(John: Today I'm interviewing Dr. Peter Taylor who is
an assistant professor at the Centre of
Astrophysics and Relativity at DCU.
Peter, thanks for your time.) Great to be here.
(Peter, I heard you talking on the radio
recently about Science and God. But has
science buried God, do you think?) No, not at all
I don't think that's a
fair representation at all and I think
there's a real, false dichotomy out there
between what science has to say and
what theology says, for example. And I
think these two things are completely
compatible. You don't, for example,
have to go back that long before you see
that most scientists, at least most good
scientists, actually had some faith
perspective; you know, often
Judeo-Christian faith perspective.
Most of the Nobel Prize winners for
example in theoretical physics and if you
look through the list, I think it's
something close to 60% of them are
people of faith and there's also
lots of good reasons to believe
that the evidence leads to, at least,
intelligent design. Now, you know people
debate this of course, you know, and
it's something worth debating. But this
idea that it's dead and buried I think
is absolutely false. I mean, some of
the arguments to the contrary, for
example are, you know, this First
Cause argument which is a kind of a
really good one
and it's this idea: that everything that
begins to exist must have a cause.
Now that's a fundamental axiom
of metaphysics. The idea that that would
not be true would be absolutely absurd
because it would mean that anything
could pop into existence out of nothing,
and I literally mean nothing there.
I don't mean a quantum state or anything
like that or vacuum; I mean nothing;
no space, no time, nothing. And that would
be true, not just not for the
universe but for anything. 
Why doesn't an elephant pop into this
room right now and
run me over? Some people might wish it
did but you know it's an absurd notion
and nobody takes it seriously.
So anything that begins to exist
most have a cause. And then you have
to ask yourself 'Well, did the universe
begin to exist?' And in the '60s scientists
figured out that the universe almost
certainly DID begin to exist! And the
interesting thing is this: in the Sixties
this was controversial for precisely the
opposite reason that people very quickly
realized that this was bad news for
atheism. So, scientists back then
recognized immediately that this was
going to lead to a very strong case for
creation; and all of the evidence, all
of the very strong evidence leads to the
fact that the universe really did have a
beginning and that is definitely the
consensus among cosmologists and
theoretical physicists. Now, in more
recent years people have tried to
explain away this idea using things
like many worlds, quantum many worlds ideas
(John: Which isn't  really science, is it?) It's certainly not testable at the moment and hard to see that it
could be testable in the near future
because if you have in these many worlds
picture you basically have infinitely
many causally disconnected universes.
Now, something that is causally disconnected
is by definition unobservable (John: okay)
So if you can't observe it, then is it
really part of Science? And the answer is
probably 'no'. And in fact, the
motivation is philosophical in the first
instance so the motivation for
introducing a many worlds problem is not
to solve a scientific problem; it's not
because there's a scientific issue; it's
not because there's a clash between
theory and evidence or anything like
that. It's because we don't like what
science has given us and it'd be nicer
if that wasn't true and so it's purely
philosophical as its basis.
There are also some very beautiful fine-tuning
arguments which is another common one
that people like to cite. And this is
this idea: that the universe is
balanced or rather the constants of
nature are balanced in this very
exquisite way and they're balanced on such a razor-thin knife-edge that
they're so finely tuned for life to
exist. It's like this unbelievably
divine tightrope walk. It brings
to mind that Bob Dylan song:
'Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat' and it's this
great line in it: it's 'like a mattress
balancing on a bottle of wine'. Like, it
just shouldn't work, you know, it's kind
of a little bit like that.
But it's is amazing, I mean, if I told you the
numbers they're kind of unimaginable.
These are numbers that are so
small the probability of the constants
of Nature, being what they are, are so
small, that they're really hard to
imagine. Like, we don't have any context
for imagining these numbers. (John: On the radio I heard you talking about the Lotto,
the Euro Lotto winners.) Right, yeah, so this is one way to try to visualize one of these numbers
so this refers to the
fine-tuning of what's called 'the
Cosmological Constant . So, first of
all to tell you what the Cosmological
Constant is: it's basically the constant in
nature that drives the outword expansion
of the universe, So our universe is not
static; it's expanding; it's
accelerating in fact and we know that by
looking at how galaxies are receding
away from each other. Now, this
constant is fine-tuned to 1 part in 10
to the power of 120. Now, it's a very, very
difficult number to imagine, okay? So that
means the number itself is the first 120
decimal places of this number are 0 and
then the 121st decimal place is
nonzero.
Okay? Now if that number was a tiny,
little bit bigger
then the acceleration of the universe
would be a little bit more and what
would have happened is that the matter
in the universe would have diluted too
quickly for galaxies to form or for any matter to to coalesce and we
wouldn't have life, basically. If that
number was a little bit smaller then the
universe would have collapsed long ago.
So it's really amazingly fine-tuned.
So the way people quote the number is
that the probability of the initial
conditions of the universe giving rise
to a number with this particular value
of the cosmological constant is 1 in 10
to the 120. So getting back to the lotto
analogy, to try to visualize this number:
So, imagine you do the Lotto today, (John: yeah)
and you win the lotto, okay? You would say you're a very lucky guy, right?
Imagine you also did the Lotto tomorrow, you know, randomly pick some numbers
and you win it again! I mean, you
would consider yourself the luckiest man
alive. I mean, people would be trying to
rub off you for luck. If you did
it again the following day and won it again!
At this point you know, there'd be
conspiracy theorists knocking on
your door. But imagine you did the lotto,
imagine you existed for the whole age of
the universe and did the lotto every day
for the age of the universe, and won
the lotto every single day for the entire
age of the universe
that's about approximately, the number
one in ten to a hundred and twenty. I mean
just unimaginably small - effectively
zero. I mean, that's another way of
putting it, you know. And that's
just one constant, you have to remember
there's a the whole bunch of others as well.
There's another very special configuration
called 'entropy' and that's basically a
measure of disorder in the universe.
And there's a law of thermodynamics
that entropy only ever increases,
disorder naturally only ever increases.
So, if you have a closed system, you leave
it on its own, the disorder in that
system will increase unless there's some
external factors acting on it. And
the fact of the matter is: we live in
quite an ordered universe, right?
Very, very ordered. (John: We expect the sun to come up in the morning.) It's
very ordered (yeah) and we know that
entropy is only ever increasing, we know
disorder is only ever increasing. So that
means: that in the initial configuration
of the universe had to be so
unbelievably ordered because it's been
increasing, disorder has been increasing
from that initial moment so for 14
billion years, disorder in the universe
has been on the increase and yet we have
this very ordered universe. And the
numbers that people attach to this are
even more extreme than the fine-tuning
of the cosmological constant. So the
probability of the initial configuration
of the universe being what it was in
order for life to exist and for the
entropy to be what it is today, by chance
is 1 in 10 to the power of, 10 to the
power of 123. Now, even my lotto analogy
doesn't ...that's way more
than the number of particles in the
universe for example. (John: So it does look
like somebody who cares about us
is looking after...) It's certainly
hard to deny that, for all of the world
it looks like the universe was very,
very, very fine-tuned by a super
intellect. And that's a scientific matter
by the way. I mean, you can't
try to use science to prove or disprove
God's existence because that's not what
science is about. It's not within its
remit. But a perfectly valid scientific
question is: Is there scientific
evidence to suggest that the universe
was intelligently designed? That's
a valid question and we can look at that
and it looks for all the world like the answer
is 'Yes'. I mean, even even atheists and
naturalists and reductionists will
usually admit that it at least looks
like the universe is designed and
then you have to explain away why it
only looks like it's designed but in
fact it's not. You know, from Hawking
to Sir Fred Hoyle, I mean, many great
physicists who claimed not to have
any faith system or any belief
system, all kind of, have to concede that
it at least looks like the common sense
interpretation, if you like, is that the
universe was intelligently designed.
(John: that basic principle that if there was there must be a cause...) Yeah, I mean
it sounds like a very philosophical, very
metaphysical thing but the key
the key point in the statement is that
everything that BEGINS to exist most have
a cause. So if something doesn't
begin to exist it doesn't necessarily
have to have a cause and that's where
people kind of get wrapped up
philosophically a little bit because
people will say: 'Well, who created God?'
You know, the philosophical
answer is well because,
by definition, God did not begin to exist
then he does not have to have a cause
and I mean, you can kick that can as far
down the road as you like, you know, but
you have to at some point get to a prime
mover, a first cause. And it's
absolutely logically and rationally
satisfactory to start with something that
doesn't begin to exist as your initial
reference point but thereafter
everything that does begin to exist
must have a cause. If for example the
thing that began to exist is physical
then the cause must be unphysical and
you know if what began to exist involves
personality for example then the cause
must be a personhood and so you can
really get quite far with this argument
and it's quite an old argument by the
way, I mean it's just it's been bolstered
by the scientific discovery in the
Sixties that the
universe began to exist but philosophically
the argument is quite old, it just gained
new legs in the '60s and we have science
the thank for that. And so,
I think it's a really strong argument
and it's kind of hard to get around.
I mean there's some, even great
logicians I think have being tripped up by it
There's a very famous
mathematician / logician / philosopher
Bertrand Russell, he used to
believe in God (he's a British philosopher.)
He used to believe in God and was very, very convinced by this first cause
argument and then he decided that this mustn't work because
Who created God? And I find that a little bit
incredulous because he was
such a brilliant logician and such a
brilliant philosopher that he kind of
missed that it's everything that BEGINS to
exist must have a cause and so
there's no logical necessity on God to have a creator.
He is the first cause. I think this is a really
elegant argument. (John: 'So then the idea of
order in the universe...) Yes, yes. So the
third thing people often point to is
this notion of ORDER. So, for example
why can we describe the universe using
mathematical equations, for example?
Why do we have the ability at all, to
describe how the Earth rotates around
/ orbits around the Sun? Or how
galaxies evolve? Or how the universe
evolves and the larger scales? Or why
can we write down equations that
describe how atoms combine, for example?
And that's this idea of the universe is
so ordered and satisfies these
very beautiful laws that we can describe
mathematically and you do have to ask
yourself why should that be so if
everything is random? And it brings to
mind this amazing quote by Einstein
and he said: 'the eternal mystery of the
universe is it's comprehensibility.'
And that's really one of my favourite
quotes and it so beautifully
captures this idea that the universe is
ordered
it's comprehensible and we can describe
it using mathematical laws and that's
telling us something very special about
the universe. One of the interesting
things is that in the Scientific Revolution
that happened during the Enlightenment
many of the great scientists around
that time were driven by an
understanding that there was a rational,
personhood, an intelligent personhood
who designed the universe
and therefore laws could be discovered
and therefore we could describe these
laws mathematically and it really was
a natural deduction from this theistic worldview.
It's kind of interesting
that around the same time you had
atheism rising up also out of the
Enlightenment but that was
more culturally spawned, I think
because in France, for example, during the
French Revolution you had this idea that
that the Church was really a part of the
oppression, a part of the establishment.
So, I think atheism really came out of that
cultural shift there, whereas I think
on the scientific side, a lot of the
scientific revolution actually came from
this understanding that there's a
rational personhood behind all of this
this beauty and all of this mystery. So I
think there are three really good
arguments, you know. The first: that
anything that begins to exist must have
a cause, and the universe began to
exist. The second being the
fine-tuning argument: this idea that
the universe is balanced on this razor
thin knife edge. And then the third being
just the existence of order in the universe.
And I think those three things
combined make a really good argument for
the theistic world view and have
been aided very much by scientific
understanding. So I think it's
completely unfair to say that
science has put God to bed.
(John: Peter, can Science tell us about
right and wrong and ethics?) I don't
think so. I think there's definitely a
boundary to what science can reasonably
tell us and I think pure reason, pure
rationalisation alone doesn't get you
from across that massive chasm from
saying naturalism to right or wrong or
morality as you might call it and
there's quite a gulf there. Now, you
kind of have to supplement your reason
with maybe some form of pragmatism or
something like that to really get at
morality and I think this is a problem
even well recognized by naturalists
and by atheists and so this
mathematician Bertrand Russell
(a great philosopher, mathematician,
logician) he even admitted that he
wouldn't want to live in a world where
ethical values were a matter of personal taste
and you know, it's kind of... you have
to come to terms with that, you know. You
have to come to terms with with the
fact that pure reason alone cannot get
you to right or wrong. At least I don't I
don't think it can. I mean, there's lots
who claim that morality and ethics is
just a purely social construct and you
come up with lots of vague arguments for
how such a thing may or may have evolved
or may have developed when in some kind
of community context but those
arguments are tenuous and they also
render morality basically arbitrary and
all it's good for is survival. But what
it looks like is arbitrary.
And that's a hard thing to
digest. I mean, for example that
means Hitler's Germany is in no sense, no
absolute sense any worse than the
morality we have today. For example: had
he succeeded we might have been living
in a very different world, a very
different Europe, with a very different
moral norm. That is
perfectly acceptable alternative to a
naturalist so long as, for example,
survival rates are the same.
That to me is absolutely unacceptable
and I think to most (people) in fact it's
unacceptable and it's something that
even atheists and naturalists
I think wrestle with and there is a real
gulf there, to get from pure reason to
right or wrong. That being said, I can see
the appeal, right? I mean,
a relativist morality is an attractive one.
There's this famous quote by Karl
Marx that 'religion is the opium of the
people' but could you imagine anything
more of an opiate than being able to
define your own moral boundaries?
In living with this notion that there are
no eternal consequences to what you do;
that there's no real right or wrong;
that the standards that we adhere to,
that are commonly understood for example:
for murder, for rape, for violence,
adultery, theft; that these are an
arbitrary standard that enable us to
survive better? I think, that, to me
is completely unacceptable.
(John: So Science can't tell us how to live -that's what the implication of what we're talking about is...)
Exactly, yeah I mean
I don't even think science is concerned
with that. I mean, science is really
concerned with the mechanisms of HOW things work
not WHY. You know, not our purpose.
And I think that's a crucial distinction.
The 'hows' and the
'whys' are very different questions
and I think people conflate them.
I mean, the other thing is that
everybody really lives with this
commonly understood sense of morality
even when philosophically you claim you
don't. You know, how somebody who claims
to be a moral relativist reacts when
they perceive some injustice against
them. And then all of a sudden
morality will be absolute. And we all
have this, right? Imagine your
reaction if you perceive an injustice
and somebody responded: 'Well, you know, I
don't really acknowledge your arbitrary
standard for morality and I'm just going to
keep doing what I'm doing'. I mean, nobody
responds that way. We all have this
common sense of morality. In fact, if you
go back far enough that's what people
used to call the law of nature. But what
they meant is the law of human nature
that there was this kind of moral
code, in some sense, written into our DNA
And there are good arguments for that.
C.S Lewis gives some really good evidence
for this in the appendix of 'The
Abolition of Man' one of his more well known
books and he basically argues that
all civilizations, or most civilizations,
going back in history have superficially
different moral codes but essentially
very similar ones. And you can see
that for example, encoded in their
legal systems for example. That tells you
a lot about the morality of a society.
You can see in fact if you study civilizations that actually
moral codes were really essentially
very similar and there are
plenty of superficial differences of
course, but you know, broad-stroke: they're
very, very similar. And again that's kind
of telling you something about society
and about mankind. I think the
atheists and the naturalists
they would would probably assert that
morality is merely a social construct
most of the theistic and pantheistic
worldviews will have a more
absolute sense of morality but I
still think the judeo-christian morality
stands unique amongst all of the
theistic world views. One really nice
way to put it is that: in the
judeo-christian worldview Morality
follows from Redemption. In every other
theistic worldview Redemption follows
from Morality. And that's a real key
difference there and I think it's the
thing that really makes Christianity in
particular stand out.
So in the Christian worldview, basically,
the Cross is the great leveler of man, right?
We all stand before the Cross
equal and equally in need at the Cross.
No matter what gender, what race,
what ability, what ethnicity, these things
don't matter at the Cross, right? We
are all equal, we are all level there.
And we're all equally in need of of what
Jesus did on the Cross.
And that's essentially different.
There is no room for gloating in
Christianity. None of us earn it. 
I think that really is the
essential difference between Christian
morality and every other form of
morality. Critics will often say
'Aren't all religions basically
the same?' Superficially they may have
some ritualistic similarities
but at least Christianity is essentially
different to other worldviews in
this sense: that's it's really your
morality that follows from your
redemption and you can never earn it.
I think that's a beautiful thing.
(John: Peter, Is Atheism a Religion?)
Yeah, good question. I mean, if you asked
an atheist and they'll probably, almost
be offended by the question. So you
kind of have to do a couple of things to
address that question. The first thing
you have to do is: define what you mean
by a religion. And that's really the key
to answering that question. So I would
say that a religion or a religious
system of belief is the set of
assumptions or axioms that underpin your
view on origin, destiny, purpose and morality.
So those four key questions to
life, the big questions of life, basically
and all a religion is is: the
assumptions that inform your view on
those four things. Now in that sense not
only is atheism a religion but I would
go even further and say that everybody
is essentially religious because
everybody has a set of unprovable
assumptions
that they invoke. The infrastructure
that they build upon basically to inform
their opinion on those four key
questions. And most atheists will
also ascribe to this notion
of scientism which is this idea that
science can and eventually will explain
everything; everything about human nature,
everything about the world around us. So
not just the evolution of the
universe but also your free will, also
notions of love and morality and ethics
and all of these other very big
questions. Things like purpose: Why am I here?
I mean, somebody acribes to the scientism
perspective will believe that Science
can answer that question.
Now the answer to the question from
their perspective may be that there is
no purpose but that Science would give you the answer. And of course, you know
there's also some logical problems there
you know, it's self referential for
example. If that was true then the meta
theory they're talking about would also
describe why they arrived at that
position in the first place.
And if there was no such thing as free will
for example, then you also wouldn't have
free will to arrive at the conclusion that
there was no such thing as free will.
So there are all kinds of logical
problems that you can kind of get
yourself into when you start going down
this road but I would say the key point
here is that not only is atheism a
religion but everybody is essentially
religious. And you would
be doing well in life, I think, to take
some time out and critically examine
what your own assumptions are that have
built up your perspective on Origin,
Destiny, Purpose and Morality.
Everybody at some point in their life should
critically examine what they believe
about those four things but also what
assumptions of
led them to that belief about those four
things. And until you do that you haven't
really, honestly asked yourself the
question is of 'What is truth?' And that's
one of the most important questions we
can we can ask ourselves.
(John: Peter, the metaphysical questions of life...)
Yes, so there are these four pillars,
these four big questions I would say that 
are the essential questions of life.
And that is: (1.) Origin: Where do we come from?
For example: 'What was the beginning
of the universe?' And Science
does have something to say about that
question, at least in terms of
the mechanism of 'Where do we come from?'
And the second would be (2.) Destiny:
'Where are we going to? 'Is there life after
death?' for example. And there of course the atheists would say 'No, there isn't'.
But, the Christian for example, would say
'Yes there is - there's life after death'.
Many other worldviews believe in
things like reincarnation so, you know
Destiny just gets recycled, in a certain
sense. And then the other two major
pillars are: (3.) Morality: 'How do you
determine right from wrong?'
Is there an absolute right / or wrong?
Or is it just an arbitrary social construct?
And again of course the
Christian believes that God is the
absolute authority for morality. He is the
reference point for that. Somebody who
ascribes to maybe an atheistic or
scientism perspective will probably
tell you that it's merely a social
construct.
And then finally: (4.) Purpose
The fourth pillar is Purpose: Why are we here?
What is the purpose for our existence?
And there the person who ascribes to
atheism and scientism, they will
probably say that there is no purpose;
it's all just chemistry and atoms and
physics and that's it; all there is
is: physical matter, physical stuff.
The laws of mathematics for
example, don't have a purpose.
They're merely describing
how things work. And so there just
is no purpose, but that still is
a belief,  right? And that still is an
answer to one of those questions. It's
not the theistic one or it's
not the Christian one certainly.
So yeah, I think they're the four pillars
essentially and I think they're probably
four of the most important questions
that anybody will ask themselves. It
really is essential to understand what
you believe about those four things and
what are the assumptions that go into
you believing whatever you believe about
those four things. So really key,
key questions. I don't I don't think any
other worldview for me answers those
four satisfactorily and also self
consistently. I would say the
judeo-christian perspective is the only
one that does that - at least in my opinion.
(John: 'and coherently') Yeah, exactly yeah.
I mean, you have to have answers
that are individually satisfactory to
each of those four but also consistent
and coherent amongst all of the answers.
And that's not such an easy thing to do.
In fact, it's even quite tricky just to
write down a set of axioms or
assumptions that are not contradicting
one another. That's a problem even
in mathematics. We build all of
mathematics on a set of assumptions
called axioms and people then think 'Well isn't mathematics then arbitrary?'
No, because it's quite hard to write down
a set of axioms that are useful and also
not self contradictory, that
they're internally consistent.
It's not a straightforward thing to
do and people have gone to great lengths
to figure this stuff out. But it's the
same with our worldview. I mean,
your set of axioms has to be useful; has
to give you a framework for
understanding the world around you; has
to satisfactorily answer
these four key questions; but also has to
be internally consistent and not self
contradictory. And so there are a lot of
restrictions there but I think
logically I find Judeo-Christianity a
very satisfactory answer to these questions.
(John: So can I ask you to have those four
questions answered and to have science that
backs up your philosophy on life,
does that bring satisfaction
to your life?)
Mostly it just brings a sense of privilege you know. I think it's it's an amazing
privilege to be given the faculty to
understand even one line of the Makers
blueprint. I mean, that to me is just
a beautiful and satisfactory thing.
Other people will draw other
conclusions of course, from their
scientific research and ultimately
when you do science you
you should try to do it without any
particular worldview in mind
but then how you frame the
results when you kind of zoom out and
try to look at the big picture - that's
really when your worldview comes into it.
But the science itself - it's
supposed to be agnostic and in practice
of course it isn't.
But, it's at least opposed to be.
But yeah, I find it very satisfying to
you know, have the gift of a mind
that can actually answer some of the big
questions. And even if it's in one tiny
little sliver of my area of expertise.
But then, like I said, I find it a
privilege to really be able to do what I
love to do. So yeah, it's amazing.
(John: Dr. Peter Taylor, you studied at Cambridge. Did you ever have the privilege of
meeting Stephen Hawking?)
Well, meeting might be a stretch but I do
have an interesting story. It's probably
the only time in my life where I reacted like
a complete fanboy. So while I was
a student there, we had Sir Roger Penrose
come and give a lecture, give a talk
one afternoon and Roger Penrose is
famous for actually proving some very
well-known theorems with Stephen
Hawking. And so he was giving this
lecture; I arrived a little bit late as
is my custom and I sat in the back
on the edge but I didn't realize I was
actually sitting next to the Wheelchair
Bay and two or three minutes later
Stephen Hawking came in and parked right
beside me within touching distance.
So I was more than a little bit excited to
be sitting next to Sir Stephen Hawking
listening to one of his great
collaborators, Sir Roger Penrose
giving this talk. So it was one of those
really brilliant moments in my life.
(John: And you studied Black Holes, that's your area...)
Yeah that's my research area, yeah.
It's a very exciting area to
be involved in at the moment. 
Over the last number of years we've had
some real exciting developments in the
area. So, a number of years ago we
detected the first gravitational
waves from two colliding black holes
which was just an unbelievable discovery. It won the Nobel Prize for
those who set up this experiment.
Kip Thorne was involved who I have
had the pleasure of meeting on a few
occasions. And then more recently we
have had the first photograph of a black
hole from the Event Horizon Telescope
which again is just an amazing
engineering feat and an amazing
feat of of data science as well because
massive amounts of data have to be
analyzed to actually generate this image.
So there's lots of new developments
happening in the area on the
observational side. I work on the
theoretical side but most of the most of my research life
I've been working on the theory side
without really having a corresponding
observational or experimental side. So
now that observation and experiment are
catching up it's going to make it a really
exciting area to work in in the coming years.
(John: What percentage of the
universe is dark matter or black holes?)
Yeah, good question.
The answer is: a lot! I mean, the dark matter
content of the universe is, well, let me
say that the content of the universe
that is regular old, what we call
baryonic matter, which is kind of what
we're made of, is something like 5% and
the rest of it is dark matter and dark
energy.
So, basically almost all of the universe
is stuff that we don't know.
Whether matter that we don't know or
energy that we don't know.
So it's really kind of phenomenal to think
about that. And kind of humbling to think
we probably have a firm handle on about
5% of the content of the universe
and the rest of it is completely unknown.
