This BBC article of 2014 has come to my notice. Here are the opening paragraphs:
People have wrestled with the
mystery of why the universe exists for thousands of years. Pretty much every
ancient culture came up with its own creation story - most of them leaving the
matter in the hands of the gods - and philosophers have written reams on the
subject. But science has had little to say about this ultimate question.
However, in recent years a few
physicists and cosmologists have started to tackle it. They point out that we
now have an understanding of the history of the universe, and of the physical
laws that describe how it works. That information, they say, should give us a
clue about how and why the cosmos exists.
Their admittedly controversial
answer is that the entire universe, from the fireball of the Big Bang to the
star-studded cosmos we now inhabit, popped into existence from nothing at all.
It had to happen, they say, because "nothing" is inherently unstable.
"Nothing is inherently unstable"? How do we know that? Predictably the article goes on to tell us how, given quantum uncertainty, both space and matter cannot be existentially null. The scientifically challenged layman, reading this article, would then think that at last the "something from nothing?" question has been solved. The article trades on the fact that some atheists have simply redefined "nothing" in terms of what is in effect something; namely, the assumed pre-existence of transcendent quantum laws prior to the creation of space, time and matter. Therefore this kind of "nothing" is clearly something, that something being the existence of physical algorithms controlling space, time and matter. This trick has fooled some people who have mooted it as an answer to the "something from nothing?" question; I have heard it said that quantum theory has given us a better understanding of "nothing", so much so in fact that we can now see how something comes from nothing. But this kind of technical casuistry can be refuted by pointing out that one could equally as well argue that the so-called better understanding of nothing is in fact a better understanding of something i.e. something as transcendent law. But "nothing" means absolutely nothing; no givens, no laws and no stuff of any kind, least of all the givens of quantum uncertainty.
I have dealt with this subject before in the following post:
In the foregoing post I quote atheist Sean Carroll who, even as an atheist, is clearly not fooled by the sophistry of this kind of "scientific theology".
