How We Believe_ Science and the Search for God - Michael Shermer [5]
Not only are humans storytelling animals, we are also pattern-seeking animals, and there is a tendency to find patterns even where none exists. To most of us the patterns of the universe indicate design. For countless millennia, we have taken these patterns and constructed stories about how our cosmos was designed specifically for us. For the past few centuries, however, science has presented us with a viable alternative in which we are but one among tens of millions of species, housed on but one planet among many orbiting in an ordinary solar system, itself one among possibly billions of solar systems in an ordinary galaxy, located in a cluster of galaxies not so different from billions of other galaxy clusters, themselves whirling away from one another in an expanding cosmic bubble that very possibly is only one among a near-infinite number of bubble universes. Is it really possible that this entire cosmological multiverse exists for one tiny subgroup of a single species on one planet in a lone galaxy in that solitary bubble universe? The final chapter explores the implications of this scientific worldview and what it means to fully grasp the nature of contingency—what if the universe and the world were not created for us by an intelligent designer, and instead is just one of those things that happened? Can we discover meaning in this apparently meaningless universe? Can we still find the sacred in this age of science?
To help me answer these questions a number of people have been highly influential in my thinking and writing, both directly and indirectly. The ultimate genesis of my beliefs, as it is for all of us of course, is parental, so I thank my mother, Lois, my stepfather, Dick, my late father, Richard, and my stepmother, Betty, for raising me in an atmosphere open and uncritical toward both religious and secular beliefs; I truly had a free choice in the matter, as it should be for all children. For introducing me to Christianity in my youth I thank the Oakleys: George, Marilyn, George, and Joyce (though they are not to be blamed for my subsequent fall from grace). At Glendale College Professor Richard Hardison was especially effective in helping me think clearly about philosophy and theology, particularly with regard to reason and faith; and at Pepperdine University Professor Tony Ash’s courses on Jesus the Christ and the writings of C. S. Lewis awakened me to the depth and seriousness of Christian theology and apologetics. The primary credit (or blame, depending on your perspective) for my turn toward science and secular humanism in graduate school goes to Professors Bayard Brattstrom, Meg White, and Doug Navarick at the California State University—Fullerton, whose passion for science made me realize that no religion could come close to the epic narratives told by cosmologists, evolutionary biologists, and social scientists about the origins and evolution of the cosmos, life, behavior, and civilization.
Over the past two decades countless conversations with hundreds of people have helped me sort out some answers to these deep religious and philosophical questions, but those most directly affecting the development of this book include Skeptic magazine editors and board members David Alexander, Tim Callahan, Napoleon Chagnon, Gene Friedman, Nick Gerlich, Penn Jillette, Gerald Larue, Bernard Leikind, Betty McCollister, Tom McDonough, Sara Meric, Richard Olson, Donald Prothero, Vincent Sarich, Jay Snelson, Carol Tavris, Teller, and Stuart Vyse. As always I acknowledge the support of the Skeptics Society and Skeptic magazine provided by Dan Kevles, Susan Davis, and Chris Harcourt at the California Institute of Technology; Larry Mantle, Ilsa Setziol, Jackie Oclaray, and Linda Othenin-Girard at KPCC 89.3 FM radio in Pasadena; Stan Hynds and Linda Urban at Vroman’s bookstore in Pasadena; as well as those who help at every level of our organization, including Jane Ahn, Jaime Botero, Jason Bowes, Jean Paul Buquet, Bonnie Callahan, Cliff Caplan, Randy Cassingham, Amanda Chesworth, Shoshana