...Automobiles and their precursors don't reproduce themselves via error-prone self replication....
We humans think that self-replicating cells arose randomly from the "primordial soup" of the early oceans. Yet, despite science and technology's efforts we have not come even within light years of building any sort of machine that can take bare elements and make a copy of itself, which in turn copies itself etc. How is it that we can intelligently attribute to chance and time what we cannot do ourselves? Maybe those who believe that this actually happened, are not as intelligent as they make themselves out to be. In fact, people who believe that are incredibly stupid.
...We did not spontaneously come together out of a "junkyard" of parts....
I was thinking not so much about what happened AFTER a living cell "somehow" appeared, but about the random molecules in "the primordial soup", the junk yard of elements, came to make the first living cell. Darwin did not have the foggiest idea about how complex a single living cell is. We OBSERVE and experience that any moderately organized pile of atoms becomes less organized over time. This a a manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics. How will adding billions of years bring about the organization of the elements into a molecular machine as complex as a living cell.
Even once a cell somehow came into existence, there are living structures that the certainly occurring "natural selection" cannot rationally explain. ID is an alternative explanation, while creationism is BELIEF in that intelligence.
SETI is the search for evidence of INTELLIGENT life forms "out there" in space somewhere. How do we recognize evidence of intelligence here at home?How, for example, do we recognize that a certain mountain named Mt Rushmore, in South Dakota is different from surrounding mountains? Is it because from history we know that Gutzon Borglum, an intelligent human, did some rearranging of rock with a chisel? Will people 1000 years from now still attribute intelligence as the origin of the features of this mountain as they see its difference from the other nearby mountains? They may not have access to the historical information. What evidence will intelligence leave in contrast to randomness?
...The Anthropic principle isn't that far from god, that's why scientists aren't very happy to just accept that....
Why is it, that accepting God should make scientists unhappy? Just by studying the universe doesn't tell you much more about God than studying a building tells you about its architect. All of science works just fine, whether God enters the equations or not. Creationists believe that the Bible tells us a record of how this God did it. That is NOT intelligent design, which merely asserts that there is evidence that God may be behind the universe, but doesn't tell anything about how He did it or how long it took him to do or anything else.
There are scientists who believe that there is evidence of intelligence in nature, but in no way believe that this God, if you will, is the one we read of in any particular book. Creationism and intelligent design are not the same.
.. two options: 1) missing matter 2) incorrect gravitational theory...
How about option 3) electrical discharges as part of powerful magnetic and electric fields?
(...And fittingly you leave out strong interactions...)
The strong interaction is not DIRECTLY observable to us, because of the fact that it operates over only very short distances. At cosmic distances we only directly observe the electric force through photons we intercept. We also observe thorough photons the gravitational (inertial) force in how it governs the motions of heavenly bodies. Gravity waves are theorized to exist, but there has so far been no success of detecting or measuring them. Maybe they do exist, but there is no evidence, so far, that they do.
I think we are not really disagreeing, but have a misunderstanding of terms.
Much of present mainstream cosmology is based on two underlying assumptions. 1) That the observed red-shift of distant objects is due to motion (doppler effect) and 2) that gravity alone determines the structure and behavior of the large scale universe. I think that modern data does not support these assumptions. It is not an understanding of atomic physics that is at issue here.
If those two assumptions are tossed, then all the fairy tale cosmological constructs fall away and well understood electrodynamic processes can adequately explain all the actual data we observe.
Food for thought: If there is a pervasive electrical field in space, analogous to the cosmic background radiation, could that explain the incredible energies we measure in cosmic rays? If there is an such an electric field of only a few micro-volts per meter, could such a field accelerate a charged particle to the energies we observe? We could never directly measure such a small electric field.
Space probe data indicates that the energy of the electrons of the solar wind INCREASES slightly as they get further away from the sun. That means the existence of an accelerating force. There may be localized regions in space with vastly greater fields. Could these fields not accelerate electrons and other charged particles to high energies? If these high energy electrons then get deflected by the magnetic fields known to exist around stars and planets, would they not also emit plenty of synchrotron radiation which we have interpreted as evidence for black holes? Furthermore, do we know of a way of generating a magnetic field without an electric current or more correctly, the movement of charge?
...Seriously, you need to catch up with physics....
From Wikipedia:
"Electron-positron annihilation occurs when an electron and a positron (the electron's anti-particle) collide. The result of the collision is the conversion of the electron and positron and the creation of gamma ray photons or, less often, other particles. The process must satisfy a number of conservation laws, including: Conservation of charge. The net charge before and after is zero. Conservation of linear momentum and total energy. This forbids the creation of a single gamma ray. Conservation of angular momentum. As with any two charged objects, electrons and positrons may also interact with each other without annihilating, in general by elastic scattering."
Neutral pion decays The 0 meson has a slightly smaller mass of 135.0 MeV/c2 and a much shorter mean life of 8.4×1017 seconds. It decays due to electromagnetic force. The main decay mode (98.798%) is into two photons...
Still, positrons and electrons are CHARGED objects which are accelerated as they collide. Their charges cancel out and the energy is carried away in ELECTROmagnetic radiation. The electric interaction, NOT gravity nor the strong nuclear force are involved. ANYTIME and ALWAYS, when photons are produced, since they are a phenomenon of the ELECTRIC interaction, they come from a charged object in accelerating motion.
A neutral pion decays "due to electromagnetic force."
Therefore, electrical charge interaction is the source of the radiation observed. Fictional dark matter need not apply. The same goes for black holes, neutron stars and other esoteric objects theorized to exist in galaxies far, far away, but nowhere around here, closer to home. All those objects and constructs are modern scientific fairy tales fit for a Star-Wars movie. The Universe operates by a combination of well tested electrical and gravitational laws. Every single actual observation we make, can be adequately explained by their operation. Present cosmological theories, as beautiful mathematically they may be, are obviously in need of serious revision. Making the observed data fit a theory is NOT science, but the theory must fit the data.
(...Costs and profit say nothing whatsoever about relative nutritional value...)
Lowering costs and increasing profits are powerful motivators. Any time a food spoils it represents a loss to somebody. If it spoils before the consumer buys it, the grocery store loses or its manufacturer. Preservatives and processing add to the shelf-life and therefore to the profitability, by preventing premature spoilage.
Do you really believe that putting additives in food that makes spoilage organisms such as mold and bacteria unable or unwilling to eat such food, could of greater benefit to you than natural food that has not been treated in this manner? This article is about brainpower which usually is associated with common sense. Maybe you have already eaten so much de-natured, chemically processed factory food, that your brainpower has already diminished the point where all common sense has vanished.
...Now, if you want to argue that an orange is a superior source because there's some fibre there too, I won't argue that...
It's not just fiber or any ONE particular thing that makes natural vitamins better. Natural vitamins in foods have MANY compounds associated with them that all work in synergy with the main one. The main vitamin molecule in nature's version may be and mostly is indeed the same as the test tube variety. That isn't the point. It is the other ingredients that the natural vitamins have and the pure test tube vitamins lack, that make a big difference. Liver contains a lot of vitamin A, but eating that vitamin in liver or from some test tube made pills differs greatly, because the liver contains a lot of other compounds that are also at work to allow the body to use the vitamins to best advantage.
This is not pseudoscience. Your body is a very complex machine. Just supplying it with what some scientists think are the few main ingredients is insufficient. Pharmaceutical companies research many natural compounds to find new medicines and supplements. However, natural things cannot be patented. Therefore they determine and isolate the "active" ingredient and endeavor to synthesize it and maybe hang a few extra molecules on that. These extra molecules may or may not be harmful. If research shows that these additions are not harmful and also don't make the main ingredient, based on nature, ineffective, voila, they have a new patentable medicine. After a more or less thorough review by the FDA, the company now can make tons of money because they now have a patent.
....What you wrote reads entirely too much like the sort of pseudoscientific twadddle you find all over the internets....
If eating predominately NATURAL food, rather manmade artificial factory made stuff is twaddle, then that is your opinion only. Do you really believe that the large corps that own these food factories have you good health uppermost in their minds, rather than their bottom line?
Foods that last a long time on the shelf, (twinkies) saturated with preservatives and made with white flour that has most nutrition refined out of it, will be much more profitable. Cheap soybean oil rather than much more expensive butter is waaay more profitable. Good cold pressed natural olive oil is also much more costly that heat and pressure machine refined canola oil. Sugar costs more than corn syrup. need I go on?
...Also stay away from A and E, it appears to do more harm than good...
That is because if these vitamins are produced in a test tube, rather than by nature, they are NOT much good and indeed may be harmful. In that study, the source of these vitamins is not given. Unless you look carefully and are willing to pay quite a bit more, the normal vitamins in commerce are the factory made kind, artificial variety. Natural vitamins have other substances with them that help the body use them. These are absent in the "pure" factory made vitamins.
Very true! Many, if not most medicines work by blocking or inhibiting. If a medicine, in its operation blocks or inhibits an otherwise normal or needed function or receptor, could that be good in the long term?
In most technical systems, blocking or inhibiting an otherwise normal, designed in function, is almost universally bad. Inhibiting or blocking an interlock may allow the machine or power supply to work again, but if the underlying cause of WHY the interlock tripped out, shutting off the machine, is not fixed, some severe damage or destruction of the whole thing may occur.
Why should this principle not also be valid in the operation of our complex body system? Most of today's medicines, especially those prescribed long term, (statins come to mind) only help the big pharmaceutical companies and harm the patients. These medicines seldom fix the underlying problem, but only alleviate the symptoms.
Since your brain, as all nerve tissue is mostly fat, eating good fats is a very important part of that. Some fats are easily damaged or broken. On a molecular level it is analogous to eating shards of broken glass. Modern factory fats are processed with high heat and pressure, resulting in damaged, broken fats. For non-heating applications, such as salads stick with virgin cold pressed olive oil. Avoid soybean and canola and other vegetable oils. In and of themselves these are not bad, but it is their processing that damages them and makes them dangerous to your body as a whole. You cannot build a decent house with broken and cracked bricks. Likewise your nerve cells cannot be rebuilt or repaired with broken fats. Semi-solid NATURAL fats, such as coconut oil and butter are good for frying because these can take moderate heat without breaking up into dangerous fragments. Fry things at the lowest practicable temperature. Avoid exposing *any* food to high temperatures that can cause dangerous broken molecules to be generated
Homogenized milk breaks up the fat globules into particles small enough to keep the cream from separating out. Unfortunately, that also makes the fat particles small enough to be able to pass from the intestine, undigested, directly into your blood. That then helps clog arteries. Pasteurization kills possible pathogens, but also destroys the enzymes that enable you to properly digest milk. That is the biggest reason for lactose intolerance. Hydrogenated industrial fats, such as margarine, are very bad for your body and brain. These help clog arteries, starving the brain of oxygen and nutrients.
In general, any food "...ated" or "...ized" should be minimized. Refined sugar, white bread and especially high fructose corn syrup, such as found in most soft drinks should be mostly stricken from your diet. Live as much as possible on minimally processed, natural food. Get enough exercise and fresh air. Getting enough sleep and at least one good day of rest a week is also important.
Also, learn how any medicines you take long term (more than a months) work. If their operation blocks or inhibits an otherwise normal or needed function, could that be good in the long term? In most technical systems, blocking or inhibiting an otherwise normal, designed in function, is almost universally bad. Why should that not also be the case for the operation of your complex body system? Your body is a marvelous machine that will serve you better if you take care of it. Your whole body, including the brain CAN work better, even when you get older.
...How do you know that they are the same here and in the far corners of the Universe...
We have observational evidence carried by the radiations from the distant regions of the universe, that rules of electricity and atomic behavior is as it is in your backyard.
(...No. It comes from electric charge..)
Technically you are of course right. The word electron comes from the Greek word for "amber" because they observed that a piece of amber, when rubbed would attract small particles. Any time a charge is accelerated photons are produced.
....All these events can lead to a nucleus in which the charge distribution is oscillating, and electromagnetic radiation ensues.....
So when a charge oscillates it doesn't experience acceleration? Anytime a charge carrier, be it electron, positron, muon, proton, or whatever, is accelerated, photons can be generated. That is an EXPERIMENTAL observation right here on earth. Whether that acceleration happens in the nucleus of an atom or elsewhere makes no difference. When the electrons in a conductor oscillate, ie. are accelerated back and forth by an alternating electric field, that conductor radiates photons, the energy of which depend on the rate (frequency) of the oscillation. In every day life, we call such a conductor an antenna.
Not only that, but photons can also knock electrons out of their atomic orbits. This is called the photoelectric effect. It is reversible. It is at the basis of all modern photon sensing devices, such as electronic cameras etc. Such loose electrons will in turn interact with an electric or magnetic field. If there is an electric field, it will accelerate the electron. That electron can then hit other atoms and knock more electrons free. These in turn can be further accelerated an repeat this avalanche process. Photomultiplier devices use the photoelectric effect in both directions for extremely sensitive photon detectors.
I think you don't quite understand Prof. Fowler. Accelerated charges is the ONLY way to produce photons. Whether these charges are within atomic nuclei, in atomic orbits, or flying freely through a vacuum is irrelevant.
So, any radiation, supposedly coming from so called "dark matter" must STILL be produced by accelerated charges. It is impossible to tell just from the photons produced where these charges were, when they emitted the photons we observe coming to us from distant places in the universe. We can guess where they might have been, in atomic nuclei, in the orbit of atoms or just flying through space, but we cannot know this. It is only a conjecture to try to support a theory.
If in addition to the cosmic background radiation there is also a cosmic electric field or fields, then any charges free in space could be accelerated to enormous energies over the vast distances of the universe. Only a field in the order of a micro-volt per kilometer, could get an electron or other charged particle to the energies we do observe in cosmic rays created by such particles colliding with the atoms of earth's atmosphere. The particles of "solar wind", mostly electrons, appear to be more energetic at greater distances from the sun. This is according to data from space probes. That means they are being accelerated by a weak, but not zero electric field.
So now tell me where the ELECTRO part of this comes in? Does that not come from electron? What is an electron? Does it have a charge? What happens if that charge moves, specifically is accelerated as it flies out of a decaying atom and runs into something, like another atom or a magnetic field produced by other moving electrons? Has what happens in an atom that decays by this electroweak interaction changed since the 1960s or did it not exist before then? Obviously, electroweak is included in the operation of the ENTIRE universe. The laws of physics operate in the same manner here at home and in the most distant galaxy.
...As before, this radiation is not solely produced by charged particles.
What other KNOWN way is there to produce ELECTROmagnetic radiation, except with electrons? What other way is there to produce a magnetic field besides and electric current?
So there is a signal, but what produces it is still only a conjectural speculative interpretation of an observation. From experiments here at home, such radiation is ONLY and ALWAYS produced by charged particles. Instead of dark matter, the radiation could be produced by naturally occurring interstellar or intergalactic particle acceleration. It could even be some space alien's giant version of the LHC. All we observe is lots of radiation, but then they are guessing what produces it. If it is dark matter, then there should also be dark antimatter.
We know from measurements that the sun produces or is involved with an enormous amount of electrical current we call the solar wind. Even though the earth intercepts only a minute fraction of this, some strong outburst of solar electricity has shut down power grids and communication systems.
Even if there is an interstellar electric field of only millvolts per kilometer, the vast distances of space can still accelerate charged particles, mostly electrons, to immense energies. These could produce much radiation when they encounter intense magnetic fields we have observed. Annihilation of any sort is only one other, far less likely possibility.
...it should be noted when a photograph has been staged/edited...
It seems to me that the main criterion should be, if there is an intent to deceive the viewer. Editing to deceive is different than editing to enhance or beautify.
....Fiddling with the background microwave radiation of the universe seems like one, it would take an incredible amount of energy, power and control to put a message there...
How do we know that the CBR is NOT an encrypted message from God? Since we don't have the key or know the algorithm it would appear to us as random noise, which is exactly what we observe. How could God authenticate Himself and/or any message He sent so even those who were alive long before 1948 could receive it? Even now, how would He give us the key and algorithm? Would he drop it out of the sky on a CD or DVD? Maybe He encoded the CBR in some system OTHER than binary. It appears that for the codes of life encoded on DNA, He used a four level code to convey information. Has anyone figured out why four, not two, three, ten or some other encoding?
Someone comes to you and gives you a deck of cards. He then tells you to shuffle them as best as you know how and place the deck face down on the table. Then while his back is toward you he asks you to pick a card at random without looking at it and place it upside down on the table, starting another stack. He tells you to pick another card and repeat this random picking of cards until all cards from the deck you shuffled are on the new pile. Now He tells you to pick up the stack and look at it. You now find that it is in the correct suit and numerical order. Just to make sure you don't think that was a coincidence, He asks you to repeat the experiment ten times. Each time you get the same ordered outcome. Then he bids you goodbye and instantly disappears. You sit down and repeat the experiment, but now the cards on the second stack remain in their random shuffled order. You repeat the experiment ten times and every time, the cards are in random order, as you would have expected.
What would you conclude about that person?
A few months later, that person suddenly reappears and gives you a piece of paper upon which are written 100 newspaper headlines with dates, from all over the planet. He tells you to hang onto the list because he will be back in exactly a year to discuss it with you. You look at the list and realize that each is dated for a specific date in the coming year. Some items on the list include the specific value of certain stocks on certain dates. As the year unfolds, you become aware that each event headlined happened exactly as foretold for that date.
When that person returns to you exactly one year later what might you say to him? If He told you that He is God, would you believe that? What would you believe?
This is exactly what God did. He created order out of randomness when he made the universe and especially when He created life, including you and me. Then, after a while he came back and communicated the future, in effect writing history before it happened. Much of what is in the Bible is now history to us, but it was yet future when it was written. There are still events for the future to us chronicled as well.
God exists eternally outside of our space-time-matter-energy universe. Since God created space-time and matter-energy, He has perfect ability to order matter-energy any way He wants. He is also able to tell what will happen in space-time before it appears there. By using our MINDS, INTELLIGENCE, we humans are also able to rearrange the elements into 747 airplanes, computers, baby buggies and everything else we make. However, being limited to the present, we cannot foretell ACCURATELY the future. We cannot even predict the weather correctly most of the time. Since God has no such time limitation, He has chosen to use this unique ability only He has, to authenticate His message to us. In the end though, like any message we can still choose NOT to believe it, simply because we don't WANT to.
...I bet you wouldn't be so forgiving of their monopolistic behavour....
On the contrary, I would applaud such a move. Maybe then finally the world might get some Windows Computers that actually worked right out of the box. After all, their X-Box is basically a computer with its own operating system. Car makers build their own engines and nobody complains about that being monopolistic. So why should it be illegal for all computer makers to write their own software, rather than buying it from some monopolistic seller?
If MS made a quality computer with a new OS called "Doors" rather than Windows that could run ALL existing software, such as Macs do, they would have a runaway best seller. I can run of course OSX programs, but also Windows programs and Linux programs all on my Macbook Pro. It is a UNIVERSAL computer than can run any software. There are no laws that say MS or anyone else could not also make such a complete computer system.
Actually no, I have not seen it yet, but notice that it can be rented from Netflix. Places like Blockbuster should have it also.
(...that is why the process of science (scientific method) has all these rules to try to eliminate bias...)
I only wish that this were true. Unfortunately it is not, because scientists are human and and hang onto their beliefs and prejudices just as stubbornly as the rest of us. Calling yourself a scientist does not necessarily make you more open-minded on basic worldview philosophy. A person, scientist are not, believes what they want to believe even in the face of considerable evidence contrary to such beliefs. There are people who refuse to believe that any human has ever set foot on the moon.
(... What one can test is specific predictions that certain religious beliefs profess (in the case of xtianity, for example global flood in recent history, or 6Ky old universe)...)
Again, both in the case of the flood or the age of the universe, it is because of the INTERPRETATIONS of the observations as established facts, as seen through the underlying worldview by people. Also, there are certain uniformitarian assumptions made about time, specifically our measurement thereof. It is assumed that the clocks we have today, such as radioactivity, have always ticked at the rate observed today.
(...Science does at the very least attempt to minimise or eliminate the bias of the interpreter....)
Again, I really wish that this were true. In most cases unfortunately, in the main science establishment and its political climate, there is a strong bias toward the mechanical, probabilistic worldview. Some scientists, equally well-educated, with just as many degrees behind their name, who have come to a different interpretation, intelligent design, such as Michael Behe, Dean Kenyon, and many others are severely discriminated against by the scientific/legal/governmental establishment. I am not too much into watching movies and so have not seen the film "Expelled". From the reviews I have read, it appears that this discrimination against these scientists is the main theme of this film.
(..Other observations that point in the same direction include microwave background radiation...)
Again, it is not the observations, but the interpretations thereof by means of the existing assumptions that are at issue. Since you mentioned a cosmic background radiation, you may not have read that it also is not smooth and uniform as first measured with crude technology. It is not only quantized, but also directional, as revealed by recent very much more accurate observations.
(...You mean like quantum physics?...)
All atomic phenomena to appear to occur in discrete "quantized" steps. It is assumed, not observed, that this is an intrinsic property of atomic matter. There is some evidence that this quantized behavior is not intrinsic to matter-energy, but has a deeper origin rooted in certain properties of space and time. The quantization of the red shift and the cosmic background radiation are somehow and apparently simultaneously affected throughout the entire universe by this. Since relativity is involved with the speed of light, and light itself is affected by the properties of space-time, relativity itself is also not intrinsic to the universe. There is no law of physics for example, that mandates our present-day assumption that c, the speed of light which is foundational to the theory of relativity, or h, commonly known as Planck's constant, which governs all atomic activity, should have remained entirely unchanged, invariant throughout all time and space. These so-called constants are also affected by a deeper underlying cause. It seems, that no matter what areas of our universe scientists probe with ever more accuracy and detail, the more questions than answers emerge.
In my opinion that makes science exciting and shows TO ME that there is a great, for humans unfathomable source of intelligence and power beh
Of course it would hurt Apple's bottom line. Is that so bad? After all, Apple is not a charity, but just another profit-making organization, a for-profit corporation.
Many people here on/. (and other technical forums) constantly lament the fact that Apple does not allow the installation of their OSX on generic hardware. Apple is the only company that builds complete computers, hardware and software well integrated. Everybody else, builds only half computers, the hardware and then they buy their software from Microsoft, or sometimes use the free Linux OS.
Why in the world should Apple sell their OS to their competitors? Unlike all the others, Apple supplies a complete computer SYSTEM, not some cobbled together box where the customer is often stuck with trying to figure out how to get it to work properly. That is why VISTA has been such a dismal failure. Computers these days are considered by most people an appliance, like a refrigerator or dishwasher. They expected it to do the job for which it was bought without having to futz around with it, before it does work as expected. Because of this no other computer can possibly ever work out of the box as well as an Apple Macintosh. Apple knows this, and that is why they are able to get away with what many here on Slashdot consider to be exorbitant prices and obscene profits.
...The Bible was translated and spread by humans, not by God.....
Of course God is incapable of employing humans as his agents, isn't he?
(...Most people in the western world at that time were Christian...)
Indeed, and they were able to lay the foundation upon which all our modern science still depends. They were able to do this in spite of the fact that they held on to "archaic" beliefs as recorded in the Bible. I doubt that Newton, Pascal or Galileo or most of the other early scientists would be able to obtain tenure at any modern secular university of our day. After all, their intellectual worldview is regarded highly politically, incorrect nowadays. If any of them posted on/. today, they would get the same kind of replies that I am getting.
(...and that rocks, fossils and the total sum of what we can test and observe are "witnesses"....)
They are witnesses, whose testimony is interpreted today with the underlying worldview that there is no God and everything these witnesses tell us is filtered through the presupposition that the entire universe is a result of probabilistic mechanical processes, not involving any thought or planning.
(....All the scientists toiling away at trying to increase our understanding of the world are really only doing so because they want to believe they can escape the wrath of Abraham's God....)
That is your interpretation because you missed my main point of the previous post. All laws of nature are quite independent of the underlying beliefs or philosophies of the scientists investigating them to learn how they operate. Is it not strange that so much of science is devoted to the past, trying to understand how things came to be as they are? Scientists can observe only the present. We observe that there are fossils, ancient ruins and recorded written histories, including the Bible. All of these have to be interpreted and all interpretations are subject to the basic philosophies of the interpreter. There is no way to get around this. The big problem is that many of today's scientists have equated their interpretations with their observations.
Let me give you an example: In 1929 Edwin Hubble observed that distant starlight spectrums are shifted toward the red. This phenomenon has been known since then as the "red shift". That is all the observation that was available at that time. Hubble and others INTERPRETED this shift to be caused by motion of the stars and galaxies due to the well-known Doppler effect. Over time, this interpretation began to be accepted as fact in the same way that Darwin's theories are accepted and taught in schools as fact. All mainstream astronomy and cosmology theory is based on that interpretation largely still being accepted as fact. Countless dissertations and theses have been written on the rapid motion of galaxies and the so-called Big Bang.
As modern ground-based and space-based telescopes and other space probes brought in more data, much of this data seemed to conflict with existing theories based on this interpretation. Rather than dump long-held, cherished theories developed over many years of academic studies, scientists were forced to come up with exotic constructs and ideas. Dark matter, dark energy, black holes, quasars and neutron stars and all sorts of other weird and wonderful objects are postulated to exist in the distant reaches of the universe. So far, none of these have actually been observed.
Finally, when an astronomer named William Tifft, at the University of Arizona observed and measured that this red shift is not continuous, such as the motion interpretation would require, but is quantized, that is it occurs in little discrete jumps. When he first published this he was vilified by the mainstream astronomical and cosmological community and his data was dismissed as measurement errors. However, some other scientists were determined to proved that the generally accepted motion theory is correct. They measured the red shift again, but with much better equipment enabl
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...Automobiles and their precursors don't reproduce themselves via error-prone self replication....
We humans think that self-replicating cells arose randomly from the "primordial soup" of the early oceans. Yet, despite science and technology's efforts we have not come even within light years of building any sort of machine that can take bare elements and make a copy of itself, which in turn copies itself etc. How is it that we can intelligently attribute to chance and time what we cannot do ourselves? Maybe those who believe that this actually happened, are not as intelligent as they make themselves out to be. In fact, people who believe that are incredibly stupid.
...We did not spontaneously come together out of a "junkyard" of parts....
I was thinking not so much about what happened AFTER a living cell "somehow" appeared, but about the random molecules in "the primordial soup", the junk yard of elements, came to make the first living cell. Darwin did not have the foggiest idea about how complex a single living cell is. We OBSERVE and experience that any moderately organized pile of atoms becomes less organized over time. This a a manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics. How will adding billions of years bring about the organization of the elements into a molecular machine as complex as a living cell.
Even once a cell somehow came into existence, there are living structures that the certainly occurring "natural selection" cannot rationally explain. ID is an alternative explanation, while creationism is BELIEF in that intelligence.
SETI is the search for evidence of INTELLIGENT life forms "out there" in space somewhere. How do we recognize evidence of intelligence here at home?How, for example, do we recognize that a certain mountain named Mt Rushmore, in South Dakota is different from surrounding mountains? Is it because from history we know that Gutzon Borglum, an intelligent human, did some rearranging of rock with a chisel? Will people 1000 years from now still attribute intelligence as the origin of the features of this mountain as they see its difference from the other nearby mountains? They may not have access to the historical information. What evidence will intelligence leave in contrast to randomness?
...with an actual science that could predict whether something was created by an intelligence....
How about predicting how a junkyard full of car parts can spontaneously, randomly become a running Ferrari or even only a Toyota automobile.
...The Anthropic principle isn't that far from god, that's why scientists aren't very happy to just accept that ....
Why is it, that accepting God should make scientists unhappy? Just by studying the universe doesn't tell you much more about God than studying a building tells you about its architect. All of science works just fine, whether God enters the equations or not. Creationists believe that the Bible tells us a record of how this God did it. That is NOT intelligent design, which merely asserts that there is evidence that God may be behind the universe, but doesn't tell anything about how He did it or how long it took him to do or anything else.
There are scientists who believe that there is evidence of intelligence in nature, but in no way believe that this God, if you will, is the one we read of in any particular book. Creationism and intelligent design are not the same.
.. two options: 1) missing matter 2) incorrect gravitational theory...
How about option 3) electrical discharges as part of powerful magnetic and electric fields?
(...And fittingly you leave out strong interactions...)
The strong interaction is not DIRECTLY observable to us, because of the fact that it operates over only very short distances. At cosmic distances we only directly observe the electric force through photons we intercept. We also observe thorough photons the gravitational (inertial) force in how it governs the motions of heavenly bodies. Gravity waves are theorized to exist, but there has so far been no success of detecting or measuring them. Maybe they do exist, but there is no evidence, so far, that they do.
I think we are not really disagreeing, but have a misunderstanding of terms.
Much of present mainstream cosmology is based on two underlying assumptions. 1) That the observed red-shift of distant objects is due to motion (doppler effect) and 2) that gravity alone determines the structure and behavior of the large scale universe. I think that modern data does not support these assumptions. It is not an understanding of atomic physics that is at issue here.
If those two assumptions are tossed, then all the fairy tale cosmological constructs fall away and well understood electrodynamic processes can adequately explain all the actual data we observe.
Food for thought: If there is a pervasive electrical field in space, analogous to the cosmic background radiation, could that explain the incredible energies we measure in cosmic rays? If there is an such an electric field of only a few micro-volts per meter, could such a field accelerate a charged particle to the energies we observe? We could never directly measure such a small electric field.
Space probe data indicates that the energy of the electrons of the solar wind INCREASES slightly as they get further away from the sun. That means the existence of an accelerating force. There may be localized regions in space with vastly greater fields. Could these fields not accelerate electrons and other charged particles to high energies? If these high energy electrons then get deflected by the magnetic fields known to exist around stars and planets, would they not also emit plenty of synchrotron radiation which we have interpreted as evidence for black holes? Furthermore, do we know of a way of generating a magnetic field without an electric current or more correctly, the movement of charge?
...Seriously, you need to catch up with physics....
From Wikipedia:
"Electron-positron annihilation occurs when an electron and a positron (the electron's anti-particle) collide. The result of the collision is the conversion of the electron and positron and the creation of gamma ray photons or, less often, other particles. The process must satisfy a number of conservation laws, including:
Conservation of charge. The net charge before and after is zero.
Conservation of linear momentum and total energy. This forbids the creation of a single gamma ray.
Conservation of angular momentum.
As with any two charged objects, electrons and positrons may also interact with each other without annihilating, in general by elastic scattering."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pions
Neutral pion decays
The 0 meson has a slightly smaller mass of 135.0 MeV/c2 and a much shorter mean life of 8.4×1017 seconds. It decays due to electromagnetic force. The main decay mode (98.798%) is into two photons...
Still, positrons and electrons are CHARGED objects which are accelerated as they collide. Their charges cancel out and the energy is carried away in ELECTROmagnetic radiation. The electric interaction, NOT gravity nor the strong nuclear force are involved. ANYTIME and ALWAYS, when photons are produced, since they are a phenomenon of the ELECTRIC interaction, they come from a charged object in accelerating motion.
A neutral pion decays "due to electromagnetic force."
Therefore, electrical charge interaction is the source of the radiation observed. Fictional dark matter need not apply. The same goes for black holes, neutron stars and other esoteric objects theorized to exist in galaxies far, far away, but nowhere around here, closer to home. All those objects and constructs are modern scientific fairy tales fit for a Star-Wars movie. The Universe operates by a combination of well tested electrical and gravitational laws. Every single actual observation we make, can be adequately explained by their operation. Present cosmological theories, as beautiful mathematically they may be, are obviously in need of serious revision. Making the observed data fit a theory is NOT science, but the theory must fit the data.
That was my original point.
.... that believing NATURAL (sic) food is unquestionably better for you than processed food with no scientific proof....
Here is just ONE link that you can look at if you need a little more evidence than common sense.
http://covenantnaturalhealthcare.com/uploads/Think_Diet_2007_-_Jan_07.pdf
(...Costs and profit say nothing whatsoever about relative nutritional value...)
Lowering costs and increasing profits are powerful motivators. Any time a food spoils it represents a loss to somebody. If it spoils before the consumer buys it, the grocery store loses or its manufacturer. Preservatives and processing add to the shelf-life and therefore to the profitability, by preventing premature spoilage.
Do you really believe that putting additives in food that makes spoilage organisms such as mold and bacteria unable or unwilling to eat such food, could of greater benefit to you than natural food that has not been treated in this manner? This article is about brainpower which usually is associated with common sense. Maybe you have already eaten so much de-natured, chemically processed factory food, that your brainpower has already diminished the point where all common sense has vanished.
...Now, if you want to argue that an orange is a superior source because there's some fibre there too, I won't argue that...
It's not just fiber or any ONE particular thing that makes natural vitamins better. Natural vitamins in foods have MANY compounds associated with them that all work in synergy with the main one. The main vitamin molecule in nature's version may be and mostly is indeed the same as the test tube variety. That isn't the point. It is the other ingredients that the natural vitamins have and the pure test tube vitamins lack, that make a big difference. Liver contains a lot of vitamin A, but eating that vitamin in liver or from some test tube made pills differs greatly, because the liver contains a lot of other compounds that are also at work to allow the body to use the vitamins to best advantage.
This is not pseudoscience. Your body is a very complex machine. Just supplying it with what some scientists think are the few main ingredients is insufficient. Pharmaceutical companies research many natural compounds to find new medicines and supplements. However, natural things cannot be patented. Therefore they determine and isolate the "active" ingredient and endeavor to synthesize it and maybe hang a few extra molecules on that. These extra molecules may or may not be harmful. If research shows that these additions are not harmful and also don't make the main ingredient, based on nature, ineffective, voila, they have a new patentable medicine. After a more or less thorough review by the FDA, the company now can make tons of money because they now have a patent.
....What you wrote reads entirely too much like the sort of pseudoscientific twadddle you find all over the internets....
If eating predominately NATURAL food, rather manmade artificial factory made stuff is twaddle, then that is your opinion only. Do you really believe that the large corps that own these food factories have you good health uppermost in their minds, rather than their bottom line?
Foods that last a long time on the shelf, (twinkies) saturated with preservatives and made with white flour that has most nutrition refined out of it, will be much more profitable. Cheap soybean oil rather than much more expensive butter is waaay more profitable. Good cold pressed natural olive oil is also much more costly that heat and pressure machine refined canola oil. Sugar costs more than corn syrup. need I go on?
...While true, this is not the ONLY source of high-energy photons,...
Beside than an accelerating charge, what other source of electromagnetic radiation is there that we know of?
....Of course, you'll no longer WANT to be able to process or remember your joyless hell of a life....
Are you saying that your joy comes from eating junk food? That would be really sad.
...Also stay away from A and E, it appears to do more harm than good...
That is because if these vitamins are produced in a test tube, rather than by nature, they are NOT much good and indeed may be harmful. In that study, the source of these vitamins is not given. Unless you look carefully and are willing to pay quite a bit more, the normal vitamins in commerce are the factory made kind, artificial variety. Natural vitamins have other substances with them that help the body use them. These are absent in the "pure" factory made vitamins.
...taking pills you DO NOT need...
Very true! Many, if not most medicines work by blocking or inhibiting. If a medicine, in its operation blocks or inhibits an otherwise normal or needed function or receptor, could that be good in the long term?
In most technical systems, blocking or inhibiting an otherwise normal, designed in function, is almost universally bad. Inhibiting or blocking an interlock may allow the machine or power supply to work again, but if the underlying cause of WHY the interlock tripped out, shutting off the machine, is not fixed, some severe damage or destruction of the whole thing may occur.
Why should this principle not also be valid in the operation of our complex body system? Most of today's medicines, especially those prescribed long term, (statins come to mind) only help the big pharmaceutical companies and harm the patients. These medicines seldom fix the underlying problem, but only alleviate the symptoms.
....Don't forget nutrition...
Since your brain, as all nerve tissue is mostly fat, eating good fats is a very important part of that. Some fats are easily damaged or broken. On a molecular level it is analogous to eating shards of broken glass. Modern factory fats are processed with high heat and pressure, resulting in damaged, broken fats. For non-heating applications, such as salads stick with virgin cold pressed olive oil. Avoid soybean and canola and other vegetable oils. In and of themselves these are not bad, but it is their processing that damages them and makes them dangerous to your body as a whole. You cannot build a decent house with broken and cracked bricks. Likewise your nerve cells cannot be rebuilt or repaired with broken fats. Semi-solid NATURAL fats, such as coconut oil and butter are good for frying because these can take moderate heat without breaking up into dangerous fragments. Fry things at the lowest practicable temperature. Avoid exposing *any* food to high temperatures that can cause dangerous broken molecules to be generated
Homogenized milk breaks up the fat globules into particles small enough to keep the cream from separating out. Unfortunately, that also makes the fat particles small enough to be able to pass from the intestine, undigested, directly into your blood. That then helps clog arteries. Pasteurization kills possible pathogens, but also destroys the enzymes that enable you to properly digest milk. That is the biggest reason for lactose intolerance. Hydrogenated industrial fats, such as margarine, are very bad for your body and brain. These help clog arteries, starving the brain of oxygen and nutrients.
In general, any food "...ated" or "...ized" should be minimized. Refined sugar, white bread and especially high fructose corn syrup, such as found in most soft drinks should be mostly stricken from your diet. Live as much as possible on minimally processed, natural food. Get enough exercise and fresh air. Getting enough sleep and at least one good day of rest a week is also important.
Also, learn how any medicines you take long term (more than a months) work. If their operation blocks or inhibits an otherwise normal or needed function, could that be good in the long term? In most technical systems, blocking or inhibiting an otherwise normal, designed in function, is almost universally bad. Why should that not also be the case for the operation of your complex body system? Your body is a marvelous machine that will serve you better if you take care of it. Your whole body, including the brain CAN work better, even when you get older.
...How do you know that they are the same here and in the far corners of the Universe...
We have observational evidence carried by the radiations from the distant regions of the universe, that rules of electricity and atomic behavior is as it is in your backyard.
(...No. It comes from electric charge..)
Technically you are of course right. The word electron comes from the Greek word for "amber" because they observed that a piece of amber, when rubbed would attract small particles. Any time a charge is accelerated photons are produced.
....All these events can lead to a nucleus in which the charge distribution is oscillating, and electromagnetic radiation ensues.....
So when a charge oscillates it doesn't experience acceleration? Anytime a charge carrier, be it electron, positron, muon, proton, or whatever, is accelerated, photons can be generated. That is an EXPERIMENTAL observation right here on earth. Whether that acceleration happens in the nucleus of an atom or elsewhere makes no difference. When the electrons in a conductor oscillate, ie. are accelerated back and forth by an alternating electric field, that conductor radiates photons, the energy of which depend on the rate (frequency) of the oscillation. In every day life, we call such a conductor an antenna.
Not only that, but photons can also knock electrons out of their atomic orbits. This is called the photoelectric effect. It is reversible. It is at the basis of all modern photon sensing devices, such as electronic cameras etc. Such loose electrons will in turn interact with an electric or magnetic field. If there is an electric field, it will accelerate the electron. That electron can then hit other atoms and knock more electrons free. These in turn can be further accelerated an repeat this avalanche process. Photomultiplier devices use the photoelectric effect in both directions for extremely sensitive photon detectors.
I think you don't quite understand Prof. Fowler. Accelerated charges is the ONLY way to produce photons. Whether these charges are within atomic nuclei, in atomic orbits, or flying freely through a vacuum is irrelevant.
So, any radiation, supposedly coming from so called "dark matter" must STILL be produced by accelerated charges. It is impossible to tell just from the photons produced where these charges were, when they emitted the photons we observe coming to us from distant places in the universe. We can guess where they might have been, in atomic nuclei, in the orbit of atoms or just flying through space, but we cannot know this. It is only a conjecture to try to support a theory.
If in addition to the cosmic background radiation there is also a cosmic electric field or fields, then any charges free in space could be accelerated to enormous energies over the vast distances of the universe. Only a field in the order of a micro-volt per kilometer, could get an electron or other charged particle to the energies we do observe in cosmic rays created by such particles colliding with the atoms of earth's atmosphere. The particles of "solar wind", mostly electrons, appear to be more energetic at greater distances from the sun. This is according to data from space probes. That means they are being accelerated by a weak, but not zero electric field.
...electroweak theory....
So now tell me where the ELECTRO part of this comes in? Does that not come from electron? What is an electron? Does it have a charge? What happens if that charge moves, specifically is accelerated as it flies out of a decaying atom and runs into something, like another atom or a magnetic field produced by other moving electrons? Has what happens in an atom that decays by this electroweak interaction changed since the 1960s or did it not exist before then? Obviously, electroweak is included in the operation of the ENTIRE universe. The laws of physics operate in the same manner here at home and in the most distant galaxy.
...As before, this radiation is not solely produced by charged particles.
What other KNOWN way is there to produce ELECTROmagnetic radiation, except with electrons? What other way is there to produce a magnetic field besides and electric current?
...They have an energy dependent signal....
So there is a signal, but what produces it is still only a conjectural speculative interpretation of an observation. From experiments here at home, such radiation is ONLY and ALWAYS produced by charged particles. Instead of dark matter, the radiation could be produced by naturally occurring interstellar or intergalactic particle acceleration. It could even be some space alien's giant version of the LHC. All we observe is lots of radiation, but then they are guessing what produces it. If it is dark matter, then there should also be dark antimatter.
We know from measurements that the sun produces or is involved with an enormous amount of electrical current we call the solar wind. Even though the earth intercepts only a minute fraction of this, some strong outburst of solar electricity has shut down power grids and communication systems.
Even if there is an interstellar electric field of only millvolts per kilometer, the vast distances of space can still accelerate charged particles, mostly electrons, to immense energies. These could produce much radiation when they encounter intense magnetic fields we have observed. Annihilation of any sort is only one other, far less likely possibility.
...it should be noted when a photograph has been staged/edited...
It seems to me that the main criterion should be, if there is an intent to deceive the viewer. Editing to deceive is different than editing to enhance or beautify.
....Fiddling with the background microwave radiation of the universe seems like one, it would take an incredible amount of energy, power and control to put a message there...
How do we know that the CBR is NOT an encrypted message from God? Since we don't have the key or know the algorithm it would appear to us as random noise, which is exactly what we observe. How could God authenticate Himself and/or any message He sent so even those who were alive long before 1948 could receive it? Even now, how would He give us the key and algorithm? Would he drop it out of the sky on a CD or DVD? Maybe He encoded the CBR in some system OTHER than binary. It appears that for the codes of life encoded on DNA, He used a four level code to convey information. Has anyone figured out why four, not two, three, ten or some other encoding?
Someone comes to you and gives you a deck of cards. He then tells you to shuffle them as best as you know how and place the deck face down on the table. Then while his back is toward you he asks you to pick a card at random without looking at it and place it upside down on the table, starting another stack. He tells you to pick another card and repeat this random picking of cards until all cards from the deck you shuffled are on the new pile. Now He tells you to pick up the stack and look at it. You now find that it is in the correct suit and numerical order. Just to make sure you don't think that was a coincidence, He asks you to repeat the experiment ten times. Each time you get the same ordered outcome. Then he bids you goodbye and instantly disappears. You sit down and repeat the experiment, but now the cards on the second stack remain in their random shuffled order. You repeat the experiment ten times and every time, the cards are in random order, as you would have expected.
What would you conclude about that person?
A few months later, that person suddenly reappears and gives you a piece of paper upon which are written 100 newspaper headlines with dates, from all over the planet. He tells you to hang onto the list because he will be back in exactly a year to discuss it with you. You look at the list and realize that each is dated for a specific date in the coming year. Some items on the list include the specific value of certain stocks on certain dates. As the year unfolds, you become aware that each event headlined happened exactly as foretold for that date.
When that person returns to you exactly one year later what might you say to him? If He told you that He is God, would you believe that? What would you believe?
This is exactly what God did. He created order out of randomness when he made the universe and especially when He created life, including you and me. Then, after a while he came back and communicated the future, in effect writing history before it happened. Much of what is in the Bible is now history to us, but it was yet future when it was written. There are still events for the future to us chronicled as well.
God exists eternally outside of our space-time-matter-energy universe. Since God created space-time and matter-energy, He has perfect ability to order matter-energy any way He wants. He is also able to tell what will happen in space-time before it appears there. By using our MINDS, INTELLIGENCE, we humans are also able to rearrange the elements into 747 airplanes, computers, baby buggies and everything else we make. However, being limited to the present, we cannot foretell ACCURATELY the future. We cannot even predict the weather correctly most of the time. Since God has no such time limitation, He has chosen to use this unique ability only He has, to authenticate His message to us. In the end though, like any message we can still choose NOT to believe it, simply because we don't WANT to.
...I bet you wouldn't be so forgiving of their monopolistic behavour....
On the contrary, I would applaud such a move. Maybe then finally the world might get some Windows Computers that actually worked right out of the box. After all, their X-Box is basically a computer with its own operating system. Car makers build their own engines and nobody complains about that being monopolistic. So why should it be illegal for all computer makers to write their own software, rather than buying it from some monopolistic seller?
If MS made a quality computer with a new OS called "Doors" rather than Windows that could run ALL existing software, such as Macs do, they would have a runaway best seller. I can run of course OSX programs, but also Windows programs and Linux programs all on my Macbook Pro. It is a UNIVERSAL computer than can run any software. There are no laws that say MS or anyone else could not also make such a complete computer system.
...Ah, so you've seen Expelled then?...
Actually no, I have not seen it yet, but notice that it can be rented from Netflix. Places like Blockbuster should have it also.
(...that is why the process of science (scientific method) has all these rules to try to eliminate bias...)
I only wish that this were true. Unfortunately it is not, because scientists are human and and hang onto their beliefs and prejudices just as stubbornly as the rest of us. Calling yourself a scientist does not necessarily make you more open-minded on basic worldview philosophy. A person, scientist are not, believes what they want to believe even in the face of considerable evidence contrary to such beliefs. There are people who refuse to believe that any human has ever set foot on the moon.
(... What one can test is specific predictions that certain religious beliefs profess (in the case of xtianity, for example global flood in recent history, or 6Ky old universe)...)
Again, both in the case of the flood or the age of the universe, it is because of the INTERPRETATIONS of the observations as established facts, as seen through the underlying worldview by people. Also, there are certain uniformitarian assumptions made about time, specifically our measurement thereof. It is assumed that the clocks we have today, such as radioactivity, have always ticked at the rate observed today.
(...Science does at the very least attempt to minimise or eliminate the bias of the interpreter....)
Again, I really wish that this were true. In most cases unfortunately, in the main science establishment and its political climate, there is a strong bias toward the mechanical, probabilistic worldview. Some scientists, equally well-educated, with just as many degrees behind their name, who have come to a different interpretation, intelligent design, such as Michael Behe, Dean Kenyon, and many others are severely discriminated against by the scientific/legal/governmental establishment. I am not too much into watching movies and so have not seen the film "Expelled". From the reviews I have read, it appears that this discrimination against these scientists is the main theme of this film.
(..Other observations that point in the same direction include microwave background radiation...)
Again, it is not the observations, but the interpretations thereof by means of the existing assumptions that are at issue. Since you mentioned a cosmic background radiation, you may not have read that it also is not smooth and uniform as first measured with crude technology. It is not only quantized, but also directional, as revealed by recent very much more accurate observations.
(...You mean like quantum physics?...)
All atomic phenomena to appear to occur in discrete "quantized" steps. It is assumed, not observed, that this is an intrinsic property of atomic matter. There is some evidence that this quantized behavior is not intrinsic to matter-energy, but has a deeper origin rooted in certain properties of space and time. The quantization of the red shift and the cosmic background radiation are somehow and apparently simultaneously affected throughout the entire universe by this. Since relativity is involved with the speed of light, and light itself is affected by the properties of space-time, relativity itself is also not intrinsic to the universe. There is no law of physics for example, that mandates our present-day assumption that c, the speed of light which is foundational to the theory of relativity, or h, commonly known as Planck's constant, which governs all atomic activity, should have remained entirely unchanged, invariant throughout all time and space. These so-called constants are also affected by a deeper underlying cause. It seems, that no matter what areas of our universe scientists probe with ever more accuracy and detail, the more questions than answers emerge.
In my opinion that makes science exciting and shows TO ME that there is a great, for humans unfathomable source of intelligence and power beh
.... it would hurt Apple's bottom line...
Of course it would hurt Apple's bottom line. Is that so bad? After all, Apple is not a charity, but just another profit-making organization, a for-profit corporation.
Many people here on /. (and other technical forums) constantly lament the fact that Apple does not allow the installation of their OSX on generic hardware. Apple is the only company that builds complete computers, hardware and software well integrated. Everybody else, builds only half computers, the hardware and then they buy their software from Microsoft, or sometimes use the free Linux OS.
Why in the world should Apple sell their OS to their competitors? Unlike all the others, Apple supplies a complete computer SYSTEM, not some cobbled together box where the customer is often stuck with trying to figure out how to get it to work properly. That is why VISTA has been such a dismal failure. Computers these days are considered by most people an appliance, like a refrigerator or dishwasher. They expected it to do the job for which it was bought without having to futz around with it, before it does work as expected. Because of this no other computer can possibly ever work out of the box as well as an Apple Macintosh. Apple knows this, and that is why they are able to get away with what many here on Slashdot consider to be exorbitant prices and obscene profits.
...The Bible was translated and spread by humans, not by God.....
Of course God is incapable of employing humans as his agents, isn't he?
(...Most people in the western world at that time were Christian...)
Indeed, and they were able to lay the foundation upon which all our modern science still depends. They were able to do this in spite of the fact that they held on to "archaic" beliefs as recorded in the Bible. I doubt that Newton, Pascal or Galileo or most of the other early scientists would be able to obtain tenure at any modern secular university of our day. After all, their intellectual worldview is regarded highly politically, incorrect nowadays. If any of them posted on /. today, they would get the same kind of replies that I am getting.
(...and that rocks, fossils and the total sum of what we can test and observe are "witnesses"....)
They are witnesses, whose testimony is interpreted today with the underlying worldview that there is no God and everything these witnesses tell us is filtered through the presupposition that the entire universe is a result of probabilistic mechanical processes, not involving any thought or planning.
(....All the scientists toiling away at trying to increase our understanding of the world are really only doing so because they want to believe they can escape the wrath of Abraham's God....)
That is your interpretation because you missed my main point of the previous post. All laws of nature are quite independent of the underlying beliefs or philosophies of the scientists investigating them to learn how they operate. Is it not strange that so much of science is devoted to the past, trying to understand how things came to be as they are? Scientists can observe only the present. We observe that there are fossils, ancient ruins and recorded written histories, including the Bible. All of these have to be interpreted and all interpretations are subject to the basic philosophies of the interpreter. There is no way to get around this. The big problem is that many of today's scientists have equated their interpretations with their observations.
Let me give you an example: In 1929 Edwin Hubble observed that distant starlight spectrums are shifted toward the red. This phenomenon has been known since then as the "red shift". That is all the observation that was available at that time. Hubble and others INTERPRETED this shift to be caused by motion of the stars and galaxies due to the well-known Doppler effect. Over time, this interpretation began to be accepted as fact in the same way that Darwin's theories are accepted and taught in schools as fact. All mainstream astronomy and cosmology theory is based on that interpretation largely still being accepted as fact. Countless dissertations and theses have been written on the rapid motion of galaxies and the so-called Big Bang.
As modern ground-based and space-based telescopes and other space probes brought in more data, much of this data seemed to conflict with existing theories based on this interpretation. Rather than dump long-held, cherished theories developed over many years of academic studies, scientists were forced to come up with exotic constructs and ideas. Dark matter, dark energy, black holes, quasars and neutron stars and all sorts of other weird and wonderful objects are postulated to exist in the distant reaches of the universe. So far, none of these have actually been observed.
Finally, when an astronomer named William Tifft, at the University of Arizona observed and measured that this red shift is not continuous, such as the motion interpretation would require, but is quantized, that is it occurs in little discrete jumps. When he first published this he was vilified by the mainstream astronomical and cosmological community and his data was dismissed as measurement errors. However, some other scientists were determined to proved that the generally accepted motion theory is correct. They measured the red shift again, but with much better equipment enabl