but the
unfolding of a grand design

that all of us are part of.

And surprisingly, perhaps, it is
science that has revealed this.

Here
is evidence for what can only

be described as a
supernatural event.

I don't think
you have to jump off the end

of the rational world
to move in the direction

of a frankly theistic
understanding of the origin of life.

Is there
something else that we can imagine

that would lay these
questions to rest?

I can't see it.

The question
then was what does one do about it?

We might
rethink the story of everything.

The universe does not
look like it's been left to itself.

It bears everywhere the
fingerprints of its creator.