Evidence for Creationism - 3D

Hey, Poly, what are you doin’ back? Good to see ya.

In case you’re interested, the thread where I posted your “see ya later” is at: http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/006005.html

(Yeah, it’s off-topic, but let’s face it, we might as well talk amongst ourselves while we wait for the creationists to post evidence…)

“Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is, to my mind, the most beautiful in all of science.”
– Susan Blackmore, The Meme Machine

Polycarp!

What, did you finally get Internet access at home?

RB, why not elucidate on the book’s argument? Is it that God created the light in transit? That is, did he make the Universe 600 years ago, but he made it 10 billion years old? (which basically says ‘we’re both right, so let’s move on’).


I sold my soul to Satan for a dollar. I got it in the mail.

Ok ok I just had to prove Bishop wrong. :slight_smile: I can add NOTHING to the creation debate, but I had to post anyway and I’ll be reading.

Well, I’ll actually try to further the debate, even if it means posting something for the creationist side. So here’s the info on book that was mentioned
Space and Time: Solving the Puzzle of Distant Starlight in a Young Universe by D. Russell Humphries, PhD. Reading through the comments, it seems to be about gravitational time dilation. Apparently, time’s slower here than elsewhere, which I think has something to do with the earth being at the center of the universe :rolleyes:.

This brings up the issue of creating scientific theories to explain certain preconcieved notions that you have. Creation Science seems to be founded on this idea. I’d be interested to hear of any theory put together to explain how the earth could be 6,000 years old that has actually predicted something.

As a member of the LBMB(quit sniggering, I really am!), I too believe that the Earth is the center of the Universe.
A terribly lopsided Universe. :wink:


Eagles may soar free and proud, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.

According to Big Bang theory, all points are at the center of the universe.

Seriously! The analogy is that any point on the surface of a sphere is at the “center” of that surface.


If Cecil Adams did not exist, we would be obliged to create Him.

You will often find proving The Bishop wrong is not all that tough. Wait what the hell am I talking about. OK don’t panic! Let just think this out. Right then

How to prove the Bishop wrong.

First look at what the Bishop says then say its wrong. Thus we prove Bishop wrong. GASP! How dare they! This could become the focus point for the universe to become unstable.

Not that I am playing with a full deck of cards at the moment.

Then all planet fall into the viod and there is nothing but darkness.

Guess proving the Bishop wrong could be a bad thing. But if your into dark things it could be fun.

Just what the hell and I talking about anyways? Ahhh the hell with it.


The Bishop

You’re wrong.


Still later, Gerald did a terrible thing to Elsie with a saucepan.

Maybe I don’t understand, but doesn’t that only work for the SURFACE of a sphere? what about the insides?

Bored2001: Yes, but it is still a good analogy. The surface is supposed to represent the curvature of spacetime. If you tried to use the inside of the sphere to model the universe, then it would imply the the universe had an “edge”, or a finite endpoint.

Inflating a balloon is typically used to illustrate an expanding universe.

I dunno. I’m trying to imagine an inflated balloon starting with a Big Bang, and it just work. :slight_smile:


Eagles may soar free and proud, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.

I’m also trying to imagine that last sentence without the word “doesn’t” between “just” and “work”, and it just doesn’t work, either! :0

OK, I’m not a strict biblical literalist, but my knowledge of biology leads me to believe in the divine.

See, if “life” could be identified as something simple, like a conception of a “soul,” or ghost, or some sort of distinctive animating energy, then perhaps “God” the Creator would be unnecessary–and life just another fundamental force of the universe, as likely to inhabit rocks as flesh.

But, since what we know as organic life apparently is dependent on astonishingly complex osmotic systems, the idea of these appearing from naturalistic processes & evolving into the biosphere as we know it by chance is, to me, hard to believe.

Life must have come from previous life, or been built by an intelligence of astonishing abilities.

I suspect there have been multiple points of special creation–by something–through Earth’s history. I guess this puts me somewhere between “hopeful monster” and “cataclysmist.”


Party per bend sinister wavy bendy sinister wavy vert & or, & sable, in fess point a demi-pellet en soleil inverted & per bend sinister issuant from the partition, in sinister base a roundel bendy sinister wavy vert & or. Or maybe… like THAT.

We were discussing this over at the LBMB today, and the general concensus was that they didn’t have to prove anything. Some thought that scientists were evil for even bringing up the matter, others defended scientists by saying they were merely “ignorant and/or misguided”. I brought up the fact that a “Creation Scientist” must not be very faithful, because he is always trying to bolster his faith with “facts”. The next poster said he could prove that man lived at the same time as the dinosaur, and provided a link to prove it. Nice picture of the Flintstones riding a dino followed.
Then the LBMB crashed.


Eagles may soar free and proud, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.

points to the bible its in the book!!!

i say the reason why we can see starlight is because of black holes… they teleport starlight in little pinpoints of one gigantic star and the pinpoints are always on the other side of the sun

Disprove me :slight_smile:

~foolsguinea

I provided a theory for the begining of life. Goto the first page of “creationsists: strut your stuff” to see it. It deals with “ribozymes”. E-mail me or ask if you want a indepth explanation.

Interestingly enought, this is much the opinion of the physist. Except he starts wtih the idea that Genesis is literal.

The work is fairly lengthy, any my attempts to recollect it here will undoughtedly be faulty.

Basically:

If God were to create ‘bubble’ of water 2 Lightyears in diameter, it would account for all matter in the universe. He also uses a ‘bounded’ universe and not and unbounded like Hawkings and such.

Basically, all that matter would be either a Black or White hole, with an event horizon.
Anything inside the event horizon (Earth) would have almost no time pass while items outside the event horizon (most distant stars) would have eons or such of exsistance…
He presumes a White Hole which would spew out immaginable amounts of matte and energy, which would cause the Event Horizon to shrink (think ballon with hole).
According to him, physics does not limit the amount of time this could take…

Interestingly…this 2 LY Bubble of water, could easily be conceved of as ‘The Deep’ mentioned in Genesis 1, over which the Spirit hovered.


Heaven…One to beam up!

foolsguinea: Lots of things are difficult to understand or hard to believe, but that does not make them any less true. This is the fallacy of argument from stupidity.

Just try to wrap your mind around Quantum Mecahnics. It may not be a complete theory, but, in there is no denying it makes accurate preditions. And yet, it is very difficult, maybe impossible, for even a professional scientist to “understand” in an intuitive way.

The bottom line for the origins of life are that we do not know the relevant probability and domain of life arising in a particular place. The same holds true for the origin of the universe: we don’t have any information on which to base a conclusion.

And, as I’ve said before, to ascribe “God” as a cause to the unexplained is not creating an explanation. You have just created a label for your ignorance. You can speculate all you want, but there is no way of distinguishing between competing speculations. There is no way, science, faith or otherwise, of consistently weeding out the false guesses or of confirming the true ones.

I know this post seems a little arrogant: I’m throwing around terms like stupidity and ignorance. Rest assured, I’m convinced of my own ignorance in many areas. However, I don’t hesitate to acknowlege my ignorance. If I don’t know, I say so, and (if I’m interested) go looking for evidence.


If Cecil Adams did not exist, we would be obliged to create Him.

Royalbill: That’s a very bizarre and ad-hoc prediction. I would like to see the scientists proposing such an explanation to apply rigorous self-criticism and use the full power of their intellect to create a testable prediction that would tend to disprove their own theory.

This sort of reasoning reminds me of the humorous theory that the surface of the earth is really the inside surface of a sphere. The sun, the planets, the stars, are actually inside the sphere. By making very unusual assumptions about the properties of space, they can actually “explain” everything observed.

The real beauty of the this “theory” is that it’s really testable! However, the only test which could disprove it would be to drill a hole through the center of the earth. If you reach the other side after 8,000 and some miles, then the theory would be conclusively disproved. In fact, the traditional theory (that we’re on the outside of a sphere) is equally testable: If we don’t find the other side then it conclusively fails.

But the inside-out theory fails the test of Occam’s razor. Absent the test, since it’s indistinguishable from our traditional view of space, and requires unnecessary and weird assumptions, it’s a useless theory.

I have much the same opinion of “traditional-equivalent” Creationist theories. If they say, everything looks normal (i.e. we can’t actually perform any tests that would disprove it), but our observations are really the effects of some inside-out theory that the Bible justifies then what use is it? The traditional theory is simpler and requires fewer assumptions.

Of course, if a Creationist theory makes testable preditions that differ from traditional theories, and the empirical evidence supports the Creationist theory, then it warrants another look. But I’ve seen nothing, no evidence whatsoever that warrants adopting a single Creationist theory.


If Cecil Adams did not exist, we would be obliged to create Him.

Once again…I did not feeling like coping 40-100 pages onto this site…His actual theory makes a lot of sense ( I am not a scientist, but did well in science)
He has several sections in the book. The first is for Laypeople, the last is all the mathmatical equastions, the middle something of both.
He covers a lot of supjects, but does manage to address background microwave radiation and such as well. I need to re-read the book. I can try to post segments from it…
Pages 1-50 tomarrow…


Heaven…One to beam up!