But it does mean that the "Quantum Field" dunnit it is little different from the God dunnit of the God of gaps. Both things are conjured because nobody really wants to follow the evidence anymore.
On the contrary the theory behind a "Quantum Field" makes the counter intuitive prediction that empty space or a vacuum can exert a force.
Actually it occurs to me that this is all a bit like the old explorers that used to declare big old tracts of wilderness as being empty waste lands devoid of anything. When the truth is that they where incredibly rich ecosystems full of life, just not the sort of life that these guys were looking for.
So, you'd deny him the vernacular usage, but you'd also deny him the jargon usage. What's a guy to do? (rhetorical)
That wasn't the intent of the book at all; quantum fields were just part of the story. Did you actually read the book?
As it happens, Krauss addresses the 'God-did-it issue', preferring the ideas of Aristotle, who recognised the fallacy of special pleading in God-the-creator before Christianity even existed.
For a hungry man, better a dented can of beans than an imaginary one, however smooth and shiny.Frankly however the concept that "God did it" seems far more plausible to me personally than "quantum fields, inflation, space expansion, dark energy, dark matter and whatever else astronomers dream up next to fix their current problem did it". Talk about kicking the can down the street. That can has more dents in it than a car in a demolition derby.
This is a classic reaction based on the argument from personal incredulity fallacy.
People should be incredulous when faced with nonsense.
I understand the science well enough and can see scientism a mile away.
Both of which are some thing. The very fact that a descriptor is used to explain what they are determines this.
It's not deceitful when the author explains exactly what he means by it and why he's doing it that way.
Big bang is not problem, and in line with the Genesis account. I don't mind that it started with Quantum fluctuations either. Whatever the Creator used to create is His thing, for us to investigate.
Because to call a state where there is something, "nothing" does an injury to the English language. The term nothing describes a set where there is no thing.
Just saying lol.
The thing is, that we are all scientists to a greater or lesser degree. Some have spent more time than most of us developing an understanding of what they are looking at, and/or have been trained in the formal method of investigation. But we can all see the world around us and we are all capable of the thinking required to investigate it.I'm no scientist but the concept of nothing has kept me awake in my youth and I'd give people an almost delirious, mindblowing, wide-eyed raving explanation of how 'nothing can't exist' and then a description of how universe was created.
Of course, as a Christian I believe God did it. 'Let there be light'. But I guess this universe was created out of nothing and when matter was created so was the antimatter. Nothing, which didn't exist, became something. But of course it was never there to begin with. So how was there even a void for nothing to be in though? Is the universe so huge because it wasn't there, and that's why it has no bounds? Because if it has bounds this dimension must have existed at which point it wasn't nothing but a vast emptyish space. Why did it not collapse in on itself? I guess that is moving towards the idea of a universe that expands and contracts... However, I like the concept of an infinite void with no bounds because it makes the anomaly of it even being there a much more stimulating an idea to try to comprehend. When all is said and done I bet it all the physical (and anti physical... and time) cancels each other out and if it was reverse engineered all the particles would cancel each other out and even the void would be gone.. or would it. Even better if time and anti-time cancel each other out to and we would never have existed... or would we have? I used like to toying with all options.
How very unscientific of me but I'm better thinking of that than the nothing can't exist argument that gets me going especially because it's nearly midnight here.
Carry on...
Dawkins likes to give an emotive edge to his opinions, but I think his point is broadly correct - the universe we see looks like just what we'd expect from a dense quark-gluon plasma expanding and condensing according to a few simple physical rules.
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Appeal to emotion is fine in appropriate circumstances, but not in an argument about scientific merit.
