I am AMAZED that people have totally missed this point on BOTH sides of the argument. Expansion theory DESTROYS evolutionary theory for one simple reason: TIME. Or, more specifically, the lack of it. Here’s why:

If the expansion was only 90%, then the actual “age” of the universe is only 1.4 Billion years old. Guess what? Right there, that means that the universe is already too young for “evolution” to have enough time to be true (let alone mathematically possible).

If the expansion was 99%, then the universes is only 140 million years old.
If the expansion was 99.9%, then the universes is only 14 million years old.
At an expansion of 99.99995% the universe would be only 7,000 years old. Hmm, this will cause a problem because suddenly the Biblical account becomes scientifically plausible.

Expansion theory also destroys Einstein’s theory that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light. Something (or, more likely someone) moved ALL of the matter in the universe 14 Billion light years wide in less than one-trillionth of a second.

To believe that everything was created out of nothing is just scientifically impossible. Just like every house has a builder, the same holds true for the universe … and God is it’s Builder. How much bigger of a BANG do you want? God spoke everything into existence.

Smather and Moot is just one nail in Darwin’s theory. There are other nails in the areas of biology, etc. But, most important to evolution theory is the concept of billions upon billions of years that would be necessary for “evolution” to be true.

Expansion theory destroys the time line. Using “light-years” as an absolute method for measuring the “age” of the universe is wrong, based upon the evidence provided by expansion theory. Under expansion theory, “light-years” are only a referential form of measurement since no one knows, anymore, just how old the universe really is (except, of course, God Almighty).

To assume that the “Power” that moved ALL of the matter in the universe 14 Billion light years wide would not have the ability to create everything in 7 days is VERY unwise (OK, just plain stupid)! It’s nice that science is finally catching up with the Bible…

PS In his book “A Brief History of Time,” Stephen W. Hawking more or less gave the mathematical “proof” of the existence of God. However, due to his being “politically correct” to a fault, Hawking was not willing to make the final conclusion, but left that up to the reader. Someday every person will stand before God, the Creator of the Universe, and give a “management” report about their life. Those that had chosen to believe in evolution will be in deep sh–! Wouldn’t want to be in their shoes on judgment day.

In general, the argument goes thusly: The Bible states that the Universe began from nothing, was created by God from nothing. The Big Bang proposes a rapid expansion of space and time (i.e. the universe) out of nothing (non-matter/energy). Ergo, the Big Bang confirms the Biblical account in Genesis, and thus is proof of God.

There are a number of assumptions in that argument.
1. Genesis 1 provides an accurate description of the creation of the universe in a scientific sense, and is not a story created by primitive people to explain their own existence and significance.

2. The particular wording of Genesis as currently phrased in English forms is an accurate representation of the actual wording as employed by the ancient Hebrews, especially in the oral tradition that predated the written record. The particular interpretations of the vague words chosen by the arguers is the correct one, and not some other at least as (if not more so) justified interpretation of the words.

3. The definition of “God” is diverse. Are they talking about the personified, anthropomorphic God described in Genesis? What about the Deistic God who sets things in motion and then sits back and watches? Or the Pantheistic “God is the universe”?

There are probably more. The reality is that the Big Bang is not proof of God, because the claim of God can be supported by either proposition (BB true or BB false). The alternate description of the universe (which was held prior to the proposition of the BB) was the Steady State model of the universe – the universe is constant and non-changing. The argument regarding God with respect to Steady State is that the SS only describes the current conditions, how things are progressing, it cannot conclusively rule out an initial beginning that brought things into existence in their present state. Ergo, SS cannot disprove Genesis. Therefore, BB cannot prove Genesis.

The best that can be said is that the BB is consistent with the notion of creation of the universe from nothing as an interpretation of Genesis.

My time for research is very limited and I am not scientifically qualified which makes my answering session a long one.

Can someone try and post a reply as to, in short, what the impact of the Nobel price adored, old theory, has done to the claims that God created the universe.

I would hate to be shocked now to discover that this gives more proof to the Creator God.

“That is the ideal process that in reality is not quite so smooth and orderly.”

ESPECIALLY for creationists!

What does that mean, “give me evidence, NOT theoretical evidence”? What constitutes evidence to you?

How about the existence of snowflakes? Snowflakes are complex structures forming from the arrangements of loosely associated molecules – “order” from “chaos”. Yet that is not considered a violation of entropy. How is that different from other forms of chemistry?

>I work in a realm which deals in repeatable experiments, that is how scientific progress is made, that is how I can build a better engine next time around. I experiment, I observe, I record, I repeat.
“Bad” science tries to operate in the past, making observations AFTER the events without being there at the time and declaring that “we know…”.

That is a common misunderstanding, an unfair limiting of the means for scientific study. What you are dealing with is more conventional hard science such as chemistry and physics. That type of science lends itself well to running that test to witness the event occurring and the results. Science would be very limited if that were all that it could do. That eliminates many realms of science – for example, geology. You can crack open a rock and study it under a microscope, but it is very difficult to witness the formation of a rock. Either submerge yourself in magma for a while, then watch it flow, cool, and harden. Or watch pressure and time transform the rock from igneous to some other form (metamorphic). Or watch the rock get erroded, flow in water down and out into the gulf, and settle into the silt that fills the ocean floor and hardens over centuries. Yeah, witness that. Or take astronomy – try witnessing real time the birth, life, and death of a star – the whole complete cycle. Try devising an experiment to create a star.

There are science processes that deal more with historical events and piecing together how they happened. There are still hypotheses, development of ways to test the ideas and falsify them, and collection of data to use as the ultimate referral points. The best science finds ways to tie into other fields of study, other branches of science, and leads to a coherent whole. Evolution does that. Creationism does not. ID does not.

Darth Robo said:
>…would be an ASSUMPTION! Right? And anyone who makes an assumption is just making an ass out of themselves and “umption”. Right?

Congratulations for Dilbertizing yourself! You’ve officially paraphrased that remark in such a way to remove all sense from it.

>In that order? Here are the five steps of science:
1 Observe
2 Form a hypothesis which may explain your observation
3 Make testable predictions from that hypothesis
4 Perform an experiment which tests those predictions
5 Modify your hypothesis to sync up with all observations and predictions
If you’re not doing that, then you’re not doing science.

That is the ideal process that in reality is not quite so smooth and orderly.

“I would point out that a majority doesn’t make something true or correct…”

Maybe, but when speaking strictly of the scientific community, it is the consensus that rules I’m afraid. Sure, there have been people who pushed the boundaries like Galileo, Newton and Einstein etc. but there has yet to be a creation scientist that gets into that league. When pushing new ideas in science, it is not enough to just suffer critiques from your peers, you must also show that you are right.

“did you ever do that thing in school where someone goes out of the class… ”

No.

“I’m afraid these jokes about origins have braiwashed our society so much that few people dare to question the obvious flaws.”

Funny, there seems to be plenty of them. They’ve even gone to court with their objections numerous times. They lost every one.

“So how did life come from non-life?”

As I already said above, science does not know for sure yet. Evolution doesn’t deal with the initial forming of life from non-life. It deals with how life developed after it did.

“So when did anyone last dig up a dinosaur fossil with a date on it?”

You think that’s how they come up with these dates???

“Why is entropy not a problem to evolution?”

Is entropy a problem for evolution? If you think so, then why?

“Are we just going to say “it doesn’t apply to evolution… because it can’t, because if it did, our THEORY would be nonsense”. If it is not a problem, please give me evidence, NOT theoretical evidence.”

Well due to the nature of science, ALL science is theoretical. A theory is an explanation which fits the known observations of the time. If we observe something new which affects a particular theory, we adjust the theory to fit the observations. Few people today would have a problem with the theory of gravity but it’s always possible that we might discover something new that would mandate a change to the theory.

“The fossil record does more harm than good to this falacy of evolution.”

How?

“Thanks for the link, I did check it out, I’ve been there before.”

I’m not convinced. Look up ‘on the fossils’ here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-mustread.html

“Can I recommend “Evolution or Creation” at ‘Wilder-Smith’ ”

Nice. His PhD was in chemistry, not biology. He also lost a debate against biologists John Maynard Smith and Dawkins. Still, I will check out what he’s got to say at some point. But I would appreciate some peer reviewed evidence.

“I am not a scientist by trade, but I do recognise “good” science… ”

But you just linked to a creationist…

“Good science looks at the evidence and examines it in the light of what we KNOW, not what we ASSUME. We can only know what we have observed,”

True…

” everything else is assumed and believed in faith, religious or scientific. You must recognise this.”

I recognise that religion deals with faith. Science doesn’t deal with faith. At all. Not one bit. I know that’s difficult for you to get your head around since it did come up with evolution, a theory which you happen not to like. Evolution in itself does not disprove God. Granted, it does disagree with the idea that humanity was created out of a pile of dirt and a spare rib. Science also says that people cannot come back from the dead, walk on water, turn water into wine (without fermentation), fly (unaided), conceive if they’re a virgin, fit two of EVERY ANIMAL ON EARTH onto ANY boat, kill a fig tree with just words…

“We do not KNOW that the speed of light has always been the same, we may assume it.”

yet before, you said:

“Good science looks at the evidence and examines it in the light of what we KNOW, not what we ASSUME. We can only know what we have observed,”

Sooooo… we know what the speed of light is NOW, to consider that it was different at any other time would be an ASSUMPTION! Right? And anyone who makes an assumption is just making an ass out of themselves and “umption”. Right?

“We do not KNOW the half-life of a carbon atom, we may asume it.”

Again, see the Talk Origins link above and look up ‘On the Age of the Earth’.

“I work in a realm which deals in repeatable experiments, that is how scientific progress is made, that is how I can build a better engine next time around. I experiment, I observe, I record, I repeat.”

In that order? Here are the five steps of science:

1 Observe

2 Form a hypothesis which may explain your observation

3 Make testable predictions from that hypothesis

4 Perform an experiment which tests those predictions

5 Modify your hypothesis to sync up with all observations and predictions

If you’re not doing that, then you’re not doing science.

” “Bad” science tries to operate in the past, making observations AFTER the events without being there at the time and declaring that “we know…”. ”

No, science operates in the present (as it always does) then from the data it gathers it EXTRAPOLATES what happened in the past. If you see a footprint, that is evidence that something was there in the past. But according to you, you would say: ‘Well how do you KNOW something was there if you weren’t there to see it made?’

Hey, if I go to Mt Everest today, how do I know it was there yesterday?

“It’s like coming home to a half filled bath, measuring the temperature and stating that you know how long it’s been stood.
You can’t know whether it was hotter to begin with or colder, whether it was half-full and some leaked out or if some evaporated, or if a kid came in and let some out or put some in.
You CANNOT know these initial conditions, therefore your theories are not to be trusted.”

And science would entertain and test all the possiblities you described and maybe more. It would NOT entertain the idea of any supernatural intervention, by God or any other undetectable means.

“If YOU are a good scientist you will acknowledge this.”

Just so you know, I’m not a scientist (just in case you thought I was). Though some of the posters here are (if there is anyone left out there watching this thread).

So I personally might get some stuff wrong, but of course, that wouldn’t invalidate the theory of evolution. You’d have to convince the scientists, not just the general public. Good luck with that.

Yeh, sorry to all concerned that I swung around to evolution, thought I was a bit close to the astronomy edge, but it’s all connected isn’t it.
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
I would point out that a majority doesn’t make something true or correct… did you ever do that thing in school where someone goes out of the class and while they’re out the rest of the class come up with an experiment to show how peer pressure works? eg. 3 pieces of string, “which one is longer?” and the whole class contradicts the pupil who went out, until the pupil questions their own judgement for fear of ridicule.

I’m afraid these jokes about origins have braiwashed our society so much that few people dare to question the obvious flaws.

So how did life come from non-life?

So when did anyone last dig up a dinosaur fossil with a date on it?

Why is entropy not a problem to evolution?
Are we just going to say “it doesn’t apply to evolution… because it can’t, because if it did, our THEORY would be nonsense”. If it is not a problem, please give me evidence, NOT theoretical evidence.

The fossil record does more harm than good to this falacy of evolution.

Thanks for the link, I did check it out, I’ve been there before.
Can I recommend “Evolution or Creation” at http://www.wildersmith.org/library.htm
If you’ve not heard him before, I admit the professor is a bit eccentric and stereo-typically British, but let him get into his arguments before you press the little red X in your media-player!

“I appreciate you may be good at what you do.” Thanks
I am not a scientist by trade, but I do recognise “good” science… you may scoff, but lets be consistent here, and honest!
Good science looks at the evidence and examines it in the light of what we KNOW, not what we ASSUME. We can only know what we have observed, everything else is assumed and believed in faith, religious or scientific. You must recognise this.

We do not KNOW that the speed of light has always been the same, we may assume it.
We do not KNOW the half-life of a carbon atom, we may asume it.
Etc etc etc
I work in a realm which deals in repeatable experiments, that is how scientific progress is made, that is how I can build a better engine next time around. I experiment, I observe, I record, I repeat.
“Bad” science tries to operate in the past, making observations AFTER the events without being there at the time and declaring that “we know…”.

It’s like coming home to a half filled bath, measuring the temperature and stating that you know how long it’s been stood.
You can’t know whether it was hotter to begin with or colder, whether it was half-full and some leaked out or if some evaporated, or if a kid came in and let some out or put some in.
You CANNOT know these initial conditions, therefore your theories are not to be trusted.
If YOU are a good scientist you will acknowledge this.

ARRRRGGGHHHHHH!!!!!
I hate trying to discuss an idea by typing. I’d much rather discuss it over a cool beer! There’s lots of stuff that I could agree with you on, in the nature of science and lots of assumptions I would like to dispell about where I’m coming from, but I recognise that this is not the forum for it, so I’ll leave it at that.

Kind regards B

“You all seem to think that I’ve got a problem with science, I don’t.”

Funny, because most of your statements indicate otherwise.

“Stay with me!”

I’ll try.

“the past is not observable”

Then everything we know about history is wrong, then? If we dig up a dinosaur fossil, is it or is it not evidence from the past? The light from the sun takes about 8 minutes to get here. We see the sun from 8 minutes ago. Imagine what else we see when we look at things in the night sky which are MUCH further away.

“It moves from the highly organised to the disorganised… correct?”

Um, if that’s the case, how do snowflakes form? Stars? Why does the human foetus develop? (And from a theistic point of view, why would God create a universe that moves toward disorder?) Don’t bother trying to state the second law of thermodynamics or entropy, they are not a problem for evolution.

“We should look at the evidence around us and let it speak.”

That’s what science does. But obviously YOU’RE more qualified.

“The evidence around us does not support evolutionary theory.”

http://www.talkorigins.org

I still think it’s a bit strange you having a go at evolution on an astronomy website. Even if it was wrong (it ain’t), Phil’s original post didn’t even mention it.

“I studied astro-physics (probably not the extent of some of you guys), biology and any other science which I thought did away with that old fashioned idea of a creator.”

So far, you’re not convincing many people. Science doesn’t prove or disprove any ideas of a creator. You can still believe in God AND evolution (if you wanted to).

“I had to conclude that the evidence for life originating from non-life did not stack up.”

Well, whether God was involved or evolution was involved, life still came from non-life. Anyway, science is perfectly happy to say that we don’t know how life first came about (yet). We might not ever find that out. Evolution does not deal with how it first came about, but how life evolved after it did. People who argue that evolution deals with abiogenesis are mistaken.

“I didn’t find a single piece of evidence that I could “go to court with”.”

Thankfully, some educated people found some evidence and DID go to court with it, in a place called Dover. The side with the evidence won.

“Does a genetic mutation result in a loss of information or a gain?”

How are you defining information? It sounds like the ideas you have about information have come from creationists who, to put it bluntly, don’t know the meaning of the word. Information (I’m putting this simply) is what human beings write down about what we observe. Sure, you can have lots of information about DNA. But you can also get lots of information about a plain old rock. But in the end DNA is just a molecule, doing what it does. A rock is a rock, doing what rocks do.

“I have my own business, I build race cars, I run/look after top end Ferraris, Lambos, Astons… I must have a logical mind!”

I appreciate you may be good at what you do. But that doesn’t make you a good scientist. Even creationists can have a PhD. But they’re still wrong when they argue against the majority consensus of science. Surely scientists are the most qualified in the area of science. I wouldn’t send my broken car to my doctor for a checkup.

Seriously, if you are interested in learning then have a look at the talk origins link I provided and it addresses (in detail) lots of creationist arguments regarding evolution and astrophysics and geology and stuff.

Remember that none of this disproves any kind of God. It is still possible to be religious AND be a scientist.

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=1516
Professor Stephen Hawking FRS – Big Bang and Infinity
“This discovery was part of Stephen’s collaboration with Roger Penrose through which they used General Relativity to show that space and real time began with a Big Bang, and how they would end in black holes.”

It seems a contribution to the big bang theory is at the same time a contribution to general relativity as well. Then why is this latter contribution not mentioned by the Nobel committee? Could this have something to do with the following confessions of Einstein’s:

Einstein: “If the speed of light is the least bit affected by the speed of the light source, then my whole theory of relativity and theory of gravity is false.”

Einstein again: “I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field concept,i.e., on continuous structures. In that case, nothing remains of my entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included, [and of] the rest of modern physics.”

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com

I do agree with you on some of what you’ve said, I just need to make what I’m saying a bit clearer.

I’l get back to you (it’s 1:30am, I’m going to bed).

Regards,

“Narrow-minded, fundamentalist, creationist, Bible-bashing fanatic”

I’m quite happy to discuss this by email if anybody wants… I also don’t mind the public forum of this Blog (although it’s harder to deal with all the comments without boring everybody else!). Email bjorn.s@btinternet.com

I’ll just add this: I was a devout atheist for 25 years. I’d never had any contact (without argueing with or running away from) any religious people. My family are all atheist. I was quite happy. I had money, sports cars and the most attractive girls in school/college… I didn’t need “religion”!
I met a girl who was a “Christian” (whatever that meant) and because of her, I set out to disprove the existence of God, so that she would shut up.
I studied astro-physics (probably not the extent of some of you guys), biology and any other science which I thought did away with that old fashioned idea of a creator.
Although it was the last place I wanted to end up… I had to conclude that the evidence for life originating from non-life did not stack up. I didn’t find a single piece of evidence that I could “go to court with”. I became more and more convinced that there was/is a Creator.
I’ll quote Einstein “Anybody seriously interested in the pursuit of science, becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one vastly superior to man and one in the face of which our modest powers must feel humble”.
I’m not a dummy (honest). I have my own business, I build race cars, I run/look after top end Ferraris, Lambos, Astons… I must have a logical mind!

Evolution… where’s the evidence? Does a genetic mutation result in a loss of information or a gain?
Can you give me an example of a beneficial genetic mutation (observed not presumed)?
Natural selection DOES FIT with the evidence that the world presents us, evolution DOES NOT.

Merovingian said:
>I call myself a creationist, but by no means do I think the Universe is 6000 years old or any younger. That was just one speculative measure, there is no indication that it is a mainstream view. I’m afraid of people muddling the line between “creationist” and “narrow-minded”.

I think there’s need to be careful with terminology. If I understand you correctly, you equate “Creationist” with “theist”. Most people reserve “Creationist” to apply to those who refute Evolution as a viable explanation. I think there is a strong need to separate the issues of belief in God from explanations of how life began and diversified. Evolution is a scientific explanation of the latter. It is mute on the subject of the former. Creationism is an argument about the latter based upon a judgement about the former. The conflict in the science debate is the how. The argument over whether God exists and was involved is not really part of the scientific debate over Evolution. There are folks taking a metaphysical position based upon a conclusion drawn from Evolution, i.e. that knowing the mechanism suggests that God isn’t required. That conclusion can be argued without invalidating the scientific basis for that conclusion – Evolution. Belief in God is not in direct conflict with belief in Evolution – the conflict is over the metaphysical interpretations.

KingNor said:
>yeah.. the univers is like 60 thousands years old! thats alot of thousands!

I can’t tell if you’re being facetious or just mistaken. Try 13 million thousands. (~13,000,000,000 = 13 Billion years)

B Stansfield said:
>It’s funny how you react when anyone hints at a creator…

There are a few people overreacting to the mention of God. Most people, though, aren’t objecting to that, they’re objecting to the particular assertions you are making with respect to that belief in God in regard to science.

People are frail minded and full of issues, what ever they are, and have a tendancy to cling to ideas they like in the face of overwhelming edvidence they are wrong. Science is a process for us to beat our frailtys and LEARN rhat than just hope and beleive.

Saying we can only KNOW what happend up to about 5000 years ago assumes that people are completely infalable, and that current generations can’t learn anything new. I’m seeing alot of religion in this argument

In a way you’re discrediting your own creationist view. How do we know god made anything? some shmos in murky history of man wrote some internally contradicting book saying a “all seeing all present, somehow infalably ‘right’” super being willed all of existence into being “perfectly.”

There is no edvidence put forward to prove this instead we’re given a few thousand years of morraly corrupt clergy that simply kill you (after torture) if you disagree and often times ban you from heaven (how a human can do this is beyond me).

God did it. that is the edvidence, that is the closing statement.

if science can’t be right, even through observation and reconstruction of events recorded by man AND nature, then answer this:

how can religion be right, simply on faith, no observation and beleif of events recorded by man and man alone?

You’d have to put the same faith in humans that you put in god. a very bad idea. Science is fundamentally based on not trusting the assertions of man.

“Can anyone tell me what the speed of light was 12bn years ago?”

He also sed:

“You ASSUME that you are looking into the past however many billion years, because you ASSUME that everything you’re using to make your calculations has always remained constant.”

Dude, we have a pretty good idea of the speed of light NOW. If you think the universe is a few thousand years old (despite any evidence to the contrary) then you have to ASSUME that by some unknown previously unobserved process that the constant of the speed of light has changed. You get me? Your arguments are using circular logic. :-/

“Man cannot create life, how can he possibly have the arrogance to say that he KNOWS how it came to be? Utter nonsense!!!
The fool has said in his heart ‘there is no God’.”

I’m not an atheist. I agree with evolution. By your standards, that is impossible. Man cannot create stars, but we know how they come to be. We’ve seen them being born. You obviously have no knowledge of evolution, so how can you possibly have the arrogance to say “I know it’s all rubbish!” ?

The only ‘utter nonsense’ is being uttered by you, I’m afraid.

I am also disturbed to know that I cannot now “know” anything. Biblically or otherwise, I guess. But wait! If I know I can’t know, isn’t that self-exclusive?

But hey, we’ve gained a bit today! We’ve discovered “good science”, apparently in the time since B Stansfield’s first post, since he did not seem to know of it at that time. Way to stay on top of the research B!

Not much chance your computer is gonna fall into the new “bad science” category, is there?

Yeah, I knew it

This thread’s troll asked about the speed of light 12GY ago. We can’t measure that directly but we have some fascinating evidence that indicates the fine structure constant aka “alpha”, may have changed over that time. Alpha is a dimensionless ratio built from several constants, including the speed of light.

So the best answer I know of for the question would be, “Probably no more than 0.0006% less than it is now.”

Second: It´s somehow funny that there seems to be no choice: Believe in science or in god – but why not in both?
F.e. I believe that there IS a god, let´s call it a guiding and protecting hand over a human´s life, but I also believe that the universe is older than 6000yrs and the predictions of science which CANNOT and will never rule out a god!
So: Where´s the problem?
Okay, without this “conflict” this blog would be less funny!

You can make a weather prediction based on the last 100 yrs, YES, well done, that’s because you’ve got records for those last 100 yrs and you can ASSUME that the weather will be similar, but you cannot KNOW; that is why weather predictions, which only extrapolate forward by a few days, are so often WRONG. With your theories, you are not extrapolating back a few days, but billions of years… come on, how can you hope to be even remotely accurate!?!?!
What you’re talking about does not and never has operated in the present and is therefore only guesswork.
Besides any of this, the only reason you think in terms of millions and billions of years is to try and allow for the nonsense THEORY of evolution.

Man cannot create life, how can he possibly have the arrogance to say that he KNOWS how it came to be? Utter nonsense!!!
The fool has said in his heart ‘there is no God’.

B Stansfield says, “Question for you… Can you or any “scientist” on the face of this Earth (however honoured) tell me what the weather will be like on November 5th this year, in Cheshire England?
Answer… No you can’t and neither can they. You can guess!
You can’t know and neither could you say I was a fool to say it will rain, when a meteorologist says it will be dry.”

My answer is, it will be cold and damp, with 0% chance of volcanoes. So, if I’m right, this proves… what, to you or anyone?

You have forwarded the frequent yet pointless argument that science does not have answers for everything, therefore science does not exist. Logic is not your strong point. No one in the scientific community has ever made any claim whatsoever that science has all the answers – indeed, if they did, they’d be out of their jobs. Science is the process of finding answers and discovering how things work – observation and extrapolation, that’s all. But it works amazingly well. Meteorology is inexact, and partially because we do not have the ability to observe and measure all factors that affect it. That would take an awful lot of instrumentation, like anemometers every ten meters or so. So you claim that inability to obtain adequate amounts of data proves science is a flop?

B Stansfield goes on:
“Neither can anyone be “scientifically” correct about the past.
You just don’t get it. Science can only operate in the present; any extrapolations forwards or backwards can only be guesses. You might as well have some doctor of physics tell you the Universe was made of ice cream 20 billion years ago… he doesn’t know what happened before about 5,000 years ago and neither does anyone else who tries to project assumptions backwards!”

True, and very existentialist. But what we get from doing scientific observation is the ability to do some pretty accurate predictions, and not just about weather.

By your argument, if you placed a 9mm pistol against your head and pulled the trigger, you couldn’t possibly “know” that it would blow your “brains” out. After all, it’s just a device that’s been built by observing how things work, and we can’t know about the past, nor the future. There’s no book of scripture, no word of some supreme beings’, that tells us about pistols, to my knowledge. Therefore they must be only guesses.

But MY guess is, you’re not confident enough in your own arguments to show us how well this theory tests out. MY guess is, you’re going to concede, for your own sake and certainly not in a public forum, that a whole lot of things, including metal and gunpowder, behave in a predictable enough manner that you use them without thinking. You put a highly flammable substance in a metal construct and count on the fact that not only will it not set you on fire, but it will behave perfectly predictably and transport you to work, church, the store, and so on. And complain about the costs like everyone else.

Scientific predictions are merely observations of repeated physical properties, and we use them constantly. You can see ash and know, confidently, that there was a fire that created it – you may even determine that it was a cigarette. You may maintain that we don’t “know” this, but expanding on that argument, we don’t “know” anything at all. But playing the odds is something we do everyday, and usually to our benefit. We get out of the way of falling or thrown objects because we bet very heavily (hah! I kill me!) that gravity works. This is knowledge, something that we obtain automatically. Science is merely the structured method of seeking it.

B Stansfield says, “Foolish, foolish, foolish to call this intelligent argument, let alone “science”.”

Bang on the money there, B! Or weren’t you not referring to your own clumsy statements?

B Stansfield goes on:
“How about answering these questions…
Why does death exist?
What will happen to you when you die?
Why can’t you shut up your conscience?
Why does suffering in the world bother people?”

I’ll bite, on the agreement that you respond in kind, since you maintain that science does not have the answers, presumably you know what does. Let’s see who stands up to the test, shall we?

Death: By all accounts, it’s the failure to maintain reproductive and sustaining processes that we call “life.” It occurs through numerous mechanisms, from 9mm bullets disrupting the delicate balance of interaction within a living system, through failure to obtain supporting proteins. Without it, we would be in a system that would have to infinitely expand to support the demands for more food, more space, and so on – obviously we are not. Death is, therefore, a vital function within a closed system and supports sustainability. And one great argument against creationism.

What happens when I die? Bacteria goes hog wild with the great reduction in counteracting agents, my body breaks down and releases nutrients into the system, some undeserving schmoe gets all my stuff unless I see it coming far enough in advance. Does that cover it, or were you looking for something you didn’t specify in your question?

Why can’t I shut off my conscience? As opposed to any other thought processes, like skepticism of unexplainable claims, contempt of ignorance, or satisfaction in educating others? Because as a species, we developed with a brain that remains at a highly active state, allowing for abstract thought and the ability to foresee hazards before they actually occur, permitting us to develop to our current level. Or were you asking why we even have conscience in the first place, which is because again, as a species, we require far more protein and carbohydrates than can be obtained by foraging or preying on the average fare available, especially during reproduction and infancy, and so require a cooperative tribal society to thrive. The conscience is an ingrained survival trait that encourages cooperation.

Which answers the question about suffering too. And world suffering is, by the way, one of the many reasons I don’t believe in any supreme being, especially a beneficial one.

Hope this helps