Official Call For Papers

[Michael]

I was taking it away from conjectural concepts such as dark matter/energy. To my understanding (admittedly I'm not a cosmologist) but my understanding of dark matter was that it was invoked to explain gravitational effects but has, thus far, not been "proven". There is some mass somewhere that has thus far been undetected.

Well, lensing data might suggest a certain amount of "unidentified mass", but that doesn't mean it's an exotic form of matter anymore than a UFO necessarily comes from another planet. That's not stopping anyone from making up "properties" of DM that have never been empirically demonstrated in a controlled experiment.

Besides, to my knowledge, the first stopping point on the "Different State Train" is usually brought about because of earth history not matching up with Literal Genesis.

Well, it goes a bit deeper than that actually, and current theory isn't immune. People have a need to have a "creation date", a "beginning of time" so to speak. There is no guarantee that such a thing happened 6 thousand years ago or 13.7 billion years ago.

So I take it back to the core concept. How many Creationists started with cold dark matter and reasoned some different state past? But I bet just about every single creationist started by saying "hmmm, geology doesn't match up with what I read in Genesis, ergo musta been a different state!"

Whereas astronomers claim that the at the beginning must have been a different state, an "inflation state". Whereas most religious deities are thought to continue to interact with humans, the inflation deity is now dead and gone and will therefore never show up in a lab. It's quite the deistic "religion".

As for events at or near the Big Bang, well sure I'm sure many things were rather dramatically different.

Maybe not. There's no evidence that all matter and energy was ever collected to a single point in the first place. That's another modern dogma of creation science.

Again, the "electric universe" stuff I've been exposed to seems to go to ridiculous extremes to explain rather mundane geologic phenomena when it applies to earth structures (my area is geology, obviously, so I tend to deal more in geologic topics, my apologies with that limitation).

You might checkout the work of Kristian Birkeland, Dr. Charles Bruce and Dr. Hannes Alfven sometime. EU theory is predicated on the notion that gravity is not the only influencing force in space, and some events are related to "current flows" in space. Plasma is an *excellent* conductor, and electrical activity happens here on Earth, so there is nothing particularly "weird" about the idea. Compare and contrast the addition of EM fields to adding made up inflation and dark energy fields to GR.

Except YEC requires these alarming changes within the very recent past.

Whereas the Lambda-CDM creation mythos requires alarming changes almost all the time, from supernatural inflation phases to dark evil energy takeovers. The dogma and dates may be different, but that's about it.

Even the Big Bang left over the background microwave radiation signature billions of years later.

There were many expectations of a background radiation in that spectrum even before BB theories became vogue.

But the Different State Past assumptions I've heard from YEC usually require the existence of developed humanity before the "change".

Before, after, what's the difference? That was supposed to be funny by the way.

A stable different state, followed by a dramatic change in all physical laws but yet resulting in the ONLY evidence being the book of Genesis written by an anonymous source at an unknown time. In other words the physical evidence of a prior altered, stable state (certainly here on earth) is non-existent.

Whereas the inflation deity evidently gave it's life for us but died in the process therefore we can never see it do anything to anything here on Earth ever again. The dogma of almost every creation myth is completely unfalsifiable by any real empirical standards because they are based on concepts that defy the laws of physics and there were never demonstrated in controlled experimentation.

I don't think the inflationary phase of the Big Bang which occured, what, about 10^-36 seconds after the Big Bang has any direct bearing on geologic history of a planet that didn't show up until about 10 billion years after the big bang.

Well, not necessarily. I mean all the materials we see here supposedly came from that singular event. Of course there was no guarantee that all matter and energy ever was condensed to a single point or that inflation ever happened. In fact recent findings of "dark flows" make it unlikely that the universe is homogeneously distributed at the largest scales as inflation theory requires.

Again, I'm not a cosmologist, but I don't really see how this relates specifically to a "DSP" as utilized by most Creationists. Unless, of course, the Creationist claims that the first several chapters of Genesis occured in the femto seconds prior to "inflation".

I guess the point I was trying to make is that what you think of as 'modern science' actually relies upon at least three forms of invisible metaphysical friends. You can whine about religion all you like, but almost all creation sciences, including Lambda-CMD theory require absolute leaps of faith, and defy the known laws of physics.

The only real difference is that one creation myth is allowed to be taught in the classroom becomes it comes with nifty math that is just as unsupportable as any creation date mythology.

 

[thaumaturgy]

I guess the point I was trying to make is that what you think of as 'modern science' actually relies upon at least three forms of invisible metaphysical friends. You can whine about religion all you like, but almost all creation sciences, including Lambda-CMD theory require absolute leaps of faith, and defy the known laws of physics.

There is a subtle and distinct difference, however. I will grant that is a valid point.

However, to my knowledge, the discussion of what was happening right at the Big Bang are still in some amount of dispute. There is no real cohesive "agenda" in pushing one idea over the other. M-Theory, whatever. I'm not saying that they don't drift off into conjecture and indeed "ultimate origins" become cloudy and extremely difficult no matter which side of the fence one is on.

With religious Creationists they, however, have a very important agenda. Which "creation myth"? Well, the one that fits in with whatever specific deity is being invoked. I have heard countless philosophy profs espouse the idea of "god" as a some esoteric "uncaused cause", "prime mover", "that being than which none-greater can be conceived", etc. And in every case it bears almost no resemblance to what "believers" take as God. God is a personal being with very specific requirements of His adherents and worshippers and very specific sets of rules.

In most cases it seems to me that religion works the puzzle backwards.

Start with belief in God, try to find some justification of such a being using some logic and word games (hence the various philosophical justifications), then assume that if you can prove a being with "necessary existence" that it must be the one you started to believe in which has all manner of specific rules down to what kind of threads should be woven into various fabrics.

Then as science comes up and shows how the "ancient texts" don't correspond to the data we see in the rocks find a way to jimmy the physical laws such that the ancient texts (but only those that relate to our chosen deity) are somehow literally correct.

Ultimately when science comes up against "ultimate origins" there's a "singularity" of sorts. We dont' know what came before the Big Bang. Religion, in a sense, tells us there is something and they don't need to prove it, there just is a necessary being. Science has to throw up it's hands and say "to speak about time before the BB is to speak gibberish".

As I said I'm not a cosmologist. I'm a geochemist. I don't really know much about the Big Bang. But I've spent years talking to Creationists here and in the real world. And I've never met one who pushes Genesis back to the "Inflationary Phase" of the Big Bang. They almost all seem to start down that path looking at earth history and then extrapolating backwards. Earth history is much easier in comparison since it is demonstrably younger than the universe.

As for the Electric Universe stuff. As I said a friend of mine has been pushing it and since he knows I'm a geologist he resorts to the stuff related to earth structures. What I've seen seems, from a geologist's perspective, to be silly. But again, I haven't spent much time reading up on this latest "fad". I will have to read more I suppose. But again, "why"? Why invoke exotic things (plasmas and electrical currents are certainly not "exotic", but using them to explain some tectonic features and even some that aren't so exotic...for instance my friend attempted to draw a relationship between stream bed patterns and lightning bolt patterns! It was ridiculous, and I don't say that lightly. I respect my friend, he's pretty smart, but he was drawing some weird conclusions...)

There are a lot of things explained by geology and as in any science there are still mysteries. I will, however, resort as a scientist does to a more mundane explanation until shown otherwise. And I'm not saying that that is "impossible". But still extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

The only real difference is that one creation myth is allowed to be taught in the classroom becomes it comes with nifty math that is just as unsupportable as any creation date mythology.

Well, considering that one is some external "moral agenda" driven concept (religion) and one is simply "what we think we know based on what evidence we have", I think I know which one I'd prefer taught in schools.

 

[thaumaturgy]

41

Information entropy? Sorry.

As a geochemist delta H is always (and probably will always continue to be) thermodynamic enthalpy. The concept's been around longer than information entropy. S is thermo entropy.

 

[AV1611VET]

Information entropy? Sorry.

As a geochemist delta H is always (and probably will always continue to be) thermodynamic enthalpy. The concept's been around longer than information entropy. S is thermo entropy.

I wasn't aware geochemistry had a monopoly on delta-H.

Someone needs to make up my mind then. S or H?

 

[Michael]

There is a subtle and distinct difference, however. I will grant that is a valid point.

However, to my knowledge, the discussion of what was happening right at the Big Bang are still in some amount of dispute. There is no real cohesive "agenda" in pushing one idea over the other.

That seems to be a matter of perspective. From my (skeptical) perspective, their agenda is rather obvious.

M-Theory, whatever. I'm not saying that they don't drift off into conjecture and indeed "ultimate origins" become cloudy and extremely difficult no matter which side of the fence one is on.

With religious Creationists they, however, have a very important agenda. Which "creation myth"? Well, the one that fits in with whatever specific deity is being invoked.

The only difference with Lambda-CDM theory is that the "supernatural deity" has a different name (inflation), and the deity is now dead. We can never physically "test" this idea in controlled experimentation because inflation is dead. It is a deistic religion.

I have heard countless philosophy profs espouse the idea of "god" as a some esoteric "uncaused cause", "prime mover", "that being than which none-greater can be conceived", etc. And in every case it bears almost no resemblance to what "believers" take as God. God is a personal being with very specific requirements of His adherents and worshippers and very specific sets of rules.

The primary 'rule' in most religions is "love". In Lambda-CDM theory the adherent and worshippers have rules too: "Thou shalt never mention electricity in space!"

In most cases it seems to me that religion works the puzzle backwards.

Inflation theory is no different. It was an ad-hoc creation from the mind of a single individual.

Start with belief in God,

Whereas Lambda-CMD theory starts with a belief in a creation event. In every other respect it is no different than any other religion.

Then as science comes up and shows how the "ancient texts" don't correspond to the data we see in the rocks find a way to jimmy the physical laws such that the ancient texts (but only those that relate to our chosen deity) are somehow literally correct.

Well, note that we have since found "dark flows" in space that poke giant holes in inflation theory. Inflation theory requires that the universe be homogeneous on the largest scales. Anytime these 'predictions" don't jive with observation, they simply add more metaphysical gap filler, like dark energy or SUSY particles or some other ad hoc creation to plug the gaps.

Ultimately when science comes up against "ultimate origins" there's a "singularity" of sorts. We dont' know what came before the Big Bang. Religion, in a sense, tells us there is something and they don't need to prove it, there just is a necessary being. Science has to throw up it's hands and say "to speak about time before the BB is to speak gibberish".

But there is no evidence that all matter and energy was ever collected to a single point in the first place or any evidence that the universe is finite for that matter.

As for the Electric Universe stuff. As I said a friend of mine has been pushing it and since he knows I'm a geologist he resorts to the stuff related to earth structures. What I've seen seems, from a geologist's perspective, to be silly. But again, I haven't spent much time reading up on this latest "fad".

I would encourage you *NOT* to judge the whole of EU/PC theory based on a someone's idea of electrical teraforming. That's not actually what EU/PC theory is all about. It was developed over 100 years ago by Kristian Birkeland to explain aurora. Hannes Alfven's work is also very good, as is the work of Dr. Charles Bruce. The basic concept is that electricity flow in space. It doesn't *insist* that geological features on Earth are necessarily due to electrical activity.

I will have to read more I suppose. But again, "why"? Why invoke exotic things (plasmas and electrical currents are certainly not "exotic", but using them to explain some tectonic features and even some that aren't so exotic...for instance my friend attempted to draw a relationship between stream bed patterns and lightning bolt patterns! It was ridiculous, and I don't say that lightly. I respect my friend, he's pretty smart, but he was drawing some weird conclusions...)

Well, I grant you that every theory has it share of 'odd ideas'.

Well, considering that one is some external "moral agenda" driven concept (religion) and one is simply "what we think we know based on what evidence we have", I think I know which one I'd prefer taught in schools.

My impression as a skeptic is that astronomers do have their own agenda, and their beliefs are no more physically justified than belief in God. Dark energy doesn't do anything to anything in a controlled experiment. Astronomers just point at the sky and claim "dark evil energy did it". There is no such thing as inflation in nature. That doesn't prevent them from dreaming up a religion based on a dead deity. The only difference is that they are allowed to teach my children about the dead inflation deity, whereas no discussion of any other deity is allowed.

 

[StabbingHobo]

Dark matter isn't something mumbo jumbo, it's simply matter that doesn't emit or reflect any radiation, so we don't have any means to see it. But, they do create gravitational force, so we can see them in the calculations. It's matter, which is impossible to see. Thus the term "dark matter". It's as much religion as gravity.

Also Dad, do explain what the "Different State Past" was like. I'm eager to hear.

 

[AV1611VET]

Also Dad, do explain what the "Different State Past" was like. I'm eager to hear.

I'll put my $.02 in here:

1. No death of man or animals.
2. Earth was one uniform climate and land mass.
3. No pain, no suffering, no fight-or-flight.
4. No natural selection, no survival-of-the-fittest.
5. No evolution, mutants, or copying errors.
6. Animals respected man.
7. No carnivores, no sin.
8. One language, one color, one "religion".
9. Perfect gene pool, no litter.
10. No rain.
11. Dragons and dinosaurs.

Just to name a few.

ETA: here are some "possibles":

1. Satyrs, unicorns.
2. Benevolent angelic interaction.

 

[thaumaturgy]

I wasn't aware geochemistry had a monopoly on delta-H.

Someone needs to make up my mind then. S or H?

Perhaps if you had some actual interest in or contact with scientists...

It is not uncommon for the same "letter" to stand for different or unrelated concepts. It usually requires the writer to explain what they are talking about.

Since the study of thermodynamics has been around a good while longer than the concept of information entropy please be aware that chemists will usually revert to assuming you are trying to make some ill-informed comment about thermo rather than information entropy.

Now, you are correct, it would make sense that info entropy would be applicable in the case of the Bible, but given your lackluster performance in the sciences and your anti-science stance ("Science can take a hike", as you love to say), it is reasonable to assume you simply didn't know what you were stumbling into. You like to use the language of the big kids. You do like to show off at times. (A common human foible I am guilty of as well).

Obviously I was mistaken in this assumption in the present case, but the foundational reasons for my assumption were intact. You normally stumble around scientific concepts ineptly and because you have stated time and again your ambivalence to science, and in some cases your outright disrespect of science I had no reason to assume you were being particularly insightful here. Again, my apologies.

Of course informational entropy of the Bible is clearly up in the air since it has been through numerous translations and you don't have any of the "original manuscripts" of any of the books, so really you can't say it =0. Maybe if you wanted to make a rational point you'd say it was "near zero" if you believe it to be inerrantly copied each time despite the evidence to the contrary (eg Johannine Comma).

What you can say is that, of the copies we have, there is some limited degree of alteration. Sometimes quite striking. Sometimes the book is copied (by humans, always by humans) with some degree of accuracy. Probably because many humans thought it was holy and therefore treated the act of copying it with great care.

Maybe if you acted like you "cared" about science I could cut you some slack, but you set the tone repeatedly and I am only giving back to you that which you appear to want.

 

[Hespera]

I'll put my $.02 in here:

1. No death of man or animals.
2. Earth was one uniform climate and land mass.
3. No pain, no suffering, no fight-or-flight.
4. No natural selection, no survival-of-the-fittest.
5. No evolution, mutants, or copying errors.
6. Animals respected man.
7. No carnivores, no sin.
8. One language, one color, one "religion".
9. Perfect gene pool, no litter.
10. No rain.
11. Dragons and dinosaurs.

Just to name a few.

ETA: here are some "possibles":

1. Satyrs, unicorns.
2. Benevolent angelic interaction.

Sounds like they mainly had Psilocybe coprophila

 

[thaumaturgy]

I'll put my $.02 in here:

1. No death of man or animals.

Except there's no actual proof of that because ultimately all the ancient creatures died. Otherwise they'd still be alive and only the "sin-tainted creatures" would be dying. (Unless you want to claim sin-untainted creatures went away to a place we cannot find or see or experience.)

1. Earth was one uniform climate and land mass.

Which single-landmass event are you referring to? There may have been a couple. Rodinia, then millions of years later Pangaea... Which one?

1. No pain, no suffering, no fight-or-flight.

That's gotta be easy to prove.

1. Animals respected man.

Uh, yeah. It's important to respect man. Because nothing deserves respect like man does. Why? Because we're special! Even when I read the books written by other animals (with whom we share a common chemistry, common biochemistry, common physics, etc. etc etc) they all uniformly tell me that only man has a real value and everyone else must show respect for the man.

1. No carnivores, no sin.

So you equate carnivorousness with sin? Tell that to my dog. He's a carnivore. Was he born sinful? How can I save him?

Or was it that he was made carnivorous as a punishment to HUMANS (because if there's carnivores around man can be eaten too! Hence the punishment!) Wait, WE'RE carnivores too! Does that mean we are carnivorous to PUNISH THE COWS OF EARTH?

1. One language, one color, one "religion".

Because homogeneity = highest good

1. Perfect gene pool, no litter.

Then why do the most fundamentally religious folks....naaah, forget it. I won't say anything here...

1. No rain.

No rain??? Is rain "bad"? Is it "evil"? Sorry, I like rain. Water is very important to me. Rain doesn't usually have to hurt. It can if in sufficient quantities.

Oh, yeah, and please show us where in the geologic column rain "started" (clearly it must have started after humans show up in the geologic record because humans in Genesis pre-exist the "Fall"). This is not to say there wasn't a time when the earth had a very different climate or even no atmospheric water...but there weren't any humans around at that time.

1. Dragons ...

Don't forget CARNIVOROUS UNICORNS! (If you want to equate dinos with dragons, I'm OK with that...except dinos didn't exist at the same time as humans (except in the form of birds, so if you want to equate dragons with birds then be my guest but that means there were dragons around from before mankind in Genesis!)

ETA: here are some "possibles":

1. Satyrs, unicorns.
2. Benevolent angelic interaction.

Thankfully we got the unicorns in there! (Now if only we'd find some unicorn fossils!)

 

[AV1611VET]

Except there's no actual proof of that because ultimately all the ancient creatures died. Otherwise they'd still be alive and only the "sin-tainted creatures" would be dying. (Unless you want to claim sin-untainted creatures went away to a place we cannot find or see or experience.)

I didn't quite get this.

Are you saying first-generation man and animals should still be alive?

Which single-landmass event are you referring to? There may have been a couple. Rodinia, then millions of years later Pangaea... Which one?

Eden --- how's that?

So you equate carnivorousness with sin?

I'm saying there were no carnivores before the Fall.

Tell that to my dog. He's a carnivore. Was he born sinful? How can I save him?

Your dog, if he would have lived before the Fall, would not be a carnivore. In fact, I doubt dogs existed at all before the Fall.

No rain???

That's right --- no rain.

Is rain "bad"? Is it "evil"?

Maybe to a pantheist.

Sorry, I like rain.

Of course you do --- you were born post-Flood.

Water is very important to me.

The Bible says how they got their water.

Rain doesn't usually have to hurt. It can if in sufficient quantities.

Not before the Fall, it wouldn't.

Oh, yeah, and please show us where in the geologic column rain "started"...

I don't need a geologic column for that.

I'll tell you the exact year rain started (+/- 1% margin of error): BC 2349.

(Now if only we'd find some unicorn fossils!)

Keep looking --- if it's that important to you.

 

[Michael]

Dark matter isn't something mumbo jumbo, it's simply matter that doesn't emit or reflect any radiation, so we don't have any means to see it. But, they do create gravitational force, so we can see them in the calculations. It's matter, which is impossible to see. Thus the term "dark matter". It's as much religion as gravity.

While the lensing data does suggest that we *grossly* underestimate the mass inside galaxies, that is not surprising considering the limits of our current technologies. None of that suggests the need for exotic SUSY particles or any other exotic forms of matter with mythical properties that defy empirical support.

 

[thaumaturgy]

I didn't quite get this.

Are you saying first-generation man and animals should still be alive?

Actually I was playing a semantic game with you. You should be familiar with that.

If you think there was UNENDING life at some point, yet all ancient things that were alive are now dead (or will be), then in reality there was only the HOPE of unending life (ie no death).

Perhaps this surprised God when it happened. Things like that do tend to sneak up on Him.

Eden --- how's that?

Exactly what I'd expect! Good for you. Now tell me when did Eden exist?

You think that because you can mention one supercontinent that it must have some "meaning". Well, if there was more than one in geologic history then clearly there's nothing really "special" about one landmass, is there?

(Kinda like calling "birth" a miracle, only it occurs every day and is fully explained by natural causes.)

I don't need a geologic column for that.
quote]

Of course you don't need a geologic column...you wouldn't understand how to utilize the information!

 

[plindboe]

While the lensing data does suggest that we *grossly* underestimate the mass inside galaxies, that is not surprising considering the limits of our current technologies. None of that suggests the need for exotic SUSY particles or any other exotic forms of matter with mythical properties that defy empirical support.

Dark matter, as I understand it, is a term basically meaning "there's some mass out there we can't directly see, so let's give it this placeholder name until we actually know what it is".

It's like calling some unknown for X. Of course the term dark matter is better than X, because we actually have two properties, i.e. it has mass and it isn't visible to us.

And, sure, some of the hypotheses suggested to explain it might be far out, but that doesn't reflect on the term dark matter itself. Likewise if I offer the hypothesis that gravity is made up of tiny pink volkwagons, you can't simply point to the silliness of my hypothesis to dismiss the existance of gravity.

Peter

 

[Belk]

That seems to be a matter of perspective. From my (skeptical) perspective, their agenda is rather obvious.

So what do you think their agenda is?

 

[Michael]

So what do you think their agenda is?

The are promoting a "creation science" theory related to dead supernatural inflation deities.

 

[Michael]

Dark matter, as I understand it, is a term basically meaning "there's some mass out there we can't directly see, so let's give it this placeholder name until we actually know what it is".

Why not just call it "missing matter", or "unidentified matter"?

It's like calling some unknown for X. Of course the term dark matter is better than X, because we actually have two properties, i.e. it has mass and it isn't visible to us.

All objects that are smaller than say Jupiter have exactly those same two properties in a distant galaxy.

And, sure, some of the hypotheses suggested to explain it might be far out, but that doesn't reflect on the term dark matter itself. Likewise if I offer the hypothesis that gravity is made up of tiny pink volkwagons, you can't simply point to the silliness of my hypothesis to dismiss the existance of gravity.

Peter

Well, I "sort of' see your point. I don't even actually complain much about MACHO forms of DM "explanation" for this "missing mass", or neutrino propositions related to DM. It's when they slap ad hoc properties to SUSY particles, point to the sky and claim that it *must be* non baryonic matter of some exotic nature that I tend to complain.

 

[AV1611VET]

Now tell me when did Eden exist?

Technically, it still does --- but for the record: BC 4004 - BC 2300 (+/- 1% margin of error).

You think that because you can mention one supercontinent that it must have some "meaning".

Yes --- remember: all I'm doing is showing a DSP from a Biblical perspective.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

While the lensing data does suggest that we *grossly* underestimate the mass inside galaxies, that is not surprising considering the limits of our current technologies. None of that suggests the need for exotic SUSY particles or any other exotic forms of matter with mythical properties that defy empirical support.

Actually, it does: we know how heavy the galaxies are, and we know how heavy the visible matter is. Thus, any discrepancy is dark matter: quite literally, matter that remains obstinately dark.

Calling it mythical is just cheap tactic from someone who can't think of a real refutation.

 

[AV1611VET]

Actually, it does: we know how heavy the galaxies are, and we know how heavy the visible matter is.

You've got to be kidding me?

You can ascertain the weight of another galaxy?