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Author Topic:   Can science say anything about a Creator God?
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


(1)
Message 256 of 506 (695450)
04-05-2013 11:11 AM
Reply to: Message 243 by designtheorist
04-05-2013 1:06 AM


Re: Blue Jay
I haven't presented the model yet . . .
Ever the tease.
On the other hand, perhaps you will look at the evidence closely and say "That's not so unexpected. Fine-tuning is easily explained by chance. There's no support here for a Creator God hypothesis."
We won't know until you actually present the evidence. So why don't you present the evidence and find out?

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 Message 243 by designtheorist, posted 04-05-2013 1:06 AM designtheorist has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


(1)
Message 257 of 506 (695451)
04-05-2013 11:12 AM
Reply to: Message 254 by designtheorist
04-05-2013 10:20 AM


Re: Hello PaulK
quote:
I have to be honest and say I have not read it yet. I have heard the youtube video of Penrose describing his calculation. I've read Paul Davies talking about his calculation. It was Victor Stenger who wrote that it was this Penrose book that gave the calculation. I plan to get the book before I start the Penrose debate.
You won't find much there. Certainly nothing to support your claim.
quote:
Where do you see a false claim in that message?
I see two claims, both false. I'll grant that one is phrased as a belief but it does imply that you have significant support for that belief.
That is tenet of faith for some people who belong to the church of chance and infinity. I believe the view is demonstrably false.
quote:
I was stating my opinion. Are you saying if I state my opinion and you believe my opinion is wrong, then you conclude I'm lying or making a false claim?
If you state your opinion as if it were a fact - as you did - and your opinion is incorrect then obviously you are making a false claim. And I would suggest that if you claim that something is "easily demonstrated" you are asserting rather more than merely having an uninformed opinion - indeed the implication is that you CAN demonstrate it. Which, of course, is completely untrue.
quote:
I'm pointing out that your statement is your opinion and not fact.
Well there's one false assertion. It IS a fact. And pretty easy to understand if you know what a probability is.
quote:
In addition, I believe your opinion is demonstrably false. But that does not mean I am in the position to demonstrate it at this point
In fact you said that you believed it was EASY to demonstrate. And I have to ask what basis you have for your opinion ? Do you think that probability theory is fundamentally wrong ? That multiplication stops working for large numbers ? That infinity is finite ? What ?
And why shouldn't you be in a position to demonstrate it ? The math is pretty simple. I can demonstrate that I'm right, and I started to do so.
quote:
I'm not making things up and I'm not lying. These ad hom attacks are really not working for you. Maybe you should try another approach.
If you don't like people pointing out that you are making false assertions with little to no valid support then STOP DOING IT.
Edited by PaulK, : General improvements.

This message is a reply to:
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 258 of 506 (695471)
04-05-2013 2:12 PM
Reply to: Message 252 by designtheorist
04-05-2013 10:02 AM


Re: Dr. Adequate defending Stenger
My views on gravitation are in line with the standard textbooks. Are there errors in my thinking? Possibly but I'm not denying the existence of the gravitational field. That's Stenger.
Dr. Adequate has cited several such textbooks and wikipedia.
The gravitational field is defined to be the gravitational force felt by a test object at particular points in space due to a gravitational mass. Since there is no force, but rather a disturbance in space-time due to the presence of a mass, then there is no gravitational field.
The above is standard, Einstein based physics. I'm sure that such physics is not taught in every physics textbook, but Stenger and people who study physics beyond the undergraduate level will find it in their text books.
What do you think Lawrence Krauss would say of Stenger's statement? Do you remember our Zero Net Energy debate? According to Krauss, the negative energy of the gravitational field is equal to all of the positive energy and matter in the universe. You cannot have it both ways.
It turns out that you can do exactly that. Kraus calculation uses Newtonian physics. You can speak in both Newtonian terms and in the language of general relativity. Which one is most technically correct?
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 252 by designtheorist, posted 04-05-2013 10:02 AM designtheorist has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 259 of 506 (695473)
04-05-2013 2:41 PM
Reply to: Message 255 by bluegenes
04-05-2013 10:29 AM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
The hypothetical situation we're discussing doesn't assume that this universe is the only one possible.
No, it assumes that there is only one in existence. In other words, our assumption is that before the big bang, many were possible. But we've had only one attempt and now there is only one. The other universes are now impossible according to the possibility we are exploring.
What you are essentially arguing is that if we pick from a bag of 1,000,000 red marbles and one blue marble, we should not be the least bit surprised if we get a blue marble on only one pick. I'm suggesting otherwise.

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 255 by bluegenes, posted 04-05-2013 10:29 AM bluegenes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 260 by Tangle, posted 04-05-2013 2:53 PM NoNukes has replied
 Message 271 by bluegenes, posted 04-06-2013 7:25 AM NoNukes has replied

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


(1)
Message 260 of 506 (695474)
04-05-2013 2:53 PM
Reply to: Message 259 by NoNukes
04-05-2013 2:41 PM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
no nukes writes:
What you are essentially arguing is that if we pick from a bag of 1,000,000 red marbles and one blue marble, we should not be the least bit surprised if we get a blue marble on only one pick. I'm suggesting otherwise.
Which is the creationist argument.
But the counter argument is that we don't know how many balls and of what colour are in in the bag, so we don't know whether we should be surprised or not.
Only if we had perfect knowledge of what's in the bag (and to extend the argument whether there is only one bag), can we faint with surprise when the ball emerges.

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

This message is a reply to:
 Message 259 by NoNukes, posted 04-05-2013 2:41 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 263 by NoNukes, posted 04-05-2013 3:52 PM Tangle has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 261 of 506 (695478)
04-05-2013 3:30 PM


Some reading for the interested
In his book The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning, Stenger attempts refute the idea that the universe is fine tuned at all. FWIW, I'm not personally convinced that this it is possible to make this case on Stenger's terms. I believe instead that some kind of pre-selection or multi-universe argument is a better response.
In short, specific constant values are required not just to produce life, but to get the universe through stages of the BBT. It seems likely (to me) that once those hoops are jumped through, the constant issue is settled. I would need to know natural processes cannot produce fine tuning, there is no need to reach for the multi-verse explanation until we get to the point of knowing a lot more detail than we know now. Fine-tuning = design is really no different than the arguments for detecting designed life vs evolved life.
You can peek into Stenger's book here:
The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe Is Not Designed for Us - Victor J. Stenger - Google Books
Here are some resources that might be helpful. The first link in Stenger's rebuttal to some of the criticisms that have been leveled at him:
"Defending The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning"
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1202/1202.4359.pdf
Here also is are a couple of articles leveling criticisms at Stenger. Some if, not all of them do not seem to be written by people who do not understand physics. I note in particular that they are head and shoulders above the level of BS designtheorist spouts here.
Stenger's Fallacies" or "The Fine-Tuning Evidence is Convincing
http://home.messiah.edu/...s/Fine-tuning/Stenger-fallacy.pdf
"The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life"
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1112.4647.pdf
Despite the fact that I believe designtheorists attempts are well off the mark, I don't want to create false impression that there is no argument whatsoever to be made that the universe is fine tuned. In fact, on his web page, Stenger cites some leading physicists who disagree with him on his particular argument. But each of those scientists still avoid the conclusion that fine-tuning invariably means designed. I think those opinions are well worth a peek, so I link to them below.
Page not found | Philosophy | University of Colorado Boulder | University of Colorado Boulder.
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

Replies to this message:
 Message 262 by Tangle, posted 04-05-2013 3:44 PM NoNukes has not replied

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


Message 262 of 506 (695479)
04-05-2013 3:44 PM
Reply to: Message 261 by NoNukes
04-05-2013 3:30 PM


Re: Some reading for the interested
noNukes writes:
I don't want to create false impression that there is no argument whatsoever to be made that the universe is fine tuned.
It's definately their best argument and the only one worth spending time on. But possibly only because we know so little about the universe(s).

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

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 Message 261 by NoNukes, posted 04-05-2013 3:30 PM NoNukes has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 263 of 506 (695480)
04-05-2013 3:52 PM
Reply to: Message 260 by Tangle
04-05-2013 2:53 PM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
Which is the creationist argument.
But the counter argument is that we don't know how many balls and of what colour are in in the bag, so we don't know whether we should be surprised or not.
I think we can make some attempts at assessing the probabilities. There are a number of papers available where people do just that. I don't think there is much doubt that the particular combinations of parameters that produce life are rare. But creationists also make the leap that a rare occurrence means design. I'm saying that a rare occurrence simply demands an explanation.
But in any event, bluegenes seems to think he can make his point even while allowing me to make the probabilities as tiny as I wish.
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 260 by Tangle, posted 04-05-2013 2:53 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 265 by Tangle, posted 04-05-2013 4:33 PM NoNukes has replied
 Message 266 by Taq, posted 04-05-2013 5:02 PM NoNukes has replied

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


Message 264 of 506 (695484)
04-05-2013 4:33 PM
Reply to: Message 252 by designtheorist
04-05-2013 10:02 AM


Re: Dr. Adequate defending Stenger
No, you didn't.
Yes I did.
Your "defense" consisted only in questioning gravitational attraction, not the gravitational field.
This is, of course, not true.
What do you think Lawrence Krauss would say of Stenger's statement? Do you remember our Zero Net Energy debate? According to Krauss, the negative energy of the gravitational field is equal to all of the positive energy and matter in the universe. You cannot have it both ways.
If the field is a only useful accounting device, then the accountancy can still work.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 252 by designtheorist, posted 04-05-2013 10:02 AM designtheorist has not replied

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


Message 265 of 506 (695485)
04-05-2013 4:33 PM
Reply to: Message 263 by NoNukes
04-05-2013 3:52 PM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
noNukes writes:
I don't think there is much doubt that the particular combinations of parameters that produce life are rare.
The calculations are above my pay grade, but there's a article in last week's New Scientist that basically says we actually know very little of the basic functioning of the universe, we're a bit stuck and are awaiting the next big idea.
For example, to get back to trivial statistics, inorder to know whether the 3 sixes that have just turned up on the 3 dice is an occasion for excitement we need to know how many times the dice have been thrown.
Darren Brown once filmed himself tossing ten coins all day until ten heads turned up. In the film shown it was one take and an amazing feat. (Try youtube)
And as you say, we have no idea whether the conditions at the time of the dice roll preordanes the outcome. (Or at least I don't).
I'm saying that a rare occurrence simply demands an explanation
But isn't a rare occurrence simply a rare occurrence? The explanation need only be chance. Surprising, but still chance.

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

This message is a reply to:
 Message 263 by NoNukes, posted 04-05-2013 3:52 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 266 of 506 (695486)
04-05-2013 5:02 PM
Reply to: Message 263 by NoNukes
04-05-2013 3:52 PM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
I'm saying that a rare occurrence simply demands an explanation.
I am of the opinion that every occurrence is rare. It only happens that we think some outcomes are more special than others. What are the odds of a planet like Venus occurring in another solar system? Probably about the same odds as another Earth, isn't it? Venus is just as special as Earth is from a probability standpoint. If we were able to find other universes and found one that had laws that did not allow for life, the odds of that universe occuring with those specific laws is still the same as the probability of our universe having the laws it has.
One of the ways we fool ourselves is to put more importance on one outcome over the other. Spend some time around professional baseball players and you will run into this type of human flaw. Superstitions are quite common in dugouts. Gambling addictions are often fed by the psychological condition where memories of winning are better remembered than losing. We tend to ignore the times something didn't work and only focus on the times it did work.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 263 by NoNukes, posted 04-05-2013 3:52 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 267 by NoNukes, posted 04-05-2013 5:41 PM Taq has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 267 of 506 (695489)
04-05-2013 5:41 PM
Reply to: Message 266 by Taq
04-05-2013 5:02 PM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
I am of the opinion that every occurrence is rare. It only happens that we think some outcomes are more special than others.
Really. So you believe that there is nothing objectively special about rolling ten die once and having ten threes show up. This despite the fact that a three itself has no particular meaning.
I am not addressing gambler's fever here because I don't see the relationship. I'm still pondering it.
If we were able to find other universes and found one that had laws that did not allow for life, the odds of that universe occurring with those specific laws is still the same as the probability of our universe having the laws it has.
Well the assumption here is that values of some parameters used to describe universes are randomly selected, and that the overwhelming majority of the combinations of values do not result in life of any kind. Thus the true comparison should be between the few universes which can support life and those that cannot.
Now those assumptions may not model reality very well, but that's what bluegenes and I are using.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
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 266 by Taq, posted 04-05-2013 5:02 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 297 by Taq, posted 04-08-2013 3:32 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 268 of 506 (695490)
04-05-2013 5:59 PM
Reply to: Message 265 by Tangle
04-05-2013 4:33 PM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
For example, to get back to trivial statistics, inorder to know whether the 3 sixes that have just turned up on the 3 dice is an occasion for excitement we need to know how many times the dice have been thrown.
That's got to be wrong. The result of the throw that just turned up is unrelated to anything that happened in the past. But if just turned up means throwing until you get something you like and then quitting, you are describing something different.

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 265 by Tangle, posted 04-05-2013 4:33 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 269 by Omnivorous, posted 04-06-2013 1:50 AM NoNukes has replied
 Message 270 by Tangle, posted 04-06-2013 3:26 AM NoNukes has replied

  
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 269 of 506 (695497)
04-06-2013 1:50 AM
Reply to: Message 268 by NoNukes
04-05-2013 5:59 PM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
NoNukes writes:
Tangle writes:
For example, to get back to trivial statistics, inorder to know whether the 3 sixes that have just turned up on the 3 dice is an occasion for excitement we need to know how many times the dice have been thrown.
That's got to be wrong.
I don't understand your perspective on this.
If rarities demand explanation, how can we proceed without determining whether it is, indeed, a rarity?
This universe permits life; if it were different, it might not.
So?
How rare is life? I don't know, and I don't think anyone else does, either. But assuming that the appearance of life is a natural process, and that the same physics apply universally, I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe it hasn't happened elsewhere: if only one planet per galaxy gives rise to life, how many planets is that? Could 100-200 billion planets with life constitute rarity?
Is the proposition that our universe is fine tuned for life AND that life within it is extremely rare? That seems odd.
We still don't know if other planets and moons in our own solar system do or did harbor life.
At any rate, the sand trap of "fine tuning" is that it implies agency.
I think the fact that our universe contains life requires no more explanation than the fact that our universe exists at all, and neither fact requires agency.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 268 by NoNukes, posted 04-05-2013 5:59 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 273 by NoNukes, posted 04-06-2013 11:27 AM Omnivorous has replied

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


Message 270 of 506 (695501)
04-06-2013 3:26 AM
Reply to: Message 268 by NoNukes
04-05-2013 5:59 PM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
noNukes writes:
That's got to be wrong. The result of the throw that just turned up is unrelated to anything that happened in the past.
And that is why the Derran Brown film is instructive - his ten heads in a single take feels like magic because we know that the odds of him achieving it on the first throw are tiny.
But even so, if he did achieve it on the first throw, it would still be just chance, remarkable, but still chance.

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

This message is a reply to:
 Message 268 by NoNukes, posted 04-05-2013 5:59 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 274 by NoNukes, posted 04-06-2013 11:31 AM Tangle has replied

  
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