[00:00:05] Speaker A: Id the Future, a podcast about evolution and intelligent design.
Welcome to id the future. I'm Casey Luskin, and today I'm speaking with Guillermo Gonzalez, a senior fellow at Discovery Institute, an astronomer with a PhD from the University of Washington who's had quite an accomplished career having discovered two two extrasolar planets, published dozens of peer reviewed scientific papers, and helped develop new fine tuning arguments such as the galactic habitable zone. Guillermo is the co author, with Jay Richards, of the book the Privileged Planet, how our Place in the Cosmos is designed for discovery, and our occasion for this podcast today is Guillermo's contributions to a new book that's being released in October 2021, titled the Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith, exploring the ultimate questions about life in the cosmos, which is being published by Harvest House. I'm a co editor of the book, along with Bill Dempsky and Joseph Holden, and we certainly hope you'll check it out. It has contributions from leading id scientists, including not just Guillermo, but also Stephen Meyer, Michael Behe, Douglas Axe, Brian Miller, Jonathan Wells, Walter Bradley, Robert Marx, and many others. And it addresses numerous important topics related to science and faith. So, Guillermo, thank you so much for coming on the show with us today.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: It's my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: And I also want to thank you for your contributions to this book. I think you had more essays in this book, Guillermo, than any other contributor who is not an editor for the volume. So thanks for the work you did on this.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: One of the things that struck me as I was preparing for this podcast is how your essays are so concise and yet packed with information and arguments that I think our listeners will really find useful. That's a theme in the book, I think it's concise, yet highly informative, and we really are excited to be putting out the comprehensive guide to science and faith as a resource. So let's start by talking about your chapter titled do we live on a privileged planet? You open that chapter by quoting Carl Sagan's famous comment that we live on a pale blue dot, which he says was just a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark, really joyful outlook on the world there. And of course, the idea that we're just a spec has been picked up by many more recent science popularizers like Bill Nye, who is also fond of saying that we're just a spec. So I'd like to first ask you if this historical view that sort of earth is not very important is that in a traditionally historical view that scientists believe that nature is purposeless and that we're just a speck in the cosmic scheme with no meaning or value? Or is this sort of a new view that's come up maybe in the last 100 years or so?
[00:02:44] Speaker B: That's right. It is a relatively new view. The great founders of modern science, from Copernicus to Kepler to Newton to Boyle to Maxwell Faraday, all believed that the universe not only was purposed, but in fact shows evidence of purpose that we can discern in nature. And Newton was very impressed with the orderly motions in the solar system throughout the universe as well, and how it was governed by simple laws, some of which he discovered, like a law of gravity, for example. So, yes, these great founding scientists all believed that nature evinced evidence of design, and they were, in fact, motivated to search for that evidence of design to get to know nature's creator in some way. And it was really with Darwin that in that period of time, in the mid 19th century, that the skepticism of the view of purpose and nature began to grow and be developed.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: So this idea that we're sort of unimportant in the scheme of the cosmos, that's a 19th century viewpoint. So let's talk about what 21st century scientific evidence is saying. You spent a lot of time in your chapter talking about the atmosphere, and I was wondering if you could share for our listeners a little bit about what makes Earth's atmosphere special when it comes to life and other features.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: Well, the atmosphere, first of all, is the kind of atmosphere that you need for complex, mobile, active life like us, with high metabolism. So you need an oxygen rich atmosphere for that, and low carbon dioxide at the same time. If you're going to have simple, say, anaerobic single cell organism, quote, simple anaerobic organisms, then you don't need an oxygen rich atmosphere. But for complex life organisms, they're going to have, for example, a large brain that's metabolically expensive. You do need a high amount of oxygen, and it's this kind of atmosphere with high oxygen nitrogen, low carbon dioxide, relatively low water vapor that is transparent. And that transparency of the atmosphere really opens up our view to the rest of the universe. We can see, not just locally, our immediate surroundings, for example, for survival, but we can see billions of light years out into the distant universe. We can see the planets. We can see our moon, the stars, galaxies, nebulae. So it's a remarkable thing that this atmosphere that is just right for complex life like us also provides a great view of the distant universe. It could have been otherwise. We see lots of other planets in the solar system. With atmospheres that are thick, that would not allow any hypothetical inhabitants to see the distant universe. And of course, there are a couple of planets without any atmosphere at all. Mercury and then Mars. Almost no atmosphere, very thin. But even a thin atmosphere like Mars is still loaded with a lot of dust, and it does make for difficulty in some kinds of observations. But you could say, okay, it's not perfect. It's partly cloudy. Okay, it's partly cloudy. But sure, you can still look at the stars on cloudless nights. But I talk about something else that a partly cloudy atmosphere provides to us, and that's rainbows. And this may sound odd. Okay, what's the big deal about rainbows? Well, just like looking at the night sky inspires awe and is beautiful. But not only that gives us knowledge, greatly important knowledge, but rainbows as well are beautiful. They attract our attention. And not only that, they've been inspirational over the history of science to try to understand the nature of light. And what is it that makes a rainbow? A lot of scientists have been motivated to try to understand them. Descartes, Newton, there were early scientists studied it, and then some more came later and finally understood it. And unlocking the secret of rainbows really opened up the rest of the universe, because we made artificial rainbows in the laboratory, like Isaac Newton did, with prisms, for example, spreading the white sunlight into its constituent colors. And then scientists after that used it in chemistry, and it was discovered that the different chemical elements have unique light spectra. And then it was applied to astronomy in the late 18 hundreds. And by making these artificial rainbows from the light gathered through a telescope from a distant star, we're able to learn an enormous amount of information about the distant stars. It literally unlocked the secrets of the universe. And so it had an astronomical spectroscopy, had a humble beginning in trying to understand rainbows, and rainbows, really, you can't see just anywhere. And I spend some time in the chapter explaining what kind of places you can see rainbows from and what kind of places you can't see rainbows from. Can't see rainbows on the moon, can't see them on Mercury, probably can't see them on Mars. And planets with too thick an atmosphere can't see them on Venus.
So it really has to be a partly cloudy atmosphere that has some precipitation to be able to see rainbows. So I cover these kinds of beautiful phenomena that people can enjoy, but they also provide profound insight into the nature of the universe and have led to great advancements in science. And then the other one I cover in that chapter is solar eclipses, of course, that also we can see because we have a transparent atmosphere.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we really take for granted the fact that our atmosphere is transparent. I mean, every day, everything we see is because the atmosphere allows us to see it. But what if it wasn't? We wouldn't be able to see clouds or the sun or as you said, rainbows or the stars at night. I mean, so many aspects of our everyday lives depend on the transparency of the atmosphere. We don't even think about it.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: And it's not merely translucency where light would filter through the clouds, say, on an overcast day, but it's transparency, because all we need for life is translucency. We can live fine. If the earth's atmosphere were just perpetually cloud covered and the light filtered through the clouds, we would still have photosynthesis. We would still be able to see our prey, for example, to gather food. But it's much more than that. It's much more than merely translucent. It's transparent and frankly, quite transparent. And it does blur some things. It does blur because of turbulence in the atmosphere, the distant stars, but not that much. It provides view much, much sharper than we can see with our naked eyes. We really have to use telescopes to be able to see the blurring effect of the atmosphere. The atmosphere provides a much, much clearer view than anything we need for survival or everyday existence.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: Of course, looking out my office window here in Seattle, I can tell you that a lot of times I don't see the sun and it's not clear. But we know that the atmosphere is clear quite a bit as well. So, Guillermo, how about our location in the galaxy? Carl Sagan, the famous materialist astronomer, once said, we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost between two spiral arms in the outskirts of a galaxy with which is a member of a sparse cluster of galaxies tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe. But is that really true, that our cosmic location is not special and is unimportant?
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Again, I think he's mistaken here. Just like calling the Earth just a speck, a pale blue dot. I think he's bringing his metaphysical beliefs to color his interpretation of nature. You can't really say something is purposeless or insignificant because it's small. I mean, we spend a lot of money and effort to get a tiny diamond in the rough, deep underground. In fact, in south african mines, right? If I'm not mistaken, they mine for diamonds.
So the earth is like a diamond, right? You can look at it that way, a tiny, beautiful jewel. So you can look at it different ways, but to find out if it's really purposeful, significant, you have to look at the evidence. Okay, what does the evidence say? Well, yes, we're located not at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, but about halfway from the center to the edge in the disk of the Milky Way. And we're located between the busy spiral arms. So we're in a relatively low dust region of the galaxy, allowing us pretty clear views of the nearby and distant universe. And at this point in its trajectory around the center of the galaxy, the solar system is near the mid plane of the galaxy. That gives us the highest density of stars. As the solar system orbits around the center of the galaxy, it's like a merry go round horse. It not only goes around and around, but it goes up and down and up and down. So the solar system has these two kind of motions simultaneously. And so right now, the motion we're in right now is very near the mid plane view of the most number of stars in our sky. We get far enough away from the mid plane that most of the time the solar system spends in the Milky Way galaxies, far away from the mid plane, and we would have a much, much sparser sky, far fewer stars. And so astronomy wouldn't be as developed. It would take longer to discover things. So not only that, but we're in a habitable region of the galaxy. So it's a good thing we're not near the center of the galaxy, where there are more supernovae going off, so it's less habitable there. But from a perspective of doing cosmology, it's also a much dustier place. As we get closer to the center of the galaxy, the star density gets so high that the night sky will be much brighter as a result. It's like, as you get closer to the center of the galaxy, it'll be almost like having a full moon up all the time. And so it'll be very hard to observe the distant, faint galaxy. So cosmology be much harder.
And also measuring something called the microwave background radiation will be much harder because of all the foreground radiation sources. And I don't have time to get into it. But that's kind of the linchpin of modern cosmology as measurement of this relic radiation from when the universe was much younger. It's still around with us, but it's very, very faint. It's a very faint glow uniformly distributed all around us in all directions. If you were living near the galactic center. The foreground contaminants would make measurement of that much more difficult, if not impossible. So modern cosmology would greatly suffer, actually, if we were located relatively close to the galactic center. So from a perspective of being able to live, but also to do science, especially astronomy and cosmology, our location in the Milky Way galaxy is one of the best to learn both about stars, the nearby objects, and how they form in particular, and also the distant universe cosmology by studying galaxies.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: So for our listeners who want to get more information about whether we live on a privileged planet, please check out Guillermo's chapter in the book, the Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith. Your second chapter in the book, Guillermo, is titled how do Solar Eclipses point to intelligent design? So what first got you interested in studying solar eclipses?
[00:14:23] Speaker B: I've been interested in astronomy most of my life. I grew up as an amateur astronomer, had my own telescopes, built a small observatory in my backyard with Roloff roof. I observed my first solar eclipse on February 26, 1979, and that one actually was total over the Pacific Northwest.
And unfortunately I was living in Miami at the time, diametrically opposite. And so I didn't get to see that as a total, but I saw it as a partial eclipse. And I saw a lunar eclipse, a total lunar eclipse, I think a couple years after that. So I've been observing eclipses for a long time. And by the way, in 1979 I had an astronomy book and it listed the upcoming eclipses, and I listed the one in 2017 as the next major solar eclipse visible from the continental US.
And I had been looking forward to that eclipse, the 2017 eclipse, since 1979, and I finally got to see it. That was a total eclipse. But I did get to see another total eclipse before that on a trip to India in 1995. I was doing research, but I timed my research trip to coincide with a solar eclipse visible from India. And I joined an eclipse expedition and I did measurements from the ground of just the atmospheric conditions and how they changed over the course of the eclipse. And it was an awe inspiring phenomena, just even as a scientist. And knowing how to predict where and when a total eclipse will be visible from the earth down to the nearest second doesn't remove the wonder and the awe that it inspires in you.
And so I was determined to study eclipses a bit more, and I did. So I wrote a research paper shortly after that, published in 1999, titled wonderful eclipses and how I compared how those eclipses are visible from the earth's surface, total solar eclipses, and compared them to eclipses visible from the other planets in the solar system with moons. And I found out that ours are the best by far, in multiple respects.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: And how would you say, Guillermo, that solar eclipses provide evidence for intelligent design.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Just from that aspect alone, that we live in the best place in the solar system to view solar eclipses by itself can form in a, I would say an argument for design. It's an interesting coincidence. You might just say, okay, it's a coincidence. We just happen to be on the planet with the best solar eclipses. But it's almost like, wow, it's almost a perfect match between the moon and the sun and the sky, both about half a degree and the moon. Our planet is the closest planet to the sun with the moon. And so the sun's the largest angle on the sky from any planet in the solar system with the moon.
And so we get the largest angular view so we can see the most detail with our naked eyes of an eclipse in the solar system. They have long duration because the moon orbits a relatively low mass planet, unlike Jupiter and Saturn, say, in Uranus and Neptune, which are much more massive, and their moons whip around really fast, or Mars, even though it's much less massive, its moons orbit much, much closer to Mars, and so its moons whip around really fast. So theyre also short duration. Our eclipses are very long duration. So not only do you get to enjoy a very large angular size on the sky, but they have very long duration, relatively speaking. And so we can enjoy them for a long time. And people have wondered for a long time why this interesting coincidence is matched between the angular sun and the sun, of the sun and the moon on the sky. And so that's a question I answered or I gave an answer to in my 1999 paper. And I said, well, it goes deeper than just, we happen to be on the best planet to observe solar eclipses in the solar system. It actually goes down to the nature of the physical laws of the universe.
So we have to be in the circumstellar habitable zone around the sun to have liquid water on the earth so we can live. And that requirement sets the angular size of your host star on the sky. And then the second part of it is the presence of a moon. While having a large, relatively large moon like ours orbiting around the earth makes it more habitable, it keeps the tilt of the rotation axis more stable. It helps with the circulation of the oceans by the tidal energy that the moon puts into the oceans, keeping the temperatures more moderate between the equator and pole and so on, helps with the washing of nutrients from the continents to the oceans via the tides.
And so the moon, as it turns out, enhances the habitability of the earth. And having a large moon like ours really helps habitability. And so it's much more likely that you're going to get a match between the sun and the moon on the sky because of the habitability requirements. And so there's this close link at the level of the laws of physics in our universe between the presence of intelligent beings like us and their ability to observe total solar eclipses. And so I argue that's evidence of design in the laws themselves, that we live in the kind of universe where the places are going to have, have intelligent observers are going to be more likely than not to enjoy total eclipses of the sun. And there's also a temporal aspect, a time aspect. The moon is moving away. And so there'll be a time in a couple hundred million years when we won't be able to enjoy total solar eclipses anymore. And so we're living not only at the right place, the best place, but the best time.
That's only about 5% of the age of the earth. And we're going to stop being able to view total eclipses of the sun. The moon will be too small in our sky.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: Well, Guillermo, I think we're running out of time for this first podcast talking about your contributions on whether we live on a privileged planet and also how solar eclipses provide evidence for intelligent design. Our listeners can find more information on both of those topics in your chapters in the book, the Comprehensive Guide to science and faith that's available on Amazon. So thank you, Guillermo, for coming on the show with us today.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: Thanks for having me. I enjoyed it.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: Okay, well, stay tuned for more with Guillermo Gonzalez on IV the future. Thanks for listening.
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