Every great scientific discovery comes with far-reaching philosophical implications. But has our increased knowledge of the known universe brought us closer to conclusive evidence about the existence of God?
Every great scientific discovery comes with far-reaching philosophical implications. But has our increased knowledge of the known universe brought us closer to conclusive evidence about the existence of God?
Atheists believed that scientific research would disprove the existence of god in the 20th century.
We are still waiting.
Dr Andy Howell, host of National Geographic’s series “Known Universe”, gave a Scifest Africa lecture entitled “Supernovae, Dark Energy, and Robotic Telescopes".
Simply, a supernova is a stellar explosion.
When a star dies it is pulled into the gravity of other stars and explodes in a bright flash.
Type 1a Supernovae, the key area of research,appear to have the same brightness with every explosion.
Despite the poor turnout at Scifest Africa’s last evening lecture, the physicist gave a refreshingly academic talk with interludes of humour.
Howell said, “I just don’t think modern religious groups have caught up with some of the implications of scientific research. People used to believe that hell was underneath the Earth and that heaven was above it. We certainly don’t think that now.”
He implied that religion has not developed with science.
Howell worked with the team that discovered new Supernovae in the universe, a finding that won three other scientists the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2011.
Howell explained that the universe is expanding at an accelerating pace, a discovery that has changed the way physicists understand the past, present and future of the universe.
The various research teams had aimed to prove the deceleration of particles, but the opposite was true. They measured the brightness of the explosion using sophisticated technologies.
Their hypothesis went something like this: the further away the supernovae, the dimmer it appears to us on Earth. Find enough supernovae and you can measure their brightness. Measure their brightness and you can calculate their speeds and work out the rate of the universe’s expansion.
Interestingly, the last time a human saw a supernova was in 1604 and historical accounts suggest that it could be seen over the course of an entire year.
Thousands of years of scientific research have done nothing to conclusively prove the arguments of theists, atheists and agnostics. Whichever side you’re on, for now, we can reasonably agree to disagree.
