The God Hypothesis is a supported Scientific explanation

Thanks ken. Fundamentally, this debate is about a few key issues: 1) What caused the Big Bang? Possibility A: there is no cause The Big Bang ("the singularity") created time, matter, and space (from nothing). Many physicists believe that the singularity is an event outside normal human understanding. We evolved to always search for a cause: if we got burned, we ask what caused us to get burned. In this way, our ancestors avoided repeatedly burning themselves. Yet, because the singularity occurred before time and space existed, normal human questions like "where did it occur" or "what caused it" are incoherent. Our natural human impulse is to believe that everything must have a cause, but the singularity defies all convention – that is why it is called "the singularity." A cause must precede its effect, but if time did not exist, one thing cannot precede another. For this reason, causality questions cannot be applied to the Big Bang. Stephen Hawking explains this as follows, "Our everyday experience makes us convinced that everything that happens must be caused by something that occurred earlier in time. So it's natural for us to assume that something—perhaps God—must have caused the universe to come into existence. But … you can't get to a time before the Big Bang, because there was no time before the Big Bang. We have finally found something that does not have a cause because there was no time for a cause to exist in … This means there is no possibility of a Creator because there is no time for a Creator to have existed. Since time itself began at the moment of the Big Bang, it was an event that could not have been caused or created by anyone or anything." (source: Discovery Channel documentary "Curiosity") If all things must have a cause, then God suffers from the same problem as the singularity: what caused God to exist? If a theist were to agree that there exists an entity that does not need a cause, then that concedes that the singularity could exist without a cause. In formal logic, the theist would be arguing: There exists an X which does not have a cause X is a singular entity The singularity meets these criteria equally well as God. Yet, the singularity does not suffer from the paradox of: how does one create time when one cannot exist "before" time. Exodus says it took God 7 days to create the Universe. This obviously doesn't make sense – a day cannot exist before time existed. Possibility B: there is a cause, we just haven't fully discovered it yet There are many things we just don't know yet about the Big Bang. In the early universe (e.g. at time = 10^ -35 seconds and earlier), the normal laws of physics break down because there are such high energy densities. This makes it extremely difficult for us to understand what is happening. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity explains large-scale forces and quantum mechanics explains small scale forces, but we have yet to create a theory that explains both General Relativity and quantum mechanics (called the Grand Unified Theory or GUT). There is still the possibility (or in many physicists' minds, the inevitability) that string theorists or other physicists will discover a successful Grand Unified Theory. Astronomer Phil Plait explains, "The basic trouble is that Einstein's relativity gives us a good description of some things (large scale gravity, for example), and quantum mechanics tells us about other things (how particles behave), but no one has ever successfully combined the two, and they must be combined to understand [the Big Bang]." (source: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com...) My opponent's argument essentially boils down to "there is no other possible cause, therefore God." However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The current lack of a Grand Unified Theory does not prove God's existence, just like the lack of an explanation of solar eclipses during the Mayan's time did not prove the existence of their gods. This is fundamentally an appeal to ignorance. When we fail to find an explanation under the scientific method, we do not give up and assign the explanation to God; instead, we keep looking. At best, my opponent can win that we should keep looking for an explanation; he cannot possibly win that God is a "supported" hypothesis merely because past hypotheses have failed. Possibility C: it is impossible to fully understand the Big Bang Phil Plait points out that in the early Universe, the Big Bang was so small that it would need to be described by both the laws of General Relativity and quantum mechanics. However, quantum mechanics involves the Uncertainty Principle, which states that if you know some things about the Big Bang, it becomes IMPOSSIBLE to know other things. As Plait explains, "At some point, [the Big Bang] got so small and so dense that bizarre quantum laws took effect — things like the Uncertainty Principle, which states that the more you know about one characteristic of an object (say, its position) the less you know about another (its velocity). There are several such laws, and they make it hard — impossible, really — to know everything about the universe at that moment." (source: same) Possibility D: quantum fluctuations In quantum mechanics, something can come from nothing. "Quantum fluctuation is the temporary appearance of energetic particles out of nothing, as allowed by the Uncertainty Principle." [1] New Scientist explains that modeling confirms that the mass of protons and neutrons comes from virtual particles, called Higgs bosons, which appear out of nothing. [2] "Physicists have now confirmed that the apparently substantial stuff is actually no more than fluctuations in the quantum vacuum." [2] Particle physicists, using super-colliders, are on the cusp of proving the Higg's boson. [3] While many parts of quantum mechanics defy our normal understanding of events, it would allow something to come from nothing. 2) The argument from fine-tuning My opponent's argument is essentially that if certain constants were any different, life could not exist. However, ken himself cites multi-verse theory, which allows for the possibility of many different universes. Phil Plait explains that if there were multiple Big Bangs, each singularity would wipe the slate clean, creating a new set of physical laws and constants. (same source) As a result, there could have been millions of Universes before the one we currently live in. Or, there could be billions of Universes that exist alongside ours. Richard Dawkins explains, in The God Delusion, that the argument from fine-tuning is a failure because by definition, the evolution of our Universe, the Earth, and humans are all highly improbably events. Yet, we exist. A highly improbable event does not need an explanation for its occurrence once it occurs. For example, each woman has 400,000 eggs and each man creates 400 billion sperm cells over his lifetime; the probably of YOUR specific existence is very small – it involves the exact correct egg meeting the exact correct sperm. However, you exist. The highly improbably has already occurred. Your existence's improbable nature is irrelevant at that point. So if there are billions of planets, it is not that far-fetched that one exists that is a perfect distance from its sun for life. If there are billions of Universes, it is not far-fetched to believe that one exists with the right constants. Even if only one Universe ever existed, then a highly improbable event may have happened. But this doesn't prove a Creator or Design, any more than YOUR existence proves a Design. 3) Induction Particles, like Higgs, aren't proven until we can observe them directly in a super-collider. Until then, they are unsupported hypotheses. However, I await my opponent's tests. Sources: [1] http://universe-review.ca... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://tinyurl.com...