Posted on 03/23/2006 4:37:32 PM PST by Brilliant
If our universe was purposefully created — perhaps by a deity or an advanced civilization in another universe — could the Creator have left a calling card? The idea is not as crazy as it seems. Renowned cosmologists such as Andre Linde (Stanford University) and Alan Guth (MIT) have speculated that an advanced civilization could, in principle, cook up a new universe in a lab by concentrating huge quantities of energy into a tiny volume of space. And even the avowed agnostic Carl Sagan concocted a story at the very end of his sci-fi novel Contact of how scientists discover a message from the Creator embedded deep inside the number pi.
In a paper posted on astro-ph, physicists Stephen Hsu (University of Oregon) and Anthony Zee (University of California, Santa Barbara) come up with an alternative idea: astronomers can look for a message from the Creator in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) — the echo of the Big Bang.
"Our work does not support the Intelligent Design movement in any way whatsoever, but asks, and attempts to answer, the entirely scientific question of what the medium and message might be IF there was actually a message," write the authors.
The trick, say Hsu and Zee, is for the Creator to fine-tune the inflaton field — the field responsible for inflating the early universe — to encode a binary message in the subtle hot and cold spots of the CMB. As the authors note, the CMB is a "giant billboard on the sky" visible to all civilizations in all galaxies. Because different regions of the universe are so far apart that they are not causally connected, only a cosmos Creator could place a message in the CMB that all civilizations could detect.
Given the limited number of distinct regions of the sky of any fixed size, Hsu and Zee calculate that the message could include up to 100,000 bits of information. Such a message might, for example, reveal fundamental laws of physics. While current experiments like NASA's WMAP satellite do not have sufficient angular resolution or sensitivity to detect the extremely small-scale temperature fluctuations that would encode the message, future instruments might be capable of doing so. The authors urge that scientists analyze subsequent CMB data for possible patterns. "This may be even more fun than SETI," they conclude (SETI is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence).
In another paper posted on astro-ph, Douglas Scott and James P. Zibin (University of British Columbia, Canada) counter that Hsu and Zee overestimate the amount of information that can be encoded in the CMB.
Hsu responds, "Both groups agree that one can encode a universal message in the CMB. But we disagree as to its maximal information content."
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is leftover radiation from the Big Bang redshifted (stretched) by the universe's expansion into the microwave region of the spectrum. In this image NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) records minuscule temperature fluctuations in the CMB as different colors. In principle, an advanced civilization could create a universe and encode information in the CMB that would let civilizations in the offspring universe know that their universe had been purposefully created. NASA / WMAP Science Team.
You are just being, picky! picky! picky!-Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! You are just a trouble maker!( Need I add, Sarcasm! Sarcasm! Sarcasm!) ?
Al Gore?
True, but the problem is, the societal part is the part that drives the funding and stresses the areas that need research.
And if it's BS headlines ("I found a remnant of Atlantis in my bathtub") that have the biggest effect, then emotion and overreaction becomes the standard. Scientists, being human, may be resistant, but are not immune.
I always think back on the whole dietary fat stuff. Animal fat is bad for you. Animal fat is bad for you. Animal fat is bad for you. So they bubbled hydrogen thru some oils, basically turned it into candle wax, and told folks "This is good for you".
Now they admit saturated fats are killers.
So whether it is society or the scientists themselves, we have no shortage of agendas.
Faith and Science Ping.
to poison us in our Primes, obviously :)
That's just sad.
Physicists have been complaining lately that biologists have been getting more than their fair share of taxpayer-funded Gummint research money. As a physicist, I think physics should get a lot more funding. There are a couple of very major projects hanging fire. One is the Superconducting Supercollider, which would have to be even more super now than when it was cancelled, just to keep the science edge in this country, and the other is nuclear fusion power generation.
The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech nor language
Where their voice is not heard.
(Psalm 19:1-3)
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
(Romans 1:20,21)
The fool has said in his heart,“There is no God.”
(Psalm 14:1)
I know I will be scorned for saying it, but I think physics needs a new paragigm. They are up against a brick wall. Cracks are appearing in Einsteins work. Locality has been relegated to the dust heap.
These are major phenomenological and epistemological changes.
Some of the very treasured basics might have to be rethought.
And because of the demographics, biology and gerontology especially are on the ascendency. Geezers got the bucks!
Before making the jump to a new paradigm, we need to notice a new entity. Electricity was a good one. The nuclear forces were a good one. Something big, basic, and useful would fuel a revolution. What do we have now? Particles of sub-particles of sub-particles? Acoustics and optics are doing some great things. The last big thing was the atomic bomb, and what good is that anymore: they don't even use them.
We measure things in CGS.
I think there is at least one more we've missed.
It would make things symmetrical and go along ways towards explaining gravity.
I have my own ideas, but not ready for prime time.
If we find the message we might not like what it has to say.
OBTW: 42.
There is only one way, and that is through the scientific journals. After the reputation is established then perhaps some funding might be forthcoming, but the average scientist will not be equipped to combat the tenured behemoths and will lose control of the project immediately. Good ideas don't get it done. So it is really heavy articles in peer-reviewed journals and then top-level, dominant management of enterprises. It's a rare combination, but needed if we are to ever break through this brick wall.
I thought Tim Robbins was killed on the space mission that showed us how we were created.I remember seeing a big explosion and a skinny alien sprinkling earth with the seeds of DNA.
Gonna be difficult and face alot of opposition.
There was a fellow years ago who liked to play with glass beads. He tried looking through them.
He sent post after post to the schools and places of higher learning telling them about the strange new world he had discovered and was ignored for along time, he had no formal education or training.
His name was Leeuwenhoek and he was one of the first inventors of the microscope.
The dynamics of having large segments of the educated giving up their beliefs is daunting. We often see it on threads like these. And had I spent decades learning something, I would be just as equally set in my ways, I don't fault folks, it's the human thing to do.
But it will be a necessary part of the learning experience to admit we might have been wrong about something.
And you let me on?
ROTFLMAO
he he he ha ha ha he he he, ha ha ha he he he ha ha ha he he he, ha ha ha he he he ha ha ha he he he, ha ha ha he he he ha ha ha he he he, ha ha ha he he he ha ha ha he he he, ha ha ha he he he ha ha ha he he he, ha ha ha he he he ha ha ha he he he, ha ha ha he he he ha ha ha he he he, ha ha ha he he he ha ha ha he he he, ha ha ha ...
Of course this has nothing to do then with a unique or exceptional origin of life, whether by means of chemical evolution or special creation.
However if you insist on ignoring the actual historical usage of the term, just to stupidly employ it in antievolution rhetoric, then you're overlooking the fact that it equally (in this misconceived sense) denies creation.
Basically "spontaneous generation" is a denial of the "Biogenetic Law." The biogenetic law holds that living organisms only come from other living organisms. This in turn is a generalization of the cell theory, which claims that all life is organized into cells and that cells only come from other, prexisting cells.
Now this could only be unexceptionally true if biological life has always existed from eternity past. Yet no one believes this. Everyone accepts that the biogenetic law must have been violated somewhere at sometime. Evolution is less exceptional in this regard in that it presumes, on the principal of universal common descent, that the biogenetic law was only violated ONE time. Creationism asserts multiple violations.
There's an additional problem with your attempt to use "spontaneous generation" as a beatable dead horse proxy for evolution: Spontaneous generation experienced its entire period of currency in the creationist scientific and philosophical context. It was finally and fully abandoned by science at about the same time that evolutionary theory came on the scene. You want to associate it with evolution, but historically it never has been.
And a final problem. Evolution, in so far as it is to be a theory of universal common descent -- and this has been it's most distinctive characteristic ever since Darwin -- THEREBY REQUIRES THAT SPONTANEOUS GENERATION BE FALSE. If life is continually coming into existence by means other than biological reproduction, then all living things cannot be related by reproduction (descent).
Creationism on the other hand doesn't require one thing or another as to the truth or falsity of spontaneous generation. A creator might easily have endowed nature with the means of spontaneously creating life.
Perhaps a Hindu mythuth? Was she married?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.