Is There Space for God in Science?

In college, one of my roommates and best friends was a devoted Catholic and theologian. She was also incredibly intelligent and we had conversations sometimes about the precarious line that she walked- being someone that strongly believed in the benevolence and awesomeness of God and at the same time, still believing that we lived in a science driven, logical world where things like evolution and growing organs in a lab were things to be celebrated and not feared.

Discover Magazine recently had a great article about the face-off occurring between science and the divine. It follows the story of the particle physicist, John Polkinghorne, whom has since become an Anglican priest. Polkinghorne is one of the key stakeholders right now in the discussion of the "proper" place and/or existence of God in science. His focus has specifically centered around quantum physics, which is where I come in, because I am also (building on my last post) secretly very interested in quantum physics.

I personally see these experiments as largely academic, mostly because divine intervention, if it does exist, is by definition going to be hidden from plain view. One of the key interviewees, an atomic/optical physicist named Paul Ewart put it best when he noted that "It would be like proving the reality of an invisible, tasteless, odorless, silent, intangible tiger lurking in your garden. Short of God materializing in the lab and shouting "Look at me!" it is difficult to think of any incontrovertible proof."

That being said, it is interesting to look at the many things that aren't explainable in quantum physics- as these characteristics, even if you don't believe in God, could point to the resolution that maybe there is something fantastic out there- even if it's just the unexplainable nature of incredibly advanced science. One of these characteristics is:

1. Entanglement- In quantum physics, two particles can become twinned in such a way that the measurement of one always determines the properties of the other, no matter how far apart they may be. For example, if Alice and Bob each have "twinned" particles, let's say coins in our example, and Alice flipped her coin in China and  Bob flipped his coin in some gravitationally-intact spaceship in a different universe, they would both get heads or tails, EVERY SINGLE TIME. 
• Interestingly, in a test to show that twinning is affected by something outside of space-time, they deployed twinned particles in beam splitters, and used acoustic waves to modify the perception of space-time on these two particles. (side note: this is based on another very popular theory, the theory of relativity, where Einstein basically said time depends on how quickly you're moving. For example, Alice and Bob could be in two space shuttles moving in different directions, and they could both claim to have flipped their coin first and BOTH be right, depending on perspective. This is important for the experiment because, if you put the twinned particles in a situation where essentially BOTH are being deployed first, then the reaction would truly be unbiased, and there cannot be some sort of cooperation between the two particles.)
• However, on every run, the two photons stayed twinned, meaning that they continued to behave the exact same way on every single iteration of the experiment.

So at this point I'm sure you're wondering so what? Even if this does show an existence of something outside of space-time that affects outcomes (at a particle level at least) that still doesn't show the existence of God. It simply shows that there's something that exists outside of what is typically quantifiable through science. My thought is this- during this experiment, there are many objections that it still doesn't prove the existence of God. My thought is this: even though it doesn't prove the existence of a guy in a robe and a white beard, it does show us something that we can't explain, something that is still awe-inspiring and distinctly unique in this crazy universe we live in. Maybe that mix of intrigue, that feeling of humbleness that there are things larger (or in this case, much, much smaller) than us that are  capable of unexplainable awesome things- maybe that is God. At Catholic school, they always said that "God is love", but maybe God can be other things too- the drive to keep pushing boundaries, exploring, learning- in essence, he IS the human experience?

Some thoughts to ponder if you're interested in these types of things- guess they can't prove that this is undeniably wrong...