Creation: order and chance in physics and biology

The relations between physics and theology are surprisingly cordial at present; the relations between biology and theology are more difficult. A key to understanding the interrelations of all three: physics, biology, and religion lies in examining the concept of order and disorder. Astrophysics and nuclear physics are describing a universe "fine-tuned" for life, although physics has also found a universe with indeterminacy in it. Meanwhile evolutionary biology and molecular biology seem to be discovering that the history of life is a random walk with much struggle and chance, driven by selfish genes, although they have also found that in this random walk order is built up over the millennia across a negentropic upslope, attaining in Earth's natural history the most complex and highly ordered phenomena known in the universe, such as ecosystems, organisms, and, most of all, the human mind. Holmes Rolston lecture "Creation: Order and Chance in Physics and Biology" was the 15th Henry Harrell Memorial Lecture in Religion presented at Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee on April 19, 1990