Letters to the Editor
-
Don't call him a moron, don't call him a moron, don't call him a moron...
AHHHHH! I can't help it. He's a moron! Nukeeuler says:
"The published results of many of these tests suggest that the initial intention of any experiment nets the initial [sic] desired conclusion."
This is called the Scientific Method. You always state your hypothesis before you conduct your experiment. You people are idiots. Ahhhh! I'm going to lose my mind. You're morons, and you're in charge.
Nukeeuler is also a liar. He says: "We all seem to become fixated on our own opinions. Frustrating." That is a lie! What you want is everybody to agree with you. Guess what: I don't agree with you. And I don't appreciate you casually dismissing so many valid opinions from posters like that. Read them and find specific points to cite and respond to. You god people sure get uncomfortable when the Facts begin to wash away your fantasies.
You can start with this: Nukeeuler says we need to discuss "what might be out there." I'll state for the record: We're alone! There's nothing out there! Can I prove that absolutely? I'll admit that I cannot. But based on what we do know, the odds are on my side.
Let me reiterate my challenge from my first posting: we must admit there is no god and no afterlife and bring everybody together to work for the common good of humanity. Isn't that something a nice guy might wish for? If it's not all for god, then watch the attackers line up. Instead of recommending some horrible book of theology that tracks the arguments of atheists (what a submitter recommended for me), I'm just going to recommend listening to John Lennon's Imagine. Except don't listen with ears trained to be dismissive.
(BTW: hats off to the Eagleton recommendation. Great book.)
-
If things were different
Any scientist who says that life could not have evolved if one factor were different because then X, should be ridiculed and ignored.
Without the ability to actually observe and experiment with that different universe, no one can know what would or wouldn't happen there. The laws of physics only describe *this* world, and tweaking individual factors might well change much more then expected. Even thinking about tweaking factors is scientifically silly.
Our knowledge is *still* pitiful.
-
Design in the universe
"Of the remaining visible 7% most (6.5%) is hot plasma that exhibits no lasting order or design, nothing that can't be explained from basic thermodynamics and discrete principles (e.g. hydrostatic equilibrium in stars)."
Actually, the standard model of particle physics, as well as proposed theories to explain dark matter and dark energy, are based upon a highly symmetrical and ordered set of relationships that can reasonably be regarded as a kind of design. However, despite the attempts of Intelligent Design cultists to co-opt the word, it should be clear that when physicists (including Davies) use the word "design," they are in no way implying the existence of a "designer."
-
Can you say 'bunkum'?
nukeeular wrote:
The published results of many of these tests suggest that the initial intention of any experiment nets the intial desired conclusion. Meaning; you will find what you seek. In nearly all facets of quantum and astrophysics
Actually no, You cannot find whatever you seek - since what you can actually model physically will be constrained by the physical principles at work.
For example, I will never ever "find" a hollow star, since such an entity would controvert the principle of hydrostatic equilibrium that obtains for stars.
I will never find an anti-matter galaxy in the Local Group cluster.
I will never find a photon subject to Fermi -Dirac statistics rather than Bose-Einstein statistics.
I will never find an electromagnetic wave that travels faster than c, the speed of light, or which always displays a 90 degree polarization.
Note also, NO experiments however contrived will demonstrate ANY of the above.
There are some things we will never ever find, no matter how much we "intend" to!
-
There is no escape from infinity
Paul Davies rejects the ideas explaining the origin and life-giving order of the universe by invoking something greater outside itself, on the basis that they merely solve the mystery by creating a further mystery... (leading to an infinite regression of existences, which must end, whether ultimately or at once, in infinite existence itself). But he then takes as better the idea that the universe designed itself! Frankly, even a circularly-justified existence does not account for itself. Either there is a God, or we ARE 'god'. There is no escape from infinity.
-
Apples
Were apples to evolutionary develop consciousness and language and reason, they might ask how the Universe produced the warm climate, geographic location, appropriate altitude, nutritious soil, etc... that made it possible for their development on the tree they grow on. Was it pre-ordained and 'fine-tuned'?
-
Short answer
Paul Davies: "Are we to suppose that these laws were magically imprinted on the universe at the moment of the big bang for no particular reason and that the form they have has no explanation?"
Answer: Excluding the appeal to magic: yes.