41

Dr. Henri Fetaya was a diminutive man with short, curly brown hair, and he stayed in perpetual motion. Finney got tired just watching him. Fetaya was beamed into the Paradise Courtroom by the wonders of satellite technology, his larger-than-life face captured on the large screen situated in the jury box. This would be a high-tech cross-examination befitting a scientist of Fetaya’s caliber, an Ivy League microbiology professor whose list of peer-reviewed articles ran more than three pages long.

Dr. Kline took her turn with the witness first, comfortably discussing the basics of scientific theories and Darwinian evolution as if she and Fetaya were old friends. Finney found himself scrambling just to keep up with the terminology, struggling to comprehend the scientific code that peppered their language. Next to him, Kareem stared at the large flat-screen monitor as if he could intimidate a witness thousands of miles away.

For most of her ten minutes, Victoria’s questions drew out a crisp and forceful critique of creationism and its recently developed first cousin, intelligent design. “It is,” the witness scoffed, “just the latest in a series of wild swings by a losing prizefighter hoping for a big knockout punch.”

“Has the punch landed?” Kline asked.

Fetaya smiled. “Absolutely not. It’s been an impressive roundhouse right, with some credentialed scientists actually signing on, but in the end—” he shook his head—“nothing but air.”

After several minutes of kicking around intelligent-design straw men, Kline went for her own knockout punch. “So what does that tell you about whether some kind of divine being initiated life as we know it?”

Fetaya sat up straighter in his seat, fully engaged. “Many scientists jump on the agnostic bandwagon at this point. But that is not where science leads me.”

Fetaya looked directly into the camera. “There is reason and there is faith, and I believe both are necessary for ultimate truth. Science allows us to investigate the natural world through observation, experiment, and theory. Science allows us to understand the world around us, but it does not give our world meaning. As humans, we long to find a purpose in what we observe. And we ultimately learn that this purpose comes from outside science, from a transcendent being who designed a world that actually works and then turned it loose, free from any dictatorial whims.”

As Fetaya lectured, Finney watched Kline’s face tighten. The response had taken her completely by surprise. Theistic evolution. She had only a few minutes to undo the damage. Finney marveled at the cunning of the show’s producers. They had found a scientist who would alienate all the contestants, and Kline had walked right into their trap.

“The self-sufficiency of nature does not mean that God doesn’t exist,” Fetaya continued, talking rapidly and shifting in his seat as his excitement increased. “It only means that God fashioned a world in which free and independent beings can evolve into ever-higher life forms. It’s a world where God loves us enough to give us the ultimate freedom to embrace Him or not, to evolve toward Him or away from Him.”

“Are you done?” Kline interjected gruffly as soon as Fetaya paused for breath.

“Not quite,” Fetaya responded evenly. His bright-blue eyes twinkled as he realized the mischief he was creating in the courtroom. “I didn’t get a chance to give you my punch line, a phrase I first heard articulated by a distinguished professor of biology at Brown University.” Fetaya paused ever so briefly, just long enough to punctuate his next sentence. “I believe in Darwin’s God.”

Kline stiffened and launched some rapid-fire questions challenging the logic of Fetaya’s conclusions. Was this a God who left everything to chance, including the evolution of humans, or a God who preordained each step of the evolutionary process? If the former, how could Fetaya say that God loved humans if it wasn’t even a sure thing that humans would one day exist? And if the latter, how could Fetaya claim to believe in the random mutation and natural selection process if Darwin’s God was secretly guiding the entire process?

As they sparred, Kline didn’t hide her contempt for the witness. Finney took some perverse pleasure in her discomfort, though he didn’t much care for the happy little biologist either. Finney believed in a God who designed the human race and called humans His masterpiece. Finney’s God didn’t spin a primitive world into existence and then sit back and watch it evolve. But Fetaya had a quick smile and a winning way. Finney had seen too many cases where a lawyer tried to annihilate an expert as sharp as Dr. Fetaya, only to end up choking on his or her own questions.

Maybe Finney could fake a coughing fit in the middle of his cross-examination.

“Your time is up,” Javitts said to Victoria Kline.

“One more question, Judge Javitts.”

Javitts banged his gavel and looked stern, just like a real TV judge. “I said your time is up.”

“So to sum up, Dr. Fetaya, you acknowledge that the scientific evidence does not support the theory of intelligent design, yet you still claim to believe in an intelligent designer?”

“I said your time is up,” Javitts said, raising his voice.

Kline scoffed and returned to her seat. “Pass the witness,” she said with contempt.

Kareem took the floor next and used an old trick that Finney had seen many times before—he kept the witness answering questions outside his main area of expertise. Finney sat back and enjoyed the show. Sitting at the counsel table was better than being on the witness stand when the Muslim was on the prowl.

“You have studied enough physics, sir, to know that our universe is incredibly fine-tuned so that just the right conditions exist to create and sustain life. Is this true?”

“I am not an expert in physics,” Fetaya replied, “but I know the concepts you’re referring to.”

“Well, you are familiar with the concept of gravity, aren’t you?”

Fetaya rose up in indignation. “Yes. Of course.”

“And you know that if you alter the ratio of gravity to electromagnetism ever so slightly, our sun could not exist?”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Or if the nuclear strong force in the universe is weakened just a little, we would have only hydrogen and no other chemicals?”

“Yes. I understand that to be true.”

“Or if we strengthen the nuclear strong force ever so slightly, it would yield a universe without atoms. Correct?”

Fetaya did his best to look bored. “Yes.”

Kareem, decked out in another tailored Italian suit (his fourth one so far, by Finney’s count), took a step closer to the television monitor. He had no notes for his examination and never took his eyes from the screen in front of him. “In the formation of the universe, the balance of matter to antimatter had to be accurate to one part per ten billion for the universe to arise. And if the expansion rate of the Big Bang had been one billionth of a percent larger or smaller, the universe would be incapable of sustaining life. Am I correct, Dr. Fetaya?”

“I’m not sure about your exact numbers,” the witness said, taking a sip of water. Very casual. He gave the camera an I’m-not-flustered look. “But the gist of what you’re saying is correct. I’m just not sure it proves what you think it does.”

Kareem stared at the monitor for a moment as if trying to decide whether he should chase that thought or not. Eventually, he walked over to an easel and rolled it to the middle of the room. “Can you see this?” he asked Dr. Fetaya.

“Yes.”

“Good. I’m going to start by writing the number one on the board.” Kareem did this and then turned back to the witness. “Now I’m going to start adding zeros until you tell me to stop. And here’s what the zeros represent: there are more than thirty separate physical or cosmological constants that require precise calibration in order to produce a universe that sustains life. You are going to tell me—approximately—what the odds are that all these constants were fine-tuned this way by random chance. So one zero would represent a one-out-of-ten chance. Two zeros would be one out of a hundred. Et cetera. Are you ready?”

Fetaya started shaking his head as if it were the most ridiculous idea he had ever heard. “I can’t do that, Mr. Hasaan. It makes no sense to do it.”

“You can’t do it because the number of zeros won’t even fit on this board. Am I right?”

“No, Mr. Hasaan. The problem is not the size of the board but the assumption in your question.” Fetaya then launched into a long lecture about the multiverse theory—the thought that ours is not the only universe in existence, that there are billions or even an infinite number of other universes, and therefore one universe is bound to have these types of parameters. It just happens to be ours.

An exasperated Kareem finally cut in. “Dr. Fetaya, I have a very limited amount of time. I’ve asked you about the way our universe appears to be fine-tuned for life. Is your response to simply imagine an infinite number of other universes that are not?”

“It’s not just my response,” Fetaya replied, his frustration starting to show. “It’s also the thinking of the best minds in physics today. We cannot assume that we are the only universe in existence.”

“Have you or any of these brilliant minds observed any of these other universes?”

“No. Of course not. We are confined in time and space to our own.”

“Would you agree that belief in a billion unseen universes requires a certain amount of blind faith?”

“Objection,” Dr. Kline said, her face dark. “These questions distort this entire school of thought. And while he’s at it, why doesn’t Mr. Hasaan ask a few questions about biology—the actual area of expertise for the witness?”

“I’ll sustain the objection,” Javitts replied. “And, Mr. Hasaan, your time has now expired.” Javitts then turned to Finney. “Your witness, Judge.”

Finney’s mind was still reeling with the terms and numbers that Kareem had tossed around for the last ten minutes. He couldn’t wait to see the Muslim zero in on the biochemistry aspects. But now it was Finney’s turn—Mr. B Minus in general sciences. He felt like Charlie Brown in the cartoon strip where Linus is describing what he sees in the clouds—a map of the British Honduras, the stoning of Stephen with the apostle Paul standing to one side. And Charlie Brown? “I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsey, but I changed my mind.”

Finney stood to his full height and looked at Javitts. He coughed quickly to the side—it seemed to always hit him when he was nervous. “I yield my time to the gentleman from Lebanon,” Finney said.

Kline jumped up. “He can’t do that.”

So much for my sailing buddy. “Judge, I can either have Mr. Hasaan whisper questions in my ear that I will then ask the witness or we can let him ask the witness directly. I suggest that things might go smoother if we just let Mr. Hasaan continue.”

“No!” came a voice from the back. “Cut!” Bryce McCormack walked to the front of the courtroom, taking over as self-appointed judge. “This isn’t the United States Senate. We don’t yield our time to others.”

Finney turned to confront him, and McCormack apparently decided to take a more accommodating approach. “Good television isn’t necessarily two people discussing terms that the rest of us don’t understand. Judge, you may think you’re not as qualified as Mr. Hasaan or Dr. Kline, but your approach might be exactly the thing that connects with the viewers.”

McCormack turned back to Javitts before Finney could respond. “Let’s start with you calling time on Kareem, and we’ll take it from there.”

“I’ll just yield my time again,” Finney said.

But McCormack was already walking toward the back of the courtroom. “And Judge Javitts will just overrule that request.”