The Case for a Creator - Lee Strobel [84]
INTERVIEW #5: GUILLERMO GONZALEZ, PHD, AND JAY WESLEY RICHARDS, PHD
Tall, blond Jay Wesley Richards, dressed in a navy blazer, is an Ivy League philosopher who speaks in rapid-fire bursts with unflagging enthusiasm. Guillermo Gonzalez, clad in a short-sleeve shirt, his thinning hair cropped short, is a nuts-and-bolts astronomer who talks in professorial tones on such topics as, “Chemical Abundance Trends among RV Tauri Stars.”
Together, they authored The Privileged Planet, which documents astonishing evidence pointing toward a designer for Earth—and toward at least one apparent purpose for humankind.
Gonzalez is informally known as a “star guy.” After graduating summa cum laude with degrees in astronomy and physics from the University of Arizona, he later earned his master’s degree and doctorate in astronomy from the University of Washington at Seattle. Now an assistant professor at Iowa State University, his research centers on low and intermediate mass stars and theories about stellar and planetary evolution.
He’s a hands-on and yet conceptually sophisticated scientist, having logged countless hours doing research through telescopes at Cerro Tololo International Observatory, located at an altitude of 6,600 feet in Chile, and four other locations. He is adept at analyzing photometric and spectroscopic data. A member of the International Astronomical Union and the American Scientific Affiliation, the low-key but engaging Gonzalez has seen dozens of his articles published in technical journals and featured on the covers of such popular magazines as Scientific American.
An academic overachiever with a sincere, self-effacing personality, Richards holds three advanced degrees in philosophy and theology, including a doctorate from Princeton Theological Seminary. He authored The Untamed God and has edited or contributed to such books as Unapologetic Apologetics, Signs of Intelligence, and Are We Spiritual Machines? His articles have appeared in publications ranging from Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith to the Washington Post to the Princeton Theological Review. As vice president of the Discovery Institute, Richards is considered a bright star in the burgeoning Intelligent Design movement.
Each of us clutching a soft drink, we met in an airlines hospitality suite, with Richards and Gonzalez sitting across from me at a granite conference table under florescent lights in a simple room devoid of character. Anxious to proceed, I barely let them settle into their chairs before unleashing my first question.
THE COPERNICAN PRINCIPLE
I turned toward Richards. “I was taught in school that our planet is unexceptional, that we revolve around a typical star in an average, mundane part of the universe, and that there’s nothing particularly unusual or special about Earth,” I began. “Isn’t that the view of most scientists today?”
“Yes, that’s the so-called Principle of Mediocrity or the Copernican Principle,” Richards replied. “Open any introductory astronomy textbook and you’ll see it stated over and over that we should assume there’s nothing special about our situation, our location in the universe, or the particular features of the Earth, the solar system, or humans themselves.”
“But,” I interjected, “isn’t that appropriate in some sense?”
“Yes, of course,” he said. “We shouldn’t assume that the Earth, our solar system, or our sun is unique in every possible way. We wouldn’t be able to do science if every place in the universe had a different law of gravity or atoms had a different mass. That’s fine.”
“Then where does the problem come in?” I asked.
“The problem is that the Copernican Principle has taken a metaphysically bloated form, which essentially says our metaphysical status is as insignificant as our astronomical location. In other words, we’re not here for