The End of Christianity (40 page)

If it isn't NID, then by definition the origin of life must be a random accident. And there's no denying that (by itself) the first living organism is an extremely improbable accident. Of course, so is winning a lottery, and yet lotteries are routinely won. Because the laws of probability entail the odds of a lottery being won depend not just on how unlikely a win is, like perhaps a one in a billion chance, but on how often the game is played. If a billion people play, and the odds of winning are one in a billion, it's actually highly
probable
that someone will win the lottery. And if
many
billions play, the probability that such a lottery will be won is as near to 100 percent as makes all odds. Therefore, the only way life could arise without NID is if there were countless more failed tries than actual successes. After all, if that lottery was played by a billion people and still only one of them won, we would be certain it was chance, not evidence of NID.

So the only way the lottery of
life
could be won by accident is if it was played countless times and only one ticket won. This means the only way life could arise by accident is if the universe tried countless times and only very rarely succeeded. Lo and behold, that's exactly what we observe: the universe has been mixing random chemicals in random environments for over twelve billion years in over a billion-trillion star systems collectively containing tens of billions of trillions of planets and moons. That is exactly what we would
have
to see if life arose by accident. Because life can arise by accident
only
in a universe that large and old. The fact that we observe exactly what the theory of accidental origin requires and predicts is evidence that our theory is correct. Hence the evidence of biogenesis does not consist of looking at just the one biogenesis event (as if we were to look at just the one lottery winner, saw the odds of his winning were one in a billion, and then concluded he cheated), but at the entire context of that event: all the vast space and time of failed attempts to accidentally produce life (corresponding to all the people who played the same lottery and lost). Hence the probability that we would observe this
actual
evidence on the complete absence of NID is essentially 100 percent. But this same evidence is necessarily
less
than 100 percent likely if it's a product of NID. We cannot predict from “a very powerful self-existent being created life by design” that he would do this by creating trillions of galaxies and billions of light years of empty intergalactic space and then sit around and twiddle his thumbs for ten billion years before finally deciding to create life in just one tiny place. That's not even expected at all, much less with 100 percent certainty.
¹⁶

Furthermore, the only way life could ever arise by accident is if it was composed of commonplace chemicals that naturally chain together and, in just the right combination, naturally metabolize and reproduce. We have observed that the only chemicals that our present universe is likely to accidentally assemble this way are various molecules of amino acids. Lo and behold, we observe that's exactly what we have: all life is a by-product of organized chains of amino acids (now in the form of RNA and DNA, which are just repeating sequences of only four different nucleotide molecules). Given our background knowledge
b
(everything we know about the contents of this universe and its chemistry), that we would observe something like this on the complete absence of NID is essentially 100 percent. But God could make life any other way. He doesn't have to make it look exactly the same as if it were a natural accident. He doesn't even need chemistry at all. He could simply imbue bodies with the properties of metabolism and reproduction, no DNA needed. But even if he were limited to natural physics, there are countless ways to make life that do not require the one pathway that's already expected if there is no God. At the very least, no rational person can say it's 100 percent certain that “a very powerful self-existent being who created life by design” would only make life this one way—suspiciously the only way that looks exactly like God didn't do it. The probability is certainly less than that.

Finally, we must return to the observation made in the previous section: that life beginning with a simple single-celled microbe is the only way life could have arisen if there's no God (because any other origin would be too improbable), but it is not the only way life could have arisen if there is a God. Thus, the probability that we would observe this on the absence of NID is 100 percent, while the probability that we would observe this on NID is necessarily
less
than 100 percent. When we put this all together—we know life originated as a simple single cell (or possibly even a subcellular molecule), and that it originated with the chaining together of a common chemical that commonly chains together and which we know causes natural self-replication when arranged the right way, in a vast universe almost the whole of which consists of what are in effect countless failed attempts to arrange any chemical in the right way—we find exactly what we must observe if there was no NID. But from the hypothesis “God exists,” it simply isn't possible to deduce the prediction that “simple, single-celled, carbon-coded life forms would arise on just this one planet out of trillions, and only billions of years after the universe formed, and billions of years before any conscious agents resulted from them.” No rational person can honestly believe the probability of
that
is any greater than 50 percent on NID.

This entails the Bayesian conclusion that the probability that God intelligently designed the origin of life cannot be any higher than 15 percent (and is almost certainly a great deal less than that).
¹⁷
That means no rational person can believe the probability that God intelligently originated the first life is any better than 1 in 6. This means every rational person must conclude God probably didn't do that. The origin of life thus does not appear to be intelligently designed.

NATURAL COSMOGENESIS BETTER EXPLAINS
THE PROPERTIES OF THE OBSERVED UNIVERSE

So life probably appeared on earth by natural accident, but that's only because the universe is organized in a certain way so that all its contents and all the laws of physics and chemistry would inevitably kick up life. True, life will then only be an extremely rare outcome in a few extremely isolated places. But it's surely improbable that the universe would be just so arranged that way, as opposed to some other way—some way that would make a natural occurrence of life impossible. And indeed this has been forcefully argued time and again: the physical constants of the universe (from which follow all the laws of physics and chemistry, from which follow in turn all the contents and properties of the universe) have to be so finely tuned to make life even
possible
that there's just no way this could have happened except for intelligent design.
¹⁸
But this argument is based on a fatal fallacy in reasoning about conditional probability.
¹⁹

Suppose in a thousand years we develop computers capable of simulating the outcome of every possible universe, with every possible arrangement of physical constants, and these simulations tell us which of those universes will produce arrangements that make conscious observers (as an inevitable undesigned by-product). It follows that in none of those universes are the conscious observers intelligently designed (they are merely inevitable by-products), and none of those universes are intelligently designed (they are all of them constructed purely at random). Suppose we then see that conscious observers arise only in one out of every 10
^1,000,000
universes (or whatever ungodly percentage you want, it doesn't matter). Would any of those conscious observers be right in concluding that their universe was intelligently designed to produce them? No. Not even one of them would be. If every single one of them would be wrong to conclude that, then it necessarily follows that we would be wrong to conclude that, too (because we're looking at exactly the same evidence they would be, yet we could be in a randomly generated universe just like them). It simply follows that if we exist and the universe is entirely a product of random chance (and not NID), then the probability that we would observe the kind of universe we do is 100 percent expected. This is not improbable
at all
, much less too improbable to believe.

“Ah, but that's only true if there are lots and lots of universes,” you might say. But that's not so. Their error lies not in failing to consider there are other universes but in thinking fine-tuning entails design at all, precisely because in their case it never does, and never would. For example, it's entirely possible that one of those rare universes will happen to be the first in the sequence of random universes generated. The probability of that is exactly the same as it falling anywhere else in that sequence. So if we stopped there and thus generated no more simulations, we would have exactly the same situation as only one universe existing and it
just by chance
being finely tuned to produce intelligent life. The conscious observers in that universe would see exactly all the same evidence. And they would be exactly as wrong if they still concluded their universe was intelligently designed to produce them: 100 percent wrong. Thus, the conclusion does not require us to imagine a multiverse. We have no need of that hypothesis.
²⁰
The evidence simply always looks exactly the same whether a universe is finely tuned by chance or by design—no matter how improbable such fine-tuning is by chance. And if the evidence looks exactly the same on either hypothesis, there is no logical sense in which we can say the evidence is more likely on either hypothesis. Think of getting an amazing hand at poker: whether the hand was rigged or if you just got lucky, the evidence is identical. So the mere fact that an amazing hand at poker is extremely improbable is not evidence of cheating. Thus “it's improbable” is simply not a valid argument for design.

This seems counterintuitive only because humans are not well designed for logical or probabilistic reasoning. Those are skills we have to learn. And they are difficult to learn—and even once learned are still difficult to apply correctly. When we say the odds are 1 in 10
^1,000,000
that the universe we observe would exist by chance (or whatever probability—again it doesn't matter), we are erroneously comparing this universe to all other universes that don't have intelligent life. But we already know
we can never be in one of those universes.
This is information we can't ignore. Just like the people in those simulated universes: they will only ever find themselves in a finely tuned universe
whether it was designed or not.
The fact of their universe being finely tuned can never tell them anything about how it got that way. Once we attend to this correct logic, we have to compare this universe not to all other universes but to all other universes we would ever be in. Only if we do that, and only if there is
still
a difference between a designed universe and a chance universe, would we be able to conclude that the universe we are in was designed (or not) by seeing which of
those
differences are observed (or not). Otherwise, we can never tell.
²¹

This conclusion cannot rationally be denied: if only finely tuned universes can produce life, then if intelligent observers exist (and we can see they do), then the probability that their universe will be finely tuned will be 100 percent.
²²
Always. Regardless of whether a “finely tuned universe” is a product of chance, and regardless of how improbable a chance it is.
²³
Because “intelligent observers exist”
entails
we could never observe anything else. The only way the odds could ever be anything less than 100 percent is if you can have intelligent observers
without
a finely tuned universe (as then,
and only then
, it would at least be logically possible for there
not
to be a finely tuned universe if there are intelligent observers). But as it happens, you can only have
that
(a nonfinely tuned universe with intelligent observers) in an intelligently designed universe. Ironic, yes. But true. Because if there is no NID, the
only
way intelligent observers could ever exist is if a universe existed that was finely tuned to produce them (whether it was finely tuned by chance or not). So that this is what we observe is 100 percent expected on the absence of NID. It's the
only
thing we could observe if there is no NID.

But God is not limited to the extraordinarily elaborate Rube Goldbergesque contraption of arranging a bunch of obscure physical constants just to make life. There are lots of other ways a god can do it, and only
those
ways are at all unexpected on the absence of NID. This is why the fact that we don't observe this universe to be any of those universes argues
against
this universe being a product of NID, not the other way around. The probability that God would use that one bizarre, extremely complicated, indirect, and totally unnecessary method—coincidentally exactly the only method that could ever produce us if there was no God at all—is surely not 100 percent. Indeed, it can't plausibly be anywhere near that. You cannot deduce from “God exists” that the only way he would ever make a universe is
that
way. There must surely be some probability that he might do it another way. Indeed, that probability must be quite high, simply because it's weird for an intelligent agent of means to go the most inefficient and unnecessary route to obtaining his goals, and “weird” means by definition “rare,” which means “infrequent,” which means “improbable.”

All probabilities must be conditional on our background knowledge. And that knowledge already includes the fact that we find ourselves in a world where life arose and evolved into people. And any probability of the evidence must reflect the fact that we arose only with such extraordinary rarity as should blow anyone's mind, in a universe of a size and age that's even more mindblowingly old and vast. What's more, this universe is 99.99999 percent composed of lethal radiation-filled vacuum, and 99.99999 percent of all the material in the universe comprises stars and black holes on which nothing can ever live, and 99.99999 percent of all
other
material in the universe (all planets, moons, clouds, asteroids) is barren of life or even outright inhospitable to life. In other words, the universe we observe is
extraordinarily inhospitable
to life. Even what tiny inconsequential bits of it are at all hospitable are
extremely inefficient
at producing life—at all, but far more so intelligent life (e.g., of all the planetary and lunar living space in just our solar system alone, at least 99.99 percent is barren of native intelligent life and probably all life).
²⁴