Morat, throught the course of this argument, i have tried to not use dogmatic statements like "God did it." I meant this thread for Christians to discuss. But still, you say things like "natural selection does it." If you think that's a good substitute for "God did it," knock yourself out. Just don't assume your beliefs are right while telling me mine aren't good.
How did God do it? Natural selection works in a simple, explainable, testable way. Differential reproduction.
You say "God did it", and I'm as clueless as I was before as to how it really happened. I say "Natural selection did it" and you know that enviromental pressures resulted in differential reproduction, which led to a change in allele frequences in a population. Depending on the example, you can see what alleles and what pressures.
"Natural selection" explains antiobiotic resistance in bacteria. We know the buggers are dying in that enviroment, and that, because of natural selection, any of them that manage to tough it out better than others will contribute a greater percentage to the next generation (by virtue of being alive). With DNA analysis, we can even see what mutations, and what alleles changed from generation to generation.
Can you think of any "God did it" explanation that is that predictive?
See below for an explanation.
You think triangulation is the
only way astronomers measure distance? How..strange.
Funny, i didn't notice the universe zooming away from me. Did you, Morat?
Funny, the earth spinning under my feet doesn't make me motion-sick either. I don't notice the Earth zooming sideways through space at a rather good clip, either.
It's amazing what you don't notice.
You're thinking in the right direction, and i like that. But the problem is that everyone gives scientific measurements and reports the benefit of doubt. We (the public) can't know for sure what the truth is regarding the "flow." How many of us here have measured the distance to Betelgeuse by our own instruments?
I see. It's a "conspiracy". Hey, it's worth a shot. When all else fails, call them liars.
I said let's drop it, and i told you what i believe. But if you want a perpetual argument, i guess i can do that. Here we go:
I'm not dropping it, because it's a stupid claim.
Evolution uses abiogenesis for one leg and the BB for another. Without these, it will fall apart. If people lost their silly faith in abiogenesis and the BB, evolution couldn't continue.
Really? Can you quote me
any paper on biological evolution that discusses the Big Bang or abiogenesis. I'll even take a textbook.
I'll wait for you to support this.
You think math doesn't involve experimentation?
I know it doesn't.
Ask Seebs. He's a programmer, he'll tell you that when you write a program, it involves a lot of numbers. One way to test it is to assign different values to variables and see if the answer comes out the same.
Funny. So am I. You wouldn't
believe the number of math courses you need for a Computer Science degree.
Programs involve lots of variables. Programs aren't math.
Same in algebra: y=ax+b. Before you can find x-intercept, you will need to know the x and y, and the slope of the line.
Science isn't always goggles and Erlenmeyer flasks.
That's not experimentation, dear boy. And you're somewhat wrong. First off, when solving for an X intercept, you know y is zero. So you only need to know A and B. But since "y =ax+b" is the generic formula for
any line, this isn't exactly rocket science.
Where's the experimentation there? I plug in numbers, I get different equations with different X intercepts. So? That's not experimentation, that's drawing differnent lines.
Don't back out. Answer for <I>before</I> and <I>after</I>, if you can please.
I'm asking for clarification. If you're unwilling to give it, I can't answer. *shrug*. It's not my fault you're unclear. You stated you weren't aware of anything "during the Big Bang". I asked if you meant "before" the Big Bang or "after" the Big Bang. The Big Bang itself was, depending on how you look at it, a fast event over the moment it started, or a long-drawn out one still going on.
So, clarify your question and I'll answer it. I don't read minds.
omething doesn't happen by itself. Like someone said above -- it's cause-effect. For something to take place, there needs to be a cause. This even works in physics. For something to move, for example, something causes it to move.
Cause and effect are macroscopic concepts, bound to space-time. Without time, there is no cause and effect. And quantum events ignore it anyways.
Take two atoms of U-235. Watch them. After a period of time, one will decay. The other will not. What caused one atom to decay, but not the other?
Nothing.
Decay is causeless. It happens, the mechanism is well understood. But no event caused Atom A to decay, and not Atom B.
Why not? One reason -- because it is a foolish belief. Why do i presuppose God? Same reason you presuppose evolution -- because i believe in God.
Presuppose evolution? Don't be silly. I don't presuppose evolution anymore than I presuppose that a binary search is an excellent way of searching a sorted list, or that it fails miserably if it's not sorted.
I don't presuppose God. I didn't presuppose evolution. Evolution is the best explanation for the facts I've found, and is so well supported that it's quite hard to deny. And yet, I hang around places like this, just waiting for someone to come up with something that'll make me rethink it.
What do you think is matter? I thought that it is everything that is made of particles. Light, animals, ammonium perchlorate, etc. If you think a car doesn't change when it goes under a semi trailer, i'd like to sell you one. Matter <I>changes</I> -- elemenary physics students know of <I>states of matter</I>. It's not a constant.
States of matter? Good lord, Alex. You think ice is different than water?
Matter stays the same. Whether the car is in pristine condition, or crushed into a 2 foot cube, the protons, neutrons, and electrons are still the same as they always were.
Steel, ice, gold, alloys, gasses....the properties of these things are properties caused by the specific combination of
unchanging particles they're made up of.
Gold is different than nitrogen because gold has more protons, neutrons, and electrons than nitrogen. Which gives it different properties.
But those protons, electrons, and neutrons properties never change.
No need to apologize. Except for the bad example. <I>Matter</I> doesn't imply molecules or atoms.
Matter
is subatomic particles. Your problem is you're trying to take a
collection of these particles, point out that different collections have different properties, and claim that thus fundamental laws change.
Bollucks. Those properties never change, anymore than the properties of "2" change in "2+3 =5" and "2+5 =7".
So you think that in the elements we have now are the same as those in the BB? I don't think they've changed either, but i don't believe in the BB.
Elements? Nope.
I said subatomic particles. Don't change my words, please. Heck, right after the Big Bang, all you had was a nifty soup of free quarks. As the universes cooled, they formed protons, neutrons, and electrons.
But strangely, the properties of the quarks never changed. And over the last 15 billion years, the properties of quarks, electrons, neutrons, and protons have never changed either.