Scientists' help wanted!

[Nullasalus]

It seems to me that God has abandoned his creation…

Darwinian evolution is the counterforce against the natural tendency to approach thermodynamic equilibrium with the environment. God is not needed to explain any phenomenon in biology. However, I do not have a satisfactory explanation for the origin of life as the origin of life is the origin of Darwinian evolution. If you want to argue that God created the universe, go ahead, but you have to combat the notion that once he created it he abandoned it.

That sounds like a deist argument. But if you go that route, you have to ask yourself two questions.

1. If an O3 God (Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnibenevolent) created the universe, then how does this God ‘abandon’ His creation? You could argue that He’d see how the universe would play out from start to finish (or from start to infinity, for that matter). He wouldn’t need to intervene in His creation, not through lack of desire, but lack of necessity - it would have been handled through divine forethought.
2. If God did abandon His creation, what reason do you have to believe He’ll never return? That He hasn’t returned before? Remember, He started everything - and everything continues, so His lack of concern with the universe is anything but apparent.

So when you say that God is not needed to explain any phenomenon in biology, the theist needs only point out that God designed the system you’re speaking of (biology). You can point out the flaws, naturally - but the theist can also point out the progress and the solutions, alongside the benefits.

Personally, I’m comfortable with these systems, as they indicate to me (And Freeman Dyson apparently - though he’s a physicist, not a biologist) that we’re intended for eternal life. There is no limit to our progress or potential - or at least, none that cannot be overcome. We may well be in for an eternal ascent.

 

[Jim_Baur]

TO ALL SCIENTISTS:

According to physical scientists, when talking about the origins of the universe they use the word “theory” in analogous sense. For the lay people that should be made real clear.

Next idea: When doing science about the start of the universe, they are implying that it follows the laws of human reason. Actually it is most explicit. It is explicit or they should not trust the ability to reason to solve the problems.

Their tests in this area of study must follow the laws of reason.

Furthermore, their test must follow the laws of math which human reasoning created. Ergo, math is reasonable.

From where did all of this reason in the universe come?

 

[Seamus_Sully]

Scientists: From where did the reason in the universe come?

 

[JimG]

Scientists: From where did the reason in the universe come?

I’m not a scientist, but I’ll answer anyway.

Science cannot really answer this question. The only answer that science is allowed to give would have to be based on biochemistry. If biochemistry leads to reason, then science itself is not free, but determined by the interaction of molecules.

Only philosophy can answer the question.

 

[Orogeny]

Scientists: From where did the reason in the universe come?

Why don’t you give a way to measure reason and maybe someone will address it. Your claim that the universe is full of reason doesn’t make much sense to me.

Peace

Tim

 

[hecd2]

I never said 'heavy matter came from collapses.

I said energy/matter potentiality. That is not energy or matter but pre-matter. If matter did not exist as [re-matter, it could not possess atomic structure since that structure is dependent upon potentiality for attraction and hence sub-atomic and atomic structure.

What you said was: ‘heavier matter or energy potentiality was made in each comptression’. And I repeat that the actuality or potentiality of heavier matter does not depend on cyclical bang-crunch cycles but is made in supernovae in our universe. “Pre-matter” is something that you have personally invented. There is no need to postulate such a thing, and, as a scientist, I have no idea what you are talking about when you talk about “pre-matter”.

Matter we know did not exist in the primitive universe since the prevailing temperature was too hot for matter to form. It existed in the primieval state of photons

This is incorrect. Baryonic matter existed in the early universe, just not in atomic form - hadrons form between one microscond and one millisecond after Big Bang, nucleosynthesis (the formation of hydrogen and helium - and a little lithium - nuclei) takes place within the first three minutes and after 300,000 years the matter-photon plasma cools enough for neutral atoms form.

Alec
evolutionpages.com/third_year_wmap.htm
[/quote]

 

[hecd2]

There is evidence that matter is speeding up but that it takes energy and sooner of later, runs out of steam so that matter becomes so sparce, there is not enough but single atoms floating around in a universe millions times bigger than it is at present! From a credit to the Creator perspective, that simply does not make sense

There is no such thing as a free meal ticket. Once energy is expanded, it ceases to expand. Logical?

A collapsing universe is not only logical but inevitable, giving way to what you call 'a new heaven and a new earth
It does appear to fit the bible nicely doesn’t it

Wrong, wrong, wrong. This is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the science. The current evidence is that the expansion of the universe is accelerating and nothing will cause it to collapse. ‘Big Bang - Big Crunch’ theories are all but dead -we look forward to an all but infinite future life for the universe based on continuing and accelerating expansion that has the consequence of heat death many trillions of years hence.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

If the universe is 15-billion years old and it could collapse in 10-billion years, then Christ has indeed come in ‘the latter days’

But it won’t ‘collapse’ in 10 billion years. The expansion is accelerating.

It won’t ‘collapse’ at all.

Alec

 

[ribozyme]

But it won’t ‘collapse’ in 10 billion years. The expansion is accelerating.

It won’t ‘collapse’ at all.

Alec

Hmm… I do not know whether the universe will collapse or not, but do you have a refutation of this paper?

 

[Nullasalus]

Wrong, wrong, wrong. This is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the science. The current evidence is that the expansion of the universe is accelerating and nothing will cause it to collapse. ‘Big Bang - Big Crunch’ theories are all but dead -we look forward to an all but infinite future life for the universe based on continuing and accelerating expansion that has the consequence of heat death many trillions of years hence.

Current understandings of the ultimate fate of the universe don’t really strike me as all that reliable, if only because of the timescale they’re operating on. ‘If all else stays the same and nothing new is discovered, this is the ultimate fate’ has a lot of otherwise unspoken assumptions at work with it - for all we know, intelligent life is going to have a say in just what occurs in such a future scenario, even on scales as massive as those being discussed here.

 

[I_Leatherman]

I understood that it was accelerating exponentially. You might say that its speed is doubling constantly, - perhaps. So, there is no hope or sign of it slowing down or, perhaps, no evidence of a force greater than its acceleration and expansion.
sigh… global warming … universe cooling…

 

[hecd2]

Hmm… I do not know whether the universe will collapse or not, but do you have a refutation of this paper?

Hmm - that’s interesting - I missed that. Thanks for pointing it out. I haven’t read the paper in detail yet - will do that at the weekend.

Supergravity is rather like all unification theories - in some trouble, and this is so speculative we don’t even know how many dimensions we should be working in. However, its predictions about universe expansion and contraction do have the merit of being eminently testable. In the rapid Gnab Gib scenarios, we should be living in an epoch where the equation of state for dark energy would have to be changing rapidly - and we can test that. It seems that it is close to w=-1 now and that it has been that for some time so rapid change doesn’t seem to be likely to me.

Anyway, I am betting on dark energy having a constant w=-1 throughout time, at least after inflation, not some rapidly changing equation of state. But I agree that collapse is not now completely ruled out.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

Current understandings of the ultimate fate of the universe don’t really strike me as all that reliable, if only because of the timescale they’re operating on. ‘If all else stays the same and nothing new is discovered, this is the ultimate fate’ has a lot of otherwise unspoken assumptions at work with it - for all we know, intelligent life is going to have a say in just what occurs in such a future scenario, even on scales as massive as those being discussed here.

I don’t disagree with what you say here, although I think the evidence curently points to continuing expansion, heat death or Big Rip.

But I was reacting to this statement which is clearly wrong:

Sixtus:

A collapsing universe is not only logical but inevitable, giving way to what you call 'a new heaven and a new earth

Alec
evolutionpages.com