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A.rch.M.oti.on
Joined: 25 Jul 2008
Posts: 4
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 Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:59 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | The P-rimordial Alphabet Soup
S-cie-ntists believed that by a single e-xperiment they had solved the o-rigin of life:
"Thirty-eight years what is arguably the greatest mystery ever puzzled the s-cientists - the o-rigin of life - seemed virtually solved by a single simple experiment." Thus is how the February 1991 issue of S-cientific A-merican begins a review of t-heories of the o-rigins of l-ife¹.
The simple experiment, carried out by the University of Chicago graduate student named Stanley Miller, involved placing a mixture of m-ethane, a-mmonia, h-ydrogen, and water in the sealed f-lask and zapping it with e-lectrical s-parks. The result was terry goo containing a-mino a-cids, the building blocks of p-roteins found in living organisms.
To Miller it seemed but a few inevitable e-volu-tionary steps from this prim-ordial soup of water and b-iomolecules to the first l-iving o-rganism. And from that day, college s-cience students have thought that s-cience has explained life's origin. Indeed many students are under the impression that l-ife itself has been s-ynthesized in a t-est t-ube. Unfortunately, as the article in the S-cientific A-merican points out, s-cientists are far from understanding l-ife's origin.
Yet s-cient-ists have different opinions on the constitution of the primordial e-arth. To some, the original conditions were mainly n-itrogen and c-arbon d-ioxide, creating unsuitable conditions for a-mino a-cids to form. In fact, s-cientists can only guess about the earth was like billions of years ago, and the guesses they make can agree or disagree with M-iller's theory.
Now suppose that a-mino a-cids would have formed on the primordial earth and that they would have piled up with other biological molecules without being naturally destroyed or dispersed. We'd then run into another problem: Although the rules for c-hemical b-onding may allow s-imple b-iological m-olecules to form, these same rules don't guarantee that the h-igher forms of or-ganization found in living o-rganism will arise.
B-iological c-hemistry puts before us a similar problem. By the rules of c-hemical bonding, a-toms of h-ydrogen, o-xygen, c-arbon and n-itrogen will tend to form a-mino a-cids and similar compounds under appropriate conditions. But those rules are not enough to bring together highly complex structures found in even simplest l-iving c-ells.
The simple forming of m-olecules by c-hemical b-onding in a p-rimordial s-oup also doesn't involve D-arwi-nian e-vo-lution. D-arwi-nian e-vol-ution calls for a self-reproducing system of m-olecules. Indeed, one of the main tasks of o-rigin-of-life t-heories is to explain how the first self-r-eproducing s-ystem a-rose.
In a living o-rganism, self-r-epro-duction is a dauntingly complex process involving p-roteins, d-eoxyribo-nu-cleic-acid (D N A) and ri-bo-nuc-leic-acid (R N A). If D-ar-wini-an e-vol-uti-on can't take place until such a complex system is operating, s-cie-ntists are at a loss to explain how that complex system has come about.
The only hope has been to suppose that the first self-re-pro-ducing system was much simpler than the simplest of today's li-ving c-ells. If somehow a single m-olecule could r-eproduce itself under suitable conditions, then perhaps it could e-volve, develop l-iaisons with other m-olecules, and eventually give rise to the kind of o-rganism that exist today.
One of the most popular scenarios for a self-r-eproducing molecule has been the so-called "R N A world." The idea is that the R N A m-olecule might be able to catalyze its own replication and so be able to e-volve in a D arw-inian manner. It has been shown that R N A molecules can act as e-nzymes that act on other R N A molecules. And M-anfred E-igen of the M-ax -Planck Institute has shown that R N A molecules reproducing under the influence of modern c-ellular e-nzymes can undergo a process of D-arwinian e-volution.
Bur R N A-world models have problems. One is that R N A would seem unlikely to form on the p-rebiotic p-rimordial earth. Another is that R N A cannot readily make new copies of itself in the l-aboratory without a great deal of help from s-cientists. (For one thing, R N A replication calls for pure conditions that can be provided in a l-aboratory but would not be expected in the n-ature.)
Still, let's even suppose that a self-replicating m-olecule (which might be or might not be R N A) did arise on the p-rim-ordial e-arth. What might we expect it to e-volve into? Nowhere meaningful. Such m-olecules may indeed evolve and grow m-olecularly more fit, but there is absolutely no reason to think they will -evolve into living c-ells, as this requires the guidance of an intell-igence and a pro-gramming of their co-des. Such program-ming cannot occur s-ponta-neous-ly, as it is far too complex for this to occur, and a de-sin is clearly needed.
M-olecular f-itness will have something to do with how strongly the m-olecule's bonds hold it together and how well the m-olecule will c-atalyze its own r-eplication. This kind of fitness may increase through D-ar-winian e-volut-ion. But there is absolutely no reason or no know process to demonstate anything usefull will ever emerge from this, other than modified self- r-eplicating m-olecules of the same type. There's no reason to suppose that the self-repro-ducing m-olec-ules will ever give a rise to something completely different, such as an elaborate system of r-eproductive machinery based on D N A, R N A, e-nzymes, and the famous g-enetic c-ode.
So, again, here are the two obstacles:
1. N-atural rules for b-onding between a-toms may give raise to simple b-iological m-olecules under certain "social circumstances" (as in Miller's experiment), but they cannot give rise to the complex structures needed for an o-rganism to g-row and r-eproduce.
2. If some h-ypothetical m-olecules were able to jump start theiur own r-eplication, they might e-volve by D-arw-inian natural s-election and r-andom v-ariation. But no one has given any solid reasonable explanation as to how they supposedly would e-vol-ve into anything more than better self-r-epli-cating m-olecules. And, of course, it has not been shown that ---p-rebi-otic---- m-ole-cular---- self-rep-lication ----could happen.
In the thirty-eight years since M-iller's famous e-xper-iment, s-cien-tists have come up with many complicated t-heo-ries about how l-ife might o-riginated, but they have failed to overcome these and other fundamental obstacles. M-iller himself tends to d-isapprove of the futile sp-eculations of the t-heorists. He argues that what the o-rigin-of-l-ife field needs is good e-xperiments that actually d-emonstrate how l-ife got started. But such e-xperiments are not easy to devise. "I come up with a dozen ideas a day," M-iller says, pausing to reflect, and I usually discard the whole dozen²." |
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djswan
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
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Location: Montana, USA
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A.rch.M.oti.on
Joined: 25 Jul 2008
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:27 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Argument from ignorance
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam ("appeal to ignorance" [1]) or argument by lack of imagination, is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false or is only false because it has not been proven true.
The argument from personal incredulity, also known as argument from personal belief or argument from personal conviction, refers to an assertion that because one personally finds a premise unlikely or unbelievable, the premise can be assumed not to be true, or alternatively that another preferred but unproven premise is true instead.
Note how modern s-cientists establish a pre-suppostion, then support or exclude evidence based on their pre-c-onceived views. They are thus guilty of this same f-allacy.
Both arguments commonly share this structure: a person regards the lack of evidence for one view as constituting proof that another view is true. The types of fallacies discussed in this article should not be confused with the reductio ad absurdum method of argument, in which a valid logical contradiction of the form "A and not A" is used to disprove a premise.
Overview
Commonly in an Argument from Personal Incredulity or Argument from Ignorance, the speaker considers or asserts that something is false, implausible, or not obvious to them personally and attempts to use this gap in knowledge as "evidence" in favor of an alternative view of his or her choice. Examples of these fallacies are often found in statements of opinion which begin: "It is hard to see how...," "I cannot understand how...," or "it is obvious that..." (if "obvious" is being used to introduce a conclusion rather than specific evidence in support of a particular view).
The same they do with ideas of D-evo-lution or i-ntelli-gent d-esign. They dis-credit what they do not understand or out of ignorance. They assume these ideas to be false out of pre-conception. They make statements such as "it is obvious e-volu-tion is the only explanation".
Argument from ignorance
The two most common forms of the argument from ignorance, both fallacious, can be reduced to the following form:
* Something is currently unexplained or insufficiently understood or explained, so it is not (or must not be) true.
This is what they are doing in dis-considering alternative views on science.
* Because there appears to be a lack of evidence for one hypothesis, another chosen hypothesis is therefore considered proven.
They commit the same exact mistake as they point out.
Examples:
* 1. "You can't prove G-od doesn't exist, so G-od exists."
* 2. "You can't prove G-od does exist, so G-od doesn't exist."
Many around here are doing this exact same thing. Show us proof, you can't so G-od doesn't exist.
Argument from personal incredulity
Two common versions of the argument from personal incredulity are:
* "I can't believe this is possible, so it can't be true." (The person is asserting that a proposition must be wrong because he or she is (or claims to be) unable or unwilling to fully consider that it might be true, or is unwilling to believe evidence which does not support her or his preferred view.)
* "That's not what people say about this; people instead agree with what I am saying." (Here the person is asserting that a proposition must be inaccurate because the opinion of "people in general" is claimed to agree with the speaker's opinion, without offering specific evidence in support of the alternative view.) This is also called argumentum ad populum.
An argument from personal incredulity is the same as an argument from ignorance only if the person making the argument has solely their particular personal belief in the impossibility of the one scenario as "evidence" that the alternative scenario is true (i.e., the person lacks relevant evidence specifically for the alternative scenario).
Quite commonly, the argument from personal incredulity is used in combination with some evidence in an attempt to sway opinion towards a preferred conclusion. Here too, it is a logical fallacy to the degree that the personal incredulity is offered as further "evidence." In such an instance, the person making the argument has inserted a personal bias in an attempt to strengthen the argument for acceptance of her or his preferred conclusion. |
And they use personal attacks as well in an attempt to personalize the issues and confuse minds further, rather then weighing the evidence with an open, objective mind. |
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djswan
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 848
Location: Montana, USA
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:33 am Post subject: |
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I'm agnostic, the very definition of a open mind. Shut up, liar.
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thethinker
Joined: 25 Jul 2008
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:31 pm Post subject: |
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It is good that some are well advised to avoid a c cusing others simply because of their views. Some cannot see to see the foundations of their fa lse be liefs challenged, so they thus re sort to personal a ttack, as demonstrated. If others wish to read this information and really consider it, they are free to comment, as long they are fair and objective. There are times when the circumstances simply call one to defend their views under alternate positions and forms, manners, particularly as in this case. In this age of information technology, there is a need to analyze sincerely what is being presented, rather then blindly accept what many s cie ntists are telling us.
As stated previously:
| Quote: | Possible r eactions people can have when confronted with information which goes against what they have been taught:
1. G eorge C arlin type of reaction as seen in his jokes.
2. "I don't believe it, because I have already adopted this other belief system."
3. To look for the fallacies of the argument, to try to dis-prove it.
4. To ridicule the opponent view.
5. To say it does not make sense because another one's views contradict it.
6. To say, "ok, so what if you are right, it doesn't make any difference."
(And then fail to analyze it).
7. To say, " ok, I will look at it."
8. To then look at it, but just glance at it, because on does not understand what is presented.
9. To g lance at it, and immediately conclude it has no foundation, because there is something there you see which offends you or your world views.
10. To look at it, but then listen to other arguments that appear to make sense, thus missing the entire logic of a new possibility.
11. To look at it carefully, with an honest, objective mind-set (this is the true scientific way it should be done).
12. To look at it, and if c onvinced, to re-formulate one's views. (This is even more noble and demonstrates character).
13. To advance the cause of the new view, once one realized all along one was being fooled by f alse b elief s ystems.
Everyone will usually fall into one of the above types of reactions. Even sci en tists, unfortunately.
Thus, human beings are subject to con tamination of the e vid ence, mis-handling of the e vi de nce, distortion of the e vi dence, mis-inter pretation of the evi dence, dis-honest handling of the ev idence, and basically, come to conclusions based on their pre-established world view systems that they are taught and only rare individuals have the wit, the character, the intelligence, the willingness, the availability, the time, the diligence to see to find out if their belief systems are flawed or not.
In this discussion thread, I am willing to have someone come along and really dis-prove ultimately once and for all C rea tion ism. So far, I have seen no evidence otherwise. The facts that s cience has for us do not confirm the myriad of hy pothesis out there. And a lop-sided point of view is being presented to the g eneral p ublic, as the opposing viewpoints of Cr ea tion ists are practically never presented as a possibility anywhere in pu blic media, maga zines, sc hools.... thus, people are not able to analyze opposing points of view that are never presented to them. Then, there is no objectivity in any of this. |
There is no need for cha racter de fam ation when one is not guilty of the ac cusations being posed by opponents of these ideas. This is the same reason for the great degree of in tole rance as seen in the points above. |
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djswan
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 848
Location: Montana, USA
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:38 pm Post subject: |
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I'm sorry Mr. Thinker, but I just don't believe the BULLSHIT.
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thethinker
Joined: 25 Jul 2008
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:44 pm Post subject: |
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| That is fine. Everyone is free to express their opinion. |
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djswan
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 848
Location: Montana, USA
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:57 pm Post subject: |
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| thethinker wrote: | | That is fine. Everyone is free to express their opinion. |
That's your opinion, my opinion is your full of shit too. 
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thethinker
Joined: 25 Jul 2008
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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| djswan wrote: | | thethinker wrote: | | That is fine. Everyone is free to express their opinion. |
That's your opinion, my opinion is your full of shit too. |
Apparently, the same can be said idem of the one who posted this. So, this becomes an opinion as well.
Got anything meaningful to say beyond "poetry", heavy-timber frame images, d-emons, images of s-nakes and the like, Mr. Lumber Jack ? |
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thethinker
Joined: 25 Jul 2008
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 9:19 pm Post subject: |
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Hey DJ,
I think science has a good one for ya - The Big Burp. BBUUUUURRPPP.
I feel the Big Burp theory has got something going for it. The lack of brains in many s-cie-ntists has led them to say forget it all and just give one Big Burp and Voyla. There you have it. We have the new theory to explain the origin of the first bio-mass! BBBUUUURRRPPP for ya.
Have another beer and don't forget the Big Burp Theory.
FFFXFFF = 6F
Fools Follow Foolish X Feverish Fictional Forms = 6 Fools in one.
FFF/FFF = F
Forget Functional Form/Found Fictional Fantasy = F =
And from your last "meaningful post":
These key Letters in the primordial soup =
I A T V D O A O M. S U L = MOAD O TV AI
And in reverse we have.
Liar up, shut mind, open a 'of definition', very the agnostic I'm.
and double reverse we have -
Rial pu tuhs. Dnim nepo a fo noitinifed yrev eht, citsonga m'I
and running it through a little genetic modification we have
http://www.lerfjhax.com/scrambler
Generation 1
I’m nigtcaso, het yver infdntoiie fo a eonp idmn. Suth pu, rali.
Generation 2
Mi’ ocsginta, eth yerv inoentiidf of a enop indm. Uhts up, ilar.
Generatoin 3
’mi igotncas, hte eryv nnefoidtii fo a enpo midn. Shtu pu, lrai.
Generation 4
m’i tncoisag, the veyr itnoefdini of a onpe mind. Hust up, airl.
Generation 5
’mi gstcanio, eht vyer tiniednofi fo a oenp idnm. Uths pu, rali.
Generation 6
’im ntciosga, eth very ioidinnetf of a epon dnmi. Usht up, ialr.
Generation 7
’mi tocsaign, eht ryev fiindeitno fo a onep mdni. Shtu pu, rail.
Generation 8
i’m tgcnioas, het vrey fentinodii of a pneo nmid. Huts up, aril.
Translation: I'm TgCniosa, hey very found of a small mind. Hat up all.
Generation 9
’im cstinoga, hte eyrv ieiidtnonf fo a oepn dinm. Tsuh pu, lari.
Generation 10
m’i sngitaco, het very deftoniiin of a enop dmin. Uhst up, iral.
Making some sense out of this last one:
Hello Mr. Sngitaco, hey the very definition of an enop dmin. Ustle up irai.
I think evolution needs a little help in defining her vocabulary.
From Shakespeare we have:
| Quote: | A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
But were we burdened with like weight of pain,
As much or more we should ourselves complain. |
A rewdecht luso, ubesdri wthi syravedit, Ew dbi eb qieut henw ew ehra ti ryc; Btu weer ew ndbedeur ithw klei hwiteg fo apni, Sa uhcm ro orme ew hldous esoleusvr loamncip.
A hrdecwet uols, ubrdies iwht irdaevyts, We ibd be teuiq nehw we raeh it cyr; But eerw we udbdeern ihtw ekil wigthe of pina, As cmuh or rome we shudlo slsoeruve lcpinoam.
A eewtdhcr slou, bruside twhi iytedsvar, Ew bdi eb eiqut hnwe ew erha ti rcy; Tub were ew beudnedr iwht klie gteihw fo anpi, Sa cuhm ro eorm ew udslho rsseloveu mopcanil.
A hewedcrt luos, ibsdreu tihw iatdeyvrs, We bid be etuqi hwne we haer it cry; Btu ewre we dbderenu itwh ielk ghetwi of pnai, As mhuc or mroe we uhdlos olveessur olacnipm.
It doesn't take many generations for e-volu-tion to FFF it all up.
Oh wait now, is that Form Follows Function or what? |
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djswan
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
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Location: Montana, USA
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thethinker
Joined: 25 Jul 2008
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:02 pm Post subject: |
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How about some Big Questions?
| Quote: | BIG QUESTIONS about the BIG BANG
When examined closely, the cosmologists' confident explanation of the origin and structure of the universe falls apart.
Look up at the night sky, full of stars and planets. Where did it all come from? These days most s-cien-tists will answer that question with some version of the b-ig b-ang t-heory. In the beginning, you'll hear, all matter in the universe was concentrated into a single point at an extremely high temperature, and then it exploded with tremendous force. From an expanding superheated cloud of subatomic particles, atoms gradually formed, then stars, galaxies, planets, and finally life. This litany has now assumed the status of revealed truth. In accounts that deliberately evoke the atmosphere of G-enesis, the tale of primal origins is elaborately presented in countless textbooks, paperback popularizations, slick s-cience magazines, and television specials complete with computer-generated effects.
As an exciting, mindgrabbing story it certainly works. And because the b-ig b-ang story does seem to be based on factual observation and the s-cien-tific method, it seems to many people more reasonable than re-lig-ious accounts of creation. This b-ig b-ang theory of cosmology is, however, only the latest in a series of attempts to explain the universe in a mechanistic way, a way that sees the world--and man--solely as the products of matter working according to materialistic laws.
S-cie-ntists traditionally reject s-upe-rnatural explanations of the o-rigin of the u-niv-erse, especially ones involving a S-upreme P-erson who c-reates it, saying that they would contradict their s-cie-ntific method. In the mechanistic world view, G-od, if He exists at all, is reduced to the role of a petty servant who merely winds up the clock of the universe. Thereafter He has no choice but to allow everything to happen according to physical laws. This makes these laws, in effect, more powerful than G-od Himself. Or else G-od becomes simply a formless universal energy. There is definitely not much room for a personal G-od, a supreme designer and controller, in the universe described by the b-ig b-ang theorists. Erwin Schrodinger, the Nobel-prize-winning Austrian theoretical physicist who discovered the basic equation of quantum mechanics, states in *Mind and Matter, "No personal g-od can form part of a world model that has only become accessible at the cost of removing everything personal from it." Thus we should not think that it is by their empirical findings that s-cientists have eliminated G-od from the universe or restricted His role in it. Rather from the very start their chosen method rules out G-od.
The s-cien-tists' attempt to understand the origin of the universe in purely physical terms is based on three assumptions:
(1) that all phenomena can be completely explained by natutal laws expressed in the language of mathematics,
(2) that these physical laws apply everywhere and at all times, and
(3) that the fundamental natural laws are simple.
Many people take these assumptions for granted, but they have not been proven to be facts--nor is it possible to easily prove them. They are simply part of one strategy for approaching reality. Looking at the complex phenomena that confront any observer of the universe, s-cie-ntists have decided to try a reductionistic approach. They say, "Let's try to reduce everything to measurements and try to explain them by simple, universal physical laws." But there is no logical reason for ruling out in advance alternative strategies for comprehending the universe, strategies that might involve laws and principles of irreducible complexity. Yet many s-cien-tists, confusing their strategy for trying to understand the universe with the actual nature of the universe, rule out a priori any such alternative approaches. They insist that the universe can be completely described by simple mathematical laws. "We hope to explain the entire universe in a single, simple formula that you can wear on your T-shirt," says Leon Lederman, director of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois.
There are several reasons why the s-cient-ists feel compelled to adopt their strategy of simplification. If the underlying reality of the universe can be described by simple quantitative laws, then there is some chance that they can understand it (and manipulate it), even considering the limitations of the human mind. So they assume it can be so described and invent a myriad of theories to do this. But if the universe is infinitely complex, it would be very difficult for us to understand it with the limited powers of the human mind and senses. For example, suppose you were given a set of one million numbers and asked to describe their pattern with an equation. If the pattern were simple, you might be able to do it. But if the pattern were extremely complex, you might not even be able to guess what the equation would be. And of course the s-cie-ntists' strategy will also be unsuccessful in coping with features of the universe that cannot be described in mathematical terms at all.
Thus it is not any wonder that the great majority of s-cie-ntists cling so tenaciously to their present strategy to the exclusion of all other approaches. They could well be like the man who lost his car keys in his driveway and went to look for them by the streetlight, where the light was better.
However, the s-cie-ntists' belief that the physical laws discovered in laboratory experiments on earth apply throughout all time and space is certainly open to question. For example, just because electrical fields are seen to behave a certain way in the laboratory does not insure that they also operate in the same way at vast distances and at times billions of years ago. Yet such assumptions are crucial to the s-cie-ntists' attempts to explain such things as the origin of the universe and the nature of faraway objects such as quasars. After all, we can't really go back billions of years in time to the origin of the universe, and we have practically no firsthand evidence at all of anything beyond our own solar system.
Even some prominent s-cien-tists recognize the risks involved in extrapolating conclusions about the universe as a whole from our limited knowledge. In 1980, Kenneth E. Boulding, in his presidential address to the American Association for the Advancement of S-cie-nce, said: "Cosmology ... is likely to be very insecure, simply because it studies a very large universe with a very small and biased sample. We have only been looking at it carefully for a very small fraction of its total time span, and we know intimately an even smaller fraction of its total space." But not only are the cosmologists' conclusions insecure--it also seems that their whole attempt to make a simple mathematical model of the universe consistent with its observable features is fraught with fundamental difficulties, which we will now describe.
The Dreaded Singularity
One of the greatest problems faced by the b-ig b-ang theorists is that although they are attempting to explain the "o-rigin of the universe," the o-rigin they propose is mathematically indescribable. According to the standard b-ig b-ang th-eories, the initial condition of the universe was a point of infinitesimal circumference and infinite density and temperature. An initial condition such as this is beyond mathematical description. Nothing can be said about it. All calculations go haywire. It's like trying to divide a number by 0--what do you get? 1? ... 5? ... 5 trillion? ... ??? It's impossible to say. Technically, such a phenomenon is called a "singularity."
Sir Bernard Lovell, professor of radio astronomy at the University of Manchester, wrote of singularities, "In the approach to a physical description of the beginning of time, we reach a barrier at this point. The problem as to whether or not this really is a fundamental barrier to a s-cie-ntific description of the initial state of the universe, and the associated conceptual difficulties in the consideration of a single entity at the beginning of time, are questions of outstanding importance in modern thought."
As of yet, the barrier has not been surmounted by even the greatest exponents of the b-ig b-ang theory. Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg laments, "Unfortunately, I cannot start the film [his colorful description of the b-ig b-ang] at zero time and infinite temperature." So we find that the b-ig b-ang theory does not describe the origin of the universe at all, because the initial singularity is by definition indescribable.
Quite literally, therefore, the b-ig b-ang t-heory is in trouble right from the very start. While the difficulty about the initial singularity is ignored or glossed over in popular accounts of the -big b-ang, it is recognized as a major stumbling block in the more technical accounts by s-cie-ntists attempting to deal with its actual mathematical implications. Stephen Hawking, Lucian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, and G.F.R. Ellis, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cape Town, in their authoritative book The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time point out, "It seems to be a good principle that the prediction of a singularity by a physical theory indicates that the theory has broken down." They add, "The results we have obtained support the idea that the universe began a finite time ago. However the actual point of c-rea-tion, the singularity, is outside the scope of presently known laws of physics."
Any explanation of the o-rigin of the universe that begins with something physically indescribable is certainly open to question. And then there is a further difficulty. Where did the singularity come from? Here the s-cie-ntists face the same difficulty as the re-ligionists they taunt with the question, "Where did G-od come from?" And just as the rel-igionist responds with the answer that G-od is the causeless cause of all causes, the s-cien-tists are now faced with the prospect of declaring a mathematically indescribable point of infinite density and infinitesimal size, existing before all conceptions of time and space, as the cau-seless cause of all causes. At this point, the hapless s-cien-tist stands convicted of the same unforgivable intellectual c-rime that he has always accused the s-aints/r-eli-gious of committing--making physically unverifiable s-uper-natural claims. If he is to know anything at all about the -origin of the universe, it would seem he would now have to consider the possibility of accepting methods of inquiry and experiment transcending the physical. |
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thethinker
Joined: 25 Jul 2008
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Attempted Solutions
Unwilling to face this distasteful prospect, theorists have proposed a multitude of variations on the b-ig b-ang t-heory in an effort to sidestep the singularity problem. One approach has been to postulate that the universe did not begin with a perfect singularity. Sir Bernard Lovell states that the singularity in the b-ig b-ang universe "has often been regarded as a mathematical difficulty arising from the assumption that the univrse is uniform." The standard models for the b-ig b-ang universe have perfect mathematical symmetry, and some physicists thought this was the cause of a singularity when they worked out the mathematical answers to the equations for the b-ig b-ang's initial state at time zero. As a correction, some theorists introduced into their models irregularities similar to those of the observed universe. This, it was hoped, would give the initial state enough irregularity to prevent everything from being reduced to a single point. But this hope was dashed by Hawking and Ellis, who state that according to their calculations a b-ig b-ang model with irregularities in the distribution of matter on the observed scale must still have a singularity in the beginning.
The Question of Origins
The Bouncing Universe
The problem of the singularity is simply part of the larger problem of understanding the o-rigin of the initial condition of the universe, whatever it may have happened to be. If a model of universal o-rigins involves a singularity, that certainly creates severe theoretical difficulties. But even if the singularity can somehow be avoided, we are still confronted with the question of where the universe came from. Hoping to sidestep the whole issue of origins, some s-cie-ntists have proposed the so-called "infinitely rebounding universe," a universe that expands, contracts to a singularity, and then again expands and contracts continually through the course of unlimited time. There is no beginning and no end, only an endless cycle. This resolves the problem of the origin of the universe by proposing that there is no origin and that the material universe has always existed.
But there are some serious problems with this model. First of all, no one has ever proposed a satisfactory mechanism for the bouncing. Futhermore, in The First Three Minutes physicist Steven Weinberg points out that with each successive bounce progressive changes must take place in the universe. This indicates that at some point there must be a beginning and not a regress extending over an infinite period of time. And thus again you confront the question of o-rigins.
Another c-reative attempt to escape the necessity of dealing with the question of o-rigins is the time-reverse rebounding u-niverse model proposed by English astrophysicist Paul Davies. The u-niverse would expand with time flowing forward and then collapse to a singularity. During the rebound, time flows backward as the universe expands and collapses again into a singularity, the same singularity from which it began its previous forward cycle. In this model, the past becomes the future, and the future becomes the past, thus making the statement "in the beginning" meaningless. This scenario gives one small indication of the many imaginative schemes the cosmologists have been forced to resort to in order to explain the origin of the universe.
The Inflationary Universe
Quite apart from the question of where the initial condition of the universe comes from, there are other problems troubling modern cos-mologists. In order for the standard b-ig b-ang t-heory to predict the distribution of matter we observe within the u-niverse, the initial state has to be fine tuned to an incredible degree. The question then arises, how did the initial state get that way? Physicist Alan H. Guth of M.I.T. has proposed a version of the b-ig b-ang model that automatically produces the required fine tunings, doing away with the necessity for artificially introducing them into the equations. Called the "inflationary model", it assumes that within a rapidly expanding, superheated region of the universe a tiny section cools off and then begins to expand much more violently, just as supercooled water rapidly expands when it freezes. It is this phase of rapid expansion that resolves some of the difficulties inherent in the standard b-ig b-ang t-heories.
But Guth's version has difficulties of its own. Guth has been forced to fine tune his own equations in order to get them to yield his inflationary universe. Thus he is confronted with the same difficulty his model was supposed to overcome. He had hoped to explain the fine tuning required in the b-ig b-ang universe, but he requires unexplained tuning of his own. Guth and his collaborator Paul J. Steinhardt admit that in their model "calculations yield reasonable predictions only if the parameters are assigned values in a narrow range. Most theorists (including both of us) regard such fine tuning as implausible." They go on to express a hope that in the future mathematical theories will be developed that will enable them to give a plausible expression of their model.
This dependence on as yet unrealized future developments highlights another difficulty with Guth's model. The grand unified theories (GUTs) upon which the inflationary universe is based are completely hypothetical and "have little support from controlled experiments because most of their implications are impossible to measure in the laboratory." (The grand unified theories are very speculative attempts to tie together some of the basic forces of the universe.)
Another problem with Guth's theory is that it does not even attempt to explain the origin of the superheated expanding condition necessary for his inflation to take place. He has toyed with three hypothetical origins. The first is the standard b-ig b-ang--according to Guth the inflationary episode would take place within the very early stages of it. This model, however, leaves us with the knotty singularity problem already discussed. The second option is to assume an initial condition of random chaos, in which some regions would be hot, others cold, some expanding, some contracting. The inflation would begin in an area that was superheated and expanding. But Guth admits there is no explanation for the origin of the imagined p-rimordial r-andom c-haos.
The third alternative, favored by Guth himself, is that the superheated expanding region emerges quantum-mechanically from nothing. In an article that appeared in 1984 in Scientific American, Guth and Paul J. Steinhardt state, "The inflationary model of the universe provides a possible mechanism by which the observed universe could have e-volved from an infinitesimal region. It is then tempting to go one step further and speculate that *the entire universe evolvedfrom literally nothing."
As attractive as this idea may seem to s-cientists who balk at any suggestion of a supreme in-telligence that de-signed the u-niverse, it doesn't hold up under close examination. The literal "nothing" Guth is speaking of is a hypothetical quantum-mechanical vacuum state occurring in a still-to-be-formulated ultimate grand unified theory combining the equations of both quantum mechanics and general relativity. In other words, this vacuum state cannot now be described, even theoretically.
However, physicists have already come up with a description of a simpler kind of quantum-mechanical vacuum state, which can be visualized as containing a sea of "virtual particles," atomic fragments that almost but not quite exist. From time to time some of these subatomic particles pop out of the vacuum into material reality.
Such occurrences are called "vacuum fluctuations". The fluctuations cannot be directly observed, but theories based upon them have been corroborated by laboratory experiments. What theoretically occurs is that a particle and antiparticle appear without cause from the vacuum and almost instantaneously negate each other and disappear. Guth and his colleagues postulate that instead of just a tiny particle, the entire universe popped out of the vacuum. And instead of instantaneously disappearing, our universe has somehow persisted for billions of years. The singularity problem is avoided by having the universe pop into being a little bit beyond the stage of singularity.
There are two basic shortcomings in this scenario. First, it involves a truly impressive speculative leap from our limited experience with subatomic particles in the laboratory to the universe as a whole. Stephen Hawking and G.F.R. Ellis sagely warn their colleagues who would without hesitation hurl themselves headlong into such wild speculation, "There is of course a large extrapolation in the assumption that the physical laws one determines in the laboratory should apply to other points of space-time where conditions may be different." Second, it is actually misleading to speak of the quantum-mechanical vacuum as "literally nothing." To describe a quantum-mechanical vacuum, even the relatively simple one of currently existing theory, requires chapters upon chapters of highly abstract mathematics. Such an entity is certainly "something," and this raises the interesting question of where such a complicated "vacuum" might come from.
At this point let us return to the original problem Guth was trying to solve with his inflationary model: trying to eliminate the need. for fine tuning the initial conditions in order to obtain the observed universe. As we have seen, he hasn't succeeded. But another problem is this: does any version of the b-ig b-ang t-heory, including Guth's, really predict the observed u-niverse? What Guth says he finally gets out of his complicated initial state is a universe about 4 inches across, filled with nothing more than a uniform superdense, superheated gas. This will expand and cool, but there is no reason to suppose that it will ever become more than a cloud of uniformly distributed gas. In fact, this is all that any of the b-ig b-ang t-heories leave you with. So if Guth's present theory requires implausible tinkering simply to yield a u-niverse consisting of uniformly distributed gas, then we can just imagine what would be necessary to get it to yield the universe as we know it today. In a good s-cientific explanation many complex phenomena can be deduced from a simple theoretical scheme, but in Guth's inflationary universe--and indeed in the standard b-ig b-ang t-heories--we have just the opposite: from a very complex tangle of equations, we just get an expanding uniform ball of gas. Despite this, s-cience magazines run articles about. the i-nflationary model, complete with pages of hightech illustrations, that give the impression Guth has finally achieved the ultimate goal--explaining the o-rigin of the universe. Not quite, it seems. Perhaps they should run regular columns in the s-cience magazines featuring the universal o-rigin theories of the month.
We can just imagine the complexity of the initial conditions necessary to produce the universe as we know it, with all its varied structures and organisms. In our own universe, these conditions seem to have been arranged far too precisely to be explained simply by physical laws. Thus one could conceivably argue in favor of a designer. At this point some noted theorists, unable even to consider such an idea, take shelter of what they call "the anthropic principle."
They propose that the quantum-mechanical vacuum is producing universes by the millions. The great majority are not constituted so as to produce life. These universes therefore do not contain observers who could study their conditions. However, other universes, including our own, are constituted so as to have produced observers, and it is therefore not surprising that these observers would discover that their universe possesses some rather startlingly precise conditions to allow for the existence of life. According to this line of reasoning, the observers should not expected to find anything other than such improbably complex conditions. In effect, supporters of the anthropic principle take the very existence of human beings as the explanation of why the universe is so constituted as to have produced human beings. But this logical sleight of hand isn't an explanation of anything.
Another form of verbal jugglery is to say straight out, as many s-cien-tists do, that the universe has occurred by causeless chance. But it must be pointed out that this also is not at all an explanation. To say that something happens once by chance is in essence no different than simply saying "it happened"' or "there it is." <Voyla!>And these statements do not qualify as scientific explanations. In the end you wind up knowing no more than you did before. In other words, by invoking either chance or the anthropic principle the scientists have not actually explained anything about the origin of the universe.
At this point, the theorists could perhaps forgive us for suggesting that their chosen methods might not be quite adequate for the task at hand. Indeed it appears, in addition to the problems we have already discussed, that general relativity and quantum mechanics, the two intellectual tools with which the cosmologists are attempting to define the development of the universe, contain certain flaws. It is true that these theories have been very successful in describing certain physical phenomena, but this does not prove they are perfect in all respects.
General relativity describes curved space-time and is an integral part of every current theory of universal origins, including the b-ig b-ang t-heory and Guth's inflationary model. If general relativity is in need of revision in any way, then any universal theories based on it will also need to be revised.
One major difficulty with general relativity and Einstein's earlier theory of special relativity is that they rule out time as we commonly understand it. In Newtonian physics, time is treated as a variable separate from space. In this way, it is possible to chart the path of an object moving in space and time in the following way. At a particular point in time, the object is located at a particular point in space. As time varies, the position of the object in space varies.
But in Einstein's theory of relativity, this conception evaporates. Instead, time and space are wedded together in a fourdimensional space-time continuum. It is no longer possible to describe an object as occupying a particular point in space at a particular point in time. A relativistic description of an object will show its spatial and temporal existence in its entirety, merged from beginning to end, wherever it is happening. For instance, a human being would be depicted as the entire progression from embryo to corpse. Such constructs are labeled "space-time worms." And physics does not permit the space-time worm to say, "Now I am an adult and I used to be a child." There is no passage of time; the whole sequence exists as one unit. If we are space-time worms, we are just configurations of matter, not personalities with consciousness. Defining human beings in that way invalidates our individual perception of past, present, and future, and thus leads to the conclusion that such perceptions are unreal.
In a letter to Michael Besso, Einstein wrote, "You have to accept the idea that subjective time with its emphasis on the now has no objective meaning. When Besso died, Einstein tried to console his widow by writing, "Michael has preceded me a little in leaving this strange world. This is not important. For us who are convinced physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent." This is in effect a denial of consciousness, which entails the reality of the present experienced moment. We experience our present form as real, whereas our infant form exists only in memory. As conscious beings we can definitely experience that we do occupy a particular bodily form at a particular point in time. Despite the fact that relativity theory converts a series of events into a single unified spatio-temporal entity, we actually experience in sequence different points in time. What all this means is that every theory of universal origins built around relativity theory fails to explain our conscious experience of time, thus making these theories, as they stand, incomplete and thus un-reasonable. |
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thethinker
Joined: 25 Jul 2008
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 6:39 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Q-uantum P-hys-ics and Reality
All of the current c-osmological t-heories also depend upon q-uantum m-echanics, which defines the activity of a-tomic and s-ubatomic particles. Q-uantum p-hysics differs in fundamental ways from classical N-ewtonian p-hysics. Classical p-hysics concerns itself with the behavior of solid matter, but q-uantum p-hysics is concerned only with ma-thematical expressions of observations and measurements. Solid material reality evaporates. Nobel-laureate physicist Werner Heisenberg declared, "It turns out that we can no longer talk of the behavior of the par-ticle apart from the process of observation. In consequence, we are finally led to believe that the la-ws of na-ture which we formulate mathe-matically in qua-ntum th-eory no longer deal with the par-ticles themselves but with our knowledge of elemen-tary particles." In addition to the ex-perimental apparatus, the observer had to be brought into the analysis as an explicit element distinct from the ap-paratus.
Parrallel Uni-verses?
But there are fundamental problems in applying quan-tum me-chanics to the uni-verse. By definition, the u-niverse includes all observers, so you cannot have an out-side ob-server of a u-niversal phy-sical sys-tem. In an attempt to for-mulate a version of qua-ntum me-chanics that does not require an outside ob-server, e-minent ph-ysicists such as John Wheeler have proposed that the uni-verse continuously splits into in-numerable copies. Each pa-rallel u-niverse contains ob-servers to see that particular set of q-uantum al-ternatives, and a-ccording to this the-ory all of these u-niverses are real.
Are Some S-cientists Schizo-phrenic? Do they have men-tal pro-blems?
Reacting to this, Bryce D. Witt, writing in Phy-sics Today, states, "I still recall the shock I experienced on first encountering the multi-world concept. The idea of 10 to the 100th plus slightly imperfect copies of oneself all constantly splitting into further copies, which ultimately become unrecognizable, is not easy to reconcile with common sense. Here is schizophrenia with a vengeance." If scientists want a b-ig b-ang the-ory of the o-rigin of the u-niverse that can be consistent with q-uantum me-chanics, this is one of the bizarre hy-potheses they are forced to come up with.
The Ma-teria-listic Re-duction of S-cie-nce - The G-U-T
But even more problems lie ahead on the path of ma-terialistic re-duction that most s-cie-ntists are treading. It's bad enough that both g-eneral re-lativity and q-uantum me-chanics lead to bizarre and unrealistic consequences when applied to c-osmological questions. But these difficulties are compounded to an exasperating degree by the fact that s-cientists' hopes to properly describe the un-iverse and its b-eginning depend upon combining both th-eories. The proposed result would be a G-rand U-nified T-heory (G-UT) capable of describing all the for-ces at work in the u-niverse by a single comprehensive m-athematical expresssion. General r-elativity is required to explain the basic structure of space-t-ime. Q-uantum me-chanics is needed in order to explain the behavior of sub-a-tomic particles. Unfortunately these two t-heories apparently contradict each other.
The At-tempt to In-tegrate Through Q-uantum F-ield T-he-ory
B-ig B-ang and I-nflationary M-ode-ls Have no F-ound-ation
The first step toward this m-athematical integration is q-uantum f-ield theory, which attempts to describe the behavior of e-le-ctrons by a combination of q-uantum m-ec-hanics and E-inst-ein's t-he-ory of special r-ela-tivity. This t-heory has scored some remarkable successes. Yet P.A.M. Dirac, the N-obel-p-rize-w-inning English p-hysicist who i-nve-nted the t-heo-ry, confessed, "It seems to be quite impossible to put the t-heory on a sound m-athe-matical basis." The second and much more difficult step would be to combine g-eneral r-elati-vity with q-uan-tum m-ech-anics, and no one has the faintest idea how to do this. No less an a-utho-rity than N-ob-el---la-ureate p-hysi-cist Ste-ven We-inberg admits that it may take a century or two to get the math-ematics together. The cos-mologists say they need the GUT to describe the o-rigin of the u-nive-rse, and they don't have it yet. So that can only mean their bi-g b-ang and in-fla-tionary m-od-els are without solid foundation.
B-ig B-ang T-heo-ries Becoming Ever More O-utlan-dishly ---C-onto-rted
Since the days of N-ewt-on and G-ali-leo, the program of p-hy-sic-al s-cie-nce has been to express everything in m-athe-m-atical terms. Furthermore the m-athe-matical description must be confirmed by o-bse-rvation and con-trolled e-xperi-ments. We have shown that the bi-g ba-n-g t-heo-ries fail to conform to these requirements. Simplicity has also been stressed as a requirement of p-hys-ical t-heo-ries, and the b-ig b-ang theories also fail in that respect, for they are becoming, as we have seen, progressively more outlandishly contorted with each new formulation. They are just what G-alileo and N-ewton would have disliked--storytelling to fill in the gaps of knowledge.
B-ig ---B-ang ---T-heor-ies Are Becoming U-ns-cien-tific
The b-ig b-ang t-heories would therefore appear to be something less than actual s-cientific explanations of the o-rigin of the u-niv-erse. Nevertheless, in p-op-ular m-agaz-ines and t-elevis-ion specials, as well as in the c-lassr-oom, s-cien-tists deliberately give the p-ublic the impression that they have already succeeded in demonstrating exactly how the u-niv-erse o-riginated simply by p-hys-ical --l-aw-s. Nothing could be further from the t-ru-th. |
Thus, s-c-ie-nce, --the med-ia, --professors,--- in their-- selec-tive ---system of data-- incl-usion are undeniably --en-gage-d --in ---spr-ead-ing ---mis-information, fa-ls-e ---information, which was the original topic name of this th-read. |
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thethinker
Joined: 25 Jul 2008
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 7:02 am | |
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