The Universe...does it have a purpose?

The John Templeton Foundation asked a handful of scholars the profound question...Does the Universe have a purpose?

Here is a sampling of the responses:

Yes. The fact we can ask such a question at all suggests an affirmative answer...

- John F. Haught, Science & Religion, Woodstock Technological Center, Georgetown University

Unlikely. While nothing in biology, chemistry, physics, geology, astronomy, or cosmology has ever provided direct evidence of purpose in nature, science can never unambiguously prove that there is no such purpose. As Carl Sagan said, in another context: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...

-Lawrence M. Krauss, Professor of Physics & Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University

Not sure. To assert that the universe has a purpose implies the universe has intent. And intent implies a desired outcome. But who would do the desiring? And what would a desired outcome be? That carbon-based life is inevitable? Or that sentiment primates are life's neurological pinnacle? Are answers to these questions even possible without expressing a profound bias of human sentiment? Of course humans were not around to ask these questions for 99.9999% of cosmic history. So if the purpose of the universe was to create humans then the cosmos was embarrassingly inefficient about it...

-Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysicist, Director, New York City Hayden Planetarium

Yes. Frankly, I am psychologically incapable of believing that the universe is meangingless. I believe the universe has a purpose, and our greatest intellectual challenge as human beings is to glimpse what this purpose might be. My belief is not the result of a blinding flash of a road-to-Damascus revelation. Nor is it the imprint of a nurturing home environment.

- Owen Gingerich, Professor emeritus, Harvard University, & Astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Institute

Yes. Namely, to defeat and rise above our animal natures; to create goodness, beauty, and holiness where only physics and animal life once existed; to create what might be (if we succeed) the only tiny pinprick of goodness in the universe - which is otherwise (so far as we know) morally null and void.

-David Gelernter, Professor of Computer Science, Yale University

Indeed. The question of purpose is closely related to the question of whether something like the God of Western monotheistic religions can be known to exist by studying the order, goodness, and grandeur of the universe. Already, around 1750, David Hume pointed out that if one is looking at evidence of design, then all of the evidence must be taken into account: not only order and goodness but disorder and evil as well.

-Nancy Murphy, Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary

No. In the absence of evidence, the only reason to suppose that it does is sentimental wishful thinking and sentimental wishful thinking, which underlies all religion, is an unreliable tool for discovery of truth of any kind.

- Peter Atkins, Fellow, Professor of Chemistry, Lincoln College, Oxford

Very likely. It turns out that the observed features of the natural world appear to be fine-tuned for biological complexity. In other words, everything from the mass ratios of atomic particles, the number of space dimensions, to the cosmological parameters that rule the expansion of the universe, and the formation of galaxies are all exactly what they need to be to create stars, planets, atoms, and molecules. But where does this apparent fine-tuning come from? Is it the manifestation of a plan for the universe? An arrangement by a superior will to prepare the way for complex creatures? Is it God's signature? People of faith believe it is so. They read purpose in the universe as a painter sees beauty in a view on the ocean.

- Bruno Guiderdoni, Director, Observatory, Lyon, France.

*To read the complete excerpts: http://www.templeton.org