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The Vatican Invites World's Leading Scientists To Discuss Cosmology (independent.co.uk)
In 2014, Pope Francis declared that God is not "a magician with a magic wand" and that evolution and the Big Bang theory are real. Now, the Vatican has sent an invitation to the world's leading scientists and cosmologists to try and understand the Big Bang. The Independent reports: Astrophysicists and other experts will attend the Vatican Observatory to discuss black holes, gravitational waves and space-time singularities as it honors the late Jesuit cosmologist considered one of the fathers of the idea that the universe began with a gigantic explosion. The conference honoring Monsignor George Lemaitre is being held at the Vatican Observatory, founded by Pope Leo XIII in 1891 to help correct the notion that the Roman Catholic Church was hostile to science. In 1927, Lemaitre was the first to explain that the receding of distant galaxies was the result of the expansion of the universe, a result he obtained by solving equations of Einstein's theory of general relativity. Lemaitre's theory was known as the "primeval atom," but it is more commonly known today as the big-bang theory. The head of the Vatican Observatory, Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, says Lemaitre's research proves that you can believe in God and the big-bang theory.
If you're going to be Christian and don't want to be a retard, Catholicism is where it's at.
"Lemaitre's theory was known as the "primeval atom," but it is more commonly known today as the big-bang theory."
I hope his heirs are getting paid. I understand that's a very popular TV show.
It's a trap! ...
6,000 years ago? How do christians who believe the earth is 6,000 years old resolve both evolution AND the big band theory with current doctrine and dogma, when the very institution who sets these believes in both?
God has endowed man with intelligence and reason whereby he is required to determine the verity of questions and propositions. If religious beliefs and opinions are found contrary to the standards of science they are mere superstitions and imaginations; for the antithesis of knowledge is ignorance, and the child of ignorance is superstition. Unquestionably there must be agreement between true religion and science. If a question be found contrary to reason, faith and belief in it are impossible – Abdu’l-Baha
Big Bang is a "socially accepted theory" just like the geocentric model or spontaneous generation used to be.
Next generation telescopes launched in the next 10 years will determine the Big Bang is false, just another human-friendly creationist theory dressed up in 20th century scifi.
Just wait until advanced telescope start looking in sky and discover extremely stars and galaxies far older than the Big Bang could ever explain.
Why does Big Bang have more stitches and adjustments to the model than a Frankenstein monster?
The false BICEP2 detection of graviton waves wasn't just a false detection --- it was also a non-detection. It should have found something. It was a red flag that a propped up Frankentheory has no legs.
Next happens next? Who knows. We are missing a puzzle piece.
But humans --- who excel at error created the Big Bang myth. To err is human.
Out of all fields, astronomy is the least troubling from a modern Catholic point of view. If they want to prove they're "hip" and "cool" and up with all that science business, that'd be my first choice too.
Besides, just imagine the potential of bringing God's word to intelligent aliens. Interplanetary missionaries.
Now that the Pope has lured them in, he should put them all on trial for heresy.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Not a terribly good argument. If Galileo was present today, I'd think he'd have a slightly easier time of it.
Give due where due is deserved. The Catholic church does appear to be trying to modernise. I say, good for them! They're a bit slow, but at least they are changing.
Sadly, the US Catholic church is mired in the 15th century.
Or you could put on your big boy pants and actually read some history instead of repeating propaganda. Galileo was excommunicated for mocking the pope in his book, not for presenting his theories.
Just give the Universe ID a GUID, Then, how you label the "was_created_by" field can then change at will, without affecting the fact that it IS.
Notice, it is an ID, not necessarily a UniqueID... "This is my universe. There are many like it, but this one is mine. It is my life."
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Ask Galileo how that worked out. Sounds like desperate actions of cult who's way past expiration date.
Not this again. I'm not Catholic, I disagree with a lot of the politics of the Catholic Church, and obviously most of its religious doctrine is hooey.
But anti-science? Nope. And the "Galileo affair" is a red herring, one of the very few episodes in the Catholic Church's long history where it comes across as anti-science -- although actually, it wasn't so much. Galileo himself was spouting off about stuff that didn't actually make sense according to the science of the time. That doesn't justify shutting him down or placing him under house arrest of course, but that's a free speech issue, not a suppression of SCIENCE issue.
Anyhow, I'm not going to bother describing the Catholic Church's long history of support of science, how a few 19th-century anti-Catholic revisionist historians basically trumped up the idea that the Church was anti-science, and how Galileo's case was a LOT more complicated than some stupid inaccurate portrayal you've heard from Neil deGrasse Tyson or whatever. You want to know more? I've explained it before here. You want to know more about the details of Galileo's theories and the problems? I've explained that here. I could go on, but hopefully that's at least enough to prove Pope Francis's point here: the Catholic Church throughout its history has rarely been hostile to science and in fact for most of the past thousand years has probably been the biggest and most consistent institution to support it over the longest period.
"Just wait until advanced telescope start looking in sky and discover extremely stars and galaxies far older than the Big Bang could ever explain."
Or just wait for your Armageddon. Which will not occur as you've been sold. The Big Bang Theory is based on the best science we have to date. Your nonsense is based on the misguided writings of false profits who put pen to paper thousands of yeas ago.
Even if the Big Bang is false it'll at least not be labeled as truth but as our best informed guess. Your nonsense is based on ignorance and fear.
Is it anything like this one?
http://www.hwdyk.com/q/images/...
Next pope is gonna undo everything he did.
Slow by what metric?
What a cool Pope.
I just figured it out why the Pope has been so progressive: it's all been a lure for this moment! You see, when they arrive in the Vatican, the world's most prominent cosmologists will be put on trial for heresy. It's too bad this warning won't reach them in time because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The system in motion is not limited by its current definition. God may or not need to use to "time" (motion) to change the rules.
Direction is irrelevant to a copy/paste function.
Deletion or alteration occur as well.
Just like math: the whole game can change with a simple plus one minus one. (on vs off for binary)
This does not encroach into the "can God do this?" area, since most computer scientists will agree that IF god exists, he very SIMPLY can change everything AS IF IT WERE MAGIC and probably with little effort.
The problem with defending the Church's treatment of Galileo as being based on their view of science "at the time" is that science barely existed at the time, and Galileo is seen as one of the founders of modern science. The Ptolemaic model was not science, it was a complex mathematical model built to shoehorn in a whole pack of observations into a much older geocentric view of the universe. It sure the heck wasn't science, which is fine, because science as we know it didn't exist in the 2nd century AD, but by the 17th century and Copernicus's theory and Galileo's observations, there was no excuse at all, other than just an unfortunate episode of the Church not listening to the words of one of its greatest Doctors, Augustine of Hippo, who cautioned against exactly what the Church did.
And the Church has acknowledged its error and unjust way it treated Galileo, so I don't see any need to whitewash the Church's treatment of him.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
When was Galileo excommunicated? He was put under house arrest for the rest of his life, and most certainly his rejection of the Ptolemaic model played into his troubles, and he was criticized for insisting that the Copernican model was true.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Well except the fact that the debate with the church wasn't Ptolemaic vs Copernican but Tychonic. That and the fact Tychonic and Copernican are equivalent systems and literally make the same predictions. I mean sure if you have Newtonian mechanics then it's obvious Tychonic is wrong but they didn't have that because Newton wasn't around. That's why he went to such lengths to come up with a tidal mechanism since that would require a moving earth. Unfortunately that theory gets everything about tides wrong. Of course we could bring up that issue of no stellar parallax being a reason to think Tychonic was the way to go. Or the fact he really got in trouble because after his college buddy, the pope, suggest that he publish he did so. But instead of latin he did so in Italian and put a crack against catholic doctrine at the end of it.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
So long as you don't use a condom. But touching little boys is ok.
The main reason that there is so much pedophilia in Catholicism is because the Catholic church has created its own traditions which go against the teachings of the Bible. They do not allow priests or the pope to get married, yet Peter, the guy they claim to be the first pope was married. An example of one such passage that is ignored by the church is 1 Corinthians 7:
"Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband."
and
"But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I. But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion."
If the Catholic church allowed its priests to follow the teachings of these scriptures there would be far less sexual immorality and abuse in the church.
The phrase "Intelligent Design" was a invention to get around the 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Edwards v. Aguillard. Which stopped them teaching God as a creator due to the "supernatural" nature of the belief system meant it was religion.
So they wanted to teach religion in schools, so they invented a pseudo science of Intelligent Design to be taught as a "theory" (a theory, their lawyers just invented), in the same way "the THEORY of evolution" is taught... theory #1 vs theory #2....
Kids want to have an exclusive on something, so they tell them evolution is just a theory, and they're trying to hide this other theory that's the real truth, and so the kid thinks "I can be the 'intelligent design' kid that knows a secret the others don't know" and that's how indoctrination works.
As they get older, it's difficult to face that "ID" is not part of your religion, or science, but simply an invention to get around a court ruling.
Penrose's Cycles of Time puts forward a really straightforward mechanism for the big bang. When the last massive particle pops and all the energy in the universe is massless photons, you have no mass, so no gravity and no time. Everything is simple, low entropy, dominated by photons and bingo you have something that looks (and is) identical to the state at start of the big bang.
It hard to see why it isn't true.
He's a smart fellow that Penrose.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
If you persecute scientists because they go against scientific thinking, you're about as anti-science as it gets. The renaissance broke a long period of violent inquisition into any deviations from official doctrine.
A whole lot of original thinkers ended up in prison or burned before they got around to Galileo, so don't give us this "Not this again." bullshit.
Play Command HQ online
Ptolemaic system was scientific they tried to create a model that better fit their observations. What's anti-scientific is defending it violence.
Play Command HQ online
The head of the Vatican Observatory, Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, says Lemaitre's research proves that you can believe in God and the big-bang theory.
It sounds like Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno is experiencing some cognitive dissonance. He has to believe in God to keep his job, but he has to also believe in the Big Bang theory to be a real astronomer.
I imagine it's a pretty sweet gig, but there are other jobs out there.
Does a God need it?
You (and the creationist idiots for different reasons) are looking at things the wrong way IMHO. As I see it science and religion are orthogonal unless it's dumbed down Christianity-Lite that sees science as a direct threat to it's very financial business model.
Mendel was quite happy working out a few things about genetics as well as being a monk, they didn't conflict. In geology four out of the five that disproved the "Noah's flood" theory of fossils were ordained. They didn't have so narrow an idea of religion that reality could get in the way.
I heard a quantum astro physicist speak on this recently. It was interesting that what he said the requirements for the big bang would be just happened to match up to some things outside of physics.
You mentioned:
> It all comes down to relativity: If the universe started as a single dimensionless point, then the gravity would have been so strong that time didn't exist. If time didn't exist
If time didn't exist within that point, if the gravity was so strong nothing could escape, then *nothing* could happen, within a basic understanding of relatively. For anything to happen, for the big bang to happen, you need either something outside pf physics (something meta-physical) or certain laws of quantum physics must be present in a very particular way.
Biblically, when God is asked who he is, the answer is basically "I am what it timeless" or "I am what has always been and always will be" (English doesn't have exactly the right words because we give several meanings to the word "is/am" Spanish comes closer with es vs esta). Also "I am the truth". So God states he is, essentially, timeless truth. Whatever has always been true, that's God.
And the physicists say that *before* the big bang can happen, quantum physics must *already* be true. Quantum physics must be timeless truth in order to get the big bang, or else the big bang has to be caused by something beyond physics, something meta-physical.
Therefore reading the plain words, the laws pf physics are timeless truth that must have existed before the big bang, and that's what God is - timeless truth that existed before the big bang. The founders of the US would then have been correct to call the laws of nature the laws of God, acts of nature are called acts of God. They are one and the same. They are timeless truth.
desires by a quite a ways. The evangelicals defense is, "but they're dead so what's the harm?" Trump agrees.
Not by much. Very publicly calling a major political figure with an autocratic streak a mile wide an idiot (simplicio) doesn't tend to go down well in any era.
The Ptolemaic model was not science, it was a complex mathematical model built to shoehorn in a whole pack of observations into a much older geocentric view of the universe. It sure the heck wasn't science
Well, the history of science has been filled with shoehorning.
The "science" that preceded relativity started as a complex mathematical model built to shoehorn in a whole pack of observations into a much older non-relativistic (aether) view of the universe.
The "science" that preceded quantum mechanics started as a complex mathematical model built to shoehorn in a whole pack of observation into a much older non-quantum (deterministic) view of the universe.
It often takes quite a while for views of our universe to change and not everyone goes along quietly. Simply dismissing the stuff that came before as "sure the heck wasn't science" doesn't really honor the scientific method at all. We'd be pretty arrogant to think that 100 years from now, all the "science" we have come up with today won't be looked at with derision and dismissiveness.
Even Einstein (who came up with relativity and won a Nobel prize for the quantum mechanical photo-electric effect) spent years trying to dismiss the currently accepted quantum view of the universe (the probabilistic view, aka god does not play dice) and many think never fully accepted it. I don't think he's the only one either...
As I wrote elsewhere it really came down to politics and calling the Pope an idiot in print. Others had been discussing the Copernican model before Galileo (and Galileo for two decades before his trial), but they did not depict a character that was obviously the Pope and obviously an idiot in their discussions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
Makes about as much sense.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Edgar Allan Poe suggested something similar (and more) in 1848 in his prose poem Eureka, shortly before his death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Admitedly Poe's ideas are highly questionable, however they're very inspirational. I wonder if Lemaitre read Poe before he did his remarkable works...
Saying the earth is flat is wrong, saying the earth is round is also wrong, but one is much more wrong than the other.
The other things that can't be disproved should not be taken on faith, but doing so is not proven wrong by the evidence. Insisting that the earth is 6000 years old and was flooded entirely before DESPITE evidence is retarded and disproved by the evidence, so you have to disbelieve reality to hold on to it. Which is double retarded and a "gateway drug" to the violent extremism you see complained about from Muslims. THEY have to be taught to disbelieve reality for the catchetisms of their faith. THEN then can be taught to slaughter people on webcam is holy.
Of course it is real. You need to be a complete idiot to deny that such a theory exists.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
The Vatican has maintained an astronomy office since 1774: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... .
In 1993 the Vatican Observatory saw first light on one of the world's premier large telescopes on Mt. Graham in Arizona (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_Advanced_Technology_Telescope), a project which was almost killed off by the same Greens who are trying to prevent the Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawaii from being built, on the same excuse of "sacred to my people" that is being used now in Hawaii.
The fuck?
You are aware quantum physics involves actual tests that can - and have been performed . Quantum electro-dynamics produces results that are so accurate they have lead many to call it the most precisely tested theory in the history of science
'Causality' is not ignored, it's just a matter of fact that observable evidence from quantum physics demonstrates that there are in fact acausal events on the quantum scale. Just because you - and most people - don't understand the physics involved using common sense does not mean the theory fails.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
Take a look at their bank accounts and other holdings.
That just means they are talented at scamming the credulous and are huge hypocrites. Take one look at Vatican City if you need proof that of their hypocrisy about "helping the poor". They are only interested in finding new angles to take advantage of people.
The church wanting to "talk" about cosmology is a waste of everyone's time because they have nothing useful to add to the discussion. Their idea of cosmology ends with the writings of primitive men who died thousands of years ago. The only interest the church has here is in hoodwinking idiots into thinking they are interested in something more than growing their flock and keeping their gravy train going. An organization which has based their interpretation of the world around a ridiculous fictional book isn't likely to be interested in a rational and evidence based discussion. They are just trying to figure out where the gaps are to continue their god of the gaps argument.
That's really where one religion (Quantum Mechanics) meets another religion (Big bang consmology).
Nope.
Quantum mechanics fails because it defies causality creating paradoxes they ignore
Defying causality is an interesting way of putting it.
Ignoring basic conflicts in reasoning to support a theory make QM a religion not a science.
There's no basic conflict in reasoning.
Equations do not make science, logic does.
Equations are logic. Valid ones, anyway. Equations that describe reality such that they make predictions are science.
Quantum Mechanics makes accurate predictions about reality that no other theory of similar or lesser complexity makes, and does not make inaccurate predictions within its broad domain.
Pure logic divorced from this is philosophy, which is a superset of science.
Why not two big bangs, or three or 33?
That's like saying that gravitational theory fails because why is the gravitational constant G ~= 6.674 * 10^-11 m^3/(kg * s^2). Why isn't it 2G or 3G or 33G?
We observed G. We observe a reality consistent with an expanding universe that does not meaningfully have multiple origin points or topographies.
But certainly the Big Bang theory is a looser theory than QM -- we don't make electronics out of predictions stemming from Big Bang theory. But we detect Neutrinos and background radiation first predicted by Big Bang theory.
And invents magic to support a broken model (e.g. inflation theory magically stopping, time not existing before big bang etc.)
There's no magic in inflationary theory or the time origin thing. They are, however, a product of extrapolation through to a state we can't directly investigate.
Christianity hangs onto the religious fringes of science here.
I don't know what this means.
It's the same since Earth was at the center of the universe (because Religion decided God made us special), and there were massive pointless equations describing the weird loop-the-loop motion of the planets....Equations do not make science, logic does, those equations indeed predicted the motion of the planets as if the earth was at the center of it all.... but they were simply wrong.
This is a common misinterpretation. Those equations describing epicycles were not wrong. They were overcomplicated. It's nonsensical to say an equation consistently gives accurate predictions but is still wrong. They were perfectly logical. We chose heliocentrism for our planetary models due to Occam's Razor when a simpler model was proposed that put the origin at the sun. Our current model is a bit more complicated than that but only because it buys us more accuracy than either of the old methods, and for many purposes we do stick to heliocentrism because it's just as true within the bounds of accuracy.
As I see it science and religion are orthogonal unless it's dumbed down Christianity-Lite that sees science as a direct threat to it's very financial business model.
They are not orthogonal unfortunately because for religions to work they have to manipulate how people think. Science is really nothing more than a rigorous method of thinking and it routinely comes into conflict with religions on this point. Islam, Christianity and the rest are also methods of thinking primarily used to control people by received "wisdom". To accomplish this they insist that followers believe certain tenets which are routinely in direct conflict with scientific methods, objective evidence and rational thinking.
Furthermore Islam and Christianity in particular are enthusiastic about trying to add followers, sometimes literally at the point of a sword. Objective rational thinking is a direct threat to this "business model" as you so rightly put it. They prey on the credulous and science is a clear and present danger to their ability to do this.
So no, religion and science are not orthogonal and cannot be as long as religion continues to attempt to tell people what to think about the world around them. For them to be orthogonal religion would have to be considerably more withdrawn from the material world than they are.
If time didn't exist within that point, if the gravity was so strong nothing could escape, then *nothing* could happen, within a basic understanding of relatively. For anything to happen, for the big bang to happen, you need either something outside pf physics (something meta-physical) or certain laws of quantum physics must be present in a very particular way.
Sigh... Just because you don't understand the physics of something doesn't mean that you need to invoke a deity to explain it. You are thinking of the big bang like a conventional explosion. It isn't. This is well trodden ground by physicists and no meta-physics is required.
Biblically, when God is asked who he is, the answer is basically "I am what it timeless" or "I am what has always been and always will be" (English doesn't have exactly the right words because we give several meanings to the word "is/am" Spanish comes closer with es vs esta). Also "I am the truth". So God states he is, essentially, timeless truth. Whatever has always been true, that's God.
So you are making a god of the gaps argument. Whatever we cannot explain currently must be god. Curious how "truth" from religions only seems to come in the form of 2000 year old holy books full of preposterous stories.
And the physicists say that *before* the big bang can happen, quantum physics must *already* be true.
No physicist I've ever met has said anything of the sort, at least in the sense you are implying. Not one of them pretends to know what the laws of physics were prior to the big bang or even for some short duration after. That is currently beyond our ability to model and predict. Quantum physics as we understand it likely would have no meaning prior to the big bang and we certainly have no testable models to evaluate.
Quantum physics must be timeless truth in order to get the big bang, or else the big bang has to be caused by something beyond physics, something meta-physical.
Wrong again. Quantum physics is a mathematical model of what we observe about the world around us. A well tested model but a model all the same. It is not some "timeless truth" especially given that it is an incomplete model and it certainly doesn't imply the existence of anything meta-physical. You are talking the sort of nonsense that sounds convincing to the uneducated and credulous but is easily debunked by anyone who actually has studied the topic.
If photons are moving around, then there is velocity, speed of light and time. There are also electrons, mass and gravity. Before that it's all a quark gluon soup.
Religion and science go together wonderfully as long as the other doesn't try to diletantly invade the domain of the other.
They do not go together wonderfully because religion cannot help but attempt to instruct people about the world around them. There is no way to entirely separate the claims religion makes regarding the material world around us and the human experience from those that science makes. This is why religion continues to try to limit scientific thinking because it reduces the ability of organized religions to dole out made up explanations for how the world works. Their "business model" depends on it. The problem religions have is that you don't actually need religion for dealing with "why" questions or the "how". Religion has nothing useful to contribute there. All religion has are farcical fables rather than actual answers. And they are desperately trying to keep the credulous from understanding this reality.
For religion to not intrude on science, religion would have to withdraw so far from daily human reality as to no longer be a meaningful part of human life. Religions had evolutionary utility at one point because they helped people organize into tribes which were useful for survival. The evolutionary utility has long since passed but it's hard to get rid of religion at this point because of our obvious predisposition towards it.
Deities have to be timeless - at least I won't settle for anything less. If an entity has apparent super powers, but is still subject to the passage of time (and thereby to the second law of thermodynamics), it is merely technologically more advanced.
Time, to a deity, has as much meaning as page numbers in a book. Or CPU clock cycles to a programmer who is able to observe, preserve and set every single state of the machine, thereby being essentially able to "turn back time" from the CPUs point of view.
Proof of divine power is as simple as showing a perpetuum mobile (preferably first or second kind, but I'll settle for third kind).
Photons both generate and are acted upon by gravitational fields. Gravity couples to energy, including kinetic energy, not just rest energy/mass.
...I would still advise that you read the Liturgy.
Liturgy is ritual rather than a bit of writing but I'll assume you are talking about the various catholic holy texts. I've read more of it than I care to admit. And it was largely preposterous crap meant to impress the credulous. The only value in reading it is so you can understand something about what the poor deluded followers of the church are rambling on about.
Some of the best writing ever came from the Catholic church. Even if they can't live by their own rules, it doesn't invalidate the rules.
It's impossible to actually exist by the rules of the church because they are illogical and self-contradictory and reflect values of people from a different time and place.
I also disagree you your assertion of the quality of the writing but that's not an objective critique on my part, more of an aesthetic judgement. The content of the liturgy on the other hand is objectively crap. Mostly made up fables that con men are trying with all their might to justify in order to gain power over the credulous.
Curious how they interpret genesis then. If the big bang theory is accurate, then a god simply cannot have created the universe. It all comes down to relativity: If the universe started as a single dimensionless point, then the gravity would have been so strong that time didn't exist. If time didn't exist, then there was no time for a god to create the universe.
It is unlikely that the big bang presents any sort of theological problem for the church. The theory was put forward by a Catholic priest teaching at a Catholic university after all.
Keep in mind that communications between two parties needs to be a least common denominator sort of thing. An all powerful God has to use concepts that humans can understand. The pre-scientific farmers and shepherds of the bible's day needed something a bit simplified compared to a modern astrophysicist. Perhaps if God were to explain things today we might have a genesis where our universe is created out of a multiverse. That would be closer to what I think the church argues, that God is beyond the universe, outside of it. Not simply in a different geographical part of it. Hence the ability to create space, time and the universe.
Lol?
Penrose's Cycles of Time puts forward a really straightforward mechanism for the big bang. When the last massive particle pops and all the energy in the universe is massless photons, you have no mass, so no gravity and no time. Everything is simple, low entropy, dominated by photons and bingo you have something that looks (and is) identical to the state at start of the big bang.
It hard to see why it isn't true.
He's a smart fellow that Penrose.
This invite is a trap, they want to kill you!
Galileo made the mistake of having a simpleminded "Simplicio" giving the defense of the ptolemeic system - and by making fun about the pope. Both in writing in his books.
He also "forgot" to mention the system of Tycho Brahe, which would have solved most of the problems of the ptolemeic systems (and was somewhat better in calculating astronomic phenomena, at least if you didn't use Keplers elliptic movements of the planets - which Galileo despised).
Oh, and he only got house arrest, plus some obligations for prayers. More or less a slap on the wrist.
QM is one of the most highly confirmed physical theories ever developed. And no, it doesn't violate causality, so you're just talking out your ass.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
We'd be pretty arrogant to think that 100 years from now, all the "science" we have come up with today won't be looked at with derision and dismissiveness.
We still teach Newtonian physics and it is still good enough to send probes to the outer solar system. A more than 300 year old physical theory. New discoveries don't have to toss out existing ones. They develop into covering a wider range of parameters and initial conditions, and their depth and explanatory power will increase (e.g. you can't explain Mercury's orbit without GR). Doesn't mean that quantum physics is to be viewed as derisory in a hundred years.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Today we learned that fred911 doesn't know what a 'cult' is. Thanks fred911. Galileo's dead btw.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
He gathers all of them up, does a sermon, goes behind a curtain, and then presses a little intercom button to speak into the mic:
"KILL THEM!"
> God has a moral component being either the source of moral goodness or its arbitrator (depending on your view)
The biblical God, from all I've read, *is* truth, not the arbiter of truth. "I am the way, the truth, and the light". (The word "am" here is the permanent "am"). Anywhere in that big old Bible does it say "I am the arbiter of morality? If so I haven't seen it.
To whatever extent morality is true, whatever moral laws are fixed and permanent, those are *part of* the biblical God because God *is* truth, according to the Bible. Whatever laws of physics are true, always true, are of course part of "I am the truth".
I haven't taken a survey of how "most people" understand things, but the biblical God is truth - all truth.
What do I care what some organized cult leader has to say about science?
Instead of finding compromises with a cult that worships a 2000-year old zombie, let's just let go of Christianity completely. It was a very silly thing to believe in to begin with.
>There are also electrons, mass and gravity.
Not if you wait long enough.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
What this is, I suspect, is the Catholic leadership realizing that the window of ignorance is just about to close on their fingers, so they're scrambling a bit to retrench a little further outside of their normal run of indoctrination.
It seems inevitable if a particular branch of theism wishes to survive much longer outside of third-world countries. Not much room for superstition remains outside of the ever-shrinking classes of the susceptible.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html
There you go. Turns out that the Catholic Church was being completely scientific. Galileo's motivation was personal (he basically claimed he did everything and no one else did anything) AND based in religious fanaticism (he was desperate for the church not to look like they were wrong and he was the only one who could save them).
I disagree. It's hard to see why it IS true.
Seeing as I'm just a person on the internet and you're just a person on the internet, both my appeal to disbelieve Penrose and your appeal to believe Penrose should be of equal weight. Maybe we should just believe Penrose? He's smart after all. Well, it just happens I recently talked to a really smart guy who says Penrose is wrong (he claimed he was slightly smarter than Penrose, so we should probably believe him).
OR we could wait for an actual scientific investigation into Penrose's long rambly theory (that as far as I could tell ended with photons without mass == magic and no further explanation).
Listening to the Vatican is like listening to the little voices inside your head telling you to eat that lamppost. Delusions take many forms. Religion is the most prevalent form of delusion.
Largely because not everything is going to turn into photons. Photons are not the only elementary particle
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'm not appealing for anyone to believe anything.I neither saying he's right nor wrong. The argument was very interesting and worth checking out.
The "== magic" thing was the scale free nature of the equations of photons leading them to be being conformally equal to the low entropy state at the start of the universe when there's no mass around. So more of a mathematical observation.
I guess we could just ignore all this stuff and live under a rock until someone declares science to be complete, but I find it interesting.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Frame of reference.
If the Earth is the reference point, then the universe does move around it.
Just like if I am the reference point, and I jump, I don't move, the Earth does.
the collider is sentient?
Who is "defending the Church's treatment of Galileo"? I certainly did not and am not. But the issue there was one of freedom of speech/censorship (and Galileo was certainly not the only one to whom that applies at that point in history), not primarily an issue of scientific merit.
Galileo is seen as one of the founders of modern science.
I would never dispute Galileo's contributions to science. I would strongly dispute many of his claims about heliocentrism, though, which were based on incorrect assertions. Even a stopped clock is right twice per day. (Actually, that's a reference, which I assume you won't get because you obviously didn't read the links in my previous post where I explain that Galileo's ONLY proof of the earth's motion was a theory of tides that conflicted obviously with empirical evidence. If Galileo actually paid attention to empirical evidence about tides twice per day, he likely would have never promoted his heliocentrism book as strongly as he did.)
by the 17th century and Copernicus's theory and Galileo's observations, there was no excuse at all
READ THE LINKS I ALREADY PROVIDED. There were oodles of reasons to object to heliocentrism during Galileo's lifetime, particularly if you were using the circular models that Copernicus and Galileo advocated which didn't actually make the math that much simpler than the Ptolemaic model.
But if you need more details that I've already provided in the links, here's yet another explanation of several scientific objections people had against Galileo's theories at the time.
science barely existed at the time
Scientific reasoning was quite advanced at the time. Read some actual history of science. There were complex debates going on with Galileo about empirical physical phenomena. It wasn't just Galileo saying, "Well, obviously my model's better -- look!" and everyone else going, "We refuse to look. My Bible tells me different!" That's NOT what happened, no matter what you believe happened.
And the Church has acknowledged its error and unjust way it treated Galileo, so I don't see any need to whitewash the Church's treatment of him.
At no point do I wish to "whitewash" anything. The Church's treatment of Galileo was DEPLORABLE and unforgivable. But it was NOT a simplistic argument about "rational science" vs. "ignorant religious wackos." It was a lot more complicated than that.
But to get back on topic here -- throughout the rest of the past millennia or so, even if you want to target the Galileo affair as a bad mark on Catholic science, the Church has pretty much consistently been promoting scientific research and progress... it's only in the past century or so that its scientific perspective has lagged on some issues.
A whole lot of original thinkers ended up in prison or burned before they got around to Galileo, so don't give us this "Not this again." bullshit.
Citations, please. You have maybe the persecution of Galileo (which was complex and arguably mostly happened over personal insults to the pope, not the ideas he was promoting) and Bruno (who was tried for heretical doctrinal beliefs mostly, not any of his speculative "scientific" claims). I do NOT defend either one of these, but both were arguably disputes that happened not primarily over science (although the Galileo trial ended up dealing with that as a way of suppressing a guy who had publicly insulted another powerful other guy).
I think you'll have a lot of trouble finding other "scientists" who were persecuted, imprisoned, or burned over the past millennia by the Catholic Church, because they basically don't exist. Did they burn "heretics"? Yes. People who taught stuff like Jesus wasn't the Son of God or whatever. Yes, they persecuted those who had abstract doctrinal disputes over theological matters. Over "science" (or "natural philosophy")? Not really. See the list of prominent Catholic scientists supported by the church historically in my previous links.
We'd be pretty arrogant to think that 100 years from now, all the "science" we have come up with today won't be looked at with derision and dismissiveness.
We still teach Newtonian physics and it is still good enough to send probes to the outer solar system. A more than 300 year old physical theory. New discoveries don't have to toss out existing ones. They develop into covering a wider range of parameters and initial conditions, and their depth and explanatory power will increase (e.g. you can't explain Mercury's orbit without GR). Doesn't mean that quantum physics is to be viewed as derisory in a hundred years.
Well the Ptolemaic model is still good enough to predict the appearance of different constellations in the sky and the fact that the moon phases about once a month. The whole idea was not easily dismissed by the two the compelling heliocentric thought experiments conjured up at the time: stellar parallax and the consistency of Venus' brightness. The heliocentric model predicted if the earth was in motion, the shape of the constellations would change through the seasons as would the apparent brightness of Venus'. However, the instrumentation at the time was unable to detect either of these effects(stellar parallax because the stars are much farther away than they could have imagined and the brightness variations of Venus because of lack of understanding of planetary reflection physics) so the "simpler" theory was adopted.
Of course "science" marched forward. In the end, the "break" to heliocentric theory occurred mostly because refinements to Ptolemaic theory became too complicated and less predictive, not that the "thought" experiments that would advocate a heliocentric view of the world were validated since it was beyond the technology of the time. However, limitations in the early heliocentric theories of Copernicus meant it didn't really make any different predictions than Ptolemaic theory and were in fact equivalent in their predictive power. If that somehow makes heliocentrism sound a bit like modern day string theory or quantum foam gravity, well...
It wasn't until Kepler's crunching of Tycho Brahe's observations and formulating the idea of elliptical orbits and then deriving those orbits based on the newly described principle of gravity that the heliocentric theory finally became more predictive than the geocentric model. That was hundreds of years before the technology to validate the "thought" experiments became available.
I'm not saying that quantum mechanics will not continue to be a useful predictive description in many respects (like ptolemaic mechanics), but that whenever someone figures out how to make a better GUT (e.g., a unifying theory of relativity and quantum mechanics), it is not unreasonable to predict that a 100 years later exonet users on some "thought-exchange" forum will have some derisory comments about how quantum mechanics was "not-science" because people used it to attempt to explain things even though it had known flaws.
By the way, the big clue that you don't know what you're talking about is that you think anyone was defending the Ptolemaic model at Galileo's trial. Nobody was. Galileo was still complaining about it, but the Catholic scientists had moved on to the Tychonic model, endorsed by Kepler's mentor. The argument was between the Copernican (supported by Galileo) and the Tychonic model, which were both ultimately wrong. The correct model had already been developed and explained by Kepler, but Galileo refused to follow various assertions of Kepler's, instead preferring his inaccurate and anti-empirical Copernican system.
Thanks for this link! I've never seen it before, but it's hilarious reading AND one of the best compilations of sources that goes through all of this mess.
The head of the Vatican Observatory, Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, says Lemaitre's research proves that you can believe in God and the big-bang theory.
But I says that Occam's razor advises that you shouldn't (believe in God and the big-bang theory.)
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
How original "correlation != causation" you stupid punk. If I stick my hand in a fire and it gets burned and you do the same with the same result, I'd say correlation = causation you ridiculous little stupid shit!
But does the Vatican believe in The Big Bang Theory?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898266/?ref_=nv_sr_1
It's striking at the moment, for instance, that the Catholic church is clearly more science-friendly than the US federal government.
Photons are massless, so they don't create gravitational curvature.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Understanding science to a level that divests one of most or all superstitious victimization only requires three things:
1) Understanding that there are experts who do science
2) Understanding the scientific method
3) Understanding that technology is the arm that uses science
If you can wrap your head around those things, you'll be able to ignore superstition; worst case, a few minutes quick work on a search engine will reveal if there is peer-review science, or just blather, on any particular subject. And if related technology is on record or in play.
You don't have to be a scientist in, or be highly familiar with, any particular science, to realize that pretty much everything around you came about due to actual science, and was brought to useful levels by technology, science's strong arm of implementation. You just have to understand the process. 1, 2, 3 as above.
Unlike most of history, the information required to understand what is actually going on is now a few keystrokes away in developed countries. That's what is closing the window of ignorance so much faster.
I also suspect that in the relatively near future, historically speaking, we'll be able to produce kids that are not gullible, stupid, or lacking in the ability to employ critical thinking. At that point, producing another human being without these capacities will render them highly non-competitive right out of the... gate, and parents won't generally buy into that. It's hand-waving at this point, I fully admit, but it seems to me that the seeds of this are sprouting all around us.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Well, it's only taken them around 150 years to officially acknowledge evolution as true. Not exactly Speedy Gonzales there, but at least they're moving, quite unlike a cult.
Funny coming from people who used to burn scientist for heresy when they're the heritics themselves.
Are you sure about that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
They never stated it wasn't true before now and they made contributions to the early development of the theory.
A single example (whether true or not) doesn't give a good indication of the Catholic Church's position on or contribution to science over time.
It had to become sentient to make sure we didn't detect the real Higgs. Duh.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Photons have energy, which creates gravitational curvature. E=mc^2 applies here.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Fair enough. I was wrong. https://physics.stackexchange....
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
There are thousands and thousands of scientific theories that are clear, understandable, explain some things, and have been proven wrong.
Not to mention that photons do have gravitational effects, I see no reason why everything in the Universe including electrons would decay into them, and anyone who believes Searle's Chinese Room idea can't be all that smart.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I consider that a fundamental oxymoron. This is an area where significant amounts of the "art" consist of fad-driven guesswork in the form of (often really bad) metaphor, and worse, one in which the fads change quite rapidly. The most reliable aspect of it is statistical behavioral analysis. The rest... religion, pretty much.
As to the future, and superstition's role in it: I will wait and see what actually happens. Within that context, I dare to hope that some of the self-inflicted delusion will go away. I could certainly be wrong. But that is my hope at this time.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Why would you think the lack of affirmation is the same as affirmation?
Why would you bring up "position on or contribution to science"? I'm not talking about that at all.
And the answer to my question is.....?
But, to politely answer yours.
"Why would you think the lack of affirmation is the same as affirmation?"
I don't think that - I never wrote or implied that. My point is that they weren't denying it (or affirming it) - probably because they aren't really required to give any position on it.
"Why would you bring up "position on or contribution to science"?"
Because contributing to it shows that at least some of them were key to the development of the theory - and therefore clearly affirming it by their actions.
Galileo will be as thrilled to learn of this as Adam Smith will be of a similar event for economists in half a millennium or so.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
This Pope has a science degree. Look it up. Science doesn't address much at all, think about it-- infinite knowledge vs science... we can't know it all. Plenty of room in there for beliefs.
Keep in mind I'm saying this as a person without a faith.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
False analogy...
Newton tried to observe the world and deduce how it works from his (and others) observations. And so did the scientists that followed, how mistaken they might have been at a point or another.
Aristotelician science was deducing how the world works from how it should work (and yes, "God doesn't play dice" is part of that tradition, note though that Einstein did not use that phrase to demonstrate that quantum mechanics was wrong, just that he felt that it had to be wrong somehow). While obviously they had to include some actual observations into their conceptions, still it's philosophy, not science.
Actually, Galileo's answer about some of his thought experiences that he needed not to carry them in the real world, as he already know the result, is vastly anti-scientific too... which is an argument on how he helped invented the scientific method (namely, if he invented it, it didn't entirely exist at his time).
Your question was ... am I sure about that? Sorry, I thought that was rhetorical.
Yes, I'm sure. I consider John Paul II to be the first leader of the church to properly acknowledge evolution. Sure, you could probably argue Pius XII as the first, but that was a very neutral statement on his part. No affirmation one way or the other.
You did imply lack of affirmation to be the same as affirmation. My statement: "only taken them around 150 years to officially acknowledge evolution as true". Your reply: "They never stated it wasn't true before now". If you were trying to correct my statement, it implies you believe "not stating it wasn't true before now" to be equal to "they stated it was true before now", the latter which would be necessary to prove my statement wrong, assuming the "now" occurred during that approx 150 year period.
Members of an organisation can have quite different opinions from the organisation itself. The only members that can set the beliefs of an organisation are its leaders. Hence, my statement still stands.
Well, hopefully my statement makes more sense to you now.
It does read as semi-rhetorical - my apologies. It was a genuine question.
"You did imply lack of affirmation to be the same as affirmation" relies on "If you were trying to correct my statement" - and the answer is no, I wasn't trying to correct you. I asked a question and then I added information. I.e. you wrote 'X did not confirm Y' - I wrote 'X did not deny Y'. It's an important point that they didn't deny evolution.
Your statement about Catholics being slow in regards to science was glib.
The topic at hand is their contributions to astronomy. They are leaders in this field. People of the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church have been very active in science for centuries. I think they are contemporary in the sciences (and not slow).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"The only members that can set the beliefs of an organisation are its leaders" - no, beliefs are individual. The rules, policies, procedures, etc. are sometimes set by the leaders (and sometimes by the members voting).
Nice reply, thanks! Yes, I was being glib with that comment. It was in response to an openly hostile post, and I thought that was the best approach.
Interesting you say you weren't trying to correct me. Your question very much comes across as corrective; asking me to question my comment doesn't quite say "hey, here's some more information you may be interested in".
Belief is very much part of the organisation that is the Catholic church, or any religion, really. Their beliefs are set by their leaders and their founders, and taught by their clergy or denoted members. Of course, individuals also have beliefs, but they are generally guided by the organisation that they're a part of.
I'd actually argue that all organisations use belief in one way or another, and that a shared belief is often necessary for the construction of one.
Otherwise, definitely agree that Catholic, and Christian, people have had great influence over science. Being the dominant religion of the western world, it would have been very difficult for science history to progress otherwise.
You're welcome. Thank you for holding a civil discussion!
Such is the nature of writing that we may intend something with our writing, but when people read it they don't translate that particular meaning (through no fault of their own).
I think you're right about belief. We have our individual beliefs and then there may be beliefs that an organistion sets down that we are required to adhere to (whether one truly subscribes to the organisation's beliefs or not is probably only known in one's own head).