Posted on 05/25/2009 9:31:04 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Is 'String' the next big thing?: Theories about cosmic evolution dangle by a thread
by Gary Bates
Most people have heard of the expression ‘the big bang’. Its usage is so prevalent among mainstream scientists and the media that it has become the accepted ‘fact’ for how the universe began. However, there are an increasing number of secular scientists who are sceptical of this theory of cosmic evolution, and much of their scepticism has been caused by increasing discoveries that fly in the face of big bang theory. In May 2004 ‘An Open Letter to the Scientific Community’ signed by dozens of secular scientists was advertised in the renowned New Scientist. At the time of writing this article, the total number of scientists signing the letter who are sceptical of the big bang has increased to over 400.[1]
One of the great problems for those who believe that the universe came into existence by itself is...
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
So what examples of this do you have?
If you were to get in a space ship and travel near the speed of light and go 4 light years away and back, you’d return to earth and only have aged a few weeks while everyone here aged 4 years.
If you go 100 light years, you might age a year, while everyone on earth aged 100 years. That’s how this stuff works. So in a sense there is ‘time travel’ when it comes to gravitation and velocity.
It doesn’t matter if you believe in it or not, it’s a scientific fact.
Why do you always misrepresent the theory of evolution?
> http://creation.com/our-galaxy-is-the-centre-of-the-universe-quantized-redshifts-show
What a great read! Thank you!
I’ve ordered the DVD, Starlight and Time.
17 years on your ship's clock would equal 13,000 years back on earth.
So don't do it!
Have had enough "string" for the last few months, to last me for a while.
Just today finished going through a mile of swordfish driftnet. (Almost) two foot stretch measure mesh, 150 meshes deep, hung (suspended from the float line) at approx 50% open. That means it takes two miles of twine to make each half-mesh. Which means there is something like SIX HUNDRED MILES of string in that net.
Had enough string...was starting to have "netmares" where I'd be cutting and trimming ragged mesh and sewing it back into square & right, in my sleep. Don't want no more string theory. Have got your string theory hanging. ;^)
Spoken like a true Luddite.
“Actually what is done is to assume they exist, and then figure out what observable things that should be seen if they do. Then you go look for those things or effects. “
Unfortunately, you’re describing the practice of science. That will get you nowhere with this crowd.
The DVD is cool. I also recommend Dr. Humphreys’ book by the same title. He keeps the complex stuff in the appendix, and manages to cover quite a bit in a very brief number of pages.
All the best—GGG
Why?
Time does run slower in orbit do to relativistic effects (time dilation). And it must be taken into account when using GPS or they’d be worthless. And it’s an entirely separate matter from the lag in time it takes signals to get from satellites to receivers, which must also be taken into account
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html
“String theory is presently completely unobservable and untestable. However, its advocates would also claim that it is not falsifiable, and therefore, it might be correct.”
—I would LOVE to see a single citation of an advocate of string theory who made such a claim.
One instance that string theory was tested was when the WMAP pics came in.
“Attempts to prop up this theory in the face of increasing problems have led to many weird hypotheses invoking mysterious unseen forces known as ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ to basically hold the universe together or to push it apart.”
—Neither dark matter nor dark energy were proposed by Big Bang cosmologists.
Dark energy was initially proposed by Einstein (or the cosmological constant as he called it) who was a Big Bang skeptic. In fact, he initially used it to OPPOSE Big Bang cosmology which had recently been proposed by a Christian physicist, Georges Lemaitre. After Hubble’s observations showed clear evidence of an expanding universe, Einstein called it his biggest blunder. The blunder, however, wasn’t in proposing dark energy or the cosmological constant (as such “negative pressure” of a vacuum is clearly predicted by his theory of general relativity) but in how he used it.
Dark matter was proposed by Zwicky, who likewise did not believe in the Big Bang, to explain some peculiar movements within galaxies. Galaxies were behaving as if there were certain regions of space exerting gravity, although no matter could be seen.
Today, using the movements of star clusters, we can actually map out and predict where blobs of dark matter ought to be. To test whether certain regions of space really are exerting gravity, and that we weren’t merely somehow miscalulating how the clusters should be moving, they recently tested to see if the proposed locations of globs of dark matter perform gravitational lensing. And, indeed, gravitational lensing does take place, and to the degree predicted.
The article makes a lot of bizarre claims about string theory. I’m not a string theory advocate or critic (as I really don’t know enough about it), but AFAIK it’s raison d’etre is as a way to reconcile relativity and QM into a single coherent theory. How is such a thing “bordering on the heretical”? There are a lot of Creationists that hate aspersions that they are anti-science - this article doesn’t exactly help their cause.
“there are an increasing number of secular scientists who are sceptical of this theory of cosmic evolution, and much of their scepticism has been caused by increasing discoveries that fly in the face of big bang theory. In May 2004 ‘An Open Letter to the Scientific Community’ signed by dozens of secular scientists was advertised in the renowned New Scientist. At the time of writing this article, the total number of scientists signing the letter who are sceptical of the big bang has increased to over 400.”
—Most of the signature’s are from those that have no background in cosmology, and of those that do I recognize many as the old few remaining guard of the steady-state theory (I was quite pleasantly surprised to see the signatures of Hermann Bondi and especially Thomas Gold as I didn’t think they were still among us. Then I saw that the signatures are from back in 2004 and found that Gold died the same year and Bondi a year later. They’ll be missed. A member of the same clique, and a personal hero of mine, Fred Hoyle, died in 2001, or he would have undoubtedly had signed as well.) The signatures are not from an “increasing number of secular scientists”, but a dying group (literally).
It’s a rather strange, disconnected, and unresearched article. I will say though that the picture of the alien was a cute touch.
Referencing Kaballah again, one could make the argument that while Intelligent Design was used by JHVH, in a manner of speaking, it is no longer involved, as such. To explain:
In Kaballah, JHVH created the universe to answer a question, “Is there anything that isn’t me?”, or the equivalent. To do this, JHVH created a situation of “contraction”, a place where there wasn’t JHVH. Into this void, through the use of a very complicated “bolt of lightning”, JHVH materialized a single particle, which was to endlessly replicate and form increasingly complex arrangements, eventually at the end of the universe to form a “mirror”, reflecting JHVH.
Then JHVH could see if there was anything that was not JHVH, and the universe would cease to exist and the void would again be filled with JHVH.
By this description, though JHVH created the initial particle, since then it has been up to the endless iterations of the particle to do the rest and create the mirror.
So JHVH using Intelligent Design, but then the universe doing so on its own ever since.
While this is a very crude summary of that part of Kaballah, it does present a case for both Intelligent and natural design.
Wouldn't one who believes in Thor be a believer by definition? In any case, please allow me to be more explicit: I was speaking in this case of Christian mythology.
Creationists base their view of the universe on observation and proven science which is in keeping with the Biblical description of Creation.
Allow me to sum up the next dozen or so posts: I quote source after source that I believe supports my position, and you do the same for yours.
I do have a question for you, though.
Let us suppose strictly for the sake of argument that I provide you with clear, unmistakable scientific evidence that the universe is billions of years old and that evolution occurred as described by modern science. You try to refute it, but cannot. Would you conclude at that point that the Biblical description of Creation is incorrect?
(Just for the record, were you to provide me with clear, unmistakable evidence scientific evidence that the Biblical description of Creation was correct, I would have no choice but to change my position and agree.)
"So it is refreshing to hear from a theorist – one who was deeply involved with string theory and championed it in his previous book, Three Roads to Quantum Gravity – that all is not well in this closeted realm. Smolin argues from the outset that viable hypotheses must lead to observable consequences by which they can be tested and judged. That is, they have to be falsifiable. Newton's theory of gravitation, for example, could later account for the orbit of Halley's Comet – not just those of the Moon and planets for which it was originally formulated. But string theory by its very nature does not allow for such probing, according to Smolin, and therefore it must be considered as an unprovable conjecture."
[[While this is a very crude summary of that part of Kaballah, it does present a case for both Intelligent and natural design.]]
Meh not so much- chemicals can not produce metainformation- and naturalism can not overcome chemical, biological, impossibilities-
[[So what examples of this do you have?]]
There are myriad- happy hunting- look for ID and evidence against naturalism- you shoudl be busy for hte next couple of weeks
So you made an assertion but you cannot provide examples to support that assertion?
That is very telling.
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