Find Out About the Future of Science

Science magazine writer Charles Seife has written a new book, Alpha and Omega: The Search for the Beginning and End of the Universe. According to Publishers Weekly, Charles claims, "Scientists...now know how the universe will end and are on the brink of understanding its beginning. Their findings will be among the greatest triumphs of science, even towering above the deciphering of the human genome." A brave statement! Charles is happy to answer your questions about ongoing research that is busily revealing the basic nature of life, the universe, and everything in a serious (as opposed to humorous) sense, so ask away. One question per post, please. We'll post the answers as soon as we get them beck.

Comments

Publishing hype

[BobTheLawyer]

do you get embarassed by publishing hype such as "Scientists...now know how the universe will end"?

Re:Publishing hype

[capt.Hij]

Probaly not as long as book publishers don't mind broadcasting things like:

This is the book you need to help understand the frequent front-page headlines heralding dramatic cosmological discoveries. It makes cutting-edge science both crystal clear and wonderfully exciting.

Here in the US, I would hardly call news stories about science as "frequent front-page headlines." It usually takes some debate over creationism vs. evolution to make it into the media now-a-days.

Re:Publishing hype

[valkraider]

It's at lease as good as "Scientists now know the earth is the center of the Universe" and "Scientists now know the earth is flat, and held up by 4 huge Elephants standing on tortoises." Kind of like the Theodoric of York: Medieval Barber from Saturday Night Live:

"Why, just a few years ago we would have thought your child's condition to be caused by demonic possesion. But thanks to modern medical science we now know that it is caused by a toad or small dwarf living in the boy's stomach."

Re:Publishing hype

[fafalone]

The universe will end through a heat death. This actually is a recent finding of very great signifance. This fate for the universe was determined through measurement of the composition of the universe, as measured with great accuracy by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. The results from the probe indicate that the universe is composed of 73% dark energy, which eventually leads to the conclusion that there is insufficient gravitational energy to cause a "big crunch", and that combined with the measurement of the Hubble constant (71 +4/-3 km/s/Mpc), the universe will keep expanding forever.

comparable ramifications?

[sstory]

You're quoted as saying, "Scientists...now know how the universe will end and are on the brink of understanding its beginning. Their findings will be among the greatest triumphs of science, even towering above the deciphering of the human genome." Is it also your belief that the consequences of understanding the beginning of the universe will approach the transformation of living that we're just beginning to see from the deciphering of the genome?

Re:comparable ramifications?

[BWJones]

It didn't offer anything breathtakingly new (despite the hype to the contrary).

I would post an addendum to this. "yet....." Genome sequencing is just the beginning of the process of understanding how systems work and how they pathologically fail. As you know, sequencing is simply finding out which genes are which. Finding out what they do and in which combinations is now going to be the hard work that could not be accomplished without the knowledge provided by genome analysis.

Combinatorial analysis is now also becoming possible with an article in last weeks Science talking about colonies of mice being bred for multifactorial gene analysis of complex problems involving multiple genes. Finding out how to resolve problems such as cancer and blindness will require this level of work.

I think the reason folks expect that nothing has come of genome sequencing is 1) lack of public science education 2) unreasonable investor expectation of fast profit.

Well obviously

[Timesprout]

the Universe will end with a cliff hanger to set things up for Universe II

Question:

[cybercuzco]

Since we now know how the universe will end, would it be possible to set up some sort of restaurant there?

[Almost] Serious question!

[Noryungi]

So... How will the Universe end? Big Crunch, Dark & Cold, Equilibrium, Giant Black Holes, Act of God, or... what?

And, of course, how can you be so sure of that? [Add "You, Insensitive Clod!" to this last question for the humorous touch...]

Whatever theory you build today will only be validated in, what? A dozen billion years? More? So what makes you so sure you know the ned of the Universe today?

Please note: this is really a serious question. I am interested in the End of the Universe as we know it. Thanks for your answers!

Re:Errr..

[gantrep]

Thank you for that pointless comment. You have taken usefull energy and turned it into a slashdot comment, thereby bringing the universe closer to heat death.

Why does the rate of expansion change?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we explain the expansion of the universe and why the rate is changing? Can we claim to know how the universe will end if we can't answer that?

Re:Why does the rate of expansion change?

[kramer2718]

When I took an Astronomy course, I learned that scientists have observed that the Universe expanding more rapidly than in the past and that expansion is accelerating. From this our prof drew the conclusion that Universe would expand forever in heat death.

The thing I don't understand is why we can conclude that from measuring the second derivative of the size of the Universe (acceleration). If the third derivative were negative, it wouldn't matter (to the fate of the Universe) that the first two were positive. The Universe would still end in a big crunch, right? How closely have scientists measured the function that governs the size of the Universe? And what do they know about it?

Re:Why does the rate of expansion change?

[hesiod]

> If the rate was slowing, yes. As it appears the rate is accelerating, we need something else.

The rest of the Universe realized how dangerous Earth is, and are slowly backing away.

Re:Why does the rate of expansion change?

[tkittel]

> The thing I don't understand is why we can conclude that from measuring
> the second derivative of the size of the Universe (acceleration). If
> the third derivative were negative, it wouldn't matter (to the fate of the
> Universe) that the first two were positive. The Universe would still end in
> a big crunch, right? How closely have scientists measured the function that
> governs the size of the Universe? And what do they know about it?

It is a valid point. The Cosmological Standard Model IIRC allows the first and second derivatives to be non-zero, but not the third. In general, almost all differential equations in physics are second or first order.

Maybe thats the reason they dare leave out the third derivative?

disclaimer: IANAC (cosmologist) - IAAPP (particle physicist) though. It has been a couple of years since my cosmology class though...

Universe's container

[bios10h]

It's a question I've had for a long time and I sometimes think about it and it freaks me out :) no really. Ok, we "know" (until someone else proves it's wrong) how the universe is going to end. We are about to "know" how it really started. Great! However, when we are talking about the universe... we are assuming that it is infinite. I just have a hard time with this Infinite Universe concept... the universe NEEDS to be contained within something... however, even if we discover the container... it will end up being a part of our definition of universe and then we'll need to search for the container's container. Anyway, any thoughts on that?

Re:Universe's container

[rknop]

I'm not a physicist, but I think it's finite - multiply the age by the speed of light.

That's just the observable Universe, which is indeed bounded by a "horizon" as you say.

The best current indication of the geometry of the Universe, though, is that it's flat, not a 4d analog to the surface of a sphere, which means that it is in fact infinite, or at the least a whole heck of a lot larger than the size of the observable Universe. We can't observe all of that, because light from anything beyond our "horizon" hasn't had time to reach us.

-Rob

Re:Universe's container

[MegaFur]

Brace yourself. Infinity within a container coming right up... drum roll please...

(0,1)

ta da! In case you can't read the notation, that's all the real numbers between 0 and 1 but excluding 0 and 1 themselves. There are infinitely many of them, but they are bounded by 0 and 1 (a container). Also note: although 0 and 1 were used in the definition of this interval, they are not actually a part of it.

Perhaps the real problem is that infinity is a hard concept. I don't think we humans can ever truly understand it. But we can still throw it around in math and physics problems and come up with interesting results.

Re:Universe's container

[rknop]

From what I remember, people have made similar "spear carrying" measurements which indicate that seem to indicate that the "surface" of space is curved

Similar spear-carrying measurements have been made, yes. Well, not eactly, but measurements that can determine the curvature of spacetime.

It is curved in the Solar System. That's the effect of the Sun's gravity. That can give you, for instance, the gravitational lensing effect first observed for the Sun be Eddington back in the begininng of the 20th Century.

The Universe as a whole, though, has a flat geometry; measurements have been made that show this. (OK, there's a small uncertainty, so it might be curved a little one way or the other; and, we've only measured the observable Universe, so there could be a curvature we can't see because we're looking at too small of a piece of it (think of trying to measure the curvature of the Earth by looking at a 10'x10' patch of ground).) Here's one site which describes some of the experiments that have been done (and precision has been improved since these):

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/boomer ang-sidebar.html

Your memory from your modern physics class is, at the least, outdated.... 1999 or thereabouts was the first time that a measurement was made of the Universe's geometry that really gained widespread acceptance, in that it was the first time the measurement had been done well enough and precisely enough that it was believable.

-Rob

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[aug24]

Intelligent Design

Oh god (irony), not this crap again.

Haven't you got anything better to do that to keep 'refining' Creationism whenever in response to Evolution showing it to be unnecessary.

There is NO NEED for intelligent design. It's only purpose is to allow you justify your belief in God. I don't care if it's the Bombadier Beetle, the jinking Moth, whatever, it's just as sensible to think of a way it could've evolved than to allege that there is a God. And a God is a damn big hypothesis that only serves to abstract out the thing you can't explain.

Justin.
Bored of bloody desperate religionists arguing over who's got the best imaginary friend.

ID isn't scientific

[Omkar]

It just twists complexity in order to show the existence of God. Think about it - if an ony of your gazillion variables were different, would we be here to comment? It's the Anthropic principle - the universe seems conducive to life since there is life around to observe it. We don't see any of the other places because there's nobody there to watch. And on earth, we evolved to fit the environment - it's no surprise that it's good for us.

You don't need a God to make the universe work. Although you may say that there's no concrete evidence against one, there's also no evidence to suggest that our whole universe isn't an elaborate 5D shadow puppet show run by unicorns. Occam's razor must be applied.

How ultimate is the end of the universe?

[Lane.exe]

Supposing a collapse-type end of the universe, is there any possibility that this could result in another big-bang type event, which would really make this not an "end" of the universe, but something more akin to a "reboot" of the universe?

Re:How ultimate is the end of the universe?

[cybercuzco]

SYSTEM ERROR: Your universe has crashed, please push the reset button to resume operation. Note that all unsaved data will be lost.

Dark Matter

[notcreative]

I remember from college courses that the composition of dark matter is one of the most important issues in cosmology today. One example of this importance is that there are some estimates that 90% of the mass of galaxies is not visible. There was some work that was presented to the public a while ago from WMAP at NASA. I read that it had implications for the sources of dark matter, but I don't understand what they are.

Since it is something of an open issue, what is the current understanding of the nature of dark matter in our universe? What kinds of questions are still being investigated? What kinds of hypotheses do we have now, and what do they imply?

Re:Dark Matter

[prgrmr]

Actually, the outstanding question is whether or not neutrinos have mass. If they do, then the need for Dark Matter[tm] goes away. If they don't, we still have brown dwarf stars, undiscovered planets, and the effects of elector-magnetic currents on stars still not quite 100% accounted for within the current cosmological model.

Dark Matter, as an esoteric, non-euclidian form of matter, is still, IMO, nothing more than the late 20th century equivalent of the luminiferous aether of the 19th century, and merely a convenient algorythmic placeholder, until proven otherwise. Furthermore, without answering either the question on neutrino mass or dark matter, saying we know how the universe is going to end is just so much posturing for marketing's sake, and really poor science.

Re:Dark Matter

[Christopher Thomas]

Actually, the outstanding question is whether or not neutrinos have mass. If they do, then the need for Dark Matter[tm] goes away. If they don't, we still have brown dwarf stars, undiscovered planets, and the effects of elector-magnetic currents on stars still not quite 100% accounted for within the current cosmological model.

Dark Matter, as an esoteric, non-euclidian form of matter, is still, IMO, nothing more than the late 20th century equivalent of the luminiferous aether of the 19th century, and merely a convenient algorythmic placeholder, until proven otherwise.

Actually, things turn out to work a little differently.

First of all, neutrino oscillation experiments confirm pretty convincingly that neutrinos do have mass. Rough bounds on the amount of mass have already been placed. The best numbers to date say that massive neutrinos can account for some, but far from all, of the dark matter effects observed.

Second of all, brown dwarfs and other "massive compact halo objects" would be baryonic dark matter - and there are good arguments for most of the dark matter being non-baryonic. A summary of some of these arguments can be found here (it's multiple pages; follow the links).

Third of all, I have not heard a convincing argument that EM effects in stars relate to the dark matter problem. There is one reseaercher who keeps publishing papers about the galaxy acting as a dynamo, with large-scale EM effects determining structure, but many holes have been poked in this proposed model (a few came up in previous slashot articles).

There are some questions about the galactic magnetic field (why it has one as strong as it does, if I recall correctly), but the observed field has negligeable effect on the movements of stars within the galaxy.

In summary, there really does seem to be some kind of exotic dark matter present in large quantity, and we already have several candidates for components of it.

Beware the man who calls well proven ideas...

[missing000]

...only a theory.

Please, before you start arguing about science, try and understand its terminology at least a little.

Down Beck Down

[GillBates0]

We'll post the answers as soon as we...Get them Beck.

Whoa there, no need to get nasty. We'll post them questions as soon as we thinks them up. What kind of name is Beck for a dog anyway.

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[OOGG_THE_CAVEMAN]

Although OOGG caveman, OOGG not around during Big Bang, Pre-Cambrian era, dinosaurs, etc. However, OOGG old enough remember debate on Darwinian evolution.

You mention "continually reexamined in the light of new evidence" yet mention no new evidence. OOGG hear such comments many times. OOGG know Darwin think of many objections, answer with real evidence. Many observations on human breed pigeons, dogs, agriculture, etc., substantiate Darwin argument. Many more observations since Darwin's time substantiate evolutionary ideas. "Intelligent design" provide no observation other than "I don't believe in the alternative."

Perhaps try read Darwin's book?

Know how the universe will end?

[stratjakt]

Theoretical physicists and astronomers don't "know" anything by definition. They guess using the best mathematical and scientific models they have at their disposal.

Science used to "know" the world was flat. They used to "know" that the sun revolved around the earth, and that the human heart worked just like a furnace.

Then, one day, some guy sailed over the horizon and didnt fall off. A pump was invented, and the notion of a heart as a pump came to being.

Each time people had thought they'd reached the pinnacle of understanding, and had all the answers. Then paradigms shifted, and completely changed our ways of thinking, and all our previous answers and theories were null and void.

What makes you so sure that this isnt simply happening again?

Re:Know how the universe will end?

[nebby]

So perhaps the world isn't round or the heart isn't a pump?

Re:Know how the universe will end?

[Noren]

Science used to "know" the world was flat. They used to "know" that the sun revolved around the earth, and that the human heart worked just like a furnace.

When was this? The ancient greeks, and indeed all ancient cultures with seafarers, knew the world was round. In fact, they measured its diameter to within a few percent. They also debated a heliocentric theory, they didn't "know" it, they argued about it- and got it wrong, as it turns out.

Lee Smolin et al

[Cally]

(I realise this work is more than jsut Lee Smolin's, but he wrote the book I read about it a few years ago.)

As I understand it, there is a serious strand of thought in cosmology that suggests that our universe may be only one of (an infinite number of) alternatives. A small finite area in a parent universe undergoes inflation and blows up like a very fast balloon; for observers within this bubble, theirs is the only universe. Smolin also talks about how this hypothesis might tie in with the six magic physical constants which, if their values were even slightly different, would cause totally different physical conditions within our universe. If the inflationary bubbles occur within singularities, they would also be unknowable to their parent universe. A universe with lots of black holes would tend to give rise to offspring that would also have lots of black holes, and vice versa. I'm badly mangling his explanation of this ! but he provides an IMHO elegant explanation for the phenomena of these numbers' values appearing to have been tuned very precisely to the values neccessary for "our" sort of universe, and hence, life, and ultimately us and any other observers out there.

What's your opinion of this? It seems to me that this hypothesis makes no testable predictions and so falls beyond the remit of the scientific method. Is it just a smart way of talking around the anthropic principle, or might this be one of the key concepts to help tie up the loose ends in the standard model?

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[Noryungi]

Intelligent Design violates the principle known as "Occam's Razor", which states that, given two plausible explanations for one phenomenon, the most simple explanation is the correct one.

"Intelligent Design" states that an intelligent creator was at the origin of the universe [some even say a purely semitic YHWH] and of all life. It can be construed as more complicated than a purely "naturalistic" vision, because it states that this all-knowing, all-powerful being is necessary for the universe to be created.

On the other hand, the "naturalistic" vision can be said to be "more simple" because it only requires parameters that are more limited and easier to prove (Singularity = Big Bang = Universe, Mutations = Evolution = Intelligent beings).

Therefore, I prefer the naturalistic version. In my experience, people who uphold the "Intelligent Design" theory are only using it to justify their own views of the world... as well as their own prejudices [nothing personal here].

At this point in time, I am not so sure that Intelligent Design or Creationism have anything going for them, except in the most fundamentalist circles.

(Just my US$ 0.02...)

Willing to bet this is wrong!

[Mothra the III]

I will pay out 10 to 1 odds upon end of the universe that it ends in a different fashion they they propose. Please send me any amount of money and if I am wrong I will immediately pay out all winners upon destruction of everything.

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[rknop]

Intelligent Design, a recent theory that has gained enough respect from the scientific community

Woah, stop right there.

It's proponents claim that it has respect in the scientific community. You will find scientists who like the idea. But the fact is, so far as peer review and confirming experiments and the general scientific community, it is not considered really a viable theory. It's certainly not any competition for evolution amonst the sceintific community at all.

The proponents' PR claims it is, but that's just the PR.

See, for example, http://www.phys.cwru.edu/~krauss/inteloped.html.

-Rob

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[gantrep]

God is a damn big hypothesis

No, She's a holy big hypothesis, thank you very much.

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[Bytenik]

I suppose we have to keep in mind that this too is only a theory, and while it's possible everything was made to work smoothly from the beginning (on the whole) I'm more comfortable with the idea that somebody's looking in from time to time.
----------
I'm more comfortable with that idea too, but being more comfortable should have nothing to do with it. Wouldn't you rather just know the truth even if it's less comforting?

Not that we know what the truth is yet, but why settle for less than the truth?

Of course, even if we do find "the truth", only a small percentage of the population will bother to consider its merit, and an even smaller percentage will believe it.

What is the next paradigm shift?

[geeber]

It's well known that our view of the world around us was radically changed by Einstein, Heisenberg, and other scientists of their day. Einstein gave us relativity, and Heisenberg ushered in quantum mechanics (of course Einstein and his explanation of the photo-electric effect). Both of these thoeries led to radical departures from well established theories. However, there were, at the time, known physical effects that could not be explained by then current theories, i.e. the above mentioned photo-electric effect, blackbody radiation, Michelson's measurement of the speed of light, etc. etc. that make it clear in hindsight that the a profound shift in understanding was required.

My question is what, if any then, are the areas where we need similar paradigm shifts to answer current outstanding questions? It seems to me, at least, that maybe there aren't any, and today's scientists are left working harder and harder simply to add a few significant digits to existing theories. What are your thoughts?

Re:What is the next paradigm shift?

[eddy the lip]

You're right, everything important has been discovered.

Re:What is the next paradigm shift?

[tkittel]

> My question is what, if any then, are the areas where we need similar
> paradigm shifts to answer current outstanding questions? It seems to me,
> at least, that maybe there aren't any, and today's scientists are left working
> harder and harder simply to add a few significant digits to existing theories.
> What are your thoughts?

Whether it classifies as paradigm shift or not, I can not say, but we have a bunch of extremely important problems to solve (most or all of which somehow revolve around the concept of mass... quite interesting). Off the top of my head:

1) We havent yet arrived at any fundamental explanation of gravity.

2) Particles in the current Standard Model of Particle Physics can't have mass, as mass terms violate some fundamental symmetries. The so-called Higgs mechanism might provide a way around this, but introduces more problems itself.

3) Dark matter. Is it some kind of so far unknown particle lying around out there?

4) The CP violation (i.e. the asymmetry between matter and anti-matter) within the Standard Model is not large enough to explain how equal amounts of matter and anti-matter in the early universe could have evolved into the matter dominated universe we have today.

5) Why do the different particles have the masses that they have? Why is the muon 200 times heavier than the electron? What determines that number?

If I had to gamble, I would gamble that any revolutions will be connected to the understanding of mass.

We need a futures market for futures.

[dpbsmith]

As we all know, market forces are omniscient and omnivident. The market suffereth long, and is kind; the market envieth not; the market vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.

So, what we need is an online futures market in which cosmologists could put their money where their mouth is.

You say the universe will collapse in a big splat in 20 billion years? Fine, bet on it. 20 billion years if the universe hasn't collapsed, you'd better pay off. 20 billion years' worth of interest should make you think carefully before mouthing off!

You say there's a parallel universe nearby? OK, plunk down your money. If there is one, you win. (And your counterpart in the parallel universe, of course, loses. What point is there in parallel universes unless we can transfer money between them?)

An asteroid might slam into the Earth a year from now, destroying all human life, but if you manage to pick the exact day it happens, you could be rich!

Re:We need a futures market for futures.

[CausticWindow]

You're on

Life _as_we_know_it_

[stomv]

I read the whitepaper presented, and it has some difficulties:

1. It suggests the variables necessary for life as we know it. While life on Earth is incredibly varied, it isn't the end-all-be-all. Perhaps fundamentally different life could exist in different conditions, ranging from the mass of a neutrino to the spectral-jibber-jabber constant.

2. It doesn't present ranges for the variables. It does give "if higher/lower/more/fewer" qualitative statements, but not quantative. What if a variable was increased by 1%? 10%? 100%? What is the range for those variables to preserve current life-abling conditions?

I think most scientists would concur that the probability of life as we know it is almost certainly zero*. And yet, we have life, as we know it. If a variable was fudged in the past, we surely wouldn't have life as we know it, but that is not the same analysis as not having life at all.

* math for really, really, really freakin' close to zero. A finite number of instances of life given an infinite number of chances.

Which end do we know will happen now?

[Christopher Thomas]

So, which end are we certain will happen now - or rather, which end is the author hyping, since most scientists would still be reluctant to call this an open and shut case?

Possible scenarios include:

• The Big Crunch
  
  This fell out of favour a while back, when the need for a flat universe became apparent. In this scenario, the universe's espansion halts and it re-collapses. Once it was thought that this would involve time running backwards/entropy reversal during the crunch phase, but it was later shown that scenarios with increasing entropy also existed. There was much speculation about whether the universe would "bounce" after it crunched, forming a new expanding universe.
• The Whimper, Version 1
  
  This scenario was popular when we'd made a detailed enough survey to know that that amount of bright matter in the universe was far too low to counteract the expansion. It fell out of favour when our estimates of the amount of dark matter got better.
  
  In this scenario, the universe keeps expanding quickly, and all matter that isn't gravitationally bound into clusters is separated by vast empty regions of space. As the universe's expansion represents the expansion of space itself, sufficiently large gravitationally bound clusters might still be disrupted, due to distances changing internally. Galaxies burn out as stars exhaust their fuel, stellar corpses eventually merge with each other and with the central black hole, which finally decays after a mind-bogglingly huge length of time.
• The Flat Whimper (Version 2)
  
  This scenario assumes that the amount of matter - light and dark - is perfectly balanced with the expansion of the universe. There was strong circumstantial evidence for a scenario like this, due to the fact that deviations from flatness amplify over time and that our universe was still _roughly_ flat - but the linchpin was a variety of models for the early universe - and the big bang - that required the universe to be flat. More detailed measurements of the amount of dark matter in the universe seemed to be consistent with this model.
  
  In this scenario, the rate of expansion slows, approaching zero as time goes to infinity. Distance still goes to infinity as time goes to infinity, but not as rapidly. From a local point of view this looks a lot like Whimper Version 1.
• Whimper Version 3 - We're Expanding Again
  
  This model arose when evidence for dark energy was discovered by observations of distant parts of the universe. In this model, the universe started out as flat, but a weak repulsive effect comes into play that causes expansion to accelerate. The effect is small enough that we haven't diverged that greatly from flatness yet, but in the end, it'll be Whimper Version 1 all over again. This is one of the two currently plausible scenarios.
• The Never-Ending Fractal Universe (Steady-State Reborn)
  
  This model was the result of closer examination of the scalar field models used to drive inflation in the early universe. In the inflationary model - which itself was proposed to solve the problem of the universe's matter distribution being so smooth - a "scalar field" existed in the early universe that permeated space and caused vast amounts of new space to be created. In the original version of the inflationary model, this scalar field's effects died out shortly after the big bang. A later model, however, proposed that the field was not cancelled everywhere - in some regions of the universe, constructive interference would cause it to be strong enough for inflation to continue.
  
  Thus, we have a model where the universe looks mostly like our own, except for regions where it "buds" to form new universes. This process continues forever. This is the second scenario currently considered plausible (with the scalar field taking on the role of "dark energy").
• Colliding Membranes
  
  This is the model proposed by

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[Directrix1]

Yeah, god is used to abstract out the things we can't explain. Therefore, the refinement of the model in which god exists is a theoretical science just like all the crap in this article. Sure, there is NO NEED for any science. There is no need to try to explain anything. You can go pick nuts and berrys and never have to worry about science, and or justification of anything. But if you truly want to consider yourself a man of science you cannot just turn your back on something because you don't believe in it. By the way, believe it or not, the Earth is round and we have a helio-centric model of our solar system (and before you go spouting off the controversy over that because of religion, maybe you should try to realize that there is quite a bit of seperation between man and the faith that he abides by, everything quoted as being crimes against humanity induced by religion, is actually just induced by other humans with [usually] misinterpretations). The capacity to prove or disprove god and creationism is beyond our current technical capabilities. Live with it and try to be more open minded on the issue.

variable constants

[Cally]

As a layperson with an interest in cosmology and physics, I seem to hear about an increasing number of hacks to the Standard Model. By hacks I mean things like dark energy, whose value apparently fluctuates over (cosmological) timescales; there's another idea that the speed of light(I think?) ha varied over time, and that this is the only way to explain the cepheid data (supernovae of known brightness) as we get to see supernovae from further and further away (which occured further and further back in time of course.)

Isn't the use of ugly hacks to prop up an established theory in the face of contradictory observations an indicator of a theory which needs to be chucked out en masse and reformulated in the light of a more fundamental description of physics?

Re:variable constants

[Christopher Thomas]

Isn't the use of ugly hacks to prop up an established theory in the face of contradictory observations an indicator of a theory which needs to be chucked out en masse and reformulated in the light of a more fundamental description of physics?

Sort of.

It's actually an indication that a better model _might_ exist.

Until we have a model in-hand that works at least as well as the current one, however, there's no justification for throwing out the current model (which still works quite well as an approximation). So, calling for the current model of the universe to be chucked is a bit premature.

Another possibility is that several fundamental parameters of the universe _do_ vary with time, as a result of some mechanism which has not yet been discovered. Constants that cannot be derived from other constants and are instead set at arbitrary values are just as suspicious as "constants" that change.

That's not Science - it's Engineering

[DG]

There is a difference between Science and Engineering (although Engineering depends on Science, and sometimes the attempt to solve an Engineering problem advances Science)

The Science behind fusion is well understood and proven out

The Engineering behind creating a self-sustaining fusion reaction from which more power can be extracted than consumed is a little more challenging - especially given that the only natural model we have requires collecting enough Hydrogen such that it starts to fuse under the pressures of its own gravity - a little tough to package in a useful manner.

But progress - or lack thereof - on an Engineering project does not necessarily discredit the Science.

DG

Universe Expansion

[Stranger4U]

Do you think the evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating is concrete? And, what effect do you think this conclusion should/will have on humans?

Re:Sign of Impending Doom?

[Liquorman]

Perhaps. However, scientists have proven that this thread will end like all others, with off-topic rants against M$, SCO and the RIAA.

Re:I'm not sure what to think

[rde]

There are two points to be made here, methinks:
1. Scientists may know /now/ how the universe started and will end, but in a lot of the details - and possible the final outcomes - they're almost certainly wrong. A few short years ago we know exactly how Jupiter was formed; then Galileo dropped a probe into the atmosphere, and suddenly more questions arose. Now no-one knows why its atmosphere or its winds are the way they are. Science is littered with such examples; particularly cosmology. How recently is it that we didn't even know gamma ray bursts existed? There'll always be stuff we haven't accounted for, so theories will always be based on incomplete data.

Which brings me nicely to point two: supposing our Brainiacs are right? That's hardly the mystery taken out of everything; questions abound, and always will. Maybe when we're all in our Vorlon-like encounter suits we'll have a decent understanding of the part of the universe that we can see; before then, there'll always be questions.

True Random

[jeremie]

Is this universe actually capable of creating true near-infinite randomness, or are all the sources fundamentally affected by characteristics relating to the beginning (and/or end) and basic properties underlying them?

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[rjh]

ObDisclosure: yes, I am a Christian. No, I am not an Intelligent Design or Creation Science advocate. I object to both ID and CS on theological grounds rather than scientific ones, for reasons I hope will be clear.

There is NO NEED for intelligent design.

On the contrary: if there was no need for the idea of intelligent design (note that I didn't call it a theory), nobody would've come up with it. It's pretty well-understood that there are a large number of fundamental constants which are balanced just perfectly to allow complex systems to arise in the Universe. This creates a question: how did this perfect balance come to be? Some people feel the need to have an answer, and for these people, ID fills a genuine need.

On the other hand, ID isn't science. Science is concerned with empirical observations and testable hypotheses. You can't empirically test God. Theologically speaking, we can't test God because he exists on such a level beyond us that we can't conceive of a test. (There are many other theological problems with testing God, but leave those alone for now.) And scientifically speaking, God defies all attempts at making testable hypotheses. So either way, you're screwed by introducing ID into a scientific curriculum. If you want to believe in ID, great; just please don't call it science.

Interestingly, the Catholic Church doesn't believe in ID except in a very abstract way. The Catholic Church has, amazingly enough, learned from Galileo and Copernicus and all the rest. Many times in the past the Church said such-and-such a physical phenomenon is the direct handiwork of God, only to have it shown that it's not God's direct handiwork anyway. At that point, what do you do? Redefine God so that "well, God's still directly handling the other things, just not that"? And what happens when natural processes are discovered for the other things?

The Catholic Church has become so cognizant of this that they've assigned it a name: the God Of The Gaps. If every unexplainable instance is attributed to God, the Catholic theology goes, then whenever a previously unexplainable instance is discovered to have an explanation, God's glory is diminished by the explaining.

ID is a God Of The Gaps argument. We don't understand how the finely-balanced nature of the cosmos is possible, therefore God must have done it... well, what happens if/when we discover there's a natural phenomenon behind it?

Re: why I object to ID and CS on theological grounds instead of scientific ones... ID and CS are both theological models of the world. As such, they can't be refuted with science. They stand entirely apart from it.

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[efatapo]

Justin, How is refining creationism to allow for new scientific discoveries any different than believing in evolution and refining our understanding per new scientific discoveries? The evolution we 'know' now is not Darwin's evolution just like the evolution we will 'know' in 50 years will be much different than what we believe now.

The science I can explain better, but the second part of your argument is flawed as well. There is currently a need for intelligent design, though there might not be a scientific need in the future. There are significant genetic gaps in our current observations of evolution. An easy, although hard to support, explanation would be intelligent design. A divine-genetic push and you have a new species. We don't currently have an explanation for these gaps, and while not an evolution expert I have not read a valid explanation.

And, actually I'll leave it at the science for today. I'll let someone better than myself explain why your god as only an explanation for the unexplained is incorrect. ~Dan

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[rknop]

The existence of God cannot be disproven scientifically. As long as something cannot be disproven, it is a valid theory.

Err... if a theory is not falsifiable, it is certainly not a useful theory, scientifically speaking.

And if, as you assert, the existence of God cannot be disproven scientifically, then God is not a topic of science. So....

What I am trying to say is that you can believe what you want, but don't force it on others. Eliminating Intelligent Design, or whatever you want to call it, from school curriculum amounts to nothing more than censorship, just like eliminating evolution.

You can keep intelligent design in your curriculum. But it should be a part of a religion or comparative world faiths class, not a part of a science class, because it is not science. It is wrong to claim that it is, and it is dogmatic interference to insist that it be taught as such.

-Rob

Re:but the really important question is

[BruceMcAuley]

I read last week that it IS possible for this really be a two-dimensional "holographic" universe with time added. Then, just a couple of days ago, I read of Mr Lynd, the young Australian thinker(maybe Einstein calibre?) who now proposes there is no basis for time being a physical fact. This leads me to envision, and PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong, a simple two dimensional universe, WITHOUT time, "holographically" projected as our universe. That brings us to the proposition we MAY actually be "shadows in the mind of God"? Was the beginning of the universe possible given such parameters, and once "GOD" stops thinking about us will we just disappear(the END of the Cosmic Movie?). Or is this line of reasoning COMPLETELY out of line? Thanks for any comments in advance? Bruce

What will it mean

[boatboy]

Assuming that scientists do answer the questions "How did the universe begin?" and "How will it end?", what are the implications for your life personally, and in your judgement for society as a whole? Final proof of such answers could have profound moral and sociological effect. For example, much of science is dedicated to these topics today- once the answers are set, what is tommorrow's "next big question"? On a personal level, how would you change if you knew for sure the answer to these questions? Would you see other people differently?

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[cheeseSource]

Lot's of scientists have been tossed about because of bad science (e.g. Lamarckian evolution) However, people seem to get very upset when you show Jesus' flaws. Let alone bring up the fact that religion is inconsistant (consistancy being a key to science) and that not one reasonable person could defend religion for more than five minutes in a reasonable manner without relying on either the word "faith" or a viscious circle of dogmatic unprovable logic

Universes on multiple membranes.

[Christopher Thomas]

Actually, that makes the most logical sense.

While it's common to call the universe "everything," it's really just "everything we can sense or extrapolate." There very very well might be a much much larger "macroverse" out there--but to get to this point, we're firmly out of science (which is a search for knowledge) and into theory--also known as "religion", "dreaming", and "half-assed speculation."

Firstly, you apparently have been misinformed about the definition of the word "theory". An idea that is proposed without evidence is a "conjecture". An idea that matches a lot of the available information and has no major contradictions with observations - in other words, a plausible conjecture - is a "hypothesis". To change categories a bit, a "model" is a set of equations that attempts to accurately describe the behavior of some apsect of the universe. They are often the subject of hypotheses - e.g., you could hypothesize that the "whimper version 3" model is an accurate description of the universe. The model and the hypothesis are two different types of object.

A "theory" is the last hypothesis standing after all hypothesis have been subjected to very rigorous experimental tests. If after every attempt you can make to tear it down, a given hypothesis remains the best explanation available for a phenomenon or set of observations, then it graduates to the "theory" category.

Calling "half-assed speculation" "theory" or vice-versa is very far from correct.

Now, on to the multiple membranes model. The main problem I have with it is that it supposes some higher-dimensional space in which the membranes are embedded, and supposes that interaction can occur through this space. Proposing larger spaces for embedding as a mathematical crutch is fine as long as they don't have a material effect on the observable universe, but if there's a fourth spatial direction that forces can propagate in, why do we only observe three directions? If things can be pulled and pushed across this gap, why don't particles and stars and whatnot move freely in this direction? What forces them to be bound into membranes?

This model makes a number of propositions along these lines for which simpler alternate explanations exist (e.g. for dark matter, that there are enough particles present that don't interact via EM to have substantial gravitational effect - we already have several candidates for part of this detected by other methods [the neutrino flavours]).

As far as I can tell, this multiple-membrane model gets attention because of similarities in name (and only name) to the "brane" model for superstrings (which proposes that particles are p-dimensional membranes instead of one-dimensional objects). The superstring / brane models avoid the observational problems of extra spatial dimensions by making them too small to have impact on the macroscopic world (and their microscopic impact is exactly that required to make vibrating string modes match up with the particles we observe). Completely different beasts.

Re:Universes on multiple membranes.

[Planesdragon]

This is a scientific discussion. You were gratuitously abusing the term to make an argument-by-belittlement against cosmological models (which is pretty ironic given that you were trying to _support_ one).

This is /. It's an informal forum for discussion of "geek stuff." As happens often, I have no stake in the outcome of one cosmological model over another among the theorists--especially when they're so far out that they're essentially atheist theology.

Different beasts - the model you favour assumes as an axiom that forces act in the extra direction. This would cause very visible effects. _Really_ visible effects - the most obvious of which being the propagation of matter through all available spatial directions unless some magical force acted to confine it.

(magical? That's an argument by belittlement! ;) )

I am not read up on the membrane model--I merely stated that, of the models listed among the parent, it was the one that sounded most sensible. I very much may have misunderstood that--which is fine. I misunderstand sects of Bhuddism and Islam too. In any case...

If there is "more reality outside of our universe", we may simply not be noticing effects of it because not enough time has passed since the formation of "our universe." If there is a seperate reality beneath the "aether*" of our reality, we may simply not notice effects because the fabric of space-time isn't "linked" across the barrier, or isn't "linked" enough to cause a detectable difference.

(I use the term "aether" to mean the "fabric of space time." It's neither matter nor energy, but the actual fabric of existance. At the very least, it's a convenient word.)

This is why you are actively supporting a model that makes more assumptions than usual?

Once again: I am not "actively supporting" anything. I'm engaging in a discussion on /.

As for parsimony--while the simplest answer is the one that should be used until disproven, that doesn't mean that the simplest answer is always right. I put forth that we are incapable of emphiriacly proving any cosmological model, and so in this realm of theorism, parsimony need not be the ruling principle that it is in science.

Answer:

[Jerk City Troll]

There is no friction in space to counteract the inertia of the explosion's particles. Therefore one would assume that they'd fly out from the explosion at the same rate forever w/o ever hitting one another as they all blew out away from the same point.

Ever hear of universal gravitation?

You mention that the gravity of the particles is "basically zero". How do you define "basically zero". Does that mean zero or non-zero? If the latter, does that mean less than or greater than zero? I can only assume you mean greater than. What effect do you think all these tiny amounts of gravity will have over billions of years? Do you honestly think that these particles will not gather over time?

Effects of multiverse

[SirLanse]

If we are in one universe of many in the multiverse, what would the effects of another universe colliding with ours? Could the unseen others be causing the excelleration of the expansion that is now being seen?

Re:Errr..

[hesiod]

> survival-oriented species out there in spacetime will not find a means to intervene in the death of the universe?

That's a good point you have hidden in there. Wouldn't it be ironic if, despite all the gloom & doom lovers out there, that we all died because of some race even more ignorant than ourselves? Or, perhaps, even more brilliant than ourselves.

Physics and Consciousness

[Remus Shepherd]

There have been some recent experiments, mostly spearheaded by Roger Nelson of the Princeton Global Consciousness Project, that show a correlation between human consciousness and quantum events. Some have speculated that consciousness may lay outside of what we know about physics.

Do you think there will be any fruitful (i.e., predictive) experimentation in this matter? Could we someday develop a theory that will unite physics and consciousness?

We don't understand the dark energy...

[v@mp]

I am a physics graduate student in theoretical cosmology and these types of claims irritate me. Sure, after WMAP measurements of the CMB combined with Lyman break galaxy data we have determined the cosmological parameters today such as lamda, omega_matter, sigma8, but we are far from understanding how the universe will end. For example, the dark energy (lambda) is what is forcing the expansion of the universe at present, but we don't know what the nature of the field driving the expansion is or even if it is constant or accelerating (quintessence theory).

Even when we understand the dark energy it can not be hailed as a triumph above all other discoveries, because we don't know how galaxies form? How massive (primordial?) black holes at the centers of galaxies form? What re-ionized the universe? How even a single star forms?

Unfortunately, this is also a view held by many older astronomers and physicists in academia, because they have pushed so hard for so long for the values of these fundamental parameters.

None the less, the book looks interesting. I always enjoy books about science and scientists. My question for Chris Seife, which is related to his phenomenal statement, is: As a science writer, do you attempt to explain the hard science to people and if so do you feel it is important for scientist to try and explain their work to the public, or is it better to skip the details and just show them pretty pictures and cool stories? We all know that's what gets science funded.

Theory Abuse in full force

[burgburgburg]

"The existence of God cannot be disproven scientifically. As long as something cannot be disproven, it is a valid theory."

From the HyperDictionary: scientific theory - a theory that explains scientific observations; "scientific theories must be falsifiable"

Proponents of ID and other some such notions love to brutally abuse the term theory to confuse the issues. For something to rise to the accepted level of theory, it must be based on scientific observations. It must have passed through the hypothesis stage of initial concept deliniation. It must be tested repeatedly, succeeding each time (or the initial hypothesis must be reworked). It has to pass peer review.

ID and other notions don't even rise to the level of hypothesis.

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[Black Parrot]

> Intelligent Design, a recent theory that has gained enough respect from the scientific community

ID has no respect in the scientific community whatsoever. (If it did, Dembski wouldn't be making up paranoid conspiracy theories to explain why it doesn't.)

> that it is being taught alongside evolution in many schools and colleges

A number of creationist pressure groups have tried to get it adopted by state school boards, but AFAIK they haven't actually succeeded anywhere.

Which is all for the best, since if you ask an ID advocate what should go in their lesson plan all you'll get is a blank look. All the political noise the ID movement has stirred up over the past few years is based on nothing more than a couple of easily refuted arguments that evolution must have had some help somewhere along the way.

> explains that to even reach the stage at which we exist there are no fewer than twenty-six variables necessary for our universe to even consider permitting life and a further sixty-six within our galaxy and Earth itself that allowed the multitude of living beings not only to come into being but to flourish

Those aren't findings of the ID movement; they're arguments that the ID movement appeals to. (Showing, in passing, that ID is nothing more than the old fine-tuning argument painted up with a fresh layer of pseudo-science.)

> (this whitepaper that was in My Favorites breaks these criteria into probabilities -- great read if you prefer to see the evidence of this hypothesis)

Probability arguments are what creationists use to deny that something has happened. (Scientists also acknowledge that the universe is a very improbable place, or would be if all configurations of matter and energy were equally probable, but from that recognition they part with creationists by investigating the causes of the observed non-randomness rather than invoking armchair arguments to deny causes.)

> Some perhaps are content with chaos theory, but I'm glad there's another scientific viewpoint that can rationalize the concept that free will is the only variable that yet seems unaccounted for

The existence of free will hasn't even been demonstrated; it's small wonder that it hasn't been accounted for.

> ... and with all likelihood, that too was carefully strewn into the universe to keep a perpetual working model. Although I suppose we have to keep in mind that this too is only a theory

No, it isn't even a theory. It's speculation unconstrained by any evidence.

> So I'm glad that there are still some minds out there, like Copernicus and Einstein, that are not satisfied with science by rote, and I think that if we allow ourselves break out of the current dominant paradigms for just a little bit the change in perspective can open many new insights.

Hope you were just trolling. That would be a good trollpost, but a pathetic serious post.

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[Black Parrot]

> Yes, so-called "Intelligent Design" is inherently a religious concept. So what? How does that invalidate it? The existence of God cannot be disproven scientifically. As long as something cannot be disproven, it is a valid theory.

The fact that it can't be disproven shows its worthlessness as a theory. There is no conceivable observation that isn't compatible with 'goddidit', which makes 'goddidit' completely useless as an explanation for anything.

[Snip fantasia on Genesis I]

> For having been written thousands of years ago by a man (Moses) who knew nothing about science, it seems pretty close to me.

Regardless who wrote it and when, it sounds pretty wrong to me.

> I understand why some people refuse to believe in a God. It takes a very open mind to believe in something you have no evidence of.

Alas, it takes an open mind to believe in things we do have evidence of, such as the big bang and biological evolution.

And if you're so keen on believing stuff without any supporting evidence, why don't you believe in all the other gods and unicorns that people have professed throughout the ages? You're merely engaging in special pleading.

> Eliminating Intelligent Design, or whatever you want to call it, from school curriculum amounts to nothing more than censorship, just like eliminating evolution.

No, omitting ID is just like omitting other pseudosciences based on bad arguments.

Wilkinsin Microwave Anisotrpy Probe

[Roger W Moore]

As a scientist this sort of hype really irritates me since it makes us look arrogant at the time and then like idiots when the hype gets proved wrong.

My guess is that the book is a hyped up discussion of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy probe. This probe looked at minor fluctuations in the cosimc microwave background (much like COBE but with far better resolution).

The probe provided some really interesting data which has ended up posing far more questions than it answers (always the best type of experiment!). The data show that if the Big Bang model is correct that the Universe will end in heat death i.e. there will be no big crunch.

However it also shows that only ~5% of the Universes matter is "baryonic" i.e. what you would call "normal" matter. About ~20% is non-baryoninc matter and a whopping ~75% is dark energy. Currently the physics that we know about cannot account for most of the non-baryonic dark matter let alone the "dark energy". So to say that we know how the Universe is going to end when we only understand about 5% of what it actually is shows that the statement is clearly pure hype.

However this is also the reason that science is fun: we have a lot more of the Universe to understand. Either there is a lot of new fundamental physics out there for us to find or the Big Bang model predictions of the energy content are wrong. It's just best to wait until we do understand it before we make predictions.

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[eddy the lip]

I'm sure you're post will attract a lot of flames, and I'll try not to add to the heat too much. As a former proponent of Intelligent Design, I do have some comments, which I hope you'll take in the spirit they are intended.

As long as something cannot be disproven, it is a valid theory.

This isn't quite true...if something cannot be disproven, it is an empty theory. The principle of falsifiability is a cornerstone of modern scientific understanding. If you cannot devise a way to disprove a statement, that statement can be said to actually have no content, because it cannot add to your understanding of the world around us. It may influence your perception of it, which is fine - perceive it however suits you best - but it cannot be said to contain information.

Evolutionary theories (of various types) actually do show (as much as science purports to "show" anything) that God is unneccessary. What it does not claim is that God does not exist, or did not use evolutionary methods in creation. Unfalsifiable claims can be added to any scientific theory, without adding or detracting anything from it. Adding a God hypothesis to a scientific theory does not add any information to the theory. It is merely a statement of perception about that theory.

I disagree strongly with the statment that "[e]liminating Intelligent Design, or whatever you want to call it, from school curriculum amounts to nothing more than censorship, just like eliminating evolution", except perhaps in comparitive religion courses. Intellegent Design is a method for believers to integrate scientific knowledge into their faith. Teaching ID in school is tantamount to teaching faith, in that it does not teach you anything more about evolutionary theories, only how a certain religion understands and deals with the introduction of new scientific knowledge.

On a personal note, I went from belief in a literal translation of the bible, to science/faith integration tools like ID to a rather reactionary atheism, to agnosticism, where I now stand. I take that to mean that I cannot state anything about God (or any faith system) in such a way that it increases my knowledge of the world, and that therefore all such statements are empty.

Schools should teach reasoning, scientific method, and what knowledge we have gained from those processes. The public education system should not teach as part of a scientific curriculum methods that religions use to integrate scientific knowledge into their belief structure.

So, uh, what caused the big bang?

[tjstork]

Like, what made the big bang happen?

God?

Oh, who made God?

SuperGod?

Who made SuperGod?

SuperDuperGod?

Who made SuperDuperGod?

Meanwhile, 500 billion light years away, another universe is big banging its way in our own universe but past the edge of our own big bang. Aliens from that universe will never see us and we will never see them, even though we are arranged in a convenient diagnonal, if viewed 20 trillion light years from above.

So, scientists know how the universe will end?

[LeoDV]

Well... how?

Re:God

[ReconRich]

No one can disprove God's existence.
I can't disprove the existence of Leprechauns either, but that doesn't mean I go looking for gold at the end of a rainbow.

The unending search for truth through science is a humanistic attempt to place one's self above God and finally be "free" from Him.

That's an awfully general statment there. If what you mean is that revealed religion is the only access to "God", then which one are you talking about.

In order for someone to disprove God's existence they would have to be omniscient and omnipresent.

Why ? Deists have produced some interesting "proofs" of a "Greatest Conceivable Being" (google it yourself) but these have nothing to do with disproof. BTW the GCB may have nothing to do with the "God" of the 1611 KJV.

It sounds like you resent science. Scientists typically are not trying to prove, or disprove the existence of god, God or the GCB. They work only by what can be observed. And you are correct, scientists are neither omniscient, omnipotent, nor omnipresent; if those qualities are required you must go to someone who claims to have a revelation from a being that is. Who would that be Moses ? Mohammed ? Jesus ? Siddhartha ? Zarathushtra ?

-- Rich

Re:Er -- Einstein was deeply religious

[notcreative]

Wow.

Saying Einstein was deeply religious is disingenuous, like saying that Thomas Jefferson was deeply religious. It is true in the sense that he believed in a Creator, but he didn't believe in the kind of activist answer-the-prayers snowy white beard in the clouds Creator that sends gays and women who have abortions to Hell. Evangelist Xtians make the link between these respected thinkers and themselves in order to seem rational. It is a false link; they have just as much in common with these belief systems as they have with fundamentalist Hinduism.

"God doesn't play dice with the Universe" is oft quoted and deeply misunderstood. Check out other quotes by Einstein in order to understand his position in a non-jingoistic manner.

Copernicus' ideas attacked the religious establishment, not God himself, but the statement is irrelevent to the discussion. I think this thread is about intelligent design, and since Copernicus was never exposed to the ideas of evolution, its a little ridiculous to bring him into it. I doubt he believed in washing his hands after he went to the bathroom. He died in 1543 and modern sanitation was invented in the 20th century.

Christianity obviously didn't lead to the formulation of the scientific method; it existed in ancient Greece. It's debatable whether religion had any role in the development of the scientific method; I would contend that it didn't.

"Fire and Ice"

[Anonymous Coward]

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-Robert Frost

I liked the parent-parent better.

[jtheory]

A few quick replies... overall, I'd urge you to try moving towards the attitude of the parent post to yours a bit more. I'm personally an atheist, but I'm very comfortable dealing with "believers" who know what it is they're choosing, and how it relates to science.

I defy anyone to explain to me how one species ever evolves into a completely different species.

What do you mean by "completely different species"? All it means when a different species appears is that members of the new group are different enough that they can't reproduce with the original species anymore. We still have something like 98% of our DNA exactly like that of a chimp... but our reproductive details are different enough that we can't produce a natural hybrid. It's silly to say we're completely different.

Now, suppose I'm right... The Bible talks about a time when everyone answers to God for what they've done.

Where do you fit in the atheist who volunteers for public services, gives to charities, etc.? There are plenty of people out there who don't believe in God but who follow the same ethical rules as you do, for different reasons.

And where do you fit in people who lived before monotheistic religions were even an option? Are they all still in hell? Poor suckers.

Just my thoughts on this... I think you'll find that the average atheist didn't choose that path to "permit" them to break the rules. For me, at least, all of the human religions that I know about just seem... well, really unlikely. The only idea that comes close is the suggestion that there's some force that started the whole ball rolling... but we know nothing about it, and praying to it or worshipping it as about as useful as praying to my own foot.

I'd probably sleep better if I believed that I would move on to some kind of pleasant afterlife after I die, but I'd rather live my life based on the best assumptions I can come up with -- not the most comfortable ones.

Human Immortality

[Daetrin]

How long do you think before drugs and other methods of reducing or eliminating the causes and symptoms of aging are available for general use?

For example, methods for restoring telomere length, reversing the effects of glucose binding, correcting genetic damage, and promoting the growth of new neurons.

How long do you think life can be extended by these and other methods? And to step briefly away from the science aspect, how do you think the results of this research will be offered to the public? Will it be available as part of the average health plan, or only for the uber-wealthy?

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[Black Parrot]

> Darwin stated that the fossil record, incomplete and meager as it was at the time, would eventually substantiate his theory by showing the gradual progression of creatures and intermediate forms. It is now evident due to the overwhelming preponderance of fossil evidence that has been found and cataloged, that the fossil record is a dismal failure in this role of corroborating evidence.

Funny, the people who actually study it think it is an overwhelming success. Look at the historical record of the bones in your middle ear. Look at the history of whale legs. You don't have to be a guru to grok this stuff; you just need to get your information from sources other than creationist propaganda sites.

BTW, the theory of evolution neither predicts nor requires that specimens of every species will be fossilized, let alone that they will be found and catalogued by a scientist. Creationists like to point out the gaps in the fossil record as if that were a problem for science, but completely ignore the masses of fossils that we do have, for which creation can give no better explanation than "God wanted it to look like stuff evolved".

Notice in passing that "God wanted it that way" is compatible with any conceivable observation. It's a completely useless way of trying to understand the universe.

At any rate, when you've got a better explanation than evolution for all the fossils we do have, let us hear about it. The fossils we don't have are a nuissance for reconstructing all the details of biological history, but they're not a problem for the theory of evolution.

> In fact, punctuated equilibrium is a theorist's patch designed specifically to cover this gaping hole in Darwin's evidence trail.

Punk-eek, like every other scientific theory, is an attempt to explain what we do see. Patterns in the fossil record demand an explanation, and punk-eek is a reasonable attempt to explain them.

And BTW, were you aware that people who work with genetic algorithms sometimes observe punk-eek in their non-biological work? It's an unsurprising and readily comprehensible phenomenon; no conspiracy theory required. Unless of course you're a creationist who has to fall back on slinging mud at scientific theories, to distract observers from the fact that you don't have any theory of your own at all.

Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately

[Stuntmonkey]

...there are a large number of fundamental constants which are balanced just perfectly to allow complex systems to arise in the Universe. This creates a question: how did this perfect balance come to be?

You know, I flipped a coin 30 times the other day and came out with the following result: HTHHTTTHHTHHTHTTHHTHHTTTHHTHTT

Now I ask you: what is the likelihood of my getting exactly this sequence of heads and tails? And to think I got exactly this, without a single mistake! I can't believe my luck! Clearly the result of divine intervention!

(Message: Be careful trying to apply probability theory when the result is a priori known.)