Quo Vadis, "science"?

[PoliticalChic]

1. Physicist Stephen Hawking advances the startling claim that the laws of physics make God unnecessary for the creation of the universe. And, in 2010, evolutionary biologist and atheist, Richard Dawkins, said pretty much the same. For years, atheists have attempted to use biology, and evolution, as arguments against the existence of God.


a. What is necessary in said endeavor is to replicate processes that produce life from inanimate chemical elements and compounds. That would do it...wouldn't it?

Have they done so?


Now....before you sink to 'well, they might....'....that 'faith is exactly what atheist scientists scoff at.




2. What if we apply the concepts of the 'Queen of the Sciences,' physics,' the laws of quantum mechanics?
Perhaps that would result in success.

But, these laws are so incomprehensible, even to the greatest minds in the fields, that the late Richard Feynman, the American theoretical physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, said "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."
Talk Richard Feynman - Wikiquote


a. Yet, there are atheists like Hawking and Dawkins and other cosmologists trying to argue that the rules of quantum physics bring about a universe "out of nothing," and, therefore, there is no God.

That is actually their argument.





3. I have always favored Thomas Hardy's poem, "Hap," in which he claims randomness and change motivate the universe:

".... --Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan...."

...might be more fitting for their argument.


Sure enough, Hardy died almost a century ago, and our atheist scientists claim happenstance as the basis for life:

a. Quarks form a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, protons miraculously match exactly the opposite charge of electrons, the forces of nature- gravity, electromagnetism, the weak and strong nuclear forces inside the nucleus, the 'dark energy' of space- all with just the right strength to maintain the universe....all by chance!








Imagine having the willingness to believe all of that, ....but sneering a those who believe that an all powerful Creator brought same into existence.

 

[Coloradomtnman]

I would love to show you how you are misunderstanding what Hawking and Dawkins are saying, how you misunderstand science, and how the explanatory power of science far exceeds that of "God did it" but you'd refuse to learn and wouldn't be bothered to research science with an objective outlook anyway. So, I'm not.

Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant or immoral, or that by not trying to argue with you demonstrates the weakness of my arguments and intellect, let me just say that I just don't have it in me to argue with someone who doesn't argue but just posts quotes as though that supports her position and/or replies with insults.

My advice: read a science book that was written without a political/social/religious agenda and backs up its claims with evidence. Follow where the evidence takes you, don't take the evidence where you want it to go.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

1. Physicist Stephen Hawking advances the startling claim that the laws of physics make God unnecessary for the creation of the universe. And, in 2010, evolutionary biologist and atheist, Richard Dawkins, said pretty much the same. For years, atheists have attempted to use biology, and evolution, as arguments against the existence of God.


a. What is necessary in said endeavor is to replicate processes that produce life from inanimate chemical elements and compounds. That would do it...wouldn't it?

Have they done so?


Now....before you sink to 'well, they might....'....that 'faith is exactly what atheist scientists scoff at.




2. What if we apply the concepts of the 'Queen of the Sciences,' physics,' the laws of quantum mechanics?
Perhaps that would result in success.

But, these laws are so incomprehensible, even to the greatest minds in the fields, that the late Richard Feynman, the American theoretical physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, said "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."
Talk Richard Feynman - Wikiquote


a. Yet, there are atheists like Hawking and Dawkins and other cosmologists trying to argue that the rules of quantum physics bring about a universe "out of nothing," and, therefore, there is no God.

That is actually their argument.





3. I have always favored Thomas Hardy's poem, "Hap," in which he claims randomness and change motivate the universe:

".... --Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan...."

...might be more fitting for their argument.


Sure enough, Hardy died almost a century ago, and our atheist scientists claim happenstance as the basis for life:

a. Quarks form a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, protons miraculously match exactly the opposite charge of electrons, the forces of nature- gravity, electromagnetism, the weak and strong nuclear forces inside the nucleus, the 'dark energy' of space- all with just the right strength to maintain the universe....all by chance!








Imagine having the willingness to believe all of that, ....but sneering a those who believe that an all powerful Creator brought same into existence.


Fair enough. So using the sciences, demonstrate the processes that explain God's existence.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I would love to show you how you are misunderstanding what Hawking and Dawkins are saying, how you misunderstand science, and how the explanatory power of science far exceeds that of "God did it" but you'd refuse to learn and wouldn't be bothered to research science with an objective outlook anyway. So, I'm not.

Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant or immoral, or that by not trying to argue with you demonstrates the weakness of my arguments and intellect, let me just say that I just don't have it in me to argue with someone who doesn't argue but just posts quotes as though that supports her position and/or replies with insults.

My advice: read a science book that was written without a political/social/religious agenda and backs up its claims with evidence. Follow where the evidence takes you, don't take the evidence where you want it to go.

"Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

I would love to show you how you are misunderstanding what Hawking and Dawkins are saying, how you misunderstand science, and how the explanatory power of science far exceeds that of "God did it" but you'd refuse to learn and wouldn't be bothered to research science with an objective outlook anyway. So, I'm not.

Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant or immoral, or that by not trying to argue with you demonstrates the weakness of my arguments and intellect, let me just say that I just don't have it in me to argue with someone who doesn't argue but just posts quotes as though that supports her position and/or replies with insults.

My advice: read a science book that was written without a political/social/religious agenda and backs up its claims with evidence. Follow where the evidence takes you, don't take the evidence where you want it to go.

"Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant.

Not quite. Ignorance is simply being unaware of something. Stupidity is being intellectually unable to figure something you know about out, like basic arithmetic or how to spell.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The dolt in post #2 suggests that my quotes come from a source that is based on a bias.....but is too dumb to recognize the bias in the icons of whom he is enamored.
They profess beliefs that are no less based on faith.


4. Well, perhaps one SHOULD sneer at beliefs with no provable basis.....


"As is true of so many ideas of quantum mechanics, such as the wave function of the universe, it cannot be seen, measured, assessed, or tested. Physicists have found it remarkably easy to pass from speculation to the conviction that said theories actually is. An endearing human weakness, that one can frequently assign to religion, as well.

The use of higher mathematics combined with words such as ‘imaginary’ and ‘probabilistic processes,’ is what gives the air of pontifical mystification..... If the mystification induced by its mathematics were removed from the subject, what remains would appear remarkably similar to the various creation myths in which the origin of the universe is attributed to sexual congress between primordial deities."
David Berlinski, "The Devil's Delusion."

Get that? Seems the 'sneerers' are open to be sneered at.





5. But there are other scientists, even physicists such as Dr. Alan Lightman, who are puzzled by the exactitude of our universe, and the precision that seems to have been designed for human life.

"...…according to various calculations, if the values of some of the fundamental parameters of our universe were a little larger or a little smaller, life could not have arisen.
For example, if the nuclear force were a few percentage points stronger than it actually is, then all the hydrogen atoms in the infant universe would have fused with other hydrogen atoms to make helium, and there would be no hydrogen left. No hydrogen means no water. Although we are far from certain about what conditions are necessary for life, most biologists believe that water is necessary.

On the other hand, if the nuclear force were substantially weaker than what it actually is, then the complex atoms needed for biology could not hold together. As another example, if the relationship between the strengths of the gravitational force and the electromagnetic force were not close to what it is, then the cosmos would not harbor any stars that explode and spew out life-supporting chemical elements into space or any other stars that form planets. Both kinds of stars are required for the emergence of life. The strengths of the basic forces and certain other fundamental parameters in our universe appear to be “fine-tuned” to allow the existence of life."
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2011/12/0083720



Random?

Coincidence?

....what are the chances?

 

[PoliticalChic]

I would love to show you how you are misunderstanding what Hawking and Dawkins are saying, how you misunderstand science, and how the explanatory power of science far exceeds that of "God did it" but you'd refuse to learn and wouldn't be bothered to research science with an objective outlook anyway. So, I'm not.

Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant or immoral, or that by not trying to argue with you demonstrates the weakness of my arguments and intellect, let me just say that I just don't have it in me to argue with someone who doesn't argue but just posts quotes as though that supports her position and/or replies with insults.

My advice: read a science book that was written without a political/social/religious agenda and backs up its claims with evidence. Follow where the evidence takes you, don't take the evidence where you want it to go.

"Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant.

Not quite. Ignorance is simply being unaware of something. Stupidity is being intellectually unable to figure something you know about out, like basic arithmetic or how to spell.

Stupidity?

Once you make the post about me, rather than what is actually in the post, you reveal your abysmally stupidity.

Let's see you tackle post #6, you moron.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

I would love to show you how you are misunderstanding what Hawking and Dawkins are saying, how you misunderstand science, and how the explanatory power of science far exceeds that of "God did it" but you'd refuse to learn and wouldn't be bothered to research science with an objective outlook anyway. So, I'm not.

Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant or immoral, or that by not trying to argue with you demonstrates the weakness of my arguments and intellect, let me just say that I just don't have it in me to argue with someone who doesn't argue but just posts quotes as though that supports her position and/or replies with insults.

My advice: read a science book that was written without a political/social/religious agenda and backs up its claims with evidence. Follow where the evidence takes you, don't take the evidence where you want it to go.

"Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant.

Not quite. Ignorance is simply being unaware of something. Stupidity is being intellectually unable to figure something you know about out, like basic arithmetic or how to spell.

Stupidity?

Once you make the post about me, rather than what is actually in the post, you reveal your abysmally stupidity.

Let's see you tackle post #6, you moron.

...Was responding to this:

""Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant."

Thought you were saying saying stupid and ignorant together would be redundant.

When I wanna insult you I"ll come up with something custom and a lot more witty and clever.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I would love to show you how you are misunderstanding what Hawking and Dawkins are saying, how you misunderstand science, and how the explanatory power of science far exceeds that of "God did it" but you'd refuse to learn and wouldn't be bothered to research science with an objective outlook anyway. So, I'm not.

Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant or immoral, or that by not trying to argue with you demonstrates the weakness of my arguments and intellect, let me just say that I just don't have it in me to argue with someone who doesn't argue but just posts quotes as though that supports her position and/or replies with insults.

My advice: read a science book that was written without a political/social/religious agenda and backs up its claims with evidence. Follow where the evidence takes you, don't take the evidence where you want it to go.

"Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant.

Not quite. Ignorance is simply being unaware of something. Stupidity is being intellectually unable to figure something you know about out, like basic arithmetic or how to spell.

Stupidity?

Once you make the post about me, rather than what is actually in the post, you reveal your abysmally stupidity.

Let's see you tackle post #6, you moron.

...Was responding to this:

""Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant."

Thought you were saying saying stupid and ignorant together would be redundant.

When I wanna insult you I"ll come up with something custom and a lot more witty and clever.

You've attempted to side-step my challenge to respond to the posts.

Is that because you are stupid, or ignorant?

'Both' is an acceptable response.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

I would love to show you how you are misunderstanding what Hawking and Dawkins are saying, how you misunderstand science, and how the explanatory power of science far exceeds that of "God did it" but you'd refuse to learn and wouldn't be bothered to research science with an objective outlook anyway. So, I'm not.

Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant or immoral, or that by not trying to argue with you demonstrates the weakness of my arguments and intellect, let me just say that I just don't have it in me to argue with someone who doesn't argue but just posts quotes as though that supports her position and/or replies with insults.

My advice: read a science book that was written without a political/social/religious agenda and backs up its claims with evidence. Follow where the evidence takes you, don't take the evidence where you want it to go.

"Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant.

Not quite. Ignorance is simply being unaware of something. Stupidity is being intellectually unable to figure something you know about out, like basic arithmetic or how to spell.

Stupidity?

Once you make the post about me, rather than what is actually in the post, you reveal your abysmally stupidity.

Let's see you tackle post #6, you moron.

...Was responding to this:

""Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant."

Thought you were saying saying stupid and ignorant together would be redundant.

When I wanna insult you I"ll come up with something custom and a lot more witty and clever.

You've attempted to side-step my challenge to respond to the posts.

Is that because you are stupid, or ignorant?

'Both' is an acceptable response.

Suit yourself, was explaining how you misunderstood mine but if you must be a bitch all the time suit yourself.

 

[PoliticalChic]

"Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant.

Not quite. Ignorance is simply being unaware of something. Stupidity is being intellectually unable to figure something you know about out, like basic arithmetic or how to spell.

Stupidity?

Once you make the post about me, rather than what is actually in the post, you reveal your abysmally stupidity.

Let's see you tackle post #6, you moron.

...Was responding to this:

""Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant."

Thought you were saying saying stupid and ignorant together would be redundant.

When I wanna insult you I"ll come up with something custom and a lot more witty and clever.

You've attempted to side-step my challenge to respond to the posts.

Is that because you are stupid, or ignorant?

'Both' is an acceptable response.

Suit yourself, was explaining how you misunderstood mine but if you must be a bitch all the time suit yourself.

It seems you've inadvertently answered the question: it's 'both.'

 

[PoliticalChic]

6. Dr. Lightman goes on to say:

".... The recognition of this fine tuning led British physicist Brandon Carter to articulate what he called the anthropic principle, which states that the universe must have the parameters it does because we are here to observe it. Actually, the word anthropic, from the Greek for “man,” is a misnomer: if these fundamental parameters were much different from what they are, it is not only human beings who would not exist.
No life of any kind would exist.

…the great question, of course, is why these fundamental parameters happen to lie within the range needed for life. Does the universe care about life?

Intelligent design is one answer. Indeed, a fair number of theologians, philosophers, and even some scientists have used fine-tuning and the anthropic principle as evidence of the existence of God." http://www.harpers.org/archive/2011/12/0083720



Did I mention that Dr. Lightman is a physicist, and a professor at MIT?

And here he is considering all possibilities.
Seems more scientific than the carping of the atheist scientists, huh?

 

[PoliticalChic]

7. In fact, Dr. Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, allows that the universe is strangely....'precise'...

Crick says: "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle..."
Crick, Francis 'Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature', Simon and Schuster, New York, NY, 1981 p. 88.




Now, Dr. Crick does not endorse miracles or even the slightest belief in God as he declares in no uncertain terms in chapter fifteen of his book "Life Itself," instead puts forth what he considers to be a more plausible theory for the origin of life and man. Crick explains,

"Directed Panspermia" - postulates that the roots of our form of life go back to another place in the universe, almost certainly another planet; that it had reached a very advanced form there before anything much had started here; and that life here was seeded by microorganisms sent on some form of spaceship by an advanced civilization.
Crick, Op.Cit., p.141

According to Crick, this is the only alternative that satisfactorily explains what Darwinism and punctuated equilibria do not - this planet's absence of transitional forms; transitional forms being the evidence for evolution which, "would only have existed on the sender planet, not on Earth,"
Dr. Crick then informs us what to expect of the fossil record: p.144
From Origin of Man 7 Directed panspermia



It would be difficult for any to argue that Francis Crick is not a scientist.
So....let's get this straight: "God" is out of the question for 'scientists'....but space aliens, just fine.


And, if one accepts Crick's thesis......
....one is now left with the question of the origin of his space aliens.....



Ain't life strange.

 

[PoliticalChic]

8. How to explain such craziness as 'space aliens' coming from respected scientists, such as Dr. Crick?


Another 'scientist' gives the answer:

"Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist (and self-proclaimed Marxist), is certainly one of the world’s leaders in evolutionary biology. He wrote this very revealing comment (the italics were in the original). It illustrates the implicit philosophical bias against Genesis creation—regardless of whether or not the facts support it.

‘Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs,in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life,in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.'"
Amazing admission - Lewontin Quote - creation.com



Does that sound 'scientific'?

Notice the reference to 'materialism,' and 'material causes.'
These are euphemisms for Marxism.

There is a well documented association between evolutionary theory and Marxism....and both rely on atheism.


Another coincidence?

 

[PoliticalChic]

9. Well....we began with Stephen Hawking.....

Back to Dr. Hawking, who also admits the mathematic improbability of our universe:
"It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us."

"In fact, if one considers the possible constants and laws that could have emerged, the odds against a universe that has produced life like ours are immense."

"Why did the universe start out with so nearly the critical rate of expansion that separates models that recollapse from those that go on expanding forever, that even now, 10 thousand million years later, it is still expanding at nearly the critical rate? If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in 100 thousand million million, the universe would have collapsed before it ever reached its present size."

"The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life ..."
Stephen Hawking


Wow....Hawking??? Certainly not a religious guy.....



Uh, oh! What would Professor Lewontin say??? Better not tell him that Hawking also said this:
“The odds against a universe like ours emerging of something like the big bang are enormous… I think clearly there are religious implications whenever you start to discuss the origins of the universe.” — Stephen W. Hawking.




But... Hawking says in his book "The Grand Design" that, given the existence of gravity, "the universe can and will create itself from nothing,"...

Anybody seen any proof of that idea?

Seems everyone can have his own variety of faith.

I'm for that!

 

[PoliticalChic]

10. A universe out of nothing?
A Creator?
Space aliens?

No matter what variety of faith one chooses, it is interesting to try to verify using mathematics and probability.



Of course we can use mathematics on both sides of the question of the probablility of all sorts of things.....

" For example, consider the calculation by astronomer Fred Hoyle, often referred to by creationists, that the odds against DNA assembling by chance are 1040,000to one (Hoyle, 1981). This is true, but highly misleading. DNA did not assemble purely by chance. It assembled by a combination of chance and the laws of physics.

Without the laws of physics as we know them, life on earth as we know it would not have evolved in the short span of six billion years. The nuclear force was needed to bind protons and neutrons in the nuclei of atoms; electromagnetism was needed to keep atoms and molecules together; and gravity was needed to keep the resulting ingredients for life stuck to the surface of the earth.

In a calculation similar to Hoyle's, mathematician Roger Penrose has estimated that the probability of a universe with our particular set of physical properties is one part in 1010123(Penrose 1989: 343). However, neither Penrose nor anyone else can say how many of the other possible universes formed with different properties could still have lead tosomeform of life. If it is half, then the probability for life is fifty percent." Intelligent Design Humans Cockroaches and the Laws of Physics



The upshot?
For me, random formation of the universe, and of life, possible but highly unlikely.

The take-away? Not physics, or mathematics, nor cosmology, biology, nor evolution.....none definitively provide the basis that would suggest sneering at theology.
All involve one kind of faith or another.


But here is one idea with a probability close to 100%: The less one understands science, to more vitriolic atheistic.

 

[Hollie]

I would love to show you how you are misunderstanding what Hawking and Dawkins are saying, how you misunderstand science, and how the explanatory power of science far exceeds that of "God did it" but you'd refuse to learn and wouldn't be bothered to research science with an objective outlook anyway. So, I'm not.

Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant or immoral, or that by not trying to argue with you demonstrates the weakness of my arguments and intellect, let me just say that I just don't have it in me to argue with someone who doesn't argue but just posts quotes as though that supports her position and/or replies with insults.

My advice: read a science book that was written without a political/social/religious agenda and backs up its claims with evidence. Follow where the evidence takes you, don't take the evidence where you want it to go.

"Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant.

Not quite. Ignorance is simply being unaware of something. Stupidity is being intellectually unable to figure something you know about out, like basic arithmetic or how to spell.

Stupidity?

Once you make the post about me, rather than what is actually in the post, you reveal your abysmally stupidity.

Let's see you tackle post #6, you moron.

...Was responding to this:

""Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant."

Thought you were saying saying stupid and ignorant together would be redundant.

When I wanna insult you I"ll come up with something custom and a lot more witty and clever.

You've attempted to side-step my challenge to respond to the posts.

Is that because you are stupid, or ignorant?

'Both' is an acceptable response.

Why would you expect anyone to spend time responding to your silly cut and post "quotes". You are not able to defend the "quotes" and you're not able to offer even a middling understanding of what the"quotes", (edited, parsed and out of context), are intending to convey?

 

[PoliticalChic]

"Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant.

Not quite. Ignorance is simply being unaware of something. Stupidity is being intellectually unable to figure something you know about out, like basic arithmetic or how to spell.

Stupidity?

Once you make the post about me, rather than what is actually in the post, you reveal your abysmally stupidity.

Let's see you tackle post #6, you moron.

...Was responding to this:

""Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant."

Thought you were saying saying stupid and ignorant together would be redundant.

When I wanna insult you I"ll come up with something custom and a lot more witty and clever.

You've attempted to side-step my challenge to respond to the posts.

Is that because you are stupid, or ignorant?

'Both' is an acceptable response.

Why would you expect anyone to spend time responding to your silly cut and post "quotes". You are not able to defend the "quotes" and you're not able to offer even a middling understanding of what the"quotes", (edited, parsed and out of context), are intending to convey?

But no examples?

So....basically, as much as you'd like to find fault with the posts.....

...you couldn't?

OK....see ya.'

 

[Hollie]

10. A universe out of nothing?
A Creator?
Space aliens?

No matter what variety of faith one chooses, it is interesting to try to verify using mathematics and probability.



Of course we can use mathematics on both sides of the question of the probablility of all sorts of things.....

" For example, consider the calculation by astronomer Fred Hoyle, often referred to by creationists, that the odds against DNA assembling by chance are 1040,000to one (Hoyle, 1981). This is true, but highly misleading. DNA did not assemble purely by chance. It assembled by a combination of chance and the laws of physics.

Without the laws of physics as we know them, life on earth as we know it would not have evolved in the short span of six billion years. The nuclear force was needed to bind protons and neutrons in the nuclei of atoms; electromagnetism was needed to keep atoms and molecules together; and gravity was needed to keep the resulting ingredients for life stuck to the surface of the earth.

In a calculation similar to Hoyle's, mathematician Roger Penrose has estimated that the probability of a universe with our particular set of physical properties is one part in 1010123(Penrose 1989: 343). However, neither Penrose nor anyone else can say how many of the other possible universes formed with different properties could still have lead tosomeform of life. If it is half, then the probability for life is fifty percent." Intelligent Design Humans Cockroaches and the Laws of Physics



The upshot?
For me, random formation of the universe, and of life, possible but highly unlikely.

The take-away? Not physics, or mathematics, nor cosmology, biology, nor evolution.....none definitively provide the basis that would suggest sneering at theology.
All involve one kind of faith or another.


But here is one idea with a probability close to 100%: The less one understands science, to more vitriolic atheistic.

"Human

The dolt in post #2 suggests that my quotes come from a source that is based on a bias.....but is too dumb to recognize the bias in the icons of whom he is enamored.
They profess beliefs that are no less based on faith.


4. Well, perhaps one SHOULD sneer at beliefs with no provable basis.....


"As is true of so many ideas of quantum mechanics, such as the wave function of the universe, it cannot be seen, measured, assessed, or tested. Physicists have found it remarkably easy to pass from speculation to the conviction that said theories actually is. An endearing human weakness, that one can frequently assign to religion, as well.

The use of higher mathematics combined with words such as ‘imaginary’ and ‘probabilistic processes,’ is what gives the air of pontifical mystification..... If the mystification induced by its mathematics were removed from the subject, what remains would appear remarkably similar to the various creation myths in which the origin of the universe is attributed to sexual congress between primordial deities."
David Berlinski, "The Devil's Delusion."

Get that? Seems the 'sneerers' are open to be sneered at.





5. But there are other scientists, even physicists such as Dr. Alan Lightman, who are puzzled by the exactitude of our universe, and the precision that seems to have been designed for human life.

"...…according to various calculations, if the values of some of the fundamental parameters of our universe were a little larger or a little smaller, life could not have arisen.
For example, if the nuclear force were a few percentage points stronger than it actually is, then all the hydrogen atoms in the infant universe would have fused with other hydrogen atoms to make helium, and there would be no hydrogen left. No hydrogen means no water. Although we are far from certain about what conditions are necessary for life, most biologists believe that water is necessary.

On the other hand, if the nuclear force were substantially weaker than what it actually is, then the complex atoms needed for biology could not hold together. As another example, if the relationship between the strengths of the gravitational force and the electromagnetic force were not close to what it is, then the cosmos would not harbor any stars that explode and spew out life-supporting chemical elements into space or any other stars that form planets. Both kinds of stars are required for the emergence of life. The strengths of the basic forces and certain other fundamental parameters in our universe appear to be “fine-tuned” to allow the existence of life."
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2011/12/0083720



Random?

Coincidence?

....what are the chances?

7. In fact, Dr. Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, allows that the universe is strangely....'precise'...

Crick says: "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle..."
Crick, Francis 'Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature', Simon and Schuster, New York, NY, 1981 p. 88.




Now, Dr. Crick does not endorse miracles or even the slightest belief in God as he declares in no uncertain terms in chapter fifteen of his book "Life Itself," instead puts forth what he considers to be a more plausible theory for the origin of life and man. Crick explains,

"Directed Panspermia" - postulates that the roots of our form of life go back to another place in the universe, almost certainly another planet; that it had reached a very advanced form there before anything much had started here; and that life here was seeded by microorganisms sent on some form of spaceship by an advanced civilization.
Crick, Op.Cit., p.141

According to Crick, this is the only alternative that satisfactorily explains what Darwinism and punctuated equilibria do not - this planet's absence of transitional forms; transitional forms being the evidence for evolution which, "would only have existed on the sender planet, not on Earth,"
Dr. Crick then informs us what to expect of the fossil record: p.144
From Origin of Man 7 Directed panspermia



It would be difficult for any to argue that Francis Crick is not a scientist.
So....let's get this straight: "God" is out of the question for 'scientists'....but space aliens, just fine.


And, if one accepts Crick's thesis......
....one is now left with the question of the origin of his space aliens.....



Ain't life strange.

What's strange is your continued use of lies and manufactured "quotes" to press your extremist religious agenda.

On at least 8 occasions now, I've taken some time to review your "quotes" and exposed them (and you) as frauds and lies. The fraudulent "quote" you posted, attributed to Crick is yet another example of your dishonest and fraudulent tactic of posting edited, parsed or outright fraudulent "quotes" you and your creation ministries perpetrate.

Quote Mine Project Miscellaneous

Quote #74

"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that, in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle." (Francis Crick, Life Itself, Its Origin and Nature, 1981, p. 88)


Again there is an unmarked deletion, this time at the end, following right after "miracle,":

" . . . so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. But this should not be taken to imply that there are good reasons to believe that it could not have started on the earth by a perfectly reasonable sequence of fairly ordinary chemical reactions. The plain fact is that the time available was too long, the many microenvironments on the earth's surface too diverse, the various chemical possibilities too numerous and our own knowledge and imagination too feeble to allow us to be able to unravel exactly how it might or might not have happened such a long time ago, especially as we have no experimental evidence from that era to check our ideas against."

Crick's book is about his proposition that life on Earth may have been the result of "directed panspermia." It should be noted that, in the book, he assumes that the aliens who he posits might be "seeding" the universe are, themselves, the product of evolution. In this quote, Crick is simply pointing out how, in the absence of evidence, the appearance of life on Earth might seem like a miracle. But he specifically admits that abiogenesis may have occurred on Earth as a result of ordinary chemical processes that require no resort to outside intelligence. Leaving out that part of it, by cutting off what immediately follows, is deeply dishonest.

- J. (catshark) Pieret



You Christian fundies are among the most dishonest lot I've ever encountered. What's even more remarkable is that the lies and edited "quote" you posted from Crick is one I exposed in a prior thread you opened with a similar anti-science / pro-fundamentalist Christian agenda.​

 

[Hollie]

Not quite. Ignorance is simply being unaware of something. Stupidity is being intellectually unable to figure something you know about out, like basic arithmetic or how to spell.

Stupidity?

Once you make the post about me, rather than what is actually in the post, you reveal your abysmally stupidity.

Let's see you tackle post #6, you moron.

...Was responding to this:

""Before you claim in some snarky way that I'm stupid or ignorant..."

That would be redundant."

Thought you were saying saying stupid and ignorant together would be redundant.

When I wanna insult you I"ll come up with something custom and a lot more witty and clever.

You've attempted to side-step my challenge to respond to the posts.

Is that because you are stupid, or ignorant?

'Both' is an acceptable response.

Why would you expect anyone to spend time responding to your silly cut and post "quotes". You are not able to defend the "quotes" and you're not able to offer even a middling understanding of what the"quotes", (edited, parsed and out of context), are intending to convey?

But no examples?

So....basically, as much as you'd like to find fault with the posts.....

...you couldn't?

OK....see ya.'

What examples would you like?

Hey, how about your "quote" from David Berlinski. He's among those select group of failed hacks who has been relegated to the bowels of the Christian fundie outlands - the Disco'-tute.

Encyclopedia of American Loons Search results for berlinski

Berlinski is one of the movers and shakers of the contemporary creationist movement, associated with the Discovery Institute and one of their most frequent and famous debaters. A delusional, pompous narcissist with an ego to fit a medieval pope. Also a name-dropper (most of his talks concern important people he has talked to). A comment on one of his lunatic self-aggrandizing rants can be found here (sums up this guy pretty well):

He is apparently really angry at evolution (it is unclear why), and famous for his purely enumerative “cows cannot evolve into whales” argument.

Berlinski was once a moderately respected author of popular-science books on mathematics. He can still add numbers together, but has forgotten the GIGO rule (“garbage in, garbage out") of applied mathematics. Some of his rantings are discussed here.

Likes to play ‘the skeptic’ (which means denialism in this case, and that is not the same thing).

Diagnosis: Boneheaded, pompous and arrogant nitwit; has a lot of influence, and a frequent participator in debates, since apparently the Discovery Institute thinks that’s the way scientific disputes are settled (although he often takes a surprisingly moderate view in debates, leading some to suspect that he is really a cynical fraud rather than a loon).

(for a nice description of the difference between skepticism and paranoid denialism, I recommend these three articles: here, here, and here.)