Finally, a development theists and non-theists alike can celebrate!
I read with pleasure this article in the Atlantic this morning (link gets you beyond the paywall). The sub-head reads, “The fundamental nature of living things challenges assumptions that physicists have held for centuries.” The author, astrophysicist Adam Frank, argues that physicists can no longer maintain the conceit that reductionism will lead to a Theory of Everything, and they need to shake up some of their assumptions to account for the fact that life is just different from non-life.
He doesn’t explicitly mention thermodynamics, but goes there implicitly. I like to say life is an eddy in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and I like to suggest that intelligence may be an inherent property of the universe. Of course, I have no idea what I’m talking about.
Excerpts:
The central hubris of physics has long been the idea that it is the most “fundamental” of all sciences. Physics students learn about the basic stuff of reality—space and time, energy and matter—and are told that all other scientific disciplines must reduce back down to the fundamental particles and laws that physics has generated. This philosophy, called “reductionism,” worked pretty well from Newton’s laws through much of the 20th century as physicists discovered electrons, quarks, the theory of relativity, and so on. But over the past few decades, progress in the most reductionist branches of physics has slowed. For example, long-promised “theories of everything,” such as string theory, have not borne significant fruit.
. . . .
Give me a young star, and I can use the reductionist laws of physics to predict that star’s future: It will live a million years rather than a billion years; it will die as a black hole rather than as a white dwarf. But the components of a living organism yield something new and unexpected, a phenomenon called “emergence.” Give me a simple cell from the early days of Earth’s history, and I could never predict that some 4 billion years later it would evolve into a giant rabbit that can punch you in the face.
Abiogenesis has recently (and recurrently) been a topic around these parts. In the theists’ corner, the linked article reminds us that life is different from the rest of the universe, and physics can’t explain it. In the atheists’ corner, the article suggests that physics is upping its game, so maybe some explanation will be forthcoming. Exciting times!
Full link to shared article:
Question(s): Can physics teach us something about life? Can life teach us something about physics? Is there anything in the article you particularly like or dislike? If intelligence is an inherent property of the universe, does that support a theistic or an atheistic view, or both or neither? What else do you want to argue about?