Bill Nye the Science Guy says creationism not good for kids

Reuters ^ | August 28, 2012 | Lily Kuo

[betty boop]

Are we getting to the point of accepting that LIFE is as much a dimension as time and space? That Life erupts in the Universe of dead matter because a threshhold point where the dimensions can intertwine is reached, much the way dimensions space and time intertwined during the initial setting of conditions done by The Creator?

Fascinating questions, dear brother in Christ! And very possibly, a fruitful hypothesis worth thinking about. (At least, I think so.)

From our spacetime coordinates, it seems clear that the universe does evolve, that it has "expanded" over time. (I.e., inflationary universe theory, which implies a real beginning of space and time.) It had earlier been supposed that this expansion occurs at a uniform rate. However, lately it has been observed that the rate of expansion has accelerated — but no one seems to know why.

The idea of a threshold point where the dimensions of space and time "intertwine" with a life principle — perhaps mediated by a hypothetical biological vacuum field from which all biological behavior arises in a manner analogous to the quantum vacuum field from which all material behavior arises — has recently been seriously proposed by at least one theoretical biologist. On this view, we have some possibility of accounting for how biological information arises and is implemented in the universe.

For I do believe your statement is correct, that:

The very nature of life is ‘processing information,' something dead matter does not do.

A biological vacuum could be the source of the biological information (perhaps mediated by virtual particles; e.g., photons — light, as In "Let there be Light!") an organism needs to maintain itself in existence as an integrated, "whole" living form — which boils down to the practical problem of maintaining maximal distance from entropy for as long as possible.

DNA seems not to be a good candidate for the source of such information. It has been pointed out that DNA is "static" information, of relatively low algorithmic complexity, while biological information processing entails a very high degree of algorithmic complexity.

One proposal holds that DNA is a data base in which basic morphological information about the specific organism is stored. But this information cannot account for the ceaseless activity of the organism in executing necessary life functions such as metabolism, cell repair, replication, etc., and particularly the "end-point selection" necessary to fulfill a biological purpose, which is a function; and then to cohere all the myriads of cellular and organic functions from all levels into a single living organismic system.

Of course, here we are proposing that science cannot afford to ignore teleology, a/k/a Final Cause, which has been banished from science since the day of Sir Francis Bacon....

The hypothesis: Living beings are conscious beings to whatever level their "degrees of freedom" allow. Even single-cell organisms such as the amoeba, or the bacterium, have degrees of freedom; for they display behaviors of learning/forgetting, of simple choices/decisions, and even social behavior.

At this point, I would not identify or conflate life and mind (e.g., consciousness) as my dear brother in Christ, hosepipe, earlier seemed to propose. I'd just say that life is the necessary precondition for consciousness. "Dead matter" cannot possess any form of consciousness.

The hypothesis is, it is dead because it has no access to the biological information mediated by the (proposed) biological vacuum. It cannot "choose" anything. Perhaps its behavior is limited to the description that Richard Feynman's path integral formalism provides. Certainly "dead" matter cannot do anything to keep thermodynamic equilibrium at bay.

Dear brother in Christ, you wrote:

Yet matter follows the initial conditions for it, designed by The Creator. I wonder, does the entropic principle govern dead matter, and an ‘animatic’ principle govern the matter intertwined with life force? ... And a ‘spiriatic’ principle govern life intertwined with spirit dimension?

Your "animatic principle" seems very like the "life principle" alluded to above. And it seems it accords fully with the observation that living beings are above all "information processors," and that the source of biological information is a field, or "dimension" inaccessible to brute matter.

Truly, the behavior of matter "blindly" follows from the initial conditions and physical laws set for it in the Beginning. Living beings have a material (physical) basis stemming from the quantum world. BUT — living beings are more than their material basis. Thus I hypothesize (as I suspect you do also) that they are systems in nature that were "designed" to have access to the information carried in biological vacuum, once a certain "evolutionary" threshold point had been achieved.

IF this is true, then I wouldn't rule out a "spiriatic dimension" in principle.

Boiling it all down, it is my belief that the principle driver of cosmic evolution is the Logos Alpha–Omega of the Beginning; that the Singularity was one heck of a informationally dense (i.e., algorithmically complex) "specifier" (not "determinator") of every aspect of the following cosmic evolution, non-living and — at the threshold point — living organisms as well.

Well, this stuff is really lots of fun to think about — and I feel sure you agree, dear brother in Christ!

Thank you ever so much for sharing your meditations regarding these fascinating issues.

[tacticalogic]

Of course, here we are proposing that science cannot afford to ignore teleology, a/k/a Final Cause, which has been banished from science since the day of Sir Francis Bacon....

Can you demonstrate that you can produce better results with it than without it?

[betty boop]

Can you demonstrate that you can produce better results with it than without it?

"Better results?" I'd say, "better explanations" — or a better explanation than offered by Darwinian theory, which is based on mindless, that is "blind, random processes" in Nature.

Which I attempted to do, in post 301 (just before this one), to which you are responding here.

Did you read it?

[tacticalogic]

"Better results?" I'd say, "better explanations"

What's your metric for that?

[whattajoke]

I referred to aspects of some non-brain phenomena, like the reality of a thought registered in some where/when not measured in brain chemistry.

"Thought" as a non-brain phenomena? I'll admit, you've stumped me there.

merely a quipster of dubious identity. We’ve had fools like you around here before

Everyone likes a good conspiracy.

Do you have other names registered with Freerepublic to fall back upon, when your current identity is zotted?

And everyones LOVES a great conspiracy! Here's a tip, MHGinTN: dust out the cobwebs. You've been here for 12 years, I've been here for 10. We've had discussions over the years. We've seen friends come and go. I've never been zotted, banned or even suspended. I've been reprimanded once or twice. I very well may be banned for arguing that I've never seen evidence for conversational reptiles and if that's the case, so be it.

I've taken breaks from posting on FR from time to time simply because I chose to. I get tired of discussing the obvious with people who choose not to see it. And I get tired of making the same political points to the choir from time to time.

I am fully aware of FR's stance on creationism, science and god. I was aware of it the day I signed on and I'm aware of it now. I'm also aware that some of us choose to think the greater good of the conservative and constitutional cause need not be weighed down by Bronze Age mythology. We have much more important things to fight for. So take your paranoid addled thinking and go talk to some snakes about it.

[betty boop]

What's your metric for that?

Metric???

"Metrics" always involve abstractions from Reality, not Reality itself.

Further, they involve reductions of Reality. A good example of this is David Hilbert's attempt to "reduce" mathematics — a universal language — to only its syntactic elements, omitting all semantic value whatever. It did not work — or rather, such an approach could not survive the implications of Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem.

In short, it is the mathematicians more than any other group of thinkers who keep science "honest."

Or so it seems to me, FWIW.

[tacticalogic]

So, it’s “better”, by no discernible measure?

[MHGinTN]

Fun? Oh YES! But lest we forget, there was a woman who made x-ray photos, whose work stimulated the further imagination of Crick and Watson in finding the double helix explanation for DNA. What a very dull place this would be if imagination were finally banned from science.

[hosepipe]

[ A biological vacuum could be the source of the biological information (perhaps mediated by virtual particles; e.g., photons — light, as In "Let there be Light!") an organism needs to maintain itself in existence as an integrated, "whole" living form — which boils down to the practical problem of maintaining maximal distance from entropy for as long as possible. ]

Information Theory is an interesting subject..
But you got yer good information and you got yer evil information..

Back to square one,.. Good and Evil..
Not to speak of the degrees of difference in them both..
I wonder if good and evil is timestamped?...

Whats good one day may be evil the next.. like that.. vice versa..
A day being a "whatever"...

p.s. boopy did I say anything?... I may be senile..

[betty boop]

Back to square one,.. Good and Evil..
Not to speak of the degrees of difference in them both..
I wonder if good and evil is timestamped?...

Well, just my opinion, dear brother hosepipe, but: The idea that good and evil could be "timestamped" is pretty farfetched from where I sit.

My reasons for thinking that: The Good is eternal, everlasting, a universal principle. Evil — the total inversion of the Good and the True — came along "later." That is, it is part of time as human beings normally experience it.

To me, there is a profound, categorical difference between the two. Thus, in logic, they cannot be directly compared. Certainly they cannot be compared on the basis of "degrees of difference." What are the "degrees of difference" between Light and Darkness?

You wrote:

Whats good one day may be evil the next.. like that.. vice versa.. A day being a "whatever"...

Well, if that's true, then how do you explain why the world outside your doorstep looks pretty much the same (excluding consideration of transitory seasonal effects) when you get up in the morning, day after day?

But that's a puerile question compared to this one: It seems you are describing a situation of perfect moral relativism. Which ultimately dissolves into a situation of total chaos, personal and social. With possible following impacts on the world of Nature.

So my question: How can a man live in such a world? Or better, how long can a man live in such a world, and still be a man?

Other options include: animal and machine. (I'm beginning to suspect that Neodarwinist theory is taking us to the latter, and calling it "biological evolution." Sorry, but that course looks like devolution to me.)

Just some "grist" from boopie, for the "mill" of her very dear brother, 'pipe!

May our Lord ever bless you!

[betty boop]

So, it’s “better”, by no discernible measure?

The "measure" is the Logos of God, Alpha to Omega. That is to say, Truth itself.

Which is not something given up on a silver platter, all at once. Certainly it is no "metric" in your sense. It involves a sustained personal quest over a lifetime.

I know these statements are not "scientific." But then, I am not a scientist, only a student of the history of science.

[tacticalogic]

So you want the scientists to assume an unscientific premise.

[hosepipe]

[ Well, just my opinion, dear brother hosepipe, but: The idea that good and evil could be “timestamped” is pretty farfetched from where I sit. ]

I know some of the arguments for good over evil...

But killing is sometimes bad sometimes good..
Sex is sometimes bad sometimes good..
Ideas are sometimes bad sometimes good..

Its all totally perceptive..

I withdraw to Genesis.. DO NOT even touch the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.. Whether that is a metaphor or a literal Tree the result is the same..

We are consulted to go to God to know good and Evil..
Because as I read it only “He” can determine what is good and what is evil.. Otherwise why not touch it?..

Seems to me quite literally all of human problems come from trying (unsuccessfully) to determine good versus evil..

My supposition that “they”(good/evil) are timestamped could be a reason..
Just a stab in the dark.. but my supposition could very well be “EVIL”... (LoL)..
Depending on the day of the week..

Yes I know one of the Ten Commandments says NOT to murder NOT to NOT kill.. big difference..
Murder can also be perceptive.. sometimes.. even accidental..

Seems good versus evil is not easy to determine..
Example: killing ALL democrats(aka; Amalikites) could ultimately be good for the poor.. that remain..

This is purely a scientific inquiry you understand.. (eyebrow raised, wry smile)..

[betty boop]

This is purely a scientific inquiry you understand.. (eyebrow raised, wry smile)..

Of course it is, dear brother! Hugs!!!

May God ever bless you!

[betty boop]

So you want the scientists to assume an unscientific premise.

I don't want scientists to do anything, except try to get their "science" right.

If they are willfully shutting off lines of investigation a priori, because such lines do not fit their presuppositions, then maybe they can't get "science" right, in principle.

Paging Richard Lewontin (theoretical biologist, celebrated geneticist, self-described Marxist, and Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Professor of Biology at Harvard University, notable atheist — please call your office....

[tacticalogic]

I don't want scientists to do anything, except try to get their "science" right.

If they are willfully shutting off lines of investigation a priori, because such lines do not fit their presuppositions, then maybe they can't get "science" right, in principle.

Are you claiming they are willingly shutting off lines of investigation?

If so, could you tell me exactly what lines of investigation they shutting off, and the methodology that should be used for that investigation?

[Alamo-Girl]

One proposal holds that DNA is a data base in which basic morphological information about the specific organism is stored. But this information cannot account for the ceaseless activity of the organism in executing necessary life functions such as metabolism, cell repair, replication, etc., and particularly the "end-point selection" necessary to fulfill a biological purpose, which is a function; and then to cohere all the myriads of cellular and organic functions from all levels into a single living organismic system.

Indeed.

In Shannon's mathematical theory of communications (the foundation of Information Theory) as applied to molecular biology, the DNA is simply the message. The successful communication of that message is unique to life v. non-life/death in nature.

Thank you for keeping me in the loop and for all your wonderful essay-posts, dearest sister in Christ!

And thank you all for your insights!

Our elderly cousins are here this week and will be staying for at least another week and so I do not have the time to reply as I'd like, but I appreciate being informed.

[betty boop]

...could you tell me exactly what lines of investigation they [are] shutting off, and the methodology that should be used for that investigation?

What is being shut off: (1) Anything having to do with teleology; i.e., Final Cause [goals or purposes in Nature, expressing particularly in biology as biological "functions"]; and (2) anything having to do with the conjecture that the Universe had a Beginning, entailing a First Uncaused Cause, or "Prime Mover" [logically necessary to avoid the infinite causal regression problem, which makes for a literally senseless world].

Senseless here has two meanings: (1) imperceptible by means of sense perception; and (2) imperceptible by means of the mental faculties, owing to a certain fundamental inaccessibility of the "object" under scrutiny.

That is, we never can see anything as it is "in itself." We can only "see" what our senses report. We can have no confidence that such reports give a complete description of that which we observe.

As to the "method," how about open-mindedness — which entails following the trail wherever it leads — common sense, and basic honesty?

But then, there's nothing particularly "metrical" there.

So, where do we go from here?

I think I'm going to get some sleep. So good night, dear tacticalogic! And sleep tight!

[tacticalogic]

I do not know where we go from here.

Science has, of necessity, embraced empiricism, or if you wish the "metrical".

As you observed earlier, it's the mathematicians that keep them honest. Without metrics, they can't do that.

You complain that they've basically mis-managed their research, and want them to change the way they do it. The first order of business is going to be to get rid of the auditors.

[betty boop]

...DNA is simply the message. The successful communication of that message is unique to life v. non-life/death in nature.

Bears repeating, dearest sister in Christ!

I hope you'll have a lovely visit with your cousins. I feel pretty sure they'll keep you busy! I'll keep you in the loop. Don't worry about replying!

Thank you for your kind words!