Creation vs. Evolution

[wreckchick]

Ok, who's going to step up with the "grass stains out of denim" tip so we can close this thread and call it a day?

R

 

[lamont]

I was an astronomy and physics double major in college. The evidence for the big bang and the basic cosmological model is simply overwhelming once you hit a certain point. Tired light theories have all been rejected and there's a wealth of intricate detail associated with the big bang theory like the Sunyaeev-Zeldovich effect (reflection of warmer CMBR on more distant galaxies) which suport it. We can probably make the case that either the big bang is right or fundamental things like special relativity are just wrong at this point (and that the computer you are sitting in front of shouldn't work). We know that the universe is somewhere between 12-18 billion years old. I've done spectral photometry and computed the ages of stars that were this old and you just can't get an age of the universe much less than 12 billion years unless you fundamentally break nuclear physics in ways that just aren't plausible. The Earth and solar system itself is 4.5 billion years old and the supporting data there again is very deep and an amazing amount of **** breaks if you try to change the dates. It really is laughable how people try to fix radiocarbon dating and stuff like that without realizing how everything ties together and the implications of their conjectures (not theories!) that they haven't bothered to think through. Science ties together much more tightly than any of them have any concept of.

I will grant that the experimental evidence only goes back to an age (still 12-18 billion years ago) when the universe was uniformly around 3000K. We believe we can go back further and hit the energy scale of grand unified field thories and inflation, and there is intriguing statistical evidence for theories like that. Of course we can't go back to the point where the big bang originated at infinite density and temperature, but that merely suggests that the theory breaks down. We have no idea if we're just one baby universe in a multiverse or what it all means. If you want to believe that's the moment of creation, that's fine. I tend to believe that the universe exists simply because something nature abhors a vacuum, and having gotten used to the EPR experiments non-local causal connections between points in the universe and vacuum fluctuations I'm not convinced that First Cause arguments amount to anything close to sufficient proof in the existence of anything.

As far as evolution goes, the book The Blind Watchmaker pretty much sums up the argument for me. Most of the people who deny evolution don't have a grasp of the statistics of unlikely events over large timescales. And the model of having an N-dimensional space (genespace) with a manfold through it describing survivability is also very close to what a neural network looks like -- only its more complicated because the set is actually made up of many N-dimentional spaces, and new spaces can mutate into being -- and the population of animals in a given space and their success at surviving can influence the success of other points on the space. And this neural network-like structure has been running for 4.5 billion years over an area the size of the Earth with everything from bacteria and viruses to plants, animals and insects participating in it. Of course it looks intelligent.

The other thing is that I don't have any tolerance for arguing about any of this. I think anyone who disagrees with me is wrong and I've built up that belief over a few decades now of intellectual investment and I don't have the time or patience to try to convince anyone of otherwise. If I have to explain to you what the Big Bang theory actually is, or what the Cosmic Microwave Background Radation is, or what fluctuations in that radiation have to do with inflation and relate that to Grand Unified Field Theories -- I just don't care. And if you don't think those are important to the discussion, I really don't care. It'd take me a decade to bring you up to speed and I don't have the time.

 

[wardric]

Which "spare part"?

Some parts of scripture are symbolic, others are clearly not. The Bible might have been written by humans but it was inspired by God. Considering all the myths and other crap filling the world it was time for the truth to be told.

The rib he used to fill adam, the spare rib

Ok, if I write a book that i say is inspired by God, will you believe it? and if not, why not?

If Jesus (or Moses) would appear today (maybe he did), would you follow him or would you recommend that he'd be put in an asylum?

 

[photohikedive]

I've done spectral photometry and computed the ages of stars that were this old and you just can't get an age of the universe much less than 12 billion years unless you fundamentally break nuclear physics in ways that just aren't plausible. The Earth and solar system itself is 4.5 billion years old and the supporting data there again is very deep and an amazing amount of **** breaks if you try to change the dates. It really is laughable how people try to fix radiocarbon dating and stuff like that without realizing how everything ties together and the implications of their conjectures (not theories!) that they haven't bothered to think through. Science ties together much more tightly than any of them have any concept of.

of course, the argument to all of this is....

if God was to make a tree right now, would it have rings?

 

[lamont]

of course, the argument to all of this is....

if God was to make a tree right now, would it have rings?

See the paragraph I added about not having enough time.

Maybe when I die, God will jump out of some bushes and yell "Fooled Ya! Surprise! I made all the global clusters a few thousand years ago" but I kinda doubt it...

 

[wardric]

Of course, a lot of us disagree.

Moses wrote Exodus and he was there. He's the guy with the burning bush remember?

oh, thanks, I tought it was Charlton Heston

Mathew and John knew Jesus and were eye witnesses.

Were you? I was not. Call me Thomas if you want, I personnaly need more than that.

Luke wasn't an eye witness to the events recounted in the Gospel of Luke but he certainly was eye witness to many of the events that he documented in the Book of Acts. Luke spent time with Paul and documented the story of Pauls own conversion on the road to Domascus. A guy making a living persecuting Christians one minute (and enjoying his job) and teaching the gospel to gentiles the next. An amazing story in itself. Not only did they not profit by their lies if they weren't telling the truth but it got them beat, thrown in prison and in most cases killed. Then of course there are the many many old Testament prophisies that were fulfilled. Of course I realize theat the authorship of many of the books of the Bible are disputed by so called scholars however after reading both sides, I think their case is as weak as the scientific basis for ooz comming to life on it's own. In fact these arguements seem to share a lot with some of the science we're discussing here. So much of it smells like people wildly and desperately grasping at anything-but-God-straws.

You might not consider it as proof but many have gone to prison or even the electric chair with far less proof.

It will all continue right to the end just as we see it now and the Bible fortold that also.

I have a pretty good idea of how christianism developped so I wont go into that, it would be too long. I will just say I do believe in God but not in everything that was written because of the context in which it was written. I will repeat, I think we have to take it at more than the first level, it is symbolic, we have to interpret it. My humble opinion of course.

As for the snake being so evil as told in the Bible, how come the mayans were worshipping it? because they were the Devil's followers? humm.... I dont think so. God loves everyone of his children.

 

[photohikedive]

See the paragraph I added about not having enough time.

Maybe when I die, God will jump out of some bushes and yell "Fooled Ya! Surprise! I made all the global clusters a few thousand years ago" but I kinda doubt it...

I don't think he actually jumps, I think he just makes the bushes burn some. He is a bit of a prankster. He might see himself as a bit of an artist. All the details to him, is like the extensive work some painters put into a painting.


I have always thought of it as if there is a god, he was like a kid with an ant farm. took all the time to set it up, got things going, would play with it some, shake it up to see them fix it, then got bored. That's why he never talks to us anymore. No more walks in the Garden of Eden, no more burning bushes, not even an angel telling some chick that god is about to knock her up. But that is just a guess.

 

[Thalassamania]

Lamont, I'm jealous as hell.

I got my degree in Zoology, but I did the major&#8217;s math, majors physics, major&#8217;s chemistry, etc., distaining the watered down classes that they offered for life science majors to help the pre-meds keep from flunking out <G>

You seem to comprehend the niche (N-dimensional hyper volume across n-resource states; one of which is time) and cosmology to boot. Of course I understand the former, but I must admit that latter has always left me muttering to myself, sort of like reading Hegel in English translation.

 

[photohikedive]

I think their case is as weak as the scientific basis for ooz comming to life on it's own.

ok, you do not believe that ooz can come to life on it's own, but you believe that there is a god. where did god come from?

 

[lamont]

Lamont, I'm jealous as hell.

I got my degree in Zoology, but I did the major’s math, majors physics, major’s chemistry, etc., distaining the watered down classes that they offered for life science majors to help the pre-meds keep from flunking out <G>

You seem to comprehend the niche (N-dimensional hyper volume across n-resource states; one of which is time) and cosmology to boot. Of course I understand the former, but I must admit that latter has always left me muttering to myself, sort of like reading Hegel in English translation.

Good that someone else "gets" the former. I was reading Dawkins and stuff on genetics at about the same time as I was reading about neural networks and something just "clicked" and I had an "aha" moment where I understood why so many people had mistook evolution for intelligent design -- because genetics is like a neural network -- and a freakishly complicated one. Of course it looks like its intelligent -- because it is intelligent to a much larger level than any of the machine intelligence that we've invented so far.

The cosmology stuff was more towards bread and butter stuff for me. I didn't get to graduate level cosmology, but I availed myself of all the symposium that came through, so I saw a lot of presentations on stuff like hydrogen absorption lines in spectra of distant galaxies due to intervening gas clouds and such -- there were also a lot of good presentations on competing models of the formation of solar systems then because the extrasolar planets were all starting to be discovered when I was in school. Wish I had the copious free time again...