Find Out About the Future of Science 446
Science magazine writer Charles Seife has written a new book, Alpha and Omega: The Search for the Beginning and End of the Universe. According to Publishers Weekly, Charles claims, "Scientists...now know how the universe will end and are on the brink of understanding its beginning. Their findings will be among the greatest triumphs of science, even towering above the deciphering of the human genome." A brave statement! Charles is happy to answer your questions about ongoing research that is busily revealing the basic nature of life, the universe, and everything in a serious (as opposed to humorous) sense, so ask away. One question per post, please. We'll post the answers as soon as we get them beck.
Publishing hype (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Publishing hype (Score:2, Insightful)
Probaly not as long as book publishers don't mind broadcasting things like:
Here in the US, I would hardly call news stories about science as "frequent front-page headlines." It usually takes some debate over creationism vs. evolution to make it into the media now-a-days.
Re:Publishing hype (Score:4, Funny)
"Why, just a few years ago we would have thought your child's condition to be caused by demonic possesion. But thanks to modern medical science we now know that it is caused by a toad or small dwarf living in the boy's stomach."
Since our Universe-destroying bomb is complete ... (Score:2)
Re:Publishing hype (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure what to think (Score:2)
Re:I'm not sure what to think (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Scientists may know
Which brings me nicely to point two: supposing our Brainiacs are right? That's hardly the mystery taken out of everything; questions abound, and always will. Maybe when we're all in our Vorlon-like encounter suits we'll have a decent understanding of the part of the universe that we can see; before then, there'll always be questions.
Re:I'm not sure what to think (Score:2)
Nice reference, especially in this context.
How many other B5 fans out there were a bit amused when the Vorlons and the Shadows came off as such pussies when the time came to explore "past the rim?" Here B5 had spent several seasons building them up to be damn-near omnipotent, and they need that "first" guy (can't remember his
comparable ramifications? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:comparable ramifications? (Score:2)
On the other hand, a real understanding of the start of the universe addresses perhaps _the_ core question of natural philosophy. Beyond what new understanding of matte
Re:comparable ramifications? (Score:3, Informative)
I would post an addendum to this. "yet....." Genome sequencing is just the beginning of the process of understanding how systems work and how they pathologically fail. As you know, sequencing is simply finding out which genes are which. Finding out what they do and in which combinations is now going to be the hard work that could not be accomplished without the knowledge provided by genome analysis.
Combinatorial analysis i
Re:comparable ramifications? (Score:2)
What the? The human genome project is a cool way to spend a humongous pile of cash. And it'll help things along. But don't buy the hype train being spewed out to justify spending all that money and time. There's no revolution coming down the pipeline due to the HGP.
Well obviously (Score:5, Funny)
Question: (Score:5, Funny)
[Almost] Serious question! (Score:5, Interesting)
So... How will the Universe end? Big Crunch, Dark & Cold, Equilibrium, Giant Black Holes, Act of God, or... what?
And, of course, how can you be so sure of that? [Add "You, Insensitive Clod!" to this last question for the humorous touch...]
Whatever theory you build today will only be validated in, what? A dozen billion years? More? So what makes you so sure you know the ned of the Universe today?
Please note: this is really a serious question. I am interested in the End of the Universe as we know it. Thanks for your answers!
Re:[Almost] Serious question! (Score:2)
Who knows? Maybe he really has met Mr Gates in person....
Re:[Almost] Serious question! (Score:2)
So... How will the Universe end? Big Crunch, Dark & Cold, Equilibrium, Giant Black Holes, Act of God, or... what?
The default, most natural extrapolation is that it will end in a "heat death", ever expanding, with the expansion ever accelerating. Clusters of galaxies will stay clumped together and will die their little isolated heat deaths, but the clusters will be moving away from each other so fast that they'll move out of causal contact with each other, and eventually we won't be able to see any
Why does the rate of expansion change? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why does the rate of expansion change? (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing I don't understand is why we can conclude that from measuring the second derivative of the size of the Universe (acceleration). If the third derivative were negative, it wouldn't matter (to the fate of the Universe) that the first two were positive. The Universe would still end in a big crunch, right? How closely have scientists measured the function that governs the size of the Universe? And what do they know about it?
Re:Why does the rate of expansion change? (Score:2)
Yes, we need dark energy [space.com]. The question is what dark energy is, if it's somehow connected to "dark matter", the superstring theory or whatever, or if it even exist.
Anyway, some scientists consider dark energy to be generating the force that acts as an inverse gravity, pulling the universe into void (as we know it now).
I guess I'm going to post a question regarding this.
Re:Why does the rate of expansion change? (Score:4, Funny)
The rest of the Universe realized how dangerous Earth is, and are slowly backing away.
Universe's container (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Universe's container (Score:2)
Re:Universe's container (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not a physicist, but I think it's finite - multiply the age by the speed of light.
That's just the observable Universe, which is indeed bounded by a "horizon" as you say.
The best current indication of the geometry of the Universe, though, is that it's flat, not a 4d analog to the surface of a sphere, which means that it is in fact infinite, or at the least a whole heck of a lot larger than the size of the observable Universe. We can't observe all of that, because light from anything beyond our "
Re:Universe's container (Score:5, Informative)
From what I remember, people have made similar "spear carrying" measurements which indicate that seem to indicate that the "surface" of space is curved
Similar spear-carrying measurements have been made, yes. Well, not eactly, but measurements that can determine the curvature of spacetime.
It is curved in the Solar System. That's the effect of the Sun's gravity. That can give you, for instance, the gravitational lensing effect first observed for the Sun be Eddington back in the begininng of the 20th Century.
The Universe as a whole, though, has a flat geometry; measurements have been made that show this. (OK, there's a small uncertainty, so it might be curved a little one way or the other; and, we've only measured the observable Universe, so there could be a curvature we can't see because we're looking at too small of a piece of it (think of trying to measure the curvature of the Earth by looking at a 10'x10' patch of ground).) Here's one site which describes some of the experiments that have been done (and precision has been improved since these):
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/boomer ang-sidebar.html [lbl.gov]
Your memory from your modern physics class is, at the least, outdated.... 1999 or thereabouts was the first time that a measurement was made of the Universe's geometry that really gained widespread acceptance, in that it was the first time the measurement had been done well enough and precisely enough that it was believable.
-Rob
Re:Universe's container (Score:2, Interesting)
The best we can do at this point is make broad assumptions based on what we are given, but the concept of intelligent design I think gives us a larger intellectual pla
Re:Universe's container (Score:2)
Re:Universe's container (Score:5, Informative)
(0,1)
ta da! In case you can't read the notation, that's all the real numbers between 0 and 1 but excluding 0 and 1 themselves. There are infinitely many of them, but they are bounded by 0 and 1 (a container). Also note: although 0 and 1 were used in the definition of this interval, they are not actually a part of it.
Perhaps the real problem is that infinity is a hard concept. I don't think we humans can ever truly understand it. But we can still throw it around in math and physics problems and come up with interesting results.
How ultimate is the end of the universe? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How ultimate is the end of the universe? (Score:2)
Search for "dark energy" for references.
Re:How ultimate is the end of the universe? (Score:3, Funny)
Dark Matter (Score:5, Interesting)
Since it is something of an open issue, what is the current understanding of the nature of dark matter in our universe? What kinds of questions are still being investigated? What kinds of hypotheses do we have now, and what do they imply?
Re:Dark Matter (Score:3, Interesting)
Dark Matter, as an esoteric, non-euclidian form of matter, is still, IMO, nothing more than the late 20th century equivalent of the luminiferous aether of the 19th century, and mer
Re:Dark Matter (Score:5, Informative)
Dark Matter, as an esoteric, non-euclidian form of matter, is still, IMO, nothing more than the late 20th century equivalent of the luminiferous aether of the 19th century, and merely a convenient algorythmic placeholder, until proven otherwise.
Actually, things turn out to work a little differently.
First of all, neutrino oscillation experiments confirm pretty convincingly that neutrinos do have mass. Rough bounds on the amount of mass have already been placed. The best numbers to date say that massive neutrinos can account for some, but far from all, of the dark matter effects observed.
Second of all, brown dwarfs and other "massive compact halo objects" would be baryonic dark matter - and there are good arguments for most of the dark matter being non-baryonic. A summary of some of these arguments can be found here [princeton.edu] (it's multiple pages; follow the links).
Third of all, I have not heard a convincing argument that EM effects in stars relate to the dark matter problem. There is one reseaercher who keeps publishing papers about the galaxy acting as a dynamo, with large-scale EM effects determining structure, but many holes have been poked in this proposed model (a few came up in previous slashot articles).
There are some questions about the galactic magnetic field (why it has one as strong as it does, if I recall correctly), but the observed field has negligeable effect on the movements of stars within the galaxy.
In summary, there really does seem to be some kind of exotic dark matter present in large quantity, and we already have several candidates for components of it.
Re:Dark Matter (Score:2)
Down Beck Down (Score:5, Funny)
Whoa there, no need to get nasty. We'll post them questions as soon as we thinks them up. What kind of name is Beck for a dog anyway.
Know how the universe will end? (Score:3, Insightful)
Science used to "know" the world was flat. They used to "know" that the sun revolved around the earth, and that the human heart worked just like a furnace.
Then, one day, some guy sailed over the horizon and didnt fall off. A pump was invented, and the notion of a heart as a pump came to being.
Each time people had thought they'd reached the pinnacle of understanding, and had all the answers. Then paradigms shifted, and completely changed our ways of thinking, and all our previous answers and theories were null and void.
What makes you so sure that this isnt simply happening again?
Re:Know how the universe will end? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Know how the universe will end? (Score:2)
when will you learn there is no beginning and there is no end
Re:Know how the universe will end? (Score:4, Insightful)
Lee Smolin et al (Score:5, Interesting)
As I understand it, there is a serious strand of thought in cosmology that suggests that our universe may be only one of (an infinite number of) alternatives. A small finite area in a parent universe undergoes inflation and blows up like a very fast balloon; for observers within this bubble, theirs is the only universe. Smolin also talks about how this hypothesis might tie in with the six magic physical constants which, if their values were even slightly different, would cause totally different physical conditions within our universe. If the inflationary bubbles occur within singularities, they would also be unknowable to their parent universe. A universe with lots of black holes would tend to give rise to offspring that would also have lots of black holes, and vice versa. I'm badly mangling his explanation of this ! but he provides an IMHO elegant explanation for the phenomena of these numbers' values appearing to have been tuned very precisely to the values neccessary for "our" sort of universe, and hence, life, and ultimately us and any other observers out there.
What's your opinion of this? It seems to me that this hypothesis makes no testable predictions and so falls beyond the remit of the scientific method. Is it just a smart way of talking around the anthropic principle, or might this be one of the key concepts to help tie up the loose ends in the standard model?
Willing to bet this is wrong! (Score:5, Funny)
From philosophy to physics (Score:2)
What is the next paradigm shift? (Score:5, Interesting)
My question is what, if any then, are the areas where we need similar paradigm shifts to answer current outstanding questions? It seems to me, at least, that maybe there aren't any, and today's scientists are left working harder and harder simply to add a few significant digits to existing theories. What are your thoughts?
Re:What is the next paradigm shift? (Score:4, Interesting)
You're right, everything important has been discovered. [asu.edu]
Re:What is the next paradigm shift? (Score:3, Informative)
> paradigm shifts to answer current outstanding questions? It seems to me,
> at least, that maybe there aren't any, and today's scientists are left working
> harder and harder simply to add a few significant digits to existing theories.
> What are your thoughts?
Whether it classifies as paradigm shift or not, I can not say, but we have a bunch of extremely important problems to solve (most or all of which somehow revolve aro
We need a futures market for futures. (Score:5, Funny)
So, what we need is an online futures market in which cosmologists could put their money where their mouth is.
You say the universe will collapse in a big splat in 20 billion years? Fine, bet on it. 20 billion years if the universe hasn't collapsed, you'd better pay off. 20 billion years' worth of interest should make you think carefully before mouthing off!
You say there's a parallel universe nearby? OK, plunk down your money. If there is one, you win. (And your counterpart in the parallel universe, of course, loses. What point is there in parallel universes unless we can transfer money between them?)
An asteroid might slam into the Earth a year from now, destroying all human life, but if you manage to pick the exact day it happens, you could be rich!
Re:We need a futures market for futures. (Score:3, Interesting)
You're on [longbets.org]
Safe to say anyway (Score:2)
More importantly, how is this theory really going to change anything? Because some scientists "knows" the universe will end in X manner, does that make a near-earth asteroid any less threatening? Ah well, fun stuff to read at the least.
Which end do we know will happen now? (Score:5, Informative)
Possible scenarios include:
This fell out of favour a while back, when the need for a flat universe became apparent. In this scenario, the universe's espansion halts and it re-collapses. Once it was thought that this would involve time running backwards/entropy reversal during the crunch phase, but it was later shown that scenarios with increasing entropy also existed. There was much speculation about whether the universe would "bounce" after it crunched, forming a new expanding universe.
This scenario was popular when we'd made a detailed enough survey to know that that amount of bright matter in the universe was far too low to counteract the expansion. It fell out of favour when our estimates of the amount of dark matter got better.
In this scenario, the universe keeps expanding quickly, and all matter that isn't gravitationally bound into clusters is separated by vast empty regions of space. As the universe's expansion represents the expansion of space itself, sufficiently large gravitationally bound clusters might still be disrupted, due to distances changing internally. Galaxies burn out as stars exhaust their fuel, stellar corpses eventually merge with each other and with the central black hole, which finally decays after a mind-bogglingly huge length of time.
This scenario assumes that the amount of matter - light and dark - is perfectly balanced with the expansion of the universe. There was strong circumstantial evidence for a scenario like this, due to the fact that deviations from flatness amplify over time and that our universe was still _roughly_ flat - but the linchpin was a variety of models for the early universe - and the big bang - that required the universe to be flat. More detailed measurements of the amount of dark matter in the universe seemed to be consistent with this model.
In this scenario, the rate of expansion slows, approaching zero as time goes to infinity. Distance still goes to infinity as time goes to infinity, but not as rapidly. From a local point of view this looks a lot like Whimper Version 1.
This model arose when evidence for dark energy was discovered by observations of distant parts of the universe. In this model, the universe started out as flat, but a weak repulsive effect comes into play that causes expansion to accelerate. The effect is small enough that we haven't diverged that greatly from flatness yet, but in the end, it'll be Whimper Version 1 all over again. This is one of the two currently plausible scenarios.
This model was the result of closer examination of the scalar field models used to drive inflation in the early universe. In the inflationary model - which itself was proposed to solve the problem of the universe's matter distribution being so smooth - a "scalar field" existed in the early universe that permeated space and caused vast amounts of new space to be created. In the original version of the inflationary model, this scalar field's effects died out shortly after the big bang. A later model, however, proposed that the field was not cancelled everywhere - in some regions of the universe, constructive interference would cause it to be strong enough for inflation to continue.
Thus, we have a model where the universe looks mostly like our own, except for regions where it "buds" to form new universes. This process continues forever. This is the second scenario currently considered plausible (with the scalar field taking on the role of "dark energy").
This is the model proposed by
Universes on multiple membranes. (Score:3, Informative)
While it's common to call the universe "everything," it's really just "everything we can sense or extrapolate." There very very well might be a much much larger "macroverse" out there--but to get to this point, we're firmly out of science (which is a search for knowledge) and into theory--also known as "religion", "dreaming", and "half-assed speculation."
Firstly, you apparently have been misinformed about the definition of the word "theory". An idea that is pro
variable constants (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't the use of ugly hacks to prop up an established theory in the face of contradictory observations an indicator of a theory which needs to be chucked out en masse and reformulated in the light of a more fundamental description of physics?
Re:variable constants (Score:3, Insightful)
Sort of.
It's actually an indication that a better model _might_ exist.
Until we have a model in-hand that works at least as well as the current one, however, there's no justification for throwing out the current model (which still works quite well as an approximation
Universe Expansion (Score:3, Interesting)
True Random (Score:4, Interesting)
Religious Objectivity and Science? (Score:2)
So I have somewhat of a two-part question:
Because the ideas are hard to comprehend even for those who are willing to try and understand it, do you find even more resistence from people with strong religious beliefs?
What will it mean (Score:4, Insightful)
the (key to the) End of the Universe... (Score:2)
Effects of multiverse (Score:2, Interesting)
Physics and Consciousness (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you think there will be any fruitful (i.e., predictive) experimentation in this matter? Could we someday develop a theory that will unite physics and consciousness?
Dark energy and superstrings (Score:2)
stranded (Score:2)
Do black holes really exist? Do singularities really exist? If not, what is there instead?
If you're not sure of the answers to these questions, how can you be so sure about how the Universe will
The end of the world as we know it (Score:2)
One thing is sure. Our world will end long before the universe ends.
Another thing is also quite sure. Our end will be brought on by the hordes of rabid American christians.
We don't understand the dark energy... (Score:4, Interesting)
Even when we understand the dark energy it can not be hailed as a triumph above all other discoveries, because we don't know how galaxies form? How massive (primordial?) black holes at the centers of galaxies form? What re-ionized the universe? How even a single star forms?
Unfortunately, this is also a view held by many older astronomers and physicists in academia, because they have pushed so hard for so long for the values of these fundamental parameters.
None the less, the book looks interesting. I always enjoy books about science and scientists. My question for Chris Seife, which is related to his phenomenal statement, is: As a science writer, do you attempt to explain the hard science to people and if so do you feel it is important for scientist to try and explain their work to the public, or is it better to skip the details and just show them pretty pictures and cool stories? We all know that's what gets science funded.
So, uh, what caused the big bang? (Score:4, Funny)
Like, what made the big bang happen?
God?
Oh, who made God?
SuperGod?
Who made SuperGod?
SuperDuperGod?
Who made SuperDuperGod?
Meanwhile, 500 billion light years away, another universe is big banging its way in our own universe but past the edge of our own big bang. Aliens from that universe will never see us and we will never see them, even though we are arranged in a convenient diagnonal, if viewed 20 trillion light years from above.
So, scientists know how the universe will end? (Score:3, Funny)
Human Immortality (Score:3, Interesting)
For example, methods for restoring telomere length, reversing the effects of glucose binding, correcting genetic damage, and promoting the growth of new neurons.
How long do you think life can be extended by these and other methods? And to step briefly away from the science aspect, how do you think the results of this research will be offered to the public? Will it be available as part of the average health plan, or only for the uber-wealthy?
Re:Errr.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Errr.. (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a good point you have hidden in there. Wouldn't it be ironic if, despite all the gloom & doom lovers out there, that we all died because of some race even more ignorant than ourselves? Or, perhaps, even more brilliant than ourselves.
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh god (irony), not this crap again.
Haven't you got anything better to do that to keep 'refining' Creationism whenever in response to Evolution showing it to be unnecessary.
There is NO NEED for intelligent design. It's only purpose is to allow you justify your belief in God. I don't care if it's the Bombadier Beetle, the jinking Moth, whatever, it's just as sensible to think of a way it could've evolved than to allege that there is a God. And a God is a damn big hypothesis that only serves to abstract out the thing you can't explain.
Justin.
Bored of bloody desperate religionists arguing over who's got the best imaginary friend.
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:2, Funny)
No, She's a holy big hypothesis, thank you very much.
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:2, Interesting)
Okay, I'm not really in the mood for another religious flame war, but I am going to respond to this.
Yes, so-called "Intelligent Design" is inherently a religious concept. So what? How does that invalidate it? The existence of God cannot be disproven scientifically. As long as something cannot be disproven, it is a valid theory. I suspect you don't really know anything about the science behind Intelligent Design. I suggest you learn something about it before criticizing it.
As for your remark about Creatio
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:5, Insightful)
The existence of God cannot be disproven scientifically. As long as something cannot be disproven, it is a valid theory.
Err... if a theory is not falsifiable, it is certainly not a useful theory, scientifically speaking.
And if, as you assert, the existence of God cannot be disproven scientifically, then God is not a topic of science. So....
What I am trying to say is that you can believe what you want, but don't force it on others. Eliminating Intelligent Design, or whatever you want to call it, from school curriculum amounts to nothing more than censorship, just like eliminating evolution.
You can keep intelligent design in your curriculum. But it should be a part of a religion or comparative world faiths class, not a part of a science class, because it is not science. It is wrong to claim that it is, and it is dogmatic interference to insist that it be taught as such.
-Rob
Theory Abuse in full force (Score:5, Insightful)
From the HyperDictionary [hyperdictionary.com]: scientific theory - a theory that explains scientific observations; "scientific theories must be falsifiable"
Proponents of ID and other some such notions love to brutally abuse the term theory to confuse the issues. For something to rise to the accepted level of theory, it must be based on scientific observations. It must have passed through the hypothesis stage of initial concept deliniation. It must be tested repeatedly, succeeding each time (or the initial hypothesis must be reworked). It has to pass peer review.
ID and other notions don't even rise to the level of hypothesis.
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:5, Insightful)
> Yes, so-called "Intelligent Design" is inherently a religious concept. So what? How does that invalidate it? The existence of God cannot be disproven scientifically. As long as something cannot be disproven, it is a valid theory.
The fact that it can't be disproven shows its worthlessness as a theory. There is no conceivable observation that isn't compatible with 'goddidit', which makes 'goddidit' completely useless as an explanation for anything.
[Snip fantasia on Genesis I]
> For having been written thousands of years ago by a man (Moses) who knew nothing about science, it seems pretty close to me.
Regardless who wrote it and when, it sounds pretty wrong to me.
> I understand why some people refuse to believe in a God. It takes a very open mind to believe in something you have no evidence of.
Alas, it takes an open mind to believe in things we do have evidence of, such as the big bang and biological evolution.
And if you're so keen on believing stuff without any supporting evidence, why don't you believe in all the other gods and unicorns that people have professed throughout the ages? You're merely engaging in special pleading.
> Eliminating Intelligent Design, or whatever you want to call it, from school curriculum amounts to nothing more than censorship, just like eliminating evolution.
No, omitting ID is just like omitting other pseudosciences based on bad arguments.
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure you're post will attract a lot of flames, and I'll try not to add to the heat too much. As a former proponent of Intelligent Design, I do have some comments, which I hope you'll take in the spirit they are intended.
This isn't quite true...if something cannot be disproven, it is an empty theory. The principle of falsifiability is a cornerstone of modern scientific understanding. If you cannot devise a way to disprove a statement, that
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:5, Interesting)
There is NO NEED for intelligent design.
On the contrary: if there was no need for the idea of intelligent design (note that I didn't call it a theory), nobody would've come up with it. It's pretty well-understood that there are a large number of fundamental constants which are balanced just perfectly to allow complex systems to arise in the Universe. This creates a question: how did this perfect balance come to be? Some people feel the need to have an answer, and for these people, ID fills a genuine need.
On the other hand, ID isn't science. Science is concerned with empirical observations and testable hypotheses. You can't empirically test God. Theologically speaking, we can't test God because he exists on such a level beyond us that we can't conceive of a test. (There are many other theological problems with testing God, but leave those alone for now.) And scientifically speaking, God defies all attempts at making testable hypotheses. So either way, you're screwed by introducing ID into a scientific curriculum. If you want to believe in ID, great; just please don't call it science.
Interestingly, the Catholic Church doesn't believe in ID except in a very abstract way. The Catholic Church has, amazingly enough, learned from Galileo and Copernicus and all the rest. Many times in the past the Church said such-and-such a physical phenomenon is the direct handiwork of God, only to have it shown that it's not God's direct handiwork anyway. At that point, what do you do? Redefine God so that "well, God's still directly handling the other things, just not that"? And what happens when natural processes are discovered for the other things?
The Catholic Church has become so cognizant of this that they've assigned it a name: the God Of The Gaps. If every unexplainable instance is attributed to God, the Catholic theology goes, then whenever a previously unexplainable instance is discovered to have an explanation, God's glory is diminished by the explaining.
ID is a God Of The Gaps argument. We don't understand how the finely-balanced nature of the cosmos is possible, therefore God must have done it... well, what happens if/when we discover there's a natural phenomenon behind it?
Re: why I object to ID and CS on theological grounds instead of scientific ones... ID and CS are both theological models of the world. As such, they can't be refuted with science. They stand entirely apart from it.
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, I flipped a coin 30 times the other day and came out with the following result: HTHHTTTHHTHHTHTTHHTHHTTTHHTHTT
Now I ask you: what is the likelihood of my getting exactly this sequence of heads and tails? And to think I got exactly this, without a single mistake! I can't believe my luck! C
I liked the parent-parent better. (Score:4, Interesting)
I defy anyone to explain to me how one species ever evolves into a completely different species.
What do you mean by "completely different species"? All it means when a different species appears is that members of the new group are different enough that they can't reproduce with the original species anymore. We still have something like 98% of our DNA exactly like that of a chimp... but our reproductive details are different enough that we can't produce a natural hybrid. It's silly to say we're completely different.
Now, suppose I'm right... The Bible talks about a time when everyone answers to God for what they've done.
Where do you fit in the atheist who volunteers for public services, gives to charities, etc.? There are plenty of people out there who don't believe in God but who follow the same ethical rules as you do, for different reasons.
And where do you fit in people who lived before monotheistic religions were even an option? Are they all still in hell? Poor suckers.
Just my thoughts on this... I think you'll find that the average atheist didn't choose that path to "permit" them to break the rules. For me, at least, all of the human religions that I know about just seem... well, really unlikely. The only idea that comes close is the suggestion that there's some force that started the whole ball rolling... but we know nothing about it, and praying to it or worshipping it as about as useful as praying to my own foot.
I'd probably sleep better if I believed that I would move on to some kind of pleasant afterlife after I die, but I'd rather live my life based on the best assumptions I can come up with -- not the most comfortable ones.
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:3, Insightful)
The science I can explain better, but the second part of your argument is flawed as well. There is currently a need for intelligent design, though there might not be a scien
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:2, Insightful)
ID isn't scientific (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't need a God to make the universe work. Although you may say t
Thinly veiled "proof of God" stuff.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The post is about scientists looking at physical evidence and coming to a testable conclusion... not playing with numbers and supposition in order to prove some religious belief.
Beware the man who calls well proven ideas... (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, before you start arguing about science, try and understand its terminology at least a little.
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:3, Insightful)
Intelligent Design violates the principle known as "Occam's Razor", which states that, given two plausible explanations for one phenomenon, the most simple explanation is the correct one.
"Intelligent Design" states that an intelligent creator was at the origin of the universe [some even say a purely semitic YHWH] and of all life. It can be construed as more complicated than a purely "naturalistic" vision, because it states that this all-knowing, all-powerful being is necessary for the universe to be create
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:5, Informative)
Intelligent Design, a recent theory that has gained enough respect from the scientific community
Woah, stop right there.
It's proponents claim that it has respect in the scientific community. You will find scientists who like the idea. But the fact is, so far as peer review and confirming experiments and the general scientific community, it is not considered really a viable theory. It's certainly not any competition for evolution amonst the sceintific community at all.
The proponents' PR claims it is, but that's just the PR.
See, for example, http://www.phys.cwru.edu/~krauss/inteloped.html [cwru.edu].
-Rob
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:2, Insightful)
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I'm more comfortable with that idea too, but being more comfortable should have nothing to do with it. Wouldn't you rather just know the truth even if it's less comforting?
Not that we know what the truth is yet, but why settle for less than the truth?
Of cou
Life _as_we_know_it_ (Score:4, Insightful)
1. It suggests the variables necessary for life as we know it. While life on Earth is incredibly varied, it isn't the end-all-be-all. Perhaps fundamentally different life could exist in different conditions, ranging from the mass of a neutrino to the spectral-jibber-jabber constant.
2. It doesn't present ranges for the variables. It does give "if higher/lower/more/fewer" qualitative statements, but not quantative. What if a variable was increased by 1%? 10%? 100%? What is the range for those variables to preserve current life-abling conditions?
I think most scientists would concur that the probability of life as we know it is almost certainly zero*. And yet, we have life, as we know it. If a variable was fudged in the past, we surely wouldn't have life as we know it, but that is not the same analysis as not having life at all.
* math for really, really, really freakin' close to zero. A finite number of instances of life given an infinite number of chances.
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:4, Insightful)
> Intelligent Design, a recent theory that has gained enough respect from the scientific community
ID has no respect in the scientific community whatsoever. (If it did, Dembski wouldn't be making up paranoid conspiracy theories to explain why it doesn't.)
> that it is being taught alongside evolution in many schools and colleges
A number of creationist pressure groups have tried to get it adopted by state school boards, but AFAIK they haven't actually succeeded anywhere.
Which is all for the best, since if you ask an ID advocate what should go in their lesson plan all you'll get is a blank look. All the political noise the ID movement has stirred up over the past few years is based on nothing more than a couple of easily refuted arguments that evolution must have had some help somewhere along the way.
> explains that to even reach the stage at which we exist there are no fewer than twenty-six variables necessary for our universe to even consider permitting life and a further sixty-six within our galaxy and Earth itself that allowed the multitude of living beings not only to come into being but to flourish
Those aren't findings of the ID movement; they're arguments that the ID movement appeals to. (Showing, in passing, that ID is nothing more than the old fine-tuning argument painted up with a fresh layer of pseudo-science.)
> (this whitepaper that was in My Favorites breaks these criteria into probabilities -- great read if you prefer to see the evidence of this hypothesis)
Probability arguments are what creationists use to deny that something has happened. (Scientists also acknowledge that the universe is a very improbable place, or would be if all configurations of matter and energy were equally probable, but from that recognition they part with creationists by investigating the causes of the observed non-randomness rather than invoking armchair arguments to deny causes.)
> Some perhaps are content with chaos theory, but I'm glad there's another scientific viewpoint that can rationalize the concept that free will is the only variable that yet seems unaccounted for
The existence of free will hasn't even been demonstrated; it's small wonder that it hasn't been accounted for.
>
No, it isn't even a theory. It's speculation unconstrained by any evidence.
> So I'm glad that there are still some minds out there, like Copernicus and Einstein, that are not satisfied with science by rote, and I think that if we allow ourselves break out of the current dominant paradigms for just a little bit the change in perspective can open many new insights.
Hope you were just trolling. That would be a good trollpost, but a pathetic serious post.
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:4, Insightful)
You mention "continually reexamined in the light of new evidence" yet mention no new evidence. OOGG hear such comments many times. OOGG know Darwin think of many objections, answer with real evidence. Many observations on human breed pigeons, dogs, agriculture, etc., substantiate Darwin argument. Many more observations since Darwin's time substantiate evolutionary ideas. "Intelligent design" provide no observation other than "I don't believe in the alternative."
Perhaps try read Darwin's book?
Re:I've been doing some thinking about this lately (Score:3, Insightful)
> Darwin stated that the fossil record, incomplete and meager as it was at the time, would eventually substantiate his theory by showing the gradual progression of creatures and intermediate forms. It is now evident due to the overwhelming preponderance of fossil evidence that has been found and cataloged, that the fossil record is a dismal failure in this role of corroborating evidence.
Funny, the people who actually study it think it is an overwhelming success. Look at the historical record of the bo
Matter Distribution, and Time (Score:2)
That means that there are many different scenarios that would allow for locallized "clumping" (and the scale of these clumps could well be galaxy-sized)
2) We've got a very, very long time scale to work with. Gravity may be a weak force, but it had a long time to work with.
From this, one could reasonably expect the matter distribution of the universe some very long
Answer: (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no friction in space to counteract the inertia of the explosion's particles. Therefore one would assume that they'd fly out from the explosion at the same rate forever w/o ever hitting one another as they all blew out away from the same point.
Ever hear of universal gravitation [google.com]?
You mention that the gravity of the particles is "basically zero". How do you define "basically zero". Does that mean zero or non-zero? If the latter, does that mean less than or greater than zero? I can only assume
Re:give me a break.... (Score:2)
We havn't even discovered if there is/was life on the nearest planet to us... how in the world to these pompous asshats think they can know how the world began?
Can you explain to me how your brain works to form consciousness?
If not, where the hell do you get off being such a pompous asshat as to participate in a philosophical discussion, huh? After all, you seem to think that one must be able to explain a piece of the microcosm to have a chance of saying something meaningful about the macrocosm.
-R
That's not Science - it's Engineering (Score:3, Insightful)
The Science behind fusion is well understood and proven out
The Engineering behind creating a self-sustaining fusion reaction from which more power can be extracted than consumed is a little more challenging - especially given that the only natural model we have requires collecting enough Hydrogen such that it starts to fuse under the pre
Re:Sign of Impending Doom? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Notice (Score:2)
"You have 2 days 34 minutes, before you no longer exist. Click here to renew your existance. Don't delay, renew today!"
Re:but the really important question is (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:God (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't disprove the existence of Leprechauns either, but that doesn't mean I go looking for gold at the end of a rainbow.
The unending search for truth through science is a humanistic attempt to place one's self above God and finally be "free" from Him.
That's an awfully general statment there. If what you mean is that revealed religion is the only access to "God", then which one are you talking about.
In order for someone to disprove God's existence they would have to be omniscient and omnipresent.
Why ? Deists have produced some interesting "proofs" of a "Greatest Conceivable Being" (google it yourself) but these have nothing to do with disproof. BTW the GCB may have nothing to do with the "God" of the 1611 KJV.
It sounds like you resent science. Scientists typically are not trying to prove, or disprove the existence of god, God or the GCB. They work only by what can be observed. And you are correct, scientists are neither omniscient, omnipotent, nor omnipresent; if those qualities are required you must go to someone who claims to have a revelation from a being that is. Who would that be Moses ? Mohammed ? Jesus ? Siddhartha ? Zarathushtra ?
-- Rich