Physics, Earth & Space Icon Physics, Earth & Space

Cosmologist Frank Tipler on the Singularity Atheists Try To Evade

Photo: Open cluster NGC 6530, by Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, O. De Marco; Acknowledgment: M.H. Özsaraç.

On a classic ID the Future episode we hear commentary on the singularity from distinguished cosmologist Frank Tipler, co-author of The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. The singularity in question isn’t the supposed future singularity imagined by transhumanists, but the evidentially well-supported singularity at the foundation of the Big Bang. The equations are clear, says Tipler, as are their implications: among its many arresting features, the Big Bang singularity had an existence outside of space and time, was intrinsically infinite, and was not subject to any laws of physics. Atheists today still resist this conclusion, Tipler says, but only this conclusion has experimental support, and the negative implications for atheism are hard to miss.

Download the podcast or listen to it here. This episode is drawn from bonus material from the YouTube film series Science Uprising.