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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Overplays his hand a bit, but it's a good hand., September 20, 2000
This review is from: The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God (Paperback)
I read this book (on the suggestion of an astronomer) about the same time as Bertrand Russell's Why I am Not a Christian, in which Russell baldly asserts that "There is no evidence of design" about the universe. Creator and the Cosmos lays that idea to rest, with a thud. One possible loophole in Ross' argument, however, may be as follows. In order to calculate the probability of an event, (such as the birth of life, or a bio-friendly universe) you need to be able to calculate not only all the possible outcomes (which can be done, Ross shows, producing very big numbers). You also need to be able to calculate the number that are favorable. (All the possible bio-scraps that can reproduce, what life might be possible under other conditions. If other fundamental constants were different, for example, might there be more boron,? Or might some other element attain characteristics that allowed it to take over where carbon left off?) To calculate how all the possible outcomes might affect life in some other form, at least at this stage, seems impossible, but that does not mean the question is absurd. When John Maddox of Nature suggests something like that, Ross dismisses him too quickly, in my opinion. Still, the evidence Ross offers is at least powerfully suggestive. He certainly does show that the old complain about a "God of the gaps" has now been turned on its head. I agree with reviewers who think Ross overreached in arguing for Christianity from evidence that merely suggest the existence of God. I believe in Jesus, but not because of the Big Bang! To a certain extent, I think Ross might be copying the error of his opponents, making "new scientific evidence" into a fetish, as if it cancelled out all prior human experience -- as if God's existence and character were knowable only to 21st Century astronomers and their readers! I have found strong evidence for the existence of God, and for specific Christian doctrines, in many other sources: history, prophecy, answered prayer, (including in my own life), miracles, and even in my study of some lesser-known (yet very important) currents in so-called eastern thought and beliefs. It seems to me a tad parochial to discuss ultimate questions about the cosmos without noting the cosmological evidence right under our noses. (Planet earth, after all, is part of the cosmos.) The Absent-Minded Professor syndrome, I guess. One can't fault Ross for getting exciting about his discipline. This is a truly amazing book about a remarkable subject; and if you can relate to the story Ross tells about his childhood, when he pointed a telescope his father gave him at the stars, and all the neighbors gathered around to look, it's even better. I've just written a book, Jesus and the Religions of Man, that gives more down-to-earth, and sometimes less-familiar, evidence for the Christian faith. For those interested in how Christianity relates to other beliefs, and some of that evidence, you may find my book a good complement to The Creator and the Cosmos.
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24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally A Creation Story That Fits the Data, January 14, 1999
This review is from: The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God (Paperback)
As a professional scientist with a background in both biochemistry and computer science, I have been struck with the arcane stories that otherwise logical scientists have posited to account for why the earth is the way it is, and why there is life on it. While they will generally agree on principles of thermodynamics, entropy, and the matter/energy/time inter-relationships that we now hold as scientific fact, they are particularly more "open minded" when it comes to non-theistic theories regarding the origins of life or the universe. In fact, it would seem that for years, concepts like an "ageless universe" and evolution have become very ingrained in much of the scientific community. In fact, logic seems to have been entirely abandoned by evolutionists that ardently deny creationism; even a marginal thinker eventually realizes that the only significant difference between the evolutionist view and creationist view is the number of creation events. Modern cosmology and origin of life theories the presume no divine element can be characterized generally as speculative and largely unsupported, BUT these very same notions together have become somewhat of an alter-religion in itself that seems to create quite a few believers of ardent faith (see other reviews of this book by those offended at Dr. Ross's view). Dr. Ross introduces the reader to a number of modern superstitious cosmology arguments and clearly shows how the latest advances in mathematics, physics, and astronomomy (particularly the dramatic discoveries of the Hubble telescope) do not support the modern alter-religion's notion of the universe. In fact, he takes the argument a step further and makes what I found to be a stunningly compelling case for the model set forth some thousands of years ago in the bible. Engaged by this notion when I first read this book some years ago, I conducted my own investion of these same matters and came to similar conclusions as Dr. Ross. I have always felt that science is at its very best when it evokes a sense of the divine. Indeed anyone reading this book may think much differently about the universe after reading the book than before. Since Dr. Ross wrote this book, several new books have been published on the same subject supporting Dr. Ross's perspective, and in fact there has been much more scientific evidence dug up that points that way. Perhaps it will not be long from today that in critical and intellectually rigorous circles, a writer may risk his or her credibility more by attempting to refute Dr. Ross's Christain view of the universe than by simply agreeing with it. There have been some minor disputes over whether Dr. Ross took some conclusions too far or misused a contant in some way. I have seen many of these objections and can say that some seem quite valid, some not valid, and many I just cannot tell because I'm not a mathematician. No matter, because even if every argument raised was conceeded by Dr. Ross, the validity of his principal arguments would be largely unchanged. They really add up to trivia in how they affect the overall argument. I recommend reading all Dr. Ross's books and then read all of attempts to refute him. To explain the same phenomen, the secular scientific critics violate Occam's Razor constantly, asserting arguments so illogical that one cannot but help but feel embarassed for them. Thank you Dr. Ross for giving scientists a reason to stay excited about the wonders that nature and the universe hold for us all.
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37 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fine Examination of Recent Cosmology and Faith Interactions, January 22, 1998
This review is from: The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God (Paperback)
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and think it is Dr. Ross' finest work. His interaction with COBE, Hawking, Einstein, etc. shows that cosmology has certainly been yielding results that Christian theologians have long advocated. Namely, that the universe began to exist and was caused by God. One previous reviewer mistakenly refers to this philosophical argument as a design argument -- it is clearly a cosmological argument. He/She likewise asks about who caused God. As this question is very boring and has been answered for years, I'd just like to point out that God by definitioin never began to exist. Rather, God has always existed. So, God doesn't need a cause to bring Him into existence. But, the universe has never always existed. What caused the universe to begin to exist?
Another reviewer brings a question concerning Dr. Ross' exegesis of Gen. 1:1. Gen. 1:1 speaks of God creating the entire physical universe. The Heb. meaning of heavens & earth hooked together in verse 1 (shamayin & eretz) = entire physical universe. You can check this with the Hebrew lexicons and with OT scholars such as John Sailhammer.
Also, Dr. Ross' summary of the many constants that must be "fine-tuned" for the universe to contain intelligent life is largely based upon other massive studies that have looked at the so-called anthropic principle. Even the agnostic Stephen Hawking admits this in his A_Brief_History_of_Time. One ought to check Barrow and Tipler's massive work The_Anthropic_Cosmological_Principle before waving this evidence aside with a few remarks about God not being proved scientifically in journals.
Finally, one reviewer thinks that Dr. Ross' views on the origin of death and sin has been challenged as unbiblical by "young-earth" creationists. "Young-earth" creationists hold to the idea that after Adam & Eve sinned in the Garden, physical death came into being in the universe. This is certainly a popular "view" of what the Scriptures teach but it isn't necessarily explicit. In fact, one large error occurs in this popular view -- could Adam & Eve have obtained eternal physical life if they ate from the Tree of Life instead of the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil before the Fall? In other worlds, if the Tree of Life was available to them before the fall, how can they obtain something they supposedly already had (eternal physical life)?
In summary, this book is certainly a fine one to discuss for both Christians and those of other persuasions.
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