I have seen what happens to a ball when I drop it, I have never seen a fish give birth to something other than a fish. But regarding evolution and atheism, while there were certainly athiests before Darwin, Darwin gave them hope. Evolution makes atheism plausible. Surely this is simple stuff to a Theologian.
The truth is there is no evidence you would accept. Standing alone (relatively speaking) against the world is fine if that is what you need to do to feel safe. Such utter denial of the obvious is nothing but a fragile faith seeking strength by denying reality in some vain hope that God really does only reward those faithful in the face of objective reality to the contrary. If that is how you think God operates, then you will undoubtedly be among the few who are “saved.” You are joined by others like you in other faiths–radical Islam comes to mind. You have traded worshipping a text for the God.
Of course, relatively speaking, it was, and is, so. Movement is always relative to something else. Every object in the universe can be considered immobile or mobile, and in varying patterns, depending on one’s point of view.
Eureka? Kind of what I’ve been saying. The whole sun centered solar system is a mathematical construct. You can assume the earth is fixed instead and still make it work. And Relativity tells us we can’t really tell anyway. But I happen to think the Earth really doesn;t move.
This is true to a point, but it’s not quite that simple. You can choose the model with the center of the earth at the center of the universe. You can model the forces in this system. Thus, the Coriolis force due to the earth’s rotation becomes the rotation of the universe causing the force. The problem is that in either frame, the earth must begin to rotate (or change rotational speed) when its moment of rotational inertia changes. This happens twice a day with the tides. The change in the earth’s rotational speed with the tides has been directly measured.
Huh? Actually, I think you might be talking about the transfer of angular momentum from the rotating universe. Assuming the earth is at the center, it would be fixed in place like the balance of gyroscope. Sungenis covers this objection beginning on page 600 of Galileo was Wrong. I think the moon alone provides sufficient pull in its orbit about the Earth to account for the tides. But I could have totally misunderstood the issue. Let me know.
It’s been a while since I read GWW and my old computer it was on recently bit the dust. However I think what you are referring to is the objection as to why, if the universe rotates around the earth, why the earth doesn’t begin to rotate as well. That objection is, indeed, covered satisfactorily, with reference to Thorne and Wheeler. (But note this assumes a perfect sphere.) It doesn’t mean that when you apply a torque to the earth the earth will not begin to rotate, or that when you change the distribution of mass of the earth it will not begin to rotate, due to a change in the moment of inertia. Imagine a figure skater. You can model her spinning as, instead, the universe spinning around her. You can account for the centrifugal and Coriolis forces this way, and explain why she feels dizzy. But when she pulls in her arms, she speeds up (in the usual reference frame), or in the rotating-universe frame, she begins to rotate. The same thing happens in the tides in the fixed-earth frame - the moon’s gravitational pull causes a change in the rotational inertia of the earth.
Both. One can’t teach theology (or any other subject) these days without functioning as a teacher of spelling, grammar, and style. At my university, students know that to qualify as “A” work, their papers must not only be logically compelling and rhetorically brilliant, but also flawless in spelling, grammar and style. We teach a program called “writing across the curriculum.” No student is allowed to get away with sloppy work.
(1) What do you see happening to a ball when you drop it? It falls down. You don’t see gravity pulling it down. Rather, we theorize that an attractive force (that we name gravity), acts on the ball to draw it toward the earth.
then you’d have to explain certain things.
I believe it was Will Rogers.
“It really doesn’t matter” because it is all relative! The model, as far as calculations go, doesn’t matter. It all depends on the viewpoint of the observer. Now, as far as the actual reality of what is going on out there, scientists care about that, too. I don’t think they are saying that it doesn’t really matter, as if they don’t care, but that it doesn’t matter in terms of our reality and measurements.
Evolution doesn’t begin until life starts here on Earth. Evolution says nothing about how the initial life got started here. There are other theories about that.
This is true, but why does the current scientific thinking on it have to be in conflict with your Catholicism?
What assumptions, specifically? The Bible doesn’t have an answer for the actual physics of the universe at the very beginning (“where the calculations break down”), either. Just because science doesn’t know everything doesn’t mean there is a problem with science.
The scientific evidence helps to clear that problem up. Yeah, sure, you can model some arbitrary universe that is completely alien to ours, within the realm of mathematics. But that doesn’t mean there is a problem with mathematics or with science. The good models, the ones that best describe the evidence, are the ones that matter.
My question was coming from the secular or scientific standpoint. I know the Church teaches it. That wasn’t the point.
And how do we know that?
You don’t have to not trust in science to be a conservative or traditional Catholic. Furthermore, it seems as if much of your arguments are founded under the following fallacy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
It seems as if you yourself think you can find your own reality, since you deny mainstream science.
(1) Yes – science is full of theories. Both the theory of gravity and the theory of evolution have been thoroughly tested, and since 1859 the theory of evolution has been continually strengthened as an explanation for biological diversity. Meanwhile, anti-evolutionist creationism has seen not a shred of evidence added to it. We know through genetics how evolution works; we don’t yet fully understand how gravity works.