Posted on 02/06/2014 1:58:22 PM PST by celmak
On many mornings, I wake up and think, “You know what this country needs? More culture war.” As I scramble up a couple eggs, I find myself wishing—fervently wishing—that we could spend more time reducing substantive issues to mere spectacle. Later, as I scrub the pan, I’ll fantasize about how those very spectacles might even funnel money toward some of the country’s most politicized religious groups.
Fortunately, Bill “the Science Guy” Nye has heard my wish—which, really, is the wish of a nation. Why else would he have traveled to Kentucky this week in order to debate Ken Ham, the young-earth creationist founder of Answers in Genesis, about the origins of the world?
Actually, there are two other reasons that Nye might have done so, and I’ve given both possibilities a great deal of thought in the past few days. The first is that Nye, for all his bow-tied charm, is at heart a publicity-hungry cynic, eager to reestablish the national reputation he once had as the host of a PBS show. When his stint on Dancing With the Stars ended quickly, Nye turned to the only other channel that could launch him back to national attention: a sensationalized debate, replete with the media buzz that he craves.
Possibility number two is that Nye is clueless—that, for all his skill as a science communicator, Nye has less political acumen than your average wombat.
After watching the debate, I’m leaning toward that second possibility. Last night, it was easy to pick out the smarter man on the stage. Oddly, it was the same man who was arguing that the earth is 6,000 years old.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Please tell me what you've got is better than that. I like to be entertained.
6,000 years dialated to 4.5 billion years is still 4.5 billion years.
No, it’s because of SOCAS.
“It's a supernatural theory, and science deals with nature.”
There is supernatural in it true enough, but there is also an historical record in it that has helped in many archeological discoveries. ”Where?” you say? Even some recent “discoveries” over the past 50 years, like the springs at the bottom of the oceans, were written about in the Bible. Even “micro evolution”, which is nothing more than adaptation, was written about in the Bible. Oh, and the Bible had designated the term “species” thousands of years before with “kinds”, but Evo’s do like to claim their own language. The Bible has been a guide for many scientists, as Ken Ham presented, in the discoveries of different scientific fields – even the fields themselves. Almost all scientists before the 20th century believed in a Creator before atheists “intelligentsia” in England bent on eugenics decided God was an enemy to their morals. Still, the debate continued to be mostly open in schools until leftists found the right legal case to bring in 1947. This is the only reason the Bible is not used in schools, and the Bible is filled with scientific data (as I have only minimally mentioned with the springs) that man can use, and has used.
“The Earth is not flat, and it is not 6000 years old. There is no scientific evidence that either of these things are true.
And the earth being millions of years has no evidence. Scientists have not found a way to determine the exact age of the Earth directly from Earth rocks because Earth's oldest rocks have been recycled and destroyed by the process of plate tectonics.
But we teach science to our children poorly enough already without wasting time on a) discredited theories and b) nonscience.”
This should read: “But we teach Evo sudo-science to our children poorly enough already, and waste time on a) discredited theories and b) nonscience.” And this teaching of Evolution, has it been a part of anything useful, like the cures of diseases, the building of any transportation, etc? Funny, it seems that anything useful and/or beneficial from science has been created, not evolved.
No, but I also believe the Bible when it states "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." Do you?
Keep guessing.
Not a very credible theory, that. Since we're all still here.
Well, you finally got something right.
No, I stated debate it. Unlike you, I'm not into what they do in government schools - indoctrination. I want children to learn how to think critically, and they learn this by debating positions to find out what is valid and what is not.
And I have hope for you to.
Thanks for the ping!
Does it really count when it’s by accident?
Read post 37 again. First I heard of this particular FR etiquette policy, and I've been here doing the same thing for a while. Even so, you took it personally and I was not specifically referring to you. If you think I was not not making a general observation, I'm sorry, I can't help you with your problem.
Scientists "believed" in the Bible before the Twentieth Century for two reasons: 1) It was dangerous not to, so many of them lied and pretended they did, and 2) the overwhelming evidence that the Bible has very little scientific, historical, or archaeological truth in it had not yet been exposed. Science in the Twentieth Century has revealed that the Bible is a book of faith and supernatural events, and not a science text by even the grandest stretch of the most fertile imagination in the world.
As for your nonsensical assertion that we can't prove that the earth is billions of years old, your tectonic plate "theory" is amusing, and wrong. Not only do we have various dates for setting the age of the earth, these are largely in agreement with the dates set by the age of the moon and asteroids, for which your "theory" does not in the least obtain; there has been no hot geologic activity on the moon for at least a billion years. We have roughly as much evidence that the Earth is billions of years old as we have that it is not flat. Please join the Flat Earth Society where at least you and similar kooks can hang out together, and stop giving conservatism a bad name.
You cannot possibly be as stupid as the ignorance of this statement establishes.
The Lord hates a liar.
Debates are great, but when it comes to teaching, you teach evolution in science class and creationism in a religious studies class, alongside other myths.
When you can incorporate dark energy and dark matter into your scoff, then I will listen. The 300,000 year inflationary period is not well understood, so I cannot account for what that period at the beginning may have played in the creation of the anti-matter of the Universe. Add to those two the fact that we humans have yet to actually comprehend what dimension Time is, and, well, scalar waves of reality waft from your certainty like puffs of smoke from a teepee.
For lurkers, here is what Schroeder actually says in the short essay at the link I provided regarding Time, and it is almost exactly opposite to what Fred is trying to attack:
The Flexible flow of time and the stretching of spaceEinstein taught the world that time is relative. That in regions of high velocity or high gravity time actually passes more slowly relative to regions of lower gravity or lower velocity. (One system relative to another, hence the name, the laws of relativity.) This is now proven fact. Time actually stretches out. Were ever you are time is normal for you because your biology is part of that local system.
That is Einstein and gravity and velocity. But there is a third aspect of the universe that changes the perception of time, Not gravity and not velocity. That is the stretching of space. The universe started as a minuscule speck, perhaps not larger that a grain of mustard and stretched out from there. Space actually stretches. The effect of the stretching of space produces the effect that when observing an event that took place far from our galaxy, as the light from that event travels through space and the sequence of events travels through space, the information is actually stretched out. (In The Science of God I give the logic in detail in simple easy to understand terms.)
Honest debate requires honest refutation, not attacking a strawman deception, as Fred has tried to do. There is another, very prominent figure who tries to lie his way through any issue, but he's called pResident. Fred is just a dud.
First of all, in your previous post, you claim that the inflationary period lasts for 300,000 years. Nope, not even close. The inflationary period began around 10-36 seconds after the Singularity, and went until sometime between 10-33 and 10-32 SECONDS.
300,000 years is the length of the radiation dominated life of the universe; it has nothing to do with Inflation.
Now to dissect your thoroughly unhinged mystic:
Einstein taught the world that time is relative.
This statement is so vague it has no actual meaning.
That in regions of high velocity or high gravity time actually passes more slowly relative to regions of lower gravity or lower velocity.
This statement is mumbo-jumbo. Part of it is true, and part of it is complete nonsense. There is no such thing as a "region of high velocity" because absolute uniform motion (velocity) cannot even be detected. If you (or he) understood relativity, you would know this.
The clocks of observers in different Lorentz frames appear to run more slowly EACH according to the OTHER. The choice of reference frame is entirely immaterial, and the claim that some parts of the universe are at "high velocity" is therefore 100% baloney.
(One system relative to another, hence the name, the laws of relativity.)
This statement is nonsense. Gravitational time dilation is not relative. Your guru is quite confused.
This is now proven fact.
The part that's true, is of course, true. The parts that are nonsense, sadly, remain nonsense.
[
Let me parenthetically add that what is so confusedly described so far, contrary to what Miggie describes as my "dishonesty" is, in fact, time dilation. What follows is also "time dilation." The only difference is, the space expanding effect doesn't give rise to relativistic dilation effects, because "stretching space" doesn't do that.
]
And now on with the hilarity...
Time actually stretches out.
In the case of gravitational fields, yes. In the case of relative uniform motion, no, it doesn't. The relative times recorded by commotional observers are different, but time does not "stretch" for them. They have their own proper time. The proper time of the earth is not different from "God's point of view," or "The universe's point of view," or from Miggie's point of view, or some deranged mystic's point of view.
Were ever you are time is normal for you because your biology is part of that local system.
Absolutely laughable nonsense. [And not even proofed, to boot.] ALL of the laws of physics, including those governing things dead, and things inanimate, are affected. Biology plays no role.
But there is a third aspect of the universe that changes the perception of time, Not gravity and not velocity. That is the stretching of space.
Nope. 100% BS.
The effect of the stretching of space produces the effect that when observing an event that took place far from our galaxy, as the light from that event travels through space and the sequence of events travels through space, the information is actually stretched out.
Nope.
Variable objects with known time constants at the edge of space do not show such behavior. Near objects within our Hubble neighborhood do not show such behavior either. Objects at middle distance -- which are being observed in the distant past -- also do not show that. They beep, pulsate, turn, live and die at the same rates.
"Honest debate" requires calling crap ... crap.
This would be crap.
Your Dr. is one of the most confused simpletons in the history of pseudoscience, who fails to understand that objects seen as 14 billion light years away are being observed in the distant past as well as across great distances of space, and the kinematical and other time-varying physical properties do not show any of the effects his crackpot theory would require if time actually changed as the universe expanded. Quasars and distant galaxies are in this unexpanded period. Stars in them emit the same spectra, and live and die at the predicted rates. Not faster, not slower, not different.
Fail. You should have stuck with relativistic time dilation (and so should he) because this absolutely confused hodge-podge of relativity, semi-classical physics, and pure mysticism is nothing more than a load of 100% pure and unrefined BS. His "space stretching" claim is falsified by every observation of the universe we have.
Well there you go, you’ve got it all figured out! No leaps of faith at all! 100% pure error-free science! Who can argue with that?! Have a nice life.
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