John Barrow and a Fine-Tuned Universe?

The Templeton Prize is awarded annually; see the Washington Post's article about this year's winner, John Barrow. The New York Times' article is more descriptive (link here - but requires free registration);

"Continuing a recent trend in which the world's richest religion prize has gone to scientists, John D. Barrow, a British cosmologist whose work has explored the relationship between life and the laws of physics, was named the winner yesterday of the 2006 Templeton Prize for progress or research in spiritual matters.

"Dr. Barrow, 53, a mathematical sciences professor at the University of Cambridge, is best known for his work on the anthropic principle, which has been the subject of debate in physics circles in recent years. Life as we know it would be impossible, he and others have pointed out, if certain constants of nature — numbers denoting the relative strengths of fundamental forces and masses of elementary particles — had values much different from the ones they have, leading to the appearance that the universe was "well tuned for life," as Dr. Barrow put it.

"In a news release, the prize organizers said of Dr. Barrow's work: "It has also given theologians and philosophers inescapable questions to consider when examining the very essence of belief, the nature of the universe, and humanity's place in it."

Interestingly, five of the past six Templeton winners have been scientists. Among them are favorites of mine Ian Barbour, John Polkinghorne (physicist and priest!), and Arthur Peacocke.

You can read more about the Anthropic Principle and the idea of a "fine-tuned universe" on Wikipedia.org. It's a very interesting idea, especially for those with a prior (an a priori) faith-claim in a Creator. Any universe in which we exist is necessarily fine-tuned for our existence - the leap to finding God/purpose/meaning in the Anthropic Principle seems a faith-BOING!, not a step of logic or science. I hope Barrow's work, and that of others, will continue to shed light on these questions.

The Post link came from the blog of Bill Tammeus, from the KC Star. He also wrote, just in passing, a fantastic definition of "dialogue";

"I continue to believe that interfaith dialogue is essential for the future of peace in the world. I am not interested in dialogue in which people simply agree about things they would have agreed to if they never even got together. Rather, honest, forthright dialogue in which differences are aired and understood is what's called for. To know and to be known is the goal."