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The Dance of the Fertile Universe: Are We Alone?

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Commonwealth Club of California

Commonwealth Club

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Father Coyne Links Age of Stars to Beginning of Life

02 min 46 sec

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Former director of the Vatican Observatory Father George Coyne explains the relationship between the age of the universe and the birth and death of stars.

"An earlier, younger universe could not supply the chemistry for life," he concludes.
Lynn Rothschild: The Possibility of Extraterrestrial Life

04 min 27 sec

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Astrobiologist Lynn Rothschild examines potential candidates that could possibly support extraterrestrial life.

She says, "There's a limit to the fertility of the universe because we need the certain building blocks, but more than that, we need to have them within certain environmental constraints."
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01 hr 06 min 19 sec

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There are 16 comments on this program

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Previous FORAtv comments:

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brennan.damien

Posted: 09.14.11, 06:54 AM

The Catholic faith does not oppose evolution, nor does it see it as a threat to belief in God. This is a common misconception mostly caused by American fundamentalists. So Fr Coynes teachings are nothing "new" Watch Fr Coynes interview with atheist Richard Dawkins on youtube.

brennan.damien

Posted: 09.14.11, 06:50 AM

The Catholic faith does not oppose evolution, nor does it see it as a threat to belief in God. This is a common misconception mostly caused by American fundamentalists. Watch Fr Coynes interview with atheist Richard Dawkins on youtube.

luckycharmz336

Posted: 03.11.11, 08:27 AM

I don't know if man created god or if god created man. But if we all came from an explosion of matter smaller than a pinhead, tell me where space and that matter came from - because I want to know more about my great great great grandpa pinhead.

Soylent

Posted: 04.10.10, 01:21 PM

The romantic would say that we are made of star dust; the pesimist would say that we are made from nuclear waste.

Greg Amann

Posted: 04.09.10, 11:40 AM

Father Coyne impressed me when he answered his own question "How did this all begin?" with a firm "I just don't know."

jonh303

Posted: 12.17.09, 08:38 AM

Very interesting theory. What are the implications if more carbon and other elements are being thrown out. Is there a chance for God creating more life?

nightlight

Posted: 11.02.09, 11:23 PM

As a atheist myself, I could find no fault with Father Coyne and Dr. Rothschild's presentations of the basic and advanced scientific knowledge that we all know and love. We know that our star, the sun, is a third generation star but I had not heard, nor thought of, that it takes a third generation star to have the abundance of the element of carbon to form the life as we know it, which implies that stars of less than three generations will probably not harbor life, which I find plausible, and thus by extension the universe would have to be as old as it is to create the third generations star to form which seems to me to imply that there may not be life that is significantly older than life here on earth. They go on to say that we don't know all the conditions that life may evolve but life as we know it has certain requirements of elements and within a certain habitable zones in relation to the size and heat of the star, this is, of course, well known. These are facts, regardless of their religious faith. He is a priest, I don't know if Dr. Rothschild is or not, and sometime injected his beliefe in the supernatural, but it did not seem to me to be in conflict with the scientific facts he was basing his talk about. I found this presentation to be interesting, witty and well presented and thoroughly enjoyed viewing it but I agree with some of the previous comments that it would have been better if we could have seen the slides and other props that the audience was able to see.

MistaOptimistic

Posted: 10.16.09, 03:53 AM

Enlightening video. At this time, I dont really hold a critical judgement. But I will say it was different to see a man of the lord speak on the sciences of space and life, and not step on the toes of his faith. Guess we tend to generalize our opinions to either one or the other, but forget to ask ourselves could both live together in sense and untainted point of views of truth?

orge

Posted: 10.05.09, 12:41 PM

Dear SnakeEyes: I agree with you...American religious figures (I am American)most defiantly have their heads up their own asses. Relating to Jurriaan's statement. Why would your opinion matter? The woman that followed Father Coyne had respect for his scientific principals. Just because he believes in God does not make his scientific contribution any less profound. He is the definition of a scientist. Father Coyne does not let his personal opinions affect his experiments and data. His remarks should be taken very seriously because he IS a scientist. It is not a question as to if science and religion can coexsist, they are two very different ideas. Apples and Oranges.

SnakeyEyes

Posted: 10.01.09, 11:22 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by Jurriaan I totally agree, Moreover I find it hard to take the remarks of Father Coyne seriously. I dont think you could ever take anyone seriously in the scientific field who, in this case from a religious point of view, has some principles which you know are not open for discussion. The existence of a God for example. Never mind if he does or doesn't exist, what his role is or was, what he's made of etc... Its like saying, however the world works, lets put God into the equation. I personally dont see how this helps scientific development. (Fathers remarks about Galileo are saddening considering the history, and his "clever" well God created Hell before the Big Bang for people like you asking these questions not worth the laugh. Im sure he is a very nice man and has a good hart but thats all beside the point) I am an atheist myself but I will say that Father Coyne is from european religeon, this is different than the dumbed down American brand of religeon. Here in europe, most of the christians are old earthers and evolutionists, it's not a problem to them as they dont take the bible litterally. America has yet to interllectually mature to this point.