Summations Only

These are reasonable statements. Let's probe a little deeper. Science has detected both dark matter and dark energy. We believe they exist because we can see their effects. We can attempt to apply methods to investigate dark matter and dark energy but they are distant and it's difficult to progress. We cannot control them or examine them in a laboratory. Special laboratories have been established to study dark matter, but dark matter is not present in the lab. Is it hot dark matter, cold dark matter or something we haven't thought of yet. Some are suggesting it isn't even matter at all.The point is there is something there and it needs to be investigated. Inquiring minds want to know.There are similarities here to God. Assume for a moment that scientific methods can demonstrate God's effects in creation. We will get to the evidence soon but I want to do a thought experience now. Assume further that this Creator God is the God of the Bible - immaterial, omniscient and omnipresent. He is all around us but impossible to measure or verify using normal scientific methods. Would you pursue other means of inquiry to learn more about this Creator God? If scientific methods were not up to the task of learning more about the Creator God whose effects we can see scientifically, would you be willing to read the Bible or go to church to learn more? This is the approach Allan Sandage chose and I think it is a reasonable and rational response to the evidence.What do you think? Is it possible science can show evidence of God's effects in creation? Would it matter to you if it could?

No. That's not what I'm saying. It's impossible to disprove God's existence in the same way it is impossible to disprove anything that actually exists.I think the RTB Creation model is high in explanatory and predictive power.

I happened to have lunch with Caroline a couple of months ago at a science conference. Yes, she suffered because of her views. Many people in her organization are fearful of retribution. Thomas Nagel is still being persecuted for his criticism of Darwinism and he is an atheist. Not true. Did you watch the video clip? He totally disagreed with Craig Ventner regarding the fact there is not one LUCA. Dawkins obviously is either unaware of the Koonin papers and is in denial. Koonin says we have to stop talking about the tree of life and begin talking about the forest of life. Dawkins has not come to terms with the evidence from genomics. Those are facts. Again, this is not true. Eugenie was quoted correctly. I think if she had time to really think through her answer, it would have been different - but she was accurately quoted. Could you please stop making false assertions about me?

I'm trying to get you to think scientifically. Can you come up with a null hypothesis? Can you come up with an alternative hypothesis?

Come on, Blue Jay, you can do better than that. Think like the scientist I know you are. Before you do an experiment, you want a null hypothesis and an alternative hypothesis, right? Think it through when faced with this scientific challenge.Scientists detect things which are not directly observable regularly. Dark matter and dark energy are two of my favorite examples. If you can see the effects of these things, then you know they exist. You might not know everything about them you might want to know - but you know something is there. We can use the same methods to determine if a supernatural being exists and is active in creation.I'll get you started.You know many scientists have been bewildered and challenged by the Big Bang. What new information about the Big Bang would lead you to consider the possibility Big Bang had a supernatural cause? Can you think of a null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis?You know many physicists, most of them agnostics or atheists, have pointed to the fine-tuned universe and detected design. How much fine-tuning can be explained as accident or chance? How much can be explained some other way? What new evidence would lead you to consider design by an intelligent being? Can you think of a null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis?Many scientists are fascinated with the Cambrian explosion. Can you think of any new evidence regarding the Cambrian that would lead you in the direction of the work of an intelligent being? Can you think of a null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis?Edited by designtheorist, : Didn't like that comma.Edited by designtheorist, : Oops. Left out a word. I hate when I do that!

I think it is valuable for you to do your own reasoning on these points, but I am willing to give you an example. Let's say you are interested in the question of detecting the effects of a Creator God in the area of the fine-tuned universe. Plug in your own numbers here, this is just an example.You may say, if the fine-tuning only involves six parameters and the tuning has a range of 25%, then I would consider that to be not extremely fine-tuned. It could well be these numbers result from pure chance.You may also say, if the fine-tuning involves 20 parameters and the universe falls apart if the value of those parameters is off by 1%, then that is extreme fine-tuning and the universe has to be the result of an intelligent Creator.You need to decide a priori what you expect to find and what those findings will mean to you. Would you say no amount of fine-tuning would convince me a Creator was involved? I cannot. At some point, theoretically speaking, you have to say 'The is beyond the realm of a chance happening. This shows intention and purpose.'I hope that helps.

Yes, if the RTB creation model predictions do not pan out, the model can be proven inferior to other models whose predictions do pan out.

Regarding employees with unreproducible cold fusion results, you ask: I would say: "Your fired!" Sorry, that doesn't work. We have no natural agencies to explain the Big Bang. A couple of hypotheses have been put forward, including a vacuum fluctuation and colliding branes. But these don't work. Again, we will get to the evidence a little later.

Thank you. I did not have the original quote available. I was quoting from Ross's book. In Ross's summary, he uses the terms "direct observations" and "laboratory conditions" which are not terms Eugenie used.Ross summed up her view saying:"She claims that science and scientific testing must be limited to direct observations of events occurring in nature or under controlled laboratory conditions."Ross must feel use of the terms "direct observations" and "laboratory conditions" was justified by her phrase "One cannot use natural processes to hold constant the actions of supernatural forces."It is kind of an odd phrase but it seems to refer to the impossibility of controlling God or his actions while in a laboratory setting. Everyone would agree this is not possible, but not everyone would agree that it is the only way to test for or attempt to detect the effects of a Creator God.Scientists detect the effects of things in nature without "holding them constant" in the laboratory. Two of my favorite examples, as I wrote before, are dark matter and dark energy. We can see their effects in space but there is much we do not know about their true nature.Again, this quote was not intended to be a criticism of Eugenie. No one is trying to say she is a bad scientist. The point is that there are some bad definitions for science floating around. It appears Eugenie has not thought the issue through clearly.

Yes, I will definitely get to the predictions.

Fair enough. Question: Are you familiar with how to construct a null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis? Please forgive me if that question is insulting to you. It's not meant to be. The internet is awkward sometimes. I could be talking to a renowned physics researcher and not know it. At the risk of being obnoxious, I will try to explain a little more what I am hoping to see from the participants here.I am hoping members here will actually publicly offer what they believe is a reasonable null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis for some of the areas we are talking about - such as fine-tuning.Brian Greene did a great documentary for NOVA seen on PBS a while back discussing string theory. It's called The Elegant Universe, I believe. In it, Greene talked about fine-tuning. He stood in front of a big control board with several dials on it - he called it his "universe machine." He explained if he turned one of these dials just a little bit, the stars in the universe would quit shining and the universe as we know it would cease to exist. Imagine the dials have numbers on them from 0 - 100. These numbers represent percentages of the values possible for different constants in physics such as the strength of gravity, the strength of the electromagnetic force, the strong and weak nuclear interactions, the speed of light in a vacuum, etc.Without knowing any more about fine-tuning than that, can you come up with a reasonable null hypothesis and alternate hypothesis regarding the fine-tuned universe?I would suggest that something like this is reasonable:My null hypothesis is that the universe is not extremely fine-tuned beyond what can be explained by pure chance. My null hypothesis would be confirmed if the number of parameters described as being fine-tuned are 10 or fewer and that the range of "living universe" values (values which would allow the stars to evolve and shine, carbon to form inside the stars and rocky planets to exist) would be 5% or greater.My alternate hypothesis is that the universe shows signs of an intelligent Creator if the fine-tuning is extreme and not likely the result of pure chance. My alternate hypothesis would be confirmed if the number of fine-tuned parameters were 20 or more and if the "living universe" range of values were 0.1 percent of the observed value.Does this make sense? Would you be willing to make an attempt at a null hypothesis and alternate hypothesis?

Roger Penrose has mathematically shown any naturalistic cause for the Big Bang to be beyond any realm of chance. As far as I know, no one has even attempted to defeat or contradict his proof. Paul Davies quotes his conclusion approvingly. Listen to Sir Roger here.Sir Roger is an atheist, so I think it is fair to say his success is disproving a naturalistic Big Bang was rather surprising. So much so, in fact, that Roger wrote a book titled "Cycles of Time" in which he tries to revive the Cycle Theory with some new mathematics. Unfortunately, his mathematics (in this case) have some serious problems with physicality.Here's a quote from the blog "Not Even Wrong":
"I should make it clear that I’m not at all convinced by what Penrose is proposing. He needs the distant future of the universe to be conformally invariant, and this requires all particles to be massless. As far as we know the electron is completely stable, with unchanging mass, and this will always ruin conformal invariance. Penrose himself notes the problem. For this to be overcome, whatever our ultimate understanding is of how particles get mass must change so that these masses go to zero in the future. It’s also seems to me that the conformal anomaly of QCD will always be a problem, with quantization and the renormalization group always breaking conformal invariance and giving a mass scale, indefinitely far into the future."
Not Even WrongBy making particles massless, Roger is basically reversing the arrow of time. He is attempting to turn the universe back into a low entropy state. One certain way you can know your theory is in trouble is if it requires a reversal of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.I repeat it again. No naturalistic explanation for the cause of the Big Bang works. Also, no version of the Cycle Theory is viable. Something happened at the beginning of the universe that was beyond the realm and power of nature to perform.Some people will try to discount this evidence with lots of arm-waving and maybe some name-calling, but it has to be considered. Evidence for a low entropy Big Bang coupled with evidence of extreme fine-tuning, well, let's just say the evidence is beginning to mount.The question is: How do we think about these things scientifically? If science can detect the effects of dark matter and dark energy, why can it not detect the effects of the supernatural?

I'm asking the people here to do their own thinking because I believe it is the only way you will grasp it. It is very easy to try to poke holes in someone else's argument, especially if you don't understand the argument. But if you see the point and attempt to do the work yourself, then the evidence will make sense to you.Fine-tuning has been detected by lots of physicists, many of them atheists. They do not have any problem saying fine-tuning presents the "appearance" of design. Fred Hoyle, Freeman Dyson, Paul Davies, Roger Penrose and many, many more have all written and spoken about fine-tuning and the appearance of design. The question is: At what point to we start putting this evidence together and start building a theory around design? There needs to be a way to do that scientifically.Victor Stenger has written a book titled "The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe Is Not Designed for Us." Not to put too fine a point on it, it is a really bad book. You know the book is not going to be what is generally understood as science when Stenger says things like "the moon might be real" and "we can make gravity be whatever we want it to be." Stenger has broken with the other atheists who all express acceptance of fine-tuning, but don't know what to make of it.It appears to me that Hugh Ross has figured out what to make of it and has developed a reasonable and testable creation model. The tests, of course, are the ones we debated in the last thread - mainly explanatory power and predictive success.

You must have a quantum field to have a vacuum fluctuation. But a universe from a vacuum fluctuation is not possible even if a quantum field was present. If a quantum fluctuation did produce both energy and mass, it would be high entropy like a black hole.

This is a common thought among many people. The problem, of course, is that the multiverse is not, in the normal sense, a scientific hypothesis. In order for an hypothesis to be considered scientific it must be falsifiable. The multiverse can never be observed and it cannot be falsified.See Paul Davies.