Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
1 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 0/13 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Can science say anything about a Creator God?
designtheorist
Member (Idle past 3833 days)
Posts: 390
From: Irvine, CA, United States
Joined: 09-15-2011


Message 226 of 506 (695328)
04-04-2013 4:25 PM
Reply to: Message 222 by Dr Adequate
04-04-2013 2:06 PM


Re: Dr. Adequate defending Stenger
Well, he's right, isn't he? The moon probably does exist --- do you deny it? But we have more trouble with models of physics involving things that we can't see. For example, the many-universes model of quantum mechanics works just fine, but would you claim that there are many universes?
My point is those words, on the probability the moon exists, are not the words of a scientist. They may be the words of a really bad philosopher, but not a scientist. Any what do you make of his comment the gravitational field does not have to be real? Those words are indefensible.
How about you address his argument using the vast knowledge of physics you don't have?
What are you asking? You want me to argue against the proposition the gravitational force is fictional? Stenger is not even wrong. Every atheist physicist not named Victor Stenger will read this book and throw it against the wall and wish Stenger was a young-earth creationist. It is that bad.
Well, I understand his point. Would you like me to explain it to you?
Yes, please. This will be amusing.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 222 by Dr Adequate, posted 04-04-2013 2:06 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 231 by Dr Adequate, posted 04-04-2013 5:15 PM designtheorist has replied
 Message 232 by NoNukes, posted 04-04-2013 10:57 PM designtheorist has not replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 227 of 506 (695329)
04-04-2013 4:31 PM
Reply to: Message 196 by designtheorist
04-04-2013 1:08 AM


Some stuff about fine tuning.
designtheorist writes:
We know for example what would happen if the strength of gravity was off by just a little.
The strength of gravity has no meaning in modern physics. In old Newtonian physics you could imagine gravity having different strengths by adjusting Newton's constant G. However in General Relativity, G has no meaning, it's just constant that appears because humans happen to measure mass and distance in different units.
The universe is extremely fine-tuned because no set of values, other than the one we have, will work.
This is completely false. See for instance the paper:
Weakless Universe
This is a universe without the Weak Force, that's an entire force removed, not even just a few parameters tuned. Yet it has stars that burn as long as ours do, which make heavy elements and in which planets can be formed.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 196 by designtheorist, posted 04-04-2013 1:08 AM designtheorist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 234 by designtheorist, posted 04-04-2013 11:10 PM Son Goku has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(1)
Message 228 of 506 (695331)
04-04-2013 4:33 PM
Reply to: Message 225 by designtheorist
04-04-2013 4:18 PM


Re: Hi PaulK
designteorist writes:
Penrose is one of the most brilliant men alive today. However, his atheism has driven him to an untenable position. My next thread will have to be on Penrose.
Yup, next thread really needs to be on something, anything, except the evidence.
I'll give you some credit though, you're a different kind of troll.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 225 by designtheorist, posted 04-04-2013 4:18 PM designtheorist has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 233 by NoNukes, posted 04-04-2013 10:58 PM Tangle has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 229 of 506 (695339)
04-04-2013 4:47 PM
Reply to: Message 225 by designtheorist
04-04-2013 4:18 PM


Re: Hi PaulK
Penrose is one of the most brilliant men alive today. However, his atheism has driven him to an untenable position.
So you can appeal to his authority unless you want to ignore him. How nice for you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 225 by designtheorist, posted 04-04-2013 4:18 PM designtheorist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 235 by designtheorist, posted 04-04-2013 11:15 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(1)
Message 230 of 506 (695343)
04-04-2013 4:53 PM
Reply to: Message 225 by designtheorist
04-04-2013 4:18 PM


Re: Hi PaulK
Penrose is one of the most brilliant men alive today. However, his atheism has driven him to an untenable position. My next thread will have to be on Penrose.
Will that thread contain a long list of bare assertions just like this thread?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 225 by designtheorist, posted 04-04-2013 4:18 PM designtheorist has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 231 of 506 (695347)
04-04-2013 5:15 PM
Reply to: Message 226 by designtheorist
04-04-2013 4:25 PM


Re: Dr. Adequate defending Stenger
My point is those words, on the probability the moon exists, are not the words of a scientist.
Really? I was under the impression that they were written by the scientist Victor Stenger. Now, would you like to argue that the moon probably doesn't exist, or will you let him have that one?
What are you asking?
I was asking for an argument, you've supplied me with rhetoric.
You want me to argue against the proposition the gravitational force is fictional? Stenger is not even wrong. Every atheist physicist not named Victor Stenger will read this book and throw it against the wall and wish Stenger was a young-earth creationist. It is that bad.
Hmm, let's ask physics professor Robert Lambourne, shall we? On page 165 of his book Relativity, Gravitation and Cosmology, he writes: "talking of the 'pull' of gravity or gravitational 'attraction' would be quite wrong, since there is no gravitational 'force' in general relativity".
Likewise physicist Rickard M. Jonsson, in his paper "Visualizing curved spacetime" writes: "Notice, however, that there is no gravitational force in general relativity."
Similarly, the physicist Edmund Bertschinger, in his Introduction to Tensor Calculus for General Relativity, writes: "From the viewpoint of GR, there is no gravitational force. Rather, in the absence of electromagnetic and other forces, particles follow the straightest possible paths (geodesics) through a spacetime curved by mass."
Isn't google great? Or you could just have used Wikipedia: "Phenomena that in classical mechanics are ascribed to the action of the force of gravity (such as free-fall, orbital motion, and spacecraft trajectories), correspond to inertial motion within a curved geometry of spacetime in general relativity; there is no gravitational force deflecting objects from their natural, straight paths."
Yes, please.
His point is that the figure you get is produced by making a fairly arbitrary comparison of two things. As he writes: "Barnes similarly misrepresents the case I make against one of the most common, fine-tuning claims, that gravity is 39 orders of magnitude weaker than electromagnetism, and, if this were not so, we would not exist. I point out the elementary physics fact that this is only true for a proton and electron. In general, the relative strength of the two forces depends on the masses and charges of the particles involved."
This is evidently true. If, for example, you used a proton and an antiproton, you'd get a different figure.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 226 by designtheorist, posted 04-04-2013 4:25 PM designtheorist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 236 by designtheorist, posted 04-04-2013 11:20 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 232 of 506 (695380)
04-04-2013 10:57 PM
Reply to: Message 226 by designtheorist
04-04-2013 4:25 PM


Re: Dr. Adequate defending Stenger
You want me to argue against the proposition the gravitational force is fictional?
Yes. I want to see your attempt to do exactly that. It might be a bit less funny than watching you laugh at your betters.
One more example to add to the designtheorist does not understand physics well enough to debate cosmology list. Of course heading the list is the 40 posts it took in the 'Does the universe have total net energy of zero' thread to convince you to accept basic algebra.
I also cite this admission from that thread.
This is another of the times that I wish I had taken the GR course in grad school!
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 226 by designtheorist, posted 04-04-2013 4:25 PM designtheorist has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 233 of 506 (695382)
04-04-2013 10:58 PM
Reply to: Message 228 by Tangle
04-04-2013 4:33 PM


Re: Hi PaulK
Yup, next thread really needs to be on something, anything, except the evidence.
I think designtheorist is claiming to have shown us some evidence already.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 228 by Tangle, posted 04-04-2013 4:33 PM Tangle has not replied

  
designtheorist
Member (Idle past 3833 days)
Posts: 390
From: Irvine, CA, United States
Joined: 09-15-2011


Message 234 of 506 (695383)
04-04-2013 11:10 PM
Reply to: Message 227 by Son Goku
04-04-2013 4:31 PM


Re: Some stuff about fine tuning.
This is a universe without the Weak Force, that's an entire force removed, not even just a few parameters tuned. Yet it has stars that burn as long as ours do, which make heavy elements and in which planets can be formed.
First, thank you for drawing this paper to my attention. This is a nice contribution to the discussion.
Second, I haven't read the paper yet and so I cannot comment on it directly. My guess is that the authors have left something out of their calculations. I could be wrong and look forward to reading the paper and doing a little research.
Third, even if the paper is right regarding the universe as a whole, the planet still needs the weak interaction. Without the weak interaction, the planet would not have plate tectonics and I don't believe the planet could support large animal life.
Thank you again for this contribution!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 227 by Son Goku, posted 04-04-2013 4:31 PM Son Goku has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 272 by Son Goku, posted 04-06-2013 11:02 AM designtheorist has not replied

  
designtheorist
Member (Idle past 3833 days)
Posts: 390
From: Irvine, CA, United States
Joined: 09-15-2011


Message 235 of 506 (695384)
04-04-2013 11:15 PM
Reply to: Message 229 by Dr Adequate
04-04-2013 4:47 PM


Re: Hi PaulK
So you can appeal to his authority unless you want to ignore him. How nice for you.
You are missing some important comments I made earlier. No one has been able to bring any doubt to Sir Roger's calculations regarding the chance of a low entropy universe from the Big Bang. Victor Stenger mentions Penrose's calculation but makes no attempt to refute him. On the other hand, several people have refuted Penrose regarding his book on the Cycle Theory.
This is not me accepting what I want to hear and rejecting what I don't want to hear. Penrose calculations hold up in one instance and they fail in the other. Penrose is brilliant but even brilliant men are wrong sometimes. If not for Penrose's atheism, he would not have been pushed to return to the Cycle Theory.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 229 by Dr Adequate, posted 04-04-2013 4:47 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 238 by Dr Adequate, posted 04-04-2013 11:41 PM designtheorist has replied
 Message 245 by PaulK, posted 04-05-2013 1:26 AM designtheorist has not replied

  
designtheorist
Member (Idle past 3833 days)
Posts: 390
From: Irvine, CA, United States
Joined: 09-15-2011


Message 236 of 506 (695385)
04-04-2013 11:20 PM
Reply to: Message 231 by Dr Adequate
04-04-2013 5:15 PM


Re: Dr. Adequate defending Stenger
This is what Dr. Stenger wrote:
"The moon is probably real. But the gravitational field does not have to be." P. 53, The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning.
Okay, defend that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 231 by Dr Adequate, posted 04-04-2013 5:15 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 237 by Dr Adequate, posted 04-04-2013 11:28 PM designtheorist has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 237 of 506 (695386)
04-04-2013 11:28 PM
Reply to: Message 236 by designtheorist
04-04-2013 11:20 PM


Re: Dr. Adequate defending Stenger
"The moon is probably real. But the gravitational field does not have to be." P. 53, The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning.
Okay, defend that.
Okay, let's start at the beginning. Have you ever looked up at the night sky and seen a shiny thing looking something like this?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 236 by designtheorist, posted 04-04-2013 11:20 PM designtheorist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 240 by designtheorist, posted 04-05-2013 12:18 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 238 of 506 (695387)
04-04-2013 11:41 PM
Reply to: Message 235 by designtheorist
04-04-2013 11:15 PM


Re: Hi PaulK
You are missing some important comments I made earlier.
I was unaware that you had ever made any important comments.
No one has been able to bring any doubt to Sir Roger's calculations regarding the chance of a low entropy universe from the Big Bang. Victor Stenger mentions Penrose's calculation but makes no attempt to refute him. On the other hand, several people have refuted Penrose regarding his book on the Cycle Theory.
I'm not inclined to take your word for that, as I have no confidence either in your research skills or in your ability to distinguish a successful refutation of a hypothesis in physics from a hole in the ground.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 235 by designtheorist, posted 04-04-2013 11:15 PM designtheorist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 241 by designtheorist, posted 04-05-2013 12:19 AM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2698 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


(1)
Message 239 of 506 (695388)
04-04-2013 11:43 PM
Reply to: Message 198 by designtheorist
04-04-2013 1:26 AM


Hi, DT.
designtheorist writes:
If you think you are irritated, think of how I feel.
I imagine it must be terribly frustrating for you. I've been in your position, and I know how frustrating it is when nobody else seems capable of understanding something that seems to obvious to you.
Maybe someday you'll equate that frustration with cognitive dissonance, and recognize what it means. Or, maybe you'll continue to be frustrated at how stupid everybody else is. I don't know, but I'm genuinely sorry that I seem to have only exacerbated your frustration.
designtheorist writes:
If you are going to equate this new model, the RTB Creation Model, with phlogiston theory or the geocentric model, why bother to interact with me at all?
I can't do anything with this "new" model, because you haven't presented it yet. So, all I can talk about is the generic idea of creation or intelligent design.
These generic ideas have been rejected for the same reason that the phlogiston theory and geocentric model were rejected. That's the only comparison I have attempted to make between these ideas: they are obsolete scientific ideas that haven't been serious contenders in scientific circles for a very long time. Maybe this RTB model is different, but what reason have you given me to believe that?
I've been on EvC for almost as long as I've been a professional scientist: five years. In that relatively short time, I've seen my fair share of creationists claiming to have stumbled upon some new model that completely changes everything. But, from my perspective, it always seems like the same ol' creationism described with some different words.
That's the history you're contending with. You may very well have a fantastic, new idea that will revolutionize science; but, at this point, you sound to me just like a dozen others that have come before you. It's not your fault that we're all so jaded, and it's unfortunate for you that you have to contend with that, but a person does get so tired of trying to make an honest effort to consider everybody's "new" version of creationism all the time.
designtheorist writes:
I have consistently presented you with questions and opportunities to think scientifically about the question of whether science can say anything about a Creator God. I get comments but very little that is substantive. What I mainly see here is complaining, whining and name-calling.
Your questions and opportunities are not as scientific as you think they are. You asked what evidence would lead us to consider intelligent design. You might as well asked me what evidence would lead me to consider grooglesnark. I don't know what grooglesnark is, so I can't tell you what evidence might lead me to consider it as a scientific hypothesis.
In the same vein, I don't know what you mean when you say "intelligent design." I don't know what tools your intelligent designer might have been using to design, I don't know what personality traits might be influencing your designer's specific design decisions, I don't know what laws of physics your designer might have used to design and create the laws of physics for our universe, and I don't know what your designer's purpose or motivation is for designing. If I don't know specifics like this, then I can't tell you what evidence would lead me to accept this design hypothesis.
I have tried to make predictions based on intelligent design in the past. I have stated that I would accept X or Y as evidence for intelligent design. Creationists then present me with some extremely dubious and unconvincing examples that are vaguely similar to the X and Y I identified, or they complain that my standards are misguided.
Please present your model, and I will gladly attempt to determine what evidence I would accept as supporting it.

-Blue Jay, Ph.D.*
*Yeah, it's real
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 198 by designtheorist, posted 04-04-2013 1:26 AM designtheorist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 243 by designtheorist, posted 04-05-2013 1:06 AM Blue Jay has replied

  
designtheorist
Member (Idle past 3833 days)
Posts: 390
From: Irvine, CA, United States
Joined: 09-15-2011


Message 240 of 506 (695389)
04-05-2013 12:18 AM
Reply to: Message 237 by Dr Adequate
04-04-2013 11:28 PM


Re: Dr. Adequate defending Stenger
C'mon, Dr. Adequate! You are ignoring the important issue. Defend Stenger's statement that the gravitational field does not have to be real.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 237 by Dr Adequate, posted 04-04-2013 11:28 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 242 by NoNukes, posted 04-05-2013 12:47 AM designtheorist has not replied
 Message 244 by Dr Adequate, posted 04-05-2013 1:25 AM designtheorist has replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024