Of Microbes and Divine Physics

My March 2011 issue of Discover Magazine has a couple of standout articles. One is The Ecosystem Inside, a very informative article about the trillions of microbes that live in the human gut and "could be the key to fighting disease without antibiotics". I think they could be the key to much more than that and the article does explore some other fascinating findings. Most people may feel kind of icky at hearing that they are host to an "enormous population of microbes, including bacteria, fungi, and viruses", living on and in the human body, mostly in the gut. The article notes there are 20 times as many of these microbes as there are cells in the human body. It compares the population of microbes that live on and in us to a lush rain forest, a diverse ecosystem. That diversity seems crucial to good health. When we take antibiotics we disrupt that ecosystem, sometimes with unpleasant effects. A healthy population of microbes seems to suppress growth of pathogenic organisms. I've read in this and other publications how our gut microbes may interact with our immune systems and may determine whether we are obese or not. A case I'd heard about some time ago that most would find seriously icky reported on a woman with a "life-threatening  Clostridium difficile infection". She had chronic diarrhea, lost 60 pounds over eight months and had an "extremely poor prognosis". In desperation, her physician mixed a small sample of her husband's stool with saline and injected it into her colon. Within 24 hours her diarrhea had stopped. Her physician later found that the woman's microbial flora had been nearly completely replaced by her husband's microbes.

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Another article said "A group of scientists are embarking on a controversial search for God within the fractured logic of quantum physics". Controversial indeed! Apparently even scientists aren't immune to the lure of seeking God where gaps in our knowledge exist. We hear from a particle physicist, John Polkinghorne, who is also an Anglican priest. We hear about Abdus Salam, Nobel prize winner and a practicing Muslim, who also happened to unify two of the fundamental forces of nature - electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force.

As yet, physics experiments can not demonstrate that God exists - and does not need to since the burden of proof always rests with those making extraordinary claims - but Polkinghorne says, "the mysteries of quantum objects leave room for God in an explanation of the physical world."  Of course, scientists who happen to be religious perceive and express that religious belief far differently than, say, evangelicals. Or even moderates. They may take a leap of faith that takes them off the solid foundation of scientific principles and into the land of speculation but they don't usually wander too far down the path that leads to fantasy land.

I recently read an interesting article by Hugo de Garis, PhD. He is an artificial intelligence researcher and has some disturbing beliefs about the future of artificial intelligence (billions of deaths and possibly the elimination of the human race). He also believes godlike, massively intelligent machines he calls artilects which are many trillions of times more intelligent than man could be capable of creating a universe.

Well okay, but what I found also interesting was his comparison of deism with theism. He defines deism as, "the belief that there is a 'deity,' i.e., a creator of the universe, a grand designer, a cosmic architect, that conceived and built our universe." He defines theism as, "the belief in a deity that also cares about the welfare of individual humans." Deism I am open to, whereas I find theism ridiculous. The evidence against it is enormous." I think I agree. I would not be too shocked to learn that some sort of superintelligence made the universe. I would be very shocked if it was that jealous, angry, vindictive Abrahamic god with the unseemly, inordinate interest in what people do with each other while naked. And who decided 13.7 billion years ago while creating this incredible universe that I would be born on this 3rd rock from the sun and cursed with a questioning mind. And will deliver me to be tortured for eternity for that questioning mind and its lack of "faith".