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Theory-Affirming Evidence About the Universe
Bill Kendrick writes "Astronomers using a radio telescope at the South Pole have recorded a flicker of light from nearly 14 billion years ago that verifies most modern theory about the cosmos. Way back then, light and matter were only just beginning to separate from each other."
Everyone knows the Universe is only 4000 years old :)
Rich
Way back then, light and matter were only just beginning to separate from each other
14 billion years ago, matter and light were inseperable. They went everywhere together. Friends cheerfully complemented them on their strong attachment to each other, but whispered behind their backs about 'co-dependency'.
Then, something happened. No one apart from a few math-sodden physics profs are quite sure what is was. Some say matter was too indecisive, today forming simple hydrogen isotopes, tomorrow churning out all sorts of unstable heavy metals. Others blame light for being too inflexible, not wanting to 'move too fast'.
Whatever the cause was, matter and light decided to separate. Matter moved on, churning out everything from noble gases to metals that explode in water, satisfying every creative urge. Light, the brighter of the two, contented to be always aglow, yet unafraid to reveal shadows when the opportunity arose.
The tragic part of the tale involves the unfortunate castoff children of the great breakup, as divorces are never easy on offspring. Cosmic ray wreaks havoc anywhere and everywhere. Cynical X-Ray prefers to reveal everything hidden, as if compensating for repressed emotion. Young microwave is communicative, but very hot under the collar, and don't even ask about Gamma ray. Maybe someday the children of the great breakup will work out their issues.
Much of the science that is used to theorize about the cosmos is verifiable right here on earth. (Fusion, fission, properties of light relativity, force, gravity) The question is does what (LITTLE) we know here properly extrapolate ad infinitum.
I am relatively convinced that there are people smart enough to understand that which can only be verified as a single point observer. The verification of a system of this scale is exceedingly difficult - but should be just be defeatist and mire ourselves in religious texts and ignore the existence of the cosmos and remaining in a comfort zone?
There are those who watch, say Star Trek (in reality there are quite a few people inspire by this show who do interesting things), and want this to be true, even in the face of near impossibly using the same physics that helped to verify the "flicker of light" in article above. They will spend a lifetime seek what now seems foolish. Then there are those who are defeatist and simply what to fulfill Maslow's triangle and live this life out.
If you would have asked about getting to the moon 200 years ago you would have been told its impossible.
Same situation today; the question we ask is faster than light travel? Are there transcendental methods of travel? Do the fundamental laws of physics change as the universal timeline progresses, . as some recent studies have suggested?
One of the more intriguing things about intelligent people I meet is this; they all know that intelligence aptitude may be innate, this can be leveraged with conditioning, but the ultimate test of intellect is to realize that the more you find out the more you realize how much less of the whole you seek you know. The universe, physics, even material science regarding CPUs, signaling in hard drives (what does the signal really look like that is a 1 or 0? You would be surprised. )is inexorably complex.
I think accepting the work of those who are doing what some day may be the salvation of human existence. Being a scientist these days isn't easy. But they must have fun. It pays bad, the aprecation by your peers is fleeting, religious zealots are all to quick to ignore something as basic as carbon dating and take a work of man as a literal and corporate swine, such as Carly Fiorina, expect results or you're fired (never mind the meritorious nature of your research, or the good it may produce for humanity, as were the ideals of Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard [as is reflected by the huge charitable foundations left in their wake], who made equipment because it was needed by science, such as liquid chromatography machines, oscilloscopes, etc. It wasn't about the money, it was about passion for science and engineering.)
Ask yourself to have an open mind, imagine the possibilities, maybe even help to seed a super genius.
I always enjoyed physics. I enjoy using the by product of applied physics every day, TVs, planes, computers, energy, electricity, you name it, the predictability of complex systems that use the fundaments of physics and other sciences is quite impressive, and the amount of work that gets done in a planful way rather than an empirical way is also impressive. Things are build, rarely are they haphazardly conjured.
Who would I aspire to be? Carly Fiorina/Gill Bates or the next Einstein? I have a strong feeling that even the king and queen of gluttony will fade into footnotes while the real pioneers and innovated remain time honored potentially for millennia, maybe even forever...
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
I always hear about "new telescopes which will be able to see back to the beginning of the universe". How can that possibly work? With the matter in the universe expanding slowly, (relative to the speed of light) the light from the big bang should be long past us by now -- streaking out into some void way beyond Earth... What did I miss when I wasn't paying attention in physics class?
How ironic that a creationist would use a scientific principle to try and prove the existence of God. If you want to use the 2nd law of thermodynamics in an argument, then go and get a physics degree. In the mean time, check out this page and call me in the morning.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Of course, the question about why there is a universe at all has to be answered. But according to Bill Ockham's Remington, entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. God + universe = two entities, universe = 1 entity, therefore, as Laplace put it, je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothese.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
You poor misguided soul. "He's YOUR god. They're YOUR rules. YOU go to hell." He is my God. They are HIS rules. And if you don't get right with my God, You are going to hell. There is only one way to heaven and that is through Jesus Christ. Christianity is not a way of dealing with death. It is a promise. Why would you want to go one believing in a dead guy stuck in the ground? I prefer to serve a living God thank you very much. And on the money issue. Buddy, if you read the Bible you will quickly see that everytime God commands you give money, He always says you will get something in return. Everytime! And as for George Carlin, well he better get the Truth too.
-- Only a developer would see the 'Go to' part of "Go to Hell" as the problem.
The thing about these smart people is that they know that everything is one big guess that happens to fit the available evidence. (OK. It is actually a bunch of little guesses mixed with facts and combined into one big guess. and facts are just guesses that most of us agree on.)
Having an open mind means being open to both the idea that everything you know is right and that everything you know is wrong.
Occam's Razor (the theory of takest the simplest explanation over the more complex one) allows science to move forward and ignore some evidence that it doesn't have an explanation for because explaining that evidence involves a more complex theory.
This is a good thing. It allows science to move forward without being mired in minutiae. However it also leaves room for doubt and future breakthroughs. Don't assume the experts are right if you don't think they make any sense.
Take, for example, a blind man mapping a field with a stone elephant in the middle of it. His map will show 4 posts in the field. He could spend a lot of time examining the posts and perhaps discover their true nature as part of the stone elephant but that detracts from his goal of mapping the field. His resulting map is correct and allows him to move on to the next step, whatever that is, but it also leaves room for a future mapper to do more research and show that the 4 posts on his map actually represent a stone elephant.
Coding Blog
Don't knock alchemy, given what little people
knew a the time alchemy was the beginning of
a real science. It begat chemistry after all.
And yes turning lead into gold is now possible
(although stupidly expensive and wasteful), and
a exile of youth is no longer unscientific,
merely hard to do, look up applications of
stem cells, or drug candiates like ALT-711, if
you don't believe me.
Not that I believe, but it's the only logical conclusion. :P), the desk, the windows.
For God to be omnipotent, he would have to be everything/everywhere.
The chair you're sitting on (God got a boner!
We all know the bible is the 'difinitive work' of god, written by humans.. (and the church isn't exactly full of 'Holy' men..) Who's to say god and 'Nature' are different beings, or even have a conciousness?
"god's will" is about equivalent to 'it just happens' or 'that's the way the world works'. There's only the assumption of a conciousness behind the outcome.
At least now you know that 1 'day' = 2 million 'years'. ;)
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
If anyone actually read the real article they would be appaled at the sensationalism applied to this story by the slashdot editors and the submitting person. The ONLY thing it solidifies is the polarization aspects and NOTHING ELSE.
It is getting quite disgusting as how Slashdot's editors are allowing this site to become the new "weekly world news". what's next stories about a two headed alien worm baby and a phycic moose found in northern canada?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Since you've mentioned both intelligence and science-fiction wish-fulfillment...
I recently read a short story called Swarm, by Bruce Sterling. SPOILER FOLLOWS
The story is about contact between warring factions in our solar system and a hive entity called the Swarm. One of our factions is hoping to pick up advanced biological techniques from the apparently unintelligent Swarm to use in its war with the other faction. The other faction has already failed fatally in its similar efforts.
By the end of the story, the protagonists encounter a previously unknown type of larva being gestated by the Swarm. It is "Intelligence," and goes on to discuss the Swarm's position with the remaining protagonist.
It turns out that (drum roll, please) in the Swarm's long experience, intelligence is not a survival trait. Nearly all of the time, the Swarm is just plain better off without Intelligence, and has adapted to exist that way. Every now and then, such as the particular time the story occurs, the Swarm determines that it needs some Intelligence, and gestates an appropriate larva. The larva lives a few thousand years, long enough to handle the crisis, and then dies, leaving the Swarm to go its merry way.
Intelligence has proven a survival trait for the human species, at least for the past 30,000 years or so. But from Nature's perspective, that's only the short run.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I work at UChicago (Carlstrom, the professor here, is my advisor). For more information about CMB polarisation, I reccomend Wayne Hu's (a theorists) webpages at http://background.uchicago.edu.
He provides an excellent lay (and more complicated,
if you're interested) introduction to what's going on here.
Essentially, it boils down to the fact that people
have been looking for this phenomenon for 20 years, and if someone finally said conclusively, "It's not there" that means the last few decades of cosmology would literally have been back to the drawing board.
This really is an exciting timne in cosmology.
Dear God no. There are contrived and difficult theories that say the speed of light changed, but no real good ones.
Moreover, the data doesn't say that the speed of light changed, either. Within ~ 2.5 sigma or so, the speed of light hasn't changed. For those attempting to reply to this with the Webb data re: alpha changing due to quasar absorption line shifts, look at the data. The worst point is about 2.5 sigma off, and the farthest data point is consistent with no change.
Right now, the safest thing to say is that the data (tentatively) supports the fact that the speed of light is constant over a good range of the Universe's age.
Nowhere in the Bible does it mention the Earth's age. Sure some Jews/Christians believe it was only 6000 years, but there are plenty of others (like myself) who believe in the Bible and still believe the earth is quite a bit older.
Anyway when I read this:
"when matter and light were only just beginning to separate from one another."
I thought of this:
Genesis 1:3 And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
I believe Genesis was inspired by God, but written though a person. I think the author of Genesis did a pretty good job trying to find words and descriptions for what they were shown.
Saved By Grace,
Brian Ellenberger
what the hell is up with your sig?
Liberty.
Any theory which states "we do not exist" is flawed terminally. Incidently, this paticular study is the single most used piece of "evidence" used to support the idea that god, not science rules the world.
Of course, sitting here, at my computer, in this climate controlled building, surrounded by phones, laptops with 802.11b network cards, the very epitomy of our modern technology, I'm extremely cynical about any attempt to say that there is no science, only god.
Occams razor(misspelled, most likely...) comes up a lot in these discussions, but from the wrong side. Which is simpler; that there's an all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, completely benevolent being, backed up by a chorus of angels, or that the universe was formed by a big bang caused by a single, infinitely dense piece of material exploded, and that because we exist, any arguement saying we shouldn't is flawed.
Because I exist, I cannot question whether or not I exist. If I did not exist, I wouldn't be able to question whether or not I exist.
It's been a long time.
The rules that say "don't wear your cotton/wool blend shirt", "It's okay to enslave your neighbor", and "If your sister's husband dies, it's your duty to impregnate her"?
Remember, "Jesus" said that he wasn't changing the rules, just fulfilling them...so those old rules are still in effect.
Guess we're all condemmed.
OR, alternatively, consider this: God is ominipotent, right? So he can do whatever he wants, right? But you're saying the only way he has chosen to honor his creation is by this one thin path as represented in this book that they can't even agree on the contents of?
Or is it possible that an omnipotent God has the power to provide multiple roads to happiness, the heavily proscriptive "Thou must do this and not that" road for those too simpleminded to contemplate making their own decisions, and the "Do as thou will, so long as it hurt no others" for those who have the intelligence and ability to live their life their own way?
You have to admit it's possible, or else God isn't omnipotent. Pick one.
There is no faith in atheism, just as there is no colour in white. It represents a vacuum.
If the hand of god came down, and the sky thundered "The day of judgement is neigh, only true believers shall be spared from my wraith", you can be sure as hell that every atheist would convert to whatever religion the hand told us to.
It's been a long time.
I think the "slow progression" theory of evolution has been replaced by a more "rapid spurts" idea of evolution.
And there are fossil records of our ancestors: homo erectus, homo habilis, australopithecus afaranus and so on.
Gee, which religion has the most suffering?
This religion will surely bring the most rewards!
Anything else is just hippy-flower-sniffing!
Screw quality of life - it's quality of death that concerns us!
There is a better book to look at:
http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho36.htm
None of this proves in existence of god of course. However, those who believe that science has come anywhere close to explaining life are as deluded as those who take the bible literally.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Say you've got two points, 2ly apart. Also say that the universe is expanding at pretty close to the speed of light, but still less than light speed. Call it 99% of c.
.99*c, it takes light something like 102 years to make it to point B, at which time point A is 102 light years away from point B. When the light started it was only 2 ly away, but it got slowed down in it's journey because of the expansion of the universe, and yet it was travelling at c the whole time.
Okay, now a beam of light travelling from point A to point B takes 1 year to travel 1 ly. But in that same amount of time, the universe has expanded 99% of 1 ly and stretched our two points apart by that much (the universe being our two points here). So the total distance from A to B is now just under 3 ly, and our light has only gone 1. It didn't really cover a lot of ground, did it?
Work the rest out yourself. If the universe is expanding at
And this scales up or down in terms of time. Whether I used years or seconds or milliseconds makes no difference, the expansion of the universe means that things move apart at some speed, thus increasing the travel time of light without slowing it down.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Dude... learn some physics. White is the combination of all colors (a mixture of light emitted throughout the visible spectrum). Black is the absence of color (no light emitted in the visible spectrum).
Don't confuse this with, say, paint, which emits no light... it only reflects light incident upon its surface.
Eric
My bad, in that example it takes light something like 200 years to traverse the distance, not 102. Sorry.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
You cannot use logic or science when discussing religeon.
Religeon says BELIEVE, don't doubt, don't apply logic or reasoning. Stay dumb and send me the money.
Science says DOUBT, because doubt brings questioning, reason, logic, and finally the answer.
Jenny Horn was burned at the stake for witchcraft in either 1722 or 1727 depending on your source. Outside of England, there were still occasional witch executions going on in Europe until 1792. This is pretty close to 200 years ago, so I think the original poster's comment was at least reasonably close, if not precisely accurate. In fact, it's well above average for accuracy on Slashdot.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
D'oh. I knew it was one of the two, but the coffee I drank wasn't nearly strong enough this morning. Same idea. Different colour.
It's been a long time.
This is really off-topic, but...
Yes, you're correct about Piltdown Man; he was a fraud perpetrated by a rather small group of British researchers (including, of all people, Arthur Conan Doyle.) He is mentioned in many scientific and literary works of the early 20th Century, including the stories of H.P. Lovecraft. It was a wildly successful piece of scientific trickery and deceit, perhaps the most successful hoax in history.
But here's the thing: it wasn't anti-evolution activists or Baptist ministers who exposed Piltdown as the fraud it was. The truth came out of a process that started at an international congress of paleontologists in 1953. That's right; the same scientific establishment that you are accusing of widespread fraud and corruption is responsible for learning the truth about Piltdown Man. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find a biology textbook written any time after 1958 that mentions Piltdown Man in any context other than that he was a fraud. Find me a modern biology textbook that references Piltdown Man as evidence for evolutionary common descent.
Good luck.
Compare and contrast this with the creation science community. Many (but not all) of these folks consistently refer to theories and pieces of physical evidence that have long been debunked or shown to be fraudulent. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is references to the Paluxy River tracks, which some claim show human tracks next to dinosaur tracks, suggesting that man and dinos were contemporaries. This "evidence" was debunked a long time ago, and even the Institute for Creation Research, an organization not known for its strong committment to the scientific method, has suggested that "honest creation scientists" not use the Paluxy River tracks as evidence for a young Earth.
That's just one example of creationists providing false and/or debunked evidence for their particular brand of creationism. The list goes on and on; we've got ridiculous claims that evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics, we've got the false stories about moon dust and about how NASA was afraid that Apollo 11 would get mired in it, we've got the urban legend about NASA computers "finding" the missing day from Joshua's siege on Jericho, etc. etc.
The point is this: Before you accuse scientists en masse of widespread fraud, lies, and deception, you might want to consider getting your own house in order first. The Piltdown Man debacle demonstrates that scientists are ever skeptical and are willing to admit when they are wrong and have been misled. Are you and yours capable of the same honesty?
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Nope, not 316. 613.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Oh boy another wonderful /. creationist-vs-evolutionist debate!
The experiment produced only about half the amino acids that are necessary for life.
But, there is no reason to doubt that the other amio acids can be similarly produced by non-miraculous means.
Non-organic reactions always produce left-handed and right-handed molecules in (roughly) equal amounts. However, only left-handed amino acids can be used in living cells.
Actually, as far as we can tell, life could exist using all right-handed amino acids also. It's quite possible that both types of life existed for a brief time, but one out-competed the other very early in earth's history.
The experiment succeeded in producing amino acids, but scientists have never been able to produce any more complex organic molecules in the lab. No DNA (not even fragments), no RNA, and certainly no proteins.
Current scientific thinking on the origin of life tends toward the idea that the earliest self-replicating molecules were simple peptides, chains of perhaps a couple dozen amino acids. Given that a lab experiment can form a bunch of amino acids in a few weeks, it's not that farfetched to imagine a chain of 30 or so to be spontaneously generated throughout the oceans of earth in a number of years.
Organic molecules tend to break down over time. This process is accelarated by water (didn't life supposedly form in the ocean?) and heat.
Last I heard, RNA is thought to have first been formed on catalytic clay substrates. But why would creation "scientists" bother to check the current theories when attacking straw men is so much easier?
No matter how many creationists point out their supposed "holes" in the mainstream scientific theories on the origins of life, they always fail to produce the one thing that would end the debate forever: ONE IOTA of SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that GOD EXISTS and that HE CREATED LIFE.
Until such time as this first piece of evidence is seen, why should the scientific community be expected to constantly defend the whole of mainstream geology, astronomy, and biology against attacks by creationists who have NO evidence supporting their own "theories", which are all based on a creation story the ancient Hebrews borrowed from the Sumerians and some unverifiable genealogies?
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
What if you're both wrong and only the followers of the Church of Sub-Genius go to Heaven? Then at least the Atheist did whatever he wanted in life, but you wasted a bunch of time obeying the "rules", and now you're both suffering for the rest of eternity.
Or what if the Atheist ends up in Heaven because he worked hard to make the world better, and you fry in Hell for spending too much time reading the Bible and not enough time being like Christ? Note - I'm using "you" in the generic sense, not specifically you, netphilter.
My point is that, none of us can really know what awaits us on the other side of death, and given the infinite number of possibilities, no religion should claim that its path is a "no-brainer".
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
If you assume that a "day" really means "day" in the Bible for the first 7 days (and why wouldn't you?) and then add up all the ages of the people listed from generation to generation, you get a fairly conclusive age for the universe according to the Bible. (I don't know if off the top of my head, but I know it's there) Now, you could argue that a the first 7 days in the Bible are actually billions of years long. But then if you start saying that words in the Bible mean different things than what we normally attribute words for, then you're allowing yourself to make up whatever you want to believe in and interpret the Bible however you want.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Speaking of misguided, it's not terribly wise to open a message describing your beliefs with an insult if you expect anything good to come out of it. I agree with everything you said, (except maybe the "something in return" part.. that's deceiving because the "something" may not show up in this world but rather the one to come) but I don't agree with your tone.
Ben
You're 'explaining' one mystery (creation of the universe) with another (God). You are doing this on no evidence that I can see.
If God created the universe, what created God? And what created the creator of God? If God wasn't created, you're admitting some things don't need creation, and either sprang into being by themselves, or always were. In which case you are making it too complex... the simpler explaination is that the universe sprang into being by itself, or always was.
As for your interpretation of meaning of life for athiests, it is quite wrong for most athiests. Athiests give themselves meaning, not needing to be handed meaning from some imaginary being. Athiests are, in general, pretty happy and well.
(* Were they on the rubber sheet when it blew up or just in the room? *)
The "Rubber Room" analogy seems to answer more questions than the "Rubber Sheet" analogy. Who ever said a diety had to be sane?
For example, why would a "stable" diety need to hear hymns about him/her/it-self over and over again? To me, that would suggest an ego problem.
Table-ized A.I.
One of the differences between science and religion is that science is typically open to accepting that it is wrong and modifies accordingly. Religion, on the other hand, has to be conked over the head a few times, and even then it lags behind science in accepting certain things, sometimes by centuries.
The point you seem to be missing is that Science is a process and Creationism is a part of a faith.
Science at one time did believe the world was flat. Science questioned itself and eventually rejected an absurd notion. Faith doesn't do this.
It doesn't matter to reality one whit what people believe. The world was always round, regardless of our perception of it. All science is, is humankind's effort to gain a more correct perception. And it's an ongoing effort, which is why things like cosmology matter.
Science isn't a myth, it's a process. A process that produces results, by the way. So, the next time you turn on a light or flush a toilet, thank a scientist.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
(* Apparently Occam never had a shot at 2 women. *)
Lately it seems to be coming to light that most great thinking comes from pondering dating issues.
Table-ized A.I.
A separate question is whether our universe exists in some higher-dimensional structure, with its own timelike dimension(s). Even if it does, we'll probably never be able to determine anything about that - it may be physically (and philosophically) impossible to ever retrieve any information from "outside" of our universe.
Today is Octembruary 40th ?
Would it make it better if he/she had of stated "a higher power", "a divine being", or "the cosmic power"? What if instead of saying "my god", they said "Lisa Simpson's god". And who is to say that the parent post wasn't referencing god in the form of "something more than we". You anti religious zealots are just as annoying at the ones who try to force their religion on you. You say that you can't believe in god because you can't put your hands on it, and that you just don't buy the whole story. Yet you are so emphatic about believing a story on a web site that may or may not have the facts correct about some science that may or may not have happened, and that your will NEVER be able to put your hands on? Why? Your argument is canceled by your own actions. I agree that you shouldn't have to be preached to, no one should try to force you to believe in god. If there is a god, then he/she/it/anti-it, wouldn't want you to believe under the guise of force anyway. If a god wanted you to be force to believe, then it would force you to do it in a more 1st person way. However, don't tear anyone else a new one because you can't deal with the truth that they hold on to... your beliefs are very suspect too. As swipe!
and don't forget about the Government grants of 'money'
But see your argument relies on an assumption that everything is within time. The only way for us to measure change is via a ruler called time. "The universe was created" (a spot in time where on one side there was nothing (or something else), and on the other side the universe existed. So if we can assume that everything exists inside of time, then the "logical" or "scientific" way to go about this is to "doubt" that assumption. Now of course we can't (yet) prove their is a state where time doesn't exist, or maybe outside of time, but if we try to get into a state of mind where time wouldn't exist, then there would be no need for a creator of god. nor for a lineage of gods. Of course this would mean that god isn't a finite entity. Maybe god, or whatever, is matter. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Maybe it's just not explainable. But, what ever the case, I don't think the rules that man has set up to try and bind us into doing "good", would be the little petty things that God would be trying to enforce. What would a god care if I made it to a certain building on time, one day a week?
Please reply to this... I would love to hear the rebuttal.
Thanks
agree. except I wouldn't say "is laughable", so much as I would say "will be laughable".
This is the "watchmaker" argument, made about 200 years ago (replace "car" with "watch"), one version of the "argument from design." Fairly persuasive in its day, because people didn't know (before Darwin) how it was possible for complexity to arise out of simplicity.
Read The Blind Watchmaker, by Richard Dawkins. He eloquently answers the argument from design. It is, IMO, one of the best books on evolution (since Darwin). Also has lots of neat computer analogies, and some simulation software.
I say that you are not allowed to use logic and science when discussing our religion...
-God / -Voice in your head
> Oh boy another wonderful /. creationist-vs-evolutionist debate!
This isn't an evolutionist/creationist debate. It's a debate about whether science has explained life adequately.
> No matter how many creationists point out their supposed "holes" in the mainstream scientific theories on the origins of life, they always fail to produce the one thing that would end the debate forever: ONE IOTA of SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that GOD EXISTS and that HE CREATED LIFE.
I can't even imagine what kind of evidence you would be talking about. The main evidence pointed at by the pro-god lobby is life itself. That evidence doesnt end the argument, it provides something for scientists to find an alternative explanation for.
Life exists, it didnt appear overnight, it evolved. The question is, how did it evolve. Was it brought about by random chance, did the necessary molecules combine by chance and then once a self replicating molecule existed, did it grow in complexity until we ended up with what we have by scientifically explained [or even explainable] mechanisms. Now, I guess you would consider the notion that evolution was guided by something as a creationist argument. It's not obvious that believing that it all came about by random processes [and yes thanks, I do understand natural selection, mutation, crossover etc] is less extraordinary a hypothesis than the notion of a form of guided evolution.
It's not as clear cut as you might think. I recommend you read "Not by chance" by Dr. Lee Spetner. He is not some wooly thinking bible bashing hick, he has a Phd in physics from MIT and has worked in biophysics for decades.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Oh no, you found THE CAPS LOCK KEY!
Actually, I used the Shift key. And, I closed my <i> tag.
Hundreds of years ago, prior to the discovery of viruses and other invisible realities, I'm sure there were those who believed in things that were invisible that were causing these diseases in their communities, but they could not prove it. They didn't have the means. I'm sure many of these people were laughed at. Today we respect them.
We respect them not because they believed in invisible things that happened to be real, but because they sought out and eventually obtained evidence that those things existed. In the process, they created "miracles" of science like vaccines and antibiotics. Had they simply wasted their lives telling everyone "Believe in my tiny invisible germs or you'll die - no, I don't have proof, but they must exist, otherwise how would we get sick?" we would not have respect for them, despite the fact that they turned out to be right.
It has taken man long enough to discover some of the invisible realities, and just think, these are only created things. How much more complex our Creator must be! Praise God, and God Bless America.
I'm guessing you think you're replying to an atheist, I hope it doesn't disappoint you that I agree that our Creator is mighty complex. I believe that He and His creation are far too complex to have been properly described by the nomadic hunter-gatherers of dozens of centuries ago. They are also too complex to be fully comprehended by the scientists of the 21st century, but every discovery gives us a slightly clearer picture.
Advances in the scientific understanding of nature should give believers a greater appreciation of His wisdom, rather than scaring them witless because it happens to disagree with what the Sumerians believed about creation centuries before the Bible was written down.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Not quite. What you are asking for is negative proof. Instead what you should ask is, 'do we observe anything that isn't bound by time or anything which has behavior that can't be explained if it did exist within time?'. So long as that answer is no, we don't have to look into it. It's the same thing as 'do we observe invisible intangable fairies going around and putting small knots in hair'. We don't observe that... we have no evidence of it. These 'elf knots' can get into hair in rather mundane ways.
We can invent any number of fanciful scenarios, none of which can really be disproven. This lack of disproof doesn't make them true, or even worth looking into. We need positive evidence.
An extraordinary claim, such as something existing outside of time, requires extraordinary proof.
This isn't an evolutionist/creationist debate.
;) Actually, I don't have a bit of a problem with the idea that evolution was guided, in fact my beliefs lean that direction. I just don't believe that whatever guidance occured took the form of miracles or violations of the laws of nature (by that I mean the real laws of nature, not our current understanding of them which is admittedly imcomplete).
Oh, but it must be! It's Friday, this is always the day the editors save to post the article that will spark the debate. I missed Thursday, which is the day we forget how much we hate the MPAA/RIAA and drool over the latest piece of electronic wizardry from Sony.
It's a debate about whether science has explained life adequately.
Well, that's no debate. Any scientist worthy of the name will tell you the answer is no. Scientific theories are like underwear. They're used until they smell bad, then they're exchanged for a new pair. Wait, wrong analogy. Anyway, no scientific theory is every considered to be IT, the end of science. There is always a possibility that new evidence will disagree with it - at which point a new theory must be formulated, that not only explains the new evidence, but also explains why the old theory worked as well as it did.
All theories in science have been refined, modified, or replaced at some point, and our current theories of origins of life will be modified and refined to fit new evidence as well. If the creationists want mainstream science to take their views seriously, all they have to do is provide evidence that shows the earth to be 6000 years young, or proves that the elapsed time from the first ray of light in the universe to the first human walking the earth was five days.
I can't even imagine what kind of evidence you would be talking about.
Neither can I, but that doesn't exuse creation scientists from the burden of proof. They are the ones whose theories disagree with the whole of mainstream science. Ok, asking for proof of God might be a bit unfair, but if they want Creationism taught as science, some real evidence of things like the Flood or a 6,000-year old Earth should be forthcoming.
Now, I guess you would consider the notion that evolution was guided by something as a creationist argument. It's not obvious that believing that it all came about by random processes [and yes thanks, I do understand natural selection, mutation, crossover etc] is less extraordinary a hypothesis than the notion of a form of guided evolution.
(Jedi mind trick) I am not the evolutionist you are looking for.
Obviously, if I'm right, there'd be no way to prove that God did it - there would be a scientific explanation of every event in evolutionary history. But I think He wants it that way. Just look at the lecture He gave Thomas the Apostle about seeing and believing.
I recommend you read "Not by chance" by Dr. Lee Spetner. He is not some wooly thinking bible bashing hick, he has a Phd in physics from MIT and has worked in biophysics for decades.
Thanks, I will check it out. It sounds like a big improvement over the Chick garbage someone linked to earlier!
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Fine... I'm sorry for not including the disclaimer that I was speaking as a human with normally functioning eyes (if somewhat myopic) and a nerve center in the brain which interprets wavelengths between ~400-700 nm as a 'particular color'.
White is the perception of this strange stimulus we call color composed of electromagnetic radiation of many distinct wavelengths covering the spectral range 400-700 nm.
How's that?
Eric
Religeon says BELIEVE, don't doubt, don't apply logic or reasoning. Stay dumb and send me the money.
Science says DOUBT, because doubt brings questioning, reason, logic, and finally the answer.
This is a massive oversimplification. My experience with religion has been that it says "Exercise faith in things which are true which are beyond pre-verification (or verification at all under certain epistemologies)." This is not all that different from certain observations about axiomatic systems made by Kurt Godel.
Not only that, but it's actually very easy to see religion as a personal spiritual experiment. If a religion teaches you a principle, and you apply it, you've had a chance to perform an experiment and see if you gain the same results. It will never be clinical double-blind, but that's not what matters. What matters is whether or not there's fruit in your life. (And remember, clinical double-blind studies have their weakenesses. Phen-phen was supposedly tested in this way. Too bad a friend of mine destroyed her heart with it).
Most people in a religious community don't talk about it so much, but doubt serves a role. I sometimes see it as a bit like gravity in the flight process: you don't want it to be the ruling force, but its presence makes conventional air travel possible by providing an anchor for the fluid that airfoils use to provide lift. Doubt provides tension that pulls you toward confronting a question and answering it with a decision.
Of course, that only works if your religion is about real human and divine transformation. Doesn't work in a "hold a dogma/cosmology at all costs" kind of religion, which you may be assuming all religions are. Common mistake, by both "believers" on "non-believers".
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Something caused the universe to begin. Whatever that something is, He is God.
:)
....and there is a problem with this worldview? I know is doesn't give the religous a nice warm, cuddly feeling to think that humanity is not the sole reason why the cosmos exists, but even the most megalomaniacal among us would have to admit that the universe as a whole would no more mourn or indeed even NOTICE our extinction than you would notice a sand flea dying in the Sahara.
Use some logic.
Something caused God to begin. Whatever that something is...... uh, oh..... damn causality loops!
Nothing matters, nothing ever mattered, nothing ever will matter, and your entire existance is completely meaningless.
You're right. I can not prove that there is no God. Additionally, I can't prove any negative. The catch to the situation is that while you're busy looking for things that might exist solely on the premise that no one can say they don't, science is busy cataloging those things that can be proven to exist. One of these activities leads someone, and the other... well...
You'll have to pardon me, I'm going out to look for all those invisible unicorns every keeps telling me don't exist...
Hinduism can embrace hedonism, likewise with Buddhism. Both can be seen as 'self worship' rather than Christianity or Judaism which seeks to deny self and give that self to the higher power = GOD.
You don't know much about Hinduism, do you? The goal of the Hindu is to become one with Brahman (the Ultimate Reality / God) and escape the cycle of rebirth. This is done by (surprise) denying the self, forsaking materialism, practicing dharma (righteousness).
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
I mean, did they C14 date it :) ??
Speculation is the mother of all science (except math)
The Raven
The Raven
G-d created the world 6000 years ago (actually 5,753 years to be exact, see a Hebrew Calendar [jewfaq.org]) and made it appear as if it existed 16+billion years ago.
The problem with that idea is that it means God is a liar and a deceiver.
Hmm, your explanation of "beginning" seems self-contradictory since events before "time" can't happen if time a requisite parameter of an event. It may be true in a "God can do anything" kind of way, but even then it doesn't make sense scripturaly. I think it means something much more plain and simple, and people are just getting way to "cosmic" about it.
I read a site once "How to talk creation to a Jehovah's Witness" that was pointed to from the AiG people. They brought up a good point, that if the day was 1000 years then why did God create plants and then wait a thousand years before creating the insects to polinate them?
But that doesn't matter much to me since I personally think that the 1000 years time thing sufferes from the same problem as the 24hour thing (i.e. the sun hadn't been made yet). So I never subscribed to that view anyway.
I just take the Bible for face value.
I don't think plants being around on the third day discredits it either, since light existed on the first day, before the sun came around. And since light was present from the first day, there is no reason that you can't have plants.
People just think its the sun, becuase it is such a common light to us here on earth, but not becuase they read Genisis very well. Don't worry, not until a few years ago did I realize the "light" in the first verse wasn't the sun either. The sun is just way to prevelant in our lives for us not to think it is.
But I motice that God points out clearly in those verses that his first light and day was something different then what we are used to.
Here's the verses again...
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
It seems pretty clear to me that the "sun" is the greatest light during the day and he made it the fourth day. He also says that "days" didn't happen in some sence or other until the fourth day, along with seasons and years. Its all just straight forward and plain to me.
If AiG realized that, I think they'd realize it corresponds with AiG's other positions a lot better also, like starting with a small select group of "types" of animals becoming the many species we have seen since the Fall rather then populating the earth him/herself. God did things in stages, you need water, light and earth before vegetation and begetation before animals...etc. I think it started out small in the garden and things were told to "multiply and replenish the earth."
Actually I digress. I actually came to a simular conclusion as them on many respects independantly before I read them, which is why I liked their site so much. And when they tied it all together with the Fall it made a lot of sense with what I already believed.
If i instead read several verses that say the same thing, then I can be sure of it. This is where JW's and Mormons etc. have their problems.
Actually, the JW's and Mormons would probably argue that you are only taking verses that sound the same, and ignoring the ones that may not point where you want it to.
One of them being God's reproval of Job where he says...
"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"
Honestly, I think Job was an anti-deluvian work. probably the only one book except the Book of Enoch that survived the flood. But that is just my theory. Either way, I think that laying the foundation of the earth was either before the "beginning" or during the first two days, yet we already have "all the sons of God" or all the players to go on to the stage. To me "Beginning" or "The beginning" means the start of some particular stage in God's plan, specifically relating to us. It could be the start of the whole universe or "time" but I don't find anything beyond it being the start of a stage in God's plan.
Also, since the "days" weren't created until the fourth day (in God's time) that makes the "Ancient of Days" Adam rather then God (which makes sence since God's throne doesn't have wheels which show God giving power to move). I don't agree with the JW's or anyone else who thinks Adam was a bad guy, since Christ is called the "second Adam" and "last Adam" at different times. Christ wouldn't be considered an "adam" if "Adam" wasn't a good guy.
Speaking of crazy beliefs, I've been perplexed how Christians say "you can't be saved by your works" and then tell people "you will be saved if you do this..." which is usually a very specific and prescribed "work" they have to do (like praying, acknowledging, etc...) That sure sounds an awful lot like they are being saved because of something they are doing.
That's just not true. Atheists believe that there is no God. Atheists generally believe that the Scientific Method is the only way to prove something. Many atheists ignore that Science can't prove anything, it can only suggest what seems true at the moment. I certainly haven't seen any scientific proof of the lack of existence of God. I haven't even heard of an experiment that could be performed to verify or deny the existence of a supreme being and that could be demonstrated effectively to a group of living beings.
What requires a lack of faith is agnosticism. Well, a form of agnosticism. Proper agnosticism is "We cannot know if there is a God." Tone that down a little, or ratchet it up, depending on your perspective, and you have "I do not know if there is a God or not." This is not atheism.
Incidentally, this is Offtopic and should be moderated as such. Then again, so should the parent post.
=Brian
There is nothing so good that someone, somewhere, will not hate it.
. . . Bronze Age minds. The only true surprise is how many are still around, not just Creationists , but flat earthers, Marxists, Democrats, Republicans, . . .
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
Actually, if you read up on the creationist's theory (vs the evolutionary theory), as far as I am concerned, the creationist theory does hold some water
The creationists don't *have* a theory. A theory has to have evidence, and it has to be refutable. Saying "God did it!" fails on both counts.