Alec Hogg: Science switches sides, now makes the case FOR God

BarloworldHistorian Paul Johnson has long been one of my favourite authors, an older version of today’s more popular Niall Ferguson. Now 86, Johnson’s superbly-researched and clearly articulated volumes have enormously enlightened and enriched many lives. My favourite, though, is his unusual 1996 book The Quest for God which this literary giant calls his personal pilgrimage. Not since that masterpiece have I read anything presenting as compelling a case for God, for the existence of a Higher Power, than Eric Metaxas’s Christmas Day article in the Wall Street Journal. We’ve embedded a video at the bottom of the piece with Metaxas chatting to another wonderful writer, Malcolm Gladwell. Well worth watching the part about Faith (1:06) – and even more especially Gladwell’s answer to a question of what young North American graduates should consider doing with their lives (comes at 1:22 in the video – skip there for a proudly SA moment). Also below my piece is a related contribution from SA branding guru Jeremy Sampson who tells how he did the cover design for Fred “Big Bang” Hoyles’s book. Happy New Year. – AH   

By Alec Hogg

On Christmas Day, appropriately, The Wall Street Journal explained how the latest scientific information proves the case for intelligent design of our universe. In other words, after long being a heartland for atheists, science now makes the case for God.

Unfortunately, author Eric Metaxas’s brilliant analysis is behind the WSJ’s pay-wall (UPDATE: He gave us permission to republish – click here). But to summarise, scientists now realise 200 variables must happen together for any planet to support life.

That’s nothing, though, compared with conditions required for the universe itself to exist. The odds of them occurring simultaneously are one in 100 000 000 000 000 000. (17 noughts). That’s the same as a randomly tossed coin coming up heads 10 quintillion times in a row.

These latest developments have rocked science to its core. Most famously, writes Metaxas, the beliefs of astronomer Fred Hoyle who coined the term “big bang.” Hoyle admits his atheism has been “greatly shaken by developments…. a super-intellect has monkeyed with the physics……the numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

Scientists like Hoyle could have saved themselves trouble by simply observing meetings of now numerous 12-Step Programmes. In those rooms, Higher Power-inspired miracles happen all the time. To find God, it seems, one just needs to know where to look.

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Cover design for Fred Hoyles’ famous book – by Jeremy Sampson 

Back in London in the late Swinging Sixties, having just graduated from art school as a graphic designer, I did a summer temp job at The Observer newspaper. I had written my thesis on the phenomenon ‘the colour magazines’. Part of my research involved interviewing key people at the three main colour magazines, and the art director at The Observer, Tony Mullins was very helpful and said keep in touch. I did.
Finishing my finals in mid June it was straight up to London to start temping. I couldn’t afford a holiday. Two weeks temping at The Observer became ten, filling in as best I could as the entire creative team had their phased summer hols. I had a another job to go to on 1 September and in any case the Observer didn’t have a full time vacancy. But Tony and I had become friends and he was a great mentor, apart from having won D&AD Awards. On 1 November I returned in a full time capacity where I stayed, learning my profession for nearly two years before coming to South Africa.
All the creative team of six used to do freelance work on top of our full time job, and often used to  help each other. We all needed the money. I was already working for a couple of publishers doing covers, layouts etc. One day Tony handed me a manuscript of a book saying he was too busy. ‘They need some cover designs by next week’, he said.
It turned out to be a proof of astrophysicist Prof Fred Hoyles’s book ‘October the First is too Late’ to be published by Penguin, the first science fiction book I read, about space and radiation interwoven with music. A quick read of the manuscript, a visit to some bookshops to understand better the Penguin look and science fiction, a chat with Tony and I produced some ideas.
He went off and sold it, I did the art work and that was it. As I recall the fee was ÂŁ30, over a weeks salary in those days, which we split 50:50. Only when I received a copy did I see the back cover said: Cover design by Mullins/Sampson. He didn’t have to recognize me but he had. Tony lives in Wimbledon, London, and we remain friends and in contact. I owe him a lot.
* Jeremy Sampson is the founder and recently retired CEO of SA’s leading branding business Interbrand Sampson. 

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