Darwin Goes to Church

Washington Post ^ | 9/18/2005 | Rev. Henry G. Brinton

[curiosity]

Most adult Sunday school classes don't raise eyebrows, but my church is planning to hold one that's sure to. It's called "Evolution for Christians," and it will be taught this winter by David Bush, a member of the church I lead, Fairfax Presbyterian. David is an articulate government retiree who has been interested in this topic for nearly two decades, teaches a class on theories of the origins of life every five years or so, and once again has really done his homework. His view is that science and religion answer two different sets of questions about creation, with science answering the "how" questions, and religion answering the "why" ones. "With a little bit of wisdom and tolerance on each side," he tells me, "I think they can complement rather than contradict each other."

[Just mythoughts]

Was that 1/3 described as fallen angels? I though it was a third of God's children that follow the devil, in the first earth age, reason why there is this flesh age. Aren't the "fallen" ones described in Jude?

[Just mythoughts]

I don't think the anti-God evolutionist cares what happens after flesh.

[RadioAstronomer]

---God could have simply established those laws at the same time He created the Universe. Just because there are oil and coal deposits, doesn't mean He couldn't have created the Earth with them in place, knowing that we would someday need them.----

Does that include all of the light coming from distant galaxies? How about the CMB, Lyman alpha forest, gravitational lensing, Boomerang data, nuclear decay and half-life, phylogeny, geological column, Hertzsprung-Russell diagram and stellar evolution, galactic formation, stellar nurseries, Earth/ Moon tides and lunar recession, dating rocks, continental drift, galactic rotation, colliding galaxies, supernova, 3rd generation star formation, fine-structure constant, etc?

CMB:

http://www.astro.ubc.ca/people/scott/cmb_intro.html

http://background.uchicago.edu/

http://www.astro.ubc.ca/people/scott/cmb.html

Lyman alpha forest:

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/Lyman-alpha-forest.html

Gravitational lensing:

http://www.iam.ubc.ca/~newbury/lenses/lenses.html

Boomerang data:

http://cmb.phys.cwru.edu/boomerang/

http://www.nersc.gov/news/annual_reports/annrep00/02compsci_boomerang.html

Nuclear decay and half-life:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nuclear/halfli2.html

Phylogeny:

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibit/phylogeny.html

http://tolweb.org/tree/phylogeny.html

Geological column:

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/help/timeform.html

Hertzsprung-Russell diagram and stellar evolution:

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~soper/Stars/hrdiagram.html

http://cassfos02.ucsd.edu/public/tutorial/StevI.html

Galactic formation:

http://galileo.as.utexas.edu/research.html

Stellar nurseries:

http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Bima/StarForm.html

Earth/ Moon tides and lunar recession:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moonrec.html

Dating rocks:

http://earth.leeds.ac.uk/dynamicearth/dating/

Continental drift:

http://kids.earth.nasa.gov/archive/pangaea/

Galactic rotation

http://web.mit.edu/davidl/www/astro.pdf

Colliding galaxies:

http://orca.phys.uvic.ca/~patton/openhouse/collisions.html

Supernova and SN1987A:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-earth/additional_topics/supernova.html

Population I and Population II type stars:

http://www.astro.umd.edu/education/astro/mw/pop.html

http://www.answers.com/topic/stellar-population

Fine-structure constant

http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Constants/alpha.html

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/04/18_deep2.shtml

And lastly here is a good overall site:

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm

[RadioAstronomer]

You may want to really study the links I provided in 203. Good info there.

[RadioAstronomer]

Thanks! Just completed a total cleaning of my system.

[js1138]

I don't know what's blocking what, but that site just came up blank, then disabled my back button. I don't like hitting the abuse button, but I'm tempted.

[curiosity]

St. Paul was talking about human spiritual death in Romans 5. If he was saying physical death was impossible before the Fall, what was the purpose of the tree of life?

I don't see how any of the other quotations you cite contradict evolution.

[RadioAstronomer]

Dont hit abuse. It's ok. Want that post to stand!

[RadioAstronomer]

Just ran a test on that site. (Other than a blocked popup) there was only your typical tracking cookie.

[RadioAstronomer]

Some links you may like.

[Just mythoughts]

"None of these prove the Big Bang, since scientific theories are not proven."


Thank you for the truck load of information. I will go through it, although it may take some time.

Now while it is acceptable in the mind of a scientists that theories are not proved that really causes my mind difficulty. Do you not see how easily it is to use this statement to declare all things theories and not proved to gain advantage. Apply this thought to the legal system, or an economic system, or even political system, or for that matter a religious system. Our society is based upon majority vote makes one a winner. My mind is disciplined upon the process that things are right or wrong not theorized to a majority thought.

[curiosity]

You poor fundamentalists, who deny the truths God left for us in His creation and invent false science to bolster your false theology and call God Almighty and His Christ a liar.

Search both creation and the scriptures, for they both testify of the Christ and disregard the man-made traditions of creationism and intelligent design, FALSELY SO CALLED.

[Stark_GOP]

I was being balanced and pointing out that everyone uses the same debating techniques.
I've thought about it; maybe you should too.

[RadioAstronomer]

Now while it is acceptable in the mind of a scientists that theories are not proved that really causes my mind difficulty

Here is a nice page of what a theory is:

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

"In common usage a theory is often viewed as little more than a guess or a hypothesis. But in science and generally in academic usage, a theory is much more than that. A theory is an established paradigm that explains all or many of the data we have and offers valid predictions that can be tested. In science, a theory can never be proven true, because we can never assume we know all there is to know. Instead, theories remain standing until they are disproven, at which point they are thrown out altogether or modified slightly.

Theories start out with empirical observations such as “sometimes water turns into ice.” At some point, there is a need or curiosity to find out why this is, which leads to a theoretical/scientific phase. In scientific theories, this then leads to research, in combination with auxiliary and other hypotheses (see scientific method), which may then eventually lead to a theory. Some scientific theories (such as the theory of gravity) are so widely accepted that they are often seen as laws. This, however, rests on a mistaken assumption of what theories and laws are. Theories and laws are not rungs in a ladder of truth, but different sets of data. A law is a general statement based on observations."

For Laws:

"A well-known example is that of Newton's law of gravity: while it describes the world accurately for most pertinent observations, such as of the movements of astronomical objects in the solar system, it was found to be inaccurate when applied to extremely large masses or velocities. Einstein's theory of general relativity, however, accurately handles gravitational interactions at those extreme conditions, in addition to the range covered by Newton's law. Newton's formula for gravity is still used in most circumstances, as an easier-to-calculate approximation of gravitational law. A similar relationship exists between Maxwell's equations and the theory of quantum electrodynamics; there are several such cases. This suggests the (unanswered) question of whether there are any ultimately true physical laws, or whether they are all just cases where our sensory and rational apparatus have generated mathematically simple approximations, valid within the range of normal human experience, to unobtainable true formulas."

Let me post my personal example of gravity:

A little history here: Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

“Every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force directed along the line of centers for the two objects that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the separation between the two objects.”

F=Gm₁m₂/r²

Where:

F equals the gravitational force between two objects
m₁ equals the mass of the first object
m₂ equals the mass of the second object
R equals the distance between the objects
G equals the universal constant of gravitation = (6.6726 )* 10^-11 N*m²/kg² (which is still being refined and tested today)

(BTW this is a simple form of the equation and is only applied to point sources. Usually it is expressed as a vector equation)

Even though it works well for most practical purposes, this formulation has problems.

A few of the problems are:

It shows the change is gravitational force is transmitted instantaneously (Violates C), assumes an absolute space and time (this contradicts Special Relativity), etc.

Enter Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity

In 1915 Einstein developed a new theory of gravity called General Relativity.

A number of experiments showed this theory explained some of the problems with the classical Newtonian model. However, this theory like all others is still being explored and tested.

And finally:

From an NSF abstract:

“As with all scientific knowledge, a theory can be refined or even replaced by an alternative theory in light of new and compelling evidence. The geocentric theory that the sun revolves around the earth was replaced by the heliocentric theory of the earth's rotation on its axis and revolution around the sun. However, ideas are not referred to as "theories" in science unless they are supported by bodies of evidence that make their subsequent abandonment very unlikely. When a theory is supported by as much evidence as evolution, it is held with a very high degree of confidence.

In science, the word "hypothesis" conveys the tentativeness inherent in the common use of the word "theory.' A hypothesis is a testable statement about the natural world. Through experiment and observation, hypotheses can be supported or rejected. At the earliest level of understanding, hypotheses can be used to construct more complex inferences and explanations. Like "theory," the word "fact" has a different meaning in science than it does in common usage. A scientific fact is an observation that has been confirmed over and over. However, observations are gathered by our senses, which can never be trusted entirely. Observations also can change with better technologies or with better ways of looking at data. For example, it was held as a scientific fact for many years that human cells have 24 pairs of chromosomes, until improved techniques of microscopy revealed that they actually have 23. Ironically, facts in science often are more susceptible to change than theories, which is one reason why the word "fact" is not much used in science.

Finally, "laws" in science are typically descriptions of how the physical world behaves under certain circumstances. For example, the laws of motion describe how objects move when subjected to certain forces. These laws can be very useful in supporting hypotheses and theories, but like all elements of science they can be altered with new information and observations.

Those who oppose the teaching of evolution often say that evolution should be taught as a "theory, not as a fact." This statement confuses the common use of these words with the scientific use. In science, theories do not turn into facts through the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the end points of science. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation, experimentation, and creative reflection. They incorporate a large body of scientific facts, laws, tested hypotheses, and logical inferences. In this sense, evolution is one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have.

[katana]

Nice summation of why many or most scientists actually profess a belief in God.

They study and are fascinated by the intricacies of nature's mechanisms. Most of them can grasp that the existence and infinite subtlety of those mechanisms, much less our ability to observe, interpret, and appreciate them, implies the existence of a "creator". Far from disproving the existence of God (physical science can hardly ever "prove" or "disprove" anything - that is the realm of logic and mathematics), science helps us understand how the physical universe operates and allows us to manipulate its forces, for good or ill.

To the extent that there are some teachers who don't understand this and tell their students that "see, this is scientific and God had nothing to do with it" then the teaching of evolution as a "fact" instead of a theory that complies with what we observe in nature, then I can see why the devoutly religious resent it. But I'm not particularly comfortable with the alternative of forcing the teaching of the Biblical story of creation or Intelligent Design by law or edict of a school board either.

[newgeezer]

Actually for hundreds of years we reckoned a "day" to be 12 or so hours of sunlight(depending upon the season and your latitude)and the "night" to be the 12 or so hours of dark. Each day and night was EXACTLY 12 hours

Thus, man obviously recognized the CYCLE of a day plus a night, ...

So how many "hours" are there in a "day" as reckoned "from the beginning" did you say there were?

... and he gave it a name. In English, that 24-hour period just also happens to be called a 'day.'

[Just mythoughts]

"In common usage a theory is often viewed as little more than a guess or a hypothesis. But in science and generally in academic usage, a theory is much more than that. A theory is an established paradigm that explains all or many of the data we have and offers valid predictions that can be tested. In science, a theory can never be proven true, because we can never assume we know all there is to know. Instead, theories remain standing until they are disproven, at which point they are thrown out altogether or modified slightly."


This does go to the heart of the matter, and while you may think you can separate "science" from all other knowledge, it depends upon whom is in charge.

Say there had been no Darwin, and the process of the scientific thought had not evolved, there would be the expectation that what ever else the consensus thought be accepted.

To say no one has disproved Darwin is a theory.

[newgeezer]

It's just not possible for God to have created the stars zillions of light years away, and for us to see the light from them, if He created them only a few thousand years ago.

All things are possible with God. Placing light in space presents no challenge at all. When He spoke light into existence, I don't confine Him to building a light source and waiting around for the light to overcome the darkness. He transcends time and space. Always has and always will.

That violates the physical laws that God created, and there is no evidence ever seen by anybody that God does such things, so I can't believe it.

Every miracle is a violation of physical laws. How do you explain the virgin birth (assuming you believe it) without violating physical laws?

[RadioAstronomer]

Historically, time has been measured by the rotation of the Earth on its axis and the time it takes to rotate once about the Sun (a year). However, both of these are not uniform enough for precise calculations.

One of the units of time is called the second. It used to be defined as 1/86,400 of a Mean Solar Day. This was good enough for early calculations, but don’t forget that the Earth is slowing down due to tidal forces so that ends up changing over time. After a number of intermediate steps the second was finally redefined as:

The duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom. (Atomic time), also known as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Since the Earth is slowing down approximately 1.4 milliseconds per day per century, this deceleration causes the Earth’s rotational time to vary from atomic time. The current true (instantaneous) rotation rate of the Earth is called UT1 (which is a non-uniform rotation). Over a period of a year the difference between it and UTC can approach a full second. However, since the Earth’s rotation is non-uniform, it is monitored continuously. If the difference between UT1 and UTC approaches 0.9 seconds, a leap second is added or subtracted from UTC to keep it uniform with the Earth’s rotation. So far all of the leap seconds have been positive. This correlates with the Earth slowing due to tidal braking.

Note: Since the GPS time does not have leap seconds added or subtracted, it is diverging with UTC with every second added to UTC. Currently it is different by 13 seconds.

The last time a leap second was needed was clear back in 1999. Remember, the deceleration of the Earth is not uniform. There may be a number of factors that cause this non-linearity such as snow and ice loads, earthquakes and others we haven’t even thought of. This could account for this long delay between leap seconds. This certainly is not a permanent condition. The Earth will continue to slow down and the deceleration will still vary. One final item: There is an ongoing debate whether to do away with leap seconds all together and just go with UTC. The problem with this is, over an extended period of time, the hours will no longer be tied to the solar day and noon may well end up in the evening. Another suggestion is to redefine the period of one second to more closely match the current rotation of the Earth. This too has its problems as the second will required “redefining” periodically as the Earth continues to slow down.

[newgeezer]

Yes, I've long been fascinated by how we measure time. (My friends thought I was nuts for buying one of the earliest radio-controlled 'atomic' watches some years back. But, it freed me from having to spend the time to set my watch to the top-of-the-hour chime on the radio every month or so. ;)

Thanks for posting that.