lucaspa

Thank you for the walkthru. Now we can clearly see the errors in your reasoning and logic. You made a strawman. I never did what you claimed. I stated that Christians accepted evolution. I also stated "If you are going to claim to deal with reality, then you must deal with the reality that Fundamentalism is not Christian and is certainly not all of "theology". " I never stated that Fundamentalism was outside Christianity because of its rejection of evolution. You read the "fallacy" into it; thus the "fallacy" exists solely in your imagination. Fundamentalism is outside Christianity for reasons independent of its rejection of evolution. See my posts to Sisyphus. Basically, Fundamentalism is outside of Christianity because it violates the First Commandment.

Where did I state that? However, Christians realized from the beginning of Christianity that God has two books. Not just one. Follow the logic: God created the universe. Therefore, everything IN the universe was put there directly or indirectly by God. Thus, the physical universe -- Creation -- is just as much (actually more) a book by God than the Bible. So, what does science study? The physical universe, right? Therefore, by the logic of Christianity, science is also studying God. And science, of course, includes evolution. In the period 1790-1831 science was showing that a literal reading of Genesis 6-8 was wrong, and also that Bishop Ussher's date for the age of the earth was wrong. IOW, Christians faced a condition where the two books of God disagreed. But, did the two books REALLY disagree? Christians realized that they were dealing with an interpretation of the Bible in both a world-wide Flood and Ussher's chronology. So Christianity, by internal logic, concluded: "If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437 So, everything is going along well until about 1890. During the second half of the 19th century Higher Criticism became the norm in Biblical studies. However, a small group considered that Higher Criticism was undermining the "authority" of the Bible. Thus we get Fundamentalism founded between 1900-1910, with its core belief in a literal and inerrant Bible. Like Mormons, Christian Scientists, and JWs, Fundamentalism is a break-away movement from Christianity. Now we get a denial that God has two books. Fundamentalism accepts only one book -- a literal and inerrant Bible -- and denies anything that contradicts that. In essence, Fundamentalism places the interpretation of the Bible above everything else; the interpretation is right and everything else is wrong. By the internal logic of Christianity, Fundamentalism denies God. So, rather than saying "you have to believe in evolution in order to be Christian", I am saying that accepting evolution as the method God created is a result of being Christian.

Actually, no. Neither views itself as part of the Christian community. In fact, both feel rejected by that community (and they are). They both insist that their beliefs are correct -- particularly JWs. Not entirely. For instance, part of the creeds is Trinity. JWs reject Trinity. Trinity is implied in the NT, but never stated explicitly. Gnosticism does not qualify either. The creeds were constructed so that God the Creator is also God the Forgiver. Gnosticism separated those functions. Now, if you had read Bruce Vawter's essay closely, you would see that our friends the Fundamentalists -- in defending creationism -- also separate God the Creator from God as Jesus. Believing a literal and inerrant Bible ends up contradicting the creeds. Remember what I said about a core belief of Fundamentalism, Sysiphus. It's not just "belief in the Bible", but Fundamentalism has the belief that the Bible is both literal and inerrant. See below for 2 more examples where this additional belief comes into conflict with basic creedal beliefs of Christianity. I've been telling you that. Go up and read the post again. Let me add a new one: Fundamentalists often refer to the Bible as "God's Word". If you look in the Bible, you will see only ONE place where "word" is capitalized like that. That's John 1 where the Word is Jesus. So, by saying the Bible is God's Word, Fundamentalists are denying the basic Christian belief that Jesus is the Word. Christianity is about a man. Fundamentalism is about a book. Another one. Listen to Fundamentalists carefully and you will hear them say "the only way to know about God is the Bible". This, of course, contradicts the basic Christian belief of a risen Jesus and a relationship with God and Jesus thru the Holy Ghost. So, in this statement Fundamentalists are denying the creedal assertion of the Holy Ghost and the continuing personal relationship with God.

Please expand. Walk us thru the details of how my analysis is wrong. So far the only talents I've seen you display is for obfuscation and ducking issues.

Sisyphus, do you have a problem with this statement of mine: "Nearly all the different versions of theology have no problem with evolution and many embrace it." Do you think that theism rejects evolution or would you like theism to reject evolution?

Yourdad, this is the science forums. It's not enough to try to make fun of me. What you must do is show where my analysis is wrong. Remember my thesis: simply naming yourself as "Christian" is not sufficient to qualify. Just as naming yourself "cosmologist", "surgeon", or "quaterback" does not make you one. People can deceptively name themselves something. In WWII in Norway, Quisling and his colleagues called themselves "patriots" and said they were acting for Norway. They weren't either.

Sisyphus, I am not adding anything. I am merely stating what Fundamentalism adds, in the words of Fundamentalists. What you are saying is that acceptance of the core statements in the creeds-- God created, Jesus as God, resurrection of the dead, and life everlasting -- makes one a Christian no matter what else they believe. This does not follow and historically is not true. For instance, Mormons believe all that but are not part of Christianity. The same applies to Jehovah's Witnesses. The reason, of course, is that both have added to Christianity. Both add revelation not accepted as valid by Christianity. JWs, of course, are also Fundamentalists. The Apostles and Nicene Creeds say nothing about a literal inerrant Bible or how God created. They merely state that God created. Fundamentalism has several statements -- the Five Fundamentals -- found in the series of pamphlets entitled The Fundamentals (published between 1900 and 1910). http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/6528/fundcont.htm The key belief in Fundamentalism is the inerrancy of scripture (the Bible). Francis Bacon saw the inevitable result of doing that: a heretical religion (and thus no longer Christianity): "For nothing is so mischievous as the apotheosis of error; and it is a very plague of the understanding for vanity to become the object of veneration. Yet in this vanity some of the moderns have with extreme levity indulged so far as to attempt to found a system of natural philosophy [science] on the first chapter of Genesis, on the book of Job, and other parts of the sacred writings, seeking for the dead among the living; which also makes the inhibition and repression of it the more important, because from this unwholesome mixture of things human and divine there arises not only a fantastic philosophy [science] but also a heretical religion. Very meet it is therefore that we be sober-minded, and give to faith that only which is faith's." Francis Bacon. Novum Organum LXV, 1620 http://www.constitution.org/bacon/nov_org.htm Eventually, this insistence on inerrancy ended up in denial of the Creator becoming Jesus -- one of the essentials you mentioned for Christianity came to the surface at the 1982 Arkansas trial over teaching YEC: "In the final issue I would like to address the question of out-and-out heresy, potentially the destruction of the whole Christian enterprise through the ham-handed activities of well-intentioned but historically and theologically illiterate Christians. In the "Findings of Fact" filed by the Defendants in the Arkansas Case prior to adjudication, a truly deplorable statement was asserted in paragraph 35: 'Creation-science does presuppose the existence of a creator, to the same degree that evolutin-science presupposes the existence of no creator. As used in the context of creation-science, as defined by 54(a) [sic]of Act 590, the terms or concepts of "creation" and "creator" are not inherently religious terms or concepts. In this sense, the term "creator" means only some entity with power, intelligence, and a sense of design. Creation-science does not require a creator who has a personality, who has the attributes of love, compassion, justice, etc., which are ordinarily attributed to a deity. Indeed, the creation-science model does not require that the creator still be in existence." It would be hard to set emotional priorities, from bitter sorrow to deep anger, which this wretched formulation and its obvious and cynical compromise with mammon should evoke in any sensitive theological soul. Let us say nothing about the hypocrisy of good people who have obviously convinced themselves that a good cause can be supported by any mendacious and specious means whatsoever. The passage is perverse, however, not only because it says things that are untrue, namely that creationism presupposes a creator whereas evolutionism necessarily does not, and not only because 'creation' and 'creator' are proffered speciously secular, nonreligious definitions. The worst thing about these unthinking and unhistorical formulations is what Langdon Gilkey pointed out at the Arkansas trial in December of 1981. The concept of a creator God distinct from the God of love and mercy is a reopening of the way to the Marcionist and Gnostic heresies, among the deadliest ever to afflict Christianity. That those who make such formulations do not seriously intend them save as a debating ploy does not mitigate their essential malevolence." Bruce Vawter, "Creationism: creative misuse of the Bible" in Is God a Creationist? Ed. by Roland Frye, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1983 pp 81-82. So, we have a new religion -- Fundamentalism. It calls itself "Christian" but 1. It has beliefs not included withing Christianity. 2. It denies essential beliefs held by Christianity. Satisfying both of these criteria means that Fundamentalism is not Christianity, despite the attempt to use the name and some of the beliefs.

What I am saying is that we have a new religion that calls itself "Christian" but isn't. I am using the reality, not the "self-identify". I am saying that many of those that "self-identify" are not actually Christians. I am using the definition of Christian found in the Apostles and Nicean Creeds. Fundamentalists have a different set of criteria. Most importantly, Fundamentalism requires a literal, inerrant Bible. That is NOT in either of the foundational creeds in Christianity and it amounts to worship of a false idol -- a literal inerrant Bible being the false idol. Thus, Fundamentalism is a huge problem for Christianity, because it amounts to a Fifth Column subversion of Christianity. But this is the science forums. In a way, science faces its own Fifth Column in those attempting to have science = atheism. The mistaken synedoche of having Fundamentalism stand for all of Christianity and all of theism is part of that Fifth Column effort. A way to fight those who attempt to make Fundamentalism all of Christianity or all of "theology", as the poster I responded to did, is to point out that Fundamentalism is NOT either of those. It's one way to avoid screwing up science by the attempt to pit science against religion. Or rather, by making science be atheism and falsely involving science in the theism vs atheism battle. In my very strong opinion, the books Science Held Hostage, Science and Religion, Genesis and Geology and The Biblical Flood: A Case History of the Church's Response to Extrabiblical Evidence should be required reading for all of those engaged in the interface between science and religon.

1. You start with a false premise: that science and evolution is in opposition to theology. Christianity welcomed evolution because it got God out of a very tight spot that special creation put Him into. In fact, Christians accepted evolution quicker than scientists! By 1884 -- just 25 years after the famous Huxley-Wilberforce debate -- the new Archbisop of Canterbury announced the acceptance of evolution and it did not cause a stir. It took the Modern Syntheis in the 1940s before evolution became universally accepted in science. 2. Christians look upon evolution as simply the way God created. Christianity also accepts that God has two books: the Bible and Creation. Science studies the second book, Creation. So all the evidence in this thread on the common ancestry of humans and apes, of which the sequence of transitional fossils in the hominid lineage which I posted earlier is part, is simply God shouting "I did it by evolution!" 3. So what we have is not science vs theology. What we have is science vs worship of a literal interpretation of the Bible. It is not science vs theology in general, but science vs a very specific religion -- Fundamentalism. The Fundamentalists are very loud and try to portray themselves as Christianity and even all of theism, but they are not. If we are going to be reasonable, rational critical thinkers, then we must analyze creationism and the religion of which it is a part and realize what it really is, not just what they claim. I realize that for people like you it is tempting to try to make Fundamentalism be all of theism -- because that is the only way you can show it to be "feasible and most likely he [God] dose not" exist, but you must resist the temptation. If you are going to claim to deal with reality, then you must deal with the reality that Fundamentalism is not Christian and is certainly not all of "theology". Nearly all the different versions of theology have no problem with evolution and many embrace it. 3. Evolution is NOT "another abiogenesis theory". Absolutely not. Here you get the science very badly wrong. All scientific theories have boundaries and assume the existence of some entities. Gravity assumes the existence of mass. First Law of Thermodynamics assumes the existence of the universe. Evolution assumes the existence of the first cell or life. So, evolution does NOT explain abiogenesis. Those are other theories and lie within chemistry and biochemistry, not evolution. Also, evolution is NOT "spontaneous generation". Neither is abiogenesis. Spontaneous generation is a very specific theory that says complex, multicelled organisms arise spontaneously from dead or decaying organic matter -- mice from grain and maggots from rotting meat. Abiogenesis is life from matter that has never lived.

Who are you referring to? Behe? And what is God not asserting to the contrary?

Depends on the mass of the sphere. There are equations to calculate that. I'm sure a google search would find them.

Still doesn't tell me if the method is valid. Walk me thru why this isn't apples and oranges and the results are not coincidental. Irrelevant to my point. You are talking larger "waves". But the "waves" in QM are not the same as waves in classic theory. So to say that they (the waves) are equivalent is wrong. REmember your claim: that the waves in QM are the same as "cosmic waves". But since "waves" isn't being used in the same way and isn't the same phenonomon in QM and macro observations' date=' you can't make them be the same. Also you still haven't told me what waves are observed for the "universe". Irrelevant. I am addressing the use of language. You are saying "nucleus" and "shell". We are not discussion the structure of quarks themselves, but whether the composition of baryons corresponds to a nucleus with an outside shell -- which is the structure we see in atoms with a nucleus and a shell of electrons. Are you saying there is an equivalent structure in baryons? If not, then don't use "nucleus" and "shell". Again, irrelevant. You didn't address my point. To address my point you have to show that you are not just defining things to be the way you like. That there really is a nucleus and shell, not just defining them that way. That the universe does have classical waves, not just defining that it does. Also, "producing a theory that matches experiments" is the same as "accurately predicts". Those are 2 ways of saying the same thing. Yet one you call "science" and the other "mathematical philosophy". You are doing emotive work, not looking at what really is and what is really being said. And doing emotive work is not doing science. No wonder you have to hawk your theory on the Internet and not put it up for peer-review.

I'm sorry, but you didn't address the question. All you said was that you did the sequence. You didn't tell my why it is valid to do so. The results don't justify the method. The "waves" in particles and atoms are probability waves, not distance waves. They are more like crime "waves" than water waves. What you seem to be trying to say is that the fractions of distances between the planets and the sun are going to be the same as the fractions of distances between the various electron shells and the nucleus. Am I stating your position accurately? If not, then please correct me. It seems that you have just defined everything as having nucleus and shell. I would not call the quarks that make up baryons to be a "nucleus" and "shell". The terms "nucleus" means a central locationa and "shell" a toroid or spheroid around that nucleus. Also, a straight line and a curve line is not a "nucleus" and "shell" in the same way you have an electron shell surrounding the nucleus of an atom. Just defining things the way you like isn't looking for what the universe really is, it's trying to force your ideas on the universe. Not science. You have taken this out of context. Bubble Universe (see Andre Linde) is a hypothesis that states that the universe may consist of many isolated "bubbles". See below. Bubble Universe has has not been tested: we don't know if there are such bubbles. Therefore it is impossible for you to show that "each bubble has the same internal fractional wave structure." You can't show characteristics of an entity that you haven't shown exists. For instance you can't show that the invisible unicorn has wings. Considering that you don't seem to have any idea what Bubble Universe says, I really have severe doubts about this. http://www.astro.lsa.umich.edu/users/hughes/ucourses/120f97/inf.html "Alan Guth and Andre Linde independently proposed in 1981-2 that the Big Bang begins in a hot dense state, but as it cools through the so- called Grand Unification Theory (GUT) transition energy at 10^15 GeV and 10^-35 seconds, it gets caught in a false vacuum state. This causes the universe to exponentially grow in size in what is called a quasi-de Sitter state. The expansion ceases once the universe enters its true vacuum phase, with a release of energy that appears as a fireball phase of particle and radiation creation by 10^-33 seconds after the Big Bang. The expansion then resumes with the Friedmann expansion phase which it is now continuing to undergo, but at a greatly reduced speed. The transition occurs by the nucleation of true vacuum bubbles within the expanding matrix of the de Sitter false vacuum phase. These bubbles either merge together to form the present day uniformity of the universe (Old Inflation), or remain as separate domains that grow to sizes billions of times larger than our observable universe (New Inflation). The supermassive, scalar Higgs field is identified as the culprit whose phase transition initiates Inflation. "

I didn't ask you to quote anything. Just answer in your own words. The questions were general, not specific. Here they are again. 1. Is it valid to continue the pseudo meson scale in the same manner as the main sequence? If so, why? 2. What "waves found in cosmology"? 3. Is the "shell" you refer to the electron shell surrounding the nucleus of the atom? 4. Total force to do what? What's the source of this total force?

Severian, is there a website you can post with the math for this? Thanks. Also, can you answer a question I had for Elas? Elas stated: "The pseudo meson scale is: 1/8, 1/6, 1/4. but if this is continued in the same manner as the main sequence we get: 1/2, 2/4, 3/6." I asked: "1. Is it valid to continue the pseudo meson scale in the same manner as the main sequence? If so, why?" Thanks

1. The same quote may be used by others, but that's not the point, is it? The point is: is the statement still accurate? You argued that Morris' statement should apply to all science. But does it? IOW, is the statement accurate to describe all aspects of science? Is that 26 year old quote still accurate, by the only standard used in science: the data? I pointed out that String Theory has made lots of progress in the last 26 years. You haven't provided any evidence that the quote is still valid. I'm somewhat dismayed by your emphasis on quotes by people stating their opinion on the theories in question. You aren't looking at the theories themselves, but rather on the opinions of people who are dissatisfied. Elas, you can alwaysfind someone who is dissatisfied with a particular theory. Just look at Hoyle and Eric Lerner and their refusal to accept Big Bang and insistence on Steady State. So, what is important is the theory itself, not quoting opinions about the theory. Especially when you are looking just for opinions that match yours. As Popper pointed out, you can always find evidence in support, if that is all you are looking for. And that appears to be all you are looking for. After all, you never mention any of those working in the field who are satisfied with the Standard Model as a description or String Theory as an underlying explanation. 2. You've confused 2 different theories. The standard model is NOT String Theory. http://www.nuclecu.unam.mx/~alberto/physics/string.html "Our current knowledge about the subatomic composition of the universe is summarized in what is known as the Standard Model of particle physics. It describes both the fundamental building blocks out of which the world is made, and the forces through which these blocks interact. ... In the last few decades, string theory has emerged as the most promising candidate for a microscopic theory of gravity. And it is infinitely more ambitious than that: it attempts to provide a complete, unified, and consistent description of the fundamental structure of our universe. (For this reason it is sometimes, quite arrogantly, called a 'Theory of Everything'). The essential idea behind string theory is this: all of the different 'fundamental ' particles of the Standard Model are really just different manifestations of one basic object: a string. " So, the Standard Model is a description of subatomic particles and their interactions. String Theory is the explanation of those descriptions by providing an unifying theme: everything in the Standard Model are different manifestations of strings. This statement is somewhat incoherent. In order to "do those things that the old theory does not do", the new theory must do all the things the old theory did do. Otherwise, all you have now is a new theory that does not do something. You're trying to replace a theory that you say does not do things with another theory that does not do things. What have you gained? Your way of thinking seems to be an argument from personal incredulity. Being able to predict as understanding somehow doesn't resonate with you. Perhaps it's not the statement that is unacceptable, but your way of thinking.

The first quote does say mass will be predicted: it depends on the vibrational energy of the string via E=mc^2. An energy E(1) will correspond to a mass(1). So, knowing the energy of the vibration gives you mass of the particle. Now, it may be, as you say, that the energy of vibration is dependent on the compactification. I can't follow the equations well enough to tell. But that would still allow String Theory to predict masses; it would just constrain the compactification. Which, in turn, gives you limits of the compactification and allows you to test String Theory. If yourtest is sensitive enought to detect the compactification necessary to produce the mass, but you can't detect the compactification, then String Theory is refuted. I have read that String Theory is having troubles because there are tests to detect compactification and, so far, none has been detected. String Theory, so far, has been able to be modified to give smaller compactifications below the sensitivity of the tests: Kaku M, Testing string theory. Discover August 2005 http://www.discover.com/issues/aug-05/cover/ Or you can even run that in reverse and use it for prediction: knowing the mass of the particle, you should predict the vibration of the string. If that vibration is impossible, then String Theory is also in trouble.

Richard Morris is a good science writer. However, he is not talking about QM here. As I noted in a previous post, one of the attractions of String Theory is that it does provide a "why" for all of these: the observations are a result of the behavior of strings. Let me agree with Severian: WHY is there a wave structure? You haven't explained the wave structure, have you? When you admitted that your theory could not predict the values that QM or SM predicted, you admitted that your theory is inferior. Your underlying structure can't be correct if it can't give the correct observed values. That's how we initially test hypotheses in trying to falsify them: we test them against KNOWN data. Do they predict what we already know? This is why String Theory has undergone a number of modifications: the earlier versions could not predict what has already been observed.

You didn't give the years of the rest, but look at the DATE! 1980! That's 26 years ago. Thus, this is NOT the "current state of our knowledge". What's more, it is the author's opinion as of 26 years ago. Do you think there might have been some progress in String Theory? When you quote people, you have to check to make sure that what was said then is still valid now. You haven't done that.

It's looking more and more like the problem lies in what you see as "explanation". Let me take this to biology, where I am on more familiar, specific, ground. Surgeons had long known that bone would form in muscle at the site of bone surgery sometimes. What's the explanation? In 1965 Marshall Urist demonstrated that if he implanted demineralized bone matrix (bone from which all the mineral had been removed) in the muscle of a rat or rabbit, bone would form at the site. If he destroyed all proteins in the DBM, then bone would not form. Conclusion: there was a protein in DBM that caused extraskeletal bone formation following bone surgery. Yet is this an "explanation"? Does it satisfy you? The identity of the protein is unknown, the responding cell is unknown, and the mechanism of the protein causing the cell to become a bone cell is unknown. From reading your posts, it appears that these unknowns would cause you to reject "a protein in bone explains non-skeletal bone formation following surgery on the bone." Yet, for that phenomenon, I would say that we do have an explanation. In the years since, the protein has been identified, the receptor on the cell membrane has been identified, the signalling system inside the cell that transfers the binding of the protein to the cell membrane to turning on some genes in the DNA has been studied. However, we still don't know exactly which genes are activated, nor do we know how the products of these genes cause a cell to become a bone cell. So, would you say we still can't "explain" why surgery on a bone results in non-skeletal bone? Of course, there is the unanswered issue that only sometimes does non-skeletal bone form. So, we still don't know why only sometimes do we see non-skeletal bone. It seems obvious to hypothesize that most times not enough protein is released and that there are not enough responding cells. But that doesn't get us to the nitty gritty of exactly how much protein is necessary per cell. Of course, we still don't have the nitty-gritty of the exact movement of each atom in the cell-membrane receptor protein such that we can explain exactly why binding of the cell receptor starts the signalling cascade. Nor do we have the exact movement of every atom in either the protein that is the transcription factor and the DNA such that we can "explain" how binding the transcription factor results in activation of the gene. Do you see where I'm going here? There are layers of explanation. Because you don't have the next layer doesn't mean that you don't have any explanation. And there is the related issue of whether the explanation makes sense to you. There is a difference between having an explanation and whether any particular individual can understand it. You want explanations, for instance, in non-mathematical language. But that may not be possible. Mathematics is a language, and sometimes, like all languages, complete and exact translation is not possible. You must learn the language in order to understand what is being said.

Argument from Authority and selective quoting. If the SM and QT have no connection to what we observe, then they could not have been used, as they have been used, to predict new observations. It's quite obvious that the data make Gross, Barut, and Veltman wrong. Then your theory is inferior to both the SM and String Theory, because both of them predict mass. Which is one reason why you can't get the paper published thru peer-review but try to convince non-physicists it is correct. I understand it, too. Zero charge is a consequence of that particular symmetry group. What else is there to explain? Why there is a symmetry group? You (and apparently Veltman) seem to think that a hypothesis/theory should answer ALL question. That's never been the case yet. ALWAYS you get 3 or 4 new questions that pop up out of every answer. Zero charge is a result of the symmetry group. That's an answer. New question: why is there a symmetry group? But the symmetry group is the explanation for zero charge of some particles. I think the difficulty lies in your misunderstanding of what an "explanation" is.