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A quintessence of dust - Roger Ebert's Journal http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/03/a_quintessence_of_dust...

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A quintessence of dustBy Roger Ebert on March 30, 2011 7:21 PM | 364 Comments

An idle comment caught my eye:"After all, no one saw the Big Bang."Somewhere else I read, "The universehas no opinion." Then I read that thenext Hubble telescope will be able topeer six times as far into space andtime as the one now in orbit.

An issue of Discover magazine arrivedwith a cover story about astronomersstruggling with the problem ofinformation overload. The newtelescopes have moved far beyondvisual images, and monitor a flood ofinformation picked up on many wavelengths. Not even super computerscan adequately organize and assesstheir vast findings. Amazingdiscoveries may be buried within thedata.

The universe is too large for me tocomprehend how large that reallymight be. I've seen those animationswhere Earth shrinks to a pin point,and then the sun shrinks to a pinpoint, and then the Milky Way shrinksto a pin point. The whole map mightas well shrink to a pin point, along

with the horse it rode on.

None of this immensity is affected by what I think about it. It doesn'tdepend on being thought about. If it is true that our galaxy alone mightcontain 30 to 80 million earth-like planets, and if every one of them wereoccupied by sentient beings, it doesn't depend on what they're thinking,either. It all simply exists.

That is why the process of evolution is so compelling to me. On thisplanet, and probably countless more, inanimate atoms became moleculeswhich formed cells and over billions of years those cells evolved intocomplex organisms which finally became viruses, plants, animals,salamanders, banyan trees and human beings. Without giving it anythought, with no way to think it, the universe brought into existence away of making itself seen.

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There is more than one way to see. A leaf turns to the light. Achimpanzee selects a piece of fruit. A fish sees a smaller fish. An eaglesees a rabbit. A dolphin rescues a sailor. A dog welcomes us home. Whileall of these actions are guided by a process falling under the generalheading of Intelligence, humans seem to be fairly unique in our abilityfor conscious thought. We see, we know, and we know we know.

This is a blessing and it carries a price. To know you live is to know youdie. Having studied several cats at close range over a period of years, I'veconcluded they don't give it a moment's notice. They know they want tolive, which is why they get out of trouble as fast as they can. Then theytake a nap.

I read articles about astronomy and physics. It doesn't matter to me howmuch I understand. Their buried message is always the same: Somewhereout there, or somewhere deep inside, there are mysteries of which weperceive only vague shadows, and there are possibly more mysterieswithin those shadows, continuing indefinitely.

Dark matter was a secret to us. Now we know it exists. Does it have itsown secrets? We speak of quantum particles. They are below atoms. Dothey contain levels beneath? When we get to the quantum particle, havewe reached the bottom, or only the deepest point to which we canpenetrate?

The further we peer into space, the further we are peering into the past.Although I have no realistic grasp of the distance represented in a "lightyear," I understand what the words indicate. Still less do I comprehend "abillion light years," but I understand that Hubble is looking further andfurther back into the immensity of time.

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I'm going downtown to see a movie today. I understand that the screeningis distant from me in space and time. I know why we see lightning beforewe hear thunder. I understand why a foreign correspondent for CNNpauses before answering a question; the question must reach and theanswer must return. I have some idea of how many "miles" away theplanet Mars may be. I understand its reflected light reaches us after adelay of some minutes. But when we see light from a star that hasjourneyed four million light years, all I really understand is that the staris forever out of the reach of my species.

What we are left with are the cosmic shadows on the wall of Plato's cave.Ultimately the images from Hubble will give us a glimpse of conditionsthat existed an infinitesimal instant after the Big Bang. There will neverbe an image of the Big Bang itself, because it had no image. There wasNothing, and then there was Something, and all we can hope is to seethat Something as soon as possible after it became.

If the matter in the universe has organized itself into you and me andStephen Hawking, I can think of no reason why the same organizationalprinciples wouldn't apply everywhere. In the night sky we look at thesuns of a multitude of planets that might harbor forms of intelligencethat look back at our sun. Astronomers search for "earth-like" planetsbecause they know life is possible on a planet like ours. They start withwhat they know. Every day we read speculation about new forms of life. Idon't know why it cheers me to learn that a buried sea on Europa, amoon of Jupiter, could harbor "a form of life," but it does.

It isn't necessary for me to understand much more about science thanwhat I read in magazines like New Scientist, Scientific American,Discover, or in the daily newspaper. It isn't necessary for me tounderstand about movies, either, but that's the direction life has takenme. Socrates told us, "the unexamined life is not worth living." I thinkhe's calling for curiosity, more than knowledge. In every human society atall times and at all levels, the curious are at the leading edge.

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But what good does it do me to think of the universe as an unthinkingmechanism vast beyond comprehension? It gives me the consolation ofbelieving I conceive it as it really is. It makes me thankful that I canconceive it at all. I could have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttlingacross the floors of silent seas. In this connection I find the Theory ofEvolution a great consolation. It helps me understand how life cameabout and how I came to be. It reveals a logical principle I believeapplies everywhere in the universe and at all levels: Of all the things thatexist, animate and inanimate, some will be more successful than othersat continuing to exist. Of those, some will evolve into greatercomplexity. This isn't "progress," it is simply the way things work. On thisdot of space and in this instant of time, the human mind is a greatsuccess story, and I am fortunate to possess one. No, even that's not true,because a goldfish isn't unfortunate to lack one. It's just that knowingwhat I know, I would rather be a human than a goldfish.

Some reject the Theory of Evolution because it offers no consolation inthe face of death. They might just as well blame it for explaining whyminds can conceive of death. Living things must die. That I can plainlysee. That we are aware of our inevitable death is the price we must payfor being aware at all. On the whole, I think we're getting a good deal.

When I die, what happens? Nothing much. Every atom of my body willcontinue to exist. The sum of the universe will be the same. The universewill not know or care. But think of it another way. Take a moment tostudy this illustration:

The graphic was created by the National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration to represent 1,235 planets we know to exist, and the sunsthey orbit. Each planet is a black dot. Our sun is below the top row atthe right. It's estimated that millions of such planets exist in our galaxyalone. On some of those dots, or smaller ones we haven't seen yet, it'spossible that evolution has produced minds capable of self-awareness.Those minds belong to beings who think, and ergo know they exist. Someof them wonder why they exist. Some of them look into the night sky andask the same questions we ask.

On every planet where a sufficient degree of intelligence has developed,

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the Theory of Evolution must eventually be discovered. It helps thosebeings understand how they are. It doesn't explain why they are. There isno reason the universe "needed" to evolve intelligent beings, but it has. Itmight have been inevitable because of the fact of Natural Selection.

My curiosity leads me to science, my admiration for logic leads me to theTheory of Evolution, my pride rejects simplistic fables to describe thefacts I observe. Where do I find my consolations? There are many ways tobe consoled. Everyone deserves to find their own way, and find suchpeace as they can. I find my greatest consolations come from Art. Anartist can express my feelings in the same way as an intelligent signalreceived from one of those 1,235 dots. Such a signal might translate as,"Yes, I exist, and I want to shout to you across space and time that weare not alone."

A message from light years away would probably miss me in my box ofspace and time, but I find that Art can shout to me across a few years orcenturies, and it carries the same message: "Yes, I exist, and you are notalone."

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason,how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express andadmirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals--and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?Man delights not me--nor woman neither,though by your smiling you seem to say so.

That's what we are, a quintessence of dust. That Shakespeare could soconclude, and then end with a little joke is, to me, a great comfort.

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364 CommentsMuckrakerAP | March 30, 2011 9:06 PM | Reply

Well, personally, I just think it's turtles, turtles, turtles, all the way down.

Ebert: It took me a certain effort to keep the turtles out of this entry.

Felicity Lingle | March 30, 2011 9:06 PM | Reply

This was one of those articles that lured me in 6 inches closer to my computermonitor- completely riveting! And "it's just that knowing what I know, I would ratherbe a human than a goldfish," that's pretty funny! : )

Barry McCormick | March 30, 2011 9:10 PM | Reply

terrific stuff. one small nit - captions on the images would have been nice.

chris maytag | March 30, 2011 9:15 PM | Reply

Roger, you delight me, as always.

Julie | March 30, 2011 9:19 PM | Reply

Thank you for sharing your gift of awe with us in your poignant writing, Roger.Somehow, reading your words and viewing the known universe video, I feel moregrounded than ever.

Al | March 30, 2011 9:22 PM | Reply

"I find that Art can shout to me across a few years or centuries, and it carries thesame message: 'Yes, I exist, and you are not alone.' "

I think I love you.

David Ashton | March 30, 2011 9:28 PM | Reply

Nice post - kinda leaves you speechless. Trying to comprehend it intellectually justseems to end up in creating mental fractals. One way of looking at evolution is theuniverse becoming self-aware through sentient beings. Another is that I knowabsolutely nothing. Beautiful pictures!

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Cyberquill | March 30, 2011 9:28 PM | Reply

Yeah, it's all a big mystery. Everything is caused by something which preceded it ...but what caused the first thing, that first quantum fluctuation which caused the BigBang?

Ay, there's the rub.

What puzzles me the most is that when we imagine the Big Bang, we imagine thisinfinitesimally small singularity sitting there in the vastness of space, waiting toblow up.

Trouble is, science tells us that time and space actually came out of the Big Bang.So there was nothing "around" this singularity, not even empty space, as all spacewas inside the singularity.

Likewise, there was no such thing as a "before" the Big Bang, because that which wecall "time" was trapped inside this singularity as well, only to be released, so tospeak, once the Big Bang occurred.

I don't know about you, but I find it very difficult to picture something that has nobefore and is surrounded by nothing, not even space.

Then I figure that right after we die, the whole mystery will instantly become clearto us, because we won't be constrained by human thought patterns anymore, suchas our inability to visualize hyperspace.

Ebert: Encouraging, if we can indeed still visualize. I believe thought is afunction limited to our present our equipment.

Liz Hill | March 30, 2011 9:41 PM | Reply

Thank you for this piece of art *smile*

Randy Masters | March 30, 2011 9:41 PM | Reply

Ah, thank you for this post Roger. So much here to contemplate.So eloquently written and argued. A treat for us. With such awe-inspiring photostoo.

Science is a wonder. The concepts truly are beyond comprehension at times. Notonly spatially, as in comprehending "light years" when I've just driven 1000 miles thisweek and thought that was pretty far. But time as well. Can I really comprehendthousands or millions or billions of years when my personal experience is limited tomy 70 or so years plus my parent's years plus my grandparent's years?

I'm just going to enjoy the scope of wonder and amazement that you've expressed inthis excellent article on my first pass through, and agree with that sentimentgenerally.

I reach different conclusions than you do with those observations, granted. Forexample, what jumps out at me first is your observation of what is uniquely human:

We see, we know, and we know we know.

It's more than that, to me. As I've argued before, we uniquely have the capacity toknow that we know about the divine. To ponder the infinite and the transcendent.To ponder not just our intelligence, but if that is the product of an intelligenttranscendent creator. To ponder not just the creation, but the creator.

But, I'll come back to parsing the differences.

First pass, I'll just revel in our shared amazment at the vastness.

And I'll enjoy the eloquence of your expression of the questions. Beautifully written.

Jack H | March 30, 2011 9:45 PM | Reply

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw

Carl Sagans pale blue dot. I thought of this the whole time as I read.

Greg | March 30, 2011 9:48 PM | Reply

With the numbers we're confronted with in the Universe, if something likeintelligent life can exist one place, then it exits in many, many places. And giventhe infinite vastness and sizes we're confronted with, size means nothing. To whatHubble sees, we're dust. To a neutrino, we're an entire universe. Pascal noted that

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we're caught between two infinities. We are not small. Not large.

Given all the information we've gathered about the universe, the holy grail ofdiscovery is still life. I no longer feel small nor insignificant when I look into thenight sky. Of all the things we've discovered in the Universe, Earth remains the truewonder. And Man the most fascinating. I'd rather be a human than a goldfish...or aquasar.

Great read. Thanks, Roger.

Adam L. Cox | March 30, 2011 9:52 PM | Reply

Thanks for this elegant article, Roger. It articulates many things that I feel quitenicely. A lot of people can't understand how someone can go through life withoutthe consolation of believing in divine guidance, or life after death, but I think thewonder of living in this universe and being able to discover it is consolation enough.

Personally, I view an infinite universe full of new discoveries just like I view awell-stocked library. There are more wonders in the world than I can hope todiscover and more books in the world than I can hope to read--which is just the wayI like it. Always something new.

Thanks again.

Ryan M. Eft | March 30, 2011 9:54 PM | Reply

The need for humans to compress their understanding of existence into somethingsmall enough for them to easily understand and explain will sadly keep most peoplefrom ever accepting that firstly, there are things about the universe that make sensebut perhaps not to us, and second, that not knowing everything about the way theuniverse works is not necessarily a bad thing. We place vast importance onexplaining everything, which is motivation for a portion of believers in both religionand science.

Another thing that is very galling is to have it explained to me that I must be missingthe wonder of existence in order to subject things to the logic of scientificexplanation. Can I not see wonder in the photosynthesis of a flower, in the course ofthe Mississippi, in the life and death of stars, without believing a supreme beingcreated it all?

I accept that I cannot explain everything, but that doesn't mean I will accept ananswer that does not make sense.

Dion Detterer | March 30, 2011 9:55 PM | Reply

I'm a computer science student, and next year I'll be doing my PhD inastroinformatics, which aims to discover the knowledge hidden within the masses ofdata being now generated by telescopes.

The universe is elegant and beautiful, and science reveals that beauty. Frankly, Idon't need an explanation beyond that. Indeed, what science has revealed isstranger (and more wonderous) than the cosmology of any religious text.

I have muscular dystrophy, and I'd much rather think that the world just is - we canunderstand its mechanisms, but the "why" is something we need to bring to thetable. How is it comforting to think a God has knowingly let so many people suffer?

I'm just happy to be a part of this great cosmic dance. And my life has the meaningI've attached to it--no more, no less.

jibanez | March 30, 2011 10:00 PM | Reply

Beautifully written! While you and I don't share the same point of view, I alwaysappreciate the way you express yourself on such matters.

I began following you years ago for the movie reviews and you've been a wonderfulsource of inspiration on so many other topics ever since. You're a credit to yourprofession!

Doug Daluga | March 30, 2011 10:01 PM | Reply

Thank you, Roger. Beautifully written.I hope you are doing well.

Bobbo | March 30, 2011 10:02 PM | Reply

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"Yes, I exist, and you are not alone. "

Have you read (or less ideally, seen the Twilight Zone 1986 episode of) TheodoreSturgeon's "A Saucer of Loneliness?" Sturgeon had a way of speaking across theimmensities between one human mind and another. It's a sweet telling of thisdesire.

Eric | March 30, 2011 10:09 PM | Reply

Thank you for this.It seems difficult to speak of our present condition and safer to be in the history ofour planet's past or in the future of sci-fi wherein we have already made the choicesneeded to become a spacefaring species.I wonder if this is our moment of evolutionary breakthrough. Seeing images like thevideo posted at the end makes me pleasantly humbled in thinking that humanity isjust beginning. Is evolution, and the expansion of the universe, conspiring to pull usoff of Earth and into our galactic neighborhood? Kubrick seems to think so and I'minclined to agree with him.

Bob | March 30, 2011 10:13 PM | Reply

Even though it was written in jest, I still think one of the best descriptions of theincredible size of the universe and how we perceive it is by the late Douglas Adamsin the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. Imean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's justpeanuts to space."

It is a form of "chauvinism" to depict the universe as we do. As beings composed ofmatter made of the most unlikely of elements from the most unlikely ofcircumstances (a star literally had to explode for us to exist - talk about winning thelottery). Even if there are 80 million or 80 million million Earth like planets, we andeverything like us will always be the exception to the rule. As your video shows, thevast overwhelming majority of the universe is cold, dark and empty.

Andy Jarema | March 30, 2011 10:14 PM | Reply

Dear Roger,

I especially connected with your last section regarding "consolations". My greatestpassion is music, so I am similar to you in that I also connect with art to find myconsolation. But much of what you were saying reminded me of this excellent quotefrom Einstein. It has almost become a mantra for me, and it taps into what youwere talking about with curiosity:

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamentalemotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science".

David D. | March 30, 2011 10:17 PM | Reply

Thinking about the infinite, it makes me feel like a jerk for pointing out a typo inthe second sentence of the eighth paragraph: s/b "me" and not "be".

Awesome.

Ebert: Blast! I corrected that but it didn't take. Thanks!

Mike | March 30, 2011 10:32 PM | Reply

"Yes, I exist, and you are not alone."

Next time someone on one of the fanboy movie sites where I chat asks me why Iprefer Ozu to Nolan, Fellini to J.J. Abrams, Bergman to Spielberg, I will paraphrasethis quotation.

I will explain that I cannot imagine myself believing it if it were spoken by a robot, asuperhero, or a hobbit.

How I long, now, for my pet goldfish to tell me, though, "Oh, you dummy. Didn't youread what Roger wrote?"

Stefan Jones | March 30, 2011 10:34 PM | Reply

The scope of this piece reminds me of an essay by the naturalist Loren Eiseley, whowrote great, deep things about evolution and nature and our place in it. The

film: "Menilmontant"

Peter Cook and DudleyMoore in RichardLester's "TheBed-Sitting Room"

Some documentariesof Werner Herzog

Ten great films abouthorror

The Haunted World ofEd Wood, Jr.

The Naked CivilServant: John Hurt asQuentin Crisp

Music

: )

"Chanda Mama" aroundthe world

"Making Giant Hands,"by Dog and Panther

"Redemption Song"around the world

"Swan Lake" by theGreat Chinese Circus

"What'll I do?" by JulieLondon

A Farm Aid concertfrom 1985

A Labor Day concert

A xylophone in a forest

Arrow: In Memory."Hot! Hot! Hot!"

Bob Dylan must beSanta

Concert for anuncertain world

Did Leonard Cohensave my life?

Do you know thewonderful Lucy Foley?

Esperanza Spalding.Yes.

Four-year-oldJonathan conductsconducts the ChandlerSymphony Orchestra

Freddie Mercury vs.the Platters & Wayne'sWorld

Gene Siskel coversPaul McCartney in 1976

George Shearing,1919-2011

Happiness is being onthe road again

I went to school withAndy Cohen

I'll never smoke weedwith Willie again

Jammin' cellos:Stjepan Hauser andLuka Sulic

Joan Baez: There is aclearing where one isalmost happy

John Prine: A concert


10 of 115 4/17/11 4:39 PM

conclusion:

"In a universe whose size is beyond human imagining, where our world floats like adust mote in the void of night, men have grown inconceivably lonely. We scan thetime scale and the mechanism of life itself for portents and signs of the invisible. Asthe only thinking mammals on the planet -- perhaps the only thinking animals in theentire sidereal universe -- the burden of consciousness has grown heavy upon us. Wewatch the stars, but the signs are uncertain. We uncover the bones of the past andseek for our origins. There is a path there, but it appears to wander. The vagaries ofthe road may have a meaning, however; it is thus we torture ourselves."

"Lights come and go in the night sky. Men, troubled at last by the things they build,may toss in their sleep and dream bad dreams, or lie awake while the meteorswhisper greenly overhead. But nowhere in all space or on a thousand worlds willthere be men to share our loneliness. There may be wisdom; there may be power;somewhere across space great instruments, handled by strange manipulative organs,may stare vainly at our floating cloud wrack, their owners yearning as we yearn.Nevertheless, in the nature of life and in the principles of evolution we have had ouranswer. Of men elsewhere, and beyond, there will be none forever."

-- Loren Eiseley, "Little Men and Flying Saucers," The Immense Journey

jrdeaver | March 30, 2011 10:37 PM | Reply

But I'm not so sure cats can't comprehend the universe. Mine seem to think they arethe center of it... ^..^

greg | March 30, 2011 10:53 PM | Reply

You refer to time. Maybe this is a fruitful concept or thing to examine for a ray ofhope or shred of doubt.

Obi | March 30, 2011 10:56 PM | Reply

Awesome post. Glad you wrote it and it glad I read it. Who needs an afterlife whenit's such a wondrous miracle and mystery to have been blessed with even a glimpseof this one?

Dan L | March 30, 2011 11:09 PM | Reply

You said that you admire the fact that you can conceive the universe at all. Haveyou read Douglas Adams's book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? That's the workthat made me start realizing humanity's position in an infinite universe. If you areinterested, I suggest the "Ultimate" version, it has all five books and all have theirown wonder and creativity in it, albeit satirically scathing.

I am reminded of one of the parts in the book:

"Population: None.

'It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is aninfinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them isinhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finitenumber divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the averagepopulation of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this itfollows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any peopleyou may meet from time to time are merely the products of a derangedimagination.'"

scott | March 30, 2011 11:09 PM | Reply

And you dont think there is just a wee bit of centrist sentiment in the assertion thatthe universe created something to be its witness? A wee bit of anthropomorphisingthe universe?

A bit selective re what you choose as examples of this "seeing" (I believe you meantexperiencing)? Certainly the leaf beatifically turning towards the sun shares in thegreat experience. Does the doe being ripped apart by jaws revel in the splendouralso?

Ancient societies knew enough that nature was red in tooth and claw. Only we whoare so removed feign to wax poetically, ad nauseam.

I too catch myself meditating on the sheer wonder of existence. However, areflection that is not tempered by awareness of the horror and ultimate futility of

in Ireland

John Prine: AmericanLegend

Jonathan is three andloves great music

Joni MItchell: "BigYellow Taxi"

Julie London: Thetorch is burning

New Year's with Steve:In tribute to a greatheart

Nikki Janofsky: Thefuture is hers

Que sera, sera

Sonny Terry & BrownieMcGhee

Still Bill: The life andsongs of Bill Withers

Sweet Dreams, Baby:For Patsy Cline

The Platters perform"The Twist"

The night HankWilliams came to town

The ukulele orchestraof Great Britain

Tom Waits serenadesNew York harbor

We need PunkVaudeville. Jarmean?

Won't you ride in mylittle red wagon?

Your Christmasmorning concert

♫ Don't know muchabout history... ♫

♫ My funny valentine,sweet comic valentine,you make me smilewith my ♥

♫ Nestor Torres andthe spirit in the music

Newspapers

O'Rourke's magazine

"Blemished,Perfection," a story byGrace Wang

"Calcuttan Cats," by H.W. Cimmerian

"One autumn eveningin Peshewar" by LarryJ. Kolb

"Sonoran Duende," byTracey Durgan

"Sorrows and Joys ofthe Desert," by TomDark

Two short stories by H.W. Cimmerian

Oscars

Pages for Twitter

"Injun Summer," byJohn T. McCutcheon

"The most beautifulthing I've ever seen"


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all suffering is simply dishonest and so much populist chatter... secular sermonizing.

Try a little thought experiment - imagine if you were omniscient and eternal. Yousaw all for many many lifetimes. Do you think that would be endlessly fascinating?Or hellishly monotonous? In reality, unless one was an utter imbecile, the experiencewould resemble the latter. Now, expand this experiment into the wild ether yonder.Do you not think that life, say even a universe teaming with the stuff, would notsimply be essentially the same - a struggle for survival, simply because that is howthe organism works? Knowing that no matter how high the climb it inevitably wouldbe doomed. Over and over and over again - times 30 to 80 million, locally. And isthis not the flip side of the bane of eternal life - knowing that no matter what onedid, what risks one took, life would simply go on.

Ebert: I stated that badly. Rather than say the universe "created," I should havesaid, "it happened that organisms developed by random mutation that were ableto observe the universe."

Kevin | March 30, 2011 11:11 PM | Reply

Thank you for your post. I'm glad I found it. I especially liked your take on art: "Yes,I exist, and you are not alone." It made me think about what psychologist ErichFromm says intrinsically drives people -- faced with the scariness of vast emptiness,we do a million things, directly and indirectly, to be close and fuse with one another-- to not feel alone. If evolution led to that, I like to think that underneath thechaos, there's something good -- and there's reason to be optimistic about whathappens to our atoms, through the rest of infinity. But who knows.

Ben H. | March 30, 2011 11:12 PM | Reply

Great article, and the video took me back to my childhood; I have never forgotten"Powers of 10", and the impact it had on me in grade school in the '60's. I'veintroduced my own son to it, and I'll show him this video as well ... what a marvel.Thank you.

Darren Whitney | March 30, 2011 11:17 PM | Reply

"It doesn't depend on being thought about"

Nice one. ;)

NeverNude | March 30, 2011 11:22 PM | Reply

Great article, intriguing and certainly piqued my curiosity.

However, knowing what you know about the universe/earth/science in general. Youstill refer to evolution as a "theory."

Why is this? Are you just being politically correct or is this what you truly believe?

Ebert: That's the correct term. A scientific theory is a carefully defined matter.Science is wisely wary of "laws."

Michael | March 30, 2011 11:32 PM | Reply

The 2nd law of Thermo Dynamics dispels the theory of evolution. Quit buying intothis pseudo science BS!

Ebert: Sorry, but actually, no it doesn't. That's an Urban Legend not evenbelieved by proponents of Intelligent Design:

http://bit.ly/gyFH0C

http://bit.ly/g8DCBt

Fduquette | March 30, 2011 11:46 PM | Reply

If science could avert a single earthquake or tsunami, I'd accept the Theory ofEvolution. We experience nature and react by naming and classifying, attempting togive it form, as if to lull her into passivity. Alien life? Evolution. 9 letters to decodea mystery.Adam did science, in Genesis 2:19-20, naming and classifying every created thing,yet it was not enough; so a further mystery was added: Eve. Woman is a far greatermystery, one that can be talked to, sometimes.

Cyberquill replied to comment from Cyberquill | March 30, 2011 11:54 PM | Reply

Are you smart enoughto teach grade school?

February 3, 1959: Theday the music died

People

"It's not like Dr. Jekylland Mr. Hyde," Chersaid.

Bill Mauldin, American

Bronson: Coming ofage in Scoop Town

Dorothy Dandridge: InMemory

Falling in Love Again:Marlene Dietrich

Keanu thought his twoyears were running out

Kirk Douglas: I've killedso many Romans, somany Vikings, so manyIndians...

Leslie Nielsen, RIP."And don't call meShirley"

Liza, when all was stillahead

Mae West and RockHudson: "Baby, It'sCold Outside!"

Maria Schneider comesto America

On the 69th birthdayof the greatest

Pete Postlethwaite:1946-2011

Robert Mitchumremembers MarilynMonroe

Some Robert De Nirogossip I hadn't heard

Susannah York,1939-2011

The last days of TinyTim

What Oscar Wildetaught Stephen Fry

Zuppke of Illinois: Afootball coach

Photos in need of acaption

Photos in need ofcomment

Oddly suggestive phototaken by an electronmicroscope for 4/16

Photo of Spider-Manunderfoot for 4/12

Photo of a bird withfeet more blue thanyesterday's bird for4/14

Photo of an airplanewithout a fuselage for4/6

Photo of an insectoidspherical objectbeneath a bird for


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Thought and visualization may be limited to our present equipment, but upondeath, new equipment may replace our present one. Just as one cannot explain theconcept of color to a blind man or sound to a deaf person, there may exist an entireassortment of phenomena which our mortal coil not only cannot perceive butactually prevents us from perceiving.

Solomon Wakeling | March 30, 2011 11:57 PM | Reply

Echoes here of Nabokov's 'Ada'*:Terra dimly perceived from Anti-Terra, in dreamsand by the insane.

*His greatest novel, despite what people say.

Marley | March 31, 2011 12:24 AM | Reply

I feel like a jerk, too, but two sentences picked me up and threw me right out ofthis post, which was otherwise completely engrossing.

"I have some idea of how many 'miles' away the planet Mars may be. I understandits light reaches us after a delay of some minutes."

I realize Roger must know that Mars is not the source of the light, but the phrase "itslight" suggests otherwise. It gave me pause as I analyzed what I was reading.

"But when we see light from a star that has journeyed four million light years, all Ireally understand is that the star is forever out of the reach of my species."

If you could go back a couple hundred years and tell people that someday soon we'llbe able to fly from New York to California in a few hours, with luck everyone wouldgive you a wide berth--the alternative would be to lock you up as a raving madman.We won't begin preparations to travel to those stars in my lifetime, but we maymanage it someday, using methods that would look like magic to you and me.

I have to hope we'll try, anyway.

Marie Haws | March 31, 2011 12:26 AM | Reply

My all-time favorite irony is as follows:

"You need to exist in order to experience the disappointment of discovering there'sno after-life."

Meaning if Death is indeed THE END and all she wrote, you won't ever know. Unlessthe last thought you have before you die, is "there's no after-life" and you believe itto be true, despite confirmation beforehand. Then, yes, you will get to experiencea massive bummer - but for reaching for it now.

"Hah! Take that, smug cosmic forces! I embraced it! I died in a self-made pool of myown disappointment! You're not foolin' me... I'm not getting sucked into your lie!" -foolish person

Whereas...

"Oooo! Death is approaching! Hello..? Over here! Totally excited and ready to seecool stuff, dude..." - and then the lights go out.

You fall into the truth smiling either way. However it turns out. You'll either findyourself starting a new journey, or never realize there isn't one.

How perfect is that?!

Which for me, takes all the scariness out of death to replace it with wonder... andthe tantalizing prospect of getting to snoop around and explore and see loved onesagain. Kitties and puppies too. :-)

Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum | March 31, 2011 12:29 AM | Reply

Very Saganesque post!

One minor quibble, though."These are planets that scientists believe are at such a distance from their suns thatearth-like life is possible." isn't exactly correct. The graphic represents the Keplermission's findings so far. None of the exoplanets is both Earth-sized and in the"habitable zone" of its star. I fully expect that such planets will be found, it's justthat we haven't detected the first one quite yet.Soon, grasshopper, soon!:^)

4/13

Photo of someonelooking at him for 4/17

Photo of the batcavefor 4/15

Poetry

"HollywoodJabberwocky," byFrank Jacobs

"The Charge of theLight Brigade," byTennyson

"The Day the SaucersLanded," by NeilGaiman

"The Machines Mournthe Passing of People"by Alicia E Stallings

"You being in love," bye. e. cummings

'Twas the Night BeforePogo

Dylan Thomas goes notgently

Emily Dickinson: Mylife closed twicebefore its close

Good-bye to All That

Gray's "Elegy Writtenin a CountryChurchyard"

I love this sweetgrandmother

In Just-Spring, whenthe world ismud-luscious...

Marilyn Monroe andCarl Sandburg

On the worthlessnessof internet snipers

RememberingBukowski

Samuel TaylorColeridge

Shall I compare theeto a summer's day?

So anyway, CharlesBukowski, Errol Morrisand Roger Ebert walkinto this bar...

So much depends upona red wheel barrow

When icicles hang bythe wall

William Blake: Ofinnocence andexperience

e. e. cummings lives ina pretty how heaven

e. e. cummings talksdirty (nsfw)

Politics

"If you think it's asocialist plot, give upyour federal healthcare"

A trek into darkest


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Ebert: Oops.I've corrected that. Actually, I read that the discovery of suchplanets was thought to be inevitable.

Joe inTEXAS | March 31, 2011 12:32 AM | Reply

Thats is unpossible. Everybody knows that the world and its space is only 6400 yearsand 6-7 days old. The teaparty knowed me that.

Deacon Godsey | March 31, 2011 12:34 AM | Reply

Roger,

As always, I find your pieces imminently readable & thoroughly engaging. Alas, whenit comes to reading your thoughts on this subject, I feel more sad & confused thananything. I'm assuming I represent the minority of my fellow readers when it comesto all this, & that's okay...And please believe that my sadness & confusion doesn'tcome from a place of pride or condescension as one who disagrees, but from agenuine place of, "I just don't get it & I so desperately want to..."

Now, it's not so much the scientific specifics I'm referring to - I freely admit to muchof it being over my head, through general ignorance or otherwise - but it's theconclusions made by those who lean so heavily on scientific observation that getsme. You, Hitchens, Sagan, Dawkins & so many of the readers of your blog clearlyhold a genuine conviction that it's logic/reason alone that guides your conclusions,with "faith" being completely removed from the picture.

It seems to me, though, that your conclusions are just as much a faith-basedconclusion as mine (as a follower or Jesus) are. We both hold conclusions which westrongly believed are backed by solid evidence, on a number of levels; we both holdconclusions, however, that cannot be unequivocally "proven" through scientificmethod.

I cannot "prove" the existence of the God I believe in & have dedicated my life to(as a full-time pastor in a local church), nor can you disprove His existence; I cannot"prove" that Jesus is "the agent of creation," the one through whom God created theuniverse & the one Who continues to hold it together, but neither can you "prove"that He isn't. Both viewpoints are backed by solid observation at certain levels, &those observations can carry you pretty far along in either direction, depending onhow you approach or interpret them; but at some point you're left with questionsthat cannot be answered through scientific observation alone & you have to exercisea certain level of faith in something.

If Immanuel Kant is right - & in this regard, I think he is - there are two main "boxes"involved here: (1) the "natural" world, with the things we can observe, test, makefactual conclusions on, etc. & (2) the "spiritual" world, made up of things we can'tnormally observe with our five senses, or test through the scientific method.

From my perspective, it seems like you, Hitchens, Sagan (etc.) become annoyed by(or simply disagree with) people who try to use information/opinion rooted in Box#2 to make demands on things in Box #1, or to use their views related to Box #2 asan excuse for ignoring evidence/facts from Box #1. (Personally, I admit to doing theformer, while trying to never do the latter.)

I would argue, though, that the same is true in the opposite direction. It seems tome that Dawkins (& others) try to take evidence/facts from Box #1 & makedefinitive conclusions about the ultimate non-existence of something (or Someone)in Box #2, when such definitive conclusions are impossible to make. There's nothingin Box #1 that can lead to a definitive, scientifically provable conclusion aboutanything in Box #2...thoughts, opinions, general observations? Absolutely. Verifiable,conclusive scientific facts? Absolutely not.

Which gets me back to the issue of faith & my feelings of sadness & confusion. Fromthe "spiritual" side of things,your conclusions obviously bring about a level ofsadness in me (as they should, given what I profess to believe & the life I've chosento live...I'd make a pretty poor pastor or follower of Jesus if they didn't effect meon that level.)

From the "intellectual" side of things, I become genuinely confused as to how peoplewho so strongly champion logic & reason can't (or won't, in some cases) exercisethat same logic & reason to recognize the inherent element of faith in theconclusions they've chosen to make. It's clearly not faith in God or some other

Wisconsin

Christopher Hitchensat length on BBC'sNewsnight

Pogo says it for thevery first time

Saul Alinsky comes tothe Tea Party

Tea Party leadershipgets a fresh face

The Battle Hymn ofthe Tea Party

The financial crisisexplained (nsfw)

The politicallycorrected HuckleberryFinn

The rich are wagingwar on America

This man is very upsetabout the nuclearcrisis (nsfw)

Update on the TSAbreast milk incident

Will Rogers onunemployment

Science and not

A reality far beyondmy imagination

Ants have built-inpedometers

Do Creationists makegood science students?

Drive a car with thepower of your mind

Jeez, Dr. Feynman, I'msorry I asked

Memo to RMN: In theevent of a moondisaster

Our beautiful,awesome, terrifyinguniverse

Snakes onmathematical planes

Starting with one cell,we arrive at Prof.Hawking

The God Gene. Abreakthrough

The python's dinner

We are part of allworlds

Why HAL 9000 sang"Daisy"

Strange

"Jean-Luc," a cartoonnot about Godard (Ithink)

"The Tell-Tale Heart,"by Edgar Allan Poe

At last, a trailer thatdoesn't give away thewhole story

Do I dare to eat apeach?


14 of 115 4/17/11 4:39 PM

"spiritual" reality, but it's faith nonetheless: faith in science, faith in observation,faith in our human faculties, etc. We're both putting our faith in something, it justseems like I (& those like me) are the only ones openly admitting or acknowledgingit.

As I mentioned, I realize I'm likely in the minority when it comes to your primaryaudience, & that's okay. I truly am curious about the perspectives others have on thesubject & would love to receive honest feedback on it. I genuinely want tounderstand where you & others are coming from, whether we ultimately agree ornot...

With much respect,

deacon godseylawrence, ks

Ebert: Thanks for your care and thoughtfulness. With me, it's a matter ofdescription. I attempt to describe what I can perceive and learn about withoutinvolving additional explanations which may be arbitrary.

Is it possible that when Jesus said he was the son of God, he was a man using theterm God as symbolic? Why does what he said prove the existence of God?

S M Rana | March 31, 2011 12:45 AM | Reply

"Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a specialprovidence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will benow; if it be not now, yet it will come: thereadiness is all:" ..

DB | March 31, 2011 12:49 AM | Reply

I was reading another religion argument on some message board and a religious guywas saying that atheists "believe in nothing, no purpose, no meaning -- the ultimatesadness." He said this in a quite hostile way, as if the emotional effect of a beliefhad any impact on its validity. No one corrected him. They just continued to findways to make atheism more appealing to him by saying how it's MORE beautiful thanthe Christian belief, how its MORE emotionally satisfying... I felt that they werewrong as well. If I had an account for that particular site, I would have told the manthat according to what we know so far, existence is rather sad and meaningless. Andsometimes, people want to believe in something good and powerful watching overthem. But that still doesn't prove that God's listening to our prayers. Last time Ichecked, good things were happening to bad people, and bad things were happeningto good people... That religious man on the message board was just being dumb,trying to persuade others that God exists because the alternative is "sad."

Anyways, before I knew the true meaning of Deus Ex Machina (that it was a theaterreference), all I knew was that it meant "God from the Machine." At the time, I tookit to mean that all the matter and particles which make up our universe were the"machine," so to speak, the inanimate parts which acted and reacted together, andthat God or consciousness came from them... came from a particular arrangementof necessary parts. AKA the brain. Or, any system which generates what could beconsidered life (an organism, I guess would be the correct term).

And then I thought, my brain is generating my consciousness (which I am currentlyusing), but my brain is not the same brain that I had five years ago... Cells died,new ones took their place.... Over that time period, my brain must have undergonequite the overhaul. And yet here I am, the same person... I am alive in a differentbody. All it took to get here was time. When I die, who knows, maybe some otherformation of materials will be suitable for my soul to continue its expression. Maybewhen my brain can no longer hold what I consider Me, maybe that part blasts offinto another dimension.... As opposed to simply ceasing to exist. But again whoknows? The universe appears to be an infinitely regressing mandelbrot, nothingmore, nothing less. Humans are still mortal, still confused, and still alone. If somegreat breakthrough comes about to transform our species, or if we make contactwith another, I'll probably be dead by then. So I guess it'd be nice if nature had aback-up plan for me... Somewhere I could go other than my brain that couldperform the necessary computations for me to continue existing.

I guess that leaves the door open for all sorts of spirituality and religion and God

Fifteen minutes of mylife, gone forever

Forms of sychronizedswimming withoutwater

Sigmund Freud'sfriendly couch

Take my hand, I'm astranger in Paradise

The Man Who Foretoldthe Future

Top 10 reasons I wantto be cremated

Worth it for SamElliott's hair

Television

"I Love Lucy:" Thelong-lost pilot

Jack Benny,1894-1974: The manwho was funny just bystanding there

Jones, Jonze, Spike &Co.

Letterman: "The lovely& talented Siskel &Ebert"

OK, already! I PLAYEDa video game! Now areyou happy?

Playboy After Dark waspretty good. Yes.

Siskel & Ebert on homevideo in 1988

Tom Shales luncheswith Siskel & Ebert

When Siskel & Ebertwere on "SneakPreviews"

Young Jon Stewartinterviews GeorgeCarlin (1997)

Videos

"A beautiful movieabout the end of theworld"

Australians are somuch better at this

Idiot with an iPhone

What could go wrong?

Racer's eye-view of adownhill stunt bikerace

TWITTER


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talk. But hey, that's life. Death, after all, is "the great mystery."

S M Rana | March 31, 2011 12:50 AM | Reply

The quote I just sent is Hamlet becoming Hamlet. You seem closer to the quote youquoted.

Spelt | March 31, 2011 1:06 AM | Reply

Mr. Ebert, I've never commented before, though your essays have often moved me. Isimply want to say how beautiful this is. I wept the whole way through.

Sandra Fitzgerald | March 31, 2011 1:17 AM | Reply

I am. Whether I understand why or how, it does not matter. I am and I see and hearand touch and love. I am blessed by nature to have been me. And I constantly amawed by the miracle that has allowed me to be. Thank you for your wonderfularticle -- you have reinforced my belief that I don't have to know why...I just needto know everything I can.

Dennis Hibbard | March 31, 2011 1:18 AM | Reply

Dear Mr Ebert

Are you sure its Evolutionary accomplishments

Contest for Truth, since anybody can say or write anything, who's telling the Truth,for the Bottom Line World View.

Demonstrate with a piece of paper by simply folding and cutting to reveal words andimages, the Bottom Line, consistent with history be it political, religious orscientific or ?

Await your demonstration!

Thank you!

David McGee | March 31, 2011 2:18 AM | Reply

Your writing is compelling, poignant, and thought-provoking, but I have to be thestick in the mud: "There was Nothing, and then there was Something." The thing is,the concept of Something arising from Nothing is a physical and philosophicalimpossibility. Nothing that exists in the universe appeared out of Nothing; whyshould have the universe itself? Mustn't the whole abide by the laws that govern theparts?

You point out that "Some reject the Theory of Evolution because it offers noconsolation in the face of death," but I think that's incorrect. I believe it's moreaccurate to say that they reject the theory of evolution because it offers noexplanation for Something arising from Nothing. This is, I think, where we have tocome back to your theory of the Causer.

If you see a work of art that cries out, "Yes, I exist, and you are not alone," the onlylogical conclusion is that somewhere, sometime, there was an artist who wantedyou to know that. Your words paint a beautiful picture, but it would be madness tosuppose that they came together because the printer exploded.

John Kruckenberg | March 31, 2011 2:25 AM | Reply

You seem to keep referring to the "Theory of Evolution" and the "Big Bang Theory" asone in the same. You do realize that the "Theory of Evolution" is a biological theory,and that the "Big Bang Theory" is a cosmological theory. They are two independentand unique theories; granted they are often accepted in conjunction with oneanother, they are NOT one in the same, as it seems you keep referring to them as.

Ebert: You are correct, and I did not intend to give that impression.

Radovan | March 31, 2011 2:26 AM | Reply

Something that has always bothered me about the Big Bang is how casually so manyof us accept that it arose out of nothing. How do we know that? We don't. It isentirely more rational to assume that something existed before the big bang, eventhough it may currently lie out of our reach of understanding. When one hasestablished with a fair degree of certainty that matter can neither be created nordestroyed, how does one reconcile this fact with the assumption that nothingpreceded the Big Bang? Basic logic dictates that this is nonsense.

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16 of 115 4/17/11 4:39 PM

Why is it so inconceivable to think of the universe as infinite? Believers in god refuseto imagine a universe that has always existed, in one form or another, yet they haveno issue with assigning a state of infinity to the alleged creator. (If one ascribesvalidity to the concept of creationism, one logically has to assume that god himselfhad a creator, who had a creator, etc. etc, and onward into... there's that wordagain... infinity.)

In this sense many proponents of a finite universe have struck me as somewhatreligiously inclined in their thinking, whether they believe in god or not, based onhow easily they are willing to ignore or bypass this fundamental gap in ourknowledge.

Until we discover any inkling of a hint as to what caused the Big Bang to occur, wemust be left to contend with the anxiety of leaving that question unanswered,unless we are prepared to rewrite the laws of physics altogether, relegating thenature of matter and the principle of cause and effect to mere arbitrarysuperstitions.

An understanding I have come to over the years is that the concepts of a beginningand an end have no meaning outside of human consciousness. It is only because ourminds are finite, and we experience time as having discernible limits, that we feelcompelled to project that fact onto the universe as a whole.

I once came across a diagram used in a physics lecture (the name of the physicistescapes me) illustrating an infinite chain of expanding and contracting universes,with each link representing a Big Bang. Now there's an idea I can wrap my mindaround. It may be pure speculation, but at least it doesn't contradict or ignore oneof the well-established and basic laws of existence.

Ebert: There is of course the Lee Smolin hypothesis that universes are createdon the other side, so to speak, of Black Holes. That universes evolve. That thosewith more Black Holes reproduce more successfully. That could account for agiven Big Bang. Of course it still leaves you with turtles at the bottom.

Martín Abresch | March 31, 2011 2:36 AM | Reply

I particularly liked the paragraph that began "Some reject the Theory of Evolutionbecause it offers no consolation in the face of death. . . ."

oneofus | March 31, 2011 3:33 AM | Reply

But way deep down, way deep inside you, you know that God is the answer.

Andrew | March 31, 2011 4:22 AM | Reply

Great post! And while I largely agree with most of your points I just have one pointto make. You say:

"But what good does it do me to think of the universe as an unthinking mechanismvast beyond comprehension?"

and

"When I die, what happens?...The universe will not know or care."

Perhaps this is nitpicking, but I work in the field of Neuroscience, though not inEvolutionary Neuroscience. However, I have done a great deal of reading on the fieldand it has led me to a great revelation. As Carl Sagan once said, "We are star stuff,"meaning that humans can trace their beginnings all the way back to the big bangand the particles created at that time. My point is that humans are the universe,too. It is not the case that the universe is only all of the stuff out there and we arebut voyagers traveling through and pondering it. We are a part of it because wewere born by it. And so we are simply the universe experiencing itself. The universeis a thinking mechanism because it has evolved into the human brain. And when youand I are gone the universe will know and care because everyone you know and loveis the universe too.

On a certain level it all sounds like hippie BS, but if you follow the logic I believe itto be sound.

Keep up the interest in the sciences! We all have great interest in the arts as well!

Ebert: This I like. I always rather thought of myself as Star Stuff, but feared itwould be immodest to share that.

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John Gilbert | March 31, 2011 4:26 AM | Reply

One of the best posts I've read in a long time. Roger Ebert nails it; a must-read, Isay. And the video at the end is both humbling and inspiring. Makes you want to gogive all seven billion fellow inhabitants of this third stone from the sun a big hug.

Laura | March 31, 2011 4:35 AM | Reply

You are a wonderful man, Mr. Ebert.

Michael | March 31, 2011 4:44 AM | Reply

A quintessence of dust would be a good title for the next James Bond film.

nsw replied to comment from Randy Masters | March 31, 2011 5:34 AM | Reply

What a wonderful supplement to Mr. Ebert's fantastic article! :)

Steve Prarlman | March 31, 2011 6:00 AM | Reply

How about them Yankees

Lynn McKenzie | March 31, 2011 7:08 AM | Reply

A truly inspiring article. Just yesterday I was musing about the vastness of space,and wondering how on Earth scientists have been able to see so much. Even withhigh-powered telescopes sent into space, to actually see distant galaxes andmillions of stars, and to be able to map them! My brain reels at the sheercomplexity and enormity of it.

But for all we know, goldfish may prefer being goldfish to human.

Jeff Swim | March 31, 2011 7:19 AM | Reply

Wow, this really struck a chord. I read those science magazines as well and just readthat article in Discover a couple of days ago. Often I cannot fully comprehend someof the scientific concepts but it fascinates me endlessly.

In a previous issue of Discover there were a number of stories dealing with "The End"of various things. One comment in an article about the inevitability of death reallyintrigued me. Consider when life first began. A form of single cell life came intobeing when something clicked into place in it's chemistry. If it were possible youcould trace a direct path from that cell over the billions of years it took to evolve toyour own body. When you die it will be the end of the line for all the cellsdescended from that first one. This simple concept is mind boggling.

On the other end of the scientific spectrum consider when you are out at nightlooking at a star. Why can you see it? Because your eyes are capturing photons thatoriginated in that star thousands or millions of years before. How is this possible? Iask that for a reason that's not so obvious. Take a step to the left. You still see thestar. Take another step any other direction and you still see it. How is it possible thestar is generating so many photons it can be seen anywhere in the universe withinseeing distance of it's birth, ignoring dust or other celestial bodies that might get inthe way. And not only that star, but every star. A scientific concept that has beendebated many times is that if the universe is infinite, wouldn't there be an infinitenumber of photons resulting in a sky that is never black at night?

Jim | March 31, 2011 7:28 AM | Reply

Absolutely LOVED this article. I'd like to disagree with one aspect, though:

////On every planet where a sufficient degree of intelligence has developed, theTheory of Evolution must eventually be discovered. It helps those beings understandhow they are. It doesn't explain why they are. There is no reason the universe"needed" to evolve intelligent beings, but it has. It might have been inevitablebecause of the fact of Natural Selection.////

I am reminded of a quote by Hans Zinnser's wonderful book, "Rats, Lice, andHistory":

"It is only too painfully obvious, moreover, that neither the scientist nor the artist isever a 'creator.' .... The most that the scientist and the artist accomplish is newunderstanding of things that have always been. They 'create' a clearer perception."

Evolution is only "true" in that it describes the workings of our universe in a way thatmakes sense to our limited modes of understanding. There's no reason to assume


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that other life forms, in completely different environments, possibly withcompletely different types of intelligence, would arrive at the same models ofperception that we would. Actually, I think it's almost certain that they wouldn't.

This isn't a creationist or anti-Darwinist position. I'm just saying that naturalselection is not The Truth, but rather the best model yet devised for describing thetruth to a human mind.

Ebert: It appears to me that Natural Selection describes the way life works, andtherefore would apply universally. That it is not unfortunately "the best modelyet devised for describing the truth to a human mind" is indicated by the factthat something like 50 percent of the American population doesn't subscribe toit. However, more than 99% of all the earth's scientists do. I am assuming a fairdegree of intelligence in my model.

John Panagopoulos, Malden, MA | March 31, 2011 7:47 AM | Reply

Mr. Ebert, I am gratified and heartened to learn that you have attuned yourconsciousness to hear the cosmic Who.

DarkMatter2525 | March 31, 2011 8:11 AM | Reply

Thanks for this piece, Roger. The universe and our origins are so awe inspiring; itbreaks my heart when people can't believe it, when they cling to the comfortingfables they grew up with, and then call us liars.It's like we're all sitting in a grand movie theater, engrossed as the universe and allits exciting secrets are revealed on the big screen. We're fully enveloped in thedrama when the creationist's cell phone rings, and her baby starts crying. Theyshout "This sucks!" They talk during the best parts. They kick your seat. Why didthey even come? Perhaps they wanted to see the fantasy flick, but walked into thewrong theater. If only they could appreciate what they were watching, but thattakes a certain degree of patience, experience, intellect, empathy, andhumility...whereas the fantasy offers instant gratification for the unthinking mind.I don't mean to oversimplify or generalize; I understand that there are nuances andvarying degrees of religiosity, but I've had to deal with the most rabid of willfullyignorant creationists you could imagine. I fear that they are affecting educations.Science is as entwined with our culture as art was with ancient Rome. After Romefell, however, art declined for a thousand years.

Kelly Davis | March 31, 2011 8:14 AM | Reply

Have you read Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's 'The Phenomenon of Man'? His assertion isthat evolution does have a direction and that is greater complexity andconsciousness. The matter of the universe is becoming conscious. He influencedMarshall McLuhan with his idea of a noosphere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin

DarkMatter2525 replied to comment from Cyberquill | March 31, 2011 8:20 AM | Reply

But that's pure speculation with absolute zero evidence. In fact, the evidence is tothe contrary. Do you think all the info in our brains is backed up on an intangiblehard drive? It seems a lot like wishful thinking in the face of death.

Ebert: No, I believe the information in our brain dies along with it.

entity r | March 31, 2011 8:46 AM | Reply

I don't quite understand these notions of the universe being an unthinkingmechanism or "having no opinion". It does, and that opinion is your opinion, or mine.

We are not only the thinking arm of the universe, not only a vessel through which itcan perceive itself, but we are IT itself, the big bang, and forever before, andforever after. Our consciousness does not have concrete boundaries, or even depth.It is itself the universe, an "I" that is as significant as any part or parts of the wholecaboodle. After all, infinity divided by even the largest finite number imaginable isstill infinity.

This is my consolation.

Ebert: I know there is a theory that something doesn't exist until it is observed.In local terms, until we evolved, strictly speaking nothing existed. I guess I'd likethat message from the stars to say, "Hey, I see it too!"


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Dustin Hiser | March 31, 2011 8:51 AM | Reply

"An artist can express my feelings as in the same way as an intelligent signalreceived from one of those 1,235 dots."

Then you, sir, are an artist. You nailed it. You took three of my most obsessed overmental topics (evolution, astronomy, and What-does-it-all-mean? musings) andcongealed them into this beautiful bit of writing. Thank you, sir.

Regarding the usage of "theory of" versus "the law of" in conjunction with"evolution," my understanding is that it's both, or at least should be. It's like gravity:there's the law of gravity and there's the theory of gravity. It's a law because, dropan apple, it falls. It exists. It's also a theory because we are still working out themechanics of why the apple falls and why the hell we can't see dark matter? whydoes it never touch anything? or seem to even exist at all except as a gravitationaleffect? Such should be Evolution.

Ebert: I see what you mean. Confusion arises because of the vernacular use ofthe word "theory." A scientific theory is a hypothesis subject to continual testingand refinement. Darwin's original theory of evolution was a brilliant insight, buthas undergone great modification in the years since--and still is.

rationalrevolution | March 31, 2011 8:52 AM | Reply

What is more interesting than these observations, is knowing that people over 2,000years ago already understood this, before their views were declared heresy byChristians and destroyed.

"[T]he world was produced by the working of nature, without there having been anyneed for a process of manufacture, and that what your school declares to becapable of accomplishment only by means of divine intelligence is a thing so easythat nature will produce, and is producing, and has produced worlds without end. Itis because you do not see how nature can accomplish this without the help of somekind of mind that, like the tragic poets, in your inability to bring the plot to asmooth conclusion, you have recourse to a god. Yet you would certainly feel no needfor his agency if you had before your eyes the expanse of region, unmeasured andon every side unbounded, upon which the mind may fasten and concentrate itself,and where it may wander far and wide without seeing any farthermost limit uponwhich to be able to rest. Now in this immensity of length and breadth and heightthere floats an infinite quantity of innumerable atoms which, in spite of theintervening void, nevertheless join together, and through one seizing upon one, andanother upon another, form themselves into connected wholes, by which means areproduced those forms and outlines of the material world which your school is ofopinion cannot be produced without bellows and anvils. You have therefore placedour necks beneath the yoke of a perpetual tyrant, of whom we are to go in fear byday and night, for who would not fear a god who foresaw everything, consideredeverything, noted everything, and looked upon himself as concerned ineverything,—a busy and prying god? From this has come, in the first place, your ideaof preordained necessity, which you call ε µαρµένη, meaning by the term that everyevent that occurs had its origin in eternal truth and the chain of causation—(thoughwhat is to be thought of a philosophy that holds the ignorant old crone’s belief thateverything happens by destiny?)—and secondly your art of µαντικ , or divinatio, as itis called in Latin, which, if we were willing to listen to you, would imbue us withsuch superstition that we should have to pay regard to soothsayers, augurs, diviners,prophets, and interpreters of dreams. From these terrors we have been released byEpicurus, and claimed for freedom; we do not fear beings of whom we understandthat they neither create trouble for themselves, nor seek it for others, and weworship, in piety and holiness, a sublime and exalted nature."- The Nature of the Gods; Cicero, 45 BCE

Ebert: That is inspiring.

Kristen | March 31, 2011 9:01 AM | Reply

Thank you. I really enjoyed reading this, as I do all of your posts.

Rory | March 31, 2011 9:04 AM | Reply

I won't say this nearly as well as you, as I am not a trained writer. Nor am I a Bible-thumper, though my post may make me appear that I am.

But I didn't see God anywhere in that post. It had to be intentional. In speaking of


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something so vast, incomprehensible, incalculable, one would have to strainthemselves not to mention God. Some call this a crutch. I disagree.

Philosphy 101 talks about the '1st mover,' and I'm sure you are familar with it. Ipersonally believe in the theory of evolution - you'd have to be daft not to - but atsome point a molecule became a cell, which is akin to a stalk of wheat becoming asandwich at Subway. I'm not aware of matter/molecules that are in a struggle akinto the 'survival of the fittest.'

To put it another way, a 1st year grad student could put together the carbon andtrace elements identical to a oak seed ... but it wouldn't sprout. There is a spark oflife somewhere that makes these things exist, that '1st mover.' That thing is a God.For me it is Jesus, and his father.

In your intellectual pursuits don't make the possible mistake of intellectual conceit.Human kind will learn amazing things and never know even half of our universe, ourworld, our earth. Perhaps that was for a reason.

Ebert: You are free to name it as God. But given the existence of matter, we nowunderstand how life could have arisen. In my mind, I push it further back, to thecreation of matter. The Big Bang is inexplicable, and we are free to attribute itto anything we choose.

ShallowRed replied to comment from Cyberquill | March 31, 2011 9:08 AM | Reply

@Cyberquill. What would that equipment be made of? Absence of electric pulse? Iwould stick to known facts. Or at least come up with a theory that would not collideso badly with knowledge.

No hint of your ghostly apparatus has ever made it's way to the phenomenologicallayer yet.

@Ebert. Beautiful. I'd still rather be a planet than a human. If we get as creative asCyberquill then Gaia could also be a conscious entity.

Tracy | March 31, 2011 9:15 AM | Reply

I love, love, love this. I live with a five-year-old astrophysicist who watched theshort film "Powers of Ten" when he was two, loves Hubble images more than cartooncharacters and investigates these questions daily until my brain hurts. We sangMonty Python's "Galaxy Song" on the way to school this morning. I never expectedthese things from motherhood.

I try to connect his love for the infinite with art wherever I can, because as huge asscience is, it has certain scary, unyielding qualities. Thank you for giving me a newway to consider it.

Matt Ference | March 31, 2011 9:23 AM | Reply

A "law" in science is a rule - a simple statement that expresses a fundamentalprinciple, as in Newton's laws of motion, or the laws of thermodynamics. Newton'ssecond law of motion, Force = mass x acceleration, doesn't explain WHY this is theway it is, but it tells us that everywhere in the universe, force will ALWAYS equalmass times acceleration, and successfully predicts the outcome of experiments.

A "theory", as scientists use the term, is an explanation of the relationships betweenphenomena, as in the theory of relativity, or the theory of evolution. Darwin's theoryexplains many different phenomena, and shows how they are all interrelated, but itcannot be condensed into a single concise statement or formula.

[It needs to be emphasized that a scientific theory has been thoroughly reviewedand critiqued and is almost universally accepted. The terminology for anything thathas not been as deeply tested is a CONJECTURE or a HYPOTHESIS.]

Christopher Hoover | March 31, 2011 9:26 AM | Reply

Bobbo, that passage in Roger's beautiful essay made me think immediately of "ASaucer of Loneliness" as well. One of the finest things Sturgeon ever wrote. Itcaptures the same sense of consolation of which Roger speaks. It's comforting,imagining that there could be such messages in bottles, cast upon the cosmic sea.

Full disclosure: I was led to Sturgeon's story by the New Twilight Zone version, whichlike many other stories in that first season or two ("Paladin of the Lost Hour," "HerPilgrim Soul," "The Star," "Time and Teresa Golowitz," "One Life, Furnished in Early


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Poverty") was a thing of aching beauty in its own right. TNTZ is (or at least was)available on DVD. Much recommended.

And in some ways "The Star" is a different riff on some of the same themes we'rediscussing here today. Both the NTZ adaptation and Clarke's original story are wellworthy of a visit.

Arizona Jack | March 31, 2011 9:27 AM | Reply

An astronomer told me this:Imagine the rim of your coffee cup as the orbit of Pluto -- six billion miles indiameter. At that scale you'd need an electron microscope to see Earth. Our galaxywould then extend from the Aleutian Islands to the Yucatan Peninsula. The rest ofthe universe doesn't even start there.

Now it's hard to drink my coffee and not ponder infinity.

Gregg | March 31, 2011 9:33 AM | Reply

Interesting and thought provoking. Also, it might give an understanding of Curly'sdeclaration, "I'm trying to think but nothing is happening!"

Sean Dugan | March 31, 2011 9:50 AM | Reply

Rog,

Thanks for this wonderful entry. It brought me back to my days as a philosophystudent at Loyola University Chicago, where these sorts of discussions were notanecdotes, but course material to be carefully studied and considered. It alsoreminded me of Albert Camus' last few lines in "The Myth of Sisyphus":

"All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is histhing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all theidols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering littlevoices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces,they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow,and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts willhenceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or atleast there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest,he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when manglances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slightpivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate,created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death.Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eagerto see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is stillrolling. I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burdenagain. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raisesrocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a masterseems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flakeof that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward theheights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

When I get home from work this evening, I think I'll throw on a DVD that hascollected dust since I graduated from college: "2001: A Space Odyssey." Or maybe"Contact."

Rory | March 31, 2011 9:57 AM | Reply

Ebert: "You are free to name it as God. But given the existence of matter, we nowunderstand how life could have arisen. "

I must have missed that. And I have actively searched for it, including demanding anexplanation from biology professors at my university. I'm open to learning more.Could you, or one of your readers post links that describe how matter can turn intolife?

As a reference, here is the point I made that Mr. Ebert was referring to:

"Philosphy 101 talks about the '1st mover,' and I'm sure you are familar with it. Ipersonally believe in the theory of evolution - you'd have to be daft not to - but atsome point a molecule became a cell, which is akin to a stalk of wheat becoming asandwich at Subway. I'm not aware of matter/molecules that are in a struggle akinto the 'survival of the fittest.'

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22 of 115 4/17/11 4:39 PM

To put it another way, a 1st year grad student could put together the carbon andtrace elements identical to a oak seed ... but it wouldn't sprout. There is a spark oflife somewhere that makes these things exist, that '1st mover.' That thing is a God.For me it is Jesus, and his father."

merryjman | March 31, 2011 10:01 AM | Reply

I"d love to believe that there are other civilizations, but the so-called Fermi Paradoxmade me wonder. After all, the Earth has only been around for a third of theUniverse's lifetime, and the Universe has been cool enough to support (e.g.)carbon-based life for quite some time now. With a hundred billion stars in each of ahundred billion galaxies, you'd think somewhere life had developed, and did it muchearlier. So why haven't we seen it?

Don Tingle | March 31, 2011 10:19 AM | Reply

Great article. I tried to find this last night when I read your article, but only justnow found it - an article titled:"Death anxiety linked to acceptance of intelligent design: study"athttp://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/30/death-anxiety-linked-to-acceptance-of-intelligent-design-study/

"Our results suggest that when confronted with existential concerns, people respondby searching for a sense of meaning and purpose in life," Tracy said. "For many, itappears that evolutionary theory doesn't offer enough of a compelling answer todeal with these big questions."

And 'they' say: "Ignorance is bliss."

Bud Simpson | March 31, 2011 10:19 AM | Reply

Wonderful post. It goes up on my refrigerator alongside the yellowed and brittleclipped column by the WaPo's Joel Achenbach from some years back. TermiteHindguts and the Copernican Principle

It's very important to remember that our place in the Universe is not privileged, noris our very existence important in any way. The unlikelihood of our time here iswhat makes it so remarkable and valuable.

Paul | March 31, 2011 10:22 AM | Reply

I must have read this differently than most readers. Upon finishing, I came to theconclusion that you were definitely agnostic.

Chuck Vekert | March 31, 2011 10:26 AM | Reply

In this essay you assume that the human mind is an emergent property ofmatter--that you (and I) are conscious of our existence because of some complexinteraction of the neurons that comprise our brains. Therefore, when we die ourmind/consciousness ends as our brains dissolve.

This may very well be true. Certainly the majority of scientists, regardless whetherthey study the brain, believe so. But I would maintain that they believe this largelyon faith, not because there is any real evidence to support it. Science has a verygood track record at discovering material explanations for phenomena that wereonce thought to be the action of a god or gods. Most thinking people assume thatmind/consciousness will be explained in good time.

Again, they may be right. But at present, on the relationship of mind to brain thereis no evidence whatsoever. We are all in the position of trying to answer a questionlike this: There is a box. What is in the box? Without more information there is noway to even begin to exclude items or classes of items from the box. Pure ignorancereigns.

Consider this: solipsism is irrefutable. If I wish to claim that I am the only existingthing and that you and the rest of the universe are simply a product of myimagination, there is no way you can refute my claim. Nor could I refute your claim.Knowing that I have tried and failed to learn to juggle three balls at a time makesme wary of claiming that the whole universe is in my head, yet I cannot disprove it.On the other hand, I know the universe is not just in your mind. With you, I assume,it is the exact opposite.


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So far at least, no theory of the brain needs the concept of mind. Indeed, sciencetends to reduce mind/thought/emotions to physical processes in the brain. There isnothing science knows or can know about you that requires that you haveconsciousness and a mind. It is no more necessary that Zeus to explain thunderbolts.

Since we don't have the slightest scientific understanding of the relationship of brainto mind, it is a little premature to assume that the end of one is the end of theother. Toss a coin.

Brad Hoehne | March 31, 2011 10:29 AM | Reply

Please excuse the pedantry in the midst of wonderful poetry- I, too, I'm enrapturedby the poetry and wonder of the cosmos- but there's a few small, slightmisunderstandings that I'd like to attempt to address... and isn't it nice to base one'swonder and speculation on the best available information?

First, the statement "Then I read that the next Hubble telescope will be able topeer six times as far into space and time as the one now in orbit" is a bit off themark. The "replacement" for the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb SpaceTelescope, will have a mirror (actually an array of mirrors) that is roughly 6 timesthe area of the HST providing, at a baseline, six times greater sensitivity to light.Moreover, the JWSTs cameras have been designed to operate in redder wavelengthsof light than the HST, that will allow see more clearly into the earliest region of theuniverse where red-shifted galaxies are flying away from us at very nearly the speedof light. These galaxies won't be appreciably more distant than the most distantthings we've seen with the HST, they'll just appear brighter and clearer. Any distancerecords that are set with the JWST will be somewhat more incremental.

Moreover, the JWST will not push our imaging of the universe any closer to the BigBang than we've already accomplished with very sensitive microwave spacetelescopes such as the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) or the WilkinsonMicrowave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). With these scopes, we've peered at somethingcalled the Cosmic Background Radiation (CMB), which is basically the light that was"set free" when the comic soup of matter in the earliest universe finally cooledenough for electrons to be scooped up into atoms thus allowing photons (that is,light) to fly freely. This light originated so far away, and so long ago, that theexpansion of the universe has stretched it from visible light in to microwaves.

It's not possible to peer any further than this- roughly 300,000 years after the bigbang, because, before that, the universe was too hot, too ionized, and too opaque.

Amazingly, however, careful measurement the slight variations in the CMB reveal theeffect of the quantum fluctuation that existed in the first fraction of a fraction of afraction of a second- a fluctuation that left its imprint on the shape of the CMB and,eventually, the shape of the universe itself. These fluctations started off smallerthan atoms and were stretched to cosmic scale.

So, not only do we already have a tool for looking back right to the beginning of theBig Bang, but we know that the very small (quantum fluctuations) have an effect onthe very large (the overall mass distribution of galaxies in the universe.) Everythingis connected!

Dave Wittekind | March 31, 2011 10:38 AM | Reply

Thought provoking post, Roger. How can any intelligent/curious person today not beexcited by recent advances in astrophysics?What's piqued my interest most lately is information theory and how it may providethe answers to the quest for the one unifying equation to explain how and why thingARE. In a nutshell the theory, originated by Claude E. Shannon in the late 40's,postulates that information is a real and quantitative thing that forms the basicbuilding blocks of everything in the universe. Astrophysicists today (even thestubborn Steven Hawking) have concluded that all information sucked into a blackhole still exists on the surface of the hole's "event horizon".Several mind-blowing books have explored the topic, the most recent being "TheInformation" by noted science author James Gleick. There was a good article aboutit in the latest issue of WIRED.

Liza K | March 31, 2011 10:39 AM | Reply

Fabulous. I couldn't agree more with your sentiment. You really should check out theBBC series "Wonders of the Universe" if you can - I'm pretty sure you'll love it. I have


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practically no astonomical knowledge but am absolutely hooked - I never thoughtthat I could understand Einstein's Theory of Relativity, but it makes sense to menow! Check out http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zdhtg, and I'm sure you canfind it on youtube too. Enjoy!

Cody Jarrett | March 31, 2011 10:51 AM | Reply

I'm reminded of Studs' epitaph, "curiosity didn't kill this cat".

Also, for a film critic, you do a better Carl Sagan than Sagan did.

Greg | March 31, 2011 11:01 AM | Reply

I am a biological sciences senior at LSU. For four years my professors have preachedthe theory of evolution as if they know for certain it is responsible for the origin oflife. As you wrote, it seems logical. However, I do not find it logical that organismsevolved from different atoms somehow enclosed in a membrane. It is said that DNAcontains more information then the largest libraries on the planet. How can youspontaneously create information to build an organisms by mixing atoms together?That is like taking the pieces of a car, putting them in a box, shaking them around,and expecting a functioning automobile to come out. Study any function of a celland you will see that the precision and purpose in the mechanism is too perfect tohave resulted form chance. When you consider that a singe liver cell is far morecomplex than any computer chip man has created it becomes increasingly ILLOGICALto imagine that we were formed from the random conglomeration of elementalatoms. My point is, its time to start recognizing that the THEORY of evolution is justa theory.

Ebert: With all due respect, I do not believe you are a biological science major. Ifyou were, you would understand what a Scientific Theory is, and could not havewritten your final sentence. You have fatally confused the scientific andvernacular definitions of "theory."

scott | March 31, 2011 11:07 AM | Reply

@ deacon godsey,

You suggest that science and religion are similar in that neither can completelyprove nor disprove, and thus are faith-based.

A few observations and points --

You do not value the processes of each. Reason occurs through discussion; it isself-critical. Faith occurs through receiving; it is self-referential. The value ofreason is that it is most likely to correct stagnation and dogma in the pursuit ofprogress or best-practices. Faith cannot. Nor does faith need to, for should faithappear to be totally inadequate in the physical realm well, there are "after-lifes" asconsolations. An irrefutable, non-false logic. On the same level, though, with anyother gods or deities, or fantastic beliefs.

Also, one should not (as our good friend Roger) make a fetish out of the physicalsciences. Science is not the only alternative to faith/religion. The humanities alsoinform and nurture the soul, even the soul that values reason. The arts, philosophy.These also express essentials about life, I would suggest even more so than physicalsciences.

Again, reason, ideally, is a discussion, an ongoing dialogue open to being informed.When it does not perform ideally it begins to become faith. Faith, performed badly,wanders towards reason.

Finally, faith and reason are like oil and water. So because reason cannot makemuch use of faith, you consider it to be as non-porous - that is, as selective - asfaith, and therefore, like faith.Try thinking in terms of where each one leads, rather than what their absoluteproperties are.

Personally, I think it comes down to hardwiring/personality. Similar perhaps to thingslike sexual orientation.

Frank | March 31, 2011 11:44 AM | Reply

Unfortunately, I think that the use of 'logic' or trying to make sense of things mightbe useless when pondering things outside of this universe or "before time". For allwe know, the entire concept of 'logic' may actually be part of this universe, and


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anything outside of it (like God, or perhaps something else that we don'tunderstand) is completely outside of 'logic' and totally beyond our comprehension.This is why it (somewhat) puzzles me when people try to use logic to explain whythey do or don't think that God exists. (Of course, I concede there may not beanything outside of this universe.)Neverlethess, it is still interesting to think about it and theorize. And right now,logic is all we have.

scott | March 31, 2011 11:55 AM | Reply

You're not telling me anything, Roger. No wonder you attract the absolutists:because neither of you are able to qualify your absolutes, you quibble overpreferences. You have a firm grasp of the finality of death and the immensity of thecosmos (as we know them). How the latter is qualified by what goes on between thecradle and the grave is beyond your calling. Your solution is merely "more". Iactually detect at least a latent cynicism in the notion that other planets with life issomehow comforting. We are surrounded by the stuff here and now. Problem is, itsreality is in our face. Better to dream. I used to wonder why such notions ofuniverse-deism found a natural voice in (pseudo)science. Now I know. You are muchmore comfortable discussing the mysterious and vagarious as though their splendourand contribution to the soul were self-evident. No wonder your religious brethrenare puzzled over why you hold your viewpoint to be unique, even different thantheirs. Too bad that, for many here, your brand of reasoning (such as it hasappeared thus far) is as close as they will apparently stray.

You speak French. Read any...?

Best,Scott

Brian A. Oard | March 31, 2011 12:26 PM | Reply

By an amazing coincidence--call it synchronicity--just last night I watched Godard'sTwo or Three Things I Know About Her with its brief but screen-filling close up ofcream swirling in a coffee cup, the tendrils of the stirred liquid spinning into spiralsthat mimic both galaxies and fractal geometry, the infinite and the infinitessimal.It's one of cinema's great "world in a grain of sand" moments, showing us that wedon't need a Hubble telescope to blow our minds. All we need is a pair of eyes thatcan truly see the things we merely look at every day.

About the possibility of sentient life on other worlds: I've always found the thoughtthat we are alone in the universe a symptom of the same kind of human arrogancethat gave us the Earth-centered Ptolomaic theory. There is probably life out there,but I hope it never notices us. Reasoning from the only basis of reason we have--thehistory of our own species--it seems at least possible that members of any'intelligent' alien race, upon first sighting human beings, might say to themselves,"Hmmm...I wonder what that tastes like with barbeque sauce..." What I'm saying isthat alien visitors might be more Gork than Klatu, and To Serve Man might turn outto be a cookbook after all.

paul rodriguez | March 31, 2011 12:28 PM | Reply

It's so interesting how the theory of how life, stars and planets began and how itintertwindes with 'why are we here?' I have often wondered HOW or even IF they areconnected and if so, why? Someone posted earlier about our brains being backed upon a sort of internal hard drive and that when we die, what happens. Roger, youwrote that you believe this particular information dies along with our body. So, thenI have to ask myself 'what's the point in all of this?' What are we to learn here if, inthe end, we all die and lose the knowledge we gained?

Buddhists speak of rebirth (reincarnation; cyclic existence), that we are here tolearn something. Perhaps we're given more opportunities to 'get it right'. Obviously,there are various perspectives on Buddha's beliefs of rebirth in modern times but ifit were true, I'd see nothing gained by continually dying and losing everything.

I do believe that space, time and 'why we are here' are one in the same question.The more we discover, the more we continually baffle ourselves with morequestions. I suppose if rebirth is untrue, the only real way we can continually learnis to traditionally pass off information as we go along. I'm not even sure that as westrive to understand the universe and why things exist, that we're getting any closer.


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Perhaps space grows a long side of us; we're constantly playing catch-up.

I realize that you didn't draw religion into this article. I'm not even a deeplyreligious individual. However, I feel like it has a place in this article because allreligions seem to base their foundation on faith and cause us to ask ourselves thequestion 'why are we here and where did this all come from?' I'd be intrigued to getyour feedback on this thought.

S M Rana | March 31, 2011 12:34 PM | Reply

When you say death is the end of life, is that what you prefer to belief, orsomething you are sure about?

Ebert: It's not what I prefer, and not something I am sure about. It simply seemsself-evident.

Mickey Thompson | March 31, 2011 12:48 PM | Reply

As a Christian and a person that respects science, I am just not certain how God/theBig Bang Theory/the Theory of Evolution are incompatible.

While all things are possible with God, I certainly would not expect an omnipotentdeity to create a physical/natural world all made from different things. If humanitywas created to be the masters of the natural world, I would think that God wouldwant us to understand the rules in short order. How else would the speciespropagate if not for instinct and later higher cognitive process which would lead tounderstanding the fundamental nature of life and the physical world.

Given everything we know and do not know, I certainly do not understand how toprove or disprove love and faith. Both often have no measure, sometimesoverwhelm logic and reason, yet seldom exist without the other.

Also, I do not profess to be concerned about the beliefs of anyone else. While 99% ofscientists believe in science, I am sure 99% of doctors believe in medicine, 99% ofartists believe in art, 99% of teachers believe in education, etc. It's who we are andI am glad in it.

God bless, Roger as I am sure you wish good fortune on us.

Sam E. | March 31, 2011 12:55 PM | Reply

Even though I do not believe in reincarnation in a literal sense, I believe there is atruth in the idea that whatever part of myself that existed before me existed insome other person. In times when I’ve felt depressed or lonely it has given me greatcomfort to picture in my mind the thoughts and feelings others might have hadwhen facing similar struggles. I think one of the great blessings of religioustraditions and liberal arts more broadly is that they connect people to the story ofhistory in a human sense not just to raw facts but the entire human experience; astory of endurance despite struggle and disappointment. In some ways, I find it notso different than the story of evolution.

P.S. As an aside I'm not sure how related to your post these comments were but theyare the response that was elicited none the less.

S M Rana | March 31, 2011 12:56 PM | Reply

Do you think the question (of the persistence of life after death) has beenscientifically answered, or can be answered in the future, or a meaningful questionat all?

John | March 31, 2011 12:57 PM | Reply

This almost made me forget how mad I was that this week's reviews aren't up yet.

Mark Lancaster | March 31, 2011 12:59 PM | Reply

Great post, Roger. I love it when you ramble beautifully through the cosmos!You speak of grasping the distance of a light year. I've found a way to think aboutthat that works for me pretty well.

An inch is to a mile, as an astronomical unit, (that is, the earth-sun distance), is to alight year. I look at my thumb, which is an inch wide, and I can ponder just howmuch bigger a mile is. Then I consider the distance to the sun. Light takes abouteight minutes to travel that distance. A light year is as much bigger than that as amile is to my thumb.


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Another thought: If I build a tiny model of the solar system, with a little dot for theSun about 1/100 inch in diameter, and an invisibly small Earth 1/10,000 inch indiameter an inch away from the Sun, the closest star would be over four milesdistant.

Thanks again for the reminder of just how awesome a universe it is that we live in!

matt beasley | March 31, 2011 1:14 PM | Reply

Although your post dances around the Theism/Evolution controversy, you seem towant sidestep it in favor of merely articulating your awe of the grandeur of space.Though I’m a Christian who doesn’t see Evolution as mutually exclusive from myfaith, I’ll refrain from delving into that topic here, and simply join you in yourwonderment.

The universe is absolutely perplexingly amazing, and the more we learn about it,the more it challenges our understanding of just about everything. The size of italone boggles the imagination. Consider a moment the following.

When we look in one direction, we see at the furthest regions of space stars nearly45 billion light years away. This is derived by calculating the speed with which lighttravels and taking into consideration the expansion of space itself. We also seesimilar stars in the completely opposite direction from where we are. Now, anysentient being on the first set of stars would see us as we see them. However, theywould not be able to see the second set of stars, as the expansion of space and thelimited speed of light would forever keep this parcel of the universe outside of theirobservable eye. Every point in the universe has a diameter that extends from it inwhich they can observe anything. Outside of that, nothing can be observed.

So, while we see the universe as being 45 billion light years from us, this is merelythe limits of our observable universe. The actual universe is many, many timesbigger. How much bigger? Well, from my understanding, if you were to takeeverything in our observable universe, including all of the 100’s of billions ofgalaxies and what not, and compress that to the size of the earth, the actualuniverse would be comparable to the size of our observable universe. Copernicus,eat your heart out.

Although the size of the universe is bewildering in and of itself, it is at leastconceivable to understand. We get the idea of ‘big.’ However, there is a greatquantity of the universe that lies outside our comprehension. Dark matter issomething that cannot be seen, felt of heard, but can affect gravity. Dark energy issomething that produces a negative gravitational effect on the universe, causing itto expand. However, with each bit of space it “creates” through expansion, it alsofills, further accelerating the expansion of the universe. Adding just these twoelements together, they actually compose 96% of the material in the universe. Atbest, we know and understand a mere 4% of the universe.

Digging deeper, we look at the real consequences of trying to harmonize thestrangeness of quantum mechanics with general relativity. Doing so forcesphysicists, mathematicians and cosmologists to posit seemingly impossible scenariosin which an infinite number of universes coexist of which we are one. A conclusiondrawn from such a scenario would be that not only is it possible for Elvis to still bealive, it is inescapable. This is not a thought experiment going wrong, but a real,tangible truth.

A quote attributed to Einstein is, “The most incomprehensible thing about theuniverse is that it is comprehensible.” I wonder if a line should be drawn anddefined between comprehension and apprehension. Allow me to elaborate. A groupof scientists invented a machine that could measure data and then create logicalties between the data. The group attached one pendulum to another and had itdangle in front of the machine. The machine calculated the erratic behavior of thisdouble-mass object over a period of time and then, without prompt, spit out aformula to describe what it saw: F=ma. It was an astonishing feat which circled thescientific globe. This machine was then used to correlate the impossibly difficultinteractions within a cell. It did, and came up with alarmingly powerful equationsthat tied the data together. However, the paper remains unpublished. Why? Well,the scientists apprehend the data in front of them, but they cannot comprehend it.There’s no reason backing up their data.


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In a sense, String Theory (or M-Theory), which is today the best theory available topotentially harmonize quantum mechanics with general relativity, was similarlydeveloped. String theory was more or less an accidental discovery, and not just thenext step in a series of rational thought processes. But it was a fortunate accident,in so far as it seems to be right. But, like given a formula without the reason on howwe got there, we’re becoming further removed from comprehension.

At the end of the day, when the scientists can step back and agree on a UnifiedField Theory that successfully ties all the loose ends together, will it be anythingthat we can really comprehend? Or, will it just be a series of equations, featuringderivatives of intangible concepts without any 'why' in its backbone?

How perplexing would it be if our best attempts to demystify the universe was itselfa mystery?

Jason Peterson | March 31, 2011 1:14 PM | Reply

Roger great post. I love the Plato and Socrates references because my belief In Godcame from those two. I read Plato's Phaedo and Plato's Republic and new uponreading that the soul was logically reasonable and made perfect sense. I have noscientific proof, faith is a tricky thing like that. I was a complete non believer andscience was where I layed my claim. However reading the above pieces I could notdeny what now I believe to be true. That we are souls having human experiences.That our soul was prior to us and will "live" on after us. I like the phrase that we oursouls having a human experience, and the human experience is like a veil maskingthings. Some people's veils thicker than others. I did not find God in the bible, but inphilosophy of those two. This was only a Month ago and maybe the feelings willdissipate, but I can not deny the absolute confirmation I experience in my brain. Iwould have to deny myself. Again awesome post. Funny thing this came out onDescartes birthday too.

Bill Hays | March 31, 2011 1:15 PM | Reply

I was watching the BBC News. A Muslim in London said, "The Qur'an contains suchinsights into science that it could only come from God."

I wondered if that was right. Thought I would check it out.

Tabari I:219 "When Allah wanted to create the creation, He brought forth smokefrom the water. The smoke hovered loftily over it. He called it 'heaven.' Then Hedried out the water and made it earth. He split it and made it seven earths onSunday. He created the earth upon a big fish, that being the fish mentioned in theQur'an. By the Pen, the fish was in the water. The water was upon the back of asmall rock. The rock was on the back of an angel. The angel was on a big rock. Thebig rock was in the wind. The fish became agitated. As a result, the earth quaked,so Allah anchored the mountains and made it stable. This is why the Qur'an says,'Allah made for the earth firmly anchored mountains, lest it shake you up.'"

Bukhari:V4B54N421 "I walked hand in hand with the Prophet when the sun was aboutto set. We did not stop looking at it. The Prophet asked, 'Do you know where the sungoes at sunset?' I replied, 'Allah and His Apostle know better.' He said, 'It travels untilit falls down and prostrates Itself underneath the Throne. The angels who are incharge of the sun prostrate themselves, also. The sun asks permission to rise again.It is permitted. Then it will prostrate itself again but this prostration will not beaccepted. The sun then says, "My Lord, where do You command me to rise, fromwhere I set or from where I rose?" Allah will order the sun to return whence it hascome and so the sun will rise in the west. And that is the interpretation of thestatement of Allah in the Qur'an.'"

My theory is, Mohammed was a Terrorist, and he made up the nonsense to create aphony religion that justifies his acts of terror.

The angels who are in charge of the sun lay down on the ground to obtain the favorof Allah... then the sun waits for Allah to give the command to rise in the west....which is just puffery to prove that Muslims need to obey the commands of Allahwithout question... and those commands come from men, not God, who think thespread of Islam means more than individual human life.

The statement that Allah created the Earth upon a big fish... the water was on theback of a rock... and the rock was on the back of an angel?

My point is, there are half a billion people in the world that honestly think this


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nonsense passes for "science." And they want to brand anyone who tries to tell themdifferent as a "hater" and "Islamophobic."

Jordan N. | March 31, 2011 1:16 PM | Reply

In the latest version of his "A Brief History Of Time", Hawking offers up an alternatetheory to the Big Bang - one that doesn't require a Bang or Crunch, and insteadposits a possibility where the universe has simply always existed, similar to therubber-band hypothesis.

Angel Djambazov | March 31, 2011 1:28 PM | Reply

I used to read your writing just for the reviews. While I did not often agree withyour opinion toward a film, I did overtime come to understand how your viewpointcompared to mine and what aspects of cinema we mutually enjoyed.

Had I not stumbled on the ideas you express in your opinion columns I would havestill thought you a good writer.

Thus it has been a joy to discover your other writing. There are times when I canhear Ray Bradbury in your voice. This piece for instance reminds me of DandelionWine. The sensation it gave me was the same one I had when when I first read theawakening Douglas experienced after his nose was bloodied wrestling with hisbrother; the sudden self-awareness that he is alive.

Collin Ferry | March 31, 2011 1:50 PM | Reply

Verisimilitude!

KWJ | March 31, 2011 1:54 PM | Reply

Wonderful as always, Roger, thanks for this. I love how you can examine what weperceive and our theories that arise from those perceptions, finding beauty as youdo so, and keeping an open mind.

Mike | March 31, 2011 1:59 PM | Reply

The dear Deacon Godsey writes very eloquently above about his sense --- he calls it"sadness" --- of logic and reason at odds with faith.

As if admitting my faith (that is, my belief system designed to incorporate thosethings I can't prove) in science were equal to his faith in religion would somehowvalidate one or the other.

Science represents man's explanations of the natural world, based on observation ofthings as they are. Religion represents man's explanations of the ultra-natural worldbased on assumptions of things that cannot be observed.

One may not disprove the other, but each of us much choose if both are relevant orone is more-so than the other.

Sadness exists when there is a stake. As if science or religion must compete, and awinner can bask in glory while the loser sulks away, defeated. Truth is, the faiths ---scientific, religious, and any or all others --- are collaborative. You might want tostick one in Box #1 and the other in Box #2. That's fine, if you are a librarian or afile clerk.

I'm not that organized. The boxes are usually tipped over, and it all spills out allover the floor.

Lorenzo Pangelinan | March 31, 2011 2:08 PM | Reply

Mr. Ebert,

In all of your entries that I have read over the past year or so, this is the one thathas finally compelled me to respond, if only because it give me a little joy inknowing that you will have had the opportunity to have read it.

What you have written here has struck me deeply, as it reflects exactly what hasbeen preoccupying my thoughts and musings for these past six months or so, thoughit isn't so much your thoughts on Evolution and The Big Bang (though it is with thoseperspectives I find myself aligned); the words that I found myself so emotionallyaffected by were these:

"A message from light years away would probably miss me in my box of space andtime, but I find that Art can shout to me across a few years or centuries, and it


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carries the same message: "Yes, I exist, and you are not alone."

Allow me to backpedal a bit and provide some context:From the age of roughlyseven to the final year of high-school I identified myself with varying stages ofconviction as a Christian; I attended Church every week, studied the bible with myfather, et cetera. I am now nearing the end of my first year in college, and over thecourse of the past few months I have essentially shed that particular distinction,finding myself gravitating more and more towards atheism, or at the very least askeptical agnosticism.

It was not a sudden, "Now I'm in College and Should Follow the Non-Theist TrendStereotypical of College Intellectuals" decision; I had been grappling with my loss offaith for a little over two years, and only in entering college did I finally feelcomfortable in declaring my conscious rejection of the religion that previouslydominated my opinion of life, death, and whatever may come afterwards. I neededno knowledge of some benevolent deity or life-affirming mission of faith in order tofeel secure in my life; I was and continue to be perfectly content to enjoy my lifehere on Earth with the family and friends I love. But as I lay in bed every night therewas was thing that I couldn't shake, one fear ingrained in me from birth that evennow offers my breath cause to hitch in my lungs:

What about when I die? For weeks and weeks I have been grappling with thisexistential dilemma, what many say is THE dilemma. For all of my confidence in mychoice to reject organized faith, I had no idea how to grapple with the notion thatwhen I die there may or may not very well be Nothing. No pearly gates, nobody toassure me that I am no longer alone. Nothing.

As the weeks have turned into months, I still find myself afraid, but I believe I ambeginning to gain some comfort, and this is where all of my youthful existentialramblings actually achieve a kind of relevance to your above quote, Mr. Ebert:

"Yes, I exist, and you are not alone." I am a lover of the arts, sir, a passionateadvocate of film and theatre and literature and (and I know you disagree with this)even the artistic possibilities of video-games. But that's a different blog, heh heh.

I am not only a lover of the arts, but an aspiring practitioner of them as well. Iwrote and directed a few plays in high-school, and I have loved reading and writingfor as long as I can remember. I am even trying to learn how to draw so that I mayadd a bit of visual flair to the stories and characters that populate my mind (andmight I say your previous blog about drawing was quite encouraging in that regard).

But I am in danger of rambling again; the point is this: I wish to create, to expressmyself as an artist in some way, because I have so deeply been affected by theworks of others myself. The films, books, cartoons, et cetera that have so shapedthe way I see the world mean much more to me than any Bible ever could, becauseyou are right, sir, in what are it all about.

"Yes, I am here, and you are not alone."

And as I contemplate my place on the earth, on the nature of life and death, I amcoming to an understanding. This completeness that has come from thecomplementation of art and my own experiences as an individual is the essence ofbeing that all art essentially strives to communicate. Transferrence is possible, inthat way; where I have been, changed, comforted, educated and made more aware,so can I do the same thing with my work. And that, at the very least, is what I knowwill happen when I someday die. Somewhere, somewhen, somebody will pick up abook or turn a channel and encounter my art. Hopefully they will be touched by it.Hopefully they will be comforted in knowing that they are not alone.

I apologize for rambling; concision is not my strong point and I am admittedly alittle nervous to be expressing myself in such an honest manner on the internet blogof an artist who has been very influential in my ongoing development into an adult. Iadmire your film reviews and your eloquence, if I may be frank, and I do not wish tomake a poor impression.

But back to it. I simply wished to express, in my own obtuse and perhapsself-consciously eloquent way, an empathy and admiration for what you havecommunicated today. It has brought this reader a little joy in reading, knowing thatsomeone I respect believes power of Art as I do. As I look out into the sky I have avery hard time believing that there is some benevolent creator figure watching outover all of us. I get scared, at night, when my thoughts drift to how time will shapeand mold to its own ends my dreams of the future. I don't know if I will ever be a


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great artist, and the challenges of rising to my own lofty ambitions are oftenoverwhelming. It is so easy to think of myself as alone.

But then I read Joyce or Vonnegut, or even my favorite comic book or perhaps aparticularly insightful internet blog, and I know that isn't the case. With every wordwrit to page or image drawn to ink or thought made digital so as to share it with theworld I see the works of human beings who are just like me: Filled with happiness,joy, humor and curiosity and, yes, fear and sadness and longing too.

But it is good to feel, if only for a moment or two, that yes, I do exist. And no, I amnot alone.

Pat C. | March 31, 2011 2:39 PM | Reply

So, the spaces in the "Captcha" are not supposed to be entered?(My attempted comment was brilliant, but I failed the Captcha test; the commentwas thrown away, and I haven't the heart to retype it)

Graziano -aged 24- from Italy | March 31, 2011 3:26 PM | Reply

Hi Roger.Forgive my bad English. First of all I've got to say I consider you my guide line inmovies matters. Ebert's reviews always fulfill my heart and my brain.

I think that using reason should lead to the awarness that not the whole matter canbe exploited. Even if it does not mean we have to stop our investigation.Einsteinsaid we're in a closed box we can't open. So, in a certain way, why should we denyeach possibility? I think that my brain has to consider every kind of possible solution.Why universal gravitation follows the law we all know and not a different one? Whywe do not have innumerable states of aggregation?All questions that do not have a real answer. Just because we have to go back andback and stop down there where we can't accede. Sciences concern a logicaldeductive-descriptive process.Maybe randomness is the key. We got multiverse in which each possibility becomereal, so gravity works in different ways according to different universe. Is thatpossible? Can each universe allow life?I don't know. We don't know. We know we don't know. And this is worthy according toSocrate.I consider fables maybe everything related to god. Whether is the Catholic one ornot.But I consider the idea of a God a possiblity. I have to. Just because there is notsomething taking it off of my range of possibilites.I separate god from god's common conception. I think at Darwin evolutionism asfactual but this not avoid me that I have to consider god as a possibility.

Then the big matter related to faith. I consider my faith as a hope. I have no faith. Isimply hope that there will be something more after death. It's just a hope. Is therereally anyone saying: Well, i don't hope any kind of place in which justice and joyare forever?Definitely I not (ahah).My mum last year had a stomach cancer. I know you can understand me. So my hopeis that each suffering is not vain. I have no faith it will be. Just an hope.

Ok, so my curiostiy push me now to ask you why "Where the wild thing are" got only3 stars. But as a real good guy I'll not ask (ahah).I think at you as one of the few persons I would like to pass a time with to stimulatemy brain.Bye

Philippe | March 31, 2011 3:27 PM | Reply

Roger,

You seem to think only in three or four dimensions, what about the other 6-7?

Spare 11 minutes of your time and watch this. Be ready to be blown away though :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCQx9U6awFw

Philippe

Alex Grosko | March 31, 2011 3:35 PM | Reply


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“Without giving it any thought, with no way to think it, the universe brought intoexistence a way of making itself seen.”

For me, that is the most intriguing sentence in the entire post. (I’ll even forgive youfor anthropomorphizing the universe a little bit.) It got me thinking that perhaps anessential component of existence is awareness, and not in the philosophical sense.

What if: Existence = Time + Space + Awareness

And awareness is as different from time and space as they are from each other, butequally intertwined. I’m not ready to assign it special powers like omniscience oromnipotence or give it a name like “god.” I like the idea that given enough time andspace it could manifest itself in any number of ways that we cannot yet observe ormeasure but which our consciousness is one.

Chris | March 31, 2011 3:37 PM | Reply

Dear Roger,

So, to believe that nothing brought forth something, which went from non-livingmatter to living, which became sentient beings fluent in language, art, science,love, meaning, longing–– that's more plausible and preferable to believing in God?And less magical thinking in the face of leaps that remain incomprehensible toscience and philosophy??"PS- I've always loved your thoughtful movie reviews so I hope you don't find myquestion offensive.

Ebert: I don't know the answer to the statement, "Why is there somethinginstead of nothing?" I do believe scientists have a pretty good idea of how lifecame to be. I don't believe in things I prefer to believe in, I believe in what I amled to believe in by my ability to reason.

Mancuso replied to comment from Barry McCormick | March 31, 2011 4:10 PM | Reply

That's where Tineye comes in handy.

Jeff | March 31, 2011 4:11 PM | Reply

Hi Roger,

I enjoyed reading your post.

Whenever I think about mankind’s increasing ability to peer deeper and deeper intothe vastness of space I have to keep in mind that what we are peering into isactually the past. What we see when we look further and further beyond is not whatis there now, but what it was billions of years ago.

As Spock would say…Fascinating.

I wonder what it actually looks like at this very moment in time. I bet it would lookvery different indeed.

And speaking of Space.

We used to think of Space as sort of a giant, dark, empty vacuum that waspopulated with stars, planets, comets and asteroids, black holes etc.. Everything isjust kind of floating out there with only the energy, such as gravity, from all thosebillions and billions of bodies acting upon each other.

But we now think that space itself is actually tangible – not empty at all. And weknow this not because what we can see, but because of what we cannot see. Weused to believe that after the initial eruption of The Big Bang, all the Galaxies,Stars, Planets and various other detectable bodies created in the Universe wouldeventually start to slow down or even come back together by sheer loss ofmomentum and gravitational forces. Sort of a future “Big Crunch” if you will. But tothe utter astonishment of Astronomers and Physicists, the exact opposite is takingplace. All the detectable bodies in the Universe are actually speeding away fromeach other at a greatly accelerated rate.

What is causing this? There has to be something in all that Space, that we can’tactually see or even detect, creating this tremendous force. And this is where DarkMatter and Dark Energy come into play.

Think of it this way. If you scatter a bunch of M&Ms in what we once thought was


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Space – just a weightless vacuum - they will float there for a while, but eventuallythey will be pulled together by their Gravitational attraction. But sprinkle the sameM&Ms on the surface material of something like a balloon, then stretch that balloonfrom every angle. What happens? It creates a greater distance between the M&Msdotted throughout the surface of that “balloon” material. But at the same time the“stretching” is pushing the M&Ms further apart, they are also trying to come backtogether, albeit in a minuscule way, by the pull of Gravity.

As Space is “Stretched” – caused by this Dark Matter and Dark Energy - there is nowmore and more Space. And with more Space, more Dark Matter. And with more DarkMatter, more Dark Energy. Most Astronomers and Physicists believe that this is whatis causing the Universe to speed apart at a faster and faster rate. Greater than theeffects of energy like gravity from all the known and detectable bodies in theUniverse can withstand. And no one knows what the effect of all that 'Stretching"will be. But I can't believe it will be pleasant.

But many Astronomers now believe that when the decedents of mankind look upfrom the earth and into the night sky, in a billion years or so, all that they will see isdarkness with only few specks of distant light.

Come to think of it, maybe that is what is actually up there now – but it won’t bevisible on Earth for a long time to come…

Nugget | March 31, 2011 4:13 PM | Reply

Excellent essay, Roger. In case you haven't seen this before, I'd suggest watching"Science Saved My Soul" by Phil Hellenes. It touches on many of the same themesyou've addressed in your essay in a very touching way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6w2M50_Xdk

It's definitely worth the 15 minutes. When I watched it for the first time, as soon asit was over I watched it again.

Bill Hays replied to comment from Rory | March 31, 2011 4:21 PM | Reply

Reply to: That thing is a God. For me it is Jesus, and his father.In your intellectual pursuits don't make the possible mistake of intellectual conceit.Human kind will learn amazing things and never know even half of our universe, ourworld, our earth. Perhaps that was for a reason.

Hilarious.

After all these centuries, the Christian nonsense still cripples us.

Jesus had a father. He wasn't a God. Or a Son of God.

IThe size of the universe... I can understand why your mind won't accept it, why youthink a word like "God" makes a good replacement for thinking.

I think we need to talk about Jesus. And we never should be afraid to tell the Truth,that Jesus was an ordinary mortal and the stories about being resurrected from thedead are the stories that con men still tell today, in various forms.

God wants you to kill his enemies... is the most common form.

Gary in Phoenix, Arizona | March 31, 2011 5:02 PM | Reply

If Ray Kurzweil is right, in 2045 or thereabouts we'll achieve virtual immortality withthe human-computer meld. Undoubtedly that would lead to a diasporadicexploration of galactic proportions, interaction with other-origined awarenesses,and more natural selection than you can shake a celestial stick at. Far-fetched? So'sa flash drive, thirty-four years ago.

Al | March 31, 2011 5:34 PM | Reply

A man said to the universe:"Sir, I exist""However", replied the universe,"The fact creates in me no sense of obligation."

Stephen Crane

Sean Dugan | March 31, 2011 7:03 PM | Reply

In your piece you mention the universe as having no opinion. Not to sound too muchlike an existentialist, but what is the universe? Is the universe the space and time in


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which matter exists, or is it the sum total of its parts? If the latter is true, and weacknowledge that we are both its parts and opinionated through our self-reflexivity,I would say the universe is very opinionated, and very aware of itself through itshuman and possible other alien extensions.

Just something I was thinking about. And now, to "Contact."

Blake S. | March 31, 2011 7:09 PM | Reply

Nice post again Roger. I love it when you get existential. Infinite depth down intoeach atom, infinite depth up into space.

ps Wow, Mr. Parsons really needed you to like Battle: Los Angeles. I mean NEEDED it.Good lord.

Bisbo, Ruler of Zingabob | March 31, 2011 7:28 PM | Reply

You earthlings have a problem with reality. It appears from up here you're afraid toleave it be... always trying to concoct new PILLS to make yourselves happy.

We tune into your planet several times a day. We study your reality in manydifferent ways. We conclude if you'd leave things alone, they would be okay --probably.

But we see you have plans now to colonize space. We do not want a visit from yourpoor puny race: for on your own planet, you can't get along with your birds OR yourbees.

Stay down there until you learn how to face REALITY.

Thank you.

Bisbo, Ruler of planet Zignabob

PS how one can find an endlessly varying, spectacularly complicated, wordlesslydelicate, unimaginably balanced and ultimately unfathomable limitless multi-conscious entity "comforting" because it doesn't mean a god damned thing alsoescapes us up here on Zignabob.

Alamanach | March 31, 2011 7:35 PM | Reply

"None of this immensity is affected by what I think about it. It doesn't depend onbeing thought about. If it is true that our galaxy alone might contain 30 to 80 millionearth-like planets, and if every one of them were occupied by sentient beings, itdoesn't depend on what they're thinking, either."

Sure it does. The universe is vast, but the portion of it you need to be mostconcerned about is quite small, and much of it is within your sphere of influence. Ifyou push, it has to push back.

Surely you've had times in life where you chose to trust that things would go in afavorable direction, and the world came through for you. If you hadn't trusted,where would you be now? And just as surely, you must have at some time presumedto much, and suffered a loss that a more skeptical person would have avoided. Hopelies between presumption and despair, and the lives that we build for ourselves--the universe we live in-- get shaped by the beliefs we bring with us; despairingpeople end up in despairing worlds.

What you think about the far-off Andromeda Galaxy may have no impact onsomething so unimaginably remote, but what's that to you? The part of the universethat has the most impact on you cares very much what you think.

spaceterrorsaur | March 31, 2011 8:09 PM | Reply

Ebert, stop getting trolled by the creationists

There's no need to educate these people or explain rationality to them.

Nice article btw.

Marie Haws replied to comment from Lynn McKenzie | March 31, 2011 8:16 PM | Reply

"But for all we know, goldfish may prefer being goldfish to human."

What if every goldfish was previously a human who'd flushed a goldfish down atoilet, after failing to properly take care of it?

Aka: "Karma". :-)


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@ rationalrevolution - "What is more interesting than these observations, is knowingthat people over 2,000 years ago already understood this, before their views weredeclared heresy by Christians and destroyed."

Cat nurses puppies!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TirG8IE5RA

Dog nurses kittens!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0txbXX7u5Sw

Nature is a better teacher than Religion will ever be. As seen above. :-)

Sean Roberts | March 31, 2011 8:22 PM | Reply

Reading stuff like this always reminds me of this Lovecraft quote:

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind tocorrelate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst ofblack seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences,each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day thepiecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas ofreality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from therevelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

The first sentence in particular has always stuck with me (the rest might be a littletoo gloomy/paranoid). From the sound of a lot of Lovecraft's writing I think he mighthave been truly frightened by the unknown.

John Bradley | March 31, 2011 9:10 PM | Reply

Here's my thought. The universe is about 13 billion years old. Many billions werespend creating heavier elements that would allow for planets. That gave us theability to have an Earth, which is about 4.5 billions years old. So, it took 4.5 billionyears for life to evolve on Earth to get an Ebert. Well worth the wait! Now, how longuntil the next Ebert script is brought to the silver screen?

FellowIllini | March 31, 2011 9:30 PM | Reply

Darwin's theory was meant to describe biological processes, though it certainlyappears to be at work more broadly in the Universe. Some combination of theexistence of randomness, motion, time, and whatever the opposite of randomnessis. Would what we call life and intelligence be inevitable on other worlds, or merelyprobable enough that it is likely? We'll know if and when we can observe it, or (as inthe case of many discovered planets) the effects of it. But even beyond life itself,there is a beauty to it all, and it all seems to make sense to minds that did, afterall, evolve from it. Does it just come down to "things are the way they are becausethey got that way"?

EricJ | March 31, 2011 11:21 PM | Reply

Although your post dances around the Theism/Evolution controversy,

"Dances"? How about "Clogs bad Riverdance imitations, until the 2nd floor neighborscomplain"? ;)

Once again, we get all the earmarks of the Atheist Who Wants to Start Up theConversation Again Because Nobody Else Was:The attempt to sound Deep, as this will give the same old ideas Creativity...Blithelyignoring the fact that more general the Deep Thoughts Go, the wider and widerpaintbrushes are being swept, until we're back in the "safe territory" of Good PeopleBelieve Science, and Bad People Are Scary.

And once again...it's fear. Not fear, so much as insecurity--Insecurity that unless thediscussion was on no less important and indisputable a scale than THE ENTIREUNIVERSE, some nasty person might bring it back to personal issues again...And stripaside the facade to reveal that dangerous little notion that the author's attempt toshow what a Deep Rational Thinker, Unaffected by Two Thousand Years of DeludedCivilization, might in fact be (heavens) an opinion, which like all opinions held bymere mortal human beings, can be WRONG.Allow me to be nasty....So, slow week, was it then, Roger?

Deacon | March 31, 2011 11:32 PM | Reply


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Roger,

You know how most of the time, when someone says, "With all due respect...",/i>it's typically followed by a statement veiled under the guise of respect, but it'sactually a sarcastic criticism or spiteful personal remark? In all honesty, this is NOTone of those times...I very much respect you as a person, writer, thinker, etc. I alsovery much respect the other thought posters on your blog. As such, I would like torespectfully respond to the statement/question you posed at the end of my originalpost...

First you stated/asked, "With me, it's a matter of description. I attempt todescribe what I can perceive and learn about without involving additionalexplanations which may be arbitrary. Is it possible that when Jesus said he wasthe son of God, he was a man using the term God as symbolic? Why does what hesaid prove the existence of God?"

I think we likely disagree on what is actually "arbitrary" & what isn't. For me, I don'tview my faith in the existence of God - or His role as the Creator of the universe - as"arbitrary" in the sense of being plucked randomly out of thin air, or as beingremoved from thoughtful reflection about what I see, experience & observe. Myfaith, by its very nature, is not inextricably "dependent" on the "physical/observableevidence" involved, but neither is it completely devoid of evidence on its behalf.

RE: Jesus...the question shouldn't be whether or not it was "possible" if Jesus wasspeaking symbolically when identifying Himself as the Son of God - of course,anything is "possible."

The bigger issue, I think, is what was He likely saying/intending based on the bestavailable historical evidence - of which there is a significant amount to draw from -& what were those around Him at the time perceiving Him to say/mean. It seemshighly unlikely that the Jewish leaders of the day would have been the least bitthreatened by someone they thought to be "symbolically" referring to themselves asa general "son of god." It's much more likely that they believed He was actuallyclaiming to be the Messiah & identifying Himself as uniquely connected to the Onethey identified as the one true God of the universe - & as such, they vehementlyaccused Him of blasphemy & succeeded in having Him crucified.

Then there's the question of how the Roman leaders viewed Him, & the threat theyperceived Him to be in terms of His claims to be the "King of Kings" & "Lord of Lords"- a direct challenge the divine claims of the Roman Caesar - either pre-crucifixion orpost-resurrection (which, contrary to the opinions of some, has a significant amountof solid, historical evidence in its favor & no equivalent claims or explanations tothe contrary that hold any historical water. I would specifically point you to thework of the widely respected historian & scholar N.T. Wright & his books SurprisedBy Hope & The Resurrection of The Son of God.)

Finally, re: your question...I don't believe anything anyone says "proves" theexistence of God; I do believe, however, that there is a significant amount ofevidence to point in that direction, not the least of which is - as I mentioned above- Jesus' resurrection from the dead.

I guess what I'm trying to say - albeit poorly, I'm sure - is that I don't believe "faith" &"science" are "at odds with" or "in competition with" one another, or are "mutuallyexclusive" from one another. I genuinely believe they can & should interact & informone another.

Ultimately, though, I do believe that when it comes to the origins of the universe,the purpose of man's existence, what happens when we die, how to understand &address the problem of genuine evil, etc., scientific observation is insufficient formaking definitive statements/claims about the non-existence of a divinity of anykind (whether it's the God of the Bible or otherwise) & intellectual integritydemands acknowledging a certain level of faith in the process of forming ourconclusions/beliefs/opinions, one way or the other.

With continued respect,

deacon godsey

Ebert: I agree in theory, but am wary of believing something just because it issaid to be true, absent testing by the scientific method.

Daniel Kazmer | March 31, 2011 11:53 PM | Reply


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Thumbs up to this entry! Currently reading The Grand Design.

jasonS. | April 1, 2011 12:26 AM | Reply

Roger, ever hear of Nick Bostrom? Supposed to be a super-duper genius. Not aregular, run of the mill genius.Bostrom convinced me that humans finding life or proof of it's existence outsideEarth is real bad news for the species. I'd prefer to let him explain but it is fairlysimple insofar as it goes. Question is: Where is the great filter?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GnkAcdRgcI&feature=channel_video_title

(FYI: At 6:28 in the clip they get into this question.)

S M Rana | April 1, 2011 1:28 AM | Reply

Ebert: "It's not what I prefer, and not something I am sure about. It simplyseems self-evident."(..that dead is indeed dead..)

As self evident as that a feather and a stone, dropped from atop a leaning tower,would reach the ground at different times; or that time is absolute, not relative; orthat the complexity of life requires intelligence to create it?

Larry Koehn | April 1, 2011 2:42 AM | Reply

Matter changing to intelligent matter over the course of time to look back uponitself and its surroundings with a sense of awe!

EricJ | April 1, 2011 3:29 AM | Reply

You're not telling me anything, Roger. No wonder you attract the absolutists:because neither of you are able to qualify your absolutes, you quibble overpreferences.

Basically, because an athie believes himself to be Absolutely Right, he must go outand find someone to by symbolically Absolutely Wrong, and hold them up in front ofthe rest of the reasonable moderate population and say "booga-booga!" to show howscary it is not to be Absolutely Right.This is presumably to show that Athies are Normal People, because they're not ScaryBook-Burning Religious Extremists/Creationists They Saw on CNN. At least, that's themessage they hope to project...What it instead projects is the image that Athies arecynical bigots who would rather be paranoid of the entire world around them ratherthan reach out to them. When the attempt to show themselves as Normal andDeserving of Sympathy backfires, they try to reason that yes, they may be arrogantcynics, but well, what does cynicism matter, when we're all just Dust In The Wind,Dudes? (To borrow Bill & Ted's philosophizing with Socrates.)Nice try, Carl Sagan...But it don't work. A cynic is a cynic, and a paranoid bigot is aparanoid bigot. They don't get sympathy no mater how many volumes of SCIENCE!(insert Thomas Dolby riff here) they throw at the rest of the belief-balancedworld...But heavens, I must be an Evil Creationist for saying it! No. I'm just a personwho gets out his door once in a while, says "hi" to people on the street, and holdsdoors open for little old ladies.Your fears of the "unknown" are the people you see on the bus and the subway. Tryconquering those fears, and you'll understand a lot more of the universe.

Bill Hays wrote:I was watching the BBC News.(I rather suspected as much.)A Muslim in London said:Something Evil and Extreme, I'll be bound.

Instead of pretending you've expressed any actual opinion here, Billy-boy, let'sfamiliarize ourselves with a few Internet terms: What is a Kook?Here's a term that's been around for a good twelve years or longer, since the veryinvention of the Internet, and yet has deeply specific meanings: It's said that everyforum and board--and even Usenet groups, back when such things existed--had atleast one Kook, never less than one, and rarely more than two or three. Like theCourt Jester or Village Idiot, they had to form a single minority, to symbolize whatthe rest of the court or village was NOT...Ie., that the rest of the forum or boardcould live their lives comfortably in the assurance that they were not.And over the life of the Internet, the aspects of Kook-dom started taking on specific


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recognizable aspects:- The Kook could be recognized in that he lived to post on only ONE subject, nomatter what the conversation was. Either the Kook posted post after post on his ownarea of interest, while the rest of the group ignored or laughed at it, or he couldsteer any conversation topic back to his own area of interest, lest there be someonewho hadn't read it yet, or that he was "just starting to make progress" in newconverts.- The Kook believed entirely in his own popularity, indeed, necessity to the group,in that he was its intellectual life and soul, and would never be so disloyal as toLEAVE it, even though the rest of the group loudly wished it.- When faced with the idea that he was not the popular life and soul of the board,the Kook often went into conspiracy-theory mode, first believing that one lonemeanie lived to torment him...And then, when it turned out more than one tomatowas flying, believed that that same meanie had "poisoned" the regular readersagainst his poor, innocent outspoken First-Amendment views. (Which aren't, btw,but that's another thread.)

There are a dozen other Audubon Spotter's Guides, Bill, but you get the basic drift:You wear the gold-plated tin badge of Official Kook, First Class on this board,because there's always one, and if there was another one, we'd have noticed bynow.Nobody wants to hear about the Evil Muslims who Want to Blow Up the World,Because They're Crazy. Believe me, when you post five times in the same thread, weshould know Crazy by now. I'd say it was doing a public service in helping prove the"Paranoid bigot" theory in full-color illustration, but frankly, we've had a bit toomuch of it already for it to be any new thrill. And the reason I point this is out, on aside note to Roger is, if you're going to keep beating this dead horse in an attemptto look Right...you DESERVE to have The Kook keep darkening your virtual doorstep,believing that you're his bestest war-buddy-pal in the revolution. It's not our nameon the blog.I wish I had the chance to go into further detail, however, I have already goneagainst agreed-upon net-protocol by making the Kook aware of his own recognitionin the first place. On Usenet, we used to say "Play with trolls and you get to keepthem; play with Kooks, and you get to keep them forever. As you might expect, therest of us don't particularly want to.If you don't want the dog to follow you, don't keep throwing him scraps of meat.

Sagramore | April 1, 2011 3:40 AM | Reply

Great article; thanks for sharing your views on the universe! One questionthough...do you think somewhere, on one of those 30 to 80 million possibleearth-like planets out there, someone has created a video game that could beconsidered art?

Joe Young replied to comment from Cyberquill | April 1, 2011 4:26 AM | Reply

This is my second time trying to respond to Cyberquill. I tried yesterday, but keptgetting faults.

Basically, if you accept traditional big bang theory, the universe was infinitesimallysmall, but still finite. Time and space in that extremely high energy and pressureuniverse would not exist as we perceive it, but the universe still existed.

I never accepted that because I tended to believe it was extrapolation based oninterpretation of the evidence around us now.

Other theories now such as M theory, and the infaltionary theory of expansion offeralternatives. I actually think the oscillating universe is more logical.

Joe Young | April 1, 2011 4:34 AM | Reply

Roger,

I find it a little ironic that you write so eloquently on this subject, but when itcomes to science fiction films, you believe raise questions that the creators didn'task. Often, an answer to these questions is fairly obvious to me or becomes obviousif you think in the context of the environment in which the characters operate.

I always got the impression you liked science fiction as a kid and then decided yououtgrew it at some point.


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Mr. Phillips replied to comment from oneofus | April 1, 2011 4:50 AM | Reply

LOL, yeah, because he was raised and brainwashed as a Christian, right? It's onlynatural. I was raised to believe that there's a God and Jesus and all, it's embeddedin my deepest childhood memories. Oh yes, that good ol' terrifying fear of God. Iprefer to call it "The Unknown". But when my time comes, if I had a few seconds tospare I would make a prayer "just to make sure" in case there's actually a God outthere.

I'm not replying to you personally, because I actually agree with you in my case. Youneedn't read anything beyond this point, and probably shouldn't.

It's all beliefs and faith, anyway. Monkeys can't understand more advanced concepts,maybe that's the case with us. Roger has a point - we spend too much time worryingabout the unknown, about an afterlife, and we forget to just LIVE. I do that a lot.

We humans have a tendency to overrate ourselves as a species, maybe because weare "the most evolved" on this particular planet. Are we, really? Do we know that forsure? We don't see or hear the same things animals do. I think it should be prettyclear by now that just because something is "invisible" to us, if we cannot perceiveit, then it doesn't exist. What if ants have telepathic powers we don't know about?Ridiculous idea, but really, how much do we know about communication, human andnon-human?

Studies have shown that your language affects the way you think, the way you lookat the world. The Pirahã Tribe in the Amazon, for instance, are an interestingchallenge to one of Chomsky's main arguments. Those people only know the jungle,it's their home, but they know that there are outsiders and will trade andcommunicate with them on a very basic level. Yet they have no curiosity whatsoeverin entering "our world", they cannot count more than two because they don't havethe same concept of "numbers" that we have - no need for numbers in the jungle.They have no myths of creation nor history of ancestors, they live in the present.They don't worry about "oh, what if I die?", "oh god/sun/unknown will judge me andpunish me", torturing themselves like we do. They just say that they don't know, itdoesn't matter to them, it doesn't interest them. Of course surviving in such a harsh(to us) environment would affect my thinking and therefore my language. If this istrue, it demonstrates that language and thought are very closely connected.

Sorry, I was ranting about linguistics, but I think it's nice to realize that we, thehuman race, are very biased in our thoughts. It's inherent, it's natural (is it?) - I'mdoing it right now. To me, faith in science is the same as faith in whatever religion.

The Bible says one very interesting thing - basically, that we should imagine how is itto be another person in order to better understand their thoughts and forgive them.This is incredibly difficult for most of us, if not impossible. We are very selfish andbecause of that, eager to sacrifice and dedicate our lives to anything that will getrid of the guilt caused by selfishness. Hence, science, religion... I'm demonstratingall of these things in my own writing. It's just my beliefs/morals. Me, me, me. Let'stry something different in the world/life since this is not working. Or maybe theBible was wrong on this too...

There's too much we don't know yet we will gladly and readily accept myths andlegends as the ultimate truth. That's okay, but since I believe and disbelieve religionand science by the same measure, we would be better off just enjoying ourselvesand the company of others rather than worrying about something that is utterlypointless. But I'm doing it anyway.

That's the point, there is no point. We just invented many, so that life and sufferingcan (and does) become more bearable. Without those beliefs, one can't fit into theso-called in normal, modern society. But then you have the benefit of making upyour own story/illusion/myth/religion/explanation, or not believing anything.

Anyway, just exposing a different viewpoint. MINE. Which may be "right" or "wrong",or in between. No point in arguing. It's just a distraction, it doesn't matter one bit.Nobody will read this anyway. I do it for fun. For myself.

Obviously, it's a dog-eat-dog world. Does survival have a point when death loomsaround all life forms? Some go first, some leave later. But they will all leave anyway- or will they? I wonder if we are here to change this (human superiority concept),or if this is beyond our ability. I hope our species can evolve enough to achieve theformer, although I don't think we will last that long the way things are going.

I admit to believing that I'm an ignorant who knows nothing, but still clings to the


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notion that I CAN know. Well, maybe I can't and honestly, I'm happier believing that Ican't and just enjoying what there is. I'd sooner be a happy ignorant than anunhappy "thinker". This whole post is a contradiction.

(fallacy warning)

Life has whatever meaning you may like. Therefore, life makes no sense at all.

"Says who?"

jrdeaver | April 1, 2011 6:16 AM | Reply

I often think of Carl Sagan's book, "The Demon-Haunted World, Science as a Candlein the Dark." He offers this quote by Samuel Butler (1667): "A credulous mind...findsmost delight in believing strange things, and the stranger they are, the easier theypass with him; but never regards those that are plain and feasible, for every mancan believe such."

Somniferous | April 1, 2011 6:17 AM | Reply

Every atom in us--every atom on Earth--was borne by supernovae: the elementsessential for life's genesis and evolution were forged in distant, long-dead stellarfurnaces; jetted into the lonely void by a star's violent death, these elements glidedthrough the cosmos for eons before coalescing with other nomadic atoms into asolar nebula around our newborn sun. Guided by gravity, an embryonic Earth formedinside that solar nebula; after a magmatic childhood, life developed on thatadolescent Earth. Almost four billion years have passed since life emerged: billionsof species have struggled into existence, only to be eternally erased by evolutionarywhims: large-body collisions, anoxic holocausts, climatic catastrophes, etc. Butthroughout this flux, there has been one constant: the atoms borne by supernovae.Again: every atom in us--every atom on Earth--was star-forged. Look at your hands:the atoms in your hands were born in ancient, long-dead stars; the atoms in eachhand--each finger--are from different stars. Millions of light years were traveled bythese dispossessed atoms; when two people hold hands, they bring the cosmostogether. I can't express how I feel when I consider the distance and time traveledby my atoms--traveled by me, in a trillion pieces. http://tiny.cc/k17ic

Pedro | April 1, 2011 7:38 AM | Reply

Superb article Roger.

Its a golden age for 'pop science' readers. Anybody can now (try to) get to grips withthe basic outlines of numerous beautiful ideas. Ideas that thousands of intelligentpeople have dedicated their lives and careers to investigating.We owe a great debt to the scientific writers who see the importance in explainingcomplex ideas to the lay person.

For all those on this thread who embarrass themselves with naive questions andpetty religious-flavoured quibbles: READ. Read about science and REALITY.We are not long for this world, so lets try and learn as much as we can about it,while we're here.Otherwise, we might just as well have been goldfish.

Keith Carrizosa | April 1, 2011 8:10 AM | Reply

To me the message of great art is, "Here's how you live; you need emotional distancebetween you and the person you live with in order to live together; you are twoindividuals living together."

I don't know if "You are not alone" is the message of art, because that goes withoutsaying; I didn't create the art, so someone else must have.

So, I think art is the illusion of spontaneity, and that the nature of spontaneity tellsus how to live with each other with that distance to let us be individuals and art isto, perhaps among other things, to translate that message, or nature's message, ofhow to live with each other from within nature; so, in a sense artists are translatorsof the universe, and spontaneity is also kind of the infinite energy, behind thatmessage: and I think the nature of spontaneity is a sudden yet gentle energy.

Rory | April 1, 2011 8:31 AM | Reply

Roger said: "But given the existence of matter, we now understand how life couldhave arisen."


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I'm open to being educated. Can your or one of your readers that are so hostile toreligion point out to me where I can learn more about how matter evolved into life?I subscribe to evolution, and single cell organisims evolving into more complexorganisms. But I haven't found where it explains how carbon soup becomes a cell.You seem pretty certain of it, so 'link' me.

Ebert: This may be of assistance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Richard Mavers | April 1, 2011 9:03 AM | Reply

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I heard that the patterns in the universe are verysimilar to those found in brain cells (look at this picture)

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/neuron-galaxy.jpg

There are some who believe the universe is all the part of a brain/mind ofsomething greater.

Josh | April 1, 2011 9:33 AM | Reply

Hi Roger,

Excellent post! I really enjoyed it. As a Christian, I don't believe the universe thinkseither. But that isn't an argument against the philosophy that the universe is itselfthe creative product of rational thought. It's not an argument against the philosophywhich says mind preceded matter and not the other way around.

I've always found it interesting that so many people can look at a painting of natureand describe it as a creative work of art, but when they look at nature itself, theyscoff at the idea that a reasonable and intelligent person should use the samedescription for nature.

Randy Masters | April 1, 2011 9:36 AM | Reply

Ebert:...is indicated by the fact that something like 50 percent of the Americanpopulation doesn't subscribe to it. However, more than 99% of all the earth'sscientists do.

That 99% is a fairly self-selecting population, don't you think?

If you sat through your undergraduate classes and were not sufficiently persuadedby the arguments for the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, how likely wouldit be that you would go on to become a professional believer-in-the-orthodoxy("earth scientist") rather than say a quality engineer at a manufacturing plant likethe larger percentage of the American population do?

Ebert: Not many Americans are either scientists or engineers. In the matter ofevolution, they believe what they have been told. Although very few followersof mainstream Christianity and Judaism believe in the literal truth of the Bibleregarding Creation, depressing numbers of Christian and Muslim fundamentalistsdo. That their beliefs fly in the face of reason and show disrespect to their ownintelligence is quite sad to me.

Dud the Luddite | April 1, 2011 9:58 AM | Reply

Snooki says the universe is just one big baddass badong. Study it hard, but partyharder. She knows.

Ray | April 1, 2011 10:01 AM | Reply

When it comes to the Big Questions, I find myself constantly having to balance mycold rationality with my equally cold experience (dare I call it "evidence"?). Forexample, my rational side says we may well be little more than a quintessence ofdust--I have no problem with that idea.

But on the other hand, I somehow have to square that with the fact that when I wassixteen years old, spending the summer in an old European home, I saw anapparition that was clearly human-like in form, and persisted long enough for me tosee it clearly (this, just a few days after my closest friend at the time tragically diedof spinal meningitis, by the way; that may or may not be relevant, but I bring it upbecause--well, because you just never know.). I'm not prone to hallucinations, restassured, I was wide awake, and most importantly, held no prior beliefs one way oranother about such things as "ghosts"; yet this fell squarely into that general


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description. (It scared me nearly to death, by the way.)

I've had a number of puzzling experiences like this through the years, almost asdramatic, and all totally uninvited. So while my rationality wants to simply dismissthese experiences as nothing more than anecdotal, I also know that's not an entirely"rational" approach to take either--after all, stories of rocks falling from the skywere considered anecdotal or hallucinations until Ernst Chladni came along andbranded them as "meteorites." Sure, the senses can be fallible--just as they can bereliable sometimes, too.

So where does that leave me? Simply, I've learned to keep an open mind about suchthings, and not simply subscribe to what the "experts" proclaim--be they scientific orreligious in nature. I'm as skeptical of the skeptics these days as I am of thepreachers and true believers. I try to think for myself, and balance what I read withwhat I've experienced. That's all.

Rob | April 1, 2011 10:32 AM | Reply

Thank you for a thoughtful article, Mr. Ebert. As a teacher of English Literature,what excites me about the possibility of other intelligent life in the universe is thatan alien species would have so much art and literature of their own to share with usif we ever met. I find one of the greatest joys of living in being able to read theliterature of people who lived in vastly different cultures and time periods than myown. Not only is that experience enjoyable, but it rewards me by opening myworldview and increasing my empathy for humans who are strangers to me. Imaginemeeting an alien species and gaining access to an entire civilization's worth of newhistory, art, and literature. What a mind-blowing experience that would be.

An a completely separate note, I like this passage by Carl Sagan from his book "PaleBlue Dot." It's his reflection on a picture that the Voyager probe took of Earth fromabout four billion miles away. I like the humanity of Sagan's perspective here.

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love,everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was,lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confidentreligions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every heroand coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant,every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor andexplorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every"supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--ona mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." -Carl Sagan

john in denver | April 1, 2011 10:38 AM | Reply

Einstein once said only two things are infinite, the Universe and human stupidity.And he wasn't completely sure about the Universe.

Willa (forgot my old handle) | April 1, 2011 10:41 AM | Reply

Roger Ebert wrote: "What we are left with are the cosmic shadows on the wall ofPlato's cave."

That is a lovely sentence. Great post.

Another poster wrote: "Adam did science, in Genesis 2:19-20, naming and classifyingevery created thing, yet it was not enough; so a further mystery was added: Eve.Woman is a far greater mystery, one that can be talked to, sometimes."

Now that is just silly. Why do people enjoy statements like that? Is it the search foran adversarial relationship? Is it the desire to not try very hard to communicate withobjects of affection or desire? Meh.

Rodney C. Dukes | April 1, 2011 10:53 AM | Reply

Excellent and thought provoking as always. A friend of mine lost her mother and willlay her to rest today. I think I will send this article to her. I think we all fail to seethe wonder of how we came to be and are at a lost when we discover how short ourlives are when it's over.

Thanks Roger.

Joe rodriguez | April 1, 2011 10:58 AM | Reply

Two comments:


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1) Roger, you haven't explained well how do you think two inanimate atoms orparticles can come together and form what would be a cell or a basic unit of life. Ido think that this mystery is not that yet cleared for today's scientists but I'd like tosee your sources for whatever you have or can gather. I think it should have thatkind of Big Bang mystery attribute where you could have different explanations interm of what caused it and how.

2) Whoever answers God as the reason for the beginning of life, has just renamedthe mystery at hand and give it another name. Its purpose is to satisfy curiosity andignore intrigue.

Ebert: This may be helpful:

http://thetim.es/ea2WI2

Or would you prefer I tell you it was magic?

John Panagopoulos, Malden, MA | April 1, 2011 11:18 AM | Reply

I believe that we should remember that the true path and purpose (if you ascribe apurpose) of biological evolution is not a linearly upward progression towardsperfection, whatever that is. Rather, the purpose of evolution is developing at leasta serviceable adaptation to one's environment so that one can survive. Evolution canoscillate and twist forward and back to achieve that adaptation. Darwin himselfstated that it isn't the strongest or smartest organism that will ultimately survive,but the most adaptable.

The human is not the acme of evolution, and is not "superior" to his/her fellowcreatures. He/she is merely adapted to a particular environment, just as otheranimals are adapted to theirs. Like any other creature, if the human fails to adapt,he/she will perish.

I remember a comment from actor John Cleese, after the premiere of "A Fish CalledWanda", where he stated something to the effect that we really shouldn't denigrate(gold)fish, because they can breathe underwater without artificial aid, and wecannot.

Joe | April 1, 2011 11:32 AM | Reply

Thank God for Roger Ebert!

Daniel Caux | April 1, 2011 12:10 PM | Reply

Great article, could it be that the recent far-flung Contact "review" was theinspiration for this one?

Just a minor correction here though:

"On every planet where a sufficient degree of intelligence has developed, theTheory of Evolution must eventually be discovered."

Theories aren't "discovered", they are "postulated". Facts and processes arediscovered, so perhaps it would be better to say that the aliens would eventuallydiscover the proscess of evolution.

Take care!

Chris | April 1, 2011 12:11 PM | Reply

Roger Ebert wrote: "I do believe scientists have a pretty good idea of how life cameto be."

The Wikipedia article on Abiogenesis highlights the myriad models and hypothesisout there, along with the problems with each one. The most that science can say isthat life "may" have come about this way or that, but so far the models don't evencome close to solving the complexity of the problems involved.

Roger Bacon | April 1, 2011 12:20 PM | Reply

I enjoyed thought about the moon on Jupiter potentially containing life. You askedyourself why you would care about such a thing, you simply do. I feel it is a basichuman nature to find validity within the natural world, to believe that we aresimply not alone. It doesn't matter that there will never be a realistic way ofreaching out physically interacting with such life, but rather to simply know that weare not in this fight alone, that existence (be it conscious or not) of some kind is outthere, and that we are not alone, marooned in the dark.


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I am currently taking a class in college that I believe you would find interesting. It isabout human morality and how the idea of death affects our action. That theacceptance of death specifically in those that are terminally ill allows for theindividual to lead the life they truly desire. What I see however is that humans willalways be in search; searching for a hand to pull us out of the void.

Would you agree?

S M Rana | April 1, 2011 1:12 PM | Reply

Ebert: "It's not what I prefer, and not something I am sure about. It simply seemsself-evident."

As evident as the earth is flat and the sun goes around the earth?

Ebert: No, as self-evident as that all men are created equal.

Besides, the Earth is not self-evidently flat, if you give it some thought.

Harold | April 1, 2011 1:37 PM | Reply

A wonderful post, yet again.

We can neither prove or disprove... nonsense. Change the definition, the postulates,you'll be surprised at what you prove.

There are 4 bases in DNA. The order, the construction, determines the informationof the gene, of the chromosomes, of the organism. All life.

The placement of two atoms also contain information. Distance, gravitation-mass,charge, et al, are the information. As there are more than two atoms, there is muchmore information to be had. The telescope can only collect the informationimpinging on its sensors, though.

It is all about the advance of information. As yet, one organism dies, andinformation passes in generations or in context.

You are responsible for the information you pass. What will it be, gloom, confusingsadness, hate derision? Or will it be of love, of the pursuit of something grander. Youlive on in the wine that is poured, lo the grape was crushed. It is 2011, I will not seea hundred years on, but I can see thousands of years back because the informationwas shared. We are but links in an evolution of information.

And what of consolation? Our years are as small to time as your dust to the universe.The consolation is in what you share, in what you love and the pursuit of somethinggrander. To me, there is no greater joy than seeing someone helped along the way.

Byron Adams | April 1, 2011 1:48 PM | Reply

Roger,Thank you for all your articles. They have made me realize that I haven't reallytaken the time to know what I really think about these issues (ie. God, the meaningof life if there is no God, what it means to be human, what art is, ect). I think, assomeone that was raised very religious and was given a double helping of feartowards the concept of burning in hell for being bad and being an unbeliever, thatthe implications of there not being a God really scare me.What if there is no God? What if there is nobody waiting for me after I die to pat meon the head and tell me that I was a good boy. When I first started to really thinkabout that the thought so terrified me that my mind refused to accept it. My brainjust sort of did a whiteout.I think that what your articles have done is give me the courage to honestly examinewho I am and what I really believe. And I think that is what art really is. Maybe artis different for everyone but your art has touched me. For that I thank you.This is just a side note but every time I see something about how big the Universe isI think of the scene in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where, as a form oftorture, these aliens would put someone in a chair and with some kind of technologywould force into the mind of their victim a true knowledge of just how vast theUniverse is and how small they were in it. So in their mind the person knew howtruly small they were. Imagine how awful that would be.

Andy | April 1, 2011 2:12 PM | Reply

This is one of your most brilliant and eloquent posts. The thought that there are 30to 80 million earth-like planets in our galaxy alone is incredibly inspiring and tragic.


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Like you, I simply can't comprehend the vastness of space. What if we find a planetthat harbors life one billion light years away? How would we ever communicate withthem? How long would it take to send them a message? Could their civilization evensurvive long enough to receive it?

It's overwhelming enough the learn about the vastness of our own human history, allof 5000 years or so. What will human our society look like in 1 million years?Eventually, our sun will die. At some point, all of the human race must pack ontosome giant spaceship and venture off into the universe looking for another planet onwhich to survive. Imagine how many human lifetimes it would take to reach such adestination, one billion light years away! It is known that nothing can go faster thanthe speed of light, and I doubt that the human body could survive under suchconditions. What will become of us? While I can't see a solution now, I can only hopethat millions of years of an ever-growing base of scientific knowledge will providean answer.

It would take a round trip of more than two million years to change a message witha source a million light years away. We have no reason to believe an organixcivilization can exist even for a tiny fraction of that time.

Murphy | April 1, 2011 2:17 PM | Reply

Hi Roger,Thanks for the excellent article. A question: how large is the universe, in youropinion? Because if it is infinitely large, then if we look hard enough, we should beable to find planets that are exact copies of this one. If the universe is finite, thenthat implies the universe has outer boundaries. However, this wouldn't rule outinfinitely many other bounded universes, at least one of which should have a copy ofour planet. Therefore, not only do I think we are not alone, I also think we are notunique. Just thought I'd share.

Ebert: The universe has no boundaries because it is curved.

Tom Dark | April 1, 2011 2:23 PM | Reply

Fact: Atheists have to pay for sex or they never get any. That's why they'realways so grumpy.

...and tootling obsessively about what they are afraid really does exist. There is aspecial hell for cheap government spies, though.

Been in bed too much lately, myself. Not for getting laid, the exuberant exerciseexempts that otherwise horizontal sloth.

It's windy season here and I've got a bed on the deck upstairs. When I'm not on it,there are usually a couple of dogs snoozing on it. When I am, they're still there.

If I had to choose between a night at Hef's mansion with all those geneticallysculpted blondes or one on that outdoor bed in the Spring wind with a couple ofwarm, fuzzy dogs... well... sorry girls, but you talk too much.

It's pretty close to a primeval sky here. A moonless night casts starlight visible onthe ground. I see what the ancients saw from high towers in Babylon. They made useof the stars in ways that we don't and not for modern-style astrology.

The sight is an awe realer and more vivid on the emotional Richter scale thanphotos, or attempts to wow oneself artificially by dutifully imagining some "BigBang" -- which never happened anyhow. If you happen to be a child, pretendingabout Santa Claus is more fun (I knew there was no Santa. I had to grow up some torealize there was no "Big Bang" and no "entropy").

I can see three-dimensional relationships among the celestial clusters, the planetsplainly a hand's reach away, the wind blowing dramatically across the surface of theearth where I lie. There are different colors. There are "dark" areas. There are foggyluminous areas, stars so numerous they outnumber the sand grains blowing acrossthis valley, the whole Great American Desert, Mongolia's and Africa's sand grainscombined. Leaning deeper into what I'm looking at, these staggering areas ofindividual suns look like part of a powder.

Squint and concentrate on those distant fog-beds and one can sense them moving insome way. Maybe my mind is anticipating their movements, moving like clouds, butin a trillion of our puny years' time, aware of their own sensations amongthemselves, perhaps electromagnetically like the minute components of an earthly


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cloudy sky.

I close my eyes and can feel those sensations in myself. I'm making them myself.They're not being made by some biological brain-glitch predetermined by imaginarygenetic goblins. I'm quite conscious that I'm imagining this.

Open my eyes again and there are the stars again, and the wind blowing away everyother consideration but this one. This little part of the universe I'm seeing, aninstant googol perplex of matter and space visible by eyes inner and outer, is mycreation. I feel it the same way one feels his pulse and the actions of various organsmoving through his body.

...you can sense these things while in the city, too, if your mind isn't habitually noisywith fragmented gobs of undigested thought. "Do the noises in my head bother you?"Isn't a groundless joke in this society.

The dogs hear coyotes a-hooting and have to join in too. You city gringos wouldprobably run for a big hotel to get away from these canine songs. But so intent am Iand the gorgeous, enormous vitality of this night sky on each other, the highdecibels of the dogs seem just fine. The congress of consciousness between me andthese star-fogs "billions of light years away" continues, kindly encloaking theenthusiastic melodies of the dogs on my bed.

What's the difference between reading studies about sex and having sex? If duringthe act all you can do is think about what you read in a study, you've got a littleproblem with reality, there, bud. You're out of touch with your own. Literally, you'reout of your senses.

So too with these obsessive arguments banging an imaginary "Religious Truth" againstan imaginary "Scientific Truth" like a toddler banging alphabet blocks together whodoesn't understand the letters on them.

You bang heated meaningless words against one another. It's a substitute foracquiescing to the validity of one's own mind and inner sensations. These need nojustification from the flapping corrosions of religions or sciences as society presentlytries so dutifully to continue to believe in.

Try not to let these tales get you into trouble. Religious fanaticism is boiling even inthis country and "evolutionary theory" has allowed justifications for people toextinct whole masses of each other.

It's just that people who fear the independent sensations of their own minds maycling to decorations that meet with social approval instead. Science? Theology?Fiddle faddle.

I see so many sentences that go "I use reason." There's usually such a martialstiffness to them, a parrot would be ashamed to imitate reasoning that badly. Anindividual's conscious sensations are data. What reason arbitrarily deletes data thatdoesn't fit a theory? That's "Truth-making," the quickest road to Falsehood there is.

(Fewer than half of my postings have shown up on your blog the past few months,Rodge. Don't know why that should be, unless this new improved format wasgovernment-designed.)


Fact: Atheists have to pay for sex or they never get any. That's why they'realways so grumpy.

...and tootling obsessively about what they are afraid really does exist. There is aspecial hell for cheap government spies, though.

Been in bed too much lately, myself. Not for getting laid, the exuberant exerciseexempts that otherwise horizontal sloth.

It's windy season here and I've got a bed on the deck upstairs. When I'm not on it,there are usually a couple of dogs snoozing on it. When I am, they're still there.

If I had to choose between a night at Hef's mansion with all those geneticallysculpted blondes or one on that outdoor bed in the Spring wind with a couple ofwarm, fuzzy dogs... well... sorry girls, but you talk too much. You'd drown out thewind bitching about it.

It's pretty close to a primeval sky here. A moonless night casts starlight visible onthe ground. I see what the ancients saw from high towers in Babylon. They made useof the stars in ways that we don't and not for modern-style astrology.


47 of 115 4/17/11 4:39 PM

The sight is an awe realer and more vivid on the emotional Richter scale thanphotos, or attempts to wow oneself artificially by dutifully imagining some "BigBang" -- which never happened anyhow. If you happen to be a child, pretendingabout Santa Claus is more fun (I knew there was no Santa. I had to grow up some torealize there was no "Big Bang" and no "entropy").

I can see three-dimensional relationships among the celestial clusters, the planetsplainly a hand's reach away, the wind blowing dramatically across the surface of theearth where I lie. There are different colors. There are "dark" areas. There are foggyluminous areas, stars so numerous they outnumber the sand grains blowing acrossthis valley, the whole Great American Desert, Mongolia's and Africa's sand grainscombined. Leaning deeper into what I'm looking at, these staggering areas ofindividual suns look like part of a powder.

Squint and concentrate on those distant fog-beds and one can sense them moving insome way. Maybe my mind is anticipating their movements, moving like clouds, butin a trillion of our puny years' time, aware of their own sensations amongthemselves, perhaps electromagnetically like the minute components of an earthlycloudy sky.

I close my eyes and can feel those sensations in myself. I'm making them myself.They're not being made by some biological brain-glitch predetermined by imaginarygenetic goblins. I'm quite conscious that I'm imagining this.

Open my eyes again and there are the stars again, and the wind blowing away everyother consideration but this one. This little part of the universe I'm seeing, aninstant googol perplex of matter and space visible by eyes inner and outer, is mycreation. I feel it the same way one feels his pulse and the actions of various organsmoving through his body.

...you can sense these things while in the city, too, if your mind isn't habitually noisywith fragmented gobs of undigested thought. "Do the noises in my head bother you?"Isn't a groundless joke in this society.

The dogs hear coyotes a-hooting and have to join in too. You city gringos wouldprobably run for a big hotel to get away from these canine songs. But so intent am Iand the gorgeous, enormous vitality of this night sky on each other, the highdecibels of the dogs seem just fine. The congress of consciousness between me andthese star-fogs "billions of light years away" continues, kindly encloaking theenthusiastic melodies of the dogs on my bed.

What's the difference between reading studies about sex and having sex? If duringthe act all you can do is think about what you read in a study, you've got a littleproblem with reality, there, bud. You're out of touch with your own. Literally, you'reout of your senses.

So too with these obsessive arguments banging an imaginary "Religious Truth" againstan imaginary "Scientific Truth" like a toddler banging alphabet blocks together whodoesn't understand the letters on them.

You bang heated meaningless words against one another. It's a substitute foracquiescing to the validity of one's own mind and inner sensations. These need nojustification from the flapping corrosions of religions or sciences as society presentlytries so dutifully to continue to believe in.

Try not to let these tales get you into trouble. Religious fanaticism is boiling even inthis country and "evolutionary theory" has allowed justifications for people toextinct whole masses of each other.

It's just that people who fear the independent sensations of their own minds maycling to decorations that meet with social approval instead. Science? Theology?Fiddle faddle.

I see so many sentences that go "I use reason." There's usually such a martialstiffness to them, a parrot would be ashamed to imitate reasoning that badly. Anindividual's conscious sensations are data. What reason arbitrarily deletes data thatdoesn't fit a theory? That's "Truth-making," the quickest road to Falsehood there is.

(Fewer than half of my postings have shown up on your blog the past few months,Rodge. Don't know why that should be, unless this new improved format wasgovernment-designed.)

Markus J. Grindleblatt | April 1, 2011 2:38 PM | Reply


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In various regions of the Congo, there are currently women whose faces are blottedwith acid. Fathers are forced to rape their daughters. Children are turned intosoldiers.

How many people in Africa are dying from AIDS?

How many children are forced into prostitution in the Red Light District of India?

At this very moment, how many husbands are beating their wives for not puttingaway the dishes on time?

How many people are in prison in Houston, Texas?

How many homeless are wandering in New York City?

How many business executives are stealing from their minimum wage employees?

How many dictators are ordering genocide from their air conditioned palaces?

How many nuclear weapons are stock piled in this country?

I see the arguments posted in this blog, and I think you've all forgotten how manyproblems exist right before our eyes. All this quibbling about the creation of life,about the mysteries of the universe, can wait a couple centuries.

Ken Neely | April 1, 2011 2:54 PM | Reply

"Not even super computers can adequately organize and assess their vast findings.Amazing discoveries may be buried within the data."

I'd like to add a tantalizing thought to this statement.

Computers never sleep. They never get tired and they never get bored. We mayprovide them with data we have gathered, tell them how to analyze the data, andthen stand back and see what they find. It matters not that it may take a long time,nor even that many iterations of new instructions may be needed to make use of thedata. Discovery will occur. What do you suppose it will look like ?

Ebert: If all the data from the Hubbles is crunched, I would except someinformation to be discovered that apparently was sentient in origin. If nonedoes, that would prove nothing, since Hubble at every distance is only receivingthe transmissions from a tiny wedge of time. The closer a source is to us, thebetter the chance of it coinciding.

Eric | April 1, 2011 3:00 PM | Reply

I believe that most people that do not believe in evolution simply do so because of alack of understanding of the theory. To all those people I recommend RichardDawkin's book called The Greatest Show on Earth.

It explains in great, easily understandable details what is evolution, how it works,how it started, etc..

It also compares natural selection, which drives evolution, with artificial selectionlike all the new breeds of dogs created by man over generations by careful selectionof mating partners.

Derek in Indiana | April 1, 2011 3:28 PM | Reply

While reading this, I couldn't help but think of the film adaptation of Carl Sagan'swondrous novel Contact, and the line spoken by the great David Morse near thebeginning of the film. His character's daughter, Ellie, asks if he thinks there arepeople on other planets, to which he replies, "I dunno, Sparks. I guess I'd say, if it isjust us.......seems like an awful waste of space."

Truer words have never been spoken

Fduquette replied to comment from Willa (forgot my old handle) | April 1, 2011 4:20 PM | Reply

" "Adam did science, in Genesis 2:19-20, naming and classifying every created thing,yet it was not enough; so a further mystery was added: Eve. Woman is a far greatermystery, one that can be talked to, sometimes."

Now that is just silly. Why do people enjoy statements like that? Is it the search foran adversarial relationship? Is it the desire to not try very hard to communicate withobjects of affection or desire? Meh."


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It appears many on this blog are disposed to censoring religious references, andevidently, our replies. Rather than dealing with my argument, biblical reference orexegesis, you instead claim "silliness", ad hominem. Then my sincerity is in doubt, innot trying very hard.I note you use the word "object" to classify one's aimed "affection or desire". That itmy point; by objectifying what you perceive, by naming, you create the illusion ofmastery and power. Whether you name her Eve or evolution, you avert your starefrom the eruption. Avert an earthquake? If science could even predict anearthquake, I'd accept that as an improvement, beyond the "every 300 years"forecast.Physics rediscovered Heraclitus, that what appears as material is in rampant motion,energy.There is no thing, law or object, undermining the entire basis for science.What is true today is nonsense tomorrow, nature will not be ruled, no more thanwomen are willing, for which we have only our sentimental attempt to be freed bynaming her.

Randy Masters | April 1, 2011 4:31 PM | Reply

Hi Roger,

Regarding where we spend eternity when it's our time, I am of a mind with Frisbee-ology. We believe that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and you can't getit down.

Ta-dum. Okay, bad April Fools Day joke.

Credit to some comedian or other long ago on the Tonight Show.

Back to serious discussion of your excellent topic...

Tim | April 1, 2011 4:42 PM | Reply

Dear Roger,I highly recommend you read the short story called 'The Last Question' by IsaacAsimov, which can be found in his collection "Nine Tomorrows", if you haven'talready (it's only about 13 pages long). It will give you a greater vision of theuniverse and tie it up nicely with the idea of 'God'. Asimov himself once called it TheGreatest Science Fiction Story Every Written, so if you don't like it, you only havehim and me to blame.Cheers!

Tim | April 1, 2011 4:53 PM | Reply

Oh one other thing:Although I still can't really grasp how 'something' can come from 'nothing' (perhaps itis merely a problem of meaning and linguistics), I can at least begin to accept itwhen I hear the Buddhists say that essentially something and nothing are the SAMEthing.However, I find it harder to believe that intelligence can come from nothing.I refuse to believe that intelligence can develop from an entirely materialisticevolutionary process.The great amount of intelligence that exists on our world in animals, plants, and soforth, as well as in the universe at large, would seem to imply some kind of greaterintelligence behind it. You can tell me that if you have enough monkeys typing in aroom, eventually you will have Hamlet, but who can honestly have 'faith' in that?? Todo so would seem just as preposterous and unlikely as it would be to believe in a'God' (if not moreso!), don't you think?

keith carrizosa replied to comment from Keith Carrizosa | April 1, 2011 5:02 PM | Reply

In case anyone didn't get the profoundness of that,

it is, as spontaneity is a sudden yet gentle energy, it seems that is the reason it hascreated gentle creatures (I'm tired of spoon-feeding now, so I hope everyone gets it;I'm getting weary of simplifying).

keith carrizosa | April 1, 2011 5:09 PM | Reply

I wrote that in a comment earlier that didn't get published, but it said that it isironic that the indifferent without-opinion-universe created, or happened,intelligent life, but it is the stupid the insisting on being judgemental that oftencreate geniuses, as Einsteing also said "success is the greatest revenge", no doubt


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thinking of the anti-semitic teacher who said he would never amount to anything.

keith carrizosa replied to comment from Randy Masters | April 1, 2011 5:15 PM | Reply

With regard to what Roger said in this comment (or perhaps to the other peopleconcerned with other people's intelligence as a result of the consequence of merelysaying they believe in God...ahem, Bill Hays),

I think there is perhaps the possibility that people are just saying that are believingin a lot of these things, like say, heaven, just to have something to talk about, orLargely to have something to talk about. Talking about being rich and so forth canreally keep a stifling conversation from boredom. Also, a lot of Hollywood movieswould also seem to fall into this fantasizing type of thinking.


So I say let all the believers in shallabaloo have their conversation just for the sakeof conversation; I mean, I know I don't always have conversations that aren't lessthan essential. (and for the people who are going to interpret this comment assaying that these type of beliefs affect public policy, I say I can't hear your face inBill Maher's a*s.)

Kate | April 1, 2011 6:09 PM | Reply

Actually, interesting as these musings are, one of the conclusions of the theory ofquantum mechanics is that an observer is *required* for existence - nothing canexist without someone/thing actually being aware of it.

Maybe counterintuitive, especially for those of an existentialist bent, but it doesseem from the evidence that yes, the Universe does need us, or someone like us, inorder to exist at all.

Paul | April 1, 2011 6:36 PM | Reply

Hi Roger,

A favorite quote of mine:

"Either you believe that everything is a Miracle, or that nothing is."Albert Einstein.

That represents a choice which everyone must make. Either you believe that God(pick your own definition) is the Creator, or that Mufasa had it right and we are allmerely part of the Great Circle of Life.

Also, any argument which elevates Intelligent Design by comparing the works ofHumanity to the grand machinations of the Universe is inherently flawed. Humansare a work approximately 14 billion years in the making, but we've only existed forsomething like 0.00005% of that time. That's about how much the current rate ofinflation is devaluing your money every minute; so small you don't even notice it. It'sbeen 7 decades since the first computer, 20 centuries since Jesus was born, andmaybe 1500 generations since our parents were neanderthals. The objects andknowledge Humanity has built in that time cannot be compared to the processeswhich Nature has wrought during the life of the universe. Give us another billionyears, and let's see if we can build something comparable to the workings of thestars.

We do not even know how complicated the universe is. Every time we look into it'smysteries, new ones unfold. Intelligent Design proponents will always be able to usethe mystery and wonder of the Universe to close their eyes and loudly proclaim thatthey see farther than everyone who doesn't hold their beliefs about how and why weexist. Science is not a religion, and Religion is not a science. The boundary is drawnbetween an idea that can be tested against the physical world, and an idea that canonly be believed. We will never see an article in the journal "Science" about a daringnew idea on the cutting edge of Intelligent Design, or a mathematical proof of Beliefin the Bible.

How cruel would God be to give us a life without discovery, where everything wasunderstood, where there was no room for new ideas? Why would faith matter toHim, or to you? We need the unknown to find purpose, to remind us to be humble,and to give us hope.

"To the well organized mind, death is merely the next great adventure" -Dumbledore


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"Blessed are they who don't see, and still believe" - Jesus

P.S. For the record, I'm Catholic, so my ideas are framed around Christianity. I'd liketo see some input from Hindu and Buddhist backgrounds here, but unfortunatelythat task must be left to someone else.

Bill Hays replied to comment from Richard Mavers | April 1, 2011 6:50 PM | Reply

There is no similarity between the human brain and the pattern of galaxies in theuniverse.

If the Hubble is tightly focused on one area, you might see a connection.

but for the most part, galaxies are enormous distances apart.

A brain depends on the rapid transfer of information. Not possible between galaxies.

This is the FOURTH time that i have typed the correct characters into the Captchaand it refused to accept them.

several | April 1, 2011 9:31 PM | Reply

You should understand at least one thing very clearly; everything you've just saiddepends on thought. Therefore, it should be obvious that thought is the creator ofthe universe. Thought plays a trick and tells you that the universe and all its objectsexist independently "out there," and you fall for it hook, line, and sinker. This is theprimary delusion of science and materialism. But when thought is in abeyance, as insleep or profound meditation, there is no talk of a universe out there and noexperience of one, either.

So if you wish to actually measure something, measure a thought, its length,breadth, and duration. But you cannot use another thought to do so, which would beabsurd and would defeat the exercise. Of course it cannot be done, andfurthermore, it's not worth doing.

Ebert: That thought has been created in the universe is beyond usefuldiscussion. That it created the universe seems paradoxical.

S M Rana | April 1, 2011 10:30 PM | Reply

Ebert: "No, as self-evident as that all men are created equal."

With due apologies to Thomas Jefferson, (and my own skepticism about the word"created"), this is the truth which history continues tragically to prove to have beenthe least self evident of all. In any case, far less so than that death is the "be all andend all." Furthermore, the two statements are on contradictory poles.

Nathan | April 1, 2011 10:34 PM | Reply

Heya Roger,I wish I could read all of the comments, and perhaps my sentiments have beenexpressed already. Your wonderful article touches on this, and I find a lot of spiritualsatisfaction in this observation by Carl Sagan...I'm paraphrasing, but Sagan says "we are made of stars and we are a way for thecosmos to know itself." I'm an ex-Catholic, now atheist, and I find that to be themost poetic, meaningful, and spiritually uplifting thought I've ever encountered.

Lane Campbell | April 2, 2011 12:13 AM | Reply

Hmmm. Beautifully written, beautifully illustrated with reminders of the vastness inwhich our tiny Earth exists. Yet ... I sense something missing. Yes, evolution exists.Does that mean that God does not exist? If it's stipulated that we humans have therelatively rare (stipulated, not unique in the universe) intellectual ability toconsider the nature of the universe and our place in it ... then what's the next step?Speaking as an old backsliding Presbyterian, I submit that the next step is to admitthat we, for all our intellectual hubris, are not the pinnacle of creation -- and thatthere are entities, and planes of existence, that are still beyond our comprehension.Why not? Look at what we've learned in just the last 50 years that was previouslybeyond our comprehension! If anything, what we learn just tells us how much wehave yet to discover!

So what is religion, really? Some pass it off as just dogma to be rejected andoverturned with new knowledge. I say, start by looking at the Bible as an evolvingdocument -- one that was started by a bunch of semi-literate sheepherders andfinished by the restive subjects of the Roman Empire. Really study it, not as some


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Absolute Word, but as a chronicle of the evolving relationship between Humankindand ... something we don't understand but choose to call God.

So... is religion all that different than science? Both are forms of inquiry that maynever be "finished" in any ultimate sense of the word. As we probe the universe withour physical tools, we assimilate the images with our senses and emotions. Are weso hide-bound that we are afraid to probe that which we CAN'T sense, physically?

Just a 70-year-old, backsliding Presbyterian, engineer, programmer, ex-motorcycleracer --- askin'

Ebert: I'm with you in the concept of our Search.

But I'm uneasy with Searches that commence with a priori assumptions.

Zeiram | April 2, 2011 1:12 AM | Reply

Time doesn't seem to carry much meaning when measured against space. A secondcan be thought of as a fraction of moment, small when compared to the time ittakes for light to travel.

Within that second are infinitesimal measurements of time that can be reduced toan arch approaching an absolute zero or no value. I don't doubt it exists but it isdifficult to imagine. I would have to forgo all usual visualization in place of ways tolook at life I don't possess (and probably never will).

There is something to be said about the Mozarts who seem to tap into something youand I don't. Imagine what is possible if we used all our brains?

Is zero or nothingness of mass, distance or time possible? I don't know. Some peoplethink the universe isn't expanding but just getting smaller and smaller. Imagine aninfinite vacuum that gradually approaches "zero". Temperature probably has nomeaning there nor does distance or light. Since light cannot escape what's on theother side? The ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey is as good a guess at any at thispoint.

Roger, as for my comfort I suppose I haven't found it. I would have to say it comesfrom love... Indeed, what greater aspect of all creation could there possibly be?...out there. You'd be hard pressed to find something more unique and meaningful thanthat. I don't think that requires expert opinion or analysis.

...You explained how cats were a certain way. I will say I believe more people to belike cats than I think we know of. I wouldn't trade places with any of them.However, I do envy them sometimes. Sometimes its better not knowing. But if Ididn't know things, how would I know that someone like you exists for instance?... Iwouldn't want to live in a universe like that.

Ebert: "I believe more people to be like cats than I think we know of."

And perhaps, for that matter, More people should be.

ABT | April 2, 2011 3:01 AM | Reply

I'd like to throw a relevant bit from a movie in to the discussion.

I had a mortality crisis at 10 that was ugly. At about 11 I came across "Houseboat"with Cary Grant & Sophia Lauren on TV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMs_NGPKlXw

There's a scene where a father explains to his son, whose mother has died not toolong ago, why there is death, and why there is nothing to fear about death. Hissentiments seem remarkably similar to yours.

There are two places where words in his speech imply some religiosity, but I thinkthat had to be included because it was 1958. :)

This clip consoled me greatly at 11, and it still does now.

Karl | April 2, 2011 3:21 AM | Reply

Several people have mentioned the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The closest Ihave come to a Total Perspective Vortex moment was seeing the Hubble Ultra DeepField photo. It's a shot of a very small patch of sky (supposed to be the equivalent ofabout 1 mm square at a distance of 1 meter), and being so small there are onlyseven stars (they appear to have crosses over them in the picture). But it'scompetely covered with spots of light - everything else, large and small, is a galaxy,


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about 10,000 of them in this little tiny piece of sky. The immensity of the universe istruly mind-boggling.

private | April 2, 2011 4:33 AM | Reply

The only thing that happens by itself is degradation and destruction. To look at themethods by which things happend, such as the Big Bang and Evolution (which are inthe end unprovable as they are unobservable) and use them as a final explanation issilly.

Science is nothing more than glorified Journalism. Scientists can never explain whysomething happened; their cause and effect is a sham. Scientists are simplyreportors who record Ad Hoc evidence. "I saw this, then I saw this." Can't say why orhow really.

I could weave a wonderful story that no one could ever prove wrong for howexistence came into being. The Big Bang and Evolution are examples. Nobody seesevolution happening; there are no monkey men; no between species. All you reallyhave to do is give folks a reason to write a higher being out of the equation andthey'll jump all over it, Westerners in particular. It's easier to live a life you know iswrong when you convince yourself that you make your own right...ofcourse thatonly works until you crash and burn and America is owned by the Chinese becausewe all vote people into office who promise to give us money for nothing, but that'sanother story.

If you can't see this for Science Fiction I think you'd make a great Scientologist. I'msure Tom Cruise would welcome you with open arms.

Ebert: Evolution has in fact been observed.

The Theory of Evolution is not a final explanation, nor has it been proposed asone. It is a hypothesis that grows from observable facts. It has nothing to do withpolitics, which is why Chinese and American scientists, and virtually allscientists, subscribe to it.

steve shilstone | April 2, 2011 10:13 AM | Reply

Things beyond human understanding are beyond human understanding.

Fduquette | April 2, 2011 12:08 PM | Reply

"Ebert: Evolution has in fact been observed.

The Theory of Evolution is not a final explanation, nor has it been proposed as one.It is a hypothesis that grows from observable facts. It has nothing to do withpolitics, which is why Chinese and American scientists, and virtually all scientists,subscribe to it."

The observation of evolution (in a laboratory) has one appalling 'a priori' assumption:the conditions/environment that lead to the observation would be carefully createdand designed by an intelligent being outside of the system i.e., intelligent design.

Most theories in the physical sciences have predictive power, however limited, afeature not shared by evolution. Id like to say we will evolve into beings that canbreath carbon monoxide and greenhouse gases but is anyone predicting this reliably?

The claim "all scientists" should be read as all "biologists". Its like lumpingphilosophers in with sociologists..If we take the "all scientists" argument as true,then science is a collective judgment, that the majority holds truth. So when 150years ago a majority of scientists believed the biblical account of Creation, that wastrue because of the infallibility of the majority.

Ebert: What's your opinion of Creationism nowadays?

Chris | April 2, 2011 12:09 PM | Reply

Roger, meaning is paramount to me as an artist (and to you as a writer I wouldthink). I can't fathom meaning, or any other non-physical reality (love, beauty,ingenuity, truth), emerging from mere matter alone any more than I can fathom afilm review emerging from ink and newspaper, or light on a computer screen. Norcan I imagine our DNA coding, enough information to fill 400 volumes the size of anEncyclopedia Britanica, arising solely from the matter that holds it. You may havereconciled these issues to your satisfaction but it seems to me intelligent skepticismis no less logical or justified a response.


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Richard Nanian | April 2, 2011 12:42 PM | Reply

Inspired by Roger's use of Hamlet, I'm little more today than a bunch of quotationsbuzzing around my head and colliding as if bounded in a nutshell. Emersoncantankerously wrote that he didn't care for quotations: "tell me what you know," hesaid. Yet he quoted frequently. No wonder he said "A foolish consistency is thehobgoblin of little minds." Then again, if curiosity is inevitably the desire for achange in one's understanding, it is wise to have as few consistencies (in terms ofbelief, not actions) as possible.

The cosmological questions are worth asking, no matter how many comparativelymundane (serious, but mundane) problems we face. "All of us are in the gutter, butsome of us are looking at the stars." (Oscar Wilde) And now some are looking evenbeyond them.

Wallace Stevens puts forth the most stunning answer to the existential age in hisessay called "The Necessary Angel." He basically accepted the existential premise,but he argues that the human creative imagination, in all its forms, has the powerto give meaning to that which is otherwise essentially meaningless. Philosophers,poets, composers: these create meaning, and meaning that can be real to us.Moreover, because the universe either had no higher meaning or has none that isdirectly accessible to our senses, nothing can overrule it. That is what he is talkingabout in "The Idea of Order at Key West." In it, a woman sings next to the sea, andthe speaker who is watching her is trying to figure out the connection between herand nature. They seem to have some connection, but he knows that the sea is not aspirit that can inspire her, and that her song, which is language, has no essentialconnection to the sounds of the natural world. Yet her song changes the perceptionof the world that the speaker and his friends have:

It was her voice that madeThe sky acutest at its vanishing.She measured to the hour its solitude.She was the single artificer of the worldIn which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,Whatever self it had, became the selfThat was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,As we beheld her striding there alone,Knew that there never was a world for herExcept the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,Why, when the singing ended and we turnedToward the town, tell why the glassy lights,The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,As the night descended, tilting in the air,Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,The maker's rage to order words of the sea,Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,And of ourselves and of our origins,In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

That blessed rage for order is the insistence human beings have that the worldmean something, for all meaning is a kind of order, a protest against randomness.And it is a blessing (not a word Stevens used often), for in seeking meaning, wemake meaning. That is why the speaker, after the woman's song ends, perceives theworld as something more arranged, something deeper, something enchanted.

Plato's cave notwithstanding, we live a rhetorical existence, not an idealist one. Theworld we live in is the one we define. We operate from certain assumptions, untilexperience (broadly defined) forces us to modify them. When that happens, theworld changes for us. (I speak here both of individual experience and for ourcollective scientific knowledge.) Thus, I am happy to accept all certainties asprovisional. As someone who regularly teaches logic, I view absolute arguments witha gimlet eye.

Keats had it right when he defined the highest genius, one "Shakespeare possessedso enormously," as "Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in


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uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact andreason." Note the key word irritable. Facts and reason are wonderful things, andoften or even usually worth reaching for, but they have their limitations.

Years ago, a commercial used to run for Tootsie-Pops. In it, a child brings aTootsie-Pop to a supposedly wise owl and asked it how many licks it would take toget to the center. The owl tears off the wrapper and begins to lick, "One . . . two . .. three -- [kraaaaaccckk]" -- he bites it. "Three," he answers, apparently notrecognizing the question as a Zen koan.

That is how I feel whenever I see anyone try to settle the metaphysical questions inabsolute terms, either by pointing to some supposedly holy text or by insisting thatall metaphysical speculation can be answered by science, or if it can't that thatproves it's a delusion. Neither position seems defensible to me.

The older I get, the more I come back to Whitman. Funny, because I loathed himwhen I was twenty. By the time I was thirty, I grudgingly admitted there wassomething to him. By thirty-five, I was writing about him. Now, in my forties, Irecognize that if I am still reading poetry on my deathbed, it will be him or Keats.

Specifically the 1855 Leaves of Grass speaks to me. The 1855 first edition isWhitman at his peak; almost every revision in later editions (and he revised thosepublished poems constantly) is a retreat. Here is Whitman on science (the ellipsesare his):

Hurrah for positive science! Long live exact demonstration!Fetch stonecrop and mix it with cedar and branches of lilac;This is the lexicographer or chemist . . . . this made a grammar of the oldcartouches,These mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas,This is the geologist, and this works with the scalpel, and this is amathematician.

Gentlemen I receive you, and attach and clasp hands with you,The facts are useful and real . . . . they are not my dwelling . . . . I enter bythem to an area of the dwelling.

Facts are information, but art and genius lie in ideas, not information. Humanknowledge is like a suspension bridge: the facts are the secondary cables that holdup the road, but the main cables from which those cables hang and the towers thathold them up are, respectively, the ideas that connect those facts and theassumptions we begin with. Without all three -- facts, ideas, and assumptions(preferably assumptions of which we are aware and that we acknowledge) -- we getnowhere.

Here is Whitman on the ineffability of experience and awareness contrasted withthe limitations of language:

My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach,With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds.Speech is the twin of my vision . . . . it is unequal to measure itself.

It provokes me forever,It says sarcastically, Walt, you understand enough . . . . why don't you let it outthen?

Come now I will not be tantalized . . . . you conceive too much of articulation.

Not all human knowledge submits to articulation, or even to reason. And I say this assomeone who depends on my reason every day as a scholar and teacher and writer,and who frequently has been charged with being too rational, too logical. I've oftenhad a sarcastic "Okay, Spock" (or "Data," depending on the era) lobbed my way. Butto think that our limited brains -- wonderful and awe-inspiring in many ways, butlimited in the sense of not infinite -- can encompass all possible truth isself-aggrandizing in a way that would amuse even Whitman, who literally sawhimself as infinite.

And finally, here is Whitman on cosmology:

I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems,And all I see, multiplied as high as I can cipher, edge but the rim of the farthersystems.Wider and wider they spread, expanding and always expanding,Outward and outward and forever outward.


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I am convinced that nothing the Hubble has allowed us to look at would havesurprised him.

Bill Hays | April 2, 2011 1:18 PM | Reply

God does not exist.

the term "God" is just a placeholder for things we haven't figured out yet.

Before 1800, the Special Creation in Genesis was a perfectly good explanation forhumanity. After Darwin, it was laughable.

If you look at the universe as a whole, there is no thought, no purpose. It's justthere.

Humans MAKE purpose. without the human brain, there is no purpose.

check my hypothesis by looking at the wall chart showing the entire universe, andwhich parts have been photographed by Hubble. A whole lot of empty space outthere going to waste because there is no purpose.

If you believe in a God, then explain the meaning of 9hfdmv in the Captcha. You canpretend there's a meaning to any random sequence. The fact that it ends in DMAmeans Roger should buy me a new car? that's as good a guess as "God."

Mark Stevens | April 2, 2011 1:27 PM | Reply

Temperatures in the universe range from absolute zero to millions of degrees (takeyour pick of what scale you want to use - it doesn't matter). Life on earth lives atnear the very bottom of the entire range of temperatures. Below where we arecomfortable, chemical reactions slow and stop and nothing happens. Life isimpossible because chemistry is impossible. Go a hundred degrees F higher and ourblood is boiling and chemistry is going on so fast that the chemistry which supportslife is impossible. Go even higher and 'stuff' simply breaks down, vaporizes and isradiated off to wherever it goes.

We simply could not be in any other narrow range of temperatures, not in thisuniverse anyway. It is a miracle we are here, however we happen to be here. Fromzero to millions of degrees of heat we live down at the bottom in a range so narrowit could be thought of as a razor thin slice which could not happen by accidentanywhere, let alone here. So here we are, the luckiest things in the universe (alongwith your cats and my dogs).

David Moutrie | April 2, 2011 2:14 PM | Reply

Thank you for this article Roger, I enjoyed reading it very much.

However, I feel I must take issue with one item: To suggest that humans are uniquein their ability to be aware of their own mortality is factually incorrect.

It is well established that elephants mourn their dead and can recognise their ownreflection in a mirror. They can also use tools, learn from one another and have awell developed language.

See this link for further information:

http://www.andrews-elephants.com/elephant-intelligence.html

john in denver | April 2, 2011 3:41 PM | Reply

If the Universe is infinitely expanding, what is it expanding into? A Void? AnotherUniverse? The ultimate McDonalds? Seems each hypothesis is equally valid.

The latest theories indicate the Universe is expanding faster than the speed of light.Seems there is this mysterious chimera know as 'Dark Energy' that is overcoming itscounterpart "Dark Matter' and everything is racing out of control in all directions.

Wonder though what that would like in the rear view mirror?

Guess we'll never know. We are hopeless trapped in a Cosmos governed by certainrules, like the Laws of Physics, and exceeding light speed pretty much breaks onebasic tenet all to hell. You break one rule, you render useless all the rest. This thenends any chance of our ever finding out what's up at the ultimate Outer Limits. Thisexpanded Macrocosm is operating under guidelines alien and unknowable to allthings sentient and subject to the existing laws of Nature.

And how do we comprehend the boundaries of a place with no center - again it'sexpanding everywhere at the same time simultaneously? How do we perceive it's


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shape - an edgeless phantasm which dooms us to circle about inside forever? Huh?

Reader Kate speaks of Quantum Mechanics. That would have no more relevance herethan the fundamental theory of Special Relativity. How do you make sense of aworld where all atomic and subatomic precepts break down? I rememberHeisenberg's Uncertainty principle - the impossibility of measuring space and timewith absolute certainty at any given instance. Strikes me this confounding Universeturns that old chestnut on its heels. This is the realm of Absolute Uncertainty.

So I guess if you could somehow manage to escape our little ordered Cosmos intothis strange new Macrocosm, you'd have an even chance disappearing toNothingness, morphing into something subject to a whole new Cosmic rulebook, orevolving into a Royale with cheese.

Ebert: As I understand it, the universe isn't expanding "into" anything; it issimply expanding. There is nothing for it to expand into, because it is all thereis.


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EricJ | April 2, 2011 5:33 PM | Reply

Tom Dark wrote:So too with these obsessive arguments banging an imaginary "Religious Truth"against an imaginary "Scientific Truth" like a toddler banging alphabet blockstogether who doesn't understand the letters on them.You bang heated meaningless words against one another. It's a substitute foracquiescing to the validity of one's own mind and inner sensations. These need nojustification from the flapping corrosions of religions or sciences as societypresently tries so dutifully to continue to believe in.

Exactly: The Athie is, if nothing else, a master of self-justification, and knows ahundred escape routes to run away from his own personal public image...After first,of course, dropping a useful smokescreen, like the escaping ninja of a Japaneseepic.The Athie searches to schoolyard-offend and find sympathy at the same time: Hewants to eat the cake of public shock, and attack the nasty unreasonable goblinscausing those headlines he fears from his CNN every night, and he wants to have thecake of being considered Just A Nice Average Guy, too:

If the Athie is accused of not being public sweetness and light, he will bring upharrowing poor-chidhood tales of fundamentalist parents and Catholic schoolteachers hammering hellfire dogma into his head, while the violins play.If the Athie is accused of throwing stones at his neighbor's glass houses, he willimmediately grab the most extreme example and say "Yes, but look how SCARY myneighbors are!"And if the Athie is accused of adding 2+2 to equal a smug and rather badlyresearched 7, he will immediately leap on the shoulders of giants to say that well,it's not his opinions that might seem strange to us, it's SCIENCE! It must be true if it'sin a book! (And how familiar does that sound?)

The Athie uses his faith in The Religion of Science not only as his sword, but as hisshield (to hide behind): It rarely matters what scientific facts are cherrypicked,from astronomy to anthropology, just so long as one can be found to twist a ratherpoorly and overgenerously misinterpreted passage of scripture that the Athiebelieves is at fault of two thousand years of thinking...At which point, suchvalidation offers the Athie the Get Out of Arguments Free card, with which he mayattack and all of his imagined enemies at will, abandon and, of course, personalglee. Well, there it is you see, you wouldn't argue with Stephen Hawkings, wouldyou, Voodoo Doctor Mbumbwe?--Now go sacrifice some more chickens and scaresome more children, while we SMART people rule the world!

...Roger, Einstein never even freakin' knew you.If the desire to Shock and Awe us with the science of the cosmos is "revenge" for anearlier generation trying to shock and awe you with Hellfire or Crucifixion Guilt,well, then you should know by now how resistant some reasonable people can be tothe propagandic power of shock and awe. If the larger cosmic issues seem to escapeus, then it's probably because we're still looking the more detailed image of anarcissistic jackass trying to avoid, belittle, scapegoat and second-class hisneighbors with what he clings to believing is complete, holy and indisputable moralimpunity.Where I come from, there ain't no such thing.

Consolation Prize | April 2, 2011 5:56 PM | Reply

"There are many ways to be consoled. Everyone deserves to find their own way, andfind such peace as they can."

Yes, and so I seek consolation. I write in the small hope that you, a man whoseinsight I respect, might have some response for me.

I'm a born again atheist with a Christian wife who doesn't know my recent change ofbeliefs. Every argument you present in this post I believe as well. If she knew Ishared your views on life, the universe and everything, she would leave me and takeour son with her. And honestly, I don't fault her for that; that's what a Christianought to do in this circumstance.

But what does the protagonist of my story do? Lie to preserve the family? Tell thetruth and lose it? Somehow fool myself back into the fold? It's reminiscent of theHell scene from What Dreams May Come. Do I choose to stay in the pit with herrather than lose her? If that was the only way to save us, and it was possible, I


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would do it.

Is there a way for everyone here to have a shared peace?

I'm not asking you to make the decision for me. I know the choice is mine. But asyou say, we seek our own consolation and peace, and my search has brought mehere. I've always valued the clarity of your thinking, and my clarity is in short supplyright now.

David | April 2, 2011 6:40 PM | Reply

Two items:

1) I tend to lean toward the view Robert Wright states in his book "Nonzero" (lastchapter). It's not crazy to ask that there may be a direction/goal/point to theuniverse/life.

2) Roger, I value your movie reviews. I find that my taste in movies is very close toyours. So, as long as the atoms making up your existence stay organized, pleasecontinue to review movies.

GrahamZ | April 2, 2011 11:37 PM | Reply

The more we understand about the universe, the smaller it seems we are. I thinkthat is the true consolation of religion, that it makes man important in the story ofeverything. Not that we need it to do so, just that I can understand why it iscomforting.

To me, it's more comforting, though, that the universe is logical, that it has physicallaws that govern what happens and what cannot happen. A world without such laws,to me, simply does not make sense. And I always see religion as striving to say thatthere are no laws, that anything can happen if God wills it. That, to me is a universewithout order, and in such a universe there cannot be physical laws.

john in denver | April 3, 2011 12:26 AM | Reply

Ebert: The universe is not expanding 'into' anything; it is simply expanding. There isnothing for it expand into.

Aha, a proponent of the Nothingness Principle. I associate the nothingnesshypothesis with void theory.

Contemporary theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate (Physics), Steven Weinberg,says, "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless."

Maybe the Pointlessness Principle is more appropriate. I don't know. Anyhow thetopic sure is fun to think about. Great entry and comments. First heady one I'mreading all the way through in awhile.

jasonS. replied to comment from Bill Hays | April 3, 2011 1:31 AM | Reply

takin' about purpose. These atheists sure are smart!Man, YOU don't KNOW there isn't purpose to the Universe.People don't know everything about the Universe.People will NEVER know everything.People are limited by their evolutionarily designed bodies and our organs ofperception. The basic Kantian insight is right. We are condemned to live in humanworld.

EricJ replied to comment from Consolation Prize | April 3, 2011 4:14 AM | Reply

But what does the protagonist of my story do? Lie to preserve the family? Tell thetruth and lose it? Somehow fool myself back into the fold?

Offhand, I'd say you were faced with the Athie's choice of being "Right", or beingHuman....Hurts, don't it?Choose well, most of them don't.

KWJ | April 3, 2011 8:52 AM | Reply

You know, Roger, whenever I say anything that I think might tempt fate, I alwaysknock wood. Do I really think there's a dryad left in there that can help me avertmisfortune? Of course not. It's a superstition, and I know it, I just do it because itmakes me feel better.

Keep pushing your "evolution agenda." People can believe whatever they want, but


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that's no excuse not to think things through. Evolution makes sense based onimmense amounts of evidence. The theory keeps getting tweaked as more and moreis discovered. If people don't want to believe in evolution, moon landings, orwhatever, that's fine, but they need to realize that everyone else is likely to. Forgood reason.

Lee | April 3, 2011 9:01 AM | Reply

Roger, you are the only writer whose articles I read based solely on the fact of youwriting them. I would dearly love to engage in discussion on what you have given usbut frankly there is just too much meat in this meal to know where to begin.

However I would like to comment on a comment. Your comment was that youbelieved that the information in our brains died with us. I am not convinced thatthat is even possible. Information cannot be destroyed. Matter and energy cannot becreated or destroyed. That means that everything that exists now has always existedand always will exist as long as the Universe exists. Just maybe not in its originalform. The Universe is expert at recycling. Everything gets broken down and usedagain. Including the energy that made up our personality. But it isn't ever lost. In away even death is ultimately meaningless.

Ebert: Information as a concept is a different matter than the informationarranged as my memory.

And if the universe expands indefinitely, eventually won't each atom be alone ina void? What happens then?

Mikki Saturn | April 3, 2011 9:24 AM | Reply

Excellent post Roger. The universe is interesting and I love what you say about art atthe end there.

keith carrizosa replied to comment from Bill Hays | April 3, 2011 9:34 AM | Reply

Go to preview and type the captcha in there when it doesn't work.

Randy Masters | April 3, 2011 9:35 AM | Reply

Ebert: As I understand it, the universe isn't expanding "into" anything; it issimply expanding. There is nothing for it to expand into, because it is all thereis.

Now how does that idea make any sense at all?

With respect, that idea reminds me of the quote Dennis Prager uses a lot whendiscussing the ivory tower of the university:

"Some ideas are so stupid that only an intellectual will believe them." - GeorgeOrwell

I prefer "foolish" to "stupid" if I was writing the quote, but I think that quote standsup well to experience.

Speaking of experience, do you have any human experience of something physicalexpanding that did not expand "into" an adjacent space or medium?

Ebert: Actually, it makes perfect sense. From your point of view, how would youdescribe or explain what you believe it is expanding into?

keith carrizosa | April 3, 2011 9:44 AM | Reply

I'd just like to say that I agree with the message of this blog (read the tweet),because if we figured everything out, we wouldn't be human anymore: which is why"intelligent design" is a form of atheism; it's saying "here's the designer, Steve, sothere's no reason to have faith anymore; just blindly follow....Steve is his name."

But, as I said, I'm for letting people believe what they want so they can keep theconversation going and oh, lord, can buy them a Mercedez Benz....or Steve...andhe's right here, if the IDer's have their way.

Mitchell109 | April 3, 2011 11:03 AM | Reply

Very good article.When I read your musings, I'm often reminded of your original review of Kieslowski's'Red'.


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'Think about these things, reader. Don't sigh and turn the page. Think that I havewritten them and you have read them, and the odds against either of us ever havingexisted are greater by far than one to all of the atoms in creation.'

Chris | April 3, 2011 11:49 AM | Reply

Dear Richard Nanian,

A brief response to your lengthy post. Or rather a staring point for these thoughts.

I strongly relate to much of what you wrote, but only because I believe the meaningwe traffic in is distinct from, and as vital as, physical matter. After all, if our ideasand passions are merely chemical reactions and the firing of neurons then whybother writing and reading these posts? How can we assign any weight to suchreactions in and of themselves. They are devoid of significance. Can a meaninglessuniverse give rise to creatures capable of creating meaning out of meaninglessness?Isn't that a self-evident contradiction? Obviously there is meaning. We can't existwithout it anymore than we can go without water or air (a scientifically provenreality). Do you honestly believe (do your neuron's affirm) it's all self manufacturedin an otherwise meaningless universe?

PS: I'm wrestling with these ideas myself, not trying to be offensive.

Bryce Zabel | April 3, 2011 4:49 PM | Reply

It's a great essay, and I won't repeat what praise others have given, other than tostate that I agree.

Yet, in your review of "Source Code" you state:

After all, space travel beyond the solar system is preposterous, and yet we couldn'tdo without "Star Trek."

Why does the man who wrote this brilliant essay that has generated so muchwonderful debate and comment feel that way? Many, many esteemed scientists donot at all think it is preposterous. And many of those other life forms you think areprobable out there may have a thousand or a million years more experience inunderstanding science than we do.

Why is it preposterous?

I wonder if it is the opposite. Maybe it is common.

EricJ replied to comment from Consolation Prize | April 3, 2011 4:57 PM | Reply

I'm a born again atheist with a Christian wife who doesn't know my recent change ofbeliefs. Every argument you present in this post I believe as well. If she knew Ishared your views on life, the universe and everything, she would leave me andtake our son with her. And honestly, I don't fault her for that; that's what aChristian ought to do in this circumstance.

So, for the Junior Detective Badge prize of declaring yourself One of the Brave FewWith the Higher Answer, you're willing to mindlessly objectify and de-personify thewoman you married and had a child with as "a Christian"--clearly an alien creatureyou can have no hope of common communication with, and who, for her ignoranceand superstition, would surely be always plotting behind your back to "convert" youback to the safety of antediluvian ritual, out of her primal fear of the evolvedcreature beyond her primitive understanding you had become--and imply that she"should" leave you to find other creatures of her own kind, rather than run thefraught perils of trying to cross-pollinate?

...Oooo-kay. Good luck with that. Nice building blocks to create a better universewith.Faith involves not so much the willingness to say "I don't know", but conquering theFEAR of saying "I don't know"...Also the even greater fear of saying "I'm not the mostperfect genetic/intellectual specimen who ever deserved to be raised above hisfellow creatures in the slime, by some undefined status of society that has entitledme to deserve it."If you woke up one morning and realized that every status you had worked so hardto earn had left you with nothing, you would have only the ground to build from. Weseek what will bring us happiness, even if it exposes what we think makes us"comfortable". Probably because happiness, for some odd, ancient reason, drives usto bring it to others who don't have it.


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With apologies to Chinese proverbs:The man who isn't a jerk and knows he isn't a jerk is wise...Listen to him.The man who isn't a jerk, and does not know he isn't a jerk is asleep...Wake him.The man who is a jerk, and knows he is a jerk, is a student...Teach him.The man who is a jerk, and does not know he is a jerk, is a jerk...Slap him. :)

Ebert: I would work on growing closer to your wife and avoiding a confrontationon dogma. It is more important for your son to have a family life than for you orshe to be right or wrong.


Well, yeah, Eric.

I thought I came close enough with that posting to merit a rewrite of it for my blog,which I did, click on my name for it. For you lazy minded, the whole of my messageis "pay attention to your own senses. Stop obeying magazines that tell you not to."

As these pot-bangings of the self-righteous Lilliputians against the forever faithfulstalwarts of Blefescu wear on, I'm pleased to see a little increase in postings of themore intelligent opinion, namely, both kingdoms are fulla crap, holes, andbass-ackward cocksurety blanketing both nations like Japanese nuclear radiation thepapers are telling you is nothing to worry about lately.

Noting over the couple years of arguing here that vanity has forced the cocksurejunior scientists to allow a little lip service to duh, er, we don't know everything...but ANY DAY NOW we will, an' you tea-pottiers shore are stoopid, a-hyolt. Us sciencetypes kin pernounce werds like "immense body of evidence," a-hyolt.

Of course "thought forms the universe," Rodge. Unless you're thinking bass-ackward,in which case, it looks the other way around. You yourself are "a thought."

I'm not REAL certain, but didn't Einstein theorize that people think things, then godo some of them? Or is that still too controversial to consider regarding the originsof anything?

I don't find the direction this line of reasoning goes comforting at all. But I do findLilliputian and Blefescuan intellectuality alike highly stultifying. It's like whizzingaround on a mental mobius strip all one's life, greatly excited about the same sightsover and over and over and over and...

No, there hasn't been any observation of Darwin's evolution taking place in anylaboratory. There are thoughts that say this is what's been observed. There are moreperspicacious thoughts, such as conduct the behavior of these words trotting out ofmy keyboard here, which say there hasn't been.

...if somebody clocked the Amazin' Randi with a hammer in the right spot so he hadan "NDE" and turned to Jeeeeeezus, he would now be exposing how these wickedscientists make it look like evolution is happening under their microscopes.

As I've been saying from the start, this stuff is on the way out anyhow. You're lookingat fluff pieces in magazines. Adding an "agenda" to this fluff, despite whoeverslobbered out a compliement for it, doesn't do Lilliput any good nor make thestalwarts of Blefescu any smarter.

But I hope soooooooome liiiittle teeeeeeeny crack opens up here by way of mypostings and of those who endeavor to perservere similar among theseknow-"almost"-everythings in their little beaver hats.


Reply to: I write in the small hope that you, a man whose insight I respect, mighthave some response for me. I'm a born again atheist with a Christian wife whodoesn't know my recent change of beliefs. If she knew I shared your views, shewould leave me and take our son with her. Lie to preserve the family? Tell the truthand lose it?

My answer (not Roger's) is "Courage."

If you keep your new beliefs secret, it won't be much of a marriage. You have towork hard at a marriage, and every person has the right to be in a happy marriage.So, give your wife some respect. Challenge her to give up her Christian beliefs andher Imaginary Friends and move into the 21st Century with you.

Work on your arguments. Learn more. Expect her to do the same.


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If she tries to take your children, go to court and stop her.

and, if she can't join you, say good-bye and move on to your Next Life. In oursociety, people get divorced all the time. You don't realize that a Christian wife isholding you hostage, holding you back, until you've left her behind. then, you findit's actually a Better Place to be in.

It's traumatic to say goodbye to Imaginary Friends, or an old car, or to watch a houseburn to the ground with all your possessions. And yet, life goes on. find the courageto move forward. Maybe you can lend her some of your courage.

On Google News, there are 4,300 newspaper articles about Terry Jones burning aKoran. Muslims are trying to fight America's Freedom to attack religion.

Let me quote a Guardian article:

.... Staffan de Mistura, the top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan, placed direct blame onthose who burned a copy of the Muslim holy book in Gainesville, Florida, last month,stoking anti-foreign sentiment/

"The demonstration was meant to protest against the insane and totally despicablegesture by one person who burned the holy Quran," he said. "Freedom of speechdoes not mean freedom of offending culture, religion or traditions," de Mistura said."Those who entered our building were actually furiously angry about the issue aboutthe Quran. There was nothing political there." (end)

My question is, IFf Freedom of Speech doesn't mean the freedom to offendestablished religions or traditions, what does it mean?

Talking to your wife... and asking her to grow and learn... might take courage. Butthe concept of marriage would seem to require you to talk to her about it..

Frank | April 3, 2011 6:58 PM | Reply

There are great civilizations spread across the Universe . . . but have they visitedus? That's actually a more pressing question.

http://ufopartisan.blogspot.com/


...if somebody clocked the Amazin' Randi with a hammer in the right spot so he hadan "NDE" and turned to Jeeeeeezus, he would now be exposing how these wickedscientists make it look like evolution is happening under their microscopes.

BUT, as it so happens, one of the Evil Bible-Thumpers Out There (namely, PeterPopoff, who sued Randi for telling the world he used an earphone, thus inventingthe whole cliche' we now see in movies, and basically sucked away all of Randi'sgenius-grant million before he could enjoy it) had Persecuted Him In Public--Provingthat anyone with anything resembling some denomination of faith was clearlyVindictive, Fundamentalist, Jealous of Smarter People's Attention, and Out To GetHim.

Ran across a bumper sticker the other day: "Militant Agnostic: I Don't Know, and YouDon't Know Either."If that sounds a tad, erm, familiar, it should--I'm not sure whether the maker of thebumper sticker thought he'd made it up, or was so under the revolutionary-fervorspell of St. Bill that he/she thought his spirit had entered them to be but onefollower of His Anointed Word. (And, as Keith says, it's hard to hear with his/herface in Maher's a*s.) Evidently, they were so scared by documentary movies aboutred-state kids praying to George Bush, that they themselves were willing to pray toa cable-network comic to relieve their fears.Was also struck, however, by why an Agnostic (who, by Webster's, is willing to admitthey're not sure, as opposed to having Figured It All Out) felt such need to assurethe rest of the entire world that they were militant about it. If armies have massedfor war, who are we fighting? Are we using guns? Have they reinstated the draft? WillI have to learn to like Canadian beer? Well, have to admit, it's certainly a changefrom all those sneaky world-domination church-going folk talking about "loving yourneighbor"..If you were to ask such "militant" folk, you would find out they DO have an enemy:All those People Out There that they see on the news. Like the survivalist stillgetting into his camos and fighting paintball wars every Saturday, the Militant


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Athie/Aggie(?) has his guns polished and ready for all those hordes of "teabagChristians" ready to storm his front porch and convert his wife, loved one, orchildren...Even your friends or neighbors could be one!

Practically every Athie poster here so far has felt a need to come forward and TELLus that they are one. (And, to prove how much they don't need a deity figure, say"Bless you, Mr. Ebert, I'll follow you to the mountaintop.") Telling someone else youare one seems to be the most holy sacrament of the practice, whether you actuallybelieve in it or not.Now (as opposed to the equally buffoonish Fundamentalist folk, who have the needto put "Christian Plumbing Service" on their trucks) the New Testament has a veryclear stance about whether or not you should need to tell someone what beliefsystem you belong to: Mr. J was of the opinion, that, frankly, you shouldn't haveto--What you believe in should be perfectly obvious from the acts you do for others.Or to put it simply, who is the showoff trying so hard to convince with theirmembership badge?...Me? ;)

Peter Callan replied to comment from merryjman | April 3, 2011 7:39 PM | Reply

To paraphrase Father Ted: "because we are very small and they are far away."

We are only just beginning to find evidence of planets around some of the closestsuns to us, planets that probably don't contain life as we are familiar with it. It isunfortunate, but Hubble hasn't been able to take live action footage of aliens inglistening cities on distant worlds.

They probably haven't seen us either.

What confuses me is the certainty people seem to have concerning thenon-existence of alien life. If it is out there (and it probably is - to deny it smacks ofpre-Copernican thinking), then it will not be like us, it will see the universe in wayswe can't imagine, and will have as many problems in understanding us as we will inunderstanding them.

They will simply be different. Not human. Separate entites. Whole new species.

They will not be made in our image. And they may have no interest in us at all.

Or they may be looking in another direction.

The arrogance to believe that we are all there is. And that we are important enoughto anything outside our small sphere of influence to even register on anotherconsciousness. And to believe that all the answers to these questions lie in a singlebook written before there were even telescopes or the knowledge that the worldwas round.

JimV | April 3, 2011 7:44 PM | Reply

RE: "Matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed."

With a slight re-wording, say "matter-energy" instead of "matter and energy" thatwould be true on a local scale, but it is false as worded since matter can be turnedinto other forms of energy, as in a fusion reaction, and vice-versa. On a granderscale, according to General Relativity, it is not true even with my re-wording. I amnot an expert in GR, but physist Sean Carroll of the blog "Cosmic Variance" is, andthat's what he says. For those who don't believe in General Relativity, itspredictions, such as the precession of Mercury and gravitational lensing, have beenconfirmed, and your GPS devices would not work accurately if they did not take itinto account.

I know it's hopeless to argue with those who won't accept anything outside theirimmediate experience; they should have enough historical awareness to know thatthe same arguments of personal incredulity were (and are) made by those whothought the Earth was flat and that the Sun revolves around it, but they don't;however, when people are wrong on the Internet someone should point it out. (Yes,it has happened to me on occasion also.)

As for the article here which generated the comment which I quoted, paradoxicallyit made sense to me and it didn't. It made sense because it described many of thesame feelings I have, and it didn't make sense because the universe is probably a bittoo complex for us apes to understand it. Anyway, I liked the article.

Michael | April 3, 2011 9:03 PM | Reply


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If you want to read something beautiful regarding the inception of the Universe andMankind from an Orthodox Christian's perspective, check this out:

zephyr.gr/stjohn/sixdawn1.htm

I know you are not religious... but for some reason the way you spoke herereminded me of this.

Teddy C.D. replied to comment from Randy Masters | April 3, 2011 10:34 PM | Reply

There must have been something before the Big Bang. We just don't know what it isexactly. I think it's ridiculous to assume that we had nothing until the Big Bang camealong; the problem is, all the rules we have in our world today--every principle ofphysics--wouldn't apply.Also, the universe has to be expanding into something, I suppose. It's expandinginto... another universe. ;)

Richard R. | April 3, 2011 10:50 PM | Reply

Thank you, sir, for an exceptionally fine piece (which is saying agreat deal when it comes to your work).

You echo my own thoughts to a great extent, except for one subject. As much as Ihave always sought consolation in the fact that I *am* when faced with the fact thatI eventually *will not be*, I've never been able to find any there. Ever since I firstgrasped as a child that there would come a time when I would end, it's remained acold terror in the back of my thoughts.

As near as I've been able to determine, no one else I know lives with this particularsort of dread. Some rely on belief in an afterlife, but most of my like-minded friendsand family basically shrug at the topic. "What are you gonna do?" They're right, ofcourse. It isn't useful to worry about something so absolute and unavoidable. Butthat knowledge hasn't made the fear any easier to manage.

I'm glad that knowledge of the self makes knowledge of the annihilation of the selfworthwhile for you. Unfortunately, it's never been true for me. I would that I hadnever existed at all if I am to return to non-existence. Of course, wishing I'd neverbeen born is even less useful than wishing I wouldn't die. Both desires are equallyfutile, no matter how frightened I may be. It may be the height of cowardice to fearthat which every other living thing on this world (and incalculable others) has faced,but there it is.

Be all that as it may, thank you again for sharing this.

Sam Longoria | April 4, 2011 12:07 AM | Reply

Thank you Roger! I find it comforting that you are still there.Another guy who loves movies, and wonders about it all.You're a good guy, Roger. And you are not alone!

Sam LongoriaFilmmakerHollywood CA USA

Sam replied to comment from Consolation Prize | April 4, 2011 1:06 AM | Reply

I come from a mixed marriage. My father was Jewish, my mother Methodist. Neitherparent attempted to convert the other, and they raised me to make up my own mindabout religion, including the option of no religion, which is what I eventually chose.

Thus, the idea of a spouse who would leave you and take your child with her forsimply disagreeing with her religion, and that "that's what a Christian ought to do inthis circumstance," is alien to my family experience. It is, however, consistent withrun-ins I've had with 'my way or the highway' religionists, whose attempts atconversion had the opposite effect. I would fault her, if she really is that intolerant.I'm hoping that she's not; that you can tell her the truth, and though it would beunlikely to change her beliefs, she would at least acknowledge your right to disagreewith them.

EricJ replied to comment from Dion Detterer | April 4, 2011 4:09 AM | Reply

I have muscular dystrophy, and I'd much rather think that the world just is - we canunderstand its mechanisms, but the "why" is something we need to bring to thetable. How is it comforting to think a God has knowingly let so many people suffer?


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Well, funny you should mention that (albeit a few posts back), as I happen to have atouch of MD too--So did painters, concert violinists, US presidents on coins (who started medicalcharities), even--heavens--theoretical astronomers....But me, I'm neither, I'm only inthe humble position of calling the argument Horatio Q. Crap. :)So I guess I only have the better examples of my fellow sufferers to draw from tosay that the suffering itself is not the point, it's what human beings are INSPIRED todo about/with/against the suffering, because they believe in something bigger thantheir own need for self-pity that will matter. Just what that bigger thing is dependson the individual conscience; the point is that it is something with the power tomake us put our own tantrums and our search for blame back in the playpen whereit belongs.

Some would feel it would be a better use of their time and intellectual energy tothrow disgruntled punches at a concept that neither hits back nor feels thecompelling need to, and declare that whew, it's okay, it didn't exist anyway. Hadfun?--Good. Guess where you are now for accomplishing such a brave feat: EXACTLYin the same position you were before you started. Whose life have you made betterby demanding a beer to cry in?God does not scope us out with a sniper rifle, nor does he "test" us with cosmic Beatthe Clock stunts...He wants to see us clean up our own messes, thus leaving fewermesses to clean up. Here's a scoop: Like your mom refusing to clean up your roomfor you (why could I never get her to do it?), He happens to hate miracles; they'reshowy, disruptive, always misinterpreted, and promote superstition--It's more usefulon the longrun scale to create Smart people who have the basic will to follow alarger moral direction, and who are much less high-maintenance, and prone tofinding creative solutions without constant supervision.



Again, not to be impertinent, but how, precisely, are all men (and women) "createdequal"? Even at the embryonic or fetal stage, for example, some latent biologicaldefects and handicaps occur in some future humans and not in others.

Ebert: I was not speaking in a literal sense.

Keith Noll | April 4, 2011 7:29 AM | Reply

As a long-time fan, I was delighted to see many of the images that my small teamproduces from Hubble in your article ( http://heritage.stsci.edu ). We scientistsusually pursue narrow, focused problems, but the Hubble Heritage project has adifferent aim. We try to bridge the gap between art and science using Hubble tomake images designed as much for aesthetic appeal as for scientific utility.Seeing them illustrate your article is one more bit of evidence that we havedone what we set out to do.

While the details of dark energy, the expansion of the universe, etc., can bemind-bending, it also seems true that the language of images enables everyoneto reach an intuitive degree of understanding that is more sophisticated thanyou might imagine. Those spires of dust that look like eroding landforms and thebutterfly shaped explosion of material really are being shaped by very analogousprocesses, just on different scales of time and space.

The wonderful thing about the human mind is that it is hard to contain the scopeof its curiosity. I've learned of many more new 'worlds' from your writing overthat years than I ever will from science alone. Thank you for being you.

Ebert: I'm honored to have you as a reader!

Keep looking...


Infinity ensures that the universe never becomes boring or meaningless.


I'm not sure if this relates to the subject I'm about to discuss (although I think it


67 of 115 4/17/11 4:39 PM

might) and that relates to what, I think Eric J and probably many others believe,and that is that people only believe in religion because it makes them"comfortable." Brushing aside the theory that man needs to do this or that to dealwith his own mortality or what have you, I think it might be necessary, and I'llchoose not to say what it is, for us to not to go into a kind of meaningless void, oractually, a kind of forced (meaning not geniune) meaninglessness because I think itmight cause cancer (yes, among factors like genetics and what is being absorbedinto the body); we can kind, I think possibly, use reason to give ourselves cancer(no, I'm not saying reason causes cancer). I mean, I really don't like to say it,because people will think I'm talking like Pat Robertson or something. I'm not. Also,I'd like to say, that it doesn't have to come from ourselves. I think there are peopleout there who can kind of psychically take you into this mindset. Perhaps anexample of this might be some of the reality-show characters, if you just kind offollow the "logic" that is in their "heads" all the way. Or actually, probably the Nazis,or the prevailing mindset in German over hundreds of years that set the groundworkfor such a thing to happen; if the Nazis had won, I bet cancer would have gone uptoo; perhaps might have been the thing that ended the world. I'm just sayingperhaps there's a connection to thought and our bodies, and I think this thoughtmight perhaps be, you know, or maybe it isn't. I think that's the thing about religionand why it's so hard to talk about is that it is a name for something that has nobusiness having a name but it had to have one because he we have words, or we hadto have words because we had to name it, whatever it is, the somethingness.

Joe Young replied to comment from Tom Dark | April 4, 2011 9:11 AM | Reply

Tom,

Continuing to be proud of your ignorance. Keep up the good work you pseudo-intellectual you.

Darren Pardee | April 4, 2011 10:50 AM | Reply

A friend sent me this in an email long ago. I love holding on to these things:"I love something Freeman Dyson once wrote. He was asked about SETI, the projectto communicate with alien intelligences, extraterrestrials, and what we shouldbeam back if we ever heard a signal from out there. He said something like: 'If wewant to get their attention, we should stream Bach, all of Bach, out into theuniverse. Of course, we would be bragging.'"

In response to the great RANDY MASTERS: I couldn't find confirmation that that's anOrwell quote, it appears to be by someone named Michael Levine.I don't think anyone "believes" in the hypothesis you think is foolish, but scientificminds are often keen to hear every possibility. One thing they don't do, however, isfill in the gaps of their knowledge by assuming God did everything. The basicmotivating force behind all scientific inquiry is that all of existence, no matter howmysterious, can eventually be explained in scientific terms. It may be an adventureof infinite discoveries, and that is the fun. There is a lot in the universe whichdefies our ability to make sense of it all. Just ask Einstein what sort of criticism hegot when he first proposed his discoveries.Maybe everything will make sense one day, or maybe each discovery will only revealnew mysteries, mystery upon mystery, like the proverbial turtles. Some hope for theformer, but I pray for the latter! What I won't do is write off the motivational forcesof the universe as supernatural. If God did pop his big shaggy gray head out from atear in the fabric of the cosmos to say hello, I would hope scientists scramble tostudy the phenomena of his existence. I would hope he doesn't divulge the secretsto the universe, of course, that would be no fun, but at the very least he holds thecure for cancer.

CarolCola | April 4, 2011 11:21 AM | Reply

Thanks. I have given lots of thought to these issues and come to the conclusion thatdeath is on the same plane as the time before birth. Other than Shirley Maclaine,most folk have no memory of individual existence prior to birth. It seems logical tome that death will be similar. You are then you are not. I like your thought thatawareness of death is the price for sentience. My inability to understand theuniverse is , I suspect, the human condition and has no effect on the existence ofthe universe, thank goodness! Cheers.


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Eric G. | April 4, 2011 12:58 PM | Reply

Very interesting post and like some others I was a little surprised that not onemention of God or creation was discussed. I realize that comes from a continuallygrowing tend of secularism in our culture.

I did notice, though, plenty of faith expressed in the post (as did others): Faith inscience and in humans' ability to interpret the universe and comment on it. I am aChristian, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, aka Mormon.I would just like to add that my personal experiences lead me to conclude thatspiritual law and scientific findings can agree and are in actuality one and the same.

In the same way that scientists, through the scientific process, work to describetheories that explain natural phenomena which they believe to be laws so can wefollow a scientific process of spiritual discovery. Theories describe the law of gravityand through time and experimentation we learn when it applies and doesn't, but itis always limited by our ability to observe. As more experimentation is done and thescientific process applied, we feel we come closer to understanding the unwritten,invisible rules of nature that just are. It takes some faith to start the process, faiththat science can lead to an explanation. That faith is probably based on thecontinued observation of said phenomenon.

In the same way we observe spiritual phenomenon. This probably comes in the formof feelings, emotions, and other metaphysical stimulation that are experienced on apersonal level and therefore can only truly be understood and interpreted on apersonal level. I've read enough of your great reviews, Mr. Ebert, to know that youhave some sense of spirit or emotion beyond just neurological messages sentthrough the body (correct me if I'm wrong). Indeed such signs may hint at spirit,emotion, etc., but most of us have a sense they are that and something more. Ithink an experimentation upon this spiritual side of things can lead to a knowledgeof and faith in God. When we do something considered wrong we may feel guilty. I'ma student of the social sciences in Graduate School and am very away thatsocialization, psychology, and culture play a part in this. But there are spiritualobservations which, on a personal level, cause me to affirm the existence of God.Spiritual laws are universal and there is a level of humanity that goes beyondsocialization. These laws are universal just like the laws of nature scientists attemptto interpret and I think they are all one big set of laws that guide existence as weknow it.

I appreciate your open-minded consideration of this concept.

Brad replied to comment from Deacon Godsey | April 4, 2011 1:44 PM | Reply

Roger you said, regarding the universe, "It doesn't depend on being thought about"...Thankfully, neither does God and His truth.

By the way, Deacon Godsey's premise was that neither of you could convince theother, right? Therefore he sdmits that Jesus' words won't convince you short of someshift of mind or act of faith on your part, right?

Regardless, many many thanks for the writing and the thoughtful and reflectivework it represents. Your blog is one of my favorites in all the ever expanding blog-o-verse(s).

john in denver | April 4, 2011 1:58 PM | Reply

"the Five Ages of the Universe" - Void Theory

There are only star cinders, husks of planets, stagnant anti gravity snippets, andblack holes left in the Universe. The cosmic vacuum cleaners sweep up all theremnants.

Sometime later the black holes themselves disintegrate, morph into individual,universe sized, "atoms." These jumbo end particles decay and disappear. TheCosmos ends a cold and lightless void.

And at that very instant, Jack Benny turns 40.

David Jerome | April 4, 2011 3:14 PM | Reply

Recently, you've uploaded a blog countering your long-held claim that video gamesaren't art; then you post a letter with a scathing---I mean vicious--- rebuttle to oneof your reviews (the I'm An Idiot, You're An Asshole letter).


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Could it be that this humility you're showing is reflected by this blog, anacknowledgement that (like the rest of us) you're just one infinitesmal speck of dustin the face of awesome and epic cosmos?

Cassandra | April 4, 2011 4:51 PM | Reply

Ebert says Darwin's original theory has undergone great 'modifications.' Did you notmean EVOLUTIONS?!Gotcha. . . ! Be well, Dear Ebert. Cassandra


Ebert: Actually, it makes perfect sense. From your point of view, how would youdescribe or explain what you believe it is expanding into?

Now now. You have to answer my excellent question - which you totally ducked -first.

My answer to your question lies in my question.

Everything physical in our human experience has a boundary, out to "the universe".Why would the universe not?

If it started with the Big Bang and a point singularity, that singularity had, and stillhas, a boundary.

What is beyond that boundary that the universe is expanding "into" is so far outsideof my human experience that I have no idea. I can only understand that it has aboundary.

Answer my question, please. :)

Ebert: I did. It is not expanding "into" anything because it is itself everything. Inyour terms: What could God expand into?

Muse | April 4, 2011 9:13 PM | Reply

Beginnings and endings are just constructs in our minds. The Big Bang is us trying tomake the existence of something that has just always been, never beginning orending, fit into our circuitry. How could something just ALWAYS be? I have no clue,nor can I fit it into my logic. Having had several out-of-body experiences, andconscious experiences in the dream world, along with all the anecdotal evidencefrom people who have been dead, then revived, and have reported experiences, Ibelieve there is something in our being that also will always be, and always hasbeen. I've experienced it, but cannot put the experience into words. The instant.The is. The alone superdude that is everywhere and nowhere. Like I said...wordsand logic come to an end. I realized a long time ago that I am a unique observer,alone in my own experience and, if you will, in my own universe. A friend of mineonce looked at me and said "when I die, the universe disappears." Well, that scaredme--don't like the idea of being trapped in a black nothing, or that there is just avoid. Then I realized that my friend's idea was just an idea. To think that everythingceases to exist when I die is a narcissistic idea. I think, yes, I will no longer be inthis dimension, I will no longer be in this body, I will be someplace else, and thisworld will disappear in the same way America disappears when you travel to Europe,or when the idea of being a particular nationality disappears when you wake up andrealize that it's just role-playing. Something falls away, but something remains.Death has to exist in this world. If it didn't there would be no freedom. The universewould be a prison, and there would be never be any good tables left at the ChineseBBQ. Ramble on...ramble on...

Richard Todd | April 4, 2011 9:56 PM | Reply

"I think it's ridiculous to assume that we had nothing until the Big Bang came along;the problem is, all the rules we have in our world today--every principle of physics--wouldn't apply."

I think your second clause negates your first. Although we can't conceive ofsomething coming out of nothing, the Big Bang is a singularity and no rules that wecan deduce apply. There is probably nothing about it that we can conceive of. Logicand experience teach us that nothing can come out of nothing, but at the instant ofthe Big Bang, logic and experience lay somewhere in the future.

I';m going to stop now before I have a big bang between my ears.


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EricJ replied to comment from keith carrizosa | April 5, 2011 2:55 AM | Reply

I think Eric J and probably many others believe, and that is that people onlybelieve in religion because it makes them "comfortable."

No, quite the opposite:I was saying that man feels "comfortable" in what he can build for himself andascribe symbolic ritual meanings to through manipulating the games that society hasbuilt for itself ("Og have more coconuts than you!"): Money. Status. Job perks, SUV'sand power desks. The appearance of being concerned about world headlines--ie, thefear-driven "Conscience-porn" of wringing one's hands in public--while preserving theselfish safety to retreat from them.And if religion makes him "uncomfortable" by telling him nagging little remindersthat he is imperfect, or that he is hypocritical where he believes he is not, that hecommits grievous sins intentionally and unintentionally against his fellow man andthat a poor childhood of his own is no excuse to whitewash him from it, that no mancan run too far from the price of his own selfishness or self-indulgence, that theworld is HIS place to fix, not his invisible neighbor's next door, and that a God mightexist even though he didn't personally show up in the hospital room and cure hismother's cancer overnight like a snapped-for headwaiter, he can simply resolve anynegative aspersions this might cast on his conscience by snapping his fingers,shifting blame onto an imaginary enemy and saying "Well, they were probablyold/crazy and made you up, not me!--There: Now you don't exist anymore!"It don't work that way. At least, it didn't the last time I tried to recreate theuniverse with the power of my imagination.

It's very easy to throw tantrums, claim the world is a "meanie" and "always hatedyou" because it won't let you do things, plug your ears and go "lalala". Too easy. Why,even your three-year-old can do it, and with no practice, too! It's the easiest thingin the world when we don't face the consequences of our actions, or see ourselvesas others see us. We can make up a hundred boogeymen, of every color, size,headline fear and political ethnicity to be More Right than, to our heart andself-image's content, as long as reality does not intrude.There is also, however, the question of what makes us happy, after we have gorgedourselves on the candy we thought made us "comfortable": There's the old bumper-sticker joke "My wife told me to quit drinking or she'd leave me--I'm going to missher." CP, above, was faced with EXACTLY that dilemma, and hinted that he wouldhappily choose said bottle. (The Kook even went as far as to turn it into Sally Field's"Not Without My Daughter", and warned him that The Creature would even comeback to steal the children into religious sanctuary, like the towelheaded goblins ofhis own nightmares...) Some, however, would choose to stay married, because thatis what makes them happy: Human companionship, and such a silly thing as that. It'san odd choice, and one we would nonsensically make the most intrusive sacrificeson our own status and self-importance for, but go figure...Something in our ownnature tells us now and again that we achieve something higher than ourselves bylooking for it.If you think you have a hint what that is, keep looking, you're almost there: It's thefirst hint to why you can't ever quite feel 100% good about Winning Your Arguments.

Evan Wade | April 5, 2011 5:15 AM | Reply

I find it fascinating that I run to your reviews when I want to find opinion. I am astudent of film, currently working in corporate broadcasting as an overnight MasterControl Operator, and aim to, with luck, hard work, and relationships, work in filmas my full-time job sometime soon.

The reason I find it fascinating (and very worthwhile) that I race for your reviews, isthat recently I've realized that without opinion, news is useless. This is extremelyevident on the major networks on American television. This medium has somepower to investigate, but mostly justifies its existence with advertising and shock.

I appreciate your reviews Roger. I especially appreciate your search for truth. Othershave compared this post to Sagan, whose "Cosmos" series I feel is one the bestpieces of art ever. Your writing has the power of great art to change consciousness.When I read the quote from Shakespeare at the end, I found meaning in every line.

Thank you.

Rick | April 5, 2011 6:42 AM | Reply


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Maybe the "simplistic fable" is the theory of evolution...

"One must conclude that ... a scenario describing the genesis of life on Earth bychance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faithhas not yet been written." (Dr. H.P. Yockey, physicist, information theorist andcontributor to the Manhattan Project)

"Suppose you took scrabble sets, or any word game sets, blocks with letterscontaining every language on Earth and you heap them together, and then you tooka scoop and you scooped into that heap, and you flung it out on the lawn there andthe letters fell into a line which contained the words, 'to be or not to be that is thequestion,' that is roughly the odds of an RNA molecule appearing on the Earth." (Dr.Robert Shapiro, Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Scientist in the Departmentof Chemistry at New York University)

Ebert: You cherry-pick the Shapiro statement out of context, as you found it onCreationism sites. His actual argument is for a more likely scenario:

http://bit.ly/i0r6XC

Steve | April 5, 2011 7:58 AM | Reply

Sorry, but there was no Big Bang. The universe has simply always existed. Don’t yousee how the Big Bang and Evolution are diametrically opposed and incompatible?The universe has always existed, and evolution has always been occurring. That’s amore compatible statement. Time is infinite in every direction. Just because wesmall creatures see beginnings and endings in everything around us doesn’t meanthat the universe operates to please us or our assumptions. Matter can be neithercreated nor destroyed, right? So why introduce a Big Bang? Fundamentally, as atheory, it just makes no sense! Just because we’re ingenious enough to come upwith complex explanations for what we think we see doesn’t make thoseexplanations right. Hasn’t every explanation of the universe in history been found tobe wrong? Ptolemy, Aristotle, Descartes, Newton and now Einstein. Even now thereare parts of the explanation that don’t work, right? Have we harmonized GeneralRelativity and Quantum Mechanics yet? When we do, it may require a totallydifferent explanation of the universe, and the Big Bang will be seen as laughable.And then that explanation will need correction someday. Our hubris in assuming weNOW know the explanation is amusing for the historian. On another track, can yousee how the Big Bang plays into Creationism? Where did the singularity come from?Why did it go bang? Those questions still allow for god to play a role. Recognizingthat the universe has always existed removes the idea of creation. Once youunderstand and accept eternity, it’s easy. We still will need an explanation forgravity, time, big and small, but if we start from this premise the answers may beeasier to find. As far as other life out there, read Sagan and Shklovskii’s book,Intelligent Life in the Universe. Good analysis of infinity and why the universe isn’tinfinite and therefore why there doesn’t necessarily have to be intelligent life outthere. Seems he changed his mind to write Contact, but I don’t mind since that filmmade some good points.

Joe Young replied to comment from Richard Todd | April 5, 2011 8:14 AM | Reply

"Although we can't conceive of something coming out of nothing, the Big Bang is asingularity and no rules that we can deduce apply."

There are alternative theories that are just as compelling. And while we do not havetestable theories for what could have happened in such an infinitesimally smalluniverse, we could theoretically have theories describing the behavior inside such auniverse.



Again, not to be impertinent, but how, precisely, are all men (and women) "createdequal"? Even at the embryonic or fetal stage, for example, some latent biologicaldefects and handicaps occur in some future humans and not in others.

Ebert: I was not speaking in a literal sense.

Of course not, Mr. Ebert. Still, I have always found the statement a maddeningpseudo-tautology. As far as I am aware, no one has attempted even a half-hearted


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explanation of it. Perhaps our equality lies in the cosmos's same arguableindifference to all of us (to Gulliver, all Lilliputians look alike), or more likely in ourcommon susceptibility to death. My late father commented that "We are all equalafter death." Whether or not we retain consciousness after death, I think he iscorrect.


In my opinion, trying to determine the time of the universe's origin is as fruitless atask as trying to find the starting point on a circle. I believe that space is curved andthat the universe is a circle (or maybe an ellipse) of infinite circumference. Thecircle has always been and always will be.

Ebert: I agree that space is surved. You want to be careful with that word"infinite."


So! Joe Young again, the smartest hod carrier in all of England, on the attack!

Yes folks, here's a fair specimen of one of those Lilliputians I was writing you about.U not b'leeve da TROOF. You DUM. STOOPIT.

MORAN. Bplbplbplffft!

But me talk good, that make Joe feel funny 'bout evolushun after all. Me must bedum. Crazy. Joe fight back. Use word "pseudo-intellectual." Save it for your war onBlefescu. Git.

So long as I'm back, what else is going on around here...

Hmmm... not much... the usual congress between opposed mobius strips. Are theserepetitious arguments predetermined by God, or by genes?

Oh. Yeh. Reminds me. Years ago I used to get frequent 20-page letters from thisgrunt-level engineer at a factory a couple thousand miles from my home inCalifornia. He wrote me things like, he'd hide in the restroom at his workplace 3 or4 hours a day, masturbate, and feed his semen to his old cat.

He was single and lived alone in a house full of stacks of old magazines and odditiessuch as mannequin parts. Most of his 20-page letters were taken up with whiningabout not having a girlfriend.

He never would take my advice; instead, he even asked me if he asked my wife,from whom I was about to separate, for a date. What, no other women within a2,000 mile radius? Not for him. He gave women the creeps. Joe Young could identify.

3 or 4 years of this was above and beyond the call of duty. He had some kind ofobsessive disorder. One woman to whom I showed his writing said it gave her atummy ache to read it.

One day I wrote him "Cap'n, we appear to have reached a repeating decimal in thisequation" -- seeking a kindlier fashion of alerting him to the fact he needed a bit ofself-inspection not at the expense of my time.

Some of you, if not Joe Young, know the term "repeating decimal" from elementaryschool math. It's when you divide one number into another and come up with adecimal that keeps repeating itself. Like, the fraction 2/3 = 66.66666666666666,forever.

Such a fraction, if carried out to its conclusion, wouldn't fit in a universe a mere 14billion light years across. Nay. "Forever" is even bigger than that! And no fair tryingto stuff pieces of it into a black hole, either.

Now then. The young engineer, never taking my advice, kept repeating his problemover and over, apparently until this day. I happened to run across his name andaddress on the internet. 30 years later he still hasn't found a girlfriend. 30 yearslater he still portrays himself as something he isn't. He may never find a girlfriend.He will die a "confirmed bachelor," as they used to call them.

That's because he has ignored huge, if simple, parts of his own equation, just as theCreationists do, and just as the Darwinists do.

Mark, was the engineer's name, neglected to notice that he was writing a grownman, me, 20 page letters all about unrequited sex. He took considerable energy toneglect to notice this. For you who have wisdom, I'll add that Mark once wrote me adream he had where he was under attack for being a homosexual. In his dream, I


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came to his rescue, chasing his attackers away for him.

Rather than admit that ...something... was missing from his own equation, Markcarried on with these annoyingly repetitious letters, one after the other, tohandsome, two-fisted me -- courageous in the face of women myself, even boldlymarried.

Well I'd had enough, thanks. Yet, not so long ago, years and years after I'd told himbluntly to keep the frag away, he harassed me at my job. So I called the cops, andalso called his workplace -- the one where, 30 years later, he still hides in the men'sroom.

It's a weird game then, in which I am mistaken for being part of the "other side,"just as Joe Young is trying to do to me here.

"Evolutionists" vs "Creationists" are like poor Mark, unable to make any headwaybeyond these repeating decimals of argumentation.

It doesn't matter to me who is gay or straight (even tho' must point out the obvious,these repeating-decimal arguments are far more populated by males, like "SpinalTap" concerts.)

In the way Mark has been forlornly trying to argue himself into heterosexuality fordecades, both sides of this... er, "pseudointellectual"... argument the origins of theWhole Universe are sorely missing some truly basic components.

One is a reasonable acceptance of the fact that popular science is limited to dataobtained by the physical senses (gizmoes, number-crunching and all) and another isthe nature of time itself.

There is more, but with too few exceptions it seems I may as well be explaining thepurpose of a hatchet to a bunch of chickens (have tried that. They just look at you,then are very surprised).

The hell of it is, it's not even complicated. Not to start with anyway.

.666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666

...

Harold | April 5, 2011 12:37 PM | Reply

The universe by definition is the 'all together'. When it expands, it is more. When itshrinks, it is less. Whatever, it is never less than all. What it is not, is not. Kindaomnipotent, ya' think?

In a previous post: "I could weave a wonderful story that no one could ever provewrong for how existence came into being."

Of course you could write it. Would it last? Unless it contains some truth of ourhuman travail, it will be discarded and dissipate in the void. It is the truth that is inart that prevails. It is that information, reinforced, rediscovered, that survives us.

The pursuit of that truth, reveals its own truth, which is the art that sharesinformation.


Ebert: I did...

Actually, my question was: do YOU have any personal experience or observation ofanything physical that is boundary-less, or that does not expand "into" some otherspace or medium when it expands?

If not, and you do not, then how can you relate to the idea of something that doesnot expand into anything?

It is not expanding "into" anything because it is itself everything. In your terms:What could God expand into?

They are not the same concepts. I'll come back to that...

First, maybe the problem lies with the statement of the old joke:

If the universe is everything, and the universe is expanding, then what is itexpanding into?

But, is the problem the word "into"? Is the problem the word "everything"? Or is theproblem the word "expanding"? A puzzle.

Now. "God" and "the universe" are not the same concepts just by other names. One is


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the creator, the other the creation. - assuming that you allow for the possibility ofGod, as I do.

The issue is not boundary, it is transcendence.

I have no problem with both God and the universe having boundaries.

As for God: I did, after all, grow up with the concept of "our Father who art inHeaven. Father has a boundary. Heaven - if a physical place - has a boundary. I'venever thought of God as anything other than boundaried. Which means, I guess, thatI'm not buying "omni-present".

The issue is "transcendent". A creator must necessarily be transcend, or be apartfrom, the creation. Which is all the word "supernatural" implies. Nature is thephysical tangible creation. The creator would then be transcendent to nature.Super-natural.

How transcendent? Well, outside of me. Outside of my physical environment.Outside of the Earth. Outside of the Solar System? Outside of the galaxy? Outside ofthe universe?

Are there many creators, each one transcendent to their creation - whatever scopethat is? I don't have a problem with that.

But, it seems to me, the issue is transcendence - not boundary-less.

Ebert: If God is in Heaven, a place with limits, how does that work?

I believe many things exist of which I have no experience. The far side of tehmoon, for example.

Paul J. Marasa | April 5, 2011 3:22 PM | Reply

Ebert: "My curiosity leads me to science, my admiration for logic leads me to theTheory of Evolution, my pride rejects simplistic fables to describe the facts Iobserve."

I always tell my students that "'satiable curiosity" (as Kipling describes his littleelephant's character in the Just-So Story) is the greatest strength of the humanmind. All that blather about hard work and discipline is the invention of thenon-curious, who must labor mightily to maintain their focus on life, lest they loseinterest. But simply exercise curiosity, and all the "work" one must do to knowdoesn't feel like work, needs no discipline--these things will follow with nodiscernible effort in service to curiosity's insatiable appetite.

As for the other two: Well, be careful of too much logic--it will reduce your beliefsto absurdity, until you can assert nothing. Of course, you defend yourself againstthis by an attention to facts--but your wording reminded me of Milton's Satan (nooffense intended, promise), who also looked at the facts, combined it with logic,and concluded, "The mind is its own place." Ironic, aint it? A creature who wants tosee as clearly as God blinds himself in the effort, fools around with the things infront of him long enough until, like the guests at the Mad Hatter's tea party, theychange places. Pride sure goeth, don't it?

(I don't mean to sound smarmy or snarky or slimy--or whatever--but that crack about"simplistic fables" smarted. I can't think of a single fable worth one's attention thatis simplistic. The ones I love are as true as Evolution and astronomy, excellent atexplaining the world.)

Ebert: Simplistic fables. As in, turtles, turtles, turtles, all the way down.

Dext | April 5, 2011 3:31 PM | Reply

Mister Ebert, I have not read all of the comments that you have received on yourarticle here (and might I say, what a good article it is, sir), so I do not know whetheror no this has been pointed out, but I'd like to draw your attention to a notion thatwas brought to my attention by the writer Peter Watts.

As I understand it, he seems to suggest that our "self awareness", and our capacityto consciously contemplate both ourselves and the Universe around us, is in no waynecessary for the development of "sentience" (by which I, for one, understand thecapacity to make reasoned decisions, plan and intelligently analyze one's situationin the Universe). I might be losing myself in too many words here, but what I meanto say is that it seems counter-productive for an intelligent mind to have notions ofbeauty, morality, mercy or love. In the end, they seem to sabotage progress and the


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survival of both the individual and the species much more than they help it.

I want to make it clear that I am in NO way opposed to those notions, and seemyself as a bit of a romantic, actually. However, upon rational analysis, there reallyseems to be no reason for the "sapience-sentience" association that we're alwaysmaking. One could easily envision a civilization of beings which, lacking theemotional, self (or otherwise) contemplative nature of the human mind, but sharingwith it its capacity for rational thought, could advance at a more rapid, efficientpace, having internal conflicts based solely on resource management issues, ratherthan the additional ideological or ambition-based wars of our past. I could referencePeter Watts' book, "Blindsight", here, if you are a fan of the Science Fictionalliterature.

I am saying these things because your article seems to suggest that intelligence andself-awareness are mutually dependent, and I have recently come to question thisidea. One could say, in more spiritual terms, that I no longer see it as a certaintythat beings as intellectually advanced as us would have "souls" (please don't takethis as a religious statement; a religious discussion is not my goal here) that havenotions of beauty, goodness, or value (in anything other than the material sense).

I would quite like it if you could answer me with your thoughts on these ideas, eventhough I realize that not only is my comment overly long, but that it is also at thebottom of an ever-increasing list of probably related comments, and that you mightnot be reading or answering them all. I wish you a good day, sir!

Ebert: How would that civilization differ in its function from an advancedcomputer? Would its "mind" never think about the fact that it was thinking?

Mark Hughes | April 5, 2011 6:08 PM | Reply

"What we are left with are the cosmic shadows on the wall of Plato's cave."

That may be my favorite sentence I've ever read in you writing, and that's sayingsomething. And this is perhaps my favorite of your journal entries, although againthat's a pretty hard call.

I find it interesting, Mr. Ebert, that so many people criticize and scoff at thingssupposedly "not making sense" or insist on literal natural limitations to the size andscope of the universe, all as part of their insistence that the only logical answer is abearded magical man with no beginning or ending and for whom no natural laws orscience has to apply.

The problem is, of course, that those who apply their own personal context on theirperception of reality to the extent they imagine an all-powerful magical God whostill looks like them, are not people who will readily comprehend or accept framesof reference not defined by their own limited experiences as a human -- thus theirinability to grasp the true concept of a universe expanding without expanding "into"things, or how life could arise from "nothingness" etc.

Anyway, it was a great article, and I loved the choice of images to accompany it aswell. I'd only add that next time someone insists on asking what came before therewas a Big Bang or how something came from nothing, tell them it all probably camethrough our singularity from another universe, and that our own black holes likelylead to singularities that are birthing new universes as well, in a perpetual cyclesharing natural law and forever furthering the processes that bring reality into beingtime and again. If they ask "but where did it all start?" tell them, "Hey, I don't insiston a beginning for your God, so don't you come around insisting on a beginning formy universe."

Ebert: Your theory has been proposed by the scientist/philosopher Lee Smolin.

Howard Bond | April 5, 2011 6:59 PM | Reply

Roger, your words are profound and really capture what we astronomers feel whenwe look at the Hubble images.

Howard Bond (U of Illinois Class of 1964!)Space Telescope Science Institute

Ebert: I am honored to hear from an astronomer...and a fellow member of theclass of 1964!

d | April 5, 2011 10:20 PM | Reply


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That's great you wonder and are taken aback by the universe. When the theory ofevolution is examined however, it is not as wondrous. There are too many holes.

I agree that fables most commonly found in religion are not helpful but don't makethe common mistake of making evolution your equally unbelievable faith. I thinkstaying in "wonder" of creation etc is what will yield the best evolution of ourthinking. There is tons of proof around me that is happening.

Enjoyed your post today.

Matt Beasley | April 6, 2011 12:11 AM | Reply

Ebert said, "And if the universe expands indefinitely, eventually won't each atom bealone in a void? What happens then?"

---

Actually, the "Big Rip" conjecture is junk science. I know, crazy right? You want thedetails? Check out Susskind's lecture on General Relativity from Stanford in thefollowing link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8UrYIZhm60

He spends the first 15 minutes off topic talking about the Big Rip in terms a laymancan understand.

Enjoy.

---

If this ends up being a double post, I apologize.

Dahlia | April 6, 2011 1:00 AM | Reply

You are so goddamn interesting.

Todd | April 6, 2011 5:04 AM | Reply

Dext, sentience is likely just a side effect of advanced communication. As moresophisticated communication develops between a species, the brain evolves toprocess it, which allows you to identify yourself in relation to others. I don't thinkit's a coincidence that bottlenose dolphins and elephants are self-aware, and bothhave complex communication systems that we don't even fully understand yet.


In my opinion, trying to determine the time of the universe's origin is as fruitless atask as trying to find the starting point on a circle. I believe that space is curved andthat the universe is a circle (or maybe an ellipse) of infinite circumference. Thecircle has always been and always will be.

Ebert: I agree that space is surved. You want to be careful with that word "infinite."

Perhaps "near-infinite"?

Ebert: "Near-infinite." Sort of like "approximately exact."


Ebert: "Near-infinite." Sort of like "approximately exact."

Hee-hee. Words, even oxymoronic ones, must ultimately fail us when contemplatingthe universe and everything.

"The stars are not for Man", indeed.

Paul J. Marasa | April 6, 2011 10:24 AM | Reply

Ebert: "Ebert: Simplistic fables. As in, turtles, turtles, turtles, all the way down."

Not to belabor the point, but even the infinite turtles fable warrants ourattention--and not just because it's funny-silly. Our friends at Wikipedia remind methat this kind of infinite regression is related to Baron Munchausen's tale of pullinghimself and his horse out a swamp by his own hair--which further reminds me of anexpression used by a German friend of mine (Hey there, Gerhard, wherever you are)whenever he did something particularly stupid: "I could bite myself in my own ass!"The images alone are worth hours of reflection--at least they were when I wasyounger, and had a clearer sense of my priorities.

Such dilemmas and paradoxes may not explain "facts" (the true but trite), but they


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certainly capture the unique (and marvelous/perilous) human ability to holdcontradictory ideas simultaneously (just read Jefferson on slavery HERE). The resultof such hair-raising (so to speak) juggling is often a truth--and by this we can meana synthesis of fact and judgment born out of necessity--that can be quite helpful(just read the Declaration of Independence).

For my money, facts are useless--unless we use them. And it seems one has to dosome damage (to logic, to observations, to experience) before that use is useful, for"nothing can be sole or whole / That has not been rent."

Matt Ellison | April 6, 2011 10:44 AM | Reply

Hi Roger,

This is completely off topic, but I saw this early this morning and immediatelythought of you. I hope you get a kick out of it (you have to wait until almost the endof the video for the fun part).

http://blog.movies.yahoo.com/blog/1061-a-bill-ted-sequel-is-starting-to-sound-very-possible


Tom Dark,

Let's be clear, I called you ignorant and not a Creationist.

You are arguing that Creationists and Darwinists have beliefs that have (or lack)equal merit. My point was Evolution is evidence and logic-based and therefore abetter theory. No one here has argued that the Theory of Evolution is fact. It's justthe simplest logical theory that fits all the available evidence. It has also evolvedover time to fit data and experiment.

I also want to distinguish the Theory of Evolution to from actual evolution somespecies which has been observed - evolution in fact. It is indisputable that it hasbeen observed in the real world as well as the laboratory.

If you have a competing theory of the origin of life, let's here it and if you buried itin your "witty" non-"literal" verbal diarrhea, please try to be succinct, as I am notgoing to read that twaddle.

Bruco | April 6, 2011 11:34 AM | Reply

Very nice piece. You've captured what can be the greatest despair for those of uswho have cast aside fables and embraced rationalism - the quest for meaning.

I can't speak for everyone with similar views, but I don't think we choose to notbelieve. We simply cannot. Whether that is pride, intellect, or a casting aside bysome great deity, we have no option. And that leaves us pondering what meaning orpurpose there is to find.

For you, it is art, the expression of feeling and intelligence. And that's a damn finething. Worthy, I think.

John Panagopoulos, Malden, MA | April 6, 2011 12:32 PM | Reply

Infinity exists, even if only in Arabic numeral mathematics.

Dext | April 6, 2011 1:03 PM | Reply

You are correct, I would imagine there would be little difference, and your exampleis spot-on. This conclusion is obvious, given that the human brain itself has aconstruction (architecture? I'm not sure as to what term I should use) comparable, ifnot similar, to a computer (albeit one that is enormously advanced). Just as there'sno reason to assume that a very advanced computer would becomeself-contemplative, I don't think there'd be a reason to assume this for a biologicalmind. I look to eusocial insects for a clear example of how a group can be adaptiveand successful without significant intelligence (let alone sentience) invested inindividuals. It is an example that can be expanded to larger, more biologicallycomplex creatures. This might sound like a science-fiction cliche, but I'd say thatthat doesn't affect its validity.

Jambalaya Crawfish Pie (aka John Galt, Dagney Taggart, etc) | April 6, 2011 4:59 PM | Reply

The big bang is a reasonable theory used by scientists to explain the available


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empirical evidence. There may be other possibilities, but the big bang best fits thecurrent observable data.

I never hear any good explanations from creationists to explain the doppler effect orred shift which shows that the universe is expanding outward like a balloon from asingle central point. The big bang is the only reasonable explanation.

I used to debate these theories endlessly, in classrooms, and in writings, but alas Igrow so weary. Personally, I could care less if the big bang is true, if its not true whocares, I would be glad to adopt another better explanation. Thats precisely whatpeople who are religious dogmatists dont comprehend. Scientific explorationinvolves a constant shedding of old explanations, when new and better ones comeabout. (They should correctly teach reason, analysis, logic, and the scientificmethod in schools, that would solve many of our problems)

Because theories can be revised or discarded doesnt mean science is flawed! Theproblem is religious dogmatists have a personal stake in their own infallableexplanations, and its impossible to argue with people who want religious certitudeand through blindness and arrogance and lack of curiosity have clung to beliefs thatcan never be wrong. (I refer to these as the "How do I know its true? Well the bibletells me so," circular reasoning crowd). The fact that science accomodates changingdata is whats so amazing about it.

Darren Hutchinson | April 6, 2011 6:22 PM | Reply

Even if we were to somehow discover (perhaps as future technology helps us tomodify our perceptual apparatus) that our current representations of the universe(s)are as deficient as the sea slug's representations of the planet on which it lives,there will always be the unbounded possibility to improve our representations, evenfrom that point. There will never be a "final" theory of the universe: to that extent,it is "infinite." (the indeterminate infinity of ellipses . . . ) Not only are there turtlesall the way down, there are turtles all the way up. Perhaps, this even means that itmakes no sense to think of exploration as an asymptote towards a final truth, sincethe beginnings and ends of the line will never be assessable. Perhaps, ourdiscoveries are better thought of as products of a meandering voyage ofself-perfection.

Thanks for your article. Your recommendations of philosophically themed moviessuch as those by Wenders and Herzog played a significant role in my becoming anacademic philosopher. Your writing made a difference in my life.

keith carrizosa replied to comment from Randy Masters | April 6, 2011 6:45 PM | Reply

Regard this expanding universe,

I think life is all about limits (metaphorically and literally),

and light never stops traveling, yet it has a speed limit. So, it keeps going and goingand at a limited speed and then it will just bounce and change direction if it hitssomething. So, there is a way for something to keep going as long as it has a kind ofspeed limit.

So, as far as metaphorically, that's kind of what humans are. We exist withinlimitations and then we could transcend those limitations to where there are nolimitations. We humans have a dark side and a light side, and we can transcendthem just as light can transcend its limited speed.

Norman York | April 6, 2011 8:40 PM | Reply

Roger, evolution does not exist. You keep repeating it like a mantra and in that youunderline how much it is more of a religion than logic and science. Protein is themega molecule necessary for life. There are hundreds of types of proteins. The onlyplace a protein can be produced in the universe is a perfect and complete living cellthrough a mind-blowing series of processes. The living cell cannot exist withoutcountless proteins working together. No protein without a perfect cell. No cellwithout countless perfect proteins. And none of them without perfect DNAmolecules. Probability for formation of a single protein from amino acids byaccident is almost zero. But even if it had, you need other proteins for them to worktogether, and they must have accidentally appeared at the same time and at thesame precise location, with also the DNA appearing the same location and time andwith other parts all necessary. Protein does not replicate itself either. So when all


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the necessary proteins, DNA and all other parts accidentally formed, they needed toinstantly form a perfect cell. Probability of this is so small, that it is impossible for a15 billion year old universe. Theory of Evolution is the dominant religion and mantraof this time and has no scientific basis.

Ebert: Evolution exists, has been observed and studied.

Your fable about the impossibility of protein molecules evolving has beendisproved countless times. It is one of the tirelessly recyled arguments ofCreationists, and can be found here on an Islamic site about science in theQuron. Thank God will live in a nation where such religious beliefs cannot betaught in public schools.

http://bit.ly/h8f4ws

Scott | April 6, 2011 9:51 PM | Reply

Ebert: I believe many things exist of which I have no experience. The far side of tehmoon, for example.

====

I see you are still holding court LOL. No, Roger, you do NOT believe "the far side ofteh moon...." Simply because, though you have not seen the far side of the moon(other than perhaps metaphorically, and havent we all) faith is not required toaccept its existence. Simple reason eliminates all reasonable doubt as to itsexistence. I have never seen the Eiffel Tower in person. But I do not "believe" theEffiel Tower exists. Reason is quite sufficient in removing all reasonable doubt. Now,it would require faith to accept there is an Eiffel Tower on the far side of the moonbecause such a thing would be beyond reason, unreasonable.

And here we have arrived at the difference between "faith" and "reason" - theformer takes over where the latter leaves off: the more unreasonable a thing is themore faith is required to believe it.

This observation is quite sincere: I have noticed that religious folk tend to havelittle grasp of the terminologies and concepts they invest in.

keith carrizosa replied to comment from Keith Carrizosa | April 7, 2011 6:58 AM | Reply

I meant to say this in the classical music blog, but it applies to what I said here,which is, that if art is a living-together philosophy (needing distance to livetogether) then one might be able to argue that art, like music or movies etc., thatare sentimental, or where the artist is too involved, might be a cause of problems inour world of people not knowing how to live together. The music, say, is noisey andkind of overwhelms you and there's not enough distance; it's like "ok, you'recrowding me; give me some space." If you must have an example of this--which isreally everywhere you look, unfortunately--, then, there's that new Lady Gaga song"Born This Way"; and maybe you'll see what I mean (if sentimental film music didntdo it for you) where you're just thinking "ok, back up, give me some space."

I mean we live in a culture of abuse, for whatever reason, which reality shows seemto perpetuate more than most. I think perhaps the pop music has something to dowith it and the sentimental etc. I think perhaps art is kind of telling us how tolive/we're as good as our art; and our art is bad.

Norman York | April 7, 2011 8:19 AM | Reply

Ebert: Evolution exists, has been observed and studied. Your fable about theimpossibility of protein molecules evolving has been disproved countless times. It isone of the tirelessly recyled arguments of Creationists, and can be found here on anIslamic site about science in the Quron. Thank God will live in a nation where suchreligious beliefs cannot be taught in public schools.http://bit.ly/h8f4ws

Roger, by religiously wishing that evolution is observed, studied and disproved,which is not, and calling rational argument as fable, you are not disprovinganything. (If you mean Miller experiment that amino acids can be sythesized, it hasnothing with the giant protein molecules that need to be mass produced.) I checkedthe link you gave, it is copied from Harun Yahya organisation, and it too supports myargument in a conclusive fashion. Does not matter if written by Muslim, Jew orTransylvanian because the link you gave does not base its argument on religion orculture - only observations: Proteins can only be manufactured by a perfect cell


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with perfectly formed organels and systems. (Actually, through hundreds ofprocesses you just produced 2000 giant proteins in this second by each of the 100trillions cells in your body. They are produced with techniques the most creativeHollywood script writer cannot visualise.) A cell can only function with an average15 billion proteins in 200 different types, apart from many other things.

Logic and scientific facts dictate a self-replicating cell can only be formed with allits proteins at the same moment and at the same point (and with the DNA and allmanufacturing plant organels). This means end of any scientific possibility forEvolutionary emergence of life. Isn't to repeat this mantra "shut up, it just evolved,it just evolved" beyond the most extreme religious fanaticism? If you or any believerof Evolution cannot explain the existance of single protein, it is madness that youare proposing a cosmological phiolosophy based on this irrational belief.

Ebert: If it is irrational, why has every serious scientist in all lands and culturessubscribed to it for the last century?

Paul J. Marasa | April 7, 2011 10:01 AM | Reply

Oh happy day: another Evolution knock-down-drag-out! I've been waiting to "settlethis case without a fuss or fight"--and, as always, the best way to do that is with aSpringsteen song. Part man, part monkey--baby, that's me.

Amy Beange | April 7, 2011 12:07 PM | Reply


That's an argument ad populum and therefore invalid. Norman York in the commentabove is correct. Proteins come from proteins according to observation. Evolutionsays proteins make themselves according to speculation. The theory is irrational sowhy DOES the majority (not all) of scientists subscribe to it?

The issue is not the evidence, it is the interpretation of that evidence and whowouldn't want a theory that allows them the authority to determine what kind ofconsolation they can find when facing their own demise whether it be art oranarchy?

Ebert: A theory shouldn't allow you the authority to find consolation. That is thebusiness of a faith. The job of a scientific theory is to reflect fact as accuratelyas it can. There is little consolation in the fact that we will all die, but it is afact. You are free to believe anything you wish about what happens then.


Ebert: It is one of the tirelessly recyled arguments of Creationists, and can befound here on an Islamic site about science in the Quron. Thank God we live in anation where such religious beliefs cannot be taught in public schools.

So....something vaguely faith-associated must therefore be evil, Creationist, andworld-domination-plotting if The Muslims Do It Too?

...Er, hope you'll take this in the spirit it's meant, Roger, but whose posts MIGHT wehave been reading a little too much of lately? 9_9

Ebert: Not at all. I was just pointing to the common practice of Creationists tobust a gut in trying to find flaws in the Theory of Evolution, when their owntheory doesn't stand up to a moment's serious consideration.

What they don't seem to understand is that the T of E is not a fixed dogma, but awork under constant improvement by the Scientific Method.

Barb | April 7, 2011 1:34 PM | Reply

Beautiful and eloquent. Thank you!


Ebert: Some reject the Theory of Evolution because it offers no consolation in theface of death.

Yes. Those "some" are probably those who subscribe to a religion or belief systemthat assures them of life everlasting (whether through reincarnation, resurrection,or an afterlife) regardless of who they are, provided they complete a few arguablydoable requirements. In other words, everybody can potentially "live on". Evolution,


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at least at times, is not egalitarian. Sometimes you are not suited to yourenvironment through no fault of your own, and you may die as a result, and there'snothing you can do about it. Too bad, so sad. It's not surprising that religion harborsgreat antipathy towards Evolution; Evolution puts the fear of death into itsfollowers.


Ebert: If the matter in the universe has organized itself into you and me andStephen Hawking, I can think of no reason why the same organizational principleswouldn't apply everywhere.

I wouldn't be so sure. Perhaps there are planets that follow the physical "laws" of aWarner Bros. cartoon.

Bugs Bunny quote: I know this violates the law of gravity, but then again, I neverstudied law.

Bill Hays replied to comment from Norman York | April 7, 2011 5:44 PM | Reply

Reply to: Logic and scientific facts dictate a self-replicating cell can only be formedwith all its proteins at the same moment and at the same point (and with the DNAand all manufacturing plant organels). This means end of any scientific possibilityfor Evolutionary emergence of life. I- NY

We talked about this a few months ago.

Statistics is a mathematical way of describing something that exists in the realworld.

Don't make the mistake of thinking the odds controls anything.

The Megamillions Lotto has odds of 141 million to one against matching thenumbers. yet it happens every three weeks or so.

The fact that life on this planet shares a common core of DNA suggests that ithappened ONCE.

Statistically speaking, anything can happen once. That's why we say the odds are141 million to ONE

there's always ONE chance that it happened... in what, 500 million years? We havefossilized remains of bacteria going back over 3 billion years... but what we don'tsee are several different strains of life competing for space on our planet.

The observed aspects of life on our planet... agree with there being incredible oddsagainst it happening even once....

But it did happen once. And if you know anything about life, you know that acomplete cell didn't have to happen. Early life forms ate other life forms, addingthe contents together. Do that 500 or 100,000 times and what you described asunlikely just isn't unlikely at all.


Dear Roger, I know this reply is a bit long. So I would understand if you decide not topublish it.


Why did every serious scientist in the Soviet bloc subscribe to Marxism? Not to losehis status, his living, his wife and his life. Why vast majority of renaissenceEuropean scholars rallied against heliocentrism? Why for three thousand yearsserious Egyptian scholars believed their laughable cosmology? Institutionalizedpropaganda and ideology.

Example: Israel's chief government scientist called for reevaluation of theinfallibility of the Theory of Evolution last year, as any rational open-minded man ofscience should, and what happened? He is given time to backtrack and apologizeand when he insisted he was kicked out of his job and disgraced. Question Evolutionand you will be fired from Biology departments, not even admitted to postgraduatestudies. See what will happen if an academic at a prestigious institute, selected forhis belief in Evolution, blindly parroted the ideological dogma for decades, comes tohis senses and say evolution is a fake theory. Just as a Scientologist decides toleave, he will instantly lose everything, his tenure, his friends, his memberships. You


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cannot defend an illogical argument based on the zeitgeist or that the men of powerdecided so.

Do they say anything about the emergence of protein? Anything about how the cellcame to being? Anything about how and where viruses came from? Any observationabout the most fundamental mechanism in their theory: organism altering favorablemutation? Anything about why all plants or animals suddenly appear in fossil recordsand stay the same for tens or hundreds of millions of years with no change?Evolutionist priesthood do not have a leg to stand.

But even then I can give you list of serious scientists; award winning academics andman of knowledge just say the obvious – despite all the pressures and propaganda.You don’t have to be genius to see how corrupt and fake this dogma is. It is hocuspocus bad. It is Plan 9 from Outer Space bad.

Roger; no need to go into fossil records showing species suddenly appearing andstaying the same for tens or hundreds of millions of years, or that there is not asingle mutation found to form a new organism in the millions of experiments last 70years apart from mutant superhero flicks --- just look at proteins. Probabilistically,you cannot have a single protein in any part of the universe since its formation 15billion years ago, but even if you had, you need other proteins at the same momentand at the same place and the DNA and the organelles. Evolution says first proteinsand they came together and formed the cell. It is irrational and pure blind faith, noteven hocus pocus. Truth is none of these pieces can exist and mean anythingwithout the others, and without the others with precise functions. And to say thatthese things happened and happened in knowledge that they would work together, isplain religious zealotry.

Before speculating on the universe and if it has mind and all, let’s all justconcentrate on the marvelous microcosm of cells and molecules, that actually areus. 15 billion proteins from 200 different professions in complex cooperation oncellular megacity-planet run by DNA overlord laws and 100 trillion of them incomplex federations and confederations and special connections. Then the spacerobots in the form of viruses, not alive, conquering the planets, destroying them orusing them for their purposes. With a system and design that even the tiniestchange can destroy the galactic organism.

A theory can be proven with various methods. Induction is the way for this one:prove it for the 1st case, assume Nth case is true and prove it for N+1st case. Theyneed to prove that the first cell came to being with Evolution (they cannot andactually it can be proven otherwise), and then they need to prove that life can anddid transform to different life with random mutations (no evidence for that, actuallycomplexity of systems does not allow that). Then you have a proven theory. We arenot even remotely near there and the more we learn about life since Darwin, thefurther we sail away from that theory.

Ebert: To make a long reply short, yes, students of evolution have a great deal tosay about all of the topics you list. The Theory of Evolution is a work in progress,constantly being tested and improved. Questions about the fossil record arebeing asked every day.

What is your theory? Are you a Creationist? How do you believe your theorywould stand up to that sort of questioning?

Guillermo Lande replied to comment from Norman York | April 7, 2011 7:56 PM | Reply

Hello, Norman York. With regard to: "and [Ebert's link pointing to a site that says theodds of accidentally spawning a complete 280 part protein molecule from scratch]too supports my argument [that evolution cannot spawn life] in a conclusivefashion."

You've been tricked by bad teachers, good Norman. What makes you think liferequires 280 part protein molecules? What makes you think life requires complexorgans like human eyeballs in multi-celled organisms. Let's go further than that,what makes you think intelligence requires a brain?

What a lot of people fail to understand is that one would no more expect an aminoacid pool to create complex organisms in one hop anymore than one would expect asingle celled organism to evolve into a tree without many stages.

Don't think of DNA as a requirement of life. Instead think of it as a form of memory.Intelligence is a capacity to learn, but it does not require that learning be


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immediate. As humans (relatively highly developed organisms) we have three kindsof memory:1. Super long term memory (DNA)2. Long term memory (lasts most of or all a lifetime and could to some minor degreeover many generations influence super long term memory)3. Short term memory (lasts about 17 seconds but can be transferred to long termmemry)

Long and short term memory didn't spawn immediately from super long termmemory. Instead, over time super long term memory itself progressed, theneventually (gradually) became single celled organisms which in turn learned to worktogether and eventually became some of the more symbiotic systems we have nowlike plants and animals.

The site you list as arguing on your behalf, Norman, is a site that skips straight to280 part organisms from nothing. Why would organisms start at 280 parts. Why not 1part or 2. Why not stuff that we would not even recognize as life because it workson such a slow scale?

I was taught in school that clay is alive, for instance. I know most people don'tbelieve it (I don't care one way or the other), but I do know it's a reasonableinterpretation of life.

Anyway, Norman, don't listen to teachers that have you jump from a pool of aminoacids to an eyeball. Those are, quite frankly, imbeciles. Instead step back yourselfand think outside their boxes.

Fern replied to comment from Norman York | April 7, 2011 8:01 PM | Reply

Norman York, you are confusing the scientific community's consensus on evolutionwith abiogenesis. While evolution does imply that abiogenesis occurred at somepoint in the past, evolution's focus is in the central hypothesis that organisms havechanged over time. This scientists accept based on extensive evidence. I agree withyou that abiogenesis is a very hot topic in biology.

However, you are very mistaken in asserting that protein synthesis can only occur ina "perfect" cell. What do you mean by perfect anyway? It is common practice forbiologists to knock out genes (and thus proteins) within the cell. Sometimes thecells can't grow and replicate, but oftentimes they still can, even with obviousdefects. Certainly the cell doesn't need ALL of its proteins to survive. Biologistsdeduce what the cell needs by observing and perturbing the system, generally witha hypothesis in mind that the perturbation will test. This is what science is allabout. It is true that cells require certain parts and machinery to synthesizeproteins. For example, they require mRNA, tRNA, the ribosome, and a pool of aminoacids; however, the process of synthesizing protein doesn't require much beyondthat. With this understanding, scientists have developed in vitro protein translationkits that are completely cell-free. Just add a mRNA of interest (which you can alsosynthesize cell-free in a tube) and it will produce the corresponding protein.

But scientists can do even better than that. We don't technically even need mRNA,tRNA, or the ribosome anymore. All we require are the amino acids (which bydefinition proteins are made up of and you yourself acknowledge may besynthesized cell-free) and some elegant chemistry. Through solid-phase peptidesynthesis you can generate a protein purely from scratch and it is just as functionalas the same protein produced within the cell.

Acceptance of evolution is not an irrational belief. Scientists do not accept themantra "shut up, it just evolved, it just evolved." Instead, we hunt for theunderlying mechanisms through which evolution can occur: gene duplications, genetranslocations, mutations, selective pressure, etc. And like you, we are also notsatisfied with our current understanding into the origins of life. This is why wecontinue to study it. My mentor once told me that the entire exercise of science isthe attempt to prove ourselves wrong. It's only when we are unable to do so,because of reproducible and physically observable evidence, can we even begin toform a theory. Scientists do not religiously follow anything other than the scientificmethod.

Ebert: It's precisely testing by the scientific method that Creationism fails.

Andrew | April 7, 2011 9:11 PM | Reply


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Thanks Ebert, I didn't even have to click on your review to have "Super" spoiled forme. Geez.

Ebert: Huh?


Roger: your belief that humans are just a bunch of atoms would only be believable ifyou don't believe in ethics or morals. Why would you care about a person's life ifthey are just a bunch of physical atoms? It would be like caring about a pet rock.

The big bang has the serious problem of not having a cause. Not only that, but whywould a random explosion cause so much order and complexity in the world? It'sludicrous if you really thought about it.

I've seen you argue with people in the comments by basically saying that mostscientists believe in such-and-such and therefor it is true. 99% of scientists thoughtthat ulcers were caused by stress 30 years ago. That has proven to be wrong. And byusing your logic, most serious film critics thought that Gladiator was a great movie.So does that mean you were wrong about it?

Ebert: We are indeed a bunch of atoms, as you will agree. We are not "just" abunch of atoms. We have evolved into a wondrous complexity.

Thanks to the Scientific Method, we now know more about ulcers. And theTheory of Evolution is in a process of testing and improvement. It is not a matterof faith.

Todd Simmons | April 8, 2011 12:16 AM | Reply

Truly, there is not much in all the wondrous, staggering galaxy worse than spoiling amovie in the first paragraph of a review.

'Lev Bronstein' | April 8, 2011 1:49 AM | Reply

I have throughly enjoyed your blogs Roger and continue to do so. I particularlyenjoyed this blog however because in the past it seemed as if your philosophicalreasoning on creation was shaped by an anger and cynicism with religion, This has asense of hope that is almost never seen in writings on debate of creation.

Mightythor | April 8, 2011 3:14 AM | Reply

Roger, are you familiar with Loren Eiseley's meditation on evolution, "The ImmenseJourney"? If not, you should check it out. Some of the science is out of date (it waswritten in the '50s), but no more beautiful prose has ever been committed to paperby a scientist, or anyone else for that matter.

Ebert: I am. I hold Eiseley in awe.


With very few exceptions ("2001" being a notable example), movies seem to take apatronizing, blase attitude towards space and the universe. As the "Star Wars" and"Star Trek" franchises have amply demonstrated, space is just another pesky frontierto subjugate, compartmentalize, and administrate. "Star Trek"'s partition of the vastuniverse into "quadrants" is especially risible. Oh, we get impressive CGI depictionsof technical hardware and civilizations. However, space movies seldom take thetime to appreciate the immense grandeur of a planet, a star, a nova, a galaxy.

Perhaps it is unreasonable to ask for a space movie whose objective is simply todiscover and explore its wonders, without regard to business, taxes, politics, andhostile aliens consumed with "ruling the universe". Must be ever mindful of themovie till.

keith carrizosa replied to comment from EricJ | April 8, 2011 7:53 AM | Reply

I guess I misunderstood your comment, then, but there are those who feel that way;so I just used your quote to go off in another direction;sorry about themisunderstanding.

Andrew | April 8, 2011 8:14 AM | Reply

""Super" is being sold as a comedy...It begins as the portrait of a lovable loser namedFrank, and as it ends, we're pretty sure he's an insane ruthless killer. That's not ajoke. Maybe writer-director James Gunn intended it as a joke, but after the camera


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lingers on the young heroine with a third of her face blown off, it's hard to laugh."

You give away the protagonist's whole character arch AND the fate of another majorcharacter (whose identity I'm able to infer by your use of the word "young"). I'm nota professional critic, but I would think the first paragraph of any review should notcontain the words "as it ends." Have some respect for your audience, man. Maybeyou didn't like the movie you were paid to see, but some of us - myself included -are actually looking forward to it.

PS. I know this has nothing to do with this blog entry. But at least I got through toyou.

FelixH | April 8, 2011 8:49 AM | Reply

There's no objective argument for a god. If there was, it would be part of scientificresearch (which is nothing else than an extension of human consciousness, which isjoined by the arts, by the way). This is trivial, and I think can even be admitted bymany believers, if they stop to think about it. If you find some value in ancientesoteric, folkloric writings, from a time when mankind had hardly a choice than toresort to such simple models, this is your thing. Or maybe you regard it with ananthropological, historical, poetological curiosity. And then it could join a still largervariety of cultural accumulation. What it doesn't do is provide the beauty,complexity, meaning to a reasonable model which it would otherwise be lacking. Youmay find that faith is itself accompanied with a constant struggle with meaning.This is the human trait of reason, and which has its most unaltered forms in scienceand philosophy (which have a common origin). Religion can then be complementaryas human culture and all the things that make up life, but it is not secret truth in astruggle with science where there can be only one winner. They are in differentleagues, as it were.

Virginia Lathan replied to comment from Felicity Lingle | April 8, 2011 11:30 AM | Reply

"Knowing what I know now, I'd rather be a human than a goldfish" (or words to thateffect) is a statement that I also focused on in this article. At first I thought, yep, Iagree. But then I thought about having to deal with my car not running right andmaybe not being able to get it fixed immediately, so I started to envy the small-minded goldfish that could just easily swim to the next place it goes. So right nowI'm envious of that scaley, infintestimal dust-brained creature. It's all relative.

Chuck Vekert replied to comment from Greg | April 8, 2011 12:37 PM | Reply

I am not so sure that Greg's problem is that he does not know the technical meaningof "theory." Following Karl Popper (the only philosopher to have SOLVED aphilosophical problem since Socrates started asking them), a scientific theory is atheory that is capable of being falsified by empirical evidence. "All swans arewhite." is a scientific theory since it can be disproved by coming up with one blackswan. "God is good." may be true but it is not a scientific theory because it cannotbe disproved. Real theories about anything, scientific or not, always have more thanone declaratory sentence, but the principle is the same. I do not see that Gregoffends against this.

Creationists like Greg always seem to say, one way or another: Science cannotexplain (whatever). Therefore God must have done (whatever) by a miraculousintervention circumventing the natural laws that He Himself created. I find itamusing that these people do not seem to realize that they assume that God wasnot smart enough to make natural laws that work well enough to bring about theworld He wants without His constant fiddling with them.

There are two broad categories of what "science cannot explain." The first isphenomena that in all likelihood will be explained as science progresses.Creationists always seem to think science ended last Thursday. Greg claims that youcan't put chemicals together and get something organized out of it--just like youcan't build a car by mixing the parts together in a great jug. But everyone who hasbaked a cake can see the analogy is false. And in fact we have known for 50 yearsthat mixing chemicals together in conditions similar to the early earth will produceamino acids and lipids. On the other hand, only in the last twenty years has theimportant of archaea in the development of eukaryotes been discovered. Scientistsdo not know how life developed, but every year they learn a little more and arecloser to an explanation.


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Creationists have an advantage in that it is much easier to say "science can't explain"than it is to give the explanation, particularly since many people are not used tothinking hard about anything--a true failure of our educational system.

The other category is made up of things that science will probably never explainbecause we will never have enough information. Science will never explain whatcaused the rather sudden death of Alexander the Great because the medical recordis too sparse. Doubtless biologists will not ever know that exact evolutionarypathway of every plant and animal because the evolutionary record is too sparse.But ignorance of facts does not imply a miracle. Sarah Palins' ignorance of biology isnot miraculous, at least not in my opinion.

I know I am preaching to the choir here, (perhaps not the best metaphor), but Ifound it fun to work out some of my ideas.

Steve O'Rourke | April 8, 2011 12:43 PM | Reply

For those who just don't get it ( or refuse to), here's the difference:

An hypothesis is an educated guess, emphasis on the word educated. There may bea little or a lot of wiggle room to bring it into acceptable shape, or the hypothesismay be scrapped altogether. Think of this of making a clay pot, which the sculptormay decide is just not working out.

A theory is an hypothesis that has a number of proofs to support it, and although itmay have been or needs to be tweaked from time to time, it has met any number ofchallenges and has stood the test of time. Think of this as a car engine or computerthat needs to be cleaned, serviced, or tinkered with to keep it running at topperformance.

Don't make me come back here and say it again.


Reply to: A cell can only function with an average 15 billion proteins in 200 differenttypes, apart from many other things.

How did life begin?

Obviously, a question about a cell in a modern human body isn't the right question.

IF a human cell had formed spontaneously in its current form, it would haverequired an incredible combination of factors. But it didn't happen that way.

The earliest biological systems capable of independent life were bacteria. Bacterialcells are prokaryotes, cells without nuclei that contain a single long strand of DNAwith several thousand genes. Indirect evidence of bacteria has been found in theEarth’s oldest rocks. The evidence consists of carbon isotopes of possible biologicalorigin found in a 3.8-billion-year-old rock from western Greenland. The earliest"probable" evidence for life is a colony of stromatolites — cabbage-like mats ofsediment rimmed with bacteria and blue-green algae. These primitive life formsdate from 3.5 to 3.6 billion years ago and have been found in Africa and Australia.

Animal life is relatively recent in the history of life on earth.

If you are trying to impress us with the odds of protein formation, you must usethese early life form to compute your odds. Not modern animal cells.


Dear Roger, Guillermo and Fern; points taken but do not answer the centralquestions. First, Guillermo states that some simple form could have been there priorto life as we know it: “What makes you think life requires 280 part proteinmolecules? What makes you think life requires complex organs like humaneyeballs in multi-celled organisms. Let's go further than that, what makes youthink intelligence requires a brain?” “I was taught in school that clay is alive, forinstance. I know most people don't believe it but I do know it's a reasonableinterpretation of life.” Fern also starts with a similar view.I think clay is life is philosophic escapism from a very scientific question. But thecentral argument you present, says that there would have been an intermediate lifeform, actually several layers of intermediate life forms, that are between non-lifeand the life as we know it. Life on earth is only there with giant interlockingmolecules, higher systems called organelles, and the ribonucleic acids; there is noother way. So, Guillermo and Fern say that if there were life that we don’t know


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and estimate today, and they can be intermediary forms, hence possibility formolecular evolution. The point is not completely worthless and would have merit,had there been any scientific evidence towards these non-DNA, non-RNA,non-Protein, non-cell intermediary life forms. In a way it is saying what if there islife without carbon or what if Hitler had won the war or what if we can build amobile phone without electronics. They are all worth speculating and thoughtprovocative but not scientific, empirical and logical. Life without carbon or itsneighbor downstairs is unthinkable because carbon alone allows super complexmolecules. There is no evidence of life without proteins, giant nucleic acids andcells. (This statement oversimplifies biology, actually a cell is as complex as ascience fiction megacity-planet of 15 billion citizens and countless cultural,institutional structures – it makes me shiver. Just look at the story of how cellmembrane works, let alone protein production, and never mind self duplication.)And if there were, with similar complexity, other life forms as you argued, which wedo not observe and find evidence for, therefore is but empty speculation, that lifeform would have as complex mechanisms as the life as we know it: it had to selfduplicate. No complex structure self replicates other than life. A functional proteinmight have appeared probabilistically once in the last 15 billion years in theuniverse. But it cannot duplicate itself. So it just appears and sometime laterdisappears.One exception that is scientifically observed as to stay outside of life as we know itis of course the virus, which had been for a long time a darling of molecularevolutionists, as it is not a cell, does not have organelles, no self manufacturingsystems, it is neither life as we know it nor non-life. The fact is virus makes thingsmuch more complicated for evolutionists and the omnipresent evolutionaryphilosophers: virus cannot exist without perfect cells (Fern: perfect cell means cell,which is perfect – and not non-cell or damaged non-functioning cell like trash ormalfunctioning mad cell destroying all around). It needs the cell to conquer itscommand structure, and replicate itself. To do this requires so many attributes inthe virus, a complex design with the knowledge of the cell structures, evenproperties to fool the cells defense mechanisms as well as the organisms’ immunesystems. Therefore virus does not help Evolution at all, it makes it much moredifficult because cell could not have gradually evolved from virus (as virus is uselesswithout cell) and virus could not have evolved from cell (as cell needs to graduallyleave all its systems and processes without having the virus attributes – on the wayit does not possess any competitive advantage.). So add to the necessity of varioustypes of proteins and their manufacturing mechanisms and nucleic acids appearingat the same microscopic point and same millisecond to complement each other, butalso the weird but complex machines of viruses, with the knowledge of cells andorganisms appearing out of nowhere in similar fashion. Virus is part of the cell lifeand not a primitive form or advanced form.Look, don’t you feel much more excitement here than the greatest moviemasterpiece: a complex mechanism in the cell triggers the urge to manufactureproteins, several complex organic molecules enter the nucleus through severesecurity checks of the nuclear membrane (in some cells there is no membrane butother security systems), they go directly to the right chromosome and the preciselocation of the DNA as if finding a paragraph in an encyclopedia, learn the exactamino acid molecules needed for a protein as if procurement precisely of all carparts to make a car from exhaust to front signal lights, array them fortransportation in a molecular train, then ask the membrane again for permission togo back to the cellular ocean, find their way back to the manufacturing plant andsynthesize the car parts with perfection and precision, then transport them to theassembly plant for three dimensional and perfect protein molecule as if like a car.This is done tens of billions of times by each and every cell. This is so accurate,precise; any mistake in the parts or the assembly of the parts makes the car noteven useless but harmful or even lethal such as in the mad cow disease. But there isalmost never. When there is an error due to this reason or that, it kills the cell or,worse, makes it malfunction and kills the organism as it does in cancer. Thismind-blowing perfection and precision means if you tamper with it, as in the case ofmutations (the engine of the modern, second incarnation of [non-Darwinian]Evolution) either has no effect on it, in very few cases, or it destroys the wholesystems, as in most cases.This is life as we know it, mind blowing, impossibly precise, with thousands ofprocesses needed at the same time. If you are saying it came to existence from


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somewhere, it deserves respect for your courage and determination, but we needresults, maybe not proof, but at least evidence, something. We have nothing otherthan imagination and speculation for an intermediary system for us to assume thereis no jump. We keep looking as our religion dictates us “everything must have beenevolved, gradual evolution is the principle in the universe.” (Big Bang betrays it as itis developed by inspiration of another religion, monotheism of Monsignor Lemaitre,we had to accept it because it was too powerful to reject – just as Gregor Mendel’sGenetics, which was dismissed as a monk’s wishful thinking because it opposedDarwin’s Lamarckist Theory of Evolution.) Then we hope for something that provesour religion of evolution. It never comes.Other points: Fern says “Certainly the cell doesn't need ALL of its proteins tosurvive”. Even this had been true, and it is true, there may sometimes be moreproteins needed in the cell than necessary, it certainly needs proteins and complexsystems and structures built with proteins. A cell may be artificially kept alivewithout some structures but that is like farming with artificial chemicals, turningfish and men infertile, creating cancer, destroying species, etc. Keeping an isolatedcell alive in an environment for some time is not the same thing as that the cell is asgood.“For example, they require mRNA, tRNA, the ribosome, and a pool of aminoacids; however, the process of synthesizing protein doesn't require much beyondthat.” These things you list are very very complex structures. Furthermore, theyneed to have design that will make them work together with an exact protocol. Soactually, they are parts of a holistic system or structure. And don’t forget numerousenzymes, other molecular syntheses, cell structures for triggering action andcommunication as well as logistics. All are needed for protein synthesis. But if theseare not enough, allow me remind you that protein synthesis is not the only thingthat the cell does, there are other even more complex mechanisms. And withoutthose mechanisms cell (life) cannot exist, which means they are also needed for theprotein synthesis – not for the process itself but for all the manufacturing systems towork.Without all of them in the cell no protein. Without protein none of them.“With this understanding, scientists have developed in vitro protein translationkits that are completely cell-free.” I know, they are actually doing it just below myoffice. But you are worse off here because you need much more than a perfect cellin this case: a laboratory, special equipment, sophisticated electronics design, atribe of full grown Homo Sapiens Sapiens in white, led by a beautiful young lady inour case (“I know, Norman, many things don’t make sense, but I am just at theengineering side”), consciousness, and modern understanding of science forselection of amino acids for the right proteins in the same form found in nature.Take any of those from protein synthesis and you have nothing.Ebert says: “What is your theory? Are you a Creationist? How do you believe yourtheory would stand up to that sort of questioning? What is your theory? Are youa Creationist? How do you believe your theory would stand up to that sort ofquestioning?”

Notwithsanding your proven democratic set of mind, this is exactly what thepriesthood say in oppressive regimes. Questioning the unquestionable Marxismdemanded that you prove otherwise and at the same time declare for which foreignenemies you are working for. Here, they want proof that Evolution is false and proofthat there is no subscription to enemies of modern Darwinism. The protein or thecell alone is enough for ruling out gradual evolution, but, in science, it is theevolutionists job to prove their theory.- Prove that proteins can happen by themselves naturally.- Prove that cells fully-functioning and duplicating gradually evolved.- Prove there are species transforming wonderful accidents in the cell in the form ofmutations.- Prove that sharks, bugs, ferns, any species did not stay the same with no changefor hundreds of million years in fossils but transformed gradually, slowly to otherspecies.These are the central pillars of the theory. Prove them.

The rest is religious speculation. I respect feelings, traditions, civilizationaltendencies, massive investment and inventive efforts in propaganda, but they arenot science, sound human reasoning or logic. It is not my or any doubtersresponsibility to build, prove and propagate a theory to dethrone this belief. Inscience, if something is incorrect, you don’t say “we know but we need to wait until


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something right (and consistent with out lifelong beliefs) comes”. Maxist-Leninist-Stalinist science defended Darwinist-Lamarckist version of evolution against the NaziGeneticist-Mutationist version because there was simply too much propagandamaterial based on it including texts from Engels. It threatened their specialdenomination and they needed 30 more years to join the mainstream religion.

Developing scientific theories and making leaps with inspiration from religion is OK.After all mechanics, the Set Theory, Genetics, modern cosmology are results ofindividual scientists’ religious worldviews. But then they were not accepted basedon religious inspiration but based on observation. You cannot push a philosophy,politics and modern world religion into the debate and fight scientific doubt with TVpropaganda and compulsory textbooks for kids, which is the case now.

Why nobody is giving fight for Newtonian Mechanics, Mendelian Genetics, Big Bang,or the more disturbing Quantum Theory and Relativity Theory. Because they arescientifically sound, badly needed for advancement of science, therefore overcameopposition in a couple of decades easily. Apart from its own evolution fromDarwinist-Lamarckist pseudoscience to modern Mutant Ninja Turtle version,Evolution still does not stand after nearly two centuries. If it had proof formolecular evolution or interspecies evolution, monotheistic religions would notquestion it as they did not question Newtonian clockwork universe and say that theircreator created the universe with a evolution mechanism. So we need toconcentrate on the science and arguments themselves and not on what the motivesof the people, which affiliation they have, if they love their country and so on.

And if you have dedicated people, most of them very nice very good veryhardworking very intellectual people, just as Soviet peoples were just as NaziGermans were just as Egyptians were and just as medieval Europeans were, topassionately defend a set of beliefs with no rational or, let us say, scientificallyproven basis, we have a case of religion here with a lot of hocus pocus, a lot of“Darwin says to us”, a lot of “we don’t need to think how the first cell cameappeared”, or even “might have come from space perhaps, aliens?”, “those whoquestion it, question us, and they are the enemy, retards, needing psychiatricgulags”, and mantras, mantras, mantras. Just turn on Discovery, History or NatGeographic, and start counting the references to “evolution” and erase them oreven replace them with “our creator” and see it is just superfluous repetition thathas nothing with scientific enquiry. Wake up, men of intellect; we are in cloudcuckoo land.

Ebert: Oh, dear. One species does not change into another species. Two differentspecies may share a common line of descent.

You seem very intelligent, but you resist the clear and well-known answers toyour questions. Regarding the protein molecule, I just posted a comment by BillHays that I think addresses your problems on that issue.

The Theory of Evolution is not perfect, nor is it complete or finished. It providespowerful and useful insights into the development of life on earth.

Science believes it knows why there are protein molecules. Just tell me this:How do you explain the existence of the protein molecule?

oliver | April 8, 2011 6:16 PM | Reply

"Big Bang" is sort of a misnomer nowadays, I think. Cosmologists talk aboutexpansions and not-so expansive transformational epochs that followed in theinstants after the singularity came into being, but then what really got the cosmosup to size--and gets referred to as the "(great cosmic) inflation (event)"--is a laggingevent that happened...a whole lot...later. Minutes? Seconds? O.K. so maybe "BigBang" is close enough for horseshoe conversation. Except that microwavemeasurements might well get us an image of the universe before inflation--asnapshot of before or during the "Big Bang" ostensibly. Meanwhile, I admire you forproclaiming such a broad and deep commitment to scientific naturalism.


Ebert: "We are indeed a bunch of atoms, as you will agree. We are not "just" a bunchof atoms. We have evolved into a wondrous complexity."

But that means you still think of humans as consisting of only atoms, which meansthat there would be no difference compared to a highly sophisticated robot. In your


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review of "A.I.", you spent the whole time talking about how you did not carewhether the machines lived or died no matter how complex they were. You wrote,"because the robot does not genuinely love. It genuinely only seems to love." So whydoes a human "genuinely love" if we are supposedly just physical atoms much likerobots? Here's a thought experiment: if all the people in La Dolce Vita were actuallyartificial intelligence, would it change your empathy for the characters?

The scientific method also believes that humans have no free will. Do you have faithto disagree with it? Personally, I love the scientific method and think that it hascreated astounding results, but it also has certain limitations on things that are notreadily testable.

Ebert: Our particular bunch of atoms evolved the ability to think, and to knowthey think. There's the wonder.

I don't think the Scientific Method believes anything about free will or anythingelse. It is simply a method for arriving at a useful hypothesis. It has no opinion.That is its whole point.

oliver | April 8, 2011 7:12 PM | Reply

I like that you use "Theory of Evolution," because it suggests an explanation, while"evolution" by itself allows disparagers to suppose and insinuate otherwise. I'd like tosee more use of "common descent," which invokes Darwin and Wallace's radicalinsight more specifically ("evolution" refers equally to Lamarck's theory), is anexplanation in itself and I'd say closer to the crux of the matter.

David M. Anderson | April 8, 2011 7:35 PM | Reply

Dear Roger,

I came upon your post late last evening and wept at its eloquence. I am an amateurastronomer who shares your wonder and joy in thinking about our place in thecosmos. I also want to thank the many readers who have added thoughtful andeloquent comments. Like you, I don't fear death because there is no discomfort innon-existence, as we know from the time before our birth. I do fear dying because Iam descended from beings whose survival depended on instinctively avoidinganything close to it at nearly any cost. (But not at any cost, thankfully, or therewouldn't be the altruistic heroes risking their lives at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant orfighting tyranny in Egypt and Libya.) I do hate death, however, because it robs us ofloved ones near and far, and though we've never met, your advice and reflections onlife and art have enriched my life for many years and I resent the fact that you willprobably shuffle off this mortal coil (since we are in a Hamlet mood on this thread)too soon.

I want to offer three further thoughts. The first is a reply to those who insist thatthe Big Bang must have a cause of its own. This is only true if we maintain anold-fashioned (Newtonian) concept of time. But space-time (and the extradimensions currently conjectured) are in fact contingent aspects of our universe.There is no logical requirement for a time before the Big Bang, any more than thereis for a temperature below absolute zero. (It is also logically possible that this isn'tthe whole story. It may be, for example, that time does extend infinitely in bothdirections, just as there may be multiverses ad infinitum. But that also wouldn'trequire a "first cause" because there would be nothing before t=-infinity. If a god canbe infinitely old, so can a godless cosmos.)

Second, I believe current thinking is that the universe isn't curved on its largestscale. Mass causes local curvature, in the formulation of General Relativity, but theuniverse as a whole seems to be very flat. When I was studying astrophysics in the1970s one of the key questions was whether the universe was "open" or "closed".Both empirical evidence and current theory--inflation, etc.--suggest it's pretty muchright on the knife edge. There remains a limit to the observable universe, of course,because of its finite age. Oh, also, the expansion only separates masses that are toofar apart to be held together by gravity. The galaxies and galaxy clusters are boundtightly enough that they aren't flying apart. So each atom isn't destined to be alone.In the end that's no solace, though, since all of the stars will eventually die, blackholes will evaporate, and even protons may decay. We have a long time to come toterms with all of this, thankfully.

Finally, now that our technology has advanced enough to take SETI seriously, there isunderstandable excitement about the possibility of contacting other intelligent


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civilizations. While I encourage this research, I suspect that its findings will benegative. I am sure you've heard of Fermi's paradox. Here's the way I describe it: Inthe few decades since we began flying and then launching rockets we already have aclear understanding of the technology needed to colonize space and travel to thestars. (See, among others, the work of Gerard O'Neill in the 1970s.) Within a centuryor so, I'm sure we will do so. We will begin to spread out, building and occupyingevery habitable niche, as life always does, humanity not excepted. (I don't thinkwe'll inhabit planets primarily. They are good incubators for life, but not ourdestination. I am hopeful that Earth and other planets will eventually be restoredand cared for as natural parks and gardens.)

We won't develop faster-than-light travel, but will happily live in huge cities thattravel between the stars. That it might take thousands of years for such journeys isno problem: we've been content to spend many generations on a spaceship that justgoes in circles without going completely crazy. At, say, 1/1000 the speed of light,we will still be able to cross our galaxy in a few tens of millions of years, spreadingsettlers to many of its stellar systems. Any intelligent, tool-using life-form would dothe same (or at least some significant fraction of them), and if there are others outthere, they are probably a few billion years old, on average, given the age of thegalaxies. (It would be an odd coincidence if they all evolved just now.)

So if intelligent life is at all common, some forms would probably have spread farand wide. If we didn't observe them visiting us--and, no, we haven't--I think we'dprobably observe the results of their industry. (For one thing, energy will always bevaluable, so I think they'd probably be building lots of Dyson spheres or theequivalent.) And we haven't. An excellent account of the Fermi paradox and 50possible answers is Stephen Webb's "Where Are They?" You'll find it very enjoyableeven if you don't reach the same conclusion I do.

While I think we may be alone in all of this, I don't find that any more bothersomethan the lack of a heavenly father watching over us. We give meaning to eachother's life, and that has to be enough. It does give me a heightened sense ofresponsibility, perhaps. I want to make sure the life that has developed here on ourblue planet continues to survive and prosper, because it is so precious, even if onlyto us.

Ebert: Yes, but I think it sad that generations of humans would live and die withno sense experience of Earth.


About the question of the origin of life, we will never know the whole story, I think,because viruses played a vital role in the development of early life: and virusesleave no fossil records.

http://www.bookrags.com/research/evolutionary-origin-of-bacteria-and-wmi/

Guillermo Lande | April 8, 2011 10:20 PM | Reply

Norman York, thank you for your most excellent and enjoyable disagreement. I mustfirst begin by saying that I disagree to at least some degree with both you and Rogerin this topic. I disagree with anti-evolution, but I also disagree with big bang. AndI'm very excited that your excellent explanation of your beliefs allows me to tie inthe one thing I feel both you and Roger are missing: scale.

The theory of the big bang is that all the universe at some point was crushed into anaked singularity and then blew up. It's a theory that requires a bounded space anda center of gravity for all of space. I absolutely do not believe in bounded space.What's on the other side of the boundary? It just doesn't make sense.

So what happens if we expand the scale to such a large size that our sun and solarsystem become the equivalent of an atom. What happens if the whole galaxybecomes the equivalent of an atom. What happens if all our perceived galaxiesbecome the equivalent of the atom.

If we change the scale that far, then we have an empirical correlation to whatpeople think is the big bang: A nuclear explosion. What's to say that when weexplode an atom--or a star compresses an atom or there's any kind of nuclearreaction, that there aren't tiny, tiny (tiny) worlds with their own scale of life inthem, developing, exploring, learning and eventually being obliterated as their owngalaxies are blown up in what we see as relatively minor explosions.


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What if our big bang were just a minor explosion in a much bigger cosmos.

And this is why I say you and I may not empirically recognize life when it's there.The life could be on such a huge scale that we're less than one organelle in a multi-galaxy organism. The life could also be on such a tiny scale that each of ourorganelles is a whole galaxy with our atoms as their solar systems and our electronsas planets.

What happens when humanity develops nano life to do our work for us. What ifhumans and ants and birds are the nano life of a child scientist so big that we can'teven perceive one whole cell because it's so big.

Norman, I don't think it's necessary that we, in our 100 years of life and 15 thousandor so years since we walked across the joined continents, perceive the scale of life,the origin of life or chain of life.

All I contend is that it's not magic. Whether life as we experience it was developedfrom an invisibly small scale, way smaller than atoms, or whether it's developed ona massively large scale too big for us to see, or whether it's developed gradually onour scale over such a long time we don't see the steps yet, all I contend is that it'snatural. It's the way of the world, and just like a squamous cell in my mouth doesn'thave to understand its place in my body, we don't have to understand our place inthe smaller and bigger universe. We simply are, and we do our best to learn and getbetter.

:)

Robert | April 8, 2011 10:22 PM | Reply

Roger,Another thought-provoking posting. I also very much liked the comment (I forgetwhose) that pointed out that since we are material of the universe and we areaware of the universe, we can say the universe is aware of itself. Cool.

David M. Anderson | April 8, 2011 11:05 PM | Reply

Dear Roger,

I, too, feel a bit sad about many of our descendants living and dying far from Earth,but I'm sure my ancestors felt the same way about their children never returningfrom the New World to see lovely Norway and Scotland. Nor have many of us seenthe Great Rift Valley and even if we went there it would have changed, I'm sure,since those bygone days. You can never go home again.

I love Earth enough that I hope someday we can move most of our industry off of it,leaving behind a few billion caretakers who keep their population controlled andlive sustainably, and restore and maintain as much of its beauty as possible,including the best of mankind's monuments, architecture, and cave paintings.Meanwhile I trust that our descendants, no matter what stars they orbit, will learnto love better and continue to create art and ideas.


Ebert: Oh, dear. One species does not change into another species. Two differentspecies may share a common line of descent.That is again high-brow holier-than-thou talk of the Darwinist priesthood. We allknow Darwinist mantras, each and every one of us has grown up with it. Yes, andthose common lines of descent disappear after doing the job, while everything elsestay the same. Earth’s environment, conditions, rival animals changed several timesduring the last 200 million years but sharks did not get the message. They are still atit with no change, just as insects, plants, mammals. Actually they changed, theymust have become other fish, although there is no flicker of evidence for it and,frankly, it is not possible. Change anything on any shark with any mutation you don’tget hard skeleton or several other non-shark fish attributes. Change them half-way,you have a deadly burden on the poor freak of nature in the competition of survival,and it has to mate with an exact replica too, so you need two exactly same freaks ofnature exactly same areas with impossible accidents. OK, let’s say, dinosaurs did notevolve into some other things and disappeared because of the meteorite, fine. Whatabout the Cambrian Explosion, when all species most of which disappeared suddenlyappear in fossil records with their perfect forms with eyes and sophisticatedsystems. Explain it with evolution. There is variation but no interspecies evolution.


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If there had been evolution, the fossil records would have been full of intermediaryhalf-done life forms, gradually evolving organs, and actually in numbers muchgreatly exceeding perfect and known species. Where is the crawling fish, lungdeveloping fish, bear in the process of becoming seal and whale, the commoncarnivore becoming gradually bear at the same time gradually becoming cat whilegradually becoming wolf. A single fossil would have been good. Some evolutionists ofrevolutionary persuasion address this with a wilder theory called punctuatedequilibrium where there are pockets of radiation and mutation, as in the deepvalley of the King Kong, animals get in them, metamorphosis quickly in no time, andget out as a new member of the fossil world. These places are so few they cannotbe found. This and many other Amazing Stories. Unfortunately no evidence at all.You seem very intelligent, but you resist the clear and well-known answers toyour questions. Regarding the protein molecule, I just posted a comment by BillHays that I think addresses your problems on that issue.Thanks for the compliment, Roger, I will print this out and give it to my girlfriend. Imissed Bill Hays’s argument and went back and found it. Dear Bill, your argument isbased on statistics, although boring as all statistics, certainly right qualitatively.Quantitatively, your argument is incorrect: You give the example of MegamillionsLotto “has odds of 141 million to one” and then say in the billions of years it couldhave happened once. The probability of life is much much much much much lessthan the Lotto: Let us assume we are in a world plenty of amino acids, which isitself almost impossible – it is now known today that Miller artificially synthesizedamino acids in lab conditions quite different from primordial earth. But let us sayEarth was a planet of amino acids. The probability that a giant protein moleculewould be synthesized three dimensionally perfect and functional with all the rightamino acids making chemical bonds accidentally, is like a car is welded withthousands of its parts in exact angles and positions correctly but accidentally. It iscalculated conservatively as one in ten to the power of nine hundred fifty. This ismuch smaller than one in ten to the power of eight in your Lotto. The word “much”here is not any much, it needs to be pronounced as a Russ Meyer prologue followedby a scream by Jim Carry followed by a commentary from Orson Welles intriumphant John Williams score. Immaculate Conception, Moses parting seas and allmiracles in the Bible and all the other world religious literature written andunwritten put together is probabilistically much closer to having rain in Boston. Puttogether that one protein is just nothing, and that some other proteins orsophisticated impossibly complex systems must have accidentally emerged at thesame microscopic point at the same microsecond, then we are talking about one inten to the power of sleeping all night with a finger on the keyboard’s zero. And thisis impossible for even the most devout religious zealot to accept. It is sofantastically impossible that it excites me. It just cannot be.Of course, before Big Bang, Evolutionary priesthood argued, impossibility was not aproblem at all because universe was infinite and static. In infinity of time, it doesnot matter how small the probabilities are, anything is possible at some time. So,Evolution was undefeatable (and therefore, as Karl Popper stated, as Chuck Vekertposter reminded us, unscientific) until Big Bang came, which said universe had a lifeof only 15 billion years, a blink of time. Big Bang did not only made Abrahamiccosmology of creation scientific, it also removed Evolution’s main armor, infinity oftime.NB - Scientific Prediction also involving Hollywood: As Evolution has always beenbased on ideological propaganda and a certain worldview, and as the more scienceadvances the more ridiculous it looks in each decade, now the priesthood also seethat it is no more tenable with propaganda only, want their infinity armor back,despite that it makes them Karl Popper unscientific. For that, wait for the new,again philosophic demagoguery based, Theory of Infinite Parallel Universes, researchof which is being financed in the last twenty years. Infinite Parallel Universes andconstant inward inflating Big Bang universes solves the problem brought by Big Bangby making time infinite again and making Bill Hays’s argument valid. To prepare thenext generation to this non-scientific but philosophic-religious cosmology from theirearly ages onward, Darwinist priesthood is financing cultural campaigns, children’snovels, Christmas blockbusters, and expect many things with the mantra of “paralleluniverses” until the term enters the top list of most frequently used daily lifeEnglish phrases. I predict by 2025 infinity of universe space-time will be the populardogma. There is just too much invested in Darwinism, which is not working, andthey won’t go without putting up a mental fight. They are artful but that one won’t


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work either because physicists are too independent an anthropologic entity to beoutmaneuvered and there will be too much resistance. And people are not cretinsnot to understand the old farts are fiddling with cosmology to make their stupidreligious faith untouchable again.The Theory of Evolution is not perfect, nor is it complete or finished. It providespowerful and useful insights into the development of life on earth.Roger; the Theories of Evolution, in any of their incarnations, not only do notcontribute to the advancement of science and human civilization, but also isactually the greatest barrier before the progress of mankind. It does not contributeto science, because biology is not based on evolution, it is based on genetics andstudy and observation of life we have. Evolution is considered useful in biology onlyin taxonomies of species. But that does not count because evolutionary taxonomiesare based on similarities of species and with or without it those taxonomies wouldmore or less be the same, or even more accurate. In other fields of science,especially the laughable religious new-age science of Evolutionary Psychology, it isjust mantra: “You smile, because this evolutionarily gives you social advantage, andevolution put it in your genes, therefore you smile. You love because ...” Manypeople make a living out of this and therefore perform another professionalpriesthood, but, come on people, we are above this. Elsewhere, computer sciencehad some algorithmic techniques late in 80s in solving some search problems calledGenetic Algorithms inspired by Mutant Ninja Turtle variety of Evolution but those arenowadays mostly used only as part of a combination of other algorithms now. That’sabout it.But the harm on society is twofold. Number one, it makes scientific debateprimitive and reduces it to religious arguments. Many non-religious people are alsoaware how pseudoscientific this grand theory of everything is. But they don’t wantto take the side of monotheistic religions and either keep silent or enter the debatewith tactical position taking. Therefore a fanatical minority of know-all philosophersor demagogues, actually paid just to do that demagoguery by the best universities inthe world since 90s to counter doubt (under names such as “chair for the publicunderstanding of science”, read Darwinism), push otherwise open-minded criticalthinking people to take up a position and better be not the position of the enemy.There is no civilized, fruitful debate on the origin of life or development of it orhuman nature or anything in the upper layers of the positivist strata of sciences.Hocus pocus against mumbo jumbo. You cannot accuse politicians, artists,musicians, thinkers or opinion leaders getting dumb and dumber. The scientificenvironment is getting dumb and dumber when you see a theory does not work butcannot question it. A person who sees obvious nonsense but cannot or does notcriticize is a malfunctioning unhappy homo sapiens.The second reason is that the theory belittles life and how wonderful it is,regardless of its origin. Life is so impossibly good and magnificent and mind-blowing.Not only the proteins interlock, but cells also do, and actually organisms also do inecosystems. Insects, animals and especially humans are greatest shows on earth. Nolife is accidental, half-formed, imperfect, in evolutionary process, could be betterwithout, artificially sustained. We are not only visibly harming the Earth and itsspecies, but we are also harming ourselves. Skinhead, and Nazis, rightly ask, what isall the fuss, we are doing what Darwin says should happen, crush the skull of thelower race in the evolutionary continuum. There is no evolutionary continuum, wewere intermarrying Neanderthals, brain size does not matter as it did not in HomoFlorensis, and all races on Earth which are mixed are equal as organisms, thoughsocial orders, history and worldviews make them act or think different. We kill andcommit genocide much easier as we destroy the earth much easier armed with thetheory of accidental progress and survival of the fittest.

Science believes it knows why there are protein molecules. Just tell me this:How do you explain the existence of the protein molecule?Science believes? At the moment, in this area, science is some ideological overlordsrunning productive lab slaves, who only think of writing another incremental paperto get in the tenure track, and whose work are given meaning by grand philosophersand PR men. First let us get rid of the falsehood, as did masses of people in 1989,and free ourselves with the dogmas of the priesthood. As I explained, at themoment we do not benefit from Darwinism in science, though we benefit fromDarwinist scientists whose Darwinist faith does not interfere in their lab work orfield digging. So removal of the philosophy will not leave a massive gap that willshatter civilization. Perhaps initially some more people will subscribe to mainstream


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religions and that is all. But with the intellectual discussions and newly opened fieldof scientific free-thinking, life sciences will be revitalized and new theories willemerge. Even if did not enough reason to uphold an unproven wish.Roger, we all know you have become more religious in your beliefs and increasinglyattached to Darwinism. And questioning of this set of beliefs is insecurity anduncomforting for many, but comedy of errors cannot go on forever.

Ebert: You are a very good writer. But you remain incurious. All of the problemsand objections you state have long since been dealt with by science time andagain.

As Louis Armstrong once said: "There are some folks who, if they don't know, youcan't tell 'em."

Lewis Thomason | April 8, 2011 11:52 PM | Reply

I tried to share this on FaceBook and got the following message.

This message contains blocked content that has previously been flagged as abusiveor spammy. Let us know if you think this is an error.What is going on ?

Fern replied to comment from Norman York | April 9, 2011 1:14 AM | Reply

Norman, I am glad that you hold an appreciation for the complex machinery of thecell, but I am puzzled why you end at amazement and cease further inquiry intohow it works. Yes, it is very complex, but cells are physically in front of us and canbe studied. Again, I do not understand what you mean by a perfect cell that isperfect. You provide examples of non-perfect cells as non-cells, non/mal-functionalcells, and trash. What about a cell that carries a mutation in it that doesn't turn itinto a non-cell, non/mal-functional cell, or trash? You go on and on about how themachinery within the cell is so accurate and precise, that any "mistake" (mutation)in the parts or assembly makes it useless or lethal. This is a major misconceptionabout what a mutation can do. Yes, it can lead to a breakdown in the system, but itcan also be neutral and, most importantly, beneficial. This is at the heart of howvariation can arise in a population.

Going back to the beginning of your post, you argue that there is no evidence ofprecursors to life and thus it is not scientific, empirical, or logical to propose theyever existed. I disagree with you here, because of two pieces of evidence: (1) lifecurrently exists and (2) there is no fossil record of life prior to about 4 billion yearsnor was it likely that life could have existed prior to the Earth's formation. Life musthave arisen at some point. This is where scientists ask how? Like you, we consider itunlikely that a modern cell randomly came together at that very moment. However,you seem to hold a very specific definition of what constitutes life and that it isunthinkable to think of it any other way. It is this argument that really puzzles meand goes against everything the scientific method teaches. Any understanding wehave about life is subject to further scrutiny and can be modified. You touch uponhow proteins cannot self-replicate, but who is claiming proteins were theprecursors? Or even DNA for that matter? You assert that since we currently don'thave a likely candidate we should give up. This is anathema to the scientificprocess. In light of the evidence that life somehow arose from non-life, we searchon. If you believe this to be a fruitless search, that is your prerogative.

Finally, you state that it is the evolutionists job to prove their theory. This is nottheir job and is another misconception on what a theory is. A theory cannot beabsolutely proven. To do so would require proving a universal negative: that thetheory does not fail under any circumstance. This is impossible because we do notpossess the resources or knowledge to test under every circumstance. Thus, the bestthing the evolutionist can do is to disprove their theory. Any successful falsificationof the theory leads to its modification. The theory of evolution that you are familiarwith today is the result from the fruits of that labor and continues to be tested.

Bill Hays replied to comment from David M. Anderson | April 9, 2011 1:34 AM | Reply

Reply to: I want to offer a reply to those who insist that the Big Bang must have acause of its own.

That's me. My logic, my take on it.


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Reply to: This is only true if we maintain an old-fashioned (Newtonian) concept oftime. But space-time (and the extra dimensions currently conjectured) are in factcontingent aspects of our universe. There is no logical requirement for a timebefore the Big Bang, any more than there is for a temperature below absolutezero.

Obviously, I'm going to get in trouble for this. Don't care.

After the Big Bang, the universe went through a period of inflation. Took physicists awhile to come up with that explanation..

The idea of time... stabilized? Our universe went from a period when otherconditions applied to one in which current conditions exist, and there doesn't seemto be any way to alter them.

Reply to:. It may be that time does extend infinitely in both directions,

Well, no. Time doesn't extend.

but our universe is one of an infinite number of universes, and some of them existedbefore ours, and time existed in those universes.

To me, it doesn't seem logical that time suddenly appeared in our universe, withoutanything similar in the source.

So, my theory is, the Big Bang came from a place where there was time, whichexisted before our universe did, and it was part of an infinite series of universesthat generated each other...

Maybe not infinite. But while space-time in our universe started with the Big Bang,there was already an existing place that had time that was part of its' existence. I'mnot sure there was space, but I think there was time.

The way to visualize this... would be soap bubbles. A bathtub full of soap bubbles.The bubbles split in half, creating two where there had been one.

Our universe is a bubble in a bathtub full of bubbles. Or, bubbles rising from a scubatank toward the surface.

Not sure i can defend this... but there it is.

Aaron | April 9, 2011 1:40 AM | Reply

My perception of the universe is always inverse to the problems directly in front ofme. It disappears when I'm distracted by stressful issues, and it only seemed fullypresent when I was a child looking up at the stars.

Letting all this infinity in is a way to clear the head, I guess, no matter how werationalize why it's working.

That some people like to pitch tents around this fundamental of all mysteries, tocharge admission, feels like a crime of the spirit to me, and to many other peopleout there, both atheists and religious, who have their own personal connection withinfinity, whether or not they give it a name like God.

I believe our differing views, though, show how different we are within this singlespecies, and that infinity out there shows how we are simultaneously pretty muchthe same. The trick is not to forget the mystery, or its gravity. Though some theoriesare more likely than others, pretending we have all the answers just distorts thatmystery.

The sentiment popularized by Carl Sagan, that we, products of star dust, are theuniverse looking at itself, is some comfort.


Reply to: What about the Cambrian Explosion, when all species most of whichdisappeared suddenly appear in fossil records with their perfect forms with eyesand sophisticated systems. Explain it with evolution.

Actually, that's the easiest one to answer. We KNOW the answer.

If you cut your finger, does it bleed forever? No, it heals.

Our ancestors won the battle for survival because of Repair Mechanisms. When webreak, we don't stay broken. Bones heal.

DNA has a repair mechanism, too. It probably started with using the organicchemicals from other living things as food... but it turned into sex.


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Combining the DNA from last night's dinner with the DNA floating around in ournucleus-food protoplasm inside a fragile membrane... turned into a way to add theDNA from our competition into our own.

When this happened, life exploded. There weren't any rules for adding this newDNA. Oh, yeah. Symmetry. The left side looked like the right side in a mirror.

The writer doesn't seem to understand how primitive the life forms were during theCambrian Era. But life took off because the DNA inside the cell found a way toshuffle the deck. Using a repair mechanism that said, "If this piece of our DNA isn'tworking, let's patch it with a piece of yesterday's turkey sandwich." Viola, we're now10% turkey.

It's not sex. When you look at a fossil, you need to see the creature that created thefossil. The Cambrian Explosion came from an ancestor of sexual reproduction, notsexual reproduction. It was closer to digestion than picking up babes at the Mall.


That Convy Morgan wrote a darned good paper on this issue, don't you think, Joe?Oh, I'll bet you're ignorant of it. There are so many things of which you really areignorant, it's not worth the trouble of pointing it out. It WOULD be worth thetrouble of your shutting your ignorant yap, though. As you don't understand what I'mtalking about -- you show it every time -- you must look to yourself for this"ignorance" that keeps blocking your vision.

Now "let's be clear," as you say about your somewhat ornery, humorless murk:

You're as I described, one of two "sides." You haven't got a clue what's outside thisintellectual box. You are likely less informed on your own "side" than I am. Yourposts always show that.

You've not only contributed nothing but negative cat-calling to every blog in whichRoger can't help but return to this subject, you've done so witlessly; as you pointout, you don't approve of wit, should you one day recognize it. So yours are alwaysthe words of a humorless cultist scandalized at the thought of what's outside thosechurch doors of truly cheap belief.

Like Louie Armstrong said, "They's them who just can't stand the music."

Or was that me? Lord knows it was often that way even from big festival stages.

By the way, Aaron, when Carl Sagan admitted he was a constant stoner, it madesense to me like nothing else he wrote. What he said makes it obvious he was anobsessive, an addict.

I've read nearly all of Velikovsky, some, repeatedly. I read Sagan's take onVelikovsky's stuff. Sagan wrote lie after lie after lie about Velikovsky's work. 700pages of lies, according to a scholar named Ginenthal, who counted them up. Saganmade things up that Velikovsky never wrote.

Sagan's career as a chronically stoned PBS cheerleader for science grants began withhis bold, steady libelings of Velikovsky, which were blessed gratefully by HarlowShapley, Dean of Harvard Astronomy dept., for one of many, who had beenfrightened senseless at Velikovsky's lending credence to religious myths of any kindas interpretable data toward the physical history of the solar system. They're werescared witless at how popular Velikovsky's work was. They boycotted the publisher.They fired any professors lending a nod to Velikovsky's work. Carl Sagan saw anopportunity for fame, fortune, and weed, wheeling around libeling Velikovsky. Saganwas a liar.

I never got to communicate with that liar personally. But I met Carl Sagan's collegeroommate, who'd spent his own career running an observatory. He showed me thatnot only had Sagan never even read Velikovsky, neither had he, but "if Carl said it,that's good enough for me."

It's important to repeat this story. There are obsessive scientismists here. It'simportant they allow in even a tiny bit of light hinting at the dishonesty of a closedcommunity that so enjoys worship and government grants and calls anyone differingwith their magic show "ignorant," like Joe Young does. There's far more corruption inthose halls than "Discover" magazine could hide, or even document.

Of course, some who read this may evince exactly the same attitudes as I were anegro in a whites-only diner in 1959, trying to discuss the unreasonableness


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underlying your god damned silly, superstitious sacred cows.

NORMAN YORK. That name needs big here. Go Norm go. Show that Roger a thing ortwo. Norm isn't the only one "incurious" around here. The quality of the reasoningthat produces his sentences says calling Norm "incurious" is an attempt at a suckerpunch.

It just gets wearying calling after those speeding gaily around their mobius stripsthat their destinations are a bit too obvious. Or, as Louie Armstrong said, "Some turnthey volume up so they can't hear nothin' else."

Or was that just me noticing how things are in reality again? When cornered thesewill claim, sometimes belligerently, that everything else "isn't music." Trust me.Chapter, verse, line, punctuation, trust me: there's more music in "the Universe"than some damn fluff-piece magazine can allow.

If I am not fascinated hearing that same old smooth-jazz for the 8 millionth time, or"how proteins got there" for the 9 millionth time, I may not be the ignorant one.

"Evolving" and "evolution" have long been distorted to mean "growth towardmeaningful improvement." That sense is absolutely the opposite of Darwin'spostulation and theory. This distorted sense is instead a nod to Lamarckianism,which was "outlawed" 90 years back. "Science" blotted out the possibility of anythingbut a "meaningless universe" with popular acceptance of this key Darwiniannonsense.

It was popular because it blotted out the guilt-grip of aging relgions for "themasses," a quite ignorant lot jazzed up with a way out of them; it is indeednonsense by intent of the very word games you people keep playing here,pretending these word games are "refinements of a theory." Random IS nonsense.Darwin's universe began with a meaningless, nonsensical bang.

Would you mind accepting the so-stated premises, people? it is totally illogical; it isabsolutely irrational, to mix "random" and "reasoned" together. Is this a word gametoo?

Because of these noisy snores I went and looked it up. Has it changed since I grewup? Nope. The process called "evolution" is still the random change of something orother over a period of time, which either destroys a species or randomly causes it tobe more adaptable to an equally random environment.

It was the current teaching, complete with smiley-face cartoon proteins andlanguage even Joe Young could understand. Same old same old round an' round shegoes, everything is RANDOM. Oh. Yeh. And then laws got tacked on. By meaninglesschance. Some implied "God of Luck."

As third grade phonics method would evince, "evolution" means no volition at all.The thing "evolved" can't act. Yet random things happen. And yes, "Evolution" is an"everything" theory, a bad joke trying to fill in with the previous "everything" theory,aka God.

E.g., the "Law of Uniformity" -- awww, skip it. What "gene" "evolved," then, to givepeople the notion that man is somehow the top o' the evolutionary heap? And so onand so on and.... zzzz...zzzzzzz...

(And then he fell into a swell Mark-Twain kind of dream about it, with cute roundtalking peptides'n'stuff, woke up and understood everything.)

Let's see now. As to the nature of time, it's absurd to pretend it goes just back andforth. There's a clue.

And as Queen Wilhelmina asked reasonably of Descartes, "how do you know you arethinking, and if you are, how do you know you're not crazy?"

I'm STILL trying to figure out why, and what use, is "comfort" to physical-scienceor philosophical, theological or metaphysical enquiry?

Doesn't "comfort" really mean one settles into "incurious" after a certain"comforting" point? Doesn't "comfort" breed prejudices? Don't they then turn into arigid bigotry?

Is it like feeling reassured there are no ghosts in one's house after all, or in his head?And how long does this "comfort" last?

Longer than would make me cozy, that's for sure.


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Or did Louie Armstrong say that?


One of the major problems with Creationists is confusion over the time line. Theythink animals appeared in the Cambrian Explosion, or that a modern animal cellsuddenly appeared at the wrong place in the time line.

Prokaryotes were the ONLY form of life on Earth 3–4 billion years ago.

The eukaryotic cells emerged between 1.6 – 2.7 billion years ago. The next majorchange in cell structure came when bacteria were engulfed by eukaryotic cells, in acooperative association called endosymbiosis. The engulfed bacteria and the hostcell then underwent co-evolution,... l

"Life" on the planet Earth consisted of the unicellular eukaryotes, prokaryotes, andarchaea

....until about 610 million years ago when multicellular organisms began to appearin the oceans in the Ediacaran period.

Multicellularity occurred in organisms as diverse as sponges, brown algae,cyanobacteria, slime moulds and myxobacteria.... but not until 610 mya, almost 3billion years after the earliest life appeared.

Soon after the emergence of these first multicellular organisms, a remarkableamount of biological diversity appeared over approximately 10 million years,

in an event called the Cambrian explosion. Here, the majority of types of modernanimals appeared in the fossil record, (But NOT animals.)

About 500 million years ago, plants and fungi colonised the land,

Amphibians first appeared around 300 million years ago, followed by early amniotes,

then mammals around 200 million years ago

and birds around 100 million years ago

Now that we have a rough time line, let's ask, At what point did repair mechanismappear?

If the history of life starts with very simple, and becomes more complex, when didcells have enough "software" to support a repair mechanism?

WIKI: Due to the damaging effects that mutations can have on cells, organisms haveevolved mechanisms such as DNA repair to remove mutations. The optimal mutationrate for a species is a trade-off between costs of a high mutation rate, such asdeleterious mutations, and the metabolic costs of maintaining systems to reduce themutation rate, such as DNA repair enzymes.

Viruses that use RNA as their genetic material have rapid mutation rates, which canbe an advantage since these viruses will evolve constantly and rapidly,

Mutations can involve large sections of a chromosome becoming duplicated. Extracopies of genes are a major source of the raw material needed for new genes toevolve. This is important because most new genes evolve within gene families frompre-existing genes that share common ancestors. For example,

the human eye uses four genes to make structures that sense light: three forcolour vision and one for night vision; all four are descended from a singleancestral gene.

If one gene in a pair can acquire a new function while the other copy continues toperform its original function (end)

Reply to: I missed Bill Hays’s argument and went back and found it. Dear Bill, yourargument is right qualitatively. Quantitatively, your argument is incorrect: Theprobability that a giant protein molecule would be synthesized three dimensionallyperfect and functional with all the right amino acids making chemical bondsaccidentally, is like a car is welded with thousands of its parts in exact angles andpositions correctly but accidentally

Actually, that's a great analogy.

A cell is a chemical factory. All the repair mechanisms and digestive and transportsystems inside a cell are very much like a car assembly line, welding seams and


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making sure the chassis is securely bolted to the unibody.

There are many amino acids, but 20 of them appear in "life." They are combined indifferent ways to create proteins. Once you realize that a cell is a factory thatassembles things, and get the time line right... well, the fact that there aren't ahundred different forms of life using different combinations of amino acids than theones we use.... explains how the process worked. It was like throwing socks into adrier. Once, and only once, did all the matching socks pair up by themselves. Or,several times, and they got eaten by other organisms that didn't appreciate Art.


I watched the Star Trek reboot movie last night with my family.

Ah, the glories of the Universe. Space, the final frontier. Warp travel around thegalaxy and beyond. New civilizations. Such incredible visualization of space andtechnology.

All very exciting stuff to ponder. We are such a small part of it all. Yet, alive andspecial nonetheless.

David M. Anderson replied to comment from Bill Hays | April 9, 2011 4:25 PM | Reply

Dear Bill,

We are mostly in agreement, judging from your several posts here. I am not sayingthat there was nothing before the Big Bang. I don't know one way or the other. Themultiverse theory, which you describe here, is certainly logically possible. Indeedmany cosmologists find it an attractive hypothesis. But it is not logically necessary.

Stephen Hawking conjectured at one time that space-time could actually be asmooth manifold even at the Big Bang "singularity". (In his formulation, as Iunderstand it, he replaced t with i*t, where i is the imaginary unit. Doing so makesrelativity a little neater, though last I looked this convention was going out offashion. Hawking may also have changed his mind. I don't always keep up.) That'sthe notion I have in mind when I say that there needn't be a "before".

Since, for one thing, we haven't yet reconciled General Relativity with quantumphysics, we don't really know with great confidence what the earliest conditions ofthe universe were. When you state that "our universe is one of an infinite number ofuniverses, and some of them existed before ours, and time existed in thoseuniverses," you seem rather sure of yourself.

You seem to speak of time as if it were independent of space, whereas time is nowunderstood as one dimension on the four(+)-dimensional manifold on which allevents occur. (They are so intertwined that two observers will not agree on themunless they are relatively stationary. Moreover, both are quite intertwined with themass-energy that clumpily fills our universe.)

You acknowledge that "space-time in our universe started with the Big Bang," butsomehow insist that there must be some other "time," with or without "space,"outside of that. While that may be logically possible, it's certainly not logicallynecessary. To you, "it doesn't seem logical that time suddenly appeared in ouruniverse, without anything similar in the source." I have little idea what "the source"means, and I am suggesting that it is the result of a logical fallacy.

I find that thinking to be perilously close to the cosmological argument for theexistence of God, which I know you reject, and which was the intended target of myoriginal comment.

The modern notion of time is quite foreign to our everyday experience, since wemove at non-relativistic speeds relative to other observers, and since we live in apost-inflation era far from any black hole, so that both our local and possibly ourglobal space-time is pretty flat. Our intuitions, unless we hone them with a lot ofstudy of General Relativity, don't provide us with the best foundation for the studyof cosmology.

David M. Anderson replied to comment from Bill Hays | April 9, 2011 4:51 PM | Reply

Thanks, Bill for reminding us of the time-line of evolution as well as yourexplanation of the types and roles of repair mechanisms.

The long time it took to get from prokaryotes to multi-cellular life is one of thethings I believe helps explain the Fermi paradox I mentioned earlier. I expect that


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we will find that life is quite common in the universe, but complex life far less so.Creationists make a big deal about the low probability events leading from aminoacids soups to us, but they not only underestimate the number of generations ofreplication that the vast age of the Earth has allowed, they also don't take intoaccount that billions or trillions of planets have been playing this lottery for just aslong. (And perhaps many more if we accept the multiverse theory, which makes theanthropic principle appealing.) Their only needed to be, and may only have been,one winner, which calls itself "us".

Karthik Sethuram | April 9, 2011 4:53 PM | Reply

You know Roger, I'm so glad that you've chosen to do this blog. I say "Roger," and not"Mr. Ebert," because these articles have given me a peak into your mind thatperhaps I would not have gotten unless we were friends. In this infinity of space, I'mglad I can put you into the category of fellow traveler and friend.

This article has moved me in so many ways. Like many of the other commenters, amovie we thought of while reading your words was "Contact." I thought the moviewas really good when I first saw it, but as the years have gone by, I've meditated onthe nature of the ideas brought forth by this film and the book it is based on.

As I've grown into my 20s, the weight of how little our lives mean on a cosmic scalehas touched me deeply, and at times, has made me feel sad and hopeless.Everything we desire, hate, struggle for, and love is nothing but the faintest ofembers waiting to blink out into nothingness.

And then, I also realize the preciousness of that. Yes, our lives may "mean" nothingto the universe. But isn't that also a reason to embrace anything and everything?That the struggles of this life are so miniscule that they can't be overcome by theentirety of one human spirit?

A Hindu or a Buddhist might comprehend the transience of life in a way Abrahamicreligions don't. But I think both Eastern and Western philosophies value differentcharacteristics of life in a way that astounds me... one emphasizes the treasure thatis humanity in this moment of time we call life, the other embraces theawe-inspiring oneness we have with the universe.

Chad Renard | April 9, 2011 10:58 PM | Reply

Mr Ebert,

Thank you for taking this broad topic, maybe the broadest of all, and writing aboutit from a perspective that I could grasp and often wish I could communicateeffectively. I've read your articles and reviews for years, and have admired them andthe comments from your readers. This one spoke to me, so I felt I had to reach outacross the weird distances of the internet and say thanks.

Bill Hays replied to comment from David M. Anderson | April 9, 2011 11:16 PM | Reply

Hello David,

I thought I might get some support for my theory by looking at the shape of theuniverse. Couldn't give me a simple answer, could they?

Sometimes you have to state your hypothesis, work out the details, and then lookfor flaws and inconsistencies.

It took geeky math majors a long time to formulate a space-time ... k. StephenHawking has a new book out, and I planned to drive to Cal Tech to hear the lecture,but missed it. Hawking wasn't there, but his co-author was.

Reply to: somehow insist that there must be some other "time," with or without"space," outside of that. While that may be logically possible, it's certainly notlogically necessary. To you, "it doesn't seem logical that time suddenly appeared inour universe, without anything similar in the source." I have little idea what "thesource" means,

Insist might be a bit strong.

A child is like a parent. How's that?

The alternative... is the God theory. Really, this is the opposite of the God Theory.

According to data received from the WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anistropy Probe),the shape of the universe is 'flat' (as opposed to 'open' or ...


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If the density of the universe is less than the critical density, then the geometry ofspace is open, negatively curved like the surface of a saddle. If the density of theuniverse exactly equals the critical density, then the geometry of the universe is flatlike a sheet of paper.

The simplest version of the inflationary theory, an extension of the Big Bang theory,predicts that the density of the universe is very close to the critical density, andthat the geometry of the universe is flat, like a sheet of paper. That is the resultconfirmed by the WMAP science.

If our universe was spherical universe, where an airplane sent in one directionultimately comes back around... Parallel lines ultimately meet, just like two friendswalking parallel to each other on their way to the North Pole.

Then there's the good, old flat universe, which obeys Euclidean geometry: trianglesadd up to 180 degrees; parallel lines never meet.

(2) there is a 68% confidence level for Omega which is [1.010, 1.041]

68% is not real confident. This is saying with 68% confidence we can EXCLUDE THEFLAT INFINITE CASE.This is not polite to say because a lot of people implicitly assume flat infinite intheir work.

This year, in January, one of the top cosmologists, Ned Wright,came out with apaper using a number of different data sets and he gave a "best fit" value of Omegaof 1.011----in other words the best fit LCDM is not the flat case but rather thepositive curved finite "nearly flat" case.

Sorry if this is confusing... we have some new data, some new theories... but thereassuring thing is, when we crunch the data, it comes out pretty close to ouroriginal "gut feeling." That's reassuring.

I have the "gut feeling" that time moves forward... that it didn't suddenly appear inour universe, but was also present in the place the big bang came from.. but I'mperfectly willing to hear semeone argue a different possibility.

Randy Masters replied to comment from Norman York | April 9, 2011 11:43 PM | Reply

@ Norman York

May I just say that I am enjoying your comments immensely. Particularly this post ofApril 8th, which is a virtuoso performance on these evolution threads here onRoger's excellent Journal.

@ Roger, if I may jump back in - not wishing to repeat my many arguments forIntelligent Design on other of these evolution threads and yielding to Norman'sexcellent arguments on this thread - on a different tack, I'd like to dissent from youranswer to Norman:

All of the problems and objections you state have long since been dealt with byscience time and again.

Addressed time and again is not the same thing as "dealt with". We disagree on theefficacy of those repeated arguments.

I read all of the links that you post on these threads in defense of a particularargument or so. I don't conclued the same proof for ToE that you do. You see astrong argument for Darwin's theory, I see a flawed argument. If we look at 100 sucharticles, I see 100 individually flawed arguments, and you see overwhelmingevidence.

Let's take an easy example from this thread - your link on abiogenesis, which youintroduced this way:

"But given the existence of matter, we now understand how life could havearisen."

I read the article on Wikipedia. It does not make the case that you think that it does- that we now understand how life could have arisen". Not only is it chock full of theusual qualifiers like "perhaps" and "can form" and "some theorists suggest", it veryexplicitly says that we do not now know:

There is no truly "standard model" of the origin of life.

and


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The sequence of chemical events that led to the first nucleic acids is not known.

How do you read that Wikipedia article as being in support of the assertion that "wenow understand how life could have arisen"? Do you not read the parts thatexplicitly say we don't know?

So, we both read the same article on the critical topic of abiogenesis. You scored itas +1 in favor of your argument. I scored it as interesting but as -1 in support of yourargument.

What happens if we each read 100 such articles? I see 100 individual articles chockfull of qualifiers and failing to make the point that they are asserted to make. Yousee overwhelming evidence for the ToE position by virtue of the sheer number ofarticles out there.

It is not overwhelming evidence. It is frequent wishful thinking, repeated invariations 100 times.

Test me on this. Re-read the Wikipedia article that you linked as having "dealt with"abiogenesis. Tell me from that article that we "now understand" with any degree ofcertainty how life begain from non-life purely naturally. We do not.

Norman is quite right. And eloquent too.

Ebert: I see a nearly universal consensus on behalf of ToE, and tortured specialpleading on behalf of ID.

keith carrizosa replied to comment from Randy Masters | April 10, 2011 3:17 AM | Reply

"It does not make the case that you think that it does - that we now understand howlife could have arisen". Not only is it chock full of the usual qualifiers like "perhaps"and "can form" and "some theorists suggest"

And yet you've said even less than that in favor of ID on this behalf; at leastwikipedia had "perhaps" and "can form" and "some theorist suggest."


"Roger, evolution does not exist."

You (or creationists, which I assume is you: but it doesn't matter) do realize that wecome from stars, right?

You do realize that that means that the Earth has not been here forever, right?

You do realize that there had to be a way for us to go from being stars to beingpeople, right?

There are not people floating around in space; therefore, evolution had to happenfor us to go from stars to people.

JimV | April 10, 2011 8:44 AM | Reply

The usual suspects are making the usual arguments. If I could get them to read justone book, it would be Ken Miller's "Finding Darwin's God". It must be well over tenyears old now, which is a long time the way biogenetics is developing, but thearguments some are giving here are even older, so I think it answers all of them,with hard data.

Take the issue of how many proteins a cell needs. Behe gave the example of theKreb's Cycle as a case of his "irreducible complexity" (which is the same old same oldbeing argued by some here - the cell is just too darn complex to have evolved): itcontains seven different steps, each using different enzymes, and if you take oneaway, according to Behe ... except, it turns out, Dr. Miller says and cites references,experimenters have disabled as many as four of those seven steps in living cells, andthe process still produces energy - the cell still lives.

Evolution is like the guys who keep all their old issues of National Geographic intheir attics - it never throws anything away that isn't toxic. A cell has incredibleredundancy. Yes, some "junk DNA" has functions which haven't yet been determined,but a lot of it is just junk - proved by removing it from mouse gametes and havingnormal mice develop. Here's a thing the apologists never factor into their back-of-the-envelope probability calculations: it's hard for something useless to mutate intosomething more useless; not so hard for it to mutate into something useful, whenthere is lots of it.

Evolution can be measured in the field (samples of Amazonian Guppy genomes,


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taken year after year, cited by Dr. Miller), and has been seen in the lab, in Dr.Lenski's famous experiment. Those who think they can calculate that all thoseexperiments couldn't happen are doing it wrong, like the guy who calculated thatbees couldn't fly. (Current, correct calculations show they can.) Not that anybodyhas done any peer-reviewed, publishable calculation contrary to the ToE. If youthink you have one, the line for the Nobel Prize is to the left, but remember, thefather of Statistics, Dr. Fisher, was one of those darned evolutionists.

Gary in Phoenix, Arizona | April 10, 2011 11:05 AM | Reply

A few commenters are regarding either scientists or atheists as conspiratorial andcabalistic, and "Science" and "Atheism" as lumpably generalizable as "Big Business."Yet the Scientific Method, requiring hypothesizing and testing and debunking-as-needed and rehypothesizing and retesting, encourages the tearing down of oldideas for new ones. There is a huge incentive for scientists to gain a betterunderstanding of the origin and development of life than is found in the Theory ofEvolution. Undoubtedly (ha ha) there are scientists who are also Christians whodaydream about doing such. But so far no good.

As for Atheism, it is a label misunderstood and miswielded. The closest thing to anatheist mainfesto that I can think of is Betrand Russell's "Why I Am Not a Christian,"and it is one man's honest account of how he arrived at his nonbelief. It is logical,easy to read, and every Christian who's read it at my request has not been able torefute it; the effword Faith tends to come into play in discussion.

I don't like being labeled an atheist nor an agnostic, and certainly not the ridiculing"Athie." The nearest to my belief system is "Freethinker" but I don't like that either;sounds self-aggrandizing. No label at all suits me best, and I suspect that is true ofmany people with some atheism or agnosticism in their mindsets.

Bill Hays | April 10, 2011 11:49 AM | Reply

Too many people watch South Park. Here's the proof:

On a list of the people with the largest following on Twitter,

Taylor Swift come it at No. 8, with her 5,804,661 followers.

Film critic Roger Ebert came in at No. 9, and yet he only has around 400,000followers.

Ebert went on his Twitter page earlier this week to say, "I really like Taylor Swift,but with 15 more votes I could pass her and close in on Justin Bieber."

Her response?

"@ebertchicago thanks! And oh, it's ON!!!"

Not sure you appreciate the implications of "It's ON."

When Cartman was part of a break dance team, Chef warned him not to openlychallenge the teams with members that belonged to gangs. Gangs with connectionsto Mexican drug cartels.

But Cartman said, "It's ON."

Kenny wound up getting killed.

So, when a femme fatale like Taylor Swift says, "It's ON," there's only one sensiblecourse of action.

Send Ignatiy to negotiate a treaty with Taylor. Send him now. Give him a crock potto give her as a peace offering.

A plane ticket to Los Angeles would be a small price to pay to get out of this mess.She obviously has a thing for Ignatiy and won't stop until she has enough dirt for ahit song.

Maybe you should refer to her as The Future Ex-Mrs. Vishnevetsky from now on?


Ebert: Our particular bunch of atoms evolved the ability to think, and to know theythink. There's the wonder.

First of all, the robots in "A.I." had the ability to think and knew it too. So why didyou not care about them?


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Second of all, there is no evidence using the scienctific method that tells us atomscan think or have consciousness. It tells us that atoms are ruled by cause-and-effectand perhaps randomness only. I bring this up because you imply you only follow thescientific method.

Here's something you wrote recently: "Day after day I read stories that make meangry. Wanton consumption is glorified. Corruption is rewarded."

Why does corruption being rewarded make you angry? Since you seem to onlybelieve in the physical universe, there would be no such thing as morality. Darwinianevolution is about survival of the fittest.

Joe Young replied to comment from Andy | April 11, 2011 9:21 AM | Reply

Andy,

A belief that humans are organic machines and that life has no apparent purpose(Everybody is an accident) does not preclude morality.

To quote the TV show Angel - If nothing we do matters, all that matters is what wedo.

Moreover, empathy and altruism are inherited traits. Why would you have Rogerignore those traits?

Also, without giving up my Materialist beliefs I can also say that humans and otherliving organisms are more than the sum of their parts. You are using a reductionistviewpoint. In some cases a wholistic viewpoint is required. Breaking things downinto their constituent parts will not reveal all the information about those parts.

Towers in Babylon are killing USA with microwaves | April 11, 2011 10:36 AM | Reply

Instead of looking at the cosmos,, try looking into how many cell towers ofmicrowaves are looming over your home towns and businesses. The wireless trend isa successful weapons of mass destruction WAR on American citizens.AntennaSearch has revealed the dark ugly truth of how we are beingDEADLY_CANCER -ZAPPED without any control whatsoever. Our (bribed bybillions)FEDS have given carte blanch to any and all towers and antennas...Thefamily we once knew from San Francisco Bay area has been so hard hit by theseweapons that they can no longer speak without pronounced impediments.. This isthe most horrific fact we are refusing to face. Children are being targeted withaggressive marketing of cell phones. Our Government has admitted to ZERO healthstudies on dangers of microwave radiation because they are in bed with evil OILTOWERS and $$$$$$. Remember that Russia successfully planned and killed ourAmerican politicians by BEAMING MICROWAVES into their buildings. They all died ofLeukemia. Breast cancer and brain cancer is spiking as the number of towers andantenna permits are being given by the thousands. Do you expect anyone to believethat within a four mile radius we need 180 towers???WAKE THE F___ UP AMERICA.Take down Cancer bake Microwave OVENS. We need to get out of their ovens inorder to talk, think, and live before frying ourselves to cancer-death.

Subtronic | April 11, 2011 5:53 PM | Reply

As a planetary populist, this cosmic inference was beautifully written. The fact that"we know, that we know" is the essence of life and the cosmic vision through a prismof curiosity. I believe that the Cosmos has a collective evolutionary intelligence.After all everything around us is made up of the same quantum particles. Its likewaves, whether its neurons and the brain waves or any form of electromagnetism,they all interact and they all evolve. This collective consciousness of our Solarsystem, or the Milky Way galaxy or even the Virgo Supercluster, perhaps has nopurpose, but I would like to think it has an evolutionary direction. Think about it, asa form of energy. Perhaps the "final product" of our universe (among othermultiuniverses) is a form of energy which is merely a tiny ingredient in the CosmicProduct. I know its speculative, but the point here is not to say that I am right, butrather the power of imagination among Human Beings that can transcend the"known" and the "visible". Hubble, and the forthcoming James Webb SpaceTelescope, along with a plethora of other science instruments and computing powerare on the verge of ushering us into an era of post planetary existence. Itsunfortunate, that our resources, money, intelligence, purpose is expended in amyriad of issues and triviality. When few humans, because of their own intelligence


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and inference gave us mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, just imagine thepower of a billion humans who dedicate their energy in this collective scienceexploration. What we might discover, invent, travel and or experience would beperhaps so stellar that even carbonic stars cant shed that much density on ourexistence.

Josh | April 11, 2011 10:19 PM | Reply

Roger,

I really enjoyed your post, but in your replies, more so than any of your other postsrelated to this topic, you have revealed a certain trait. You see, there are a goodmany scientific facts and theories of which I am convinced. I believe the planet isround, I believe the heliocentric model of the solar system, I believe themeasurement for the speed of light is correct. The list could go on. However, I haveno emotional attachment to them. If tomorrow, someone could show us the planetwas actually shaped like an egg (for example) I would gladly accept it. If someonewished to challenge any theory currently in vogue, I should say, "Go on, let us knowwhat you find." But this is not the case with you. For you, Evolution is much morethan a scientific fact. If tomorrow, it was shown to be false, it is quite obvious youwould be heartbroken. It's not just that you believe it to be a fact, it's that yourphilosophy demands that it be a fact. Because for you, Evolution has become notjust a fact but your Religion. Now, I have no problem with that. I just find it sad thatyou don't recognize this.

If this were a Christian blog, and Norman were writing challenges relating to thereliability of the New Testament or the case for the Resurrection, and the authorresponded, "Well, the Church believes, uh, that uh, well, the Church's theology iscontinually developing, and uh, there is consensus within the Church that uh, ohblast it, ", you would scoff. Perhaps rightfully so. Yet, this is you in response tochallenges to your Religion. Not only are your answers to Norman non-answers, butyour link to abiogenesis failed to provide the answer you seem to believe it does. I'mnot convinced you've ever questioned Evolution long enough to actually read thechallenges that have been genuinely offered. I believe your dogma is so strong youcan't comprehend why one of your fellow humans would even ask such questions,much less come to different conclusions. I would scoff at all of this....if it weren't sosad.

I believe it was G.K. Chesterton who once said, "In truth there are only two kinds ofpeople, those who accept dogmas and know it and those who accept dogmas anddon't know it." You have made it painfully obvious where you fall.

Ebert: Not so. If the T of E were disproven using the Scientific Method, I wouldbe excited by what had replaced it. You see, I don't "believe" in it. I consider it adeveloping hypothesis that passes all the requirements of the Scientific Method.It is in a constant state of improvement.

Consolation Prize | April 12, 2011 12:19 AM | Reply

EricJ,

Thanks for the (Christian? Trolling?) reply. Not quite what I expected, so I thank youfor the surprise. Sincerely, not sarcastically.

Why the anger? Because I call my wife a Christian? Or because that is the only way Icharacterize her in this post? She is also compassionate, fun, a wonderful mother, acaring daughter. And while all of these and more are true, none are particularlygermane to this conversation. Does my brevity make me seem cold to you, as yoursarcasm makes you seem mean to me?

I didn't mean to imply that she should leave me because of our epistemologicaldifferences -- I meant to say it outright. Perhaps a rereading of my original post willclarify that for you. And I'm not guessing here; she has told me as much indiscussions of the meaning of "unequally yoked."

Regarding "declaring yourself One of the Brave Few With the Higher Answer," andbeing willing to mindlessly objectify and de-personify my wife -- sounds like you'reupset that I believe I am right? How does one do otherwise? How does one hold abelief that they also believe is wrong? I do not consider myself brave for having abelief. The dilemma is over the right thing to do in response to that belief. I am notwilling, mindlessly or otherwise, to do anything other than the right thing, and that


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is the search that led me to post here.

You say faith is saying "I don't know," without fear. And I think you also say faith isacknowledging that we don't even deserve to have the right to know. I say faith issaying "when it comes down to it, there's no good reason to believe X, but I'll believeit anyway." So, where do unicorns and invisible elves fall in this faith schema? Surely,we can't know for sure that they don't exist. Is your faith that strong? Mine is not.

I'm not quite sure where you were going with the "status" idea, and I'd like to hear aclarification. Is this the "status" of being right, and I'm being prideful by seeking thatstatus instead of the status of "gee, I just don't know nothin' 'bout nothin'?"

You and I are totally in agreement on happiness, at least in theory. Which leads meto conclude with this question: if, as you say, happiness "drives us to bring it toothers who don't have it," why does your post seem targeted to bringing suchsuffering to me? And I really hope you don't try to argue that your cruelty will resultin a bigger picture of happiness for me.

Thank you again for your post.

Consolation Prize | April 12, 2011 12:50 AM | Reply

For some religions, it's much, much more than "simply disagreeing." These areconsiderations of the eternal soul and what is ultimately and epistemologically true.If I believed that my son's soul were in danger, which I no longer believe, but in anycase, I would act on that believed truth here and now. It takes an understandingthat these religions view that danger as real as a house on fire. Would it beintolerant to save a child from that fire if the father didn't believe the fire was real?And yes, I realize in that example, the fire was in fact real, but you know, allmetaphors break down somewhere.

I think what it comes down to is the difficulty of reaching agreement when twopeople don't share a foundational premise. How hard is it for people tocommunicate and understand if they don't start from a shared premise? Your parentsshared the premise of individual right to belief, and they might have even sharedsome Jewish/Methodist hybrid belief of the afterlife. For as many premises as mywife and I still share, one fairly large one is now different. Roger suggested we avoidthat confrontation, perhaps focusing on some kind of shared premise regarding ourson and our relationship as a family. Oh, to be brainwashed and happy! Oh to slipback into the Matrix!

Thank you for the reply. Oddly enough, talking it out with complete strangers doeshelp my frame of mind.

Warren-Alex | April 12, 2011 2:18 AM | Reply

Your writing is very uplifting and engages inspiring attributes. Although, I foundsome of the assumptions.. leaping, the gist of what your idea is, is well conveyed.

I just want to add to your continued search for your own truth. Below I list two sitesthat offer some compelling arguments on this.The Big Bang Theory is disseminatedrather well, in these two:

http://bigbangneverhappened.org/p25.htmhttp://www.angelfire.com/az/BIGBANGisWRONG/


Tom,

"You've not only contributed nothing but negative cat-calling" Were you looking in amirror when you wrote that, because I was nothing but polite to you in my initialresponses and rather than provide intelligent responses you chose ad hominemattacks and condescension.

Regardless, it is apparent you not only have no understanding of science (which isthe opposite of dogma and always doubts itself), but no understanding of wit; that isif you actually believe you demonstrate any in your posts.

Since you seem to want to ignore the arguments I make and do not bother to try tosupport any of your half-assed claims, I see no reason to continue addressing you.

In the future, try (1) being more articulate. If you wish to convey a point be asprecise and concise as possible and (2) opening your mind to new ideas and notbeing antagonistic to everyone who disagrees with you.


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Joe Young | April 12, 2011 9:36 AM | Reply

Tom,

"You've not only contributed nothing but negative cat-calling" Were you looking in amirror when you wrote that, because I was nothing but polite to you in my initialresponses and rather than provide intelligent responses you chose ad hominemattacks and condescension.

Regardless, it is apparent you not only have no understanding of science (which isthe opposite of dogma and always doubts itself), but no understanding of wit; that isif you actually believe you demonstrate any in your posts.

Since you seem to want to ignore the arguments I make and do not bother to try tosupport any of your half-assed claims, I see no reason to continue addressing you.

In the future, try (1) being more articulate. If you wish to convey a point be asprecise and concise as possible and (2) opening your mind to new ideas and notbeing antagonistic to everyone who disagrees with you.

Bill Hays replied to comment from Consolation Prize | April 12, 2011 11:38 AM | Reply

Reply to; You say faith is saying "I don't know," without fear. And I think you also sayfaith is acknowledging that we don't even deserve to have the right to know. I sayfaith is saying "when it comes down to it, there's no good reason to believe X, butI'll believe it anyway."

If there's no good reason, why would you believe it anyway?

In my experience, religious people are brutal. They want you to believe their stuff.OK, this is when I was growing up, when the power of religion in America was a lotstronger, but the arrogance of "people who believe" is out of place. Why? Becausethere's no good reason to believe. You might do it anyway, but enough with thearrogance and the insults to people who choose not to follow your path. We AREright, you ARE wrong, and that's how the conversation should gol Always. Letchildren know that your "belief" isn't credible up front. Just tell them. Then, theywill still respect you in the morning. it's the difference between lying and admittingyou're wrong.

OK, the site. Eight times, I've typed in the right Captcha and it wouldn't post. Thereare times when the letters are clear, and I got them right.

The text on the entry page covers a very small portion of available space. There is agrey space to the left. Bigger Fonts. Bigger Texts. Give each person who posts aneasier way to read his own stuff. That's how you do a great blog.

Evolution needs some study. Norman seems quite impressed by the fact StephenMeyer can't figure out how proteins were formed. Celebrating the fact that an IDguy lacks genius. I mean, I went to Biola, I met Stephen Meyer, he's trying to foolpeople. I was literally asked to leave because I told someone that I was going toexplain why ID is wrong.

"I deserve the truth.""You can't handler the truth."OR"I believe in fairy tales and I'm going to stop anyone from telling me It's a scam. Iknow it's a scam, but it's my scam."

Too many people think the second is okay.Evolution is the Truth. You deserve it.

If I can't tell the difference between a q and a g, does it mean I'm a spam-bot? No.


Ebert: Not so. If the T of E were disproven using the Scientific Method, I would beexcited by what had replaced it. You see, I don't "believe" in it. I consider it adeveloping hypothesis that passes all the requirements of the Scientific Method. It isin a constant state of improvement.

In other words, The Theory of Evolution is the worst explanation for the origin oflife, except for all the other theories regarding the origin of life.

John Panagopoulos, Malden, MA replied to comment from Karthik Sethuram | April 12, 2011 3:02 PM | Reply


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Karthik, I recommend you watch (or watch again) the movie "It's a Wonderful Life".For all its sentimentality, it is a reassuring affirmation of the vital importance ofevery human life and how you do matter to the universe, or at least a portion of it.

Gary in Phoenix, Arizona replied to comment from Bill Hays | April 12, 2011 7:46 PM | Reply

To Bill Hays: A previous reader suggested going to Preview before typing the Captchain. I think it changes every so often, so the Preview is especially valuable for peoplewho go on at great length.

I also want to say something about the reduction of Arrogance. Show, don't tell.

Gary in Phoenix, Arizona replied to comment from Joe Young | April 12, 2011 7:48 PM | Reply

To Joe: I feel your pain. I banged my head against the wall long enough with thegentleman with the perpetual Sneer Campaign. No more. One remove; one bigrelief. Good luck!

Kevin J. Casey | April 13, 2011 3:04 AM | Reply

Dear Roger,

Did you deliberately format Hamlet's monologue as an acrostic, or was that yetanother cosmic anomaly?

K.C.

Ebert: All Shakespeare.

Randy Masters replied to comment from Bill Hays | April 13, 2011 12:10 PM | Reply

Hi Bill Hays:

I went to Biola, I met Stephen Meyer, he's trying to fool people. I was literallyasked to leave because I told someone that I was going to explain why ID iswrong.

I've read Stephen Meyer - a PHd in the relevant field with a thoughtful andwell-argued published book.

I've read you.

I'm going with Stephen Meyer.

I can imagine you were asked to leave. You came with an agenda of disrupting thelecture. You want to explain why ID is wrong - get published and get invited as alecturer.

Any chance you are going to EbertFest this year? I'll buy you a cup of coffee thereand say hi.

keith carrizosa replied to comment from keith carrizosa | April 13, 2011 5:06 PM | Reply

Back in this comment I mostly if not completely talking about just being indifferentwith respect to things that are being absorbed into the body, like if someone is outin the sun and it is burning their skin and they are just like "Yeah, that hurts, sowhat?", which perhaps has something to do with indifference on a higher level.

OliverSudden replied to comment from John Panagopoulos, Malden, MA | April 13, 2011 5:55 PM | Reply

The Theory of Evolution has no opinion about the Origin of Life, in fact, it does notsay a single syllable about the origin of life.

The Theory of Evolution sets out to explain the vast diversity of life and nothingmore.

Period.

Capice?


"The Theory of Evolution has no opinion about the Origin of Life, in fact, it does notsay a single syllable about the origin of life.

The Theory of Evolution sets out to explain the vast diversity of life and nothingmore."

Period.

Capice?


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True, OliverSudden, as far as explaining life's diversity goes. But also implicit in anydiscussion of the proliferation of life's diversity are the elements conducive tostarting life in different environments.

Katalavainis?

John Umana | April 14, 2011 10:51 AM | Reply

Interesting article and photos, Roger. You say, "There is no reason the universe'needed' to evolve intelligent beings, but it has. It might have been inevitablebecause of the fact of Natural Selection." Evolving intelligent beings (that is,people) was the plan from the beginning, before the Big Bang. Evolution of thecosmos and of living worlds were not (and are not) a matter of Natural Selectionworking on random mutations. They are the work of Supernatural Selection, a forceor forces external to the physical universe which work upon it-- such as, e.g., darkenergy, the repulsive force behind the finely calibrated continuing expansion of thecosmos. There is no other body in this sun system where life has emerged as it didon Earth. But the Milky Way and the cosmos are teeming with life and withintelligent life. Hope this helps.

Jason Maher | April 14, 2011 6:02 PM | Reply

"...all I really understand is that the star is forever out of the reach of my species."

This is such a potent statement. It perfectly underlines what Werner Herzogrecently said during a discussion on Science and Art on NPR's Science Fridayprogram. I'm paraphrasing but he pointed out that the place of humankind in theUniverse is here - on Earth - that every other place in the universe is dangerous andhostile to us.

Of course, we may one day develop computers - conscious Artificial Intelligence -that are immune to time, disease, the need for sustenance, and death. These beingswill surely visit the far reaches of the universe but our species - no. Our place ishere.


"But also implicit in any discussion of the proliferation of life's diversity are theelements conducive to starting life in different environments.Katalavainis?"

No.

Well, implicit for *you* perhaps but you'd be wrong to infer such a thing. And youare.

Worry not though: science has a theory for the origin of life too. It's calledAbiogenesis. Feel free to poke as many holes in that one as you like since it's notnearly as "road-tested" as the T of E is.

Words mean things. We can't just decide on our own that apples and oranges willswap nomenclatures. How then will we communicate?

Tom Dark | April 15, 2011 12:58 AM | Reply

Joe Young, Gary in Phoenix,

Perhaps rather than "banging your heads" you'd do better to use them in a moreappropriate fashion one day. Otherwise go bang them where I don't have to dealwith them.

I didn't start Joe's rudeness, he never will use anything like "wit," and no argumentor address has been offered to my point of view even yet -- with the exception ofDave van Dyke, a year or so ago, who really does do scientific stuff for a living.

Joe Young put in writing just how astonishingly off the mark is his ability to read andcomprehend what I write. You do remember, don't you, Joe? You have done nearly asbadly here.

Or does reality not count?

Once again I hear how I "know nothing about science."

Out here in reality I hear quite differently from real scientists with real credentials.They're not ignoramuses. They believe their own versions in different degrees, differwith me, but don't play the silly games you do. It's my job to temper their thoughts,


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and I'm good at it.

I've tried frequently to get any of them here to make something more of these blogsthan, as I put it, people "banging ideas against each other like children withalphabet blocks." They apparently don't feel a need for the exercise.

Only the most mediocre minds insist on knowing "the Truth," as there isn't any suchthing. You're "Truthers." You don't see how religiously dogmatic you are. Younervously project "ignorance" wherever there is disagreement. You do call it "Truth."

Evolution is neither a "Truth" nor a reality. It's a one-dimensional method ofobservation in which the assumption is imposed on all phenomena and facts thatdon't fit are cast aside.

That's usually what a "Truth" is, isn't it. It's a comforting fairy tale for absolutists nodifferently than the "unmoved mover" ever was for religious sophomores. It's morean indication of a personal emotional insecurity than anything like scientific inquiry.

Dawkins "can't explain Creationists" because he is one, obsessed with keeping anenemy to make his own armful of paper details seem more valid than they are.

That's why religious intuitives must always be forced into seeming "stupid" to thisman, even where he'd be dwarfed in an IQ test. Like Hitchens, and various trueignoramuses on this blog, they are haunted by imaginary enemies which they mustcontinually deny.

As Norman York has pointed out -- and it certainly takes far more genuine curiosityto come to such recognitions than merely guzzling the curlicued idiocies of one'sfavorite TV-science cheerleader -- it is a stultifying idea.

You have to go a certain distance, however, to recognize these dead ends. Few here,if any, want to.

John Panagopoulos, Malden, MA replied to comment from OliverSudden | April 15, 2011 7:54 AM | Reply

Then explain to me, OliverSudden, in meticulous detail where I have gone astray.Declaring someone wrong without sustainable proof reeks of unimaginativepomposity.

Of course the main thrust of the Theory of Evolution is the origin of diversity ofspecies. But it is also useful for examining at the cellular level which combination ofchemical processes in the "primordial soup" were most conducive to life in the firstplace.

Abiogenesis literally means "life from lifelessness" and, without proof, is as useful atheory of the origin of life as the Bible's explanation in the Book of Genesis for howlight came out of darkness.

Intrinsically, words do NOT mean things, or anything else. They are essentiallyconvenient labels arrived at through consensus and popular use. If words did meanthings, then we wouldn't have synonyms.


"In other words, The Theory of Evolution is the worst explanation for the origin oflife, except for all the other theories regarding the origin of life."

Those are your words. Unless you were being ironical, which I fully admit may be apossibility and if so I shall offer sincere apologies, then you have made a simplecategory error.

In casual conversation, the subject of the T of E may very well lead someone,organically you might say, to the origin of life. I fully concede this. But then, you'reno longer talking about the T of E, which offers no opinion about life's beginnings.

I'm unsure of how to make that point more plain.

The Theory of Evolution does as admirable a job of explaining the origin of life asthe Theory of Gravity, Germ Theory, Atomic Theory, Plate Tectonics, the Theory ofRelativity, or Quantum Field Theory. They all have an equal amount to say aboutlife's humble beginnings. Care to take a guess as to what amount that is?

Now do you understand?

I'm not suggesting that you cannot criticize the Theory of Evolution. Or any theory.Theories were made to be shot down. Literally. I'm merely suggesting that if youwish to discuss the origin of life, that you not pin that idea to a theory that offers


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no opinion about it.

In short: know the theory you're criticizing.

Joseph | April 15, 2011 2:53 PM | Reply

Mr. Ebert

I enjoyed the discussion on your post "Win Ben Stein's Mind" a few years ago. Idisagreed with your worldview, but it really helped me dig deeper with mine. I thinkthat the problem with modern science, is what might be called an "idolatry of thestudy".

I would at this point like to suggest that you read Owen Barfield's "Saving theAppearances". I don't agree with all of it, but I promise it will challenge you, andwill be an enjoyable read. It would be really awesome if you even wrote a post ortwo about it, because I think your readers would really enjoy it.

Archie from Ottawa | April 15, 2011 3:32 PM | Reply

Well, the way things seem to be going, the next sentient race will be radioactivecockroaches.

Sam replied to comment from Andy | April 15, 2011 10:40 PM | Reply

Reply to: Here's something you wrote recently: "Day after day I read stories thatmake me angry. Wanton consumption is glorified. Corruption is rewarded." Why doescorruption being rewarded make you angry? Since you seem to only believe in thephysical universe, there would be no such thing as morality. Darwinian evolution isabout survival of the fittest.

Because wanton consumption and rewarding of corruption makes an evolved humansociety less fit to survive.

Ebert: Your last sentence is one I agree with, but it demonstrates a woefulignorance of Darwin's theory.

Fly2thesun replied to comment from Cyberquill | April 16, 2011 9:33 AM | Reply

The "rub" - what came before the big bangand caused time and space to exist iswhat most people refer to as GOD. Mention of him was conspicuously missing in thisarticle and your post.

Ebert: How do you know that?

Fly2thesun replied to comment from Deacon Godsey | April 16, 2011 10:12 AM | Reply

I agreed with what you said about faith and enjoyed reading your post anticipatinghow it would be answered. Sadly I was disappointed. Roger, after Deacon Godseyplainly stated that he cannot prove that god exisits (nor can you prove he doesn't)why ask how Jesus statement proves it? Did you read his whole post? Did anyone?

Gary in Phoenix, Arizona replied to comment from Fly2thesun | April 16, 2011 1:12 PM | Reply

To Fly2thesun: Yes, at least two people read Deacon Godsey's whole post, I amongthem. I applaud his solicitation of other points of view, thus:

From the "intellectual" side of things, I become genuinely confused as to howpeople who so strongly champion logic & reason can't (or won't, in some cases)exercise that same logic & reason to recognize the inherent element of faith in theconclusions they've chosen to make. It's clearly not faith in God or some other"spiritual" reality, but it's faith nonetheless: faith in science, faith in observation,faith in our human faculties, etc. We're both putting our faith in something, it justseems like I (& those like me) are the only ones openly admitting or acknowledgingit..As I mentioned, I realize I'm likely in the minority when it comes to your primaryaudience, & that's okay. I truly am curious about the perspectives others have onthe subject & would love to receive honest feedback on it. I genuinely want tounderstand where you & others are coming from, whether we ultimately agree ornot...

Where I am coming from is a skeptical point of view. I should have been born inMissouri, the "Show Me" state. I don't believe that not being able to disprove the


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existence of God or Jesus lends validity to the point of view of people who acceptGod as the Father and Jesus as the Savior. We can't disprove that blue bunnies arehaving a party in the core of the Sun, either; but we can take a look at physical lawand conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that they're not.

Recently it was mentioned in the Huffington Post that convincing evidence existsthat Peter was not the author of certain epistles attributed to him. That's just thetip of the iceberg, though; the Gospels are not reconcilable as to fact; and the OldTestament is loaded with things impossible beyond a reasonable doubt, including theimplication that the Earth is flat.

To me it boils down to the notion that Belief is not a vote. The more you learn aboutLife and the Universe, and decline to ignore things you learn that conflict with whatyou want to believe, the more valid your Belief becomes.

Sam replied to comment from Sam | April 16, 2011 8:51 PM | Reply

Reply to Ebert: Your last sentence is one I agree with, but it demonstrates a woefulignorance of Darwin's theory.

No it doesn't. I was defending you from someone who claimed that if you subscribeto Darwin's theory, there's no morality, so he doesn't understand why you areangered by wanton consumption and rewarding of corruption. I'm perfectly awarethat Darwin was dealing only with biological evolution and did not get into socialevolution. I'm also perfectly aware that the "social darwinists" distorted Darwin'stheory for malicious ends. That does not mean, however, that one cannot go beyondbiological evolution and talk about how societies and morality evolve, in order toshow that it is perfectly justified from an evolutionary standpoint for a human beingto be angered by wanton consumption and rewarding of corruption.

Alan Mintaka | April 16, 2011 10:28 PM | Reply

Very well done. Unfortunately, the consolation you say you've found from knowingthese things eludes me. I should probably change that adverb to "tragically",because I once had that consolation but somehow lost it. Losing something like thatafter experiencing it is far worse than unfortunate.

Well, I'm glad you found it and still have it. I hope that mine returns someday.

richard voza | April 16, 2011 10:34 PM | Reply

it's amazing to me how many of you, especially the guy who claims to be a senior atLSU, don't know the difference between "than" and "then," "further" and "farther,"and when to place a comma after a conjunction.

yeah, i'm being picky. but to paraphrase nixon, "when you accept lesser standards,you better prepare for lesser results."

Korinthia Klein | April 17, 2011 7:37 AM | Reply

A very interesting post. It reminds me how privileged we are to live at a time wherewe benefit from centuries of past knowledge and at the brink of new discoveries. Ithought this was one of your best.

But the main reason I wanted to write is to say I admire the intelligence and carewith which you attend the comments you receive. Your connection with your readerstakes your blog beyond just your own well written observations and it is one of themain reasons I keep coming back.

D.M. | April 17, 2011 9:34 AM | Reply

Technology has obscured the line between information and its more eloquentcousin," true knowledge", which elevates our current understanding of the universeand existence.

However, at the risk of sounding redundant- It has its benefits. The worldwidetelescope gives anyone with a computer access to the Hubble online to explorecommon and unknown matter in space .

On youtube you can see an animation of Mandelbrot's fractal that zooms to 10(276),at a time when raw science can only map the number of visible atoms in theuniverse at roughly around 10(76).

These mechanisms allow us to surpass more quickly, present beliefs around theUniverse at its quantities and qualities. It makes more of us lay people act like


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'experts'. We theorize on the web on these mathematical mysteries and laws ofphysics like we are at tea with Neils Bohr hearing about a trip he took to Guilin,China and his ideas of the Tao Te Ching by the World's first great unsung physicist-Lao Tzu.

I think we are getting too comfortable, and it causes social evolution to carry us attimes, too far away from a basic scientific analysis of fact. But, I guess it can befun.

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a quintessence of dust - roger ebert's journal

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