This week's Time magazine has a series of articles discussing various "Will
we ever be able to...?" kinds of questions. One of them, written by UTAustin
physicist Steven Weinberg discusses the possibility of a "theory of
everything" (which, to physicists, means one theory explaining electricity,
magnetism, the atomic weak force, the nuclear strong force, and gravity).
The articles in general include some nice models of scientific reasoning,
and the reasoning in Weinberg's is particularly relevant to that used in the
article Jim posted. We currently have a "standard model" that unifies the
first four forces, but doesn't manage to incorporate gravity. Of that model,
Weinberg writes,
"Even apart from its problems in describing gravitation, however, the
standard model in its present form has too many arbitrary features. Its
equations contain too many constants of nature - such as the masses of the
elementary particles and the strength of the fundamental units of electric
charge - that are there for no other reason than that they seem to work. In
writing these equations, physicists simply plugged in whatever values made
the predictions of the theory agree with experimental results".
Contrast that situation with Einstein's famous E=mc^2, the equation
relating mass to energy. In that equation, the constant that makes the
values agree with reality is the speed of light squared, surely not a mere
arbitrary number making the equations work. That number leaves you with the
feeling that something fundamental has been revealed. The "standard model"
is in a situation that looks more like E=m*5.05612 (or some other completely
arbitrary number): you're left wondering if you're missing something
important. Why 5.50612? Could you have predicted in advance that it would be
5.50612?
Weinberg continues by introducing the "Superstring theory", the leading
candidate for bringing gravity into the picture. He points out that we don't
yet know how to test that theory (though the NYTimes reported on Tuesday
that a test has just been developed, but not yet performed). He writes,
"Even without new experiments, it may be possible to judge a final theory by
whether it explains all the apparently arbitrary aspects of the standard
model. But there are explanations and explanations. We would not be
satisfied with a theory that explains the standard model in terms of
something complicated and arbitrary, in the way astronomers before
Copernicus explained the motions of planets by piling epicycles upon
epicycles. To qualify as an explanation, a fundamental theory has to be
simple - not necessarily a few short equations, but equations that are based
on a simple physical principle".
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Now, I'm guessing that the creationist quoted in the article Jim passed
along believes that citing "god" as part of his explanation is nice solution
to all sorts of problems. Of course bringing a god into the picture that way
allows you to explain absolutely anything. But in doing so, he misses the
point that he is introducing arbitrary elements for no reason other than to
make the explanation line up with reality. What is god like? - well,
whatever he would have to be like in order to make the world look the way it
looks (epicycles upon epicycles...). In essence (and to quote John Lennon),
"god is a constant". I apologize for the irreverence in that statement, but
when "god" is invoked as an explanation for physical phenomena, that's what
you're left with - something "complicated and arbitrary".
I imagine that the creationist would argue that the god version is _less_
complicated than the evolutionary explanation, but remember that the
creationist has not yet begun to lay out the details of his explanation. We
don't know _how_ god is supposed to have managed this creation, and I'm
pretty confident that the supposed simplicity of that "explanation" will
disappear quickly once that task is undertaken (he writes, sweeping a couple
of what seem to be completely insurmountable problems under the rug
temporarily).
Weinberg's article points to a situation in which physicists are in a
position that is in one aspect similar to that of "creation theorists". But
it also clearly points out that unlike "creation theorists", physicists are
not at all satisfied with that position.
Paul Smith
Alverno College
Milwaukee
