New research is providing a fascinating new perspective on fine-tuning and a three hundred year old debate. First for the context. When Isaac Newton figured out how the solar system worked he also detected a stability problem. Could the smooth-running machine go unstable, with planets smashing into each other? This is what the math indicated. But on the other hand, we're still here. How could that be?

According to the Whig historians, Newton, a theist, solved the problem by invoking a divine finger. God must occasionally tweak the controls to keep things from getting out of control. It explained why the solar system hasn't come to ruin, and it provided a role for divine providence which, otherwise, might not be needed for the cosmic machine that ran on its own.

About a century later, Whig history tells us, the French mathematician and scientist Pierre Laplace solved the stability problem when he figured out that Newton's bothersome instabilities would iron themselves out over the long run. The solar system was inherently stable after all, with no need of divine adjustment, thank you.

Newton's sin was to use god to plug a gap in our knowledge. What a terrible idea. First, using god to plug gaps is a science-stopper. Why investigate further if god fixes the tough problems? And second, it damages our faith when science eventually solves the problem and the divine role is further diminished. The key to avoiding this problem is to sequester religious thinking to its proper role. Science and religion must be separated lest both be damaged.

That's the Whig history. Now for what actually happened. Newton was less the doctrinaire and Laplace was less the savior than the Whigs would have it. Newton was more circumspect than is told, and Laplace didn't actually solve the problem. True, he thought he had solved the problem, but his claim may indicate more about evolutionary thinking than anything to do with science.

You see, Newton's allowing for divine adjustments never shut down scientific inquiry. The brightest minds were all over the problem (though it is a difficult problem and would take many years to even get the wrong answer). And no one's faith was shattered when Laplace produced his incredibly complicated calculus solution because they were banking on some Newtonian interventionism.

But what did raise tempers was the very thought of God not only creating a system in need of repair, but then stooping so low as to adjust the controls of the errant machine. The early evolutionary thinker and Newton rival, Gottfried Leibniz found the idea more than disgraceful. The Lutheran intellectual accused Newton of disrespect for God in proposing the idea the God was not sufficiently skilled to create a self-sufficient clockwork universe.

The problem with Newton's notion of divine providence was not that it is a science stopper (if anything such thinking spurs on scientific curiosity) or a faith killer when solutions are found. The problem is that it violates our deeply held gnosticism, which is at the foundation of evolutionary thought. Darwin and later evolutionists have echoed Leibniz' religious sentiment time and again. Everyone knew what the "right answer" was, and one wonders if the cultural-religious mandate for stability of the solar system influenced Laplace.

Today the question of the solar system's stability remains a difficult problem. It does appear, however, that its stability is a consequence of some rather fine-tuning. Fascinating new research seems to add to this story. The new results indicate that the solar system could become unstable if diminutive Mercury, the inner most planet, enters into a dance with Jupiter, the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest of all. The resulting upheaval could leave several planets in rubble, including our own.

Using Newton's model of gravity, the chances of such a catastrophe were estimated to be greater than 50/50 over the next 5 billion years. But interestingly, accounting for Albert Einstein's minor adjustments (according to his theory of relativity), reduce the chances to just 1%.

Like so much of evolutionary theory, this is an intriguing story because not only is the science interesting, but it is part of a larger confluence involving history, philosophy and theology.

Edward O. Wilson was not the only leading light at the World Science Festival. The sophistry was also in the air at the Festival's "Science, Faith and Religion" panel discussion, which sported two evolutionists debating two other evolutionists about profound matters. As reported yesterday in the Wall Street Journal by Lawrence Krauss, who was one of the debaters and is director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University, philosopher Colin McGinn "began by commenting that it was eminently rational to suppose that Santa Claus doesn't exist even if one cannot definitively prove that he doesn't. Likewise, he argued, we can apply the same logic to the supposed existence of God." Fascinating stuff.

For his part Krauss confronted the two faithful evolutionists on the panel with the miracle of the virgin birth and asked how they could reconcile this with basic biology. "I was ultimately told," reports Krauss, "that perhaps this biblical claim merely meant to emphasize what an important event the birth was." You can see we have much to learn from these evolutionists.

Krauss' main point, however, was not the debate so much as the gnosticism that he so faithfully promotes. Krauss is always quick to point out that he is not religious. After all, he believes religious beliefs are wrong. Following such eminent evolutionists as J.B.S. Haldane and Isaac Asimov, Krauss explains that science and religion cannot be mixed. A scientist can be a believer in private, but once he dons that clean white lab coat he must leave all such beliefs behind. Krauss approvingly quotes this pearl of wisdom from Haldane's 1934 book Fact and Faith:

My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world.

While others struggled to understand why nature is uniform and how there could be natural laws, Haldane was able to see past such philosophical nuisances. His great insight was we can safely ignore such fine points.

And as Krauss points out, the very success of science which justified Haldane continues to justify our confidence today. You know, like evolution's finding that life just happened to arise from a muddy pond (or maybe from an ocean vent, or maybe from outer space), and that a multitude of universes can solve any apparent problem with this story. It's that kind of hard science that leads today's scientists to react as Haldane did. As Krauss methodically explains, they extrapolate the atheism of science to a more general atheism. This is not the shallow end folks--these truths may be a bit rough on some folks, but they certainly are truths. What we see here is cold, hard logic at work.

And for those who do harbor doubts about all this, Krauss has some very sobering and cogent insights:

Finally, it is worth pointing out that these issues are not purely academic. The current crisis in Iran has laid bare the striking inconsistency between a world built on reason and a world built on religious dogma. Perhaps the most important contribution an honest assessment of the incompatibility between science and religious doctrine can provide is to make it starkly clear that in human affairs -- as well as in the rest of the physical world -- reason is the better guide.

That really puts it all in the right perspective. You can be an evolutionist or you can oppose reason. Religion drives science, and it matters.