I need to know to gauge my response.
OIC, another learn-ed one.
Your original post said: I do agree with you that it certainly does not fit the observed evidence.
Okay, here's a little info to kick it off:
1. Big Bang Cosmology/General Relativity VS. What the Bible says:
The first suggestion that laid the groundwork for the 'Big Bang Theory' was by none other than Albert Einstein. His field equation of general relativity predicted an expanding universe. Whether our universe will expand forever or eventually collapse is still debated among cosmologists. In either case, the actual density of matter in our universe is within a factor of ten of the so-called critical density, the point of exact balance between permanent expansion and eventual contraction. But to be so close to this critical density after some 20 billion years of expansion suggests intelligent design. What?!? Yeah, there must have been precise tuning in the earliest moments of the Big Bang for it to work at all. At 10 to the minus 43 seconds after the Big Bang, for instance--the so-called Planck time--the density must have been equal to the critical density to one part in 10 to the 60. If it had been ever so slightly higher, the universe would have collapsed quickly and there would have been no opportunity for life to form. On the other hand, had the density been ever so slightly smaller, the universe would have expanded rapidly and no galaxies, stars, or planets would have formed. Again, no life. Thus, life is the result of fine tuning the density of matter-energy at the Planck time to one part in 10 to the 60!8 But it was the result of an accident, eh?
Are you about to tell me this contradicts the Biblical account? Not really. For all the chest-beating and things you may have heard the Bible says, in reality the Hebrew word used to refer to the astronomical universe is shamayim. That word is used in conjunction with the phrase 'stretch out' several times in the Old Testament.
The concept being that the cosmos is not static and used with the verb natah as an active participle form indicates that the process is ongoing.
IOW, the Bible does not contradict the OBSERVABLE phenomenon of an expanding universe. (And in fact, an expansion that is accelerating.) Whether or not this began as a 'big bang' or some other way is not particularly relevant. God certainly could have empolyed this method to create the universe.
I like this quote regarding the idea of the 'big bang.' In Parade magazine, February 4, 1996, Marilyn vos Savant had a reader who expressed this view as follows: "I assume that you, like most intellectual types, are not a religious person. So what do you think of the Big Bang theory." Ms vos Savant responded: "I think that if it had been a religion that first maintained the notion that all the matter in the entire universe had once been contained in an area smaller than the point of a pin, scientists probably would have laughed at the idea."
Silly but typical. Assume the data is valueless because of the viewpoint of the speaker, but I digress.
2. You queried: How much and to what level ….. stellar evolution, and planetary formation are you familiar with?
I won't claim to be an expert, as I'm sure neither are you, but I am fortunate to be continuously exposed to these concepts via my employer. I work for a company that built several science instruments for Hubble (visible spectrum), produced an infared spectrum telescope called Spitzer and helped built an X-Ray telescope called Chandra. So, we get to be exposed to some very cool stuff as a result. Are you going to propose that the Bible claims all creating on the part of God is over? Therefore viewing new stars being formed is somehow a contradiction? Ha!
Anyway, I'll stop guessing where you are going with this and just read your post. It's nearly 7 PM here and my wife is going to shoot me. I will check back from home. Later.
Please go read a few of RA's past posts on FR before you make gratuitous assumptions about his expertice.
HINT: It is not a random coincidence that his screen name is "RadioAstromomer"....
If I came across as arrogant, I apologize. It was not my intention. I was curious as to what level I should restrict this discussion.
Your original post said: I do agree with you that it certainly does not fit the observed evidence.
Okay, here's a little info to kick it off:
1. Big Bang Cosmology/General Relativity VS. What the Bible says:
The first suggestion that laid the groundwork for the 'Big Bang Theory' was by none other than Albert Einstein. His field equation of general relativity predicted an expanding universe.
Actually there was much puzzlement before GR hit the scene. If you take into account Heinrich Olber’s thoughts on starlight and an infinite universe with stars populating the whole against Isaac Newton’s universal law of gravity, this presents a paradox. Also Newton himself realized there was a problem with a static universe where every star attracted every other star. Unfortunately, the idea of an expanding universe was not hit on (or at least published).
Even Einstein himself, faced with this dilemma, added a cosmological constant to keep the universe static. Unfortunately, that allowed for an unstable model of the universe. Should it have shrank or grown even in parts per million, you would get either a net positive or negative gravitational acceleration respectively which would have caused it to shrink or expand even more. Einstein himself called it his greatest blunder. However, there still exist discussions and investigations on vacuum energy density, matter density, and the relationships between the two. Therefore, a cosmological constant is still within the framework of modern cosmology and believed to be positive. This would be directly proportional to the energy density of the vacuum itself. Looking at this from the standpoint of general relativity, this density is very close to zero if not exactly equal to zero. However, looking at this from the aspect of quantum field theory, it can be huge. The study of quantum gravity should end up with a theory that reconciles the two.
Cosmological models require a few assumptions. These are that the laws of physics are identical throughout the universe, the structure is homogeneous (same throughout the universe, sans clustered galaxies etc), and the universe is isotropic. The latter two concepts make up the Cosmological Principal.
Whether our universe will expand forever or eventually collapse is still debated among cosmologists.
A few years back, by studying supernovae, astronomers discovered that the universe was expanding at an ever increasing rate. This new force has been given the name “Dark Energy”. I am certainly not a string theorist, however, from some light reading, there are a number of ideas that posit different fates of the end of the universe. One is, that Dark Energy will become negative and cause the entire universe to collapse on itself (the big crunch), or not. :-) Another is that our universe is just a bubble is a sea of bubbles allowing us to only “see” our tiny piece.
In either case, the actual density of matter in our universe is within a factor of ten of the so-called critical density, the point of exact balance between permanent expansion and eventual contraction. But to be so close to this critical density after some 20 billion years of expansion suggests intelligent design. What?!? Yeah, there must have been precise tuning in the earliest moments of the Big Bang for it to work at all. At 10 to the minus 43 seconds after the Big Bang, for instance--the so-called Planck time--the density must have been equal to the critical density to one part in 10 to the 60. If it had been ever so slightly higher, the universe would have collapsed quickly and there would have been no opportunity for life to form. On the other hand, had the density been ever so slightly smaller, the universe would have expanded rapidly and no galaxies, stars, or planets would have formed. Again, no life. Thus, life is the result of fine tuning the density of matter-energy at the Planck time to one part in 10 to the 60!8 But it was the result of an accident, eh?
Think of the odds of holding a particular shuffle of a deck of cards. There are 10 to the 70th different combinations that can occur. So is the particular combination of the shuffled deck of cards impossible? Obviously not. To quote Physicist, my legs are JUST long enough to reach the ground.
Are you about to tell me this contradicts the Biblical account? Not really. For all the chest-beating and things you may have heard the Bible says, in reality the Hebrew word used to refer to the astronomical universe is shamayim. That word is used in conjunction with the phrase 'stretch out' several times in the Old Testament.
That still does not reconcile the obvious errors in the order given in Genesis. For example:
Gen 1:12 - And the earth brought forth grass, [and] herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed [was] in itself, after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.
Gen 1:14 - And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years
The concept being that the cosmos is not static and used with the verb natah as an active participle form indicates that the process is ongoing.
That does not give it any more credence that elves dancing either. Both would be considered ongoing processes.
IOW, the Bible does not contradict the OBSERVABLE phenomenon of an expanding universe. (And in fact, an expansion that is accelerating.) Whether or not this began as a 'big bang' or some other way is not particularly relevant. God certainly could have empolyed this method to create the universe.
However, the order does not fit the observed data. Foe example, first generation stars would not have planets, yet they certainly would be emitting electromagnetic energy.
I like this quote regarding the idea of the 'big bang.' In Parade magazine, February 4, 1996, Marilyn vos Savant had a reader who expressed this view as follows: "I assume that you, like most intellectual types, are not a religious person. So what do you think of the Big Bang theory." Ms vos Savant responded: "I think that if it had been a religion that first maintained the notion that all the matter in the entire universe had once been contained in an area smaller than the point of a pin, scientists probably would have laughed at the idea."
They laughed at the world being round at one time as well, however, that too has no bearing on this argument except that science builds on itself over the years. I certainly am not putting forth the position that science is all knowing however, scientific theories can be modified scrapped or replaced as new evidence is uncovered. Creationism and or a BELIEF in Genesis cannot. The available data must be conformed to a predisposed world view.
Silly but typical. Assume the data is valueless because of the viewpoint of the speaker, but I digress.
2. You queried: How much and to what level ….. stellar evolution, and planetary formation are you familiar with?
I won't claim to be an expert, as I'm sure neither are you, but I am fortunate to be continuously exposed to these concepts via my employer. I work for a company that built several science instruments for Hubble (visible spectrum), produced an infared spectrum telescope called Spitzer and helped built an X-Ray telescope called Chandra. So, we get to be exposed to some very cool stuff as a result. Are you going to propose that the Bible claims all creating on the part of God is over? Therefore viewing new stars being formed is somehow a contradiction? Ha!
Not sure what this has to do with our argument, however, did I even posit a position on God? I just said Genesis does not fit the observed data.
1. Big Bang Cosmology/General Relativity VS. What the Bible says:
The first suggestion that laid the groundwork for the 'Big Bang Theory' was by none other than Albert Einstein. His field equation of general relativity predicted an expanding universe. Whether our universe will expand forever or eventually collapse is still debated among cosmologists. In either case, the actual density of matter in our universe is within a factor of ten of the so-called critical density, the point of exact balance between permanent expansion and eventual contraction. But to be so close to this critical density after some 20 billion years of expansion suggests intelligent design. What?!? Yeah, there must have been precise tuning in the earliest moments of the Big Bang for it to work at all. At 10 to the minus 43 seconds after the Big Bang, for instance--the so-called Planck time--the density must have been equal to the critical density to one part in 10 to the 60. If it had been ever so slightly higher, the universe would have collapsed quickly and there would have been no opportunity for life to form. On the other hand, had the density been ever so slightly smaller, the universe would have expanded rapidly and no galaxies, stars, or planets would have formed. Again, no life. Thus, life is the result of fine tuning the density of matter-energy at the Planck time to one part in 10 to the 60!8 But it was the result of an accident, eh?
I've taken the liberty of color-coding this portion of your post in order to make the following points clearer.
While you apparently wanted to give the impression that you wrote the above passage yourself, in fact for the most part it is clearly "borrowed" without credit from other sources.
The blue portion of your text, for example, is, um, "remarkably" similar to the following passage from this creationist page:
Historically, the first suggestion that would propose the idea [of the Big Bang] came in 1916 from Albert Einstein's field equation of general relativity predicting an expanding universe.But that by itself would only merit a raised eyebrow. Coupled with what follows it, however...
The portion of your text which I have highlighted in green is a VERBATIM COPY of the exact same long passage on this creationist web page.
All you did was insert five words of your own into the middle (marked in black), and one short question on the very end. Amusingly, your five words in the middle were inserted cleanly into the middle of a sentence of the original. Right smack in the middle of the following original sentence:
But to be so close to this critical density after some 20 billion years of expansion [*], there must have been precise tuning in the earliest moments of the Big Bang for it to work at all....you inserted your own five words ("suggests intelligent design. What?!? Yeah") at the point I've marked with an "*". Hardly much of an original contribution.
So unless your name is Robert C. Newman (author of the original work), this appears to be a case of plagiarism.
I point this out for two reasons:
1. Uncovering creationist plagiarisms has become something of a hobby of mine. It's fun detective work, and it's astonishing how often creationists plagiarize rather than make technical arguments in their own words. History may repeat itself, but creationists repeat each other. Part of the reason I track these things down is that it helps me understand why creationists so often go around recirculating and repeating the same old debunked nonsense, instead of learning something new from primary sources or personal reflection.
2. You made a big point twice now on this thread to belittle the practice of simply parroting something that one has "heard". From your posts:
"Oh really? How so? Be specific please. And ignorant restatings of what you 'heard' do not count." [From your post #213]But haven't you just done that yourself in this post via cut-and-paste?"For all the chest-beating and things you may have heard the Bible says..." [From your post #222]
3. Your post was in answer to RA's question, "How much and to what level of big bang cosmology, general relativity, stellar evolution, and planetary formation are you familiar with?" It seems ironic, then, that rather than describing in your own words how much you might know about each of those topics, you chose to just cut-and-paste some paragraphs from creationist websites. Or *is* looking stuff up on creationist websites and repeating them the extent of your scientific knowledge? I'm not being facetious here -- in my experience, far too many creationists and/or anti-evolutionists have learned everything they know about science/evolution from pretty much *only* creationist sources. That's rather like relying entirely on Tom Daschle for information on President Bush's policies and record.
Are you about to tell me this contradicts the Biblical account? Not really.
*That* part? No, because the Bible doesn't say anything about cosmological constants one way or the other. But then, that's not the issues that RA was talking about.
For all the chest-beating and things you may have heard the Bible says, in reality the Hebrew word used to refer to the astronomical universe is shamayim. That word is used in conjunction with the phrase 'stretch out' several times in the Old Testament. The concept being that the cosmos is not static and used with the verb natah as an active participle form indicates that the process is ongoing.
Now there you go again...
From the same web page referenced earlier in relation to your "blue-tagged" text:
The word shamayim is used in the Bible to refer to the astronomical universe. The word itself is connected with the phrase stretched out eleven times in the Old Testament [...] The concept here is that the cosmos is not static but the verb natah is used in an active participle form indicating that the process is ongoing.Sound familiar?
In any case, it's rather a stretch (no pun intended). Taking Isaiah 40:22, for example: "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in". The "spreading" is clearly in the context of covering the Earth with the "tent" of the sky (which ancient man thought was actually a hard dome over the Earth itself), not a multi-dimensional expansion of the structure of spacetime itself.
If there's any "ongoing" verb tense involved (and as with the "past" Hebrew tense, it's really ambiguous and up to interpretation), it was probably meant just in the sense that God keeps the sky "stretched" over the Earth so that it doesn't fall down, in the same sense that he "makes" the Sun rise and set (even though gravity and inertia ensure that it would continue to do so even if God went on vacation).
I like this quote regarding the idea of the 'big bang.' In Parade magazine, February 4, 1996, Marilyn vos Savant had a reader who expressed this view as follows: "I assume that you, like most intellectual types, are not a religious person. So what do you think of the Big Bang theory." Ms vos Savant responded: "I think that if it had been a religion that first maintained the notion that all the matter in the entire universe had once been contained in an area smaller than the point of a pin, scientists probably would have laughed at the idea."
Compare with the account from this creationist website:
In Parade magazine, February 4, 1996, Marilyn vos Savant had a reader who expressed this view as follows: "I assume that you, like most intellectual types, are not a religious person. So what do you think of the Big Bang theory." Ms vos Savant responded: "I think that if it had been a religion that first maintained the notion that all the matter in the entire universe had once been contained in an area smaller than the point of a pin, scientists probably would have laughed at the idea."
Verbatim copy. Even your conclusion is just restated from theirs:
Silly but typical. Assume the data is valueless because of the viewpoint of the speaker, but I digress.
Their version:
We believe there is a major point to be made in this exchange: when a proposal is made that is creative or imaginative, one should not reject it just because of the vantage point of the author.But you managed to turn it into a broadside swipe instead of a lesson to be learned. Gee, thanks.
Are you going to propose that the Bible claims all creating on the part of God is over? Therefore viewing new stars being formed is somehow a contradiction? Ha!
And yet, creationists bristle at the notion that new life is being continuously formed. Go figure.
It's nearly 7 PM here and my wife is going to shoot me.
Man, I know *that* feeling...