if not evolution

[MarkDuffy]

“In my life as scientist I have come upon two major problems which, though rooted in science, though they would occur in this form only to a scientist, project beyond science, and are I think ultimately insoluble as science. That is hardly to be wondered at, since one involves consciousness and the other, cosmology.

The consciousness problem was hardly avoidable by one who has spent most of his life studying mechanisms of vision. We have learned a lot, we hope to learn much more; but none of it touches or even points, however tentatively, in the direction of what it means to see. Our observations in human eyes and nervous systems and in those of frogs are basically much alike. I know that I see; but does a frog see? It reacts to light; so do cameras, garage doors, any number of photoelectric devices. But does it see? Is it aware that it is reacting? There is nothing I can do as a scientist to answer that question, no way that I can identify either the presence or absence of consciousness. I believe consciousness to be a permanent condition that involves all sensation and perception. Consciousness seems to me to be wholly impervious to science.

The second problem involves the special properties of our universe. Life seems increasingly to be part of the order of nature. We have good reason to believe that we find ourselves in a universe permeated with life, in which life arises inevitably, given enough time, wherever the conditions exist that make it possible. Yet were any one of a number of the physical properties of our universe otherwise - some of them basic, others seemingly trivial, almost accidental - that life, which seems now to be so prevalent, would become impossible, here or anywhere. It takes no great imagination to conceive of other possible universes, each stable and workable in itself, yet lifeless. How is it that, with so many other apparent options, we are in a universe that possesses just that peculiar nexus of properties that breeds life?

It has occurred to me lately - I must confess with some shock at first to my scientific sensibilities - that both questions might be brought into some degree of congruence. This is with the assumption that Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.”

George Wald, 1984, “Life and Mind in the Universe”, International Journal of Quantum Chemistry: Quantum Biology Symposium 11, 1984: 1-15

Consciousnesses is the result of an advanced brain. No need to read anything else into the word.

As far as the universe teaming with life, I believe this also. However, intelligent life appears to be very rare. Also, it is apparent that science fiction space travel will never be possible.

 

[MarkDuffy]

Everything points to the laws of nature being in place before space and time were created. Laws which determined what was possible to exist and what was not possible to exist. Laws which controlled the evolution of matter since the beginning of time until today. Laws which ultimately produced intelligence from the matter that was created when space and time were created. A phenomenon whose potential existed before space and time itself. Now given that laws are a product of intelligence and that intelligence is the product of the evolution of matter, is it that hard to grasp the possibility that intelligence has always existed and will always exist. And rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of matter and life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.

Science has several sets of natural laws. One set for the atomic and another set for the fast. There are others also.

I am not so sure that laws existed before the origin of everything. I lean toward laws are determined by the universe itself. I even allow that these laws have changed over time & space, at least somewhat.

I am, however, pretty firm on the elements.

The universe is all about chemistry.

 

[ding]

I am not so sure that laws existed before the origin of everything.

If the universe is expanding then it must have a beginning. If you follow it backwards in time, then any object must come to a boundary of space time. You cannot continue that history indefinitely. This is still true even if a universe has periods of contraction. It still has to have a beginning if expansion over weights the contraction. Physicists have been uncomfortable with the idea of a beginning since the work of Friedman which showed that the solutions of Einstein's equation showed that the universe had a beginning. The problem with a cyclical universe is with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. If it is a periodic universe then the entropy will increase with each cycle. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a fundamental law of nature which tells us that entropy can only increase or stay the same. Entropy can never decrease. Which means that in a finite amount of time, a finite system will reach a maximum state of disorder which is called thermal equilibrium and then it will stay in that state.

The best explanation for how the universe began is the inflation model. It is possible for matter to have a beginning. In a closed universe the gravitational energy which is always negative exactly compensates the positive energy of matter. So the energy of a closed universe is always zero. So nothing prevents this universe from being spontaneously created. Because the net energy is always zero. The positive energy of matter is balanced by the negative energy of the gravity of that matter which is the space time curvature of that matter. There is no conservation law that prevents the formation of such a universe. In quantum mechanics if something is not forbidden by conservation laws, then it necessarily happens with some non-zero probability. So a closed universe can spontaneously appear - through the laws of quantum mechanics - out of nothing. And in fact there is an elegant mathematical description which describes this process and shows that a tiny closed universe having very high energy can spontaneously pop into existence and immediately start to expand and cool. In this description, the same laws that describe the evolution of the universe also describe the appearance of the universe which means that the laws were in place before the universe itself.

 

[MarkDuffy]

If you believe in evolution, do you believe a single celled creature just appeared to get the ball rolling?

thanks for the reply
seems a lot more feasible than a complex human being, with regard to physics/nature/etc
much growth comes from a small bucket of water over just a ''short'' time''

"When it comes to the origin of life, we have only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility...Spontaneous generation was scientifically disproved one hundred years ago by Louis Pasteur, Spellanzani, Reddy and others. That leads us scientifically to only one possible conclusion -- that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God...I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation arising to evolution." George Wald, Nobel Laureate in Physiology / Medicine - Scientific American, August, 1954.

LOL

Spontaneous generation experiments by Pasteur did not disprove abiogenesis. It just proved there are organisms not visible to the eye.

As for your god hypothesis, why only one God?

If we have to reduce ourselves to binary, then the possibilities are either science or magic

You are arguing with George Wald, not me.

Are you suggesting that you have proof that proteins self assembled themselves?

My wayback machine never got invented, so no I don't have proof.

Since abiogenesis is the only origin hypothesis in existence, I go with that one. Specific mechanisms still to be determined.

If you want me to enlarge my origin possibility, you must account for the origin of your God AND prove the magic exists.

 

[ding]

One set for the atomic and another set for the fast

The laws of quantum mechanics do not negate or violate the Laws of Thermodynamics.

 

[ding]

I lean toward laws are determined by the universe itself.

That just isn't possible. There had to be laws in place before space and time existed that the creation of space and time followed.

"In the very beginning, there was a void, a curious form of vacuum, a nothingness containing no space, no time, no matter, no light, no sound. Yet the laws of nature were in place and this curious vacuum held potential. A story logically begins at the beginning, but this story is about the universe and unfortunately there are no data for the very beginnings--none, zero. We don't know anything about the universe until it reaches the mature age of a billion of a trillionth of a second. That is, some very short time after creation in the big bang. When you read or hear anything about the birth of the universe, someone is making it up--we are in the realm of philosophy. Only God knows what happened at the very beginning."

Leon Lederman, American experimental physicist and Nobel Laureate

 

[MarkDuffy]

it is as close to a fact as science allows.

That's a pretty bold statement.

Not if you are a scientist LOL

We love to make bold statements then at the next symposium we have food fights to protect our turf!

 

[ding]

it is as close to a fact as science allows.

That's a pretty bold statement.

Not if you are a scientist LOL

We love to make bold statements then at the next symposium we have food fights to protect our turf!

Can you tell me why you believe that the theory of evolution is as close to a fact as science allows? What specifically are you basing this statement upon?

Do you know how the theory of relativity was proven? Would you say that evolution was closer to fact than the theory of relativity?

 

[ding]

Consciousnesses is the result of an advanced brain.

And that is a consequence of the laws of nature which were in place before space and time were created and predestined beings that know and create to eventually arise.

Did you know that the matter and energy that make up who you are existed when space and time were created? The atoms in your body are literally 14 billion years old. Since that time they have merely changed form. You are literally made from star dust.

So scientifically speaking, the universe became self aware of itself.

 

[MarkDuffy]

I am not so sure that laws existed before the origin of everything.

If the universe is expanding then it must have a beginning. If you follow it backwards in time, then any object must come to a boundary of space time. You cannot continue that history indefinitely. This is still true even if a universe has periods of contraction. It still has to have a beginning if expansion over weights the contraction. Physicists have been uncomfortable with the idea of a beginning since the work of Friedman which showed that the solutions of Einstein's equation showed that the universe had a beginning. The problem with a cyclical universe is with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. If it is a periodic universe then the entropy will increase with each cycle. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a fundamental law of nature which tells us that entropy can only increase or stay the same. Entropy can never decrease. Which means that in a finite amount of time, a finite system will reach a maximum state of disorder which is called thermal equilibrium and then it will stay in that state.

The best explanation for how the universe began is the inflation model. It is possible for matter to have a beginning. In a closed universe the gravitational energy which is always negative exactly compensates the positive energy of matter. So the energy of a closed universe is always zero. So nothing prevents this universe from being spontaneously created. Because the net energy is always zero. The positive energy of matter is balanced by the negative energy of the gravity of that matter which is the space time curvature of that matter. There is no conservation law that prevents the formation of such a universe. In quantum mechanics if something is not forbidden by conservation laws, then it necessarily happens with some non-zero probability. So a closed universe can spontaneously appear - through the laws of quantum mechanics - out of nothing. And in fact there is an elegant mathematical description which describes this process and shows that a tiny closed universe having very high energy can spontaneously pop into existence and immediately start to expand and cool. In this description, the same laws that describe the evolution of the universe also describe the appearance of the universe which means that the laws were in place before the universe itself.

I started out in astrophysics then switched biochemistry/genetics/cell biology and finally evolutionary biology.

I have serious issues with the claimed accelerating expansion and throwing in the dark matter/energy to get the equations to work. Methinks the problems are with the equations (your laws) and specifically the Hubble's Law. I also have issues with 11-dimensional manifolds.

The Big Bang has always bugged me.

 

[MarkDuffy]

it is as close to a fact as science allows.

That's a pretty bold statement.

Not if you are a scientist LOL

We love to make bold statements then at the next symposium we have food fights to protect our turf!

Can you tell me why you believe that the theory of evolution is as close to a fact as science allows? What specifically are you basing this statement upon?

Do you know how the theory of relativity was proven? Would you say that evolution was closer to fact than the theory of relativity?

Evolution explains all the data observed, that life descended from other life. Now that we have discovered more and more of the mechanisms that make evolution work, evolution has not needed to be corrected.

Evolution is just as fundamental to biology as relativity is to physics. As for which is more factly, I am out of physics so I am no judge.

 

[MarkDuffy]

Consciousnesses is the result of an advanced brain.

And that is a consequence of the laws of nature which were in place before space and time were created and predestined beings that know and create to eventually arise.

Did you know that the matter and energy that make up who you are existed when space and time were created? The atoms in your body are literally 14 billion years old. Since that time they have merely changed form. You are literally made from star dust.

So scientifically speaking, the universe became self aware of itself.

LOL, and I am the one making bold statements?

Did you know that the matter and energy that make up who you are existed when space and time were created? The atoms in your body are literally 14 billion years old.

This is simply not true. Current theory is that the heavier atoms were made in supernova explosions of population II stars and the universe began as hydrogen

 

[ding]

Consciousnesses is the result of an advanced brain.

And that is a consequence of the laws of nature which were in place before space and time were created and predestined beings that know and create to eventually arise.

Did you know that the matter and energy that make up who you are existed when space and time were created? The atoms in your body are literally 14 billion years old. Since that time they have merely changed form. You are literally made from star dust.

So scientifically speaking, the universe became self aware of itself.

LOL, and I am the one making bold statements?

Did you know that the matter and energy that make up who you are existed when space and time were created? The atoms in your body are literally 14 billion years old.

This is simply not true. Current theory is that the heavier atoms were made in supernova explosions of population II stars and the universe began as hydrogen

The 1st law of thermodynamics says otherwise. Energy can never be created or destroyed. It is called the Law of Conservation. Look it up. Don't take my word for it. Take CERN's word for it. You do know what CERN is, right?

Origins: CERN: Ideas: The Big Bang | Exploratorium

Did you know that the matter in your body is billions of years old?

According to most astrophysicists, all the matter found in the universe today -- including the matter in people, plants, animals, the earth, stars, and galaxies -- was created at the very first moment of time, thought to be about 13 billion years ago.

The universe began, scientists believe, with every speck of its energy jammed into a very tiny point. This extremely dense point exploded with unimaginable force, creating matter and propelling it outward to make the billions of galaxies of our vast universe. Astrophysicists dubbed this titanic explosion the Big Bang.

 

[ding]

Current theory is that the heavier atoms were made in supernova explosions of population II stars and the universe began as hydrogen

That is correct, except no matter was created, matter changed form.

It is widely accepted within the scientific community that the very early universe conditions should have generated matter and antimatter in equal amounts. The inability of matter and antimatter to survive each other should have led to a universe with only a bit of each left as the universe expanded. Yet today's universe holds far more matter than antimatter. For reasons no one yet understands, nature ruled out antimatter.

The cosmic evolutionary phase of Creation - the development of space, time, matter and energy from nothing - occurred quickly. It was during this phase that hydrogen and helium were formed from sub-atomic particles.

The stellar evolutionary phase of Creation saw the development of complex stars from the chaotic first elements. The chemical evolutionary phase - the development of all chemical elements from an original two - occurred through supernovas which created and flung the heavier elements across the galaxies (i.e. stardust).

All matter and energy that existed was created through a quantum tunneling event during what is called the inflation period of the universe. At this point all the matter and energy that exists today was crammed into the space of one billionth of one trillionth the size of a single atom. At that point the universe began to expand (i.e. the big bang) and cool. During the chemical evolutionary phase of the universe ( a process that is still ongoing), matter and energy changed form but nothing new was added to the space time continuum.

 

[ding]

Consciousnesses is the result of an advanced brain.

And that is a consequence of the laws of nature which were in place before space and time were created and predestined beings that know and create to eventually arise.

Did you know that the matter and energy that make up who you are existed when space and time were created? The atoms in your body are literally 14 billion years old. Since that time they have merely changed form. You are literally made from star dust.

So scientifically speaking, the universe became self aware of itself.

LOL, and I am the one making bold statements?

Did you know that the matter and energy that make up who you are existed when space and time were created? The atoms in your body are literally 14 billion years old.

This is simply not true. Current theory is that the heavier atoms were made in supernova explosions of population II stars and the universe began as hydrogen

Did you know that energy and matter are equivalent?

 

[ding]

it is as close to a fact as science allows.

That's a pretty bold statement.

Not if you are a scientist LOL

We love to make bold statements then at the next symposium we have food fights to protect our turf!

Can you tell me why you believe that the theory of evolution is as close to a fact as science allows? What specifically are you basing this statement upon?

Do you know how the theory of relativity was proven? Would you say that evolution was closer to fact than the theory of relativity?

Evolution explains all the data observed, that life descended from other life. Now that we have discovered more and more of the mechanisms that make evolution work, evolution has not needed to be corrected.

Evolution is just as fundamental to biology as relativity is to physics. As for which is more factly, I am out of physics so I am no judge.

How does evolution explain all the data observed? What data exactly? How was it measured? How was it verified?

Evolution is not limited to biological life. Everything is evolving. Evolution is when anything moves from a less advanced state to a more advanced state. Your conscience for example is evolving too?

 

[ding]

I am not so sure that laws existed before the origin of everything.

If the universe is expanding then it must have a beginning. If you follow it backwards in time, then any object must come to a boundary of space time. You cannot continue that history indefinitely. This is still true even if a universe has periods of contraction. It still has to have a beginning if expansion over weights the contraction. Physicists have been uncomfortable with the idea of a beginning since the work of Friedman which showed that the solutions of Einstein's equation showed that the universe had a beginning. The problem with a cyclical universe is with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. If it is a periodic universe then the entropy will increase with each cycle. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a fundamental law of nature which tells us that entropy can only increase or stay the same. Entropy can never decrease. Which means that in a finite amount of time, a finite system will reach a maximum state of disorder which is called thermal equilibrium and then it will stay in that state.

The best explanation for how the universe began is the inflation model. It is possible for matter to have a beginning. In a closed universe the gravitational energy which is always negative exactly compensates the positive energy of matter. So the energy of a closed universe is always zero. So nothing prevents this universe from being spontaneously created. Because the net energy is always zero. The positive energy of matter is balanced by the negative energy of the gravity of that matter which is the space time curvature of that matter. There is no conservation law that prevents the formation of such a universe. In quantum mechanics if something is not forbidden by conservation laws, then it necessarily happens with some non-zero probability. So a closed universe can spontaneously appear - through the laws of quantum mechanics - out of nothing. And in fact there is an elegant mathematical description which describes this process and shows that a tiny closed universe having very high energy can spontaneously pop into existence and immediately start to expand and cool. In this description, the same laws that describe the evolution of the universe also describe the appearance of the universe which means that the laws were in place before the universe itself.

I started out in astrophysics then switched biochemistry/genetics/cell biology and finally evolutionary biology.

I have serious issues with the claimed accelerating expansion and throwing in the dark matter/energy to get the equations to work. Methinks the problems are with the equations (your laws) and specifically the Hubble's Law. I also have issues with 11-dimensional manifolds.

The Big Bang has always bugged me.

Then how could you have been unaware of the implications of the 1st Law of Thermodynamics?

 

[harmonica]

if you don't believe in evolution, then you must believe a fully formed man just appeared/etc?
is this correct?

If you don't believe in a Creator, then you must believe that the universe, the physical constants, and life itself, just happened for no reason at all. Is this correct?

sure, but that's not the topic now or wasn't

 

[RWNJ]

if you don't believe in evolution, then you must believe a fully formed man just appeared/etc?
is this correct?

If you don't believe in a Creator, then you must believe that the universe, the physical constants, and life itself, just happened for no reason at all. Is this correct?

sure, but that's not the topic now or wasn't

I simply turned your question around. And it is on topic.

 

[harmonica]

If you believe in evolution, do you believe a single celled creature just appeared to get the ball rolling?

there is the possibility god created man through evolution--yes?

Sure. There is also the possibility that the Great Spaghetti Monster created man, Or Zeus, or Odin, or Shiva, or any of a thousand other mythological deities. Do you discount any of them?

Thanks for your input, troll.

there is the possibility god created man through evolution--yes?

Sure. There is also the possibility that the Great Spaghetti Monster created man, Or Zeus, or Odin, or Shiva, or any of a thousand other mythological deities. Do you discount any of them?

I personally don't believe in a god--as most others do
I believe evolution as the cause of humankind

You believe or know?

as stated in another post--evolution seems much more logical and feasible than a fully formed man just 'appearing'/etc
and I've yet to hear a scientific theory from creationist--at least the evolutionists have a theory

Evolution is not a theory. It is a hypothesis. I trust you recognize the difference. Evolution does not qualify as a theory because it cannot be disproven. There are no scientific experiments that can be conducted on it. There is no scientific evidence to back it up.

roger roger roger that...etc etc
I'm sure everyone here will be truthful
it is outrageous that a fully formed man would just appear from nothing...
what is the creationists' hypothesis/theory/etc? ...god just did it?