Kepler-22b Deals a Blow to the Design Argument

NASA’s Kepler space telescope has discovered a roughly Earth-sized planet, now named Kepler-22b, that orbits in its sun’s habitable zone, where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for life. This presents yet another challenge--as if any more were necessary--to the Christian apologist’s argument from design. 

Some Christian apologists customarily extend scientific findings to support supernatural claims, and never more so than when making the argument from design. They tell us that the conditions for planetary life are so implausible that a divine creator must have designed the universe, intentionally placing the Earth at just the sweet spot near the Sun where human beings can survive.

Even when I was a Christian, this argument never worked for me. After all, implausible events happen on a daily basis without any divine intervention--we run into acquaintances in unlikely places, say something in conversation at the same time someone else says the exact same thing, or get a lucky break at precisely the right time. On the scale of the cosmos, we should expect a few planets here and there to fall into the Goldilocks Zone.

But for some, the orbit of the Earth is not merely fortuitous for us but fine-tuned by an omnipotent intelligent being in order that we may live and be saved from our fallen nature and its resultant stay in Hell, both the works of the same Tuner.

That’s taking a great deal of liberty with the facts afforded by science. Indeed, there is a Goldilocks Zone and Earth is in it, but that isn’t anything special. Kepler-22b is one of 54 planets scientists have discovered in the habitable zone, and the universe remains mostly uncharted. The Kepler space telescope alone has discovered what appear to be five small, Earth-like planets in habitable zones and has viewed a couple thousand more planets, the data for which scientists have yet to analyze.

Life turning out to be plausible is unlikely to faze many Christians whose faith doesn't rest on the implausibility of life, but it is at least one less argument for the polished apologists given to pseudo-science and specious reasoning.

Life after the discovery of Kepler-22b will remain precarious, and precious, but we now have less reason to believe that it is a miraculous occurrence unique to Earth.