God’s Artistry | Stars, Cells, and God

foreigner welcome to the latest edition of star

cells

and God, this is the podcast where we explore the discoveries that are happening on the frontiers of science and we look at what those discoveries mean for the Christian faith, we look at how these discoveries give us new evidence of The existence of God and the reliability of the ancient in the New Testaments this podcast is sponsored by reasons to believe. If you would like to learn more about the organization sponsoring this podcast, please visit our website www.reasons.org or you can follow us on social media. media rtb underscore official and then also visit our reasons to believe YouTube channel where you can get access to all kinds of great content outlining the relationship between science and the Christian faith and of course if you're there be sure to hit the notification. button so you can be informed about when the next episode of Star Sells in God will be released.

My name is Fuzz Rana. I am a biochemist and Christian apologist and today I have the pleasure of being accompanied in the study by Dr. David. renowned astronomer thank you for being here and yes you are a man of God yes and amen yes David is going to share with us a little bit about the James Webb Telescope images and what this means for the anthropic principle and then I'm going to talk a little bit on the Other End of the universe on viruses and specifically the role of endogenous retroviruses in the human genome, isn't it wonderful that you can talk about the microcosm and I can talk about the macro cost?

Yes, it's beautiful. That way you're right, well David, why don't you go ahead and start today? Tell us a little about the James Webb Telescope and the images that come from it and why you are so excited. an astronomer but also as a Christian who sees evidence of God's fingerprints everywhere yes, well of course the beauty of the James Webb Space Telescope is that it is not an optical telescope, it is an infrared telescope and that is terribly important because until now telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope are mainly optical and the problem is what we call veils of night, the universe, the galaxies, the masses of dust, the galaxies are enclosed in enormous amounts of cosmic dust.

Now, to give the viewers an analogy, imagine you are landing, let's say at LAX or London Heathrow maybe even better and you have fog, you can't see anything, this fog there is an airport there and you are going to land there at Heathrow, but you can't , you cannot penetrate the mosque, in the same way, there are many mosques. for example in your body and mine my skin is a mask you can't see my spine I can't see yours which is very good when you're dating because you don't want to be dating another spine right and so the The point is that sometimes you need x-ray eyes, you know.

Radiologists need additional ice, but other times you have these curtains of cosmic fog, if you will, between the

stars

and covering the

stars

or structures of the galaxies, and you need to work nearby. infrared now when I visited reasons to believe First in 1990, I think it was. I flew from here Los Angeles to Hawaii to the Mauna Kea observatories and this is one of the first near-infrared cameras that were used, large format cameras, apparently they were declassified, just classified. by the US military because they were used to spy on moving targets in the former Soviet Union, so they were declassified and I had the privilege of being one of the first astronomers to use these large format arrays in Monaco and I applied to my collaborators that I put the telescope on a galaxy and our stand flew out of my mind, suddenly there was a structure I had never seen before, much like how I look at you and then suddenly see your spine, there is so much structure we saw and you Know Fuzz as a biochemist, would know about nature.

It is the most reputable scientific magazine in the world. I mean, Watson and Crick are right, they cracked the DNA code and published it in the wild. The results of my new work with infrared and our infrared observations appeared on the nature cover not only in nature but on the Nature cover and that is what generated my interest in infrared astronomy, near infrared astronomy now the The beauty of this telescope is that it can begin to penetrate the veils of nighttime clouds of cosmic dust on scales that we could never have dreamed of before and I think before we go on to elucidate some of the discoveries, for me the key focus of James Webb is its power to penetrate these veils of night in any infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

It's not just that the James Webb Telescope is giving us better resolution, no, not at all, but it's actually giving us a new view, a new view of the universe, absolutely, yes, absolutely, that's the point is that it's not it's just larger compared to Hubble. and so on, it's not better just to improve the technology, you know, at least 18 hexagonal mirrors and the Sun opening like petals, no, it's the fact that it is the largest orbiting infrared telescope in the world, the only predecessor, it is which is worth mentioning in This time is the Spitzer Space Telescope which also worked wonderfully in the infrared, but it was so small that this one is just and this telescope is also placed behind the moon, so it is wonderfully dark and you can observe the skies for hours and hours at a time at the highest resolution. but right wavelength, yeah, okay, it's fascinating, so what are some of the discoveries that you think are or the images?

Maybe I should say in the discoveries. It's a lovely question. You know, when I was studying galaxies and cosmology, we were taught that galaxies formed from the top down. top-down structures, which means simply this: you start with an island Universe, an island Galaxy, and then the Galaxy begins to evolve or change over time and may develop an elongated central feature called a bar, but they considered galaxies to be fairly units. isolated, these were those of the world. The leading astronomers of the time, including Ellen Sandidge, and the paradigm, the main paradigm of the time was that galaxies or closed systems, dynamically closed systems, in other words, don't really interact with anything else.

You have this island, the Universe, this galaxy, let's say our Milky Way. Path and it forms from the top down now the other scenario was of course completely discarded and that is a bottom up scenario now in those scenarios a galaxy collides with another galaxy collides with another galaxy and begins to form the general appearance of the galaxy or morphology of the Galaxy for eons of time and that was completely discarded in the textbooks. I mean, all the textbooks talked about monolithic collapse. Famous papers, first that suggested that this is how galaxies form, so we're looking at the very heart of galaxy formation and then.

I was the team leader of an infrared survey to look at the Andromeda spiral galaxy, which is on our doorstep 2.2 million light years away, and we discovered that there was a near head-on collision about 250 million years ago, a collision frontal and of course that suggested that it was an infrared study and that it suggested that galaxies are dynamically open systems, not dynamically closed systems and that they are interacting all the time, galaxies colliding with each other and you know, merging and very dynamically open systems and that is what I saw And what we see with the James Webb Space Telescope over and over again is that if you look at these very distant galaxies, they definitely open up dynamically.

That was surprise number one, yes, but surprise number two is that also at redshifts of around 13 or 14 you have galaxies. which are really like parent universes, they are already well formed, this is a great mystery, we still don't understand it very well, but this is a great mystery is that these galaxies are completely formed with giant molecular clouds of cosmic gas and dust and, therefore Of course, I love unsolved problems because they make us think, but the other thing, the other thing, of course, is wonderful, wonderful, absolutely glorious evidence of God's work, because when you look at these pictures I think of the first one he posted President Biden.

You see all those arcs, millions of arcs, well, not millions, but dozens of arcs, those are gravitational arcs formed by lenses of galaxies, so you have a distant galaxy, for example, light moves through a cluster of galaxies in the foreground which acts as a gravitational lens and bends the light. and it looks like an arc on planet Earth and you have dozens of those arcs in the first image, which again is wonderful evidence of Big Bang cosmology, but cosmology in the great descents using general relativity understanding that the Universe It has a beginning not only in cosmic space but in cosmic time but general relativity is absolutely entirely viable for understanding the Big Ben cosmology that predicts these arcs.

I just wish Albert Einstein could be a fly on the wall now with these amazing images, so that's it when you show it. not only a big bang universe but the reliability of general relativity which has implications in terms of time and space having a beginning it is not just matter and energy yes absolutely there is space and time right yes you know first that is very interesting because there are So many people tell me, Professor David, blocks what God was doing before creating the heavens and the Earth. One interesting thing is that that question doesn't make any sense because time begins to exist at T equals zero, the Big Bang at equal zero, so there is no before, if you ask me what I was doing before I got to the studio while I was walking towards the study, we know because time exists, but God, when you ask what God was doing before the Big Bang, there is no before because there is no time that is so wonderful to enter into those Realms of His Transcendence, right? and also from the Eminence of him, well, you know it is interesting because for us we cannot even conceive what a reality would be like if there was no time. there's no right and I think it was a John Barrow quote that I found somewhere where he said something like once upon a time, there was no right time, so you can't even really articulate the concept of no time because, but this speaks exactly to our finite nature, but what I find simply amazing is that embedded within the Scriptures is this notion that time absolutely had a beginning, making it such a strange and counterintuitive idea that for writers like the apostle Paul they all say Before that time began, God is setting.

If you think about this, Jesus is asked and answered before Abraham was, yes I am, and that's incredibly important because that's eternity in a nutshell, there's no time in eternity, so it's I am he. is always present Behold the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the good of the world is now the I am literally when a sinner repents is crucified now this is very interesting it is as if the crucifi the crucifixion is taking place now God exists outside the space and time, but when it manifests on Earth, it manifests as The Great I Am and you know I have been reading a lot while I was here.

Fuzz is a visiting scholar on the Lord who says oh Father, glorify. your son that your son may glory glorify is a wonderful discussion a beautiful harmonious discussion between God who is eternal and then God who is Manifest the logos in the flesh yes yes fascinating so what more about James Webb's images? Do you find it fascinating? Do you find it interesting? I think the star nursery images of him are incredible. In fact, I've produced a little juxtaposition of a Van Gogh image with an image from the James Webb Space Telescope and, you know, God told me many years ago that Behold, I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hidden riches of the secret places so that you know that I, the Lord and the god of Israel, the treasures of darkness and I was one of the first to really push as one of the first.

It is not the first, but it is one of them, that really pushes the fact that cosmic dust is here to stay and it is not just a nuisance, it is ultra important and now, when I look at the images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope of these stellar nurseries, I am impressed because not only do I see the clouds of cosmic dust but now in the infrared I see that the clouds of cosmic dust are penetrated, we can see through them and we can see the birth of stars writhing, boiling ultraviolet radiation carving more sculpting like Rhoda like a Michelangelo with a block of marble we see the true hand of God in these stellar nurseries.

I can't express how excited I am by these exquisite images. It is a great privilege to be living in this moment first, yes, like this. What does this tell you about God for me? I mean, that's lovely to me and it sounds very simplistic, but to me it emphasizes over and over again two things: the heavens declare the glory of God, but secondly, what is man? are you aware of him, what is man, whoaware of even, of course, this is where you, they are really a key expert, is man with these

cells

with his biochemistry, what is man, that God not only works on a large scale and with anthropic principles. that we can discuss cosmological abilities but also anthropic principles in a very short list of abilities, so when I look at James Webb's images I'm impressed, but I'm like a little kid with new toys, you know, fuzz.

I just look and say that the heavens not only proclaim the knowledge about God, but the heavens declare the glory, the glory of God, it is like Jesus with some of his disciples being transfigured on the mountain and they do not contemplate him only he. but the glory of it, yes, well, you know, I have a talk that I prepared recently. Yes, about God, he's an artist who, oh wonderful, you know, and I often think when we as Christian apologists think about God and we think about the scientific case for God, we almost treat God as a Divine engineer, it's not that there's something wrong with no, where everything is the way it's supposed to be and that's the way it is, you know, but a lot of times I think it's an impoverished view of God when you think of God as an artist.

Right now, when we look at the universe or even look at the structure of a protein, there is an elegance, there is a beauty that I really think reflects something that is found about the nature of God. Creator, absolutely, you know it when I look at the creation account of Genesis 1, yeah, right, you know it, uh, you know it every day after every day of creation. God says he is good, isn't he beautiful? And in Hebrew that word good can mean. beauty or things are exactly as they should be, so it's almost as if every day of creation, God is anthropomorphically stepping back, he does it and just says admiring his work and then he has created us as creatures in his image .

I can also intervene and admire his work and be an artist too and be an artist too and be an artist too. I love that you know that as scientists, we can be artists too exactly, but maybe one of my favorite passages of Scripture comes. of Psalm 104 yes, and this is a creation Psalm and it parallels Genesis 1. So it's fun to sit with Genesis 1 and Psalm 104 and see that correspondence, but there is a point in that cut that I think corresponds to the fifth creation day where it talks about God creating Leviathan uh probably a whale or a dolphin uh to frolic among the boats that is God's purpose in God's mind when creating this creature is to play well that there is a it is beautiful that there is a beauty for creation, but there is a joy absolutely suitable for God.

I totally agree with that, yeah, you know, but that and I just don't know, it's fun to think about God as an artist to me, it's very, it's deeply meaningful and also God is. a joyful artist yes exactly, he is not just an artist who is not passionate about creating him, he is a joyful artist, he exudes joy, isn't that true throughout the gospels? When you look at this, there is joy, there is joy, one of the fruits of the spirit. Joy, nothing comes out with his color palette, he makes all these star motherhood walls and the whole universe and the big bang and everything else and he looks back and it's good, but it's with joy that he loves to create, he loves, I think that that is impregnated in us. right, Imago day, yes, well, you know it's very interesting because one of the great enigmas of evolutionary biology is how to explain the origin of what is called our aesthetic sense that, as human beings, we have this capacity to appreciate beauty, but instead of just looking at something and saying oh, that's beautiful, we immerse ourselves in Beauty, we are forced to spend countless hours contemplating Beauty and, as you pointed out, then, in turn, we want to create things that are beautiful and when I do something that I think is beautiful, I want to show you exactly it and invite you exactly to spend time contemplating what I have done well and there is nothing that imparts any kind of survivability to human beings to do this because how much The more time you spend contemplating what is beautiful, the more time you spend, you know, obsessing over creating things that have no use other than the joy we get from creating them and then sharing that Creation with others, which detracts from our ability to survive, but if you think about human beings created in the image of God, yes, absolutely and and in a sense we are co-creators absolutely, we are, we really are, I mean, when I go to Rome, when I go to Paris, and I look at Rodan's work , etc., is magnificent and God Rodon loved to create.

Michelangelo loved to create and the The point is that this also first is that it is not his, we always teach survival of the fittest, it sounds so difficult, it sounds so mechanistic, doesn't it? Yes, but there is this joy to God, this joy, he is laying down the laws of it, you know, creating the fine tunings of the greats. bang and just harbors in addition anthropically, but doing it with joy is not just, you know, I've never seen myself as just a survivor. I remember that I once had a professor, a colleague at the university, and I always asked him for 25 years how.

Are you doing John and he said I'm surviving? Yes and I thought how tragic that man is just surviving and in some ways that is a kind of conclusion of evolutionism. I know well, you know well, let me tell you a story about that about this. idea of ​​surviving, you know, uh, I'm a comic book collector, that's my confession, so it's a totally frivolous activity, but it's something I enjoy doing. There is a comic book store that I frequent and usually when I leave the store. Sitting on the bench next to the store is a guy that I've gotten to know who is a homeless man and I've gotten to know him and I've become friends with him and one time he needed some money and I always give him. a little bit and he told me: I am very grateful for this.

I'm going to go buy a notebook with a pencil because I love to write and I'm sitting here thinking. Here's a guy who lives on the street without knowing where he is. The next meal comes from not knowing where you're going to sleep that night and when you get a little bit of money, what do you want to do? You want to spend that money so you have a chance to create something amazing, so it's not just what it is. Driving it is not a need to survive, it is a need to create, that is the beauty of the image of God, the glory of God to me was manifested in that wonderful story, and it is part of who we are every time I do it.

Every time I investigate some new phenomenon there is a joy behind it, you know, you feel incredible. I've written this book, I've written this article, we've made this discovery and to me that's what you know, isn't it? Is it not true that enthusiasm in God comes from the Lord Himself? The Lord is not sitting there like a mechanistic engineer making images and wishing for them, uh, just to survive and only the fittest survive. Do you know so confusing when I think about me studying in high school the same way I was bullied and stuff and survival of the fittest was the key, only the fittest, yeah apparently I would survive but my new book is called the tribe There is no talk, in other words, the tribe had spoken in their opinion that they had given the final vote.

There is no future for David Block because he is not the most suitable in sports or in other things, but praise God because his image is impregnated in my soul could get over that look of intimidation the stars look at saturn they look at saturn and their moons look at jupiter who is in my tie and they go out with joy and eventually they get to meet my creator face to face yeah well you know something you mentioned I think that's something that most people don't appreciate is that even scientists and engineers are actually very creative people, right, they're just as creative as artists who would paint or write music or write poetry, that, that, no.

It is the left brain, the right, if not there is an enormous amount of creativity. I loved it but what interests me is that God has given us this pleasure of being able to discover his artistic work and that as we express the image of God and become creative and through that creativity we understand nature and we understand and develop the ability through that creativity to fathom nature, we are rewarded with an even greater vision of the Art, the glory and the Majesty of God, so it is not like if science robs creation of beauty, but actually increases beauty.

You know, and it gives us amazing opportunities to see beauty where we wouldn't even imagine it. You know, I'm a biochemist and there was an amazing article about the distribution of fatty acids found in nature. Acids have different chain links and it turns out that the distribution of fatty acid chain links corresponds to the Fibonacci series, so here is this, yes, this is the surprising thing when you look at biochemical systems and you see this collection of acids fatty that doesn't make any sense and then someone comes and applies this golden rule, you know exactly that there is beauty, there is elegance, there is design.

These thoughts that are suddenly exposed exactly and following the series of Nazi phobia also in the smallest right in that Golden The triangle is considered this type of symmetry that human beings perceive as incredibly beautiful, absolutely, so you can see that Golden Triangle structure in the galaxy in the fatty acid distribution of all things, that's amazing. Yes, that's beautiful, but you use the word pleasure and God has pleasure in creating, but so do we. You know, when I was a young cosmology student, I started studying general relativity and my first paper was published in London. I think I was 20, but anyway, there is the elegance, there is the pleasure, first there is the pleasure of understanding things like those that sound terribly complex, active and comforting, previously active symmetries in metrically automorphic spatial times, admitting linear colonies, very complex things, Lee algebras and killer vectors, etc., but beautiful the fact that space -time is curved is beautiful is mathematical is elegance is imagination is the human imagination reaching its highest levels of the day Imago and me It is a pleasure to do that and I know that Einstein had enormous joy when formulating his field equation.

Now let's go. I ask you this question and I hope it is not an unfair question. I'm just curious. Do you think mathematics is discovered or invented? I think maybe you both know that. I think this is the discovery part, but in other words, there is a discovery. I would like to answer your question, it is a beautiful method, mathematics, the language of God, well, it is not the only language that God uses, of course, God is love and much more, and it is the aesthetic part, the beauty of God, but I think it's embedded in the structure of the Big Bang, of course, it's astrophysics and relativistic cosmology, so I think the language of God needs to be considered on many different levels: God is love, etc., but one of languages ​​of God is the DNA of Of course, yes, of course, yes, and another language of God is simply the equations of general relativity and much more, so you have to do it.

I think you have this on all different levels. I think God would speak quote unquote many different languages. what are your thoughts regarding that and saying DNA, the language of God, yes, well, what's notable to me is that you know you have this incredibly elegant language, but the more we study mathematically the structure of the biochemical language, the more and Rather, it seems to be similar to the language we would construct as human beings; In other words, if you analyze human language mathematically, you will see the same kind of patterns in the language of biochemistry, wonderful to the point where biochemists develop what they call a biochemical grammar where they can literally develop these grammatical rules that apply to the language of biochemistry and then use that grammatical language to predict the design of new biobiomolecules.

They can use that grammar and go to the lab and create biomolecules with that. set of rules that to me is so provocative because language is language, there is a real language there that is identical to the language that we engage in, you know, and it is very different from my mathematical language, so God is using it, but it doesn't. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, it relates wonderfully to the Scriptures and God said yes and God said in other words that he spoke and in that speech yes are our languages ​​on multifaceted levels, yes, from your world to my world and the world of generations.

He didn't speak much, but there are many different languages ​​at that time of speaking, yeah, and it's actually beautiful, yeah, well, you know, in the universe and everything in the universe is the spoken word of God exactly, you know, that's incredible, well, you know. terms of this idea of ​​mathematics and I don't know where I got to that either, but it's a lot of fun to think about, but it's remarkable to me that you can make mathematicians create these mathematical systems, they invent these mathematical systems. and then, to everyone's surprise, those systems suddenly have utility in explaining some kind of phenomenon.

I think it's beautiful, so I think it's beautiful and I think this can very well connect or find explanation in the ideathat we carry the image of God in some way when we create and reinvent, without realizing it, we are doing things that echo what the creator has already done in an absolutely absolute way and you know and you mentioned the idea of ​​biochemical language. One of the things I find so fascinating as a biochemist is that there seems to be this interplay between technology. we invent and the structure and function of biochemical systems. I would love for you to elaborate them well, so, for example, when we encounter a biochemical system and we try to understand how it works many times by seeing it through the lens of the technologies that we build we suddenly get that insight that suggests how the system works, but now we have technologists who look at the design of biochemical systems and then suggest ideas that lead to new technologies, so let's go back to DNA. a is an information system absolutely it's a language and the structure of DNA is so optimized to store information absolutely and this is one of the things that I take away from my book, fit for purpose, is like explaining how every minute detail of the DNA molecule is precisely the way it needs to be to function as an information storage system.

It is so optimized that some people have said that it is the theoretical maximum in terms of information storage per object per mass, so We now have technologists looking to develop the next generation of data storage. The devices are built from DNA and therefore instead of compact discs and magnetic tapes, we are now going to the next generation. Do you know? DNA storage devices because the information in DNA is digitized. That to me is fascinating, but then, um, the machinery. that manipulates DNA as in DNA replication and transcription, is literally operating like a computer system, cells.

Machinery uh, this is the inside of a computer scientist named Leonard Adelman who looked at these biochemical systems and said they are literally Turing machines, wow, where? the digital information is the input and the output and the enzymes are the finite controls that are transforming that information is not so beautiful and that is why Adelman with this Insight went out and invented a whole area of ​​nanotechnology called DNA Computing where the scientists are. build computers out of DNA and they're wet computers and these little test tubes and because you can generate massively parallel operations, you actually have the ability to solve problems that today's next-generation supercomputer systems can't exactly solve and that's other part. from every day Margo, as you say, we model things in this case, biochemistry, in my case mathematically, but then we use them, yes, they become real, that's what you're saying, they become real, whether we look at computers in that way or in my field, they become real, they become applicable not only to the microcosm but also to the macrocosm and that is surprising, yes, but if you think about this, yes, yes, we and the rest of biology is just the result of some kind of materialistic, mechanistic, unguided and purposeless force, why?

Would this interaction exist between the mathematics that we create in the workings of the universe, the design, the technology that we invent and absolutely the technology within the cell in which we are created? In this image that is exactly what the Christian worldview looks like. It speaks of a Creator who puts everything in his place and of human beings as image bearers of him who can understand creation or at least glimpse an understanding. Yes, you know, the Christian worldview has the power to make sense of what science and technology mean. I think what you are saying first is not just a Creator who creates the universe and is distant and then makes a bid for 14 billion years, he doesn't, he is involved with his creation as an artist, as someone who loves Beauty as such. as someone who loves to inspire others to dream and that is one of my mottos in life is to tell audiences around the world to always look for why because there is always that sense of wonder where there is always that sense that we will develop a mathematical model today. and tomorrow James Webb will reveal that it is correct, that is powerful, the predictive nature of the Baconian method is extraordinary, yes, yes, and it speaks of a god who is not only an artist but a God who is a god of order, oh absolutely in the design because If it were not for the order of the universe, if it were not for the fact that the laws of nature are constant, science would be impossible, and we would not even be able to know more about good and evil.

This is a point I have heard philosophers say that morality is only possible in an orderly and predictable Universe. Yeah, so you know it's amazing. You know how science just opens up this wonder and these questions that when you hold on to a Christian world. The views are so inspiring and so deep, so profound, you know, if you think about the anthropic cosmological principle, for example, and you think about the fine tunings of our universe, not just the expansion rate of the universe, tune one into 10 to 55 or one followed by 55 zeros, but if you look at the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, it fills the gravitational force field and many other force fields in addition, you will see order and the point is that without You and I would not do that order.

I'll be having this conversation today, that's the point too is that we can only be creative artists if the universe is exactly as it is, yeah, well, you know, I think we're running out of time and you know what, I'll save my uh, my discussion . of endogenous retroviruses for a future episode uh because this conversation has been much more fun than talking about infectious agents uh it has been amazing because uh yes, because you are a very contagious person and I mean that in a good way, of course, thank you friends. but thank you so much for taking the time to be with us at Star Cells and God and really just giving us a glimpse into the beauty of the cosmos and a glimpse into your heart and the passion that you have for science, but also the passion that you have for yourself. , by God himself and it's mind-blowing to think, David, that you and I can have an intimate relationship with this Creator who brought everything into existence, absolutely that is what is beyond imagination and gives us pleasure exactly, okay.

Well, thank you very much for watching this episode of Star Cells and God. I hope you are inspired by the conversation I had with Dr. David Block. I encourage you to make sure you visit our website and visit Reasons.org and everything. the resources we have that allow you to explore the relationship between science and the Christian faith also follow us on social media go to our YouTube channel reasons to believe a subscription press the notification button and then, last but not least, Keep in mind that the more we discover about science the more we discover reasons to believe until next time God bless you foreigner