Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Welcome to ID the Future, a podcast about intelligent design and evolution.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: Welcome to ID the Future. My name is Sarah Chaffee. We're talking about a new book, Children of Light, the Astonishing Properties of Sunlight that Make Us Possible by Michael Denton. Dr. Denton is a Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute's center for Science and Culture. He holds an MD from Bristol University and a PhD in biochemistry from King's College in London. Dr. Denton has published his work in journals such as Nature, Biochemical, Journal, Nature Genetics, Biosystems, Human Genetics, Clinical Genetics, the Journal of Theoretical Biology and Biology and Philosophy.
His previous books include A Theory in Crisis, Nature's how the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe, and Evolution Still A Theory in Crisis.
In his new book, Children of Light, Denton elucidates the miraculous convergence of properties on the tiny band of the electromagnetic spectrum that allows intelligent life to flourish on Earth.
Let's explore how light is part of the epic story of our fine tuned universe for us to thrive here and to come to understand it.
Today we have Dr. Denton on the show to discuss his book. Welcome.
[00:01:27] Speaker C: Pleasure to be here.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: In Children of Light, you use William Broad's phrase to describe humans, light eaters. Why did you choose this expression?
[00:01:39] Speaker C: Well, it's a wonderful expression. And we are light eaters because we get energy by oxidizing reduced carbons, things like sugars and starches in the diet. And we get the oxygen and we get the reduced carbons, sugars and things. We get that from the process of photosynthesis.
And the process of photosynthesis is entirely dependent on the light of the sun. Photosynthesis gives us oxygen and it gives us the reduced carbons that we burn with the oxygen by using the energy of sunlight to make these different key compounds, without which we wouldn't be here. All advanced organisms on Earth are essentially light eaters like ourself. We all depend on the sun's light to give us the oxygen we breathe and the reduced carbons in our foodstuff.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: In your book you argue that our fusion bomb, the sun, emits the electromagnetic radiation that is exactly what is needed to permit life, heat and light.
Why do you find this amazing?
[00:02:41] Speaker C: I find it amazing because the range of electromagnetic radiation in the universe extends from high, high, very short wave radiation such as gamma rays and X rays, all the way out to radio waves.
And the range of these wavelengths is absolutely incredible. It's like sort of 10 to the minus 16 at one end, the gamma end, the high energy end. The wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation are the order of 10 to the -16 meters. At the long end, there are radio waves which have wavelengths of hundreds of meters from one crest to another. So there's this fantastic range of different types of electromagnetic radiation, from high energy gamma all the way up to long wavelength radio waves.
And in this vast range, there's only one tiny, infinitesimally small band which has the right energy for photosynthesis. The tiny band which contains visual light and infrared or heat. You have to imagine the electromagnetic spectrum pulled out as a vast stack of cards stretching from the Earth right beyond the galaxy of Andromeda. And in this huge vast range of different types of electromagnetic spectrum, heat and light represent just one or two cards in this vast stack.
I find that absolutely amazing. And what's particularly amazing about it is not that the actual radiation we need just represents a tiny fraction of this vast spectrum. The sun and a great majority of stars, with incredible fortuity, put out nearly all the energy as visual light and infrared with a little bit of UV.
The sun, for instance, 40% of the output of the sun is in the visual band and about 60% in the infrared band with a little bit also in the uv.
So therefore, the radiation you need represents one playing card, and as it were, a stack stretching out with an Andromeda. I find this absolutely amazing, a staggering element of futurity in the nature of things, which makes photosynthesis possible, and hence it makes possible the light of the light eaters like ourselves.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: So maybe you could share with us just a few of the other ways that things are finely tuned in the universe for creatures like ourselves. There's a lot about it in the privileged species video.
[00:05:21] Speaker C: Well, our life doesn't just depend on the fact that the stars put out the right light for life.
It also depends on a vast additional suite of elements of fitness in the order of things. For instance, we are warm blooded organisms and we maintain a body temperature of about 37 degrees centigrade. We can only maintain our body temperature at a constant level and get rid of the heat that we generate from the burning of reduced carbons in oxygen. That's oxidations in the body because of the properties of water.
Water has a very high specific heat, which means that it makes it easier for us to maintain our body temperature at a particular level. But more critically, it has an extraordinarily high evaporative cooling effect.
You know this, when you come out of a swimming pool and there's a slight breeze, you feel freezing cold. That's because the water is evaporating and cooling you down at high temperatures. On the Earth, when the temperature rises to the higher 30s or even higher, as it does over vast parts of the Earth in many times in the year, you have to use the have the evaporative cooling of water to get rid of body heat. Water happens to have the highest evaporative cooling effect of any molecular fluid. It's an extraordinary fact. So without water's thermal properties, we wouldn't be warm blooded organisms and we wouldn't be able to get rid of body heat.
But that's not the only fitness of water for our form of being. We need a circulatory system.
And water also has a very low viscosity. So water can permeate through tiny capillaries in the body. And it's also a supreme solvent.
So for our form of being as complex multicellular organisms, maintaining our body temperature at a particular level, and having an absolutely vital necessity to get rid of heat as it's generated, if you don't get rid of the heat that you're generating all the time, after five or six hours, you're going to die. So water has the right properties. It's exactly fit to make a circulatory system.
And that's what you need for multicellularity. And for complex warm blooded multicellular organisms like ourselves, you need the thermal properties.
So there is fine tuning in nature for our form of warm blooded organisms that need a circulatory system. That's one example.
Water has other life giving characteristics. For instance, water lubricates the movement of the tectonic plates, so makes possible plate tectonics on the planet. It's the recycling of the crystal materials through plate tectonic system that enriches and refreshes the hydrosphere.
It continually refreshes and renews the molecular and chemical constituents in the waters of the planet.
And that's essential for life as well.
And water has other extraordinary properties, particularly for us. Plate tectonics is useful and in fact vital for all life on Earth. But water, which has the right thermal properties for our being and has the right properties for a circulatory system also through the hydrological cycle, delivers itself to the land.
It evaporates in the temperature range on Earth. It condenses as it rises in the atmosphere and it falls down as rain.
So water not only has the right thermal properties, not only the right physical properties to form the basis of a circular system, it also delivers itself to the land for terrestrial beings like ourselves.
Now I could go on, and anybody who's interested in this can read my book, the Wonder of water, which goes into a great number of essential characteristics of water.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: It really seems that both water and light testify to a system that's fit for humanity to thrive and to discover.
[00:09:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I said earlier, we're light eaters. And we're not only light eaters, we need water, as you say, and the evidence from water and the fitness of nature for photosynthesis and also anybody who reads the children of light will see that it's also fit for vision. Yes, in the properties of water and in the properties of light. There is compelling evidence that this universe, whatever the cause was, appears to be fine tuned for beings of our biology living on a planet somewhat like the Earth.
The evidence of science, and this is essentially a scientific discovery, the evidence as I see it is pretty compelling. As I say, whatever the cause is, if it's God, if it's what, whatever it is. But the universe is uniquely fit for advanced carbon based life forms like ourselves, burning their reduced carbons in the body with oxygen generated by photosynthesis, living on a terrestrial surface of the planet which is watered because of the hydrological cycle. And also actually water in tectonic cycling creates the light granitic silicate rocks which make up the continental crusts. And that's why we have continents.
So yes, everything you look at in nature, there seems to be a vast amount of elements which are fine tuned for beings like ourselves.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: So someone might say, well, our sun is a fairly ordinary star in the universe, so what's the big deal?
[00:10:44] Speaker C: Well, the big deal is that being an ordinary star means that the vast majority of stars in the cosmos put out their energy in the visual and infrared area bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. So being ordinary, what this means is that the universe, it's somewhat ironic and seems a bit counterintuitive, but it means the universe is profoundly fit for biological systems like ourselves. On planets like the Earth, the sun's an ordinary star and that's a very big deal. The universe, as I describe it in church, Children of the Light is flooded with the light of life.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today, Dr. Denton, to discuss Children of Light and other wonders that show that the universe is fit for us.
[00:11:31] Speaker C: It's a pleasure, Sarah, an absolute pleasure. Thank you.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: For more information, read Children of Light, the Astonishing properties of Sunlight that make us possible by Dr. Denton. It is available at Amazon.com for ID the future. I'm Sarah Chaffee. Thanks for listening.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: This program was recorded by Discovery Institute's center for Science and Culture. ID the future is Copyright Discovery Institute.
For more information, visit Intelligent Design.org and IDTheFuture.com.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: SA.
