Study Finds Universe Is 100 Million Years Older Than Previously Thought 245
skade88 writes "Reuters is reporting that scientists now say the universe is 100 million years older than previously thought after they took a closer look at leftover radiation from the Big Bang. This puts the age of the Universe at 13.8 billion years. The new findings are the direct results from analyzing data provided by the European Space Agency's Planck spacecraft. The spacecraft is providing the most detailed look to date at the remnant microwave radiation that permeates the universe. 'It's as if we've gone from a standard television to a high-definition television. New and important details have become crystal clear,' Paul Hertz, NASA's director of astrophysics, told reporters on a conference call."
Blaspheming liars! (Score:5, Funny)
YEC (Score:2, Funny)
The universe is 100,006,000 years old!
-
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100,006,016 years
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The universe is clearly a female entity... (Score:5, Funny)
Lying about its age like that.
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Apparently, the way to determine the universe's real age is to closely scrutinize its wrinkles and stretch marks.
Re:The universe is clearly a female entity... (Score:5, Funny)
"Does this Dark Matter make my galaxies look fat?"
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It doesn't look a day over 13.5 billion years old.
I believe Reuters is fudging (Score:5, Informative)
It should be 40 million years older with a margin of error of 50 million years. Ars article much more in depth if you want to know more.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/03/first-planck-results-the-universe-is-still-weird-and-interesting/ [arstechnica.com]
Re:I believe Reuters is fudging (Score:5, Informative)
Silly. Don't look at Ars. Look at the Planck papers.
http://www.sciops.esa.int/index.php?project=PLANCK&page=Planck_Published_Papers
Will be on arxiv, too.
This wasn't like going from regular tv to high def. This was like going from retina vision (wmap) to slightly more retina vision (planck). The age was reevaluated by a trivial 1%.
100million or less than 1% older (Score:2, Insightful)
Everything needs its proper scale. 100million appears large. But not so much when it is the difference between 13.7 and 13.8 billion years. That is less than 1%.
Does the title "Universe is a tiny bit older than we thought" or "Less than 1% correction to age of Universe from new Measurements" capture as many headlines.
On the scale of the age of the universe 100million really is not much at all.
Re:100million or less than 1% older (Score:5, Interesting)
That's actually the really good news from all of this. The news articles are all highlighting the difference in numbers, when the real news is that this basically confirms that we were right all along. sure the numbers are slightly different for age of the universe, rate of expansion, and amount of matter, but all of the numbers are close to what we already knew. This is confirmation that our models are right, and more detailed data to refine things further.
This is the way science works, and it's really good news!
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To put this in perspective it's like a year is 2.67 days longer than it was before.
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To put this in perspective it's like a year is 2.67 days longer than it was before.
And your boss wants you to put in 2.67 days more work.
But I just want to know ... (Score:2)
... what was going on 1 attosecond BEFORE the big bang actually popped. I suspect there was leaking condom involved.
Re:But I just want to know ... (Score:4, Funny)
The Great Green Arkleseizure sneezed.
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The Great Green Arkleseizure sneezed.
And of course, anyone who has dined at Milliway's know that there will not be a coming of the Great White Handkerchief. Heck, even the return of the Great Prophet Zarquon almost does not happen.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:But I just want to know ... (Score:5, Interesting)
More modern cosmological views tend to assume that there wasn't actually a singularity. There's a singularity in our current mathematical models of it --- but that's a problem with the models not having the right parts to describe the very early universe, not an indication that the universe was singular or even asymptotically approaching singular from positive time. The general "mental image" of the early universe as described by modern cosmologists like Stephen Hawking involves a transition from a region where the time dimension is no longer "special" in having a "forward-moving" direction --- in this part of the universe (which forms a smooth non-singular boundary edge to our flowing-time universe), the question "what came before?" no longer makes any sense, because there is no time direction for "before."
That should provide you with even more noodle shredding than an asymptotically infinite universe :)
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That's just a fancy way of saying that the universe always was (which gives support to other theories in turn; expand contract expand).
Anyway. Anyone else feel like we should begin prefixing the universe now? "Ye Olde Universe."
Dammit (Score:2)
Bullshit (Score:2, Funny)
The universe came into existence last Tuesday. You're almost as bad as the Last Mondayers, fucking heretics.
Umm (Score:2)
I'm going to hazard a guess that 50 years from now - we'll have better detection instruments set up that will change the age of the Universe dramatically.
Just look back 50 years and see the change.
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Or, this topic of research is reaching maturity where understanding of the fine details will increase, but no major upheavals in the basic parameters.
From the Wikipedia page on "age of the universe":
The first reasonably accurate measurement of the rate of expansion of the universe, a numerical value now known as the Hubble constant, was made in 1958 by astronomer Allan Sandage.[23] His measured value for the Hubble constant yielded the first good estimate of the age of the universe, coming very close to the value range generally accepted today.
Between then and now, there was a fair amount of work put into searching for reasons why the universe wasn't about twice as old (coming from older models/observations), but the cutting-edge predictions pretty much settled down to where they are now (the speed of light or mass of the electron haven't changed radi
Dark matter (Score:2)
Da Big Bang... (Score:2, Funny)
I have a feeling the Deterministic school of thought which governs science is failing to answer the big questions. I am not saying the alternates available - religion and other other super natural stuff - is better, but we need a third model.
And until a new model is found, lets collectively gasp at da big bang!!!
Re:Da Big Bang... (Score:4, Insightful)
Big Bang is only a theory. As far as I know it is the theory with the most number of followers so it is assumed to be truer than others
No, most evidence wins.
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PS: I do not intend here to "discredit" the theory of the Big Bang, just like to remember how important it is to avoid saying something is "undeniable truth" without absolute certainty that you're seeing all the variables involved.
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Big Bang is only a theory.
People who say "$foo is only a theory" probably need to go and look up what the word "theory" actually means...
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And until a new model is found, lets collectively gasp at da big bang!!!
I don't like this new theme song for the Leonard & Sheldon Show.
Re:Da Big Bang... (Score:4, Insightful)
Theory does not mean "guess" or "hunch". If you say something in the scientific sense is "only a theory", you don't actually understand what scientific theory is. Electricity is "only a theory" too.
That also confirms the sex of the universe (Score:2)
It must be a woman trying to shave off 100 million years on us like that.
You look great! (Score:2)
Surely this is within the margin of error (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this even newsworthy? 100 million years is less than 1% of 13.8 Billion years. Given how little of the Universe we have actually see so far the margin of error for any prediction like this has to be huge so a 0.7% change is meaningless.
Over two thousand years ago Eratosthenes estimated the circumference of the Earth from measurements taken in the vicinity of ancient Egypt. Given the limitations of his measurements we are amazed that he managed to get an answer that is in the right ballpark. Depending on interpretation his calculation was wrong by between 2% and 16%. The age of the Universe is a much bigger problem and the amount of it we have seen to date is a much smaller proportion than Egypt was to the size of the World so I think it is fair to assume that even if all the key assumptions underlying this age of universe calculation are correct the margin for error is huge. Of course it is even more likely that something we don't know yet will render the entire calculation invalid.
Today's Best Guess (Score:2)
The beauty of science is that old hypotheses are continually tested and new ones subjected to rigorous proofs, which then gives us the best available solutions. New means of observation and methods of analysis are always welcome.
That being the case, it is a pity that so much attention gets focused on the storm troopers of the Empirical Empire, who are so uncomprehending of the scientific method as to thump their chests and loudly proclaim each new discovery as incontrovertible, absolute fact. The wise and h
Bad link (Score:3)
Auto-play audio ad => instant close
Value for the age of the universe hasn't changed (Score:2)
The CENTRE of the range of values we accept for the age of the universe has shifted, but it has done so well within the 1-sigma boundary of the previous measurement's errors. What has really changed is the error bar is now considerably smaller.
Huh? Isn't time a function of expansion? (Score:2)
It's been a while since I looked at big bang physics, but I seem to recall that time itself 'begins' at the big bang. Rather than it being like a clock that starts ticking at a constant rate, time itself begins to slow down (so the first few moments of the universe take a very long time, but the time itself is squashed up very tightly). There was no 'first second' - just a space-time singularity. (Apparent time would be infinite but take no time. Apparent space would be infinite but take no space).
Secondly,
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Sique, IIRC the frequency of photon oscillation is proportional to their energy. It is the speed (not oscillation) of light which is constant - and speed depends upon distance, which (as mentioned) was infinite (but wrapped up tight) at the big bang.
So that means.... (Score:2)
that the universe is 100,005,300 years old according to Creationists?
Damn (Score:2)
Damn, I just finally got used to writing 2013 on everything too.
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So... 4017 is still the standard age in Christendom then, yes?
Oh, I see. You've decided that there is such a thing as the "science vs religion debate" outside your tiny little circle and you need to score points for your side at every opportunity. You don't care that your comment is completely off-topic, or that what you're saying is obviously nonsense. Beating up that straw man makes you feel important.
You may want to stop. You're not helping.
Re:The difference between science and religion (Score:5, Informative)
even PAT ROBERTSON thinks the whole 6000 years thing is a bunch of crap... youd think the militant anti-theism folks would give it a break.
Look, I know that people will probably try to lynch me when I say this, but Bishop Ussher wasn't inspired by the Lord when he said that it all took 6,000 years. It just didn't. You go back in time, you've got radiocarbon dating. You got all these things and you've got the carcasses of dinosaurs frozen in time out in the Dakotas.
They're out there. So, there was a time when these giant reptiles were on the Earth and it was before the time of the Bible. So, don't try and cover it up and make like everything was 6,000 years. That's not the Bible. If you fight science you're going to lose your children, and I believe in telling it the way it was.-Pat Robertson
http://www.examiner.com/article/evangelist-pat-robertson-no-longer-preaching-creationism [examiner.com]
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/29/pat-robertson-challenges-creationism/ [cnn.com]
What if the religion is scientific? (Score:2)
Does it still count as a religion if it relies on science to determine it's beliefs?
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Or to quote Philip K. Dick:
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
If you don't need a belief to support something, and others can still determine it's there, it's reality, not religion.
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Yes. Because a belief stops being a belief if there is enough evidence to support it.
Ummm... No. You're clearly confused.
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Yep, the bible is interpreted exactly the same as it was 2000 years ago.
Sure except for the fact that significant portions have been altered, re-translated, or just plain re-written. A perfect example would be the King James version that the purists consider a standard. Or maybe the fact that many of the books of the bible appear to have been written by the same person, well after the dates implied in the writings.
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Refined or rewritten bullshit is still bullshit.
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Yep, the bible is interpreted exactly the same as it was 2000 years ago.
Sure except for the fact that significant portions have been altered, re-translated, or just plain re-written. A perfect example would be the King James version that the purists consider a standard. Or maybe the fact that many of the books of the bible appear to have been written by the same person, well after the dates implied in the writings.
You are free to believe whatever you wish but the Old Testament that is found in the King James bible is based on the Greek translation of the hebrew scriptures which is known as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint [wikipedia.org] and it predates AD or (CE if you prefer). You are free to study the differences between the Greek translation, the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh [wikipedia.org] and modern translations but please stop spreading your unfounded bullshit as it were fact.
The main gospels of the new testament have man
Re:The difference between science and religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you afraid of pursuing the truth because of what you might find?
What I may find by spying on a close friend or loved one, certainly, other than that, no.
Are you afraid of losing control?
Sometimes, especially when I feel I am being provoked beyond common decency, but in day to day life I'm not driven by fear, I'm driven by curiosity. On the rare occasions I have lost control as an adult, I have asked for forgiveness from those who I wronged, I do not have an "imaginary friend" to use as a surrogate.
Your "self-control" is an illusion.
Agree, but I have the same attitude to that illusion as you do to your illusory God, ie: I stubbornly refuse to part with it.
You are a slave to your desires.
Agree. Being a social mammal, one of my primordial desires is to moderate my own base desires for the benefit of other members of my species, especially those individuals who happen to belong to my tribe (extended family). Some people are born without that desire and fall under the heading of "sociopaths", sociopaths can be trained to behave normally if they believe a supernatural being is constantly watching their every move and will crush them like a grape if they misbehave.
Now riddle me this God man...
The ultimate test of moral fiber has always been "doing the right thing when nobody is watching", how is it possible for someone who believes in an omnipresent god to take that test?
Re:The difference between science and religion (Score:4)
Very, very well said.
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they'll reply "god isn't 'somebody', he is god"
Re:The difference between science and religion (Score:5, Informative)
I have heard the same bullshit claims about alteration, re-translation and rewrites over and over again. I am really bored and tired of it.
Uhhhh... You're blind? The only reason I study the Bible at all is to find amusing ways to get proselytizers to leave me alone. Even with just the most casual, basic comparative study of one version against any other, it's extremely and painfully obvious that one translation says one thing, and another translation says something else. This is especially evident if you compare versions in different languages, and I've read bits of the Bible in Spanish, French, Latin and ancient Greek, along with several different English translations. You don't have to look hard at all. Let's just take my favorite example off the top of my head, Exodus 22:18:
Do not allow a sorceress to live.
Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
maleficos non patieris vivere
A la hechicera no dejarás que viva.
No dejarás con vida a la hechicera.
Tu ne laisseras point vivre la magicienne.
Tu ne laisseras point vivre la sorcière.
[Greek removed by Slashdot]
The word in bold is variously translated into modern languages as something like witch, sorceress, etc. and it's almost always in the feminine in translations. The word [Greek removed by Slashdot] is obscure and hard to translate definitively, but "animal" is a common translation, and the word is neuter in gender. Maleficos in Latin is masculine, and means something like "doers of evil" etymologically, and is translated as things like "evil, wicked, accursed ones." Greek and Latin are as far back as I can go, but there's nothing in either language to suggest the original author intended this to apply only to female wicked people, and yet that is how it has ended up in every modern language I can read. It even ended up that way in Latin eventually, changing gender to feminine in Malleus maleficarum.
So, to summarize, the only bullshit is believing that none of the countless people who have dipped their fingers into the Biblical pie over the centuries have ever let their personal views or the times they were living in color what they did with the text. Sure they have.
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not easy to translate greek in other languages, especially by people who do not understand greek. They mostly transliterated, they did not translate. iirc the original word was ÏαÏμαÎÎÏÏ? In that case a rough translation is "the one who poisons".
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A very detailed article on that whole thing is at http://proteuscoven.com/Suffer.htm [proteuscoven.com]
Re:The difference between science and religion (Score:5, Interesting)
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Pffft...you guys are wasting your time.
Those features were all deprecated in the last build. See the patch notes. [biblegateway.com]
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Try doing some research sometime.
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If you think Christians are so beholden to the literal translation of the Bible, then how do you explain the fact that the majority of Christians have never read the Bible and likely couldn't even quote rudimentary passages from it? Until the last few hundred years most Christians didn't even have the ability to read.
Lastly, your conspiracy theories about the bibles authors are misguided. You seem to be missing some rudimentary understanding of Biblical Canonization. I recommend reading this:
http://en.wikip [wikipedia.org]
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Yep, the bible is interpreted exactly the same as it was 2000 years ago.
Sure except for the fact that significant portions have been altered, re-translated, or just plain re-written. A perfect example would be the King James version that the purists consider a standard. Or maybe the fact that many of the books of the bible appear to have been written by the same person, well after the dates implied in the writings.
Don't mind the person you are responding to. They are not being serious. They are speaking with hyperbole. They have only a passing knowledge of the contents of the bible. They are simply parroting what they have heard other people say about the bible.
Re-written?! Half of it hadn't been written for the first time 2000 years ago. For that matter, much of the last half deals with events that hadn't happened yet 2000 years ago. Unless I'm very confused, it's currently 2013AD, so 2000 years ago which would be 13AD, well before the governorship of Pontius Pilate (26-36AD).
Re:The difference between science and religion (Score:5, Informative)
Christianity is the youngest religion on the block and certainly not the largest.
I'll give you that it's not the largest, but where did you get this notion that it's the youngest religion? Christianity began in the mid first-century AD (or CE, if you prefer). Meanwhile, the largest religon (Islam) didn't get started until Muhammed in 610. So your "youngest religion on the block" argument is off by over half a millenia. And that's just talking about the "mainstream" religions, to say nothing of some of the more modern belief systems.
Re:The difference between science and religion (Score:5, Informative)
Christianity is the youngest religion on the block and certainly not the largest.
I'll give you that it's not the largest...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups [wikipedia.org] FFS, do you research, guys.
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What is the "other" section consists off? Jedi, FSM, est..?
Then they are not religious in the traditional sense and suddenly "atheism in respect to any major religion" climbs to number two after the Christians. Moreover I have never seen an unbiased statistics about the only country I can speak off with authority – my own. According to the CIA fact book everyone in my country who belongs to the majority ethnic group (white Caucasian) is Orthodox Christian. Well, at least from my generation more than h
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According to polls on the subject, atheism / agnosticism / unaffiliated / non-religious is the third largest (non-)religious view in the world, after Christianity and Islam.
I agree that many self-identified Christians aren't exactly devout e.g. most Catholics in the US use birth control. But by the same token, self-identified atheists have been known to get married in a church or ask for a minister on their deathbed.
My basic take on the issue: As long as nobody is coercing other people into or out of religi
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self-identified atheists have been known to get married in a church
Self-identified atheists have been known to go to listen to sacred music in churches. Self-identified atheists have been known to go to children's baptisms. Self-identified atheists have been known to say "oh my god".
So what? Atheists don't deny that religion is intertwined thoroughly in society, there aren't many who refuse to enter the doors of a church, or who can't enjoy some of the religious-related ceremonies and traditions.
As an atheist, I don't refuse to celebrte Christmas.
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Re: The difference between science and religion (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not a very good argument.
The bible has to be interpreted differently than the plain meaning of the words because otherwise it's immoral, self-contradictory, bigoted and doesn't fit with modern understanding, morality or facts.
But let's take an example from science. The equations of motion are used today as they were when they were written. We've learned there are more accurate models, and sometimes need to apply those, but we still read his writings as written.
we've also invented a way to apply his methods and equations to more objects that have been invented since, which is a form of reinterpreting, but a distinctly different one.
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Trying to defend the bible on the back of newton is a little insulting.
While newtons calculation do well for the most part, we know its not 100% accurate and most scientist will freely admit this. It works well unless your in extreme cases.
The bible however, is just a bunch of text written by people who pretended to know shit they didnt know.
Your analogy is more akin to saying that even though newton was mostly right, we are going to choose another crackpot who never used any scientific methodology to creat
Re: The difference between science and religion (Score:4, Informative)
I think you misunderstood my post, because 1. I would never defend the bible and 2. I agree 100% with the rest of your post.
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Trying to defend the bible on the back of newton is a little insulting.
I don't think he was trying to defend the bible:
The bible has to be interpreted differently than the plain meaning of the words because otherwise it's immoral, self-contradictory, bigoted and doesn't fit with modern understanding, morality or facts.
Re: The difference between science and religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to defend the bible on the back of [N]ewton is a little insulting.
To whom? Among the many hats he wore in public Newton was a respected theologian, he wrote more words on the subject of religion than any other subject, for example he wrote close to a million words on the numerology of 666. He also claimed "Jesus was sent to Earth to operate the levers of gravity". Religion was a major force in his life, He approached both religion and science as if the same subject, to him God was more than a mere assumption, he "knew" God existed because like modern day worshipers he had "conversations with God" (the copious amounts of Mercury he breathed most likely helped with that). History tends to ignore his bullshit and concentrate on what he wrote in what (from a modern POV) is arguably the most important book ever published. However, also from a modern POV, the bulk of his other writings are widely seen as batshit crazy.
Disclaimer(s): I don't think the OP was defending the bible. I've been an atheist for at least 50yrs. I don't believe in God but some of the smartest people who ever lived certainly did. The claims about Newton come from my memory of two biographies I read long ago (don't recall which ones)
PS: If anyone is looking for an interesting programming exercise. Write a program or heuristic to find a 6X6 magic square where the columns, rows, and diagonals all add up to 666, no number is repeated and all numbers must be prime. When you have discovered how difficult that is to do from scratch, know that Newton found one in his head!
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Re: The difference between science and religion (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not practically possible to dig a hole and bury your waste in urban environments anywhere in the world. Even in rural environments there are severe limitations.
There are good lessons and moral / ethical fables in Bible and other religious texts, but it is hopelessly outdated.
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I believe the Bible also says something about spreading out and populating the world. Perhaps people shouldn't be crowding together, living in cities if they aren't ready to build a sufficient sanitation system.
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I was being sarcastic.
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It's not fair. Other people always seem to have access to much more potent drugs than myself.
Re:The difference between science and religion (Score:5, Funny)
The Bible isn't interpreted. It was compiled.
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Well, with some virtual machines some JIT compiling, it's still chugging away as the back-end code on some more modern platforms...
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Is Slashdot's sarcasm meter broken again today? I'm pretty certain the parent poster was trying to (snarkily) make the point that interpretation of religious texts *has* changed a whole lot (in opposition to the grandparent post indicating religious rigidity back to a "bunch of bronze age shepards"), despite all the replies taking him overly literally.
Re:The difference between science and religion (Score:5, Funny)
Is Slashdot's sarcasm meter broken again today?
It a US site, it doesn't have a sarcasm meter! /ducks
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Thank you.
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The Bible has been under continual re-interpretation.
Take any Bibical statement:
* don't eat shellfish
* keep slaves
* don't be gay
We can show fuzzy date ranges for which the statement was uncontroversally true through to it being considered symbolic only.
From that, we can scientifically predict the half-life of a Biblical truth. Thus, today:
* we do longer need to kill witches
* we don't really need to keep the sabbath holy
* gays are pretty much normal people to god now
* being wealthy no bar to heaven
And tomorr
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Yep, the bible is interpreted exactly the same as it was 2000 years ago.
And all the thousands of variant interpretations are based on evidence.
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Evidence is going a little far, but since any and all morals are completely subjective, and the only way to gauge the current subjective morals is by culture . And Christianity interpretation of the bible has always corresponded quite well to the current societies morality.
Then it is based on evidence, or the closest thing to it for morality, which is what the bible mostly deals with.
They do, at least currently, seem about 10-20 years behind on most issues (contraception, homosexuality). But anything in a 1
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And, once you account for the fact that the new observation *also* has it own error bar of ~50My, the error bar on the difference (assuming no major correlated errors) is sqrt(59^2+50^2)=77My --- so the two results actually only disagree by ~1.0 standard deviations.
So will Scientology (Score:3)
There really should be a Scientology Proven Right web page in the spirit of Conservapedia's [conservapedia.com]:
Xenu Scientific Foreknowledge: The universe is 4 quadrillion years old.
Liberal claptrap in response: The universe is 13.7 billion years old.
Result: The latest Plank spacecraft measurement is 13.8 billion years. Scientology Proven Right!
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If you currently have more reliable information than the Planck group on this point, I might be interested in buying your bridge. And either your secret scientific space station, or your time machine.
Re:If anyone believes the age of the universe... (Score:5, Informative)
Do you understand how the calculation is done?
Or do you just project yourself onto the cosmologists? You'd cheat someone if you could with a fraudulent sale, so they must be that way too.
If you actually care, the statement is much more precise than "this is the age of the universe." The statement is, given the constraints of the 6-parameter Lambda-CDM model, which is the simplest cosmological model that fits the vast majority of the data, the age of the universe is known to this precision. If you allow extensions to Lambda-CDM (including "phantom energy" (w not -1), primordial helium diverging from BBN, running of the scalar spectral index, etc.), you introduce new uncertainties. For any given model, these uncertainties can be calculated in a Bayesian sense.
Or do you want to buy a bridge?
Re:If anyone believes the age of the universe... (Score:5, Funny)
" I'll sell you a bridge."
Does it come with working viewsceens, crew stations, a captains chair and a turbolift?
and a replicator?
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...is known to 3 significant figures, I'll sell you a bridge.
Have you got something in green?
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Read the references --- it consists of a bigger fraction of visible and dark matter than previously estimated, with less (dark) energy.
Does it matter? (Score:2)
Does it matter... she still got "big banged" didn't she?
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Slashdot did at one point bill itself as a news site for nerds...
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Slashdot did at one point bill itself as a news site for nerds...
Now it's a talk site for news sites.
Re:Gee, thanks (Score:5, Funny)
The good news is we now know the age of the universe. The bad news is that the warranty just expired.
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In 100 years we will look back as these ass-wipe clowns and laugh !!
Yeah, 'cause then it will be 100,000100 years older than we thought it was yesterday.
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Why are you on /. ?