Return of the God Hypothesis: Breakthroughs in Physics, Cosmology, and Biology Seeking Evidence for the Existence of God

by Stephen C. Meyer

The Mysterious Prevalence of Carbon in the Universe Hoyle’s contribution to the discovery of fine tuning began in the 1950s. What he discovered shocked him and eventually shook his atheism. Hoyle knew that the universe contained a surprising abundance of carbon. He also knew the production of the element carbon was crucial to all known forms of life. Carbon forms long chain-like molecules that can carry information and store the energy that living cells need to survive.6 People have speculated about life based on other elements, such as silicon, existing somewhere in the cosmos. But physicists have largely rejected this possibility for decades. As Robert Dicke, for one, wryly put it in 1961, “It is well known that carbon is required to make physicists.”7