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Preprint typeset in JHEP style.- PAPER VERSION hep-ph/0510159

importance of applying game theory to the evolution of information in the presence of noise has recently become widely recognized. This Special Issue addresses the theme of spontaneously emergent order in both classical and quantum systems subject to ex-ternal noise, and includes papers directly related to game theory or the development of supporting techniques. In the following editorial overview we examine the broader con-text of the subject, including the tension between the destructive and creative aspects of noise, and foreshadow the significance of some of the subsequent papers in the volume.

Historian of science Frederic Burnham has stated that the God hypothesis is now a more respectable hypothesis than at any time in the last one hundred years. This essay explores recent evidence from cosmology, physics, and biology, which provides epistemological support, though not proof, for belief in God as conceived by a theistic worldview. It develops a notion of epistemological support based upon explanatory power, rather than just deductive entailment. It also evaluates the explanatory power of theism and its main metaphysical competitors with respect to several classes of scientific evidence. The conclusion follows that theism explains a wide ensemble of metaphysically-significant evidences more adequately and comprehensively than other major worldviews or metaphysical systems. Thus, unlike much recent scholarship that characterizes science as either conflicting with theistic belief or entirely neutral with respect to it, this essay concludes that scientific evidence actually supports such belief.

A quantum-mechanical theory of gravitation is presented, where the motion of particles is based on the optics of de Broglie waves. Here the large-scale geometry of the universe is inherently flat, and its age is not constrained to < 13 Gyr. While this theory agrees with the standard experimental tests of Einstein’s general relativity, it predicts a different second-order deflection of light, and measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect in the upcoming NASA experiment Gravity Probe B. 1 1

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The ancient argument from design for the existence of God is based on the common intuition that the universe and life are too complex to have arisen by natural means alone. However, as philosopher David Hume pointed out in the eighteenth century, the fact that we cannot explain some phenomenon naturally does not allow us to conclude that it had to be a miracle. In recent years, novel versions of the argument from design that call upon modern science as their authority have appeared on the scene. Proponents of so-called Intelligent Design claim to confidently rule out natural processes as the sole origin for certain biological systems (Behe 1996, Dembski 1998, 1999, 2002). Here we shall focus on another variation of the argument from design, the argument from fine-tuning, in which evidence for a purposeful creation is seen in the laws and constants of physics. This claim of evidence for divine cosmic plan is based on the observation that earthly life is so sensitive to the values of the fundamental physical constants and properties of its environment that even the tiniest changes to any of these would mean that life, as we see it around us, would not exist. The universe is then said to be exquisitely fine-tuned--delicately balanced for the production of life. As the argument goes, the chance that any initially random set

With the recent measurements of temperature and polarization anisotropies in the microwave background by WMAP, we have entered a new era of precision cosmology, with the cosmological parameters of a Standard Cosmological Model determined to 1%. This Standard Model is based on the Big Bang theory and the inflationary paradigm, a period of exponential expansion in the early universe responsible for the large-scale homogeneity and spatial flatness of our observable patch of the Universe. The spectrum of metric perturbations, seen in the microwave background as temperature anisotropies, were produced during inflation from quantum fluctuations that were stretched to cosmological size by the expansion, and later gave rise, via gravitational collapse, to the observed large-scale structure of clusters and superclusters of galaxies. Furthermore, the same theory predicts that all the matter and radiation in the universe today originated at the end of inflation from an explosive production of particles that could also have been the origin of the present baryon asymmetry, before the universe reached thermal equilibrium at a very large temperature. From there on, the universe cooled down as it expanded, in the way described by the standard hot Big Bang model. 1

Cosmology is nowadays one of the most active areas of research in fundamental science. We are going through a true revolution in the observations that are capable of providing crucial information about the origin and evolution of the universe. In the first years of the next millenium we will have, for the first time in the history of such an ancient science as cosmology, a precise knowledge about a handful of parameters that determine our Standard Cosmological Model. This standard model is based on the inflationary paradigm, a period of exponential expansion in the early universe responsible for the large scale homogeneity and flatness of our observable patch of the universe. A spectrum of density perturbations, seen in the microwave background as temperature anisotropies, could have been produced during inflation from quantum fluctuations that were stretched to cosmological size by the expansion, and later gave rise, via gravitational collapse, to the observed large scale structure of clusters and superclusters of galaxies. Furthermore, the same theory predicts that all the matter and radiation in the universe today originated at the end of inflation from an explosive production of particles that could also have been the origin of the present baryon asymmetry, before the universe reached thermal equilibrium at a very large temperature. From there on, the universe cooled down as it expanded, in the way described by the standard hot big bang model. With the observations that will soon become available in the next millenium, we will be able to test the validity of the inflationary paradigm, and determine with unprecedented accuracy the parameters of a truly Standard Model of Cosmology.

The standard model of cosmology is based on the hot Big Bang theory and the inflationary paradigm. Recent precise observations of the temperature and polarization anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background and the matter distribution in large scale structures like galaxies and clusters confirm the general paradigm and put severe constrains on variations of this simple idea. In this essay I will discuss the epistemological foundations of such a paradigm and speculate on its possible realisation within a more fundamental theory. 1.