Daily Show Science

The Daily Show is a hugely popular program on the Comedy Network.  It stars Jon Stewart who is a witty, smart, cool creator/reflector of popular culture.

Morgan Freeman appeared as a guest promoting Through the Wormhole, the show he narrates on the Discovery Channel.  Mr. Freeman is among almost everybody's top five actors because of roles in The Shawshank Redemption, Driving Miss Daisy, Unforgiven, Bruce Almighty and many others.  He won an Oscar for Million Dollar Baby.

Part of the interview went like this:

Stewart:  "They talk about how there's five times the amount of dark matter and dark energy in the universe than there is regular matter and energy, but what the hell does that mean?"

Freeman:  "Exactly."

Stewart:  "What do they tell you?"

Freeman:  "This is where we get into the God part of it.  You know, whatever scientists don't know becomes a God factor."

Stewart:  "And they will even say that?"

Freeman:  "Yeah, we get to the point when we say, "Well, we don't know how that happens."

Stewart:  "And they say well maybe it's..."

Freeman:  "...the God factor."

Stewart:  "So after all these years and the incredibly sophisticated tools that we use to scour the skies, they just come back to, basically, "I think the Sun God did it?""

Freeman:  "Basically."

Stewart's line got a chuckle from the audience, but Morgan wasn't laughing.  He knows many scientists believe in God and "the God factor" is one of the reasons. 

This condescending mockery is typical of people who dismiss faith without thinking it through.  Stewart should consider the Anthropic Principle that states the universe is set up to enable us to exist and if it were set up any differently, we wouldn't be here.

For example,  the timing of Earth's rotation coupled with its distance from the Sun is necessary for liquid water (instead of ice or steam) to exist.  We've also learned that the intensities of gravity, electromagnetism and nuclear forces are critical;  our hospitable environment would vanish if any of them were even slightly different.  The list of factors is lengthy and continues to grow.

Skeptics contend our environment is a random confluence of directionless elements that happened to lead to life.  But there are many thousands of these factors, from the water cycle to atomic half-lives to sound wavelengths that must be just right.  Is it really believable that a universe perfectly designed for us "just happened?"

You can't even bake a cake without directing the right ingredients, mixture, heat and time in the oven.  But people like Jon Stewart think it's plausible to believe our finely tuned universe assembled all by itself.

It would have been interesting if Mr. Freeman had responded, "No, Jon, the Sun God didn't create the universe.  The God of the Universe did.  Think about it and let me know if you come up with a more sensible answer."

The interview can be seen at www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/06/morgan-freeman-explains-wormholes-dark-matter-and-time-itself/ 

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