Creationists who bang the pulpit about the Universe being young tend to use old, outdated, and long-debunked arguments.
The astronomy ones just crack me up. Sometimes they are based on faulty data, sometimes on twisting or misinterpreting the results, sometimes on outright lies. They are most pernicious, perhaps, when there is a kernel of truth in what they say… though generally they leave out a HUGE amount of information that shows they are wrong.
One argument has to do with angular momentum. This is a tendency for a rotating object to stay spinning unless acted upon by a force of some kind (that "acted upon" part is important later). Mathematically, it depends on how big an object is and how fast it spins.
What does this have to do with creationism? Well, astronomers think that the solar system — the Sun, the planets, the moons, and all that — formed from a collapsing cloud of gas and dust. The cloud became a disk, and the center got big as junk fell in, and got compressed, and got hot, and got fusion. That became the Sun. Eddies and whorls in the outer part of the disk became the planets and moons.
But there’s a problem. Since angular momentum depends on mass, you’d expect, upon doing the math, that the Sun would have most of the angmom (as we scientist-types call it when we’re lazy) in the solar system, since it has something like 98% of the total mass. But that’s not the case: Jupiter has more! That’s because even though Jupiter has only about 1% of the mass of the Sun, it is way out in the solar system, 400 millions out from the Sun. This gives it a huge advantage over the Sun, angular momentum-wise (which may be the first time that term was ever used).
So why doesn’t the Sun have all the angular momentum? The creationists would say, "Aha! It’s because the solar system did not form that way, astronomers are stellar evilutionists, and are lying to you!" (They say this here, and here, and here and many other places too; that last one in particular says "There is no know [sic] mechanical process which could accomplinsh [sic] this transfer of momentum from the sun to the planets", which is an out-and-out lie).
Imagine how I feel about that. Wait! You don’t have to imagine. I’ll tell you. It’s wrong.
It’s been theorized for a long time that when a star is born, it spins rapidly, and has strong magnetic fields. These fields spin through the disk of material around the star, and accelerate the disk. At the same time, it slows the star’s spin (like in the image above). Imagine you have a trash bag open in your hands, and you try to spin around. The bag will act like a parachute, accelerating the air, but slowing you down. So it is with the young star. Eventually, the star slows quite a bit, and the disk material spins up and gets flung off.
This was theoretical… until now. It’s been observed.
My friend Luisa Rebull published a paper showing exactly this effect. They looked at 900 stars in a nearby star-forming region, and they found that stars that rotated slowly are far more likely to have disks than those that rotated rapidly. This makes a clear connection between rotation speed and disks– a star that rotates quickly and has no disk will stay rotating quickly, and one that does have a disk tends to spin more slowly. This is precisely what the magnetic braking theory predicts.
While this is not proof that the stars magnetically brake themselves with the disk and slow their spin, it’s pretty darn good evidence of it. And it’s certainly a "known" way for stars to slow themselves.
As Bender my namesake, Philip J. Frye from Futurama (kindof) said: Creationism:0 , regular theories: a billion!
By the way, you can see an animation of all this on the Spitzer Space telescope website.
June 24th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Well, let’s try to be as pedantic as possible while still demolishing their points. The process you describe isn’t mechanical. It’s electromagnetic.
If you tried restricting yourself to classical mechanics they may be right. In that case the statement is disingenuous, though not “an out-and-out lie”.
June 24th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Oh, c’mon. It’s still mechanical: there is drag, and physical movement of the disk and the star which is transferred back the to the star.
I honestly think you are giving that creationist argument WAY more credit than it deserves; I doubt (from reading that page) that the author would know the difference. And even if they did it’s still a lie of omission. After all, there’s no psychic process known that could do it, or literary process. By using the word “mechanical”, they either mean a physical process in general, and they’re wrong, or they are purposely ignoring electromagnetic coupling between the star and the disk, which is still a lie.
June 24th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Great story, and one the significance of which will be utterly lost on about 99.99% of all creationists out there, even if they notice.
The other 0.01% (i.e. probably Answers in Genesis) will spend no more than 5 minutes reading your blog post or some other report on the news wire, take another 10 minutes to invent another vaguely plausible YEC explanation for the observed phenomena, and spend the rest of the hour writing a weak rebuttal to put on their web site.
How many person months (years?) of work does this paper represent? Dozens, no doubt, not to mention the vast amount of effort and brain power that went behind the technology used to gather the data. And all that time, the creationists just sit back in their comfy armchairs waiting while hard working and underpaid scientists painstakingly collect and analyze the data, checked and rechecking everything until it’s ready for publication.
Then the YECs spring into action, condescendingly giving a modicum of credit to the hardworking scientists who have labored long and hard to generate and analyze the data while at the same time dismissing all of their well supported theories and conclusions and turning the facts into pseudoscientific muck to be consumed by millions of people at the click of a mouse button.
I used to reserve my contempt for nutters like Richard Hoagland but, if anything, creationists like AiG are much worse. At least Hoagland is sort of, kind of, on the side of science in his own nutterly way, but what those active creationists do is the very antithesis of what science stands for.
They are lazy, unprincipled, parasitic armchair critics, the lot of them.
June 24th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
You may not have converted any creationists but you did open my eyes a bit. I was aware the Sun didn’t have much of the angular momentum in the solar system but my explanation was as follows: You start with a disk of gas and dust; a distant super nova or other disturbance gets it rotating; the stuff that is moving fast has enough speed not to get sucked into the sun; the slow stuff gets stuck in the middle and forms the sun. At any rate I found the blog entry interesting.
Creationist lies are a bit like Bill Clinton’s lies, you have to parse every word. I recall a Creationist argument: Raw sunlight can’t produce complex molecules needed for life. Sure that’s true, but it ignores the fact that raw sun light with the chemical properties of different chemical species they can.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
>This gives it a huge advantage over the Sun, angular momentum-wise (which may be the first time that term was ever used)
Sorry to disappoint, but Google has 7 hits on that phrase:
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=%22angular%20momentum-wise%22&hl=en&meta=
June 25th, 2007 at 12:48 am
Oh Yeah!
June 25th, 2007 at 12:53 am
Actually, I think that Futurama quote was uttered by Fry.
June 25th, 2007 at 12:55 am
I’m with tacitus in his observation that hard work makes us understand (well, *you* understand, and explain it to us
) how the universe ticks.. not armchair fantasy based on some 2,000 year old leaflets. Luckily the creationists tend to shoot themselves in the foot whenever they try to make some kind of claim about not (yet) fully understood phenomena.
Anyway, while we’re on the topic of spin, have a look at how someone spins some recent discoveries and tries to apply them to our solar system’s spin: http://viewzone.com/milkyway.html It made me laugh, maybe a nice topic for another blog entry. (I think Fark linked to this one, someone gave the direct link to me.) It reads like a parody.. but who can tell these days?
June 25th, 2007 at 3:52 am
Slang
I read that link, it didn’t sound well researched and I doubt everything the guy is saying is close to the truth.
but…wouldn’t it still be possible for our sun to have originated in a different galaxy that merged with Milky way? I ask, because I really don’t know.
June 25th, 2007 at 4:06 am
I should have clarified.. the idea in itself is not impossible, I think. I don’t know if there’s any way to establish its merit, but the arguments they make for it are hilarious, IMHO.
June 25th, 2007 at 4:34 am
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I do not and cannot deny the existance of a creator of some kind because I just dont know. However, I still think that if a creator exists, he set up this whole shebang with a certain predefined set of natural laws to operate by (physics), got the whole thing started with the “Big-Bang”, and has since sat back with a beer to see what happens. This theory allows for a creation AND allows science its’ accuracy. What astronomers and cosmologists are discovering everyday is the results of those original laws.
The problem with “Creationists” is that they base their system of belief on the BIBLE…ZZzzzz WRONG! That book was created in its various pieces and parts almost 2000 years ago by MAN. It was created by men that we would consider uneducated and illiterate by today’s standard of knowledge. It was created to control other people and retain power for an elite few and accomplishes that task to this day. I talk to people all the time who genuinely believe that the book is the true word of God and I am very sad for them. They will spend their entire lives carying that burden on their backs. Then again, it seems to make them happy in their ignorance. I just wish they would leave their fantasies in their churches, homes, and hearts where it belongs and quit dragging it out in the public political arena where it invariably results in laws to control me “for my own good”.
Isn’t that what the strong objection to creationism is really all about? That if these people practiced their beliefs in private, nobody would care but that they choose to influence everyone else? That they feel it is their “God Given” right and responsibility to “Spread the Word”?
I would like to hear from all of you to see if I am correct about this. I just want to define the issue once and for all I guess.
June 25th, 2007 at 4:39 am
It’s been theorized for a long time that when a star is born, it spins rapidly, and has strong magnetic fields.
And now I’m envisioning Barbara Streisand pirouetting madly while all the cutlery comes flying at her. Now there’s an image for the school kids.
June 25th, 2007 at 5:02 am
They are lazy, unprincipled, parasitic armchair critics, the lot of them.
Don’t mince words, Tacitus, say what you really mean!
Personally, I think you’re being far too easy on creos.
June 25th, 2007 at 5:06 am
DenverAstro, here’s a quote that sums up religion pretty well:
“History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.”
And another: “One man’s religion is another man’s belly laugh”
June 25th, 2007 at 5:09 am
The sun has more like 99.8% of the Solar System’s mass.
It is strange how one creationism site claimed that inclined orbits and axial tilts contradicts the theory that the Solar System formed from a cloud of gas and dust. Does such haphazardness support creationism?
June 25th, 2007 at 5:19 am
DenverAstro Says:
“[The Bible] was created by men that we would consider uneducated and illiterate by today’s standard of knowledge.”
That’s about the stupidest reason I’ve ever heard of for rejecting the Bible. “By today’s standard of knowledge”, Sir Isaac Newton would be considered uneducated, too. After all, he’d never heard of Relativity, and jeez, that’s so basic and fundamental. Shakespeare would have to be considered illiterate, because he’d never read any poetry by Robert Frost.
For their time, the religious leadership (of most religions) were not only the MOST literate and educated, they were often the ONLY literate and educated. If you can’t get your basic history right, you’re just as bad as the YEC crowd who can’t get their physics, geology, and (usuallly) their spelling or sentence structure right.
June 25th, 2007 at 5:34 am
DenverAstro, where is your proof that the Bible “was created to control other people and retain power for an elite few” If you study the history of the English language Bible you will find that it was the authorities that were in power that sort to prevent people from reading the Bible so they could maintain control. It was when people had the Bible and could read it for themselves they could exercise greater freedom, seems odd if the creators of it intended the opposite. Do not confuse religious authorities with the Bible.
Also there are parts of the Bible, older than 2000 years, such as the various books of the Old Testament, some put together by kings and priests who were well educated and literate in their day, even if they did not know how to make a computer or split the atom.
Even then, it would take a few hundred years before Christianity would be allowed to be practised openly, hardly an argument that the Bible was created to control the population.
Anyway wrt to the discovery, the most obvious response from creationism is good old doctrine of apparent age. The universe was created perfect and what has been discovered is the mechanism of how things happen now under natural laws.
June 25th, 2007 at 5:43 am
Sargeant Zim:
Those quotes should be attributed to Robert A. Heinlein, as spoken (written) by his character Lazarus Long.
And they sum up the value of religion in the universe pretty well. There’s a big difference between religion and faith in a deity, however. Religion is the trappings that others put on an individual’s faith in order to control that individual through rules and books and other human constructs.
What business religion has pronouncing on matters of science is still unclear.
June 25th, 2007 at 5:50 am
Oh come on, don’t you see!?!? This is PROOF that the devil made it SEEM like the magnetic fields spin through the disk of material around the star, and accelerate the disk while slowing down the star! Damn, he’s good.
June 25th, 2007 at 6:43 am
[…] “Braking news from creationism“, no Bad Astronomy; […]
June 25th, 2007 at 6:44 am
One solution to certain Grand Unified Theories requires the universe to “split/branch” every time there’s a decision point, ie, if an event could go two ways, it will and the result is TWO universes, identical in every respect but for that particular decision point and the resulting universes continue to evolve in their differential fashion. Thus, I’d like to propose, this universe is now only 20 pico seconds old,,,but it’s also 13.7 billion years old,,,Thus the following scenario evolves:
In 4004 BC, the first(Jewish) human, called Adam, experienced “connection with a unified god”, ie, his God Module got turned on. This universe and all it’s other twigglets are derived from that experience. However(you knew there would be one), there are also numerous such universes derived from the decision point wherein he DIDN’T have such an experience and there is no Jewish tribe to influence the development of that branch of reality.
I wonder how those other universes are doing now???
See, the creos are right too. It’s just that they are wrong to ascribe this reality to an omnipotent God. It’s all Adams fault,,,
Gary 7
June 25th, 2007 at 6:59 am
“Also there are parts of the Bible, older than 2000 years,”
Of that I whole heartedly agree : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8461754114455236037
June 25th, 2007 at 7:03 am
I think some of you miss the point. Denny’s comparison is accurate. If you were reading the bible 2000+ years ago, it would be fair to say that it was written by people who were considered educated and literate. In that context, it made sense and was a useful thing.
But check your calendar. It’s not 2000 years ago. In today’s context, a lot of the book is largely irrelevant and demonstrated to be inaccurate, or just plain old false. In that context it’s fair to say that it doesn’t stand up because the people who wrote it are uneducated and illiterate by today’s standards.
As to the Newton thing, well, we teach and Newtonian physics to kids, and use it merely as a convenient approximation for slow speed physics calculations. Considering it to be kid-stuff pretty much says that by today’s standards, Newton was uneducated. That his work is kid-stuff now doesn’t diminish the fact that it was truly legendary when it was new. We teach Calculus to kids too, but I think that, for the most part, people still consider calculus “hard”.
In 500 years, we’ll all seem uneducated by the standards of the time.
June 25th, 2007 at 7:43 am
In 500 years, I wonder if fourth grade kids will look back at this very discovery and say “well, duh.”
Will they look back at the black hole thread from last week and snicker at our ignorance?
Will special relativity be something “even grade school kids understand” or will it resemble our view of astrology and alchemy, the shades of the human race groping in the dark for answers and found desperately wanting?
I’d love to know.
Of course, there’s also the pessimistic idea that in 500 years there will be no school children to look back. I surely hope that is not the case.
June 25th, 2007 at 7:52 am
‘Braking News…’ I would come daily here just to read your pun headlines. Luckily for me your content is awesome too, so I have a good excuse!
June 25th, 2007 at 8:19 am
Spacewriter,
You are right, of course, I should have properly attributed those quotes. My only excuse is that my wife was calling me to breakfast, and I clicked on ’submit’ before I checked the post - normally I do attribute my quotes.
June 25th, 2007 at 8:49 am
The first two links (to pathlights.com) didn’t work, the pages couldn’t be found. Aw shucks!
June 25th, 2007 at 9:42 am
At http://www.parentcompany.com/creation_explanation/cx6c.htm they go on to add more lies, like that the inner planets couldn’t form because “the Sun’s Roche limit extends to the orbit of Jupiter”. Aren’t they off by about a factor of 100 there? And of course some of their other discussion confuses small “sticky” things (where molecular forces may dominate, as dust specks accumulate into clumps) with the larger things (where the Roche limit applies because gravity is the dominant force holding the larger object together.)
June 25th, 2007 at 9:56 am
Cory, that site has changed its links a little since I drafted this entry. I corrected the first link, and removed the second one since it seems to have evaporated.
June 25th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Well sure they probably didn’t know the difference between mechanics and electromagnetism. I still like seeing exactly how much rope it takes for them to hang themselves.
June 25th, 2007 at 10:51 am
A gold star is in order for a discussion of angular momentum that did not involve reference to ice skating.
June 25th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Come on, Phil. It was Fry who said, “Crackpot theories 1, Regular theories a billion” in the episode where he discovered that aliens really did build the pyramids…I should know…its my signature in the BAUT Forum
June 25th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Newton may be considered uneducated by today’s standards, but I am not aware of anyone who claimed he is the all-knowing and all-powerful creator of the universe. I think the supposedly omniscient creator of the universe needs to be held to slightly higher standards of accuracy.
And people should remember that creationists speak a different language than the rest of us. When they say “mechanical” they mean “not poofed into being by God”. “Materialistic”, “naturalistic”, “secular”, and a number of other words mean the same thing. Combining any of those with words like “science”, “process”, or “methodology” means what we would consider these words to mean on their own. If they use the words like “science” on their own they really mean anything anyone claims to know or believe for whatever reason.
Trying to use English to interpret creationist ramblings is just going to leave you more confused. You have to learn their “code words”. For instance “Darwinism” is what we would call “Natural Selection” (they don’t acknowledge any other form of evolution). “Evolution”, on the other hand, means “the universe is older than 6,000-10,000 years old”. Words like “evidence” depend on context. When they refer to evidence for their ideas, it means “lies I can use to to trick people into believing me”. When they refer to evidence for scientific ideas it means “constantly changing standards that are just beyond what is currently known or is already known but obscure enough that most people don’t realize it”.
June 25th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
creationism nil - regular theories a billion! that is a great line!
Evan
June 25th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
[…] Plait spotlights a new scientific explanation for a mystery that creationists use to discredit the Big […]
June 25th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
My only thought at the moment is this: If anyone attempts to do an experiment spinning around with a garbage bag, I want to see video of it.
June 25th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Don’t lump all Creationists into one camp. Check this, you might learn a thing or two about Astronomy and Astrophysics on the site, while also learning to respect alternative views of this place our senses define: http://www.reasons.org/
June 25th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Marc, do you mean this bit of revisionist nonsense from their front page?
Please… where is the parade of pre-Einstein theologians and apologists who claimed that the Bible predicts a 13 billion year old expanding Universe? Oh, wait a minute, they were too busy calculating the age of the Universe from incomplete Old Testament genealogies to notice.
This is just another example of a parasitic creationist who hijacks the hard work of others in a vain attempt to prove that their own interpretation of a few verses from Genesis conforms precisely with scientific theory.
This is not astronomy, it is apologetics.
June 25th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Hey BA, here’s how I show the effect of Magnetism on Mass. I have 2 powerful magnets that weigh about a kilogram each. They are fastened about 2 centimeters apart. I have an aluminum bar that is 2 millimeters thick, 2 1/2 centimeters wide and 20 centimeters long. You can also use an aluminum ruler.
I tap the aluminum bar on the magnets to show there is no attraction, then I pass is over metal filings to show it hasn’t picked up any magnetism.
I then drop the bar through the opening between the magnets and the bar does not fall straight through, but wiggles from side to side and drops at about half the rate of just dropping it by itself. The bar does not hit the magnets side to side, so there is no friction.
This does not show angular momentum, but clearly shows the effect of magnetism on non-magnetic materials.
Other non-magnetic materials work as well, but not as dramatically.
If you need any magnets like mine, just yell. They make incredible show and tell, (a.k.a. lecture material).
Bob
June 25th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Marc: If by “alternative”, you mean “wrong”, then we agree. But I know about Hugh Ross; I have read his apologetic book “A Matter of Days”. Old Earth creationists are in some ways worse than young Earth creationists: they lack the conviction to even be consistent.
June 25th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
bkallee, I use an Al tube and a cylindrical neodymium magnet. Magnet falls very slowly through tube. Compare with cylinder of non-mahetised metal.
June 25th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
First of all, just so noone would think I disagree with anything Phil said, my native language is not english, so I am NOT trying to smart here (In fact I’m saying that I lack knowlage, in english :))
————————————
: What is the differance between “PROOF” and “EVIDENCE”??
My knowlage in english tells me that the two words are synonyms, and all the dictionaries I can find translates both words to the same thing - “bevis” (that’s swedish for…ehm…: proof/evidence)
BA:
“While this is not proof that the stars magnetically brake themselves with the disk and slow their spin, it’s pretty darn good evidence of it.”
June 25th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
I will add that I have not read all the posts above so I’m sorry if this has already been brought up.
June 25th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Hazzel, that’s a fine question!
Evidence is some observation, some piece of data, that can be used to provider support for an idea. It might not be very strong support, or it might be incredibly convincing.
Proof is solid, absolutely convincing evidence. So the observations these astronomers made is pretty good evidence — it supports the idea that a disk of material will help slow a star’s spin. It’s just not good enough to be called proof. More observations, more evidence would help.
June 25th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
OK!
thank you for your answer! Thats pretty much what I wanted to know.
Also, thank you for a great site!
I just recently found it when looking for some reference, trying to convince a whole bunch of astrologers (at least believers in astrology) that they are wrong. (I did give them proof of it, though because of them not willing to accept it, without any reason I may add, I doubt I did convince them after all…)
June 25th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
I’m assured that there were some medieval kabbalists who calculated the age of the universe as several billion years old. On the other hand, their estimates for the primordial helium abundance were _way_ off.
June 25th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
“Angular momentum wise” was used back in 2003. I googled it.
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:3mYvfi7QFMIJ:www.citebase.org/fulltext%3Fformat%3Dapplication%252Fpdf%26identifier%3Doai%253AarXiv.org%253Aastro-ph%252F0210473
June 25th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
First, I would like to say that I am what most of you are referring to as a creationist. That is to say, I believe tha a God could well have created this universe.. I even hope that this is the case…. Now before everyone flames me for this post, im not here to argue any scientific theory or fact… I generally belive that most things we know (man, science, religion), is inherintaly incorrect. I am slightly offended that educated people seem to be consumed with resent, and arrogance. Do I just sit on my “comfy armchair”… no, Im one of those people who are busy using science to make our world a little better. I have a MS/BS in aerospace engineering, with a minor in biology. So I am pretty confident im not just being “lazy”. I just wish that people would stop generalizing people, you may be insulting some of the very scientists who are actually doing something good for the community.
“Trying to use English to interpret creationist ramblings is just going to leave you more confused. You have to learn their “code wordsâ€. For instance “Darwinism†is what we would call “Natural Selection†(they don’t acknowledge any other form of evolution). “Evolutionâ€, on the other hand, means “the universe is older than 6,000-10,000 years oldâ€. Words like “evidence†depend on context. When they refer to evidence for their ideas, it means “lies I can use to to trick people into believing meâ€. When they refer to evidence for scientific ideas it means “constantly changing standards that are just beyond what is currently known or is already known but obscure enough that most people don’t realize itâ€.”
June 26th, 2007 at 12:07 am
Yawn……more emotive anti-creationist clap-trap. You guys need to wake up and realise that the ‘evidence’ you are finding is just based on the laws that creation designed in. None of what you say gets to the very root question and that’s where did it all come from. All you can come up with is a big bang that somehow led to life being formed and through ‘evolution’ lead to eyes and brains and intelligence and the complxity of reproduction. Like come on - who really believes that ‘mutation’ or natural selection lead to all this? The best you can come up with is laughing at people who don’t buy into the flawed laws that you belive.
June 26th, 2007 at 12:36 am
Obvious troll is obvious
June 26th, 2007 at 12:51 am
Phil, long time fan, super happy to see your site blowin’ up on the digg front page recently! Keep the good stuff comin’ and we’ll all keep readin’.
June 26th, 2007 at 12:52 am
to mad dog:
ahahahaha….ops
June 26th, 2007 at 12:56 am
it was imature of me to laugh, Im sorry, but then again, sience you obviously heard all the arguments, what else left is there to do?
June 26th, 2007 at 1:00 am
of course I meant to say “since”
June 26th, 2007 at 1:00 am
@Mad Dog
Hahaha you made me chuckle. You are funny guy.
Yes, we don’t have absolute proof of when, where and why everything happened. That clearly MUST mean that some divine power did it all for fun. Nevermind that every day science takes another step towards explained previously unexplained phenomenon. Phenomenon that creationists previously said was “simply God’s will”.
While scientists constantly work on finding evidence for theories, creationists say, “God made it happen” then try and find some nonsense “fact” to disprove the evidence. Forget trying to prove their theory. Nooo it’s much better to just disprove any opposing theories. It’s that kind of scientific method that has given us all our wonderful technological improvements today. /sarcasm
June 26th, 2007 at 1:06 am
Do you really think this bit of evidence disproves Creationism? Seriously?
How many of the scientific papers by Creationists have you read?
Why is it GOD could not have used this mechanism when HE did the creating.
Finding a theory postulated by some creationists obliterating it (though this
falls quite short of that) is hardly any accomplishment.
I’d love to see your site get real honest and list the incredible number of theories, archaeological, finds etc. that have been blown away subsequent to their “Creationism crushing revelations”.
As one raised atheist leftist, I decided to read both sides of all the matters in which I was ‘certain’. One after another I saw my preconceptions get smashed.
I was always taught the Bible was a book full of mistakes and contradictions.
However a friend of mine (raised agnostic) repeated to me some info about CHRIST I had never heard. I figured, “I’m and honest guy. I am more interested in truth than what I already think I know”. So I prayed this while camping out with my buddy, “GOD if you are there please show me. I don’t know if you are Budda, Jesus, or a committee. But if you are there and tell me who you are and what to do I will do it. Do to time constraints let me say HE did! And I was almost as good as my word. I admit HE showed me he was real but I was convinced I had to ’straighten up and fly right’ to follow HIM. So rather than do that I spend 2 years trying to disprove the Bible. (I figured that if GOD could not keep HIS book together HE was not big enough to save me!) Let me interject here I have been IQ tested 3 times. The lowest was 141. Now I don’t say this to impress (and I’m certain there are some spelling or grammatical errors in here for the petty to dwell upon). And I am sure there are brighter bulbs on this comment list. I only say it to let you know when I decide to disprove the Bible I did it with more than a bad attitude. Not only did I go after the Bible I went after faith healers like Katherine Kuhlman. (I went so far as to infiltrate her choir during a huge service in Keil Auditorium).
Needless to say I studied the Greek, Heb etc and read the books “exposing’ the bible flaws as well as those answering the critics. Well after 2 years I gave up.
Every single time I thought I had something there was an answer. I was tempted to just take the critics word but I can’t stand lies (the result of being raised by 2 politicians perhaps?) At any rate I say this to you all. Creationism is not the point. Giving GOD a chance to show HIMSELF to you is. But it requires integrity. You have to value truth more than what you want to be true. And the great thing is what took me over 2 years to figure out; I was not required by GOD to fly right. All HE wanted was a chance to help me. HE does NOT help those who help themselves (at least not nearly as much as HE helps those who just ask, wait, and choose to believe). I have now walked with HIM for 30 years and I have seen terminally ill people healed and non-Christian doctors cry as they admitted they had no answers as to how it happened. My own wife was healed of an incurable illness. I have seen more scientifically unexplainable things (aka miracles) than I have had days since I stopped fighting HIM and chose to believe. But the really great tangible thing is this; I was an unhappy person and now I am not. When a revelation of GOD comes into your heart and mind and you know HE loves you NO MATTER WHAT YOU HAVE DONE it really really makes you happy.
So instead of feeding your prejudices and patting yourselves on the back, why don’t you get honest and study against your faith. Be honest, that’s what it is when you are devoted to something you can’t absolutely prove. Give the truth, even one you mayn’t like, a chance. You may find lots more than you ever imagined. If you don’t, you are cheating yourself and everyone you care about.
And what if CHRIST and the gospel are as real as your nose? What exactly is there to fear? Don’t mistake people and institutions that use HIS name for HIM.
We all have free will. I can go sock a cop in the name of Mother Teresa but that can hardly be blamed on her. You sitting there reading this. Do an experiment now. Ask GOD to reveal HIMSELF. Give HIM a chance now. Ask HIM to show you if HE is real. Ask with integrity. Ask giving up your prejudices, resentment, and hurts. Ask HIM to show you HE is there and open your heart. Ask HIM to show you in a way that clears your mind of untruth. Give HIM permission to break through and do whatever it takes. Care about the truth. Have the courage.
June 26th, 2007 at 1:22 am
Sergeant Zim - “Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help.”
For many people, religion is much more than that. By imagining the unimaginable, visualizing the unknown, and personalizing the unquantifiable, religion puts form to the unformed. It’s a creative endeavor, providing structure and context to the abstract.
A theologian or religious person has more in common with a scientist than you might think. Arguably, every civilization owes it’s intellectual development to religious people who had vision to attempt to explain the unexplained within their frameworks or context. Science builds on these forerunners.
Beyond ‘creationists’, look at faith healers and prayer movements of today. These currently “meta physical” phenomenon that regularly bear videotaped and unexplainable documented cases will no doubt be explained rationally some day in the future.
June 26th, 2007 at 2:01 am
I did physics (optics) for about 10 years, and have believed in Jesus for about 25, but I am no creationist by a long shot.
My biggest beef with these fools is that they don’t even do science: They try to give verbal answers to a theory that is largely mathematical. I say we stop bothering to answer these idiots and just show them the appropriate equation and its solution. Let them show where the math is wrong and build an alternate quantitative physical theory, if they can.
June 26th, 2007 at 3:11 am
Mr. Graves: You are correct that this article alone does not disprove creationism. There are many articles, and papers like it though. Since the time of man’s development of self-awareness, he has been trying to find answers to the many questions of life. Religion has been used through history to answer many of these questions at times when science and technology was not powerful enough to suffice. At this point in time, though, the number of things science can’t explain is dwindling. We make new discoveries every day. Science is sufficiently prepared to answer our questions now.
I’m not sure what you mean by this paragraph:
“I’d love to see your site get real honest and list the incredible number of theories, archaeological, finds etc. that have been blown away subsequent to their “Creationism crushing revelationsâ€.”
I was at a loss as to whether this was an argument about science being overcome by religion or a challenge to find instances where religion was overcome by science. If it is the first, I would ask what geniune victories has religion had over science? Except for the Kansas School Board gaining the right to replace biology with creationism in their classrooms, I have heard of none. And that one is not really what I would call a revelation of knowledge.
If you are asking for an actual list of scientific victories over religion, then I would have to begin by citing the now fifteen year old finding of Cosmic Background Radiation, which was theorized a long time before its finding to such a degree using the Big Bang model, that its existence alone is almost certain proof of the Big Bang. Now to me this, along with many other findings like this, is absolute proof of the Big Bang model. And that is only one of a vast quantity of scientific victories. There’s also carbon dating, which many religious groups use to determine the oldest bibles at the same time that they say it somehow stops working after 6000 years. Cloning has also challenged many religious theories. There have been many, many scientific victories, for the sake of brevity I’ll stop there, but the information is easily accessibly on the web and really doesn’t need a list.
I have heard both sides of this argument. I have listened to people tell me what was fed to them through Christian camps and youth groups. I’ve been told that the Big Bang couldn’t have happened because of some mathematical proof that showed that the probability that the Big Bang would have occurred was very small (I still don’t know where the equation came from) and that somehow the mathematical probability that God existed was higher. I have never heard one coherent argument supporting God.
I have never seen anything that couldn’t be proven by science. Many of the “unproven mysteries” are hoaxes. Patients of terminal disease that heal cannot be considered miracles; most of the time it can be attributed to the person’s ability to naturally fight off the disease (which would support evolution and genetic diversity because some people have mutated natural resistances as a survival tactic). The event can be explained if examined carefully enough.
And I feel I must ask, if God wanted us to know he existed, wouldn’t he tell us? He would, if religion is to be believed, have the power to do so… so why doesn’t he appear in front of everyone and prove it? Why would he design us to question? If you were God, you wouldn’t make people who don’t believe you exist, would you? You wouldn’t fabricate a world that to your creations can be explaned by your absence. Why would you even make a world with evil in it to trouble your people? The entire theory doesn’t make sense. I accept what I see, what I can prove. If God revealed himself to me and allowed me to in some way prove his existence, then I would accept it as truth. Let’s just say it hasn’t happened yet…
June 26th, 2007 at 3:55 am
Phil Plait,
I love your website, and I soak up all the podcasts that you appear on. I’m charmed by astronomy, and definately find science intriguing. I’ve learned alot, and I’m not too stupid in general.
But I have to take issue with you. I’m a Christian, perhaps in abstract belief only, but none-the-less I still believe in an ultimate and singular creator. And I believe in the cosmological evolution. Basely, God said it, and, BANG!, it happened.
I’m not writing to disagree with your facts or the science in the article. (In fact, I readily accept them.) Rather, I want to know why you insist on insulting Christians that do believe in a universe created by a divine being. The title of the article is meant to be sarcastic. And all your references are meant to be demeaning… such as the quote full of misspellings.
I can’t say you insult Creationists as a whole, since you do only mock specific ones in this article, but it is certainly a tone I have heard in your voice and read in your posts before. I can’t prove it, but you seem to have some strongly averse feelings towards Creationism and those that seek to support their beliefs with facts. From what I can tell of the scientific process, seeking to understand a theory through facts is THE mode by which scientist discover new knowledge. So if Creationists chose to point out poorly explained portions of existing theory, wouldn’t that be one necessary part of the scientific process?
I guess my basic question is: You disagree with Creationist, but why do you deplore them and their attempts to understand or refute science with their own (perhaps flawed) critical thinking?
June 26th, 2007 at 3:56 am
I am glad this strengthened your believe in atheism.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:01 am
I like how you claim that creationists are propogating lies, yet you were unable to show how they are lies.
You said: While this is not proof that the stars magnetically brake themselves with the disk and slow their spin…
Sure, it might be true that magnetic braking actually does occur, but you can’t really call them liars until it is proven that this infact does happen.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:26 am
“Let me interject here I have been IQ tested 3 times. The lowest was 141. Now I don’t say this to impress”
Ooooh! I took those online tests too! I scored 138!
“I admit HE showed me he was real but I was convinced I had to ’straighten up and fly right’ to follow HIM. So rather than do that I spend 2 years trying to disprove the Bible.”
Hrm, so god proved to you he existed, yet you still sought to prove he didn’t? I mean, if he was indeed god, then he is infallible, so his book, could not have been wrong to start with. But you went against that logic and tried anyway. You say you have an IQ of at least 141?
Also: you gave up after 2 years? Weak.
“So instead of feeding your prejudices and patting yourselves on the back, why don’t you get honest and study against your faith.”
I assume you mean “faith” as in our belief that the universe was created by the big bag? Um, we are studying this all the time. That’s what science is about. Finding evidence for or against a given theory until it is indisputably fact.
Or did you mean faith as in God? Ahh… right, well if after we are done all our investigation, we find god in a corner of the universe having a cup of tea, then I guess we will know then he exists.. until then, I’d rather not believe in faeries.
“Ask GOD to reveal HIMSELF. Give HIM a chance now. Ask HIM to show you if HE is real. Ask with integrity… (and so on, and so on…)”
I did that. I was confused, lost & hurt when I was about 11 years old. Nothing. And I really wanted to believe. My foster family were devout Christians & I wanted to feel like I belonged. But nothing. Emptiness. Now if god won’t reveal himself to a 11 year old, then he’s not a very nice guy.
“If you don’t, you are cheating yourself and everyone you care about.”
How?
June 26th, 2007 at 4:28 am
Hi Phil,
Someone on Digg brought up the question about explaining the 98 degree rotation of Uranus. I’m curious about this as well. Can you address this please?
June 26th, 2007 at 4:54 am
The lack of technology to observe an object does not disprove its existence. Science and mathematics are a language to observe and understand the physical world around us, regardless of how or who created it.
June 26th, 2007 at 5:03 am
Oh yes, another point I never see about science vs ‘Creationism’:
Science is first and foremost a PROCESS whereby worldwide scientists participate in creating a physical theory. The late Thomas Kuhn (who wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) would have argued that the actual ‘reality’ is irrelevant: To do science you must participate in the process of creating a theory and then doing an experiment that disproves or doesn’t disprove that theory.
The creationists feel that, because the output of biological science doesn’t meet their narrow interpretation of the Bible (and an interpretation is all their view actually is), then they need to chop off the output and glue on some ad-hoc ‘truth’ which does not fall out of what the scientific community has produced (right or wrong).
June 26th, 2007 at 5:17 am
@Kit (Sorry for the hijack, Phil. It’s a boring morning for me):
First off, let me say that I’m not attacking you, or your faith. I’m simply pointing out the flaws in what you have said.
No offense, Kit, but I’ve spent enough time on this and other atheist blogs to know where you’re leading with this paragraph.
In that case, you don’t believe in cosmological evolution. It appears that you believe in creationism, although not the YEC version. You said you find science “intriguing”, but do you understand what science is? What you “believe” is called faith, which can be defined as belief without evidence. You didn’t hear God speak, but assume that is how the universe started. Phil, and many of the rest of us, seek to understand the world, and the universe, by not assuming a supernatural cause, i.e. “and then a miracle happened”. Science is about putting facts together, and finding how they all fit into a puzzle. Not about assuming there was some divine intervention at any or several points during the process.
First off, Phil was not insulting all Christians. Actually, he wasn’t even insulting those he referenced, but only showing where there were errors in their thinking. Unfortunately, creationists never use all of the evidence to support their hypothesis. Their method of “proving” divine intervention is what we call cherry picking. They ignore all evidence that contradicts their ideas, or they don’t research things fully. I’m not sure which, so I won’t guess which is their intent. What they are doing is not science, and does not help their reputation among those of us who understand how science works. As far as the quote, there was only one misspelled word. The other is not a misspelling, just the wrong word for the situation (know should have been known). That was not the point of the quote. If you had read more carefully, Phil was using the quote to point out why the creationists were wrong. The misspelling and wrong word use just happened to fall into that quote.
Please reread Phil’s post. You apparently didn’t get what he was saying. Yes, the facts are important to science, and trying to disprove a theory is the most (well, I think it is, but others may disagree) important part of the scientific method. However, Phil also explained specifically where the creationists where wrong. The problem Phil has, and many of the rest of us have, with creationists is that they don’t use all of the facts to support their beliefs. They ignore the parts they don’t want people to see. That is not science. That is cherry picking.
As I’ve said above, they do not attempt to understand science, and they do not use critical thinking. All they try to do is refute science, and they do a lousy job of it. Phil, and most of the rest of us atheists, deplore their dishonest tactics, and the way the hijack science in an attempt to “prove” creation. “God did it”, “God said”, or “God pointed” has nothing to do with science. It’s lazy, and it doesn’t attempt to find the real answers to the universe. If you’re a believer, that’s all well and good. However, when you try to prove creation, especially using a public forum like the internet, be prepared for people to show evidence of where and why you’re wrong. That’s what science is, after all.
Now, I have a question for you, Kit. You say you’re a Christian, so I will assume it’s the God of Abraham that you believe created the universe. Why not Zeus, Xenu, or the myriad of other “creators” that are possibilities. Also, if you believe in God, why are you not with Islam or Judaism? Atheists are people, just like you. We have our passionate pursuits, people we love, and dreams of what we want to accomplish. The only difference, and a big difference it is, is that we consider one more thing as mythology, than you do.
-Berlzebub
June 26th, 2007 at 5:41 am
Just wanted to point out that the majority of Christians are not young-earth creationists. Most of us Christians don’t believe that the Bible is a science book that describes the 6000-year ex-nihilo creation of the Solar System or the Universe. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism)
June 26th, 2007 at 5:42 am
is a theory an educated guess. with enough talk and mathematical equations im sure you could prove it all started with a piece of bubble gum. how many times have people come up with rock solid theories just for it to be proven wrong years later. If there is a creator why would he feel the need to prove himself to anyone. time and time again in the bible people saw miracles and forgot about them. If someone said they were a messenger from god…and fixed global warming,,restored all the fish to the sea…levetated 40 feet in the air and cured thousands of people on their death bed,,turned rocks into gold and no one was around to get it on camera or record it somehow be gauranteed 2000 years from now science would explain it away and people would look at it as a fairy tale. In todays world since we have cars we clone people come up with cures for diseases,oh my even fly into space and do really long math problems means that we have maxed out human intelligence. amazing everything based on a theory? sounds right to me. So keep on guessing and believing we got it all figured out because we learned from books and opinions from MAN there is now way anyone could prove you guys wrong because after all according to you since there isnt a video or a logical explination for everything and you cant except or wrap your mind around the fact that things could be alot more complicated or just plain simple that you cant get it
June 26th, 2007 at 5:49 am
“God did itâ€, “God saidâ€, or “God pointed†has nothing to do with science. It’s lazy, and it doesn’t attempt to find the real answers to the universe.
Hey, one could potentally formulate this as science: If one is willing to assume measureable quantities to God’s existence, it could then be possible to disprove them. For instance, “God weighs greater than X Kg”, etc…one can then disprove this potentially. But for standard Judeao-Islamo-Christian theology, God has no measureable properties.
Which means that the concept of God (as currently defined, or not) doesn’t belong in science.
As for me, I do actually believe in God, but my intellectual reasons for doing so have to do more with the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics” along with why we are in a universe with physical laws rich enough to allow the human mind to exist. Creationists are basically hanging on to the last vestiges of Enlightenment-era, ‘Cosmic Watchmaker’ theology, which is at best misguided.
June 26th, 2007 at 5:52 am
Stigma.Chaos: You said “And I feel I must ask, if God wanted us to know he existed, wouldn’t he tell us? He would, if religion is to be believed, have the power to do so… so why doesn’t he appear in front of everyone and prove it? Why would he design us to question? If you were God, you wouldn’t make people who don’t believe you exist, would you? You wouldn’t fabricate a world that to your creations can be explaned by your absence. Why would you even make a world with evil in it to trouble your people? The entire theory doesn’t make sense. I accept what I see, what I can prove. If God revealed himself to me and allowed me to in some way prove his existence, then I would accept it as truth. Let’s just say it hasn’t happened yet…”
There’s a very simple answer. He gave us free will (which is why Adam was able to screw up and allow evil to enter this once perfect world in the first place). We are all not robots commanded/forced to believe and love God unconditionally, From the very beginning God gave us the choice to reject Him outright.
Now if He was to appear to everyone and perform some sign/miracle to convince every last atheist/agnostic - and evilutionist
- that there was beyond a doubt a God and He created the universe exactly as outlined in the Bible - then your free will would be taken away - you would have no option but to believe.
But God won’t do that, He does not want a bunch of robots to “love” him just because He proved that He existed and created them.
But as a matter of fact, God did give you a sign:
Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
In other words His fingerprints are all over this universe, this Earth, and you. Again, since you have free will (a gift from Him) you can still choose to attribute His handiwork to natural processes.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:08 am
Religion vs. Science in a nutshell:
Science: We admit we don’t have all the answers, but we do have… (produces a very long list) and we’re working on… (another long list).
Result: Progress - in the form of medicine, technology, in fact all the bemefits of the modern world.
Religion: We have the answer. God did it! End of argument.
Result: Stagnation - in in the form of sitting around praying and waiting for the end of the world while wars rage over whose god is best.
I know whose side I’m on.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:08 am
@unknown:
No, a theory is not an educated guess. You’re thinking of a hypothesis. A theory is a hypothesis that has been tested, and not disproven.
Yes, theories sometimes get altered, or disproven, but that is part of science. New information is constanting coming in, and sometimes things need changed or adjusted to fit those changes.
We do accept that things can be more complicated, or more simple, than what they appear. However, it’s what the evidence points to that causes us to draw our conclusions. We don’t have everything figured out, and we’ve never claimed to. However, if we don’t try to figure it out, without assuming there are supernatural causes, we’ll never get anywhere, and we wouldn’t be where we are today.
You may not like where the evidence leads, unknown, but the truth doesn’t care what you think.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:10 am
A truly spiritual person trying to improve themselves and understand God would find the creationist vs. evolutionist theory completely meaningless in the context of spirituality.
The fear that finding some fallacy in scripture and losing your belief system of God is in actuality fear of losing your identity, and you get into an ego battle of the magnitude of this article. Conversely its exactly the same on the evolutionist side.
You want to be happy? Stop competing and trying to be better than those around you, which is essentially self judgment forced on others. That’s what Jesus actually meant.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:14 am
Apologies for the spelling errors, my keyboard is playing up. And by the way, my IQ is (ahem) above 150 as tested by Mensa (of which I’ve been a member for 27 years). I refuse to reveal the actual score.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:18 am
so ur friend luisa… her last name is really redbull? it amused me, tis all
June 26th, 2007 at 6:30 am
Let’s nail a few things down to look at:
1. The Bible has NEVER been proven false, no not once. If it has I would suppose the moronic Atheists would be running around the world with their Evolution flags waving around. This, however, has not occurred. Everything written down in the Bible has been recorded by historians from that era in another place. The Bible is completely accurate in its historical content; when archaeologists want to know something about a historical location the first place they go is the Bible.
2. AiG does not read your reports and then spend a hour coming up with a rebuttal to put on their site. You flatter yourself to think that your ridiculously unfounded article (scientifically speaking of course) is any concern for them when they have men and women with FAR more experience then you or your friend’s paper ever will. Now lets not just stop there. Perhaps if you tried reading the AiG articles and trying to show them they are wrong (not through argument but through science) then you might make some headway or at least you would learn they are not bumbling idiots with nothing better to do than to sit around making up ways to falsify Evolutionary thoughts.
3. Better yet check out www.icr.org. This is the Institute for Creation Research. They have peer review from Atheist groups. Do you know what those Atheist groups think? They think ICR is interested in honest science (which is more than anyone can say for the scientific community in general in the way of origins) with as little bias as possible. Yes as little as is possible because it is impossible for ANY scientist to not have bias in their work.
4. Lets look at Evolution and the Big Bang models for a little bit. Never has Evolution (in the macro sense, lets not lose our heads and point out that dogs change when breading with different dogs -however note that they are still dogs) shown one iota of evidence that points to a validity in the theory (which should still be called a hypothesis). The Big Bang is the same way. No I’m not here to say that it should be easy (or cheap) to show such evidence. Truthfully it is difficult to show such evidence even if it does exist just due to the fact that no one has kept track of the changes in animals for the last several thousand years and we haven’t had satellites capable of peering Billions of lightyears in to space in orbit around our planet for that long. If you look long and hard you will see that Evolution and the Big Bang are just as much of a belief as creationism is. I however have found a lot of valid, provable, evidence pointing to a young earth.
In conclusion I am not here to defend my beliefs in creationism (I don’t have to, you can’t prove them wrong anyhow) but instead to show that there is a large amount of arrogance in the scientific community (creationism is not exempt from it either but it is not the most prevalent). Be cautious fellow scientists not to be intellectually arrogant. Keep in mind that just because the vast majority believe in it doesn’t make it true. If Evolution is going to remain a scientific theory then it needs to provide more than bacterial microevolution as facts (we need to see how a fish becomes a horse). And before you cast God out of the picture remember why science got started and remember that all those men you look up to in physics and other sciences (Plank, Maxwell, Einstein, even Darwin -whose own book told us that if it could be shown or reasonably plausible that slow and steady change could not account for the diversity of life than his theory should be thrown out (THAT IS GOOD SCIENCE, knowing when to throw out an old theory) .
With that I like the blog (hopefully the name doesn’t always fit the information). If you’ve read this far then I would love to hear any comments from you.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:39 am
“If God existed, wouldn’t He show us?”
The answer is ‘no’, simply because one of God’s gifts to us is free will. If God openly told us that he exists (in some ways He actually does), we would see Him in all his majesty and denying Him would be like denying gravity. Is that free will? I can’t prove there is a God, just as much as none of you can prove there isn’t a God, hence the word “Faith”. Maybe some of you should do some more research into what could possibly be the most important decision of your lives? I know you don’t think so now, but there’s a lot of people that certainly believe that. So if someone’s “pushing their ideas on you”, it’s either because they care about you, or because they knocked on your door (some people are bad examples).
June 26th, 2007 at 6:50 am
I rarely post in forums on these topics because, like discussions on politics, scientific discussions with devout creationists are impossible, as neither side will budge.
But I sincerely hope some of the argumentative creationists will read this and take it to heart.
Science is inexact, the search for evidence is long and tedious and may take decades or centuries to gather enough for conclusive proof. To say that “you cannot show proof for the entirety of the universe through science, so God must have made it” is and insult for the following reason:
Where is your Proof!
I mean, I would really like to see a scientific creationist use the scientific theory and give me his rationale behind saying “God did it”. After a while I get tired of the “take it on faith” basis the Creationists put forth.
So in short, if I have to choose between putting faith in a partial scientific theory about the origins of life where people are continually working to expand the theory (which we do) or choose to put my faith in religion based science that quite literally does nothing but attempt to poke holes in real scienctific theory so they can say “obviously you’re wrong, have faith, God did it”, I’ll choose the former every time.
… but thats just me
June 26th, 2007 at 6:54 am
Joel: Well said.
Mojax: We don’t come on here to prove ourselves right (speaking at least for myself). We come here and offer an alternate view to plant a seed in the lives of others so that they may have the good sense to know why they believe what they believe (no matter what side of the debate they are on). It was through a man who used scientific fact to prove evolution false that my wife and I came to know Christ. I only hope that others on here would dare to research the opposite side. If there were no such thing as absolute truth, there would be no need to spread it, but that is not the case, and we believers have been commissioned by Christ to spread the truth.
Athiests: As Joel said, the Bible has never been proven false. Those that actually read it enough to find something to contest end up as believers.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:55 am
Even if you could prove to me that god (lowercase g intended) existed, I would still defend Science. Why? Because Science gives results, it heals the sick, it gives us all the comforts of modern technology, it promises to take us onwards and outwards and shows us the real grandeur of the universe, and yes, it gives meaning to our lives in the form of striving to better ourselves without having to rely on an uncaring god - assuming as I stated that he does exist.
If god is able but apparently unwilling to prevent evil, then he is malevolent, as Epicurus pointed out. If he does exist then he is certainly not doing us any favours, and consequently has no purpose. And what use is a god without purpose? As for healing the sick, I’ve yet to see an amputated leg healed by prayer. Even Roger Bacon - possibly the first ever scientist - understood this. Google him.
“The Bible has NEVER been proven false” - and it hasn’t been proven true either. Your own argument can be turned against you. Actually a lot of things in the bible can be proven false scientifically. I’ll give you just one example: http://www.unm.edu/~humanism/bible-pi.html
Science is the engine that drives progress. Religion is the handbrake that certain passengers are all too keen to pull on because deep down they are afraid of that progress.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:57 am
I am not a “traditional Creationist”. I believe we were created by God, but I also believe in an old earth and evolution. If you want to talk about that, by all means leave another post or your email. I also will not say “obviously, you’re wrong”, but I will say that I use science every day at my job, in my life, just for fun and for work. I know science has proved a lot, and also that there’s a lot of gray area in science. I do think you’re wrong, but it’s not obvious. I’m convicted of what I believe, which means God has showed Himself to me in ways that only I would understand. He has shown me what I needed to be shown in order to believe in Him. So I can’t relay them to you in a way that you would understand. All I can say is that if you honestly seek after Him and truly desire to know if He exists, after enough time, He will reveal Himself to you. I am friends with lots of Agnostic and Atheist people that won’t read the bible because they believe somehow it will brainwash them. I encourage you to sit down sometime and read some of it. Maybe something will hit you, maybe not.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:03 am
We brought evil upon ourselves when we chose to turn away from God and continue to turn away from God. Some of you may recognize the “Christianese” for this statement as “The Fall”. Pardon my french, but God is not there to wipe our asses for us when they get dirty, He’s there to help us wipe our asses. We, as a human race, have royally screwed up and we’re constantly paying for it. Most the Christians I know are trying to do something about it, whether it’s preaching or helping people. How many of your friends that you know of give 10% or more of their income to help the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the diseased, the unfortunate around the world? I’m not saying you have to believe in God to be good, but if you read the bible, it says God charges us with this responsibility. I will not speak for hypocrites at this moment.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:10 am
First I would like to say that I applaud anyone who spends their efforts researching, seeking out, and studying to find truth. But one thing needs to be kept in mind, belittling, bashing and name calling anyone who does not agree with your thought or theories is not intellectual behavior and hinders the ability to take you seriously.
Mitch Graves, I am thankful that you have found Faith in God in your attempts to disprove His validity. No matter how some may attempt to discredit what you have said, the road that you have taken is one of strong faith and integrity. My friend that is why God revealed Himself. Though you tried to disprove Him, you had an unshakable need to find truth.
TheCatWhisperer, if you can go back for a minute to when you were 11 and analyze what has happened in your life since asked God if He was real, you will in fact find that He was very real in your life. There was no need for a magnificent bright light, audible voice, or unexplained phenomena to happen. If you can remember things did change for you after that, that was God proving himself to you. Instead, you were hurt and consorted to disbelief because He did reveal Himself in a way that you would have expected Him to. I challenge you to do a scan of your life since that time and you will find in fact that God is very real and has been in your life.
Stigma.Chaos, the thought that a host of scientific theories and discoveries disproves the validity of God is an absolutely ludicrous. The truth of the matter is because there is science and a need for man to seek it out proves God’s existence. No, He does not have to appear to us and say I am He, because He has already done so, by creating us. There are so many things that can not be numbered that proves he is there, here, everywhere. The fact that we humans have thought and intelligence says that there is a creator. Yes there is evil in the world, but that does not take away from a loving God because He will not just rescue us from it and destroy those that oppose. It in fact proves His love the more. He freely gives a choice to believe in and serve Him. He loves us so that He allows us the freedom to do as we please. Yes there are consequences, because He does have law. The world in which we live has law, and we have a choice to obey the law or accept the consequence of disobeying. I said that to say , ones disbelief in God does deny His existence, it is simply a choice to refuse His existence.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:17 am
correction:
Instead, you were hurt and consorted to disbelief because He did not** reveal Himself in a way
June 26th, 2007 at 7:20 am
correction:
the thought that a host of scientific theories and discoveries disproves the validity of God is *absolutely ludicrous.
ones disbelief in God does not** deny His existence, it is simply
June 26th, 2007 at 7:22 am
“How many of your friends that you know of give 10% or more of their income to help the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the diseased, the unfortunate around the world?”
LOL! Certainly not you and yours! You give 10% of your income to SUSTAIN RELIGION AND THE CHURCH!
June 26th, 2007 at 7:25 am
Rick: Did I say that I give my money to the church? I don’t believe I said that. Hold on, let me look…. yeah I definitely didn’t say that. I give my resources directly to organizations that I have researched so I know exactly where it’s going. I travel to Africa to directly give money to the poor. Yes, it’s true, I do give some money to the church, but it’s because the church was there for me when I needed it, so I want it to be there for others when they need it. Please don’t be so belligerent in future posts.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:30 am
You evolutionists have so much faith. You think you’re all about “facts” but you’re nothing more than big emotional babies. You choose to believe in nothing but yourselves so you can look at porn all day.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:33 am
“You evolutionists have so much faith. You think you’re all about “facts†but you’re nothing more than big emotional babies. You choose to believe in nothing but yourselves so you can look at porn all day.”
And I thought ignorant believers screw up our arguments… look what ignorant non-believers can do? =P
June 26th, 2007 at 7:36 am
Matt, if YOU look at your comments again, you will notice that you made no personal claim of what you do and suggested a 10% amount, which is a standard for most churches. If you give directly then good for you, but trying to claim that you are a better “giver” is a ridiculous claim. For every child you fed with your dollar hundreds, thousands, and millions of people have been helped with that same dollar by using science to advance the human condition, fighting disease, improving medicine, and warding off death.
Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, invent the fishing net and he can feed his village.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:43 am
The 10% is standard because that number is in the Bible. Look back at my argument, I wasn’t saying anything about being a better giver. All I was saying is that Christians are charged with the responsibility of giving by God. Acts is a good book to read. Non-Christians are not charged by anyone to give anything (even though many do). Again, I love science and I hope it progresses so that we can prevent and cure many more diseases and possibly stop the world’s starvation problem. Check out The One, put it place by many artists and joined by lots of people for the sole purpose of warding off death and fighting disease.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Sorry for not leaving a link, http://www.one.org/ .
June 26th, 2007 at 7:51 am
I’m neither supporting nor attacking either side of this issue, but as far as the observed facts that slower spinning stars have disks while faster spinning stars do not, let’s all remember one thing:
Correlation does not equal Causation.
I agree that it seems to be the case here and that the mechanism described seems to account for it. However, it also appears that the MMR jab has a role to play in autism.
As a side note, my other favorite phrase recently is:
The plural of Anecdote is not Data.
Now back to the bashing of both sides…
June 26th, 2007 at 8:11 am
According to the website (http://www.unm.edu/~humanism/bible-pi.html) the hebrews measured the diameter at 10 units and the perimeter as 30 units… O…M…G… they were off by 1.415926535 units!!! Call the media! The bible is wrong! lol
As for the part about how it COULDN’T possibly have been human error in measurement or rounding… It seems to me that getting the circumference correct isn’t NEARLY as important as getting the number of the mark of the beast right…
Example: When I’m measuring how far it is to my house from work I say “20 miles”, not 21.4159… But when measuring something a little more important, say, the angle the space shuttle needs to enter the atmosphere at so it doesn’t burn up, I’m a little more precise…
June 26th, 2007 at 8:25 am
Mitch: In accordance with scientific and mathematical theories, since you’ve gathered that your IQ is 141 that must be fact, because regardless of where the numbers came from you can provide factual data to support that.
I only state that to place a few things into perspective.
If “scientists” were to keep their focus narrow and disallow any outside criticism, they may “prove” what they wish.
I for one am a person who finds communication and explanation far more important than a string of numbers (regardless of how “accurate” they may be).
What is the point of “proving” anything if you can not in any way convey that idea to another?
In accordance with the arguments listed in this post, since there are no numbers and values that prove constants in the written language, either:
1. Language must not exist, or
2. Language must have been created by God.
I mean to point out that extremes in both cases make either argument sound preposterous.
Both sides have posted “theories” but because they believe them, they try to state they are “fact”.
I would advise all to challenge their “beliefs” and “theories” and perhaps you may learn to toss aside prepackaged information and stop lying to yourself.
In closing I must ask, why is it that the “creationists” are responding with “I understand but don’t agree”, while the “scientists” are responding with “I am right and you are stupid to disagree”.
June 26th, 2007 at 8:33 am
OK…
If there’s a problem with angular momentum as described herein, can the Creationists on this list please point to a peer-reviewed published piece describing a computer simulation based on their own principals? Does this computer simulation correspond to measurements better than the ’standard’ model?
As for ‘proving’ the truth of evolution (or of God or anything else), I’d point out that this never happens in science. Science can’t truly PROVE anything; it can only generate statements that are disprovable. And until an hypothesis is disproven, it can be regarded as potentially ‘true’, subject to the understanding that it may one day fall.
June 26th, 2007 at 8:38 am
I am always amused by the comments I get when I post about creationism.
1) I am not bashing Christianity here. Cripes, I should post a disclaimer and link to it whenever ever I debunk creationism. I do not equate creationism with all of Christianity. If you are a Christian, and you are offended by what I write, and you are not a YEC, then your aim is off. You should be even madder at the YECs, because they are stealing your religion.
2) Joel: The Bible has never been proven wrong? What? That is completely wrong. There are two contradictory creation stories in the very first part! And I did a google search on “Bible wrong” and got plenty of hits. Maybe you should look them up.
3) Mitch: I never said this angmom argument disproves creationism. I said it shows that creationists are wrong in this claim. However, I have also shown over many blog posts that they are wrong every time they make a “scientific” claim. The reason for this is simple; the Universe is not 6000 years old, it’s billions of years old. That is, to be blunt: young-Earth creationism is wrong.
4) Joel: Answers In Genesis and the ICR are the absolute worst offenders when it comes to lying about science. Peer-reviewed? People there with more experience in science? This is precisely the kind of thing I fight. Your claims are grossly, hugely wrong. I took on both of those crank institutes in my first book and show precisely where they are wrong. More info can be found here.
5) spyrochaete: Uranus most likely got whacked hard by something early on in its history which tipped it over. Such impacts are most likely responsible for the Earth’s tilt, and that of other planets as well. I have always been curious about Uranus’ tilt, since the moons still orbit it along its equator; I suspect (though I need to look this up) that they formed (or some were captured) after the event that tilted Uranus. I’ll have to write this all up at some point. it’s cool.
June 26th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Allegory:
Your post ‘proves’ why we scientific types (even Christian scientists) don’t really like discussing things with people such as yourself.
You’ve developed a bizarre little philosophy and have obviously never done the gruly work necessary to participate in science.
True physical science is ultimatelyu quantitative. We can push around words all we like and both of us will be convinced he’s right, but with MEASUREABLE quantities that are a direct result of physical theory, one of us will have to shut up quickly as the data confirms or not our physical theory.
Quantum mechanics, for instance, is by far the most successful physical theory ever developed by humankind, able to predict experimental outcome to 10 or even 20 decimal places in many cases. And yet, are there any humans who could meaningfully replace the Schrodinger equation with WORDS, and then proceed based on verbal logic?
This is a very Dark Ages view of science, and your ignorance is precisely what makes you so dangerous to the future of our planet. It’s what let you support your Republican war machine just because they sounded and looked like you.
June 26th, 2007 at 8:48 am
Joel:
Your statements about the bigbang and wrong to the point of being laughable. The big bang pops directly out of the equations of general relativity, and we have huge reams of numerical and experiiment support, including cosmic background radiation.
I’d also point out that the earliest portion of Genesis (with it’s four polarizations) looks a HELL of a lot like an allegory for the big bang and subsequent cooling of one superforce into the four fundamental forces of nature.
Put down your idols and graven intellectual images and ARISE to see that God has given humankind the gift of modern science.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Hey Phil
You are probably already aware of this, but today I just read this article saying that our solar system probably did not originate in the Milky Way galaxy but in the Sagitarian Dwarf galaxy (http://viewzone.com/milkyway.html) before