Darwin, Evolution and His Critics - Part 2 Darwin's Escape from God

Ankerberg Theological Research Institute ^ | Dr. John Ankerberg and Dr. John Weldon

[Right Wing Professor]

A reasonable hypothesis, based on his own writings, is that he was in grief over the loss of his favorite daughter, age eight.

Since when was a belief in God necessary to become an Anglican clergyman, anyway?

Note to the humorless; in the UK, the C of E is the butt of humor in the same vein as used about the UUs in America. The Anglican clergy was archetypically where the upper classes stowed those sons who were too stupid to be active in public life and without the physical attributes necessary for the military.

[RobRoy]

As someone once said, we used to know nothing about everything. Now we know everything about nothing.

[Alamo-Girl]

Well said, RobRoy! Thank you for your reply!

[betty boop]

Parallel universes are big now, not just the imagination of a few quantum physicists.

Yes, I know RightWhale. And so is extraterrestrial life. Which i think is funny in a way: We seek out other universes before we even understand our own, and extraterrestrials when we haven't got any evidence that they really exist.

I have an astrophysicist friend who insists the Big Bang was the result of a vacuum fluctuation, meaning that the vacuum pre-existed the space-time continuum of the physical universe. No "ex nihilo creation" for my friend! Of course, his observation is totally unfalsifiable, and therefore would not qualify as a "scientific statement."

But cosmology is a ton of fun anyway. :^)

Thanks so much for writing!

[Dataman]

It seems to me there is a profound difference between the "strictly scientific," rationalist, "blinkered" viewpoint so mindlessly promulgated by persons and institutions in positions of power these days, and the viewpoints of everybody else. The latter actually consult reality every now and then, up close and personal.

But "direct consultation with reality" is the sort of thing that ideologues ever seek to avoid -- like a vampire avoids garlic, crucifixes, mirrors, and silver stakes....

You're in good company:

Schaeffer's allegory of "the universe and two chairs." The parable says that there are two men sitting on their chairs in a closed room. The room is all there is, so that it would be possible to study the room and come up with some valid theories about it within a relatively short time. But the one man is a materialist and the other is a Christian. When the materialist finishes his study, in which he benefits from the tools of modern disciplines such as chemistry, biology, physics, etc., he shares his conclusions with the Christian, who then tells him his findings are "drastically incomplete." What he is missing is the Bible, which holds the key to the story. Without it, the materialist will never know the origins of the universe, nor the reality of the invisible world, nor a true philosophy of history.

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[RightWhale]

The negative vacuum pressure will produce equal amounts of bosons and fermions in several stages, which will exist for a while {a few trillion years in our solution state} and then collapse only to start over. Kind of like breathing.

[betty boop]

The negative vacuum pressure will produce equal amounts of bosons and fermions in several stages, which will exist for a while {a few trillion years in our solution state} and then collapse only to start over. Kind of like breathing.

Very Buddhist, RightWhale: It postulates an eternal universe (a universe that did not have a beginning), that just always is, waxing and waning forever.

But my point would be this: Everything that we know about in a scientific way, that is, what we can observe, demonstrate, falsify, is an existent of the space-time continuum. As Jeff Barbour writes:

Cosmologists tell us that at one time there was no universe as we know it. Whatever existed before that time was null and void -- beyond all conception. Why? Well there are a couple answers to that question -- the philosophic answer for instance: Because before the universe took form there was nothing to conceive of, with, or even about. But there's also a scientific answer and that answer comes down to this: Before the Big Bang there was no space-time continuum -- the immaterial medium through which all things energy and matter move.

To assert there was some sort of entity (i.e., the universal vacuum) that we associate with existence in space-time existing "prior" to the Big Bang (an event that has been well validated by studies of the cosmic microwave background radiation) effectively boils down to a "faith statement" -- for there is simply no way the statement can be falsified.

What we know about the evolution of the universe we know by "reversing the arrow of time" and going back and back, as close as we can get to the event of the Big Bang itself, and applying the physical laws to explain what we observe in this sort-of "reverse-engineering" process. And what we find is that the physical laws "break down" in the first moment of Planck time immediately following the Big Bang. Thus we have no tools to tell us anything, really, about the exact nature of the Big Bang, e.g., of what it consisted, etc., let alone its source. At best all we can have is a conjecture -- but there would be no way to qualify it as factually true.

To put it another way, the Big Bang is at "time-zero," T₀; from T₀ to T₁ is the "Planck era" -- that first infinitessimally teensy "moment" of spacetime.

Your "Buddhist model" wants to say that there was a T_-0 in which the Big Bang was "set up." And then time began to run (to to speak), from T_-0 to T₀ to T₁ to T_n.... But our scientific tools only kick in at T₁ and following Ts.

FBO our Lurkers, the Planck length is roughly equal to 1.6 x 10^-35 m or about 10^-20 times the size of a proton.

The Planck time is the time it would take a photon travelling at the speed of light to travel a distance equal to the Planck length. This is the ‘quantum of time’, the smallest measurement of time equal to 10^-43 seconds.

No smaller division of time has any meaning. Within the framework of the laws of physics as we understand them today, we can say only that the universe came into existence when it already had an age of 10^-43 seconds.

And so we don't know -- and can't find out -- anything about the "before" Big Bang scenario in principle.

We may conjecture away to our heart's content; but we'd be unable to scientifically demonstrate that conjecture.

Which is why I said earlier that such a conjecture actually does have the character of a "faith statement," every bit as much as "divine creation ex nihilo" has the character of a "faith statement."

It is likely that one or the other is actually true. But science has no way to tell us which.

Well, FWIW. Thanks so much for writing, RightWhale! Neither statement is falsifiable, demonstrable.

[gobucks]

This, I think, is a tragedy of modern science.

I can see why you'd say this. But I'd like to offer this as an alternative explanation (and you don't have to reply, for this is kind of a musing as well):

Modern scientists are punished for 'big picture' thinking. How? Publications and grants, the methods by which scientists are incented, are strictly driving the increasing discretization of scientific disciplines.

Scientists are discredited and scorned if they make declarative statements outside their 'discipline'. Thus, they are dis-incentivized to be broadly educated. This is a fact, and bona fide autodictats w/i science (or any discipline) are rare.

The ignorance of scientists is less a tragedy, and more of an intentional outcome of a cultural decision by cultural decision makers.

It is purposely designed into the system, just like hollywood is very structured, just like the MSM is extremely structured.

I wouldn't be surprised if a manual exists which documents the Cultural Purpose of Credentialing Institutions. Relatively, organizations which produce research, but do NOT also at the same time issue credentials .... virtually non existent. And I think that is by design.

The real product at heart is a 'credentialed' individual, not the research of the supervising scientist. The politics of Credentials are the essence of why 'modern science' is so limited compared to where it could be.

Thus, it is not an accident either when you witness from afar all these seemingly different disciplines result in identical, lock-step, political points of view.

Which makes so many of these evo debates here so suspect to me.

We have self-proclaimed 'conservatives' ardently defending ToE, and ferociously attacking YECs and what not. The party line is that 'we' are hurting the real GOP b/c ordinary folks won't believe what the GOP says b/c Christian creationists sound nutty. Something doesn't make sense regarding this published motive.

We have freeper, self-appointed, angels of "true" right wing thinking swooping down and aggressively attacking the thinking of folks like me - and why? All for the reason of protecting the true ability to 'reason' just so that the GOP itself can be more trustworthy by the 'masses'?

I just don't believe it. Initially, I did. But after the sex stuff, which I initated, came up on the other threads over the last few weeks, and especially the stuff about the movie Dr. Stranglove, which many on the other side cackled about with great hilarity, the issue of false-flagged folks came to mind. The motives of these thoughtful 'right' wingers I am very very suspicious of.

Especially when at least one of them used anti-christ stuff from a Bush-Hating website to defend .... reasonable scientifically-based evolution.

[RightWhale]

what we observe in this sort-of "reverse-engineering" process.

This, according to theoretical physicist Kaku is what has been happening since 1968. The string theory was intuited then {at CERN} from the Euler Beta function, born fully grown in all its 10 or 26 dimensions and perfect, and since then the theory has been back-filled. This the reverse of the way science is supposed to be done and is why it took so long for string theory to get rolling. Now, of course, every academic institution is fully mobilized with young string theorists. Now there are millions of good solutions of which our universe bubble is one.

[RightWhale]

the Planck length is roughly equal to 1.6 x 10-35 m

The smallest length possible. There is nothing smaller.

Or, the physics of lengths greater than the Planck length is matched perfectly by the physics of inverses {1 over} of lengths. Our entire universe might be an inverse and be contained inside a single Planck length. This would encode the entire universe {a google of information bits} in a single Planck length, which we might then play back on a cosmic CD at will.

[Right Wing Professor]

Schaeffer's allegory of "the universe and two chairs." The parable says that there are two men sitting on their chairs in a closed room. The room is all there is, so that it would be possible to study the room and come up with some valid theories about it within a relatively short time. But the one man is a materialist and the other is a Christian. When the materialist finishes his study, in which he benefits from the tools of modern disciplines such as chemistry, biology, physics, etc., he shares his conclusions with the Christian, who then tells him his findings are "drastically incomplete." What he is missing is the Bible, which holds the key to the story. Without it, the materialist will never know the origins of the universe, nor the reality of the invisible world, nor a true philosophy of history.

Schaeffer missed a few hundred people; those who insit the story is incomplete without the Koran, Bhagavad Gita, Navajo creation story, Greek myths, Celtic creation myths....

When it comes down to it, the only one without a missing element that no one else can agree on is the materialist.

[Dataman]

Schaeffer missed a few hundred people; those who insit the story is incomplete without the Koran, Bhagavad Gita, Navajo creation story, Greek myths, Celtic creation myths....

The law of noncontradiction would narrow it down a bit, not? Add to that the logical impossibility of more than one First Cause, more than one omnipotent God, and the field becomes very narrow. The existence of personal beings necessitates the existence of a personal Creator which rules out Allah. Guess what? There's only one God left: The One that the ACLU specifies and the only One the materialists loathe. Coincidence?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your engaging reply!

I certainly agree with you about the degradation of science by political and ideological "correctness". The method of recognition and funding fosters a hive mentality and eschews the out-of-the-box thinkers.

If Darwin or Einstein had to meet today's criteria of peer review to be published they would probably have failed as have a number of Nobel prize winners since their day. Refereed Journals: Do They Insure Quality or Enforce Orthodoxy?

I also agree that there is little tolerance around here among parties when one side or the other - or both - are making an argument with theological import. And I assert that atheism is a religion, too and would thus include its proponents among those who can become brutal or become brutalized.

IMHO, there are only two solutions - either (a) ignore the provocations and junk posts or (b) forgive them and respond with patience and loving kindness.

[Right Wing Professor]

The law of noncontradiction would narrow it down a bit, not? Add to that the logical impossibility of more than one First Cause, more than one omnipotent God, and the field becomes very narrow. The existence of personal beings necessitates the existence of a personal Creator which rules out Allah. Guess what? There's only one God left: The One that the ACLU specifies and the only One the materialists loathe. Coincidence?

Spoken like a true believer. There is no God but God, and Dataman is his prophet.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for including me in your conversation with RightWhale!

Indeed, even a pre-Big Bang vaccum cannot exist absent a space/time structure, a geometry. The same is true of all fields - which are defined as existing at all points in space/time. Ditto for strings which current theory suggests may emerge from geometry (Geometry and String Theory).

Likewise, in all multi-verse, cyclic, ekpyrotic (or other branes) and imaginary time models - geometry must precede all else. Thus there is always a beginning! That is the most theological statement ever to come out of science (Jastrow) and the implication of it (IMHO) is why scientists such as Steinhardt consider it to be a failing of all such models.

The only parallel universe model which is closed is the Level IV model proposed by Max Tegmark. It is closed because all existents in four dimensional space/time are actually mathematical structures in higher dimensionality (non spatial, non temporal, non corporeal). It is a radical Platonist view - but it fits the evidence best. All other theories fail to address the unreasonable effectiveness of math (Wigner, Vafa).

[gobucks]

" IMHO, there are only two solutions - either (a) ignore the provocations and junk posts or (b) forgive them and respond with patience and loving kindness. "

Yep; totally agree. I'm working on that a good bit still, a as well as b.

Providentially, there are a few folks around here who show the way how, thank goodness.

[gobucks]

Dataman,

You'll notice, as I have, that though this thread is rightfully placed in the religion forum, the 'non religious', ha, folks, some of em anyway, have followed.

I think it is a good sign. And fwiw, you are not a bad prophet.

[Right Wing Professor]

You'll notice, as I have, that though this thread is rightfully placed in the religion forum, the 'non religious', ha, folks, some of em anyway, have followed.

Following, of course, the example of those who wish to introduce religion in biology classes. Fair's fair.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your reply and agreement!!! If I may suggest a "leader", betty boop has mastered both (a) and (b).

[Dataman]

I think it is a good sign. And fwiw, you are not a bad prophet.

You'll notice RWP, (PhD) prefers not to attempt a rebuttal but to resort to the sophomoric comparison to Islam. Does he really think "many creator claims, therefore no Creator at all?" That is unworthy of a college freshman let alone a PhD.