Over the past few decades, physicists have devised startling theories about the universe's formation and its subsequent capacity to sustain life. Building upon George Lemaitre's 1927 proposition that the universe originated with an explosion of the primeval atom — the so-called "Big Bang" — physicists now believe that if the universe had expanded with even slightly more energy there wouldn't have been sufficiently strong gravity to allow stars and galaxies to form. A bit less energy and the universe would have collapsed back in upon itself.

To postulate such "fine-tunings" — a phrase used to describe how extraordinarily precise these long-ago cosmological occurrences were — raises a thorny question, though. Did the universe develop this way in order to sustain life, or is life as we know it determined by how the universe developed?

In mid-October, a group of 50 scientists met at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to debate this issue and to consider whether biology and chemistry have "finely-tunings", i.e. events which had to occur in terribly specific ways in order to sustain life that are corollary to those theorized for cosmology. Sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation, the conference was entitled "Fitness of the Cosmos for Life: Biochemistry and Fine-Tuning," and commemorated the 90th anniversary of a seminal book in the field, Fitness of the Environment, published in 1913 by Lawrence J. Henderson.

A long time professor of Biological Chemistry at Harvard University, Henderson in his lifetime (1878-1942) was best known for work in hematology, and wrote what is still considered a classic text on blood. Nowadays, Henderson's more philosophical works — The Order of Nature and Fitness of the Environment among them — are seen as presaging the "anthropic principle," a term later coined for a thesis holding that the physical world's essential purpose is to support life.

"Charles Darwin spoke of organisms having to be fit for their environment," said Owen Gingerich, Research Professor of Astronomy and History of Science at The Harvard-Smithsonian Center, and one of the October conference's hosts. But Henderson turned this notion upside down by studying how the environment also had to be fit for organisms. "He observed that hydrogen, carbon, and the chemical properties of water were all uniquely suitable for the formation of life," Gingerich said.

Asked for another example of biochemical "fine-tuning," Gingerich described new discoveries in the folding of proteins. Essentially, the human body is built of proteins, from muscles to fingernails. Digestion, healing, physical growth, even the zipping and unzipping of DNA, all occur because of proteins, which are themselves composed of long strings of amino acids.

"Yet, protein's efficacy has to do with its three-dimensional shape," Gingerich elaborated. "It turns out there are a limited number of basic shape patterns you get. There are maybe 100,000 types of proteins, but only 1,000 ways of folding them and the proteins fold into these various patterns very quickly, in milliseconds. Out of the enormous possibilities of forms, somehow it's only this subset which works for making life."

In this paean to protein folding, one hears an echo of a famous statement made by Henderson in Fitness of the Environment, where he boldly proclaimed, "the whole evolutionary process, both cosmic and organic is one and the biologist may now rightly regard the universe in its very essence as biocentric."

Problem is, quite a few scientists believe that Henderson's statement went too far. It was debate on this very point, participants concur, which most roiled the "Biochemistry and Fine-Tuning" conference. While on the surface, all remained quite collegial — scholarly papers were read, meals shared, innumerable cups of coffee consumed — many of the scientists present describe having a sudden realization that physicists and biologists approach their fields of study in distinctly different ways.

Harold Morowitz, Professor of Biology and Natural Philosophy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, explains. "Cosmologists and astrophysicists are Platonists. They live in an abstract world and operate from ideals and equations. Biochemists who go into the laboratory and extract things from cells, or grow bacteria — all very nitty-gritty things -, are Aristotelians. So, here are two groups, Platonists and Aristotelians that have been fighting now for over 2,400 years!"

According to Eric Smith, Researcher at the Santa Fe Institute, one of the main differences between physicists and biologists is the question of causation. "In physics, the ability to predict what happens next is the key," he said. "But in biology, the question is to find out where the regularities are, and to learn why things are robust. Cataclysmic geochemical events such as the Ice Age have seemingly wiped out life, yet life comes back and refills the planet. That life can be robust against all these major factors in the world is seemingly the opposite of a 'fine-tuning.'"

Smith believes that physicists and biologists have difficulties talking largely due to semantics. "In looking at the development of human language, there is a long, slow process in learning a language you weren't born with. There is an even slower process of learning to think naturally, or to empathize, in this new language," he said. "It is a subtle and fascinating problem within science, this difficulty in communicating across disciplines. For Templeton to bring together such different people is, I think, worthwhile in and of itself."

"Biology is reaching out towards physics. Physics, towards biology," was the rather more optimistic assessment of Stephen Freeland, Professor of Bioinformatics at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "We are like old bridge builders stretching out from opposite shores," he said. "At the middle, will be greater knowledge of the origins of life."

Many interdisciplinary conferences tend to experience schism between those scientists and theologians present. So, it is worth noting how many attendees at "Biochemistry and Fine-tuning" reported the theologians in attendance had an easier time finding common ground with both biologists and physicists, than either of the latter had with each other. John F. Haught, a Professor of Theology at Georgetown University, suggested such rapport was best encouraged by adopting a "layered" approach to meaning.

Haught framed his remarks around a humble image, a whistling teapot. How does one account for this phenomenon, he asked? It could be reasoned that the water is boiling because molecules are actively moving about and evaporating. Or, water is boiling due to gas being turned on underneath it. A final explanation for the boiling water is that someone wants a cup of tea.

"The main point is these three explanations don't conflict with one another. This implies we shouldn't say life came about because of chemistry, or physics, or even because of God. All are true," Haught said. "I define reductionism as the suppression of layered explanation. Theology can be reductionistic, too, let's not forget, if it assumes that God rather than natural process brings about life."

For Paul Wason, Director of Science and Religion Programs for the Templeton Foundation, the unexpected way this conference unfolded was simply proof of its earnest intent. "Sir John wants to arrange a milieu where the next discoveries can be found, not limit what these might be by being too specific," Wason said. "And for this conference we might have predicted that chemists and biologists would provide examples of "fine-tuning" just as we find in physics and cosmology. Instead we learned about the robustness of biological systems and interaction with a fit environment. It may be that flexibility is at least as important as sensitivity in the biological world."

Stephen Henderson, a writer based in New York City, contributes frequently to the New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, Town & Country, and Religion News Service, as well as other publications.