Laws of Physics and Evolution

[Dannager]

Actually, no. You read up on it.

I have. Many times. Many, many times. In fact, I probably read up on it twice every time someone starts a thread on the Big Bang in the CvE forums, which happens depressingly often.

You can throw around accusations like you are grading my term paper, but that isn't how it is.

Well, no, I'm not a professor and you sure as heck didn't write anything resembling a term paper.

All my sources are conventional sources that advocate a big bang. If you want to understand, you will ask. Otherwise, you can pretend to be more educated if that makes you happy.

Those sources that "advocate" the Big Bang address those specific contentions you've brought up and refute them. If they don't, I can direct you to some sources that do refute those contentions.

As for evolution, the issue of entropy is a less precise application, but still a fully rational argument. In fact, there is evidence by some scientists that this is exactly what evolution is: a trend in populations toward less vigor, more entropy, not speciation.

Could you please cite some of these scientists' peer-reviewed work on the subject of entropy in species? You are aware of course that entropy applies to thermodynamics, right? Not anything else? It deals with heat transfer. Not speciation.

 

[busterdog]

So what laws of physica applied just prior to the big bang? Was there a "prior" to the big bang? Was there gravity? Was there light? Was there electromagnetism?

And no quntum tunnel cheating. Nobody knows what that is anyway.

From wikipedia:

A singularity is, roughly speaking, a point in spacetime where various physical quantities (such as the curvature or energy density) become infinite, and therefore physical laws "break down." Singularities can be found in various important spacetimes, such as the Schwarzschild metric for a black hole and the Big Bang in the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metric thought to describe our universe. They present a problem, for since it is not clear how the equations of physics apply at a singularity, one cannot predict what might come "out" of a singularity in our past, or what happens to an observer that falls "in" to a singularity in the future.

Why must you guys do this? In some parallel universe where you assume the worst in what is said, maybe your statements are true. But , not here. The OP had a perfectly legitimate point. And you have to quibble about whether the know laws of physics apply to the Big Bang? Do I need to excuse myself for not referring to "just prior to" the BB?

And what about this sophistry about "something out of nothing"? Is it a meaningful distinction to say it is an entirely different idea to say "something out of something we know nothing about?" Come on. Just go with it. You won't catch anything fatal or debilitating. THis is not a terribly difficult argument.

Wikipedia on Jastrow, whom all the YECs love:

His expressed views on Creation are that although he is an "agnostic, and not a believer",[1] it seems to him that "the curtain drawn over the mystery of creation will never be raised by human efforts, at least in the foreseeable future"[1] due to "the circumstances of the big bang-the fiery holocaust that destroyed the record of the past".[1]

Truth Journal

Message from Professor Robert Jastrow

(Board of Advisors)

Professor Robert Jastrow-Ph.D. (1948), from Columbia University; Chief of the Theoretical Division of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1958-61) and Founder/Director of NASA 's Goddard Institute; Professor of Geophysics at Columbia University; Professor of Space Studies-Earth Sciences at Dartmouth College. Writings include: Astronomy: Fundamentals And Frontiers (Wiley, 1972); God And The Astronomers (Norton, 1978); The Enchanted Loom (Touchstone, 1983); Has been described by Paddy Chayevsky as "the greatest writer on science alive today." Recent developments in astronomy have implications that may go beyond their contribution to science itself. In a nutshell, astronomers, studying the Universe through their telescopes, have been forced to the conclusion that the world began suddenly, in a moment of creation, as the product of unknown forces.
The first scientific indication of an abrupt beginning for the world appeared about fifty years ago. At that time American astronomers, studying the great clusters of stars called galaxies, stumbled on evidence that the entire Universe is blowing up before our eyes. According to their observations, all the galaxies in the Universe are moving away from us and from one another at very high speeds, and the most distant are receding at the extraordinary speed of hundreds of millions of miles an hour.
This discovery led directly to the picture of a sudden beginning for the Universe; for if we retrace the movements of the moving galaxies backward in time, we find that at an earlier time they must have been closer together than they are today; at a still earlier time, they must have been still closer together; and if we go back far enough in time, we find that at a certain critical moment in the past all the galaxies in the Universe were packed together into one dense mass at an enormous density, pressure and temperature. Reacting to this pressure, the dense, hot matter must have exploded with incredible violence. The instant of the explosion marked the birth of the Universe.
The seed of everything that has happened in the Universe was planted in that first instant; every star, every planet and every living creature in the Universe came into being as a result of events that were set in motion in the moment of the cosmic explosion. It was literally the moment of Creation.
From a philosophical point of view, this finding has traumatic implications for science. Scientists have always felt more comfortable with the idea of a Universe that has existed forever, because their thinking is permeated with the idea of Cause and Effect; they believe that every event that takes place in the world can be explained in a rational way as the consequence of some previous event. Einstein once said, "The scientist is possessed of a sense of infinite causation." If there is a religion in science, this statement can be regarded as its principal article of faith. But the latest astronomical results indicate that at some point in the past the chain of cause and effect terminated abruptly. An important event occurred-the origin of the world-for which there is no known cause or explanation within the realm of science. The Universe flashed into being, and we cannot find out what caused that to happen.
This is a distressing result for scientists because, in the scientist's view, given enough time and money, he must be able to find an explanation for the beginning of the Universe on his own terms-an explanation that fits into the framework of natural rather than supernatural forces.
So, the scientist asks himself, what cause led to the effect we call the Universe? And he proceeds to examine the conditions under which the world began. But then he sees that he is deprived-today, tomorrow, and very likely forever-of finding out the answer to this critical question.
Why is that? The answer has to do with the conditions that prevailed in the first moments of the Universe's existence. At that time it must have been compressed to an enormous-perhaps infinite-density, temperature and pressure. The shock of that moment must have destroyed every relic of an earlier, pre-creation Universe that could have yielded a clue to the cause of the great explosion. To find that cause, the scientist must reconstruct the chain of events that took place prior to the seeming moment of creation, and led to the appearance of our Universe as their end product. But just this, he cannot do. For all the evidence he might have examined to that end has been melted down and destroyed in the intense heat and pressure of the first moment. No clue remains to the nature of the forces-natural or supernatural that conspired to bring about the event we call the Big Bang.
This is a very surprising conclusion. Nothing in the history of science leads us to believe there should be a fundamental limit to the results of scientific inquiry. Science has had extraordinary success in piecing together the elements of a story of cosmic evolution that adds many details to the first pages of Genesis. The scientist has traced the history of the Universe back in time from the appearance of man to the lower animals, then across the threshold of life to a time when the earth did not exist, and then back farther still to a time when stars and galaxies had not yet formed and the heavens were dark. Now he goes farther back still, feeling he is close to success-the answer to the ultimate question of beginning-when suddenly the chain of cause and effect snaps. The birth of the Universe is an effect for which he cannot find the cause.
Some say still that if the astronomer cannot find that cause today, he will find it tomorrow, and we will read about it in the New York Times when Walter Sullivan gets around to reporting on it. But I think the circumstances of the Big Bang-the fiery holocaust that destroyed the record of the past-make that extremely unlikely.
This is why it seems to me and to others that the curtain drawn over the mystery of creation will never be raised by human efforts, at least in the foreseeable future. Although I am an agnostic, and not a believer, I still find much to ponder in the view expressed by the British astronomer E. A. Milne, who wrote, "We can make no propositions about the state of affairs [in the beginning]; in the Divine act of creation God is unobserved and unwitnessed."

I am demonstrably more crabby about this than I need to be. The thought of apologizing crossed my mind. However, I am not that nice today. Just admit to a couple of black pixels in this unspecified shade of gray lying between YEC and TE on this issue of the moment of creation. All will be foregiven.

 

[grl4christ17]

what do you believe not what the laws say but what do you say?

 

[Deamiter]

As a physicist, I'm not satisfied with the answers people have given so far, though I agree with most of them. In your last post, Graham4C, you said that nobody gave correct facts. If you ask any particular question, I'd sure LOVE to give facts. The issue here is your article, so to stay on topic, I'll address each of your points and give as much background as I can without straying off topic.

The Big Bang is widely accepted as an explanation for our origins. What most people overlook, however, is that it does not sit well with the laws of science. In remembering that the laws of science can be demonstrated and proved again and again while the Big Bang is only a theory with no evidence, we have to go with what science points out. The laws broken by the Big Bang theory are listed briefly below.

I understand, given your points below, how you might come to the conclusion that the Big Bang does not sit well with the laws of science, but your understanding of the science here is flawed. Events do NOT have to be repeated for scientists to draw conclusions about them. A very common analogy is forensic science -- a murder does not have to be repeated for scientists to be able to determine who did it. Events leave evidence, and especially in sciences like Astronomy and Geology, the events do not have to be repeated for their effects to give us clues to the nature of the events.

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The conservation of mass-energy
[F New Roman]This law states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. It rather changes from one form to another. Evolution states that all the matter and energy in the Universe came from nothing.[/FONT]

You're absolutely right, the Big Bang (assuming a singularity poofed into existance though nobody knows how) violates this law. However, it is utterly nonsense to APPLY this law to the Big Bang. Physical laws are only as accurate as our observations, and our observations are ONLY of our universe. Who's to say that universes don't poof into existance all the time given a physical law that governs outside of our universe?

Most Christians today (creationists and others alike) see God as outside our universe but acting within it. This point revolves around the premise that physical laws we observe IN the universe also apply outside -- so if this argument against the Big Bang is true, God would also be incapable of creation...

To give you some scientific truth in place of misunderstanding, ENERGY cannot be created, but on an atomic level, particle-anti-particle pairs are poofing in and out of existance ALL the time! This is how black holes "radiate" as sometimes one of the particles is sucked in while the other has enough momentum to leave the black hole. Anyway, it's not an unscientific idea to think that something COULD come from nothing (remember, while energy is conserved in the universe, particles do this all the time) and it's MOST unscientific to apply conclusions like conservation of energy to a space that nobody has ever observed!

[F New Roman]The first law of thermodynamics[/FONT]
[F New Roman]This law states that energy and can change from one form to another, but cannot be created or destroyed. It is almost identical to the conservation of mass-energy.[/FONT]
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I won't repeat myself because mass and energy are really interchangable (as you alluded to in this comment). Again, a conclusion (the law) based on our observation of the universe can HARDLY be applied to something outside of the universe! It'd be like observing people in American supermarkets and concluding that everybody wears shoes when they shop. A quick trip to Africa would falsify that quite quickly.

The second law of thermodynamics
[F New Roman]This law is also called the law of entropy. It states that, in an energy exchange, some energy is always lost – in the form of heat and light for example. It also means that everything tends towards disorder. Evolution has the Universe changing from a state of disorder (Big Bang) into a somewhat orderly state.[/FONT]
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I disagree that some energy is always 'lost' because it goes SOMEWHERE but that's not the point. I'll use the term "order" in place of "entropy" because many people find the units of entropy to be backwards from their intuitive understanding. My physics professors would cringe, but it'll make sense on the level we're discussing science here.

In fact, a singularity is the HIGHEST state of order possible. Everything has the same state in the same place at the same time... A good analogy is a box of gas with a piston on one side. The smaller you push the box, the higher the pressure, and the greater the order. The larger you allow the box to expand, the lower the pressure and the order decreases.

Finally, entropy ONLY applies in a CLOSED system. Every time we eat, every time we move or reproduce we increase the order of our bodies. How does this happen?!? Well the sun is constantly adding energy to the earth and overall, the solar system is losing MUCH more order (in undirected radiation from the sun) than the earth or our bodies are gaining. Your refrigerator increases the order of your food (cools it) by taking order away from a power plant... Anyway, adaptation by changing genes in no way violates this law any more than what you'd call macroevolution. Quite simply local order can and DOES very often increase as long as the larger system's order decreases. In our case, the sun will continue to lose order MUCH faster than the earth or anything on the earth can gain it -- whether evolution happened or not!

Newton’s first law of motion
[F New Roman]Probably one of the biggest flaws of Evolution is that it contradicts this law in particular. Newton’s second law states that “an object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.” According to the Theory of Evolution, a tiny dot containing all the matter in the Universe began to spin. It spun faster and faster and then exploded into the Universe we see today. According to the observable proof of Newton’s second law, this could not have happened.[/FONT]

I'm not sure where you got this idea, but it's wrong on two levels. First of all, many parts of the universe (galaxies, solar system etc...) do rotate, but not because of some initial cosmic rotation. They rotate around each other because gravity tends to pull moving objects into orbits. As far as I am aware, there is absolutely NO evidence of any universal rotation (do correct me if I'm wrong). I know some people have proposed it and tried to look for it, but I don't think anybody has found any evidence for it.

Anyway if you can get your hands on two magnets and throw them past each other, they'll connect and spin -- this effect is a DIRECT effect of the conservation of momentum. Further, if you throw them past each other on the opposite sides, they'll spin the opposite direction. Gravity works much the same way (though it's much weaker, so the objects are more likely to orbit rather than hit each other).

Finally, in a pre-spinning solar system (or even universe for that matter) there are many things that could cause one planet or asteroid to spin in the opposite direction of the larger system. Collisions in particular cause spin in a direction dependent on the orientation of the collision, and only partially on initial angular momentum. it's VERY easy to convert kienetic energy into angular moment as I tried to show with the magnets.

[F New Roman]Newton’s third law of motion[/FONT]
[F New Roman]“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The Big Bang has only one reaction (explosion) and no opposite reaction at all never mind one of equal strength.[/FONT]

There was no explosion in the propsed Big Bang. It's a common way to explain the Big Bang to laymen, but it's rather inaccurate. The singularity expanded. It did not expand due to pressure (like in a grenade or bomb) but because of the nature of the universe.

Again, I do see the point, and that the universe came into existance IS utterly unexplainable to science today, and although scientists come up with some interesting hypotheses, we don't now and may never have the ability to test them. I personally think that there's a good chance that God directly caused the Big Bang, but if not, I don't see any reason why he couldn't have caused whatever caused the Big Bang. Again, though, you're trying to apply a conclusion based on observations IN the universe to something that began OUTSIDE of the universe. That's just not applicable, though in this case, the major misunderstanding is thinking that pieces of a spinning, exploding object will all revolve in the same direction. That's simply not true since there are MANY collisions in such an explosion that can transfer energy in a multitude of ways.

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[F New Roman]The conservation of Angular Momentum[/FONT]
[F New Roman]Because the outside of an object spins faster than the inside, if the object explodes, the pieces will all be spinning in the same direction. Therefore if the Big Bang was true, all the matter in the Universe would be spinning in the same direction. If Evolution and the Big Bang are true, then why are 3 of the planets in our solar system spinning backwards in relation to the others? Why are many of the moons spinning backwards? Why are entire galaxies spinning backwards? The argument that they have slowed down and have started spinning the other way cannot be used. This is because space is a frictionless environment and to assume that this has happened is again breaking Newton’s first law.[/FONT]

There's two issues here. The first I explained above -- that collisions can EASILY cause something to spin backwards. You can test this with two balls. Spin one and hit it with another. If the moving ball hits the spinning ball on one side, it will spin faster. If the moving ball hits the spinning ball on the other side, it will slow down or turn in the other direction. If they collide straight on, there will be only a minor transfer of angular momentum due to friction and the time of the contact.

The second issue is your argument that moons cannot start spinning the other way because space is frictionless. I THINK I agree with this (without a collision, I don't think tidal forces can reverse spin -- but I may be wrong). However, tidal forces CAN change the rate of spin.

I'm afraid I'm at a loss as to how I can demonstrate this... but it's not too difficult to look up if you don't believe me. The point is that if the rate of spin of a sufficiently small object around a large enough object in a close enough orbit (like the moon around the Earth or Mercury around the Earth) WILL change to match the rate of orbit of the smaller object. It's called tide locking if you're interested in it further. As I think about it, I think it MIGHT be able to reverse spin, but that's really not the point -- especially since planets and moons that are NOT tide-locked do spin "backwards" compared to the rest of the solar system. In those cases, it is ENTIRELY possible for collisions to cause the change in angular momentum (with the energy coming from what was previously kinetic energy).

 

[Willtor]

Why must you guys do this? In some parallel universe where you assume the worst in what is said, maybe your statements are true. But , not here. The OP had a perfectly legitimate point. And you have to quibble about whether the know laws of physics apply to the Big Bang? Do I need to excuse myself for not referring to "just prior to" the BB?

I don't think you have to excuse yourself, but in understanding what the BB actually does say, and (possibly more importantly) what it doesn't say, it would be inappropriate to direct most of these arguments toward it. It might be better to ask whether these arguments are good indications of the existence of God (or whether they are well-informed, to begin with).

Although you clearly see the difference between evolution and the BB, you have to realize that most creationists who post here don't. Thus, it's generally difficult for TEs and YECs to have meaningful dialogue. Even if the arguments against the BB were valid, it would be rather like asserting the death of computer science because Intel was publishing false stats on its processors.

 

[Dannager]

what do you believe not what the laws say but what do you say?

Evolutionary theory is largely accurate, man evolved naturally many millions of years ago, and all living organisms can be traced backwards through history via common ancestry.

 

[sfs]

You're absolutely right, the Big Bang (assuming a singularity poofed into existance though nobody knows how) violates this law.

Are you sure? What is the total energy of the universe? Is it different from zero? Is it even a meaningful quantity in a general relativistic framework?

 

[sfs]

Why must you guys do this? In some parallel universe where you assume the worst in what is said, maybe your statements are true. But , not here. The OP had a perfectly legitimate point. And you have to quibble about whether the know laws of physics apply to the Big Bang?

There are legitimate points to be made about the Big Bang, but I don't see the original post making any of them. Quite a bit of it is simply wrong, e.g. the stuff about angular momentum, about the Big Bang as an explosion, about the Big Bang having high entropy.

A legitimate point is that scientists don't know what happened at the beginning of the (visible) universe, or why. Even the fact that the universe had a beginning is interesting, and bothers some scientists. What we do know about the Big Bang does not violate any fundamental laws of physics, however. In the very earliest period of the Big Bang, the laws that we normally use stop working because the energies involved are too high; since we don't know what the laws are that apply to that energy regime, we can't say much about what can or cannot have happened. After that period, the conservation laws seem to be working just fine.

Not that there are no problems. For example, take the formation of the asymmetry between matter and antimatter. The laws of particle physics that we know -- the Standard Model -- can (and do) generate some asymmetry between matter and antimatter, but not enough to explain the massive asymmetry seen in nature. I suppose this could be considered a violation of a physical law. But pretty much every physicist working in the field expects there to be additional particle processes working at those energies (much higher than anything we experience, but much lower than the very early period mentioned above), so no one expects the Standard Model to be an accurate description anyway.

Do I need to excuse myself for not referring to "just prior to" the BB?

You don't need to excuse yourself, but you should recognize that if you use scientific terms imprecisely, scientists are going to misunderstand you.

 

[Deamiter]

Are you sure? What is the total energy of the universe? Is it different from zero? Is it even a meaningful quantity in a general relativistic framework?

Not sure at all! I'm far from specializing in theoretical physics but my impression has always been that the total energy of the universe is nonzero. I'm afraid I've never heard of negative energy or anti-energy.

Anyway, I admit fully that there may indeed be conservation of energy that applies outside of the universe, but the point is that it is quite independent of what happens inside the universe.

At this point, science has no concept of "outside of the universe" besides in the imagination of scientists. NOTHING we know about the universe can be applied to "outside of the universe" since we've never even begun to observe it in any verifiable way.

 

[Silent Bob]

Not sure at all! I'm far from specializing in theoretical physics but my impression has always been that the total energy of the universe is nonzero. I'm afraid I've never heard of negative energy or anti-energy.

Anyway, I admit fully that there may indeed be conservation of energy that applies outside of the universe, but the point is that it is quite independent of what happens inside the universe.

At this point, science has no concept of "outside of the universe" besides in the imagination of scientists. NOTHING we know about the universe can be applied to "outside of the universe" since we've never even begun to observe it in any verifiable way.

I have read a smaller explanation about the zero energy sum of the universe in "A briefer history of time" but I cannot find it instead I found a chapter in "A brief history of time" and here is a quote:

The idea of inflation could also explain why there is so much matter in the universe. There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeros after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.​

Now twice zero is also zero. Thus the universe can double the amount of positive matter energy and also double the negative gravitational energy without violation of the conservation of energy. This does not happen in the normal expansion of the universe in which the matter energy density goes down as the universe gets bigger. It does happen, however, in the inflationary expansion because the energy density of the supercooled state remains constant while the universe expands: when the universe doubles in size, the positive matter energy and the negative gravitational energy both double, so the total energy remains zero. During the inflationary phase, the universe increases its size by a very large amount. Thus the total amount of energy available to make particles becomes very large. As Guth has remarked, “It is said that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch.”​

 

[busterdog]

I understand, given your points below, how you might come to the conclusion that the Big Bang does not sit well with the laws of science, but your understanding of the science here is flawed. Events do NOT have to be repeated for scientists to draw conclusions about them. A very common analogy is forensic science -- a murder does not have to be repeated for scientists to be able to determine who did it. Events leave evidence, and especially in sciences like Astronomy and Geology, the events do not have to be repeated for their effects to give us clues to the nature of the events.

You're absolutely right, the Big Bang (assuming a singularity poofed into existance though nobody knows how) violates this law. However, it is utterly nonsense to APPLY this law to the Big Bang. Physical laws are only as accurate as our observations, and our observations are ONLY of our universe. Who's to say that universes don't poof into existance all the time given a physical law that governs outside of our universe?

Here is the point of agreement. The OP was suggesting that the conclusion of "godidit" as the intellectual escape of the YEC applies with virtually equal force in TE models of the big bang (or whatever it came from).

Does that spell defeat for science? Well, if the assumptions are 1. this aberration doesn't count, since science will eventually conquer it; or 2. the abberation doesn't count because science is thinking more seriously about the things that are beyond its understanding, then I think this is a fair criticism of science. But, it would be a little premature for YEC to claim victory over science. As with Michael contending over the body of Moses, the victory is the Lords, in whatever form that might take. (Half a smart-alec swipe, admittedly.)

As you said "who's to say"? That problem lingers for those who claim inerrancy and those who claim to be scientists.

Logical positivism taught years ago that if you can't express a concept in reasonably good language, it has no practical meaning or substance. I am inclined to agree to this extent and on this question. A very elaborate restatement of the utter mystery of this particular realm is no better than throwing up one's hands in a gesture of absolute wonder. I appreciate that science is working on the problem, but that doesn't mean there is an answer. Science has not done better than YEC in dealing with origins to this extent.

The OP simply suggested that the BB shows that science has come to the end of itself, since its laws no longer apply at this level. I guess we should all agree on that?

But, why do you add the following: "However, it is utterly nonsense to APPLY this law to the Big Bang"? Seems like you were otherwise willing to take your lumps on this particular battle knowing that, as a science , the war has not been lost.

 

[busterdog]

I don't think you have to excuse yourself, but in understanding what the BB actually does say, and (possibly more importantly) what it doesn't say, it would be inappropriate to direct most of these arguments toward it. It might be better to ask whether these arguments are good indications of the existence of God (or whether they are well-informed, to begin with).

Although you clearly see the difference between evolution and the BB, you have to realize that most creationists who post here don't. Thus, it's generally difficult for TEs and YECs to have meaningful dialogue. Even if the arguments against the BB were valid, it would be rather like asserting the death of computer science because Intel was publishing false stats on its processors.

There was a time when I worried about winning the debate between YEC and TE on another board. Not only is that a damper on discussion, but science may not be able to answer its own ultimate question and YEC is essentially making a scientific argument most of the time.

Now it would seem to be more productive to look for points of agreement. In my business, people sometimes come in with elegantly constructed statements of reason, and I understand quickly (sometimes). Other times, I have to make reason out of babbling. That is often the first step toward an agreement.

However, that is good practice for any fellowship of believers. It is a model of grace itself. There may be a certain art of pattern recognition that goes with it. But, even assuming the OP misstated any of the laws (I can't remember), the pattern was there.

In this ongoing debate between YEC and TE, here and elsewhere, this is the recurring pattern: knowledge hits a wall. Sometimes it is excused by proponents of science, sometimes it is Exhibit 1 for the prosecution by YEC. Neither approach is satisfying.

 

[shernren]

The OP "isn't even wrong", it begins with terrible misunderstandings of science and the Big Bang. To argue that the Big Bang couldn't have happened because of Newton's First or Third Laws is like saying that the moon must have been specially created because it is made of vignette green cheese. There are reasonable arguments against the Big Bang, but the OP simply isn't one of them.

 

[busterdog]

The OP "isn't even wrong", it begins with terrible misunderstandings of science and the Big Bang. To argue that the Big Bang couldn't have happened because of Newton's First or Third Laws is like saying that the moon must have been specially created because it is made of vignette green cheese. There are reasonable arguments against the Big Bang, but the OP simply isn't one of them.

"Couldn't have happened" is something that you will need to indulge to have the discussion.

You and I have gone through "terribly unlikely" and that was pretty difficult to get as far as we did.

I read the OP to essentially raise the same issue, which I think is what we should do mostly.

We get back to the issue of whether something for which there are no laws to allow description can in any sense be "likely." Even creation by God cannot be put within such laws and the science of probabilities fail.

I think science really has a hard time just saying "we are stumped" simply because they can speculate in greater detail.

 

[Dannager]

I think science really has a hard time just saying "we are stumped" simply because they can speculate in greater detail.

That's because "we are stumped" is always a temporary position in science.

 

[Deamiter]

Logical positivism taught years ago that if you can't express a concept in reasonably good language, it has no practical meaning or substance. I am inclined to agree to this extent and on this question. A very elaborate restatement of the utter mystery of this particular realm is no better than throwing up one's hands in a gesture of absolute wonder.

The detail you're missing is that theories of the Big Bang explain most of our current knowledge of cosmology, have predicted future findings, and do NOT conflict with ANY data any scientist has ever taken.

In a later post, you defend the OP saying that it was just saying the BB is unlikely... but since it grossly misrepresents science (as I tried to respectfully point out in my post) it in fact says nothing at all about the Big Bang. A straw man says nothing about the actual theory -- nothing about its probability, nothing about it's accuracy -- as a MISrepresentation of the current scientific understanding, it CAN say nothing about current scientific theories.

 

[Deamiter]

Sorry for the double post. To make this post worth something, I'll just add that as an example, scientists (strong Christians in fact) were able to show that the earth was MUCH more than 10,000 years old before they knew how it could have formed. They ruled out one possibility even though they were unable (then) to present a more accurate theory until years later.

 

[busterdog]

That's because "we are stumped" is always a temporary position in science.

Anything is possible.

We can debate whether that is a good thing.

Gen 11:6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people [is] one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

 

[busterdog]

The detail you're missing is that theories of the Big Bang explain most of our current knowledge of cosmology, have predicted future findings, and do NOT conflict with ANY data any scientist has ever taken.

In a later post, you defend the OP saying that it was just saying the BB is unlikely... but since it grossly misrepresents science (as I tried to respectfully point out in my post) it in fact says nothing at all about the Big Bang. A straw man says nothing about the actual theory -- nothing about its probability, nothing about it's accuracy -- as a MISrepresentation of the current scientific understanding, it CAN say nothing about current scientific theories.

Well, for a theory to "explain most" of anything, how can it begin from a point without any known physical laws?

 

[shernren]

"Couldn't have happened" is something that you will need to indulge to have the discussion.

You and I have gone through "terribly unlikely" and that was pretty difficult to get as far as we did.

I read the OP to essentially raise the same issue, which I think is what we should do mostly.

We get back to the issue of whether something for which there are no laws to allow description can in any sense be "likely." Even creation by God cannot be put within such laws and the science of probabilities fail.

I think science really has a hard time just saying "we are stumped" simply because they can speculate in greater detail.

What I was trying to get across is that the OP

begins with a concept of the Big Bang that nobody uses,
applies physical laws in grossly misunderstood manner,
and then "concludes" that the Big Bang could not have happened.

The OP's main conception of the Big Bang is: According to the Theory of Evolution, a tiny dot containing all the matter in the Universe began to spin. It spun faster and faster and then exploded into the Universe we see today.

That's simply not true. The Big Bang really is:

Approximately 10^−35 seconds after the Planck epoch a phase transition caused the universe to experience exponential growth during a period called cosmic inflation. After inflation stopped, the material components of the universe were in the form of a quark-gluon plasma (also including all other particles—and perhaps experimentally produced recently as a quark-gluon liquid [3]) in which the constituent particles were all moving relativistically.

There's no "tiny dot" which began "to spin" and then "spun faster and faster" and then "exploded into the Universe we see today". That simply is not Big Bang cosmology at all.

Furthermore, the OP grossly misunderstands Newton's Laws. In particular, Newton's Third Law is given a particularly atrocious treatment: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The Big Bang has only one reaction (explosion) and no opposite reaction at all never mind one of equal strength.

Newton's Third Law actually reads: All forces occur in pairs, and these two forces are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction. This law of motion is most commonly paraphrased as: "For every action force there is an equal, but opposite, reaction force."

An explosion is not "one reaction". An explosion actually creates pairs of action-reaction forces. For example, a stationary bomb explodes into two fragments. Newton's Third Law states that when Fragment A exerts a force on Fragment B, causing it to fly off in one direction, Fragment B exerts an equal and opposite reaction force on Fragment A, causing it to fly off in another direction. The Law certainly does not conclude that an explosion is physically impossible!

I'm not talking about speculation, probabilities, or realms of unknown science here. The OP is an abuse of basic scientific principles and should be scolded as such. There are arguments against the BB that are far more reasonable that this, so why defend it? Reject the bad and hold fast to what is good.