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Author Topic:   Evolution: Science, Pseudo-Science, or Both?
wj
Inactive Member


Message 196 of 198 (214925)
06-07-2005 6:42 AM
Reply to: Message 192 by Mr. Ex Nihilo
06-05-2005 8:49 AM


Re: Facts and philosophies
So ex, shorn of the empty rhetoric, all your message offers is a god of the gaps. No testable hypothesis. No predictions which can be tested against future reseach and discoveries.
Perhaps you could expound why a judeo-christian 7 day pattern should be of any importance. And which particular "scripture" should be examined in the light of scientific evidence?
This message has been edited by wj, 06-08-2005 04:47 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 192 by Mr. Ex Nihilo, posted 06-05-2005 8:49 AM Mr. Ex Nihilo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 198 by Mr. Ex Nihilo, posted 06-08-2005 11:13 PM wj has not replied

  
sfs
Member (Idle past 2524 days)
Posts: 464
From: Cambridge, MA USA
Joined: 08-27-2003


Message 197 of 198 (215386)
06-08-2005 3:40 PM
Reply to: Message 193 by randman
06-05-2005 5:39 PM


Re: Why you shouldn't trust Philip Johnson
quote:
Can you elaborate?
The reason I ask is even when I hear someone explain how QM effects are not the way I see them, it always pretty much comes back to them obeying principles that were presented in another arena as "spiritual."
Ok. In QM, an intrinsic property of particles is their spin. That is, particles can have a built-in angular momentum. The amount of spin is quantized, and is a property only of the type of particle: all photons have one unit of spin, while all electrons have a half unit, for example. All particles fall into two spin classes: fermions, which have half-integral spins, and bosons, which have integral spins. The two classes behave quite differently. Boson wavefunctions are always symmetric with respect to interchange of particles; that is, if you exchange the places of two bosons in a system, the wave function remains identical. Fermion wavefunctions are antisymmetric, which means that the wavefunction changes sign when two fermions are exchanged. Among other things, this fermion behavior leads to the Pauli exclusion principle, which prohibits two fermions from being in the identical state in a system, which in turn leads to electron orbitals and all of chemistry.
Macroscopic physical intuition is pretty useless for understanding spin. Nothing is spinning to create the angular momentum, and spin exhibits the usual kinds of quantum weirdness, e.g. if spin is measured in one direction, then the spin in an orthogonal direction will be in a superposition of states. On the other hand, I really don't see any connection between the physics of spin and anything in any spiritual tradition that I've ever heard of.
quote:
Let me ask you something to be more specific.
Do you consider the comment I quoted from a prominent current QM researcher to be accurate?
I think the statement is beyond the bounds of what physics can currently state. If "information" isn't just a metaphor here, then this qualifies as an interpretation of QM, one of many. Such interpretations aren't really science, since they all share the same set of observable predictions. They might, possibly, eventually lead to some new science, if they can be coaxed to produce divergent predictions of something measurable.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 193 by randman, posted 06-05-2005 5:39 PM randman has not replied

  
Mr. Ex Nihilo
Member (Idle past 1327 days)
Posts: 712
Joined: 04-12-2005


Message 198 of 198 (215523)
06-08-2005 11:13 PM
Reply to: Message 196 by wj
06-07-2005 6:42 AM


Re: Facts and philosophies
wj writes:
So ex, shorn of the empty rhetoric, all your message offers is a god of the gaps.
Yes. I already said that I thought that the current state of ID was mostly an appeal to ignorance -- simply pointing to the limits of our understanding and saying God might be beyond there.
What weren't you grasping when I said this earlier?
Mr. Ex Nihilo writes:
Currently, ID seems to be simply pointing out the limits of human knowledge and inferring God from the lack of evidence thereof -- an argument from ignorance. However, at some point, in redefining their arguments more clearly, they may be able to achieve their desired goal.
wj writes:
No testable hypothesis.
The hypothesis is that an intelligent designer created all things -- which is a valid hypothesis. This has not been formulated to the level that I would consider it testable yet. At its current state it cannot be adequately falsified.
wj writes:
No predictions which can be tested against future reseach and discoveries.
The prediction is that an intelligent designer created all things -- which is a valid prediction. This has not been formulated to the level that I would consider it testable yet. At its current state it cannot be adequately falsified.
wj writes:
Perhaps you could expound why a judeo-christian 7 day pattern should be of any importance. And which particular "scripture" should be examined in the light of scientific evidence?
Mankind has always been aware of rhythms -- they surround us. We live with daily rhythms of tides, light and darkness, monthly rhythms of the moon, seasonal rhythms of birth, growth, harvest, hot and cold, and annual cycles of the sun, migrations, floods and drought.
We have also observed cycles in our bodies which interact with those around us such as our daily sleep rhythms, daily temperature and blood pressure fluctuations, and the menstrual cycle which follows the lunar cycle precisely averaging 29.5 days.
However, until recently science has been aware of only the more obvious rhythms. Now the new science of chronobiology has begun to roll back frontiers revealing a universe replete with rhythms. The relatively new science of chronobiology has uncovered some totally unexpected facts about living things, as Susan Perry and Jim Dawson report in their book The Secrets Our Body Clock Reveal.
Although I don't agree with all things stated in this link, you can find more information on this subject here...
Bible Study - You Have Questions. The Bible Has Answers!
To my knowledge, no one predicted the extreme regularity of molecular relationships that we now call the molecular clock, but this phenomenon became "just what evolutionary theory would predict" -- after the theory was substantially modified to accommodate the new evidence. Even then, the circaseptan rhythm still appears to have no natural parallel within nature to tune itself to.
This message has been edited by Mr. Ex Nihilo, 06-08-2005 11:19 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 196 by wj, posted 06-07-2005 6:42 AM wj has not replied

  
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