Cosmology:  interesting quotations



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

"We live in an unusual time, perhaps the first golden age of empirical cosmology.  With advancing technology, we have begun to make philosophically significant measurements.  These measurements have already brought surprises."
Saul Perlmutter, Physics Today, April 2003, pg 59.

 
 
 

"Sometimes its very disturbing to students to learn that we don't understnd most of what's in the universe"

Patricia Henning, quoted in an article on dark mater and dark energy in the  Albuquerque Tribune, Oct. 28, 2003.

 

"A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.  The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."

Fred Hoyle,  "The Universe:  Past and Present Reflections", Annual Reviews of Astonomy and Astrophysics, 20 (1982), 16.

 

"What is a big deal - the biggest deal of all - is how you get something out of nothing. Don't let the cosomologists try to kid you on this one.  They have not got a clue either - despite the fact that they are doing a pretty good job of convincing themselves and others that this is really not a problem.  "In the beginning," they will say, "there was nothing - no time, space, matter, or energy.  Then there was a quantum fluctuation from which ...."   Whoa!  Stop right there.  You see what I mean?  First there is nothing, then there is something.  And the cosmologists try to bridge the two with a quantum flutter, a tremor of uncertainty that sparks it all off.  Then they are away and before you know it, they have pulled a hundred billion galaxies out of their quantum hats"

David Darling, "On creating something from nothing", New Scientist, 151 (2047), (1996), p 49.

 

"Astronomy leads us to an unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing and delicately balanced to provide exactly the conditions required to support life.  In the absence of an absurdly-improbable accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan."

Arno Penzias,  quoted by Walter Bradley in "The Designed 'Just-so' Universe", 1999.

 
 

 "We can't understand the universe in any clear way without the supernatural"

Allan Sandage, Astronomer, Interview with Fred Hereen, quoted in Show Me God, pg 224
 
 
 
"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream.  He has scaled the mountains of ignrance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."
R. Jastrow, God and the Astronomers,1992, pg 107.

 

"Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God - the design argument of Paley-updated and refurbished.  The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design.  Take your choice:  blind chance that requires multitudes of universes, or design that requires only one. ...  Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument."

E. Harrison, Masks of the Universe,  1985, 252, 263.

 

"It is almost as though the universe had been consciously designed"

Richard Morris, The Fate of the Universe,1982, 155.

 

 "The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming."

Freeman Dyson (Princeton Physicist), Disturbing the Universe, 1979, pg 250.

 

"If the Universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence.  It is my view that these circumstances indicate that the Universe was created for man to live in."

John O'Keefe (NASA astronomer), quoted in R. Jastrow in God and the Astronomers,1992, 118.

 

"As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency -or rather Agency- must be involved.  Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being?  Was it God who so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?"

G. Greenstein, Symbiotic Universe:  Life and Mind in the Cosmos, 1988, 27.

 

"... is for me evidence that there is something going on behind it all.  The impression of design is overwhelming."

P. Davies, Cosmic Blueprint:  New Discoveries in Nature’s Creative Ability to order the Universe,  1988, 203
 
 
Nobel laureate Arno Penzias makes this observation about the enigmatic character of the universe,
"Astronomy leads us to an unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing and delicately balanced to provide exactly the conditions required to support life.  In the absence of an absurdly-improbable accident, the observations of modern science seem to suggest an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan."
 

 quoted by Walter Bradley in "The Designed 'Just-so' Universe", 1999.


 

"In my view, the question of origin seems to be left unanswered if we explore from a scientific view alone.  Thus, I believe there is a need for some religious or metaphysical explanation. I believe in the concept of God and in His existence."

Charles Townes, Nobel lauriate, quoted by Henry F. Schaeffer III in  "Steven Hawking, the Big Bang, and God", 1994
 
 
 
"Certainly if you are religious, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis."
 Robert Wilson quoted by F. Hereen, in Show Me God, pg 157.