The problems of big bang theory. What are they?

Maddenstein writes: That's an appeal to authority of those entitled to an opinion according to you.

You are wrong. Nobody is saying that the people on the list are not entitled to their opinion. But I don't find those opinions credible simply based on the number of opinion holders. Not every opinion is valid or worthwhile. Why should I believe that these opinions are the least bit persuasive.

Seriously AM, do you yourself find that list of sceptics the least bit impressive? Would you find a list of 100 physicists with contrary opinions convincing?

Well, as far as I understand the group of people or rather the movement or direction that has grown out of the original statement unites the people who fully share only in the opinion that the Big Bang cosmology is fundamentally incorrect and therefore should not enjoy the current monopoly and stranglehold on such things as the research grants, observation time given and so on. Otherwise, they all may well disagree among themselves. The fellow who is currently heading the dissent is Hilton Ratcliffe and he is a practical astronomer. What he advocates is freeing the observation from any prior theoretical assumptions. That is, as much as such freedom is possible. So he is not encouraging too much any complete theories of everything.

I find that to be quite a reasonable stance for the ultimate nature of existence is not anything possible to test. Unless you could put time and the universe in a test-tube, there may always remain disagreements on such issues as whether time could have possibly had a beginning and the Universe an origin. It all goes beyond empirical science as such, thus the issue at hand is highly ideological,- it spans religion and politics just as well and unless ideologies compete freely, they stagnate or become totalitarian. Neither any of that can be decided by any show of hands, so any numbers whether those of the majority or the minority are irrelevant. You can't possibly vote the Big Bang in and out of happening.

I didn't see an answer to either of my questions. Not really surprised.

Well, if you read closer you may find that I gave an extended answer to both of your loaded questions while nicely extracting the load. For our minds are already made up- you find the BBT to be a decent scientific theory and I find it an utter creationist rubbish so the question of what might be convincing to any one of us two has no common ground to be answered from.

I know IamJoseph is currently suspended but this is a question that I need to ask.

Does anyone have any idea where IamJoseph gets his information from?

I have been looking for definitions and usage of his common phrases hoping I might be able to make sense of his arguements. I felt there was a possibility that he may be actually making sense but I was not getting understanding his usage of english.

Most information posted can be fairly easily tracked. Of you take a few key words from someones post and punch it into google, you can often find a source. Maybe not the same source but usually something that has the same sort of info.

Many creationist claims can be tracked this way.

With IamJoseph, I cant find any sources.

After doing keyword searches for common IamJoseph phrases like -

"Genesis is a scientific premise".

This phrase exists in two places. His posts on this forum and another EvC forum (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=103151) posted by IamJoseph where he has since been banned for "Repeated offenses: intellectual dishonesty, hate speech, trolling".

"universe's finite factor"

This phrase appears in 3 places. His posts on this forum. several posts on the previously mentions sciforum where he has been banned and an unregulated open discussion forum called frostcloud (http://www.frostcloud.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13079&pa...) in a message posted by IamJoseph. He is still active there but it is uncontrolled and unrestricted and you could post anything you want.

"indivisable and irreducible entity" I also tried with the correct spelling

There are some mentions of this phrase but on pages not related to cosmology or the Big Bang. There are other mentions of forums posted by IamJoseph. This page is one of them. Frost cloud is another, where a physicist is trying to explain why he is wrong about his views on singularities.

"Evolution was introduced in Genesis"

Agian, no real sources. Just posts by IamJoseph. Over here at Liberty News Forum (http://www.libertynewsforum.com/cgi-bin/news/YaBB.pl?num=...), same old rants, different people telling him he has no idea what he is talking about. Also here at Chabad.org (http://www.chabad.org/...e_cdo/AID/1012196/ShowFeedback/true), where he attempts to correct the Rabbi who wrote the article in a reply titled 'Evolution was introduced in Genesis.'. And another forum filled with his rantings. He has been banned from this site for multiple breaches of their code of conduct, Innapropriate posting: Nationalism and the belittlement of religious groups; derogatory remarks to religious, national or ethnic groups and members, jingoism, bigotry, racism, political propaganda. (http://archive.worldhistoria.com/topic25470.html)

"the Hebrew bible is the first alphabetical book"

Again, no credible sources. Just his rantings on this forum and over at the Science, philosphy chat forums, where he has also been banned. (http://www.philosophychatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=88&t=1...). And also here on a history site where he has been indefinitely suspended for religious preaching (http://www.historum.com/.../15612-syrian-palestinians-4.html).

"The universe works via magestic laws"

I found he has his own youtube page because this phrase is on one of his comments (rants) His handle is Elvischallenge but all of the comments are the same. (https://www.youtube.com/user/ELVISCHALLENGE#p/f), also on frost where he actually defined what he means by majestic laws : A law is majestic when it transcends the barriers of religions and beliefs.

I searched for "there is no one in the universe" and the word "duality"

He has a blog. It is called : There is no one in the universe. The only post is "There is no "one" in the universe". he has no subscribers. (http://thereisnooneintheuniverse.blogspot.com/...rchive.html).

Most of the phrases I searched for appeared multiple times in the same bunch of sites. I performed a fair few other phrase searches using quotes commonly used by IamJoseph. I came up with nothing. I was hoping that, as he wont supply his sources, maybe I could find them and this would help our debates.

What I found is that the only one saying these things is IamJoseph.

The only other possability is that he uses books. Maybe some of these phrases are just outdated and only appear in older books and have not migrated onto the internet.

Can anyone help me out? Anyone know of any uses of the common phrases IamJoseph anywhere other than his posts?

Edited by Butterflytyrant, : No reason given.

Portillo writes: You say that only creationists reject the big bang.

No, I certainly did not. I said the overwhelming majority of people who reject the BB are creationists. Please don’t put words in my mouth.

Portillo writes: But the cosmologystatement.org which was signed by many non-creationist scientists have suggested that the big bang is not a good explanation of how the universe began.

No, only a very small percentage of those people who signed had any relevant scientific training to even have an authoritative opinion on the Big Bang. I wouldn’t actually put much trust in the opinions of people like Engineers, Geologists, Philosophers, and Janitors when they discuss the Big Bang.

Portillo writes: In 1989 the editor for Nature magazine, John Maddox, wrote an editorial called "Down with the Big Bang".

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maddox

Wikipedia writes: Maddox penned an editorial in April 1983 entitled "No Need for Panic about AIDS" that voiced the then-common thinking that "male homosexuals should be persuaded to change their ways" of "pathetic promiscuity" and described AIDS as a "perhaps non-existent condition".

How deliberately wrong can a person be, in contradiction with observed reality and scientific consensus. I would thus not really take his opinions very seriously.

Portillo writes: He wrote, "Creationists and those of similar persuasion, seeking support for their opinions, have ample justification in the doctrine of the big bang. That, they might say, is when and how the universe was created." He then declared the big bang "philosophically unacceptable".

Philosophically unacceptable doesn’t mean scientifically unsound. It just means that it doesn’t agree with his philosophy.

Does anyone have any idea where IamJoseph gets his information from?

I think everyone knows that no one knows what IMJ talks about. His biblical stuff has better sentence construction, I think.

But that is like saying my cat Smudge has better sentence construction than my cat Fletcher.

My point is every knows about IAJ and has for years. Don't get caught in his orbit.

quote:

---

No, I certainly did not. I said the overwhelming majority of people who reject the BB are creationists. Please don’t put words in my mouth.

---

Yeah but plenty of non-creation scientists also reject the big bang or are uncomfortable with the theory. Einstein said that it "irritates me", Arthur Eddington called it "repugnant", Phillip Morrison said "I would like to reject it", Robert Jastrow said "it was distasteful to the scientific mind."

Butterflytyrant writes: Can anyone help me out? Anyone know of any uses of the common phrases IamJoseph anywhere other than his posts?

I have found that if you type some of his more frequent phrases into google, you can find all the other forums he posts on.
His version of English is apparently unique.

Well, not at all. He makes a good point about singularities being a pure mathematical fancy and not possible physically in any way, shape or form and that point is common to many a thinker, Albert Einstein included.
His way of expression is different from any one else not the content of his idea.

Portillo writes: Yeah but plenty of non-creation scientists also reject the big bang or are uncomfortable with the theory.

What do you call plenty? Even if it is a hundred, I hope you realize that scientists relevant to the Big Bang (Physicists, Cosmologists, etc.) number more than a million in this world. A list of, even if it gets to 100 (it does not), does not mean ‘plenty’.

Portillo writes: Einstein said that it "irritates me", ...

Einstein died in 1955. The BB theory started gaining wide-spread acceptance in the relevant scientific community after 1964, due to some important discoveries. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

Wiki writes: After the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964, and especially when its spectrum (i.e., the amount of radiation measured at each wavelength) was found to match that of thermal radiation from a black body, most scientists were fairly convinced by the evidence that some version of the Big Bang scenario must have occurred.

Einstein had no idea what evidence for a Big Bang that was discovered after his death.

Portillo writes: Arthur Eddington called it "repugnant",…

Died 1944. Why do you even mention him?

Portillo writes: Phillip Morrison said "I would like to reject it",…

Please note that from your quote he said :“I would like to reject it ….”. What did he say afterwards in that same sentence? I know, I’ve got the reference. See if you can find it. It suffices to say the he accepted the BB. It’s the same as you quoting me saying : “ I would like to reject the fact that smoking is bad for me…” , then not quoting the rest of my sentence:..”but, people die from it, therefore I accept that smoking is bad for me.” See if you can find the full quote Phillip Morrison. (Hint: you won’t find it in creationist sources. Try scientific sources!).

Portillo writes: Robert Jastrow said "it was distasteful to the scientific mind."

Oh, did he? Any reference to this? Can’t find it anywhere except in creationist web pages who all refer to each other. He did support the BB theory, because he said the following about the BB.: "....the circumstances of the big bang- the fiery holocaust that destroyed the record of the past"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jastrow

Wiki writes: His expressed views on creation were that although he was an "agnostic, and not a believer", it seems to him that "the curtain drawn over the mystery of creation will never be raised by human efforts, at least in the foreseeable future"due to the circumstances of the big bang-the fiery holocaust that destroyed the record of the past".

So, your homework, Portillo, is to find the full quote from Phillip Morrison. I'm not going to spoon-feed you all the actual and factual information. Can't you think for yourself before writing something down? Aren't you even a little bit inquisitive on whether something you read is actually based on reality and the truth and/or whether the information might have been upgraded by more evidence since it was written down all those years ago?

Edited by Pressie, : Added a reference

Edited by Pressie, : Changed another sentence

Edited by Pressie, : Added the last paragraph

Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

All that would be very well if those who are qualified to grasp the Big Bang were confined to themselves existing on a separate island in deep, deep blue sea where they would be discussing among themselves all the intricacies of the nucleo synthesis, background radiation anisotropies, critical densities and the perfection of the universal flatness, etc . Persuading each other what an overwhelming plethora of detail all those offer to serve as a definite proof that the existence had indeed popped out of nothing in order to expand into nowhere.
Unfortunately in spite of the intrinsic impossibility of those complicated matters being explained in a way to make sense to the commoners by the caste of those well qualified, it is those simple-minded janitors, engineers, geologists and philosophers on whose faith in the correctness of the explanations offered by the elite of mathemagicians, the very upkeep and existence of the mathemagicians entirely depends.
No janitors' faith that the elite is not crapping off their mouths with the equations,- no grants, no tenures, no respect and no food on the table of the smart expert, I am afraid. The equations as such are known to possess a rather poor nutritional value.

I'm not a native English speaker, but can normally comfortably understand what is written down on web sites such as these.

Please try writing this in English. I didn't understand anything. I even tried to decipher it using my native language, but is still is one long word salad. Then I also tried the Oxford dictionary, but it still makes no sense.

A few more full stops, commas and paragraphs would go a long way in deciphering this. Then all those irrelevant phrases. I caught the words "nutritional value" strung together (both words make sense, strung together they also make sense) somewhere near the end (or was it near the end, I don't know where it fits, although it was written down near the end). How does it fit in with the Big Bang Theory? That doesn't make sense.

Why do all these creationists always have to write in riddles or Cantonese or Hebrew or something else, using apples and tomatoes and all other types of fruit and veggies to write something about scientific phenomena on an English language web site?

Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

Hi BFT,

You keep trying to engage with IAJ, so I want to finally say a few words about this.

The creation/evolution controversy has a long record of attracting loons. IamJoseph is just one of many here. Dawn Bertot, Robert Byers, Bolder-dash and John 10:10 are others who have posted recently.

Before Dover the presence of the certifiables was balanced by others who could articulate a position and argue it rationally, but after Dover their numbers gradually dwindled until today there are almost none here. ID disgraced itself at Dover and is no longer effectively promoting itself, and creationism has decided to keep a very low profile, refraining from any overt actions that might bring it into court but working hard to influence school boards and individual teachers. The result of the cessation of overt efforts to convince the public of their views is that the creationists who come here are either woefully unprepared, or they're seriously disconnected from reality, or they speak English so poorly they understand little that is said (by themselves or anyone else), or all of these and more.

There seems something about holding beliefs contrary to reality that forces disassociation. Just look at TrueCreation, an early and highly active YEC participant in EvC Forum's early days who performed his own intense and highly detailed research. He now says he is no longer YEC, but he can't answer a direct question and has become highly circumspect in all his replies, almost like he's waging an internal battle to keep himself from thinking about certain things.

What originally drew me in to the creationism/evolution controversy was creationism's inability to articulate a rational position while insisting it deserved inclusion in public school science programs. It was the legal battles that first garnered my attention. In the old days many creationists who came to sites like this could muster very strong arguments for their position that required careful attention, but today we get a lot of creationists who seem crazy right from their first post.

I've taken the long way around to say something simple: some of the creationists here who seem crazy really *are* crazy, at least in this discussion board context. Probably in real life they're not really crazy, but religious devotion and sincerity combined with a complete ignorance of science seems to produce the appearance of complete irrationality. Long experience has taught me, and many others here, that's there no point in arguing with a crazy person, and besides, onlookers often can't tell the difference.

There's one key sign, not always exhibited but still helpful, that tells you when it's time to disengage. When you find yourself explaining the interpretation of simple English, head for the hills.

I fully understand the impulses pressing you to engage with IAJ and straighten out his confusion, which seems simple and straightforward and easy to resolve. It appears to you that the presentation of a few simple facts and the walking through of a few logical inductions should straighten everything out. But it doesn't work that way with creationists. When they exhibit a few simple and fundamental errors it isn't because they've just accidentally picked up a few incorrect facts that can be easily corrected, but because they have a whole pathology that prevents them from ever connecting evidence to any ideas contrary to their central beliefs.

--Percy

Edited by Percy, : Minor word change.

Unfortunately in spite of the intrinsic impossibility of those complicated matters being explained in a way to make sense to the commoners by the caste of those well qualified, it is those simple-minded janitors, engineers, geologists and philosophers on whose faith in the correctness of the explanations offered by the elite of mathemagicians, the very upkeep and existence of the mathemagicians entirely depends.

Fortunately, we are moving toward a time when the truth is not dependant on it's popularity or ease of comprehension. There is plenty of nutritional value in a steak but not if you are a herbavore.