Darwin's theory is completely without merit....
Darwin himself ruled out his own theory, stating that it was foolish and he was ashamed that his theory had been adopted and spread like wildfire...
Darwin converted to Christianity...

Albert Einstein also made a case for the Creator.

I wonder why thy these facts are not given to our young people in school? Please give your thoughts on this.

Thanks

Darwin's theory is completely without merit....
Darwin himself ruled out his own theory, stating that it was foolish and he was ashamed that his theory had been adopted and spread like wildfire...

Darwin's theory is pretty much common sense, in retrospect. Also, he was not ashamed of his theory at all. If you have some sort of source that states otherwise, feel free to post it.

Darwin converted to Christianity...

No, he didn't. The story about his death-bed conversion is a hoax.

Albert Einstein also made a case for the Creator.

Not really. If anything, he claimed he believed in some sort of very minimal God, not a personal God or anything that the average person would call 'God'. Even so, this is much different than making a 'case' for it; he simply stated his thoughts.

I wonder why thy these facts are not given to our young people in school? Please give your thoughts on this. Thanks

Because they are not facts at all. You should double check your sources.

Darwin's theory is completely without merit....
Darwin himself ruled out his own theory, stating that it was foolish and he was ashamed that his theory had been adopted and spread like wildfire...
Darwin converted to Christianity...

Albert Einstein also made a case for the Creator.

I wonder why thy these facts are not given to our young people in school? Please give your thoughts on this.

Thanks
the main reason for those not to be told to children at school is there not facts, there not true, they are baseless. firstly the big bang has nothing to do with darwin's
The "Origin of Species" was about natural selection he knew nothing of quantum mechanical and the big bang thats the realm of stephen hawkins "a Brief History of Time" there is no proof the darwin converted on his deathbed http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/d/darwin.htm and this next one goto page content http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/darwin.html and the big bang theory is taught in schools. as for the origin of the species, the theorys and the facts have changed since darwins time, however could you produce proof he stated his ideas were foolish.

I will now quote Albert einstein to show what he thought about a creator.

"I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religion than it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism."

"I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for a reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity,
and I'm not sure about the former."

"The important thing is not to stop questioning."

Dear Darlas,

I think you are oversimplifying. Darwin did not object to his own application of Darwinian Theory... he was quite on his own side there. What you must be referring to is Darwin's opposition to the Popular Application of derivative notions into what we refer to as "Social Darwinism" -- that Superior Races survive by committing Genocide against inferior Races. It was through the Acceptance of the Tenets of Social Darwinism that the English wished to conquer the World, thus starting World War One; and then the German's with World War Two, and now the Jews with World War Three. And yes, Darwin saw it all coming and regretted the popular misapplication of his notions of Natural Selection and Survival of the Fittest, but he never renounced those ideas as they applied to the Evolution of Animal Species.

darlas...Just as an aside, The Big Bang theory was developed by Georges Lemaitre--a Catholic Priest. Einstein's told Lemaitre his caculations were correct but "your grasp of physics is abominable." Few years later, Einstein changed his mind and told Lemaitre his theory was "beautiful".

Darwin's theory is completely without merit....

Darwin's theory was incomplete, as he didn't know about genetics. However, his theory was correct in many areas, and has been improved upon over the past 100 years.


Darwin himself ruled out his own theory, stating that it was foolish and he was ashamed that his theory had been adopted and spread like wildfire...

He did no such thing, and I suggest you actually research these claims you heard in passing, before you parrot them.
Darwin converted to Christianity...


Albert Einstein also made a case for the Creator.

Really? Where, exactly?


I wonder why thy these facts are not given to our young people in school?

Because they are, in truth, factual inaccuracies.


Please give your thoughts on this.

It wouldn't be a bad idea for you to take a Biology 101 course.

Also, how is the theory of evolution relevant to the Big Bang theory? They are two entirely seperate theories.

Here is how those theories relate - they are without solid, concrete proof...unless someone who witnessed the dawn of creation is still around to enlighten the world. All these theories are not unlike being a Christian in that it's all a matter of faith. Faith in God, faith in nothing, faith in random accidental creation....etc.

Here is how those theories relate - they are without solid, concrete proof...unless someone who witnessed the dawn of creation is still around to enlighten the world. All these theories are not unlike being a Christian in that it's all a matter of faith. Faith in God, faith in nothing, faith in random accidental creation....etc.

This is idiotic. Do you claim to know any history? Because chances are, you weren't there. Yet history is backed by evidence, just like the Big Bang.

Here is how those theories relate - they are without solid, concrete proof...unless someone who witnessed the dawn of creation is still around to enlighten the world. All these theories are not unlike being a Christian in that it's all a matter of faith. Faith in God, faith in nothing, faith in random accidental creation....etc.

Science requires very concrete proof for any theory to become generally accepted. Why do you think the Big Bang Theory has been around for such a long time and that it is the leading theory as to how the Universe came into existence (in the scientific world, that is)? Because it has quite concrete, although indirect, evidence that it occured. Many different facts, such as the Universe is expanding, point to the fact that the Universe most likely originated from a single point in space. Of course this is still only a theory, we don't know where the original mass that exploded came from, but many facts that we have found today suggest that that is what happened. It's not really a matter of faith, it is a matter of logical deduction. We see what is around us today, and we can make a prediction as to how it came to be using solid scientific fact.

Religion, on the other hand, is quite different. I found a quote that shows the difference between science and religion quite well:

"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy."

Darlas,

Darwin's theory is completely without merit....

The fact of evolution is one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in the history of mankind.

Darwin himself ruled out his own theory, stating that it was foolish and he was ashamed that his theory had been adopted and spread like wildfire...

Darwin stated his pride in being able to demonstrate two things: The fact of evolution, and his theories of how evolution occurs.

Darwin converted to Christianity...

The truth is the complete opposite.

From his autobiography http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/library/cd_relig.htm

….. Thus disbelief crept over me at very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true;…..

Albert Einstein also made a case for the Creator.

Einstein was an atheist even to his last moments.

I wonder why thy these facts are not given to our young people in school?

Because they are hopelessly and utterly wrong.

Darlas show me your degree in biology or physics.

darlas has faith moron.

your paper with some university name can't compete with that when you're on your deathbead.

Take it for what it is. :m:

Here is how those theories relate - they are without solid, concrete proof...unless someone who witnessed the dawn of creation is still around to enlighten the world.

The jury did not directly witness the murder.
Hence, they cannot make an informed decision about whether the accused is guilty.
Looks like we will have the throw the justice system out the window!

darlas has faith moron.

your paper with some university name can't compete with that when you're on your deathbead.

Take it for what it is. :m:

I'm assuming you're joking considering your current views on faith, unless I missed something.

If not: a degree from a university marks a significantly greater accomplishment in life than merely believing in something.

I'm assuming you're joking considering your current views on faith, unless I missed something.

If not: a degree from a university marks a significantly greater accomplishment in life than merely believing in something.

Yes, I was being sarcastic.

But then I suppose if Albert Einstein made a case for a creator then it must be true that God exists. If Darwin converted to Christianity, then it must be true that God exists.

Foolish appeals to authority. I am not sure how even one arrives from those premises to "big bang theory - foolish - "

In case she did not know, Darwin had nothing to do with the Big Bang theory. I will venture to say, from what I have read, neither did Einstein although his work may have been instrumental.

So:

WTF is the point of this thread again?

Cess -

Most of you might not know it but actually it was Darwin who first came up with the idea of Big Bang, it was only later when God got the idea.

Most of you might not know it but actually it was Darwin who first came up with the idea of Big Bang, it was only later when God got the idea.

Are you calling God a plagiarizer?

...

Of course it says God had a body in the Bible - first of all, Man was created in his image - so presumably God is of humanoid form. Secondly, God is described in Chapter 3 of Genesis as "walking in the Garden" - which presumably implies that he had legs to walk with.

As SouthStar pointed out, darlas, for this forum you really do need a little more for a thread entitled "Big Bang Theory - Foolish" than "Darwin's theory is completely without merit...." You need to give at least some reasonable explanation (which the rest of us would still have no trouble demolishing) as to why you believe that one of the most fundamental theories in science is "without merit".

As to deathbed conversions, and the like... In 1905, alongside the classic paper on Special Relativity, one of Einstein's other papers that year put quantum theory on its firmest foundations yet and established it as a real aspect of the physical world (something Max Planck had not really been able to do). In later decades, however, he was not at all happy with the implications of quantum theory, particularly the element which derived from the Uncertainty Principle of Heisenberg, and Heisenberg and Bohr's classic Copenhagen Interpretation. His opposition to these scientific theories have done nothing to remove their acceptance from the world of physics as a whole. Alfred Wallace did genuinely recant from parts of the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection (in particular when it came to the evolution of Man), but this did not remove him as a viable and almost co-eval contributor to the Theory as expounded by Darwin.

As has been extensively pointed out, the Big Bang theory and the theory of Evolution are not related - the theory of Evolution owes nothing to the concept that the Universe was created at a particular point, except that it evidently requires that the Solar System was created at least 3 billion years ago, which fortunately all the evidence shows to be the case. But the alternative to the Big Bang theory in rational scientific circles was the Steady State theory in which the Universe as a whole had existed infinitely into the past. This theory does not stand up to the evident expansion of the Universe and the background radiation detected in 1965 which stands as the echo of the Big Bang itself. On the other hand it would represent a TOTAL denial of the concept that the Universe was created by God - which the Big Bang theory does not do - so far.

I gotta answer for you Darlas:

The Big Bang Theory is completely and utterly false.

The dictionary defines a bang as:

A sudden loud noise, as of an explosion.
A sudden loud blow or bump.

Sound doesn't travel in space. So the Big Bang theory is an oxymoron to start with.

And we have the theories about antimatter, and all. Antimatter is for real, but the precept of a reverse time parallel universe is about as much a stretch of faith as anyone can imagine.

Oh yeah, I'm sure I'll catch bullets on this one. But tell me if antimatter was so great, why isn't someone doing something great with it. NASA sure has been trying:

http://www.engr.psu.edu/antimatter/Papers/NASA_anti.pdf

If there was a free lunch we would probably be eating it by now. I haven't heard an all-encompassing energy theory that takes antimatter into account, but when it gets done, I am certain the conservation of energy will remain valid, and that it took a supernatural metaphysical event to start things off.

Somebody needs to cut to the chase and line up the energy theories without all this hype about a mirror universe that nobody can prove.

Sound doesn't travel in space. So the Big Bang theory is an oxymoron to start with.
Actually, the early universe was more dense than it is now, and could transmit sound waves. There is space within the water in the ocean, too.

Well Darlas, I have met many people like you who have no facts or evidence or truth in anything they are trying to convey or prove. So, see you can not disprove the fundamentals of science, because they have been tested over and over again.

Good Luck

Woody: The Big Bang Theory is completely and utterly false.

The dictionary defines a bang as:

A sudden loud noise, as of an explosion.
A sudden loud blow or bump.

Sound doesn't travel in space. So the Big Bang theory is an oxymoron to start with.
*************
M*W: Woody, I think you are starting to smell of rotten Royal Dutch Elm disease.

The BB theory is still in the process of occuring. That's why you can't see it. Stephen Hawkings agrees with the BB theory, and sound does travel in space. Like anything else in the universe, it produces a rippling effect.
*************
Woody: And we have the theories about antimatter, and all. Antimatter is for real, but the precept of a reverse time parallel universe is about as much a stretch of faith as anyone can imagine.

Oh yeah, I'm sure I'll catch bullets on this one. But tell me if antimatter was so great, why isn't someone doing something great with it. NASA sure has been trying:

http://www.engr.psu.edu/antimatter/Papers/NASA_anti.pdf

If there was a free lunch we would probably be eating it by now. I haven't heard an all-encompassing energy theory that takes antimatter into account, but when it gets done, I am certain the conservation of energy will remain valid, and that it took a supernatural metaphysical event to start things off.

Somebody needs to cut to the chase and line up the energy theories without all this hype about a mirror universe that nobody can prove.
*************
M*W: There will come a day when it can be proven. Antimatter research is being done in biomedical science. We've already sent stem cells into space with NASA to see what effect space would have on them. We already know that space travel causes muscle wasting in animals and humans.

You need to do a lot more scientific reading. The bible was written in the day it was written, and nothing in it today is accurate or still applicable.

I had a conversation yesterday with a christian friend of mine. He agreed on the BB and theory of evolution, but he still believes that god started our creation. Therefore, if a god existed that could have started the BB, it probably was caused by a hot gas -- like from the sun -- oh, yeah, the sun was the first monotheist god to humankind. You people just gave the sun of god a human name, but it still didn't do jack shit for ya.

its all pretty much guess work and a lot of it vanity. darwins theory follow some logic at least to a point. the bibliical idea of creation with the adam and eve thing... in my opinion was never meant to taken literally. to me it laughable. but more than that, im not sure that spending any but the smallest amount time devoted to trying validate speculation on a subject whos answers are unknown and quite likely unknowable, is wise considering that in the end, our lives are very short indeed and time truely isnt something we have to spare daydreaming. but to each their owns. in any case, ill usually take logic coupled with some physical evidence over farfetched faith based fantasy on whatever subject.

MW says,

sound does travel in space. Like anything else in the universe, it produces a rippling effect

Light travels in a vacuum but sound does not. That's only a minor point anyway -- nothing to quibble about on my part.

I was reading some of Justin Martyr's writings, and the philosophers in his day were having the same discussion we're having now. Could the universe's existence be explained by the natural or the supernatural? The arguments sound strangely the same after nearly 2000 years. With all the new facts we're still debating the same stuff.

The hard core viewon the parallel universe theory says we really don't exist at all, because every action in our universe has an equal and opposite reaction in reverse time in the parallel universe for net zero cancellation. This agrees with the nihilist's point of view (where we think we exist but we really don't), and it gets crazier from there. So the new religions and philosophies keep on re-incarnating into the same old ideas.

I think investigation will always reveal news depths to the universe, and new mysteries. Therefore, a naturalistic explanation will always seem incomplete, leaving philosophical room for the supernatural, like an intellectual shortcut. The supernatural would seem natural, too, if we only understood it. So, the supernatural depends on a certain degree of ignorance. But, then again, there might be limits on knowledge. All evidence of the universe before the Big Bang would have been destroyed in it. Perhaps there will always be room for a supernatural explanation of events, but it seems to be intellectually dishonest. Its like admitting you will never find out about that subject. I think it shows a lack of faith in humanity.

I gotta answer for you Darlas:

The Big Bang Theory is completely and utterly false.

The dictionary defines a bang as:

A sudden loud noise, as of an explosion.
A sudden loud blow or bump.

Sound doesn't travel in space. So the Big Bang theory is an oxymoron to start with.

And we have the theories about antimatter, and all. Antimatter is for real, but the precept of a reverse time parallel universe is about as much a stretch of faith as anyone can imagine.

Oh yeah, I'm sure I'll catch bullets on this one. But tell me if antimatter was so great, why isn't someone doing something great with it. NASA sure has been trying:

http://www.engr.psu.edu/antimatter/Papers/NASA_anti.pdf

If there was a free lunch we would probably be eating it by now. I haven't heard an all-encompassing energy theory that takes antimatter into account, but when it gets done, I am certain the conservation of energy will remain valid, and that it took a supernatural metaphysical event to start things off.

Somebody needs to cut to the chase and line up the energy theories without all this hype about a mirror universe that nobody can prove.Nobody can prove your supernatural metaphysical event, either. But the rational view in the absence of any truly verifiable supernatural metaphysical events in our experience is that the Universe is also the result of a natural event and to try and investigate and explain that. Given the law of conservation of energy, it's rational to postulate a hypothetical "anti-Universe" even if we are nowhere near proving it. It is not rational to stop at the level of evidence we have now and then simply "chuck in the towel" and go for the God theory.

Nobody's asking you to follow down that path if you've no inclination to do so. But science is asked "do you have a rational, logical, non-supernatural explanation for the creation of the Universe", and science does - based upon known physical effects such as virtual pair appearance/annihilation, zero point energy or quantum fluctuation. That does not mean that it is the correct explanation, in fact it probably isn't the correct explanation. However, it is the best explanation that science can provide.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, science was done in order to investigate the Laws of the Universe without any real conception that there might not be a God responsible for it. As geology and palaeontology showed the evidence, it was clear that creatures evolved from earlier creatures. Potentially the physical evidence of God's handiwork in everyday life! Then along came Charles Darwin, advancing in 1859 the Origin of Species in which he demonstrated how evolution was driven by blind, natural forces - Natural Selection. Then in 1871 he published Descent of Man in which he extended the idea to Humanity itself - that we were no less evolved from earlier creatures than any other.

Atheism had been around for some considerable time, of course - but until there was a theory to explain the complexity of life, and to demonstrate that there need not be anything special or particular about humanity, it could not really claim intellectual rigour. All that changed - if humanity wasn't special, maybe there wasn't even a God.

It was against this background that cosmology first got started in the early years of the 20th Century. Since there was no God, need there be a Creation at all? And so the Steady State theory was born, which postulated that everything in the Universe had popped into existence, one proton at a time - throughout all eternity. Plausible, sensible (apart from the use of a real "eternity") - but sadly not matched by the evidence. But the concept of matter coming into existence out of energy, in equal proportions, matter and anti-matter could certainly be extended to the now accepted Single Event Universe creation.

Woody, maybe God created the Universe, but if he did, he created another one at the same time - I don't believe God would break the laws of physics he set up!

Oh yeah, I'm sure I'll catch bullets on this one. But tell me if antimatter was so great, why isn't someone doing something great with it. NASA sure has been trying:

http://www.engr.psu.edu/antimatter/Papers/NASA_anti.pdf

If there was a free lunch we would probably be eating it by now.I don't get you on this - you ask why nothing's happening with antimatter, and then cite the paper that pretty well explains why doing anything with antimatter (like making enough to do something with) is really difficult! This isn't the first time here at sciforums I've seen someone cite something as a question mark, when the answer is actually in the reference itself!

Silas,

I don't get you on this - you ask why nothing's happening with antimatter, and then cite the paper that pretty well explains why doing anything with antimatter (like making enough to do something with) is really difficult! This isn't the first time here at sciforums I've seen someone cite something as a question mark, when the answer is actually in the reference itself!

The paper explains how inefficiently man makes and uses antimatter. On the otherhand a thoughtless universe has it all figured out. :confused:

Woody: I was reading some of Justin Martyr's writings, and the philosophers in his day were having the same discussion we're having now. Could the universe's existence be explained by the natural or the supernatural? The arguments sound strangely the same after nearly 2000 years. With all the new facts we're still debating the same stuff.
*************
M*W: The debates go on because, for the past 2000 years, some people chose to remain ignorant in their own little world view, and the rest of us chose to exercise our minds and learn something new.
*************
Woody: The hard core viewon the parallel universe theory says we really don't exist at all, because every action in our universe has an equal and opposite reaction in reverse time in the parallel universe for net zero cancellation. This agrees with the nihilist's point of view (where we think we exist but we really don't), and it gets crazier from there. So the new religions and philosophies keep on re-incarnating into the same old ideas.
*************
M*W: The "parallel universe" I have read about is something different than what you describe. The PU I'm talking about most definitely allows for everything in our world to exist. The "equal and opposite reaction in reverse time" occurs with the expanding and contracting of the universe. Stephen Hawking says, "The thermodynamic and psychological arrows of time would NOT reverse when the universe begins to recontract or inside black holes." My understanding of a PU occurs right in our midst, but we can't sense it necessarily. It's a different dimension that the one we're in. The existence of life in the PU, however, is not necessarily a mirror image of our life in this dimension. It's a separate reality. I've always wondered why that reality is able to crossover to this reality, but we're not sufficiently able to crossover to that one, and Stephen Hawking says it's because of "gravitational pull." I'm not saying that when the parallel reality slips through the time-space continuum that we can see and readily describe what we see. Our eyes are not interdimensional or evolved enough to have this asset. However, there may be some more highly evolved individuals who can perceive their presence, but I am not one of them.

Silas,



The paper explains how inefficiently man makes and uses antimatter. On the otherhand a thoughtless universe has it all figured out. :confused:
Well, we can't create a fusion reaction either but the thoughtless sun seems to manage quite well at the rate of about 4 billion kilogrammes per second.

Creating antimatter is easy - it happens trillions of times every second. keeping it away from matter is what is difficult. There isn't the remotest analogue between the problems of physicists in isolating a infinitesimal amount of anti-matter and some pre-spacetime concentration of some energy equivalent out of which was born all the matter in our Unverse.

Silas said,

Creating antimatter is easy - it happens trillions of times every second.

Is that when you consider the whole universe?

Or if you are thinking in parallel universe theory, antimatter "unhappens" trillions of times a second, and time is going in reverse for a perfect cancellation with real time, hence time doesn't really exist -- it is just a mirror image of a cancellation process.

Creating antimatter is easy you say, but look at the investment it takes. Doing useful work with antimatter is the hard part.

Who the hell is so sure anyways? It's like two people arguing over something that have no or very little clue about in the first place.

Lets all just PARTY and enjoy this little existance we have. Go into nature, and smell the beauty of freedom and clean air. Then go into the city and play with the beautiful electronics and ENJOY LIFE! Quit arguing over something we don't know!

(Then again... if we dont argue over it, we wouldn't get anywhere would we?) (Or would we?...) :eek:

:D :m:

caffiene fubar said,

Who the hell is so sure anyways? It's like two people arguing over something that have no or very little clue about in the first place.

Precisely.

It is a matter of faith. Either you believe the universe was created or you believe it just happened. Either case the explanation is becoming metaphysical. It's a matter of what a person believes, the same as it was 2,000 years ago, 4,000 years ago or however far back you want to go. Should we expect the future to be any different?

Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith.

well the galaxies are all moving away from each other so i presume they were at the least all banging each other earlier. oh Timothy, stay dumb, dummy. it's simpler to believe jesus is gonna come back & save your sorry ass that way.

Woody,

Either you believe the universe was created or you believe it just happened.

No. One may simply admit they do not know. In the absence of evidence there is no requirement to make a choice.

Either case the explanation is becoming metaphysical.

No, that is also incorrect; some speculations are just more fantastic than others.

It's a matter of what a person believes,

No it isn’t, it is a matter of what can be shown to be true. Belief without facts are simply fantasies.

Woody,

Somebody needs to cut to the chase and line up the energy theories without all this hype about a mirror universe that nobody can prove.

You mean in the same way that no one can prove that anything supernatural exists or could exist, right? If we must choose then how do we decide which fantasy is the least fantastic? A monk figured that out - it is known as Occam's Razor.

§outh§tar . . .Darwin had nothing to do with the Big Bang theory. I will venture to say, from what I have read, neither did Einstein although his work may have been instrumental.

Might have been. But Einstein, at first, said the father of the Big Bang theory--Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian astrophysicist and Catholic priest--was wrong and had no grasp of physics.

Einstein did recant within a few years and described Lemaitre's theory as "beautiful."

§outh§tar . . .Darwin had nothing to do with the Big Bang theory. I will venture to say, from what I have read, neither did Einstein although his work may have been instrumental.

Might have been. But Einstein, at first, said the father of the Big Bang theory--Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian astrophysicist and Catholic priest--was wrong and had no grasp of physics.

Einstein did recant within a few years and described Lemaitre's theory as "beautiful."

I can't remember exactly, it's been a while, but didn't Einstein invent some sort of universal constant to make his theory work at the time? I think he also called his error the most foolish blunder of his career.

I think his work might have influenced Guth's inflationary model though. It's been so long since I actually read up on this so correct me if I'm wrong.

Occam's razor cannot be used to tell whether a theory is correct, or is a "fantasy".
It just says, "research the most simple idea first".
It would be silly to say, "the most simple answer is always right."
Foolish to say that.
Yes.
Nobody should ever say that.

Like I said - if we must choose then what Occam demonstrated was that statistically the simplest idea usually tends to be the most accurate.

But if truth is expected then proofs will be needed and not speculations no matter how credible they might seem.

No it isn’t, it is a matter of what can be shown to be true. Belief without facts are simply fantasies.

Thats an opinion. Just as he stated an opinion.

Ill return the favor with this:

You are wrong and so is he. I am the only person that has been right here so far. Go party, forget asking the question. Noone is sure yet, so go get laid while they give themselves a stroke thinking about it.

:m: :cool:

fubar,

Thats an opinion. Just as he stated an opinion.

No it isn't an opinion. If there is no evidence then what you have is a fantasy. This is fact not opinion.

If there is no evidence then what you have is a fantasy.

But fantasies are real too...

I have a question for you Darlas, about creation theory.
Adam and Eve, only had two sons, Cain and Able.
Cain killed Able. Cain got married. Who did Cain marry?

Where did the future children come from?
Did Cain and Able have babies with their mother? Or with each other?

Maybe "god" took another one of of Adam's ribs and made another woman.
Maybe Cain had babies with the body of his dead brother, Able. I'm sure he was Able. :D

Darlas ran away.

Like I said - if we must choose then what Occam demonstrated was that statistically the simplest idea usually tends to be the most accurate.

Sorry, but this occam's razor thing is bugging me. The simplest theory is no more likely to be accurate.
If I have a very simple idea as to how an electron moves from place to place, i.e., it has to move as a particle in a straight line, I will tend to be confused by the tests on the idea.
There are millions of examples where the simplest theory is wrong.
I think there is discussion regarding evolution being heirarchical instead of having one agency (natural selection on the level of the organism), because of more recent empirical evidence. Please don't tell me you would say one or the other version of the theory is more likely to be accurate solely based on complexity. The simplest theory would be "goddidit", and you certainly have to hate that one.

But fantasies are real too...
and once more into the twilight zone.

Sorry, but this occam's razor thing is bugging me. The simplest theory is no more likely to be accurate.
If I have a very simple idea as to how an electron moves from place to place, i.e., it has to move as a particle in a straight line, I will tend to be confused by the tests on the idea.
There are millions of examples where the simplest theory is wrong.
I think there is discussion regarding evolution being heirarchical instead of having one agency (natural selection on the level of the organism), because of more recent empirical evidence. Please don't tell me you would say one or the other version of the theory is more likely to be accurate solely based on complexity. The simplest theory would be "goddidit", and you certainly have to hate that one.
Misapprehension - Occams Razor means that the simplest theory that fits all the facts is the one most likely to be correct. So your "simple idea" on how an electron moves doesn't match the facts and is not considered the correct theory by Occam's Razor. In every case, the simplest theory is the correct one as far as the current state of knowledge. If knowledge expands to find new data which does not fit the current theory, we work to find a new theory. Newton's equations of motion work very well, untill you approach the speed of light - then everything changes and you need Einstein's theory. Without Einstein's theories we would today be wondering why our GPS satellites seemed unable to keep time correctly. Newton's theory doesn't fit all the facts, but Einstein's is the simplest which does.

In fact, of course, Occam's Razor only boils down to "simplest" - what it actually says is "Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem" literally "Entities should not be multiplied without necessity." Here on the religious forum, I guess the unnecessary entity is God. Over on Pseudoscience it is Aliens. (For example, it does not require magical forces or super-advanced technology - ie a whole other sapient race of beings - to create crop circles. Crop circles are within the capability of ordinary human beings, and so all crop circles were in fact created by ordinary human beings. Occam's Razor, QED).

SILAS,
The simplest theory that fits "all the facts", is not necessarily true.
Will you predict which evolutionary theory is correct, based on simplicity, and based on our available facts, with Occam's razor? Good luck. If Darwin is wrong about his one-level emphasis, based on recent findings, will that make him correct up to now, or will someone who advocated a heirarchical idea in his era be more correct? More complex, and more correct?


Re: God - what are "all the facts"? You misapply Occam's method for researching a scientific theory's veracity to an area where the "facts" are sparse, or non-existent, or ubiquitously abundant, depending on who you ask, because the researchers can't even agree on which "facts" are to be included in the proving process. Some people claim that everything is planned by God, some that everything is chance, some take a middle road - prove to me which view should be used to gather the "facts".

SILAS,
The simplest theory that fits "all the facts", is not necessarily true. Name a single counter-example.
Will you predict which evolutionary theory is correct, based on simplicity, and based on our available facts, with Occam's razor? Good luck. If Darwin is wrong about his one-level emphasis, based on recent findings, will that make him correct up to now, or will someone who advocated a heirarchical idea in his era be more correct? More complex, and more correct?It's not really Darwin you should mention in this respect. Darwin advanced the best theory around as to how complexity can evolve through random mutation strained through the extremely tough sieve of non-random survival or non-survival. Nobody doubts that the driving force for evolution is still at the level of the individual organism. The controversy to which you refer is best represented by the division between Richard Dawkins, who strictly feels that since genes are carried in individual bodies, it is only individual organisms which can evolve, and the model believed by the late Stephen Jay Gould, who felt that some species survival is driven by species level selection. I'm afraid I don't fully understand the arguments on either side, so I'm not going to pick one. But let us say that Gould's concept prevails. In order for it to do so, there would have to be evidence of some kind of evolutionary development which would prove (by genetic or mathematical analysis) that species selection is also an operating factor that drives evolution. But in this case, Gould's total theory (including the one-stage theory of genetic mutation and selection first proposed by Darwin but augmented by the work on genetics by Mendel, mathematical genetics by R.A. Fisher and others and even Watson and Crick with their enumeration of the DNA molecule) - this total theory then would then become the simplest theory which fit all the known facts - something that Natural Selection on its own would fail to do. The fact that the real theory is more complex than an earlier theory does not in fact invalidate Occam's Razor by one iota. I already explained this once by reference to Newton's simple theory and Einstein's immensely more complicated (not to say counter-intuitive) one. Newton's theory is simpler, but it does not account for all the facts, and therefore it "falls by the wayside". Nonetheless, by Occam's Razor we still eliminate unnecessary entities when dealing with everyday practical matters and use Newton's theories of forces and motion when relativistic effects are not going to be noticed - to quote Apollo 13, Jim Lovell said "Well, gentlemen, we just put Isaac Newton in the driving seat." Newton's theory was less correct - at the tenth decimal place or whatever - but it was certainly good enough and beautifully simple enough to program into the primitive computers of the Apollo missions, for example.


Re: God - what are "all the facts"? You misapply Occam's method for researching a scientific theory's veracity to an area where the "facts" are sparse, or non-existent, or ubiquitously abundant, depending on who you ask, because the researchers can't even agree on which "facts" are to be included in the proving process. Some people claim that everything is planned by God, some that everything is chance, some take a middle road - prove to me which view should be used to gather the "facts".
I think you totally misunderstand the scientific method - facts are gathered with no particular view in mind at all. But ever since Newton our exploration of the world around us has revealed that everything is governed by comprehensible laws and subject to analysis by mathematics. As each new discovery is made and found to fall within that paradigm, it is only natural to assume that the next level down, the next thing to be found, is also based on some natural, mathematical, law. So as evidence is gathered the scientists try to think up mathematical laws which will govern things so that they appear the way we see them. After three hundred years of success in this direction, it would be foolish to stop at any point and say "from this point on it must have been God". Even if we reach a point past which it is impossible for us to find the underlying law, we must still strive to do so, until we find absolute unavoidable proof that a conscious intelligence was undoubtedly responsible for something.

Name a single counter-example.

My point is that a heirarchical model is more complex. It seems to me that it could be true. If it is true, the heirarchical ideas of hugo de vries, for example, may have been more complex and more correct than darwin's when the same "facts" were available. Applying Occam's razor as a proof of truth would have been misguided.
All that aside, all I am really saying is that one theory may be more complex than another and prove to be correct. Obvious. I feel that the use of occam's razor to "prove" a theory's veracity is misguided, even though the use of it to point out which theory may be most easily tested is incredibly valuable.


I think you totally misunderstand the scientific method - facts are gathered with no particular view in mind at all.
This is a common misunderstanding that you are making. Facts are not randomly gathered. There is a view in mind that tells you which types of facts to gather, and there are aims and goals in the process. Your idea that the initial observation of a phenomenon must come from out of nowhere may or may not be accurate (I say not accurate). Some scientists make theories based on facts that are uncovered "accidentally" (by other scientists, for example), but many theories are accepted as sensible, and then later evidence verifies them (einstein's relativity for example). Tell me which of these types of scientists are not using the scientific method.

Umm, going back to the beginning of this thread, I think evolution (I'm adding this in) and the Big Bang theory are very much easier to believe than God and the devil, etc.

Medicine Woman: "You need to do a lot more scientific reading. The bible was written in the day it was written, and nothing in it today is accurate or still applicable.
I had a conversation yesterday with a christian friend of mine. He agreed on the BB and theory of evolution, but he still believes that god started our creation. Therefore, if a god existed that could have started the BB..."

I have a Christian friend, too, and she takes the bible very literally and completely disagrees with evolution (and thinks people are stupid for believing that over JESUS) and probably feels the same about the Big Bang theory. She also believes (along with a lot of others at her church) that the bible was written back then but is today and always will be very applicable in our lives. They think that the stories in the bible are things that still happen now in different ways but with the same message (I think I made that make sense...). I really think I should read up more on evolution and Big Bang theories. :rolleyes:

religion is mankind's creation to explain what can't be explained logically, maybe even to give him/his people a central position in the universe, nothing else. It is humanity's desire to stretch from reality and enter a greater state of being. Maybe there is a spiritual self and religion was intitiated as a method of reaching that state. But religion has then surpassed its initial goal and gone on to give itself more purpose and destroy the world!!!

Something that is stated wihtout evidence is proof, something stated with some factual proof is an arguement, something measureable ( specifically in terms of quantity) is factual.

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Some say that there is something in people that just feels like there is more out there, that there must be a god watching over us, because it just makes sense. They say people have an innate sense of God.

But fantasies are real too...
hehehe :D