The Case For a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God

In these chapters, Strobel turns his attention from large, overarching features of the universe, like cosmology, to narrower fields of study: astronomical research into the relative placement of Earth in the universe on the one hand (Chapter 7) and molecular biochemistry on the other (Chapters 8 and 9). However, the structure of these chapters remains the same as before—journalistic interviews—with only one small tweak: Chapter 7 recruits two experts for an interview instead of just one. In this case, it combines an astrophysicist (Gonzalez) and a philosopher (Richards), as the material focuses not only on emerging scientific evidence but also on the way that evidence has begun to reorient common philosophical assumptions regarding science’s role in shaping humanity’s view of the world (as in the Copernican Principle).

These chapters not only reflect a shift from larger-scale to smaller-scale fields of knowledge, but also from old and well-known arguments to newer ones. The previous chapters leaned on arguments and features whose existence has been widely known for decades or even centuries: origin-of-the-universe cosmology, the apparent fine-tuning of natural constants, and philosophical arguments for the necessity of an uncaused cause. In Chapters 7 through 9, Strobel shifts to several relatively new and emerging fields of study: Gonzalez’s argument for Earth’s “privileged planet” status, Behe’s argument from molecular machines, and Meyer’s work on the information-rich nature of DNA, each of which had only begun to be published in the decade or so before Strobel’s book. This tactic brings both advantages and disadvantages to Strobel’s argument. It is able to make use of cutting-edge studies and observations that most readers will not have encountered before, but it also opens itself up to possible future criticism, as scientific rebuttals against this evidence might still be forthcoming. For example, the “Rare Earth” hypothesis, of which Gonzalez’s argument is a variant, has been challenged on numerous grounds, with some critics arguing that new evidence points to various “unique” features of Earth (its moon, magnetic field, etc.) being more common than previously believed and others noting that the theory presumes that all life would have approximately the same biochemistry as life on Earth.

With regard to Strobel’s main themes, Chapter 7 continues the thread of The Fine-Tuning of the Universe as Evidence for Design. Gonzalez’s work in Chapter 7 provides a new case study to fit with the evidence already marshalled, arguing that the placement of Earth with regard to both its immediate environment and its larger position in the universe is yet another example of fine-tuning. Had Earth been anywhere else in the solar system or galaxy, the flourishing of complex and intelligent life would seem to be impossible. Gonzalez expands on the premises of the fine-tuning theme, however, arguing that it’s not only a question of whether life can exist or not: Earth’s placement also appears fine-tuned for the development of scientific investigation itself. This insight was a relatively new addition to the intelligent design argument when Strobel’s book came out: the idea that fine-tuning indicates not only that one of the universe’s purposes is to sustain life but also to allow those life-forms to explore, discover, and learn about their universe. Implicitly, this buttresses Strobel’s point about The Scientific Method as a Means of Assessing Evidence for Supernatural Realities, as it suggests that this pursuit is not only viable but also intended.

Indeed, interviewees like Behe elaborate on points raised in Strobel’s conversation with Meyer. Strobel observes that critics often accuse intelligent design of being unscientific because it proposes a conclusion that, in principle, may not be fully verifiable nor fully falsifiable by scientific investigation. Behe contends that this is an unfair accusation, however, as modern science is awash with “scientific” theories that might not be fully verifiable or falsifiable by scientific investigation; he gives naturalistic evolution as an example, noting that falsifying it would require proving that none of a potentially infinite number of natural mechanisms could result in life’s complexity and diversity. This is somewhat misleading, as someone propounding a formal theory of this kind would typically need to provide a (falsifiable) hypothesis regarding the mechanism. His broader point, however, is that such standards do not prevent other theories from being a part of a larger scientific conversation. In his view, the intelligent design argument is often discounted by critics because of its potential religious implications, not because the scientific means of arriving at its conclusions are unprecedented or unsound.

Another theme, The Complexity of Biological Systems Challenging Materialism, finds its fullest treatment here. Chapters 8 and 9 are specifically devoted to this theme, drawing on the evidence of irreducible complexity in molecular machines and the existence of ordered information in DNA molecules. Both of these fields of inquiry, being relatively new, are likely to challenge conventional ideas about biological reality. Striving against the idea that small means simple, both Behe and Meyer point to the complexity of biological systems on the smallest scales. Rather than thinking of cells as unvariegated little blobs, they are better understood as highly ordered little factories, running thousands of precise functions at any given moment and powered by molecular arrangements that function in the same manner as human-built machines. Any displacement of those molecular arrangements causes the cell’s function to break down, and their molecular machines are so precisely ordered toward functionality as to give the appearance of having been built, part by part, with those functions in mind. Similarly, DNA is an entire library of ordered information: In the same way that one would not expect a jumble of random letters to self-assemble into a coherent recipe, the ordered arrangement of DNA’s constituent pieces suggests the inference that they were put together in order to achieve its “recipe” function for the cell. These insights aim to startle readers with the depth and complexity of the features of the universe, even on the smallest scales.