The Purpose-Guided Universe: Believing In Einstein, Darwin, and God [Hardcover]

Bernard Haisch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 20, 2010 | ISBN-10: 1601631227 | ISBN-13: 978-1601631220 | Edition: 1

"Committed atheists, traditional Christians, or hard-core Muslims will no doubt try to dismiss this book. It is wide ranging, provocative, sometimes entertainingly whimsical, but always mind-stretching and logically solid. The Purpose-Guided Universe is one of those rare books that gives serious food for thought."
Prof. Owen Gingerich, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, author of God's Universe

"At a time when religion- and spirituality-bashing has become a blood sport within science, it is thrilling to read The Purpose-Guided Universe. Neither science nor theology can consider itself informed without taking into account Haisch's views."
Larry Dossey, MD, author of Healing Words

"If you think that science has nothing to do with God, and vice versa, read this book--and you just may change your mind."
Prof. Peter Sturrock, Dept. Physics, Stanford Univ.

"Bernard Haisch is the latest entry on this promising scene: an eminent scientist turned profound philosopher. It merits being read and pondered by everyone seeks deeper meaning underlying science's ever more astounding view of the world."
Dr. Ervin Laszlo, author of Science and the Akashic Field

"The Purpose-Guided Universe is an enlightening exploration of creation and the human being's existence on Earth. The intricate, precise conditions necessary to sustain life have baffled even the most cynical scientists who do not accept a higher power. Dr. Haisch discusses the reasons for incorporating a nonthreatening and nondenominational God into scientific study. Using a practical, common-sense approach, he explains why belief in a universal force does not exclude or negate the theories of Einstein and Darwin."
Julia Ann Charpentier, ForeWord Reviews

In this engrossing new book, Dr. Bernard Haisch contends that there is a purpose and an underlying intelligence behind the Universe, one that is consistent with modern science, especially the Big Bang and evolution. It is based on recent discoveries that there are numerous coincidences and fine-tunings of the laws of nature that seem extraordinarily unlikely.

A more rational concept of God is called for. As astrophysicist Sir James Jeans wrote, "the Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine."

Despite bestsellers by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris that have denounced the evils of religion and proclaimed that science has shown that there is no God, The Purpose-Guided Universe shows how one can believe in God and science.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Bernard Haisch, PhD is an astrophysicist and author of The God Theory and more than 130 scientific publications. He was a scientific editor of the Astrophysical Journal for 10 years. His professional positions include deputy director of the Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Astrophysics at U.C.-Berkeley; and visiting scientist at the Max-Planck-Institute für Extraterrestrische Physik in Garching, Germany. He was also editor in chief of the Journal of Scientific Exploration. Prior to his career in astrophysics, Haisch attended the St. Meinrad Seminary as a student for the Catholic priesthood. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Marsha Sims and his three children.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: New Page Books; 1 edition (May 20, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1601631227
• ISBN-13: 978-1601631220
• Product Dimensions: 0.9 x 6.5 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #671,589 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Purpose-Guided Universe May 20, 2010

By Swami Abhayananda

Format:Hardcover

Bernard Haisch has written a beautiful book in the tradition of other respected scientists, such as Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder and Dr. Hugh Ross, who have written of the scientific evidence for the Divine as source of and immanent presence in our world. And, while the Judaic and Christian biases are evident in the works of Schroeder and Ross, Dr. Haisch approaches his subject, not from a bias toward a singular scripture-based religious tradition, but from the mystic's perspective, citing the perennial philosophy that embraces a universal experience-based perspective on spiritual knowledge. His focus is on the inescapable conclusions of current empirical science, and the recognition of the many `finely-tuned' physical constants that allow for a universe where life is capable of evolving. Science does not seek metaphysical implications, but when all empirical evidence points to a metaphysical conclusion, there is a moral imperative to acknowledge that fact. Dr. Haisch writes knowledgeably and eloquently of the pertinent science, explaining some of the most complex issues of contemporary physics in a refreshingly comprehensible and original manner, and leads the reader to the inexorable conclusion that `in Him we live and move and have our being'. If you need convincing, or just wish to see the evidence from the vantagepoint of an able and thoughtful scientist, you will greatly enjoy and profit from a reading of The Purpose-Guided Universe.
--Swami Abhayananda

88 of 101 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars a huge disappointment September 3, 2010

By billglas

Format:Hardcover

I had been looking forward to this book with great anticipation ever since I read (and reread twice) Bernard Haisch's The God Theory, for which I wrote a very positive review for Amazon. I am sorry that I can not do the same with Purpose Guided Universe.
I wholeheartedly embrace most aspects of the Dr. Haisch's God Theory having to do with:
- the Goldilocks universe vs multiverses
- the intellectual dishonesty of the "new atheists" in their thinking that their debunking of traditional versions of God effectively debunks the possibility of any "reasonable" conception of the Divine
- the absurdity of writing off the possibility of a Divine Reality/Godhead reality in light of the discovery of dark matter/energy making up the greater part of the matter/energy of the Universe and the
admission that there is no scientific basis for defining it
- the dead-end of string theory
- the likely truth of the Perennial Philosophy as a result of the scientific method applied to mystical experience = subjects placed under the same conditions have universally the same results
(culturally skewed, of course) in their experience of the Divine.
My main problem with The Purpose-Guided Universe is the arrogant and dogmatic assurance with which Bernard Haisch proclaims the ABSOLUTE TRUTH of his interpretation of quantum mechanics and for which he quotes selectively chosen expert confirmation, as if the matter is closed. The categorical, absolute nature and tone of his statements regarding human consciousness creating reality are scarily similar to that of the proclamations of fundamentalist Christians on one hand or new atheists on another.
I recently read The Quark and the Jaguar by Murray Gell-Mann. His discussion of interference, consistent histories, and decoherence casts very reasonable doubt on the traditionally accepted MEANING of Schroedinger's Cat and the experiments that Dr. Haisch cites as PROOF that consciousness creates reality. And sorry, Dr. Gell-Mann cannot be cavalierly written off as a just another materialist reductionist. Murray Gell-Mann, the Nobel prize winning developer of the concept of quarks has continued to elaborate this alternative understanding with James Hartle (co-discoverer of the Brill-Hartle geon and co-developer of the Hartle-Hawking wavefunction of the Universe), both now of the Santa Fe Institute, hardly a hotbed of material reductionist convention.
Just as Christian fundamentalists would have us believe that THEIR interpretation of the Gospels is the ONLY valid interpretation and that the conclusions they draw are the ONLY valid ones, so Dr. Haisch would have us believe that his interpretation of quantum mechanics is the ONLY possibly valid interpretation and the conclusion that human consciousness creates reality is the ONLY valid conclusion.
The question is by no means closed.
Why must the question of the nature of reality be framed as another black and white, either/or zero sum game: namely, either the Universe is entirely classically Newtonian or entirely Copenhagen quantum. It is reminiscent of Dawkins et al who argue that since the God of the Old Testament is obviously wrong, there is no GOD at all. Just as there are reasonable conceptions of God that the new atheists ignore, so there are other reasonable interpretations of quantum theory that Dr. Haisch ignores.
Dr. Haisch is certainly right in rejecting material reductionism and its assumption that things, systems, etc are nothing more that the sum of their parts, especially in light of newer understandings of chaos and complexity, particularly complex adaptive systems. Perversely, his argument ends up being a mirror of materialist reductionism, only it is morphed into quantum particle reductionism = if particles exhibit quantum effects and therefore lack classical reality, all of reality MUST share the same attributes! Why? Because reality consists of particles? It's the same reductionist type argument, only this time in the service of his insistence that quantum theory supports his "human consciousness creates reality" position.
I had hoped for more from Bernard Haisch.

62 of 72 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Holistic and concomitantly - gestalt. May 17, 2010

By Matthew J. Schimpf

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

After finishing this book, the titular lyric as sung by Louie Armstrong: "And I think to myself, what a wonderful world" went coursing through my mind. Bernard Haisch, whom is a well respected and published astrophysicist; copiously quotes from sources as wide and varied as The Upanishads, The Bhagavad Gita, The Bible, Einstein, Schrodinger, James Jeans, Aldous Huxley, Freeman Dyson and the list goes on; with the premise that all these sources are explaining or at least expounding upon the same thing, that is: Consciousness creates matter, not -repeat, not - the other way around. Citing Bell's theorem and Legget's inequality (or is that Bell's inequality and Legget's theorem??) it is now an empirical fact that consciousness directly impacts, even creates, matter! This insightful, illuminating work purports that God, Einstein and Darwin are not mutually exclusive, but naturally interdependent. This book is not dogmatic but accommodating, not religious but spiritual, not scientistic (i.e. reductionist) but scientific - that is looking at the evidence that is starring one right in the face.

Dogmatists, reductionists and fundamentalists will not like this book because it has the power to turn their world on its head. Dr. Haisch argues that we are all part of an indivisible, interrelated, interdependent whole that was/is born of consciousness. It logically follows then that our individual and collective borders are arbitrary at best and illusory (and delusive) at worst. Thus we have good reason to stop blaming, maiming and killing each other; we have good reason to stop making others wrong; we have good reason to "let it be" and "give peace a chance." Sadly, too many people cringe at those thoughts. As Dr. Haisch illustrates in this piece, science has a wonderful knack for exposing the "how's" of the universe but the "why's" are just as untenable and elusive as ever. And although science may never be able to prove the existence of God, or The Source, it certainly can point the way.

Very well written, using data and differential diagnoses as well as humor and humility and some exceptionally uncommon sense; this work in my humble opinion is a grand slam 5 star home run, complete with a dog & a beer.