Ben Stein "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"

[arloiginla]

Originally Posted by 4X4

I would argue that man is the creator of time. Since humans are the only ones affected by it. Everything else in the known universe exists in cycles. Only humans have a concept of time. And that's all time is, a concept.

Did man create time, or did man only create a scale, or formula, by which time is measured?

Obviously as an evolutionist you would have to believe that most other species existed before man did, and obviously animals, and even abiotic factors like the weather, undergo certain cycles that are related to time.

Because if the Earth always spun around its axis, obviously the sun always came up and went down in periodic segments, just because humans weren't there to chart and classify these segments as "time" doesn't mean it didn't exist.

[4X4]

Originally Posted by arloiginla

Did man create time, or did man only create a scale, or formula, by which time is measured?

Obviously as an evolutionist you would have to believe that most other species existed before man did, and obviously animals, and even abiotic factors like the weather, undergo certain cycles that are related to time.

Because if the Earth always spun around its axis, obviously the sun always came up and went down in periodic segments, just because humans weren't there to chart and classify these segments as "time" doesn't mean it didn't exist.

What I'm saying is that man is the only species or entity that acknowledges time. Everything else exists in a timeless state. Because man cannot fully comprehend infinity, the concept of time exists.

[troutman]

The Nature Of Space And Time (Hawking/Penrose):

http://www.hawking.org.uk/pdf/time.pdf

http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/in...time-body.html

In his book "A Brief History of Time" physicist Stephen Hawking made the claim that if his "no-boundary cosmology" was correct then there would be no need for a creator. His cosmological model proposes that there was no precise moment when the universe "began", because there was no precise moment when time began. Because of that Hawking, claimed, there would be no role for a creator. In Hawking’s model, the quality called time emerged out of a kind of quantum fuzz in which there was, at least at the initial moment of the big bang, an "imaginary" component of time. This term, does not mean a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland time, it has a precise mathematical meaning - relating to what are called complex numbers. The details of imaginary time are not important, what matters rather is Hawking’s notion that time as we know it did not begin at a specific point, but gradually emerged from something more complex. According to Hawking, the universe did not begin "in" time, rather time itself came into being with the universe.

But if Hawking sees this as an argument against a creator, physicist and theologian Robert Russell begs to differ. Russell points out that Hawking’s idea is very similar to the idea proposed over 1500 years ago by the great early Christian theologian, Saint Augustine. Augustine too declared that the universe was not created in time, but rather with time. As Russell notes, here is a beautiful instance where classic theology and contemporary science are very much in sync with one another. “You have an interesting picture of two very different cultures,” he says, “but a similar intellectual question being asked in both cases.” And, moreover, similar answers being given. What this shows us, Russell says, is that “Hawking is actually our ally, theologically, because he tells us that the notion of a finite universe as the creation of God can be sustained, whether or not it has a beginning point.”

[Canada 02]

Entertaining

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/113

[llama64]

Originally Posted by 4X4

I would argue that man is the creator of time. Since humans are the only ones affected by it. Everything else in the known universe exists in cycles. Only humans have a concept of time. And that's all time is, a concept.

Time is not a concept. It exists independent of any observer. It is what enables one object moving at one rate to inhabit the same space as another that is moving at another rate. If time was a human construction, then natural physics is a human construction.

I once thought along similar lines, but the math and evidence just doesn't support any philosophy that claims time as human construction.

The only place where time has no meaning is at the center of a massive singularity. Theoretically, time has no meaning at a quantum level, but most of that goes over my head.

[AC]

Originally Posted by arloiginla

Evolution is a theory just like Creationism. Neither is a scientific law like gravity.

You clearly have no understanding of the scientific use of the word 'theory'.

It's not synonymous with 'guess'.

I suggest you read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...heory_and_fact

Gravity is a fact and a theory. Evolution is a fact and a theory.

"Today, nearly all biologists acknowledge that evolution is a fact. The term theory is no longer appropriate except when referring to the various models that attempt to explain how life evolves... it is important to understand that the current questions about how life evolves in no way implies any disagreement over the fact of evolution." - Neil Campbell

[peter12]

Originally Posted by AnthonyCook

You clearly have no understanding of the scientific use of the word 'theory'.

It's not synonymous with 'guess'.

I suggest you read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...heory_and_fact

Gravity is a fact and a theory. Evolution is a fact and a theory.

Agreed, but evolution isn't the answer. It's just a construct we use to understand a small fraction of the biological history of the Earth. We still don't understand even a fraction of what evolution really is...

[AC]

Originally Posted by peter12

Agreed, but evolution isn't the answer. It's just a construct we use to understand a small fraction of the biological history of the Earth. We still don't understand even a fraction of what evolution really is...

Isn't the answer to what?

[4X4]

llama, what I'm trying to say is that time has no meaning to anything other than man. Everything else is either not affected, or oblivious. Animals and plants and stars and galaxies exist in cycles. Humans are the only ones that consider time while existing.

That is why, IMO, they wonder "where it all came from" and "when did time begin".

[peter12]

Originally Posted by AnthonyCook

Isn't the answer to what?

The theory in its entirety cannot possibly comprehend the vast majority of biological history, it's just an effective means of observation. Just like any other scientific theory. Doesn't mean it's not fact, but it also means it's not the absolute truth about a subject.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Kipper is King

It's not intelligent design three-card monty. The idea is that it's a possibility, just like the Big Bang is. Nor is it necessarily an "alternative viewpoint". The two ideas could well be presented together without creating conflict.

No they couldn't, one has tons of supporting evidence, the other is vague hand waving, they aren't even in the same game let alone the same playing field.

If people want to teach their kids creationism as science that's fine, do it at home, in Church, whatever. Just don't do it in the public school system.

As to the Christian nature of ID, there's nothing wrong with just briefly presenting the idea of intelligent design in general (even in a Science class)

Yes there is, it's not science, and discussing it as such gives it a legitimacy it hasn't earned. And in the US it's illegal for good reason.

Mainstream science classes tend not to acknowledge fringe stuff, but the notion of intelligent design in general isn't fringe, and may deserve acknowledgement.

With respect to science it is the very definition of fringe; a concept that has no basis on any evidence at all. There are far more important things to spend time on, the first being science itself because so many people clearly are lacking in their education in those areas.

Originally Posted by arloiginla

Thats because it's hard to accept something as fact when it hasn't been proven (and never will be) as such. Evolution is a theory just like Creationism. Neither is a scientific law like gravity.

Wrong. Gravity is a theory, just like evolution. You're confusing the fact of something (evolution, gravity), with the theory that explains it (theory of gravity, theory of evolution).

Evolution is better understood than gravity in fact, but I don't see people running around proposing the theory of intelligent falling.

So depressing that people have different opinions and beliefs in this world than you do huh?

No what's depressing is people's failure of a simple understanding of such basic things of what a scientific theory is. If someone doesn't even understand what a theory is, how can they hope to comprehend something as complex as evolution? And if they don't understand it, how can they be a good judge if it's valid or not?

btw if the universe was created through an infinite number of big bangs, obviously there would had to have been an original state of being that preceded the first big bang. So who created that?

Maybe the universe is infinite in that respect as well, it's a series of big bangs that stretches on forever. To reject that just on the basis of personal incredulity but accept an infinite God which has the exact same property isn't rational.

Just because there's something that science hasn't yet found an answer for doesn't mean that the answer is God. You're doing God a disservice then by relegating Him to the "God of the gaps"; there's a gap in man's understanding so God is invoked, then later when that gap is filled it's shifted so God fills a different gap. Weak. Why is God the default when something isn't understood? By that reasoning, we'd still be in caves. And who's God?

Originally Posted by llama64

Time is not a concept. It exists independent of any observer. It is what enables one object moving at one rate to inhabit the same space as another that is moving at another rate. If time was a human construction, then natural physics is a human construction.

Not necessarily, there's current lines of thought that have time as existing but our forward motion through time is simply an illusion to us. Kind of way out there, but interesting none the less. A guy at my work was telling me of a book he'd read recently by a physicist on this, I haven't read it though.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by 4X4

llama, what I'm trying to say is that time has no meaning to anything other than man. Everything else is either not affected, or oblivious. Animals and plants and stars and galaxies exist in cycles. Humans are the only ones that consider time while existing.

That is why, IMO, they wonder "where it all came from" and "when did time begin".

We don't know that. There are probably other animals with advanced cognition, like chimpanzees and dolphins, that have a concept of time and are conscious of the universe.

[photon]

Originally Posted by peter12

The theory in its entirety cannot possibly comprehend the vast majority of biological history, it's just an effective means of observation. Just like any other scientific theory. Doesn't mean it's not fact, but it also means it's not the absolute truth about a subject.

Of course, all knowledge is provisional. However evolution is substantial enough that if/when a better theory comes along, it won't completely remove evolution, it will augment it, similar to what Einstein did to Newton. Just because Newtons theory of gravity was ultimately incorrect doesn't mean it isn't still valid.

Anything that supplants evolution will still have evolution as a component.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by photon

Of course, all knowledge is provisional. However evolution is substantial enough that if/when a better theory comes along, it won't completely remove evolution, it will augment it, similar to what Einstein did to Newton. Just because Newtons theory of gravity was ultimately incorrect doesn't mean it isn't still valid.

Anything that supplants evolution will still have evolution as a component.

Absolutely. We've seen this in the development of evolutionary theory over the past 150 years. The neo-Darwinian theory is far different that what Darwin observed, but it still has elements of his theory and thought.

The problem that I have with "fundamentalist" evolutionists is there view that evolution is the answer to everything, including alot of social issues. The answers are always far more complicated than that.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by troutman

Who created God?

If your answer is God always existed, why can't we say the universe always existed without a God (through an infinite number of big bangs and collapses)?

The question for me isn't who created what, but why or how is there something instead of nothing. What it comes down to on both sides of the debate is that it just is. It doesn't matter if you are a spititual person or not, but eventually you realize that everything you believe in is on a shakey foundation.

I'm a believer is science, but if anything, it just affirms my agnosticism.

[arloiginla]

Originally Posted by AnthonyCook

You clearly have no understanding of the scientific use of the word 'theory'.

It's not synonymous with 'guess'.

I suggest you read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...heory_and_fact

Gravity is a fact and a theory. Evolution is a fact and a theory.

"Today, nearly all biologists acknowledge that evolution is a fact. The term theory is no longer appropriate except when referring to the various models that attempt to explain how life evolves... it is important to understand that the current questions about how life evolves in no way implies any disagreement over the fact of evolution." - Neil Campbell

You are taking the word "evolution" far out of context. To suggest that creatures, through reproduction, evolve over time is indeed a fact.

The evolution we are speaking of, however, is the idea that evolution and evolution alone is what created life as we know it today. That theory is just that: a theory just as Creationism or the idea of intelligent design is. Use the word "fact" any way you want, what we are comparing here is theory vs. law, and a law evolution isn't.

Evidence supports both sides, and no one side is "better" than another, but just because you believe one to be true over the other does not make it concretely so.

After all if there was a right and wrong in this discussion there wouldn't ever be a debate about its truth would there now?

[AC]

Originally Posted by arloiginla

Evidence supports both sides, and no one side is "better" than another, but just because you believe one to be true over the other does not make it concretely so.

What evidence is there for creationism?

Originally Posted by arloiginla

After all if there was a right and wrong in this discussion there wouldn't ever be a debate about its truth would there now?

No.. theres only a 'debate' because some people cling on to faith in the face of logic.

Scientifically, there is no debate about evolution.

[photon]

Originally Posted by arloiginla

You are taking the word "evolution" far out of context. To suggest that creatures, through reproduction, evolve over time is indeed a fact.

Though you're using the word to define itself, that's what evolution is.

The evolution we are speaking of, however, is the idea that evolution and evolution alone is what created life as we know it today.

No, evolution says nothing about the creation of life. Again a basic misunderstanding of what the theory says. The origin of life is abiogenesis.

That theory is just that: a theory just as Creationism or the idea of intelligent design is. Use the word "fact" any way you want, what we are comparing here is theory vs. law, and a law evolution isn't.

Again a basic misunderstanding of science. A theory doesn't "graduate" to become a law someday. Theories and laws are two completely different things and describe two different things. Evolution is as much a fact as anything in science can ever be a fact.

Evidence supports both sides

BS. Evolution is one of the most tested and accurate theories ever produced by science. ID has produced nothing, made no predictions, met none of the strict criteria that a real scientific theory has. If you understood what a scientific theory was and didn't just view it as an opinion you'd see that.

Creationism isn't science, it's faith, and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with believing in a creator that created everything based on faith (i.e. God set the Big Bang in motion, or God used evolution to create the diversity of life), but it's just that; faith. It's not science, and should not be treated as science any more than science should be treated as speaking to the nature of God.

Time and again it's asked to bring out this mythical evidence, but it's never produced. Meanwhile the evidence for evolution piles up daily.

and no one side is "better" than another, but just because you believe one to be true over the other does not make it concretely so.

Define "better". Some theories more accurately describe reality than others, that's one way I would use better in this case. From a theological point of view Creationism is better than ID because it actually names the creator instead of ignoring the question, and evolution doesn't speak to the nature of God.

After all if there was a right and wrong in this discussion there wouldn't ever be a debate about its truth would there now?

Except that the debate typically doesn't go around the actual correctness or incorrectness of things, it goes around the general lack of scientific understanding of one side, where the other has to spend all their time correcting the basic understanding of the other.

The place that the REAL debates about the science takes place, academic papers and such, the debate is at the level of how specific mechanics of evolution take place, but the basic theory isn't debated, because it's far more right than anything else.

[arloiginla]

Originally Posted by AnthonyCook

What evidence is there for creationism?



No.. theres only a 'debate' because some people cling on to faith in the face of logic.

Scientifically, there is no debate about evolution.

That is what some would like you to think. However, there indeed is evidence supporting the idea of intelligent design...it's called the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Physicist Lord Kelvin stated it technically as follows:

"There is no natural process the only result of which is to cool a heat reservoir and do external work."

In more understandable terms, this law observes the fact that the useable energy in the universe is becoming less and less. Ultimately there would be no available energy left. Stemming from this fact we find that the most probable state for any natural system is one of disorder. All natural systems degenerate when left to themselves.

It is well known that, left to themselves, chemical compounds ultimately break apart into simpler materials; they do not ultimately become more complex. Outside forces can increase order for a time (through the expenditure of relatively large amounts of energy, and through the input of design). However, such reversal cannot last forever. Once the force is released, processes return to their natural direction - greater disorder. Their energy is transformed into lower levels of availability for further work. The natural tendency of complex, ordered arrangements and systems is to become simpler and more disorderly with time.

Thus, in the long term, there is an overall downward trend throughout the universe. Ultimately, when all the energy of the cosmos has been degraded, all molecules will move randomly, and the entire universe will be cold and without order. To put it simply: In the real world, the long-term overall flow is downhill, not uphill. All experimental and physical observation appears to confirm that the Law is indeed universal, affecting all natural processes in the long run.


Naturalistic Evolutionism requires that physical laws and atoms organize themselves into increasingly complex and beneficial, ordered arrangements.

Thus, over eons of time, billions of things are supposed to have developed upward, becoming more orderly and complex.


However, this basic law of science (2nd Law of Thermodynamics) reveals the exact opposite. In the long run, complex, ordered arrangements actually tend to become simpler and more disorderly with time. There is an irreversible downward trend ultimately at work throughout the universe. Evolution, with its ever increasing order and complexity, appears impossible in the natural world.



Duane Gish, biochemist at the University of California at Berkeley, says the following:

"Of all the statements that have been made with respect to theories on the origin of life, the statement that the Second Law of Thermodynamics poses no problem for an evolutionary origin of life is the most absurd… The operation of natural processes on which the Second Law of Thermodynamics is based is alone sufficient, therefore, to preclude the spontaneous evolutionary origin of the immense biological order required for the origin of life."

If Evolution is true, there must be an extremely powerful force or mechanism at work in the cosmos that can steadily defeat the powerful, ultimate tendency toward "disarrangedness" brought by the 2nd Law. If such an important force or mechanism is in existence, it would seem it should be quite obvious to all scientists. Yet, the fact is, no such force of nature has been found.
A number of scientists believe the 2nd Law, when truly understood, is enough to refute the theory of Evolution. In fact, it is one of the most important reasons why various Evolutionists have dropped their theory in favor of Creationism.

There is more, PM me if you are interested and I'd be more than happy to send it to you.

References (just so no one can say I made this all up):

Allen L. King, Thermophysics (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman & Company, 1962), p. 5.

Emmett L. Williams, editor, Thermodynamics and the Development of Order (5093 Williamsport Drive, Norcross, Georgia 30092: Creation Research Society Books, 1981), p. 18

R.B. Lindsay, "Physics - To What Extent Is It Deterministic?" American Scientist, Vol. 56, No. 2 (1968), pp. 100-111.

[photon]

There IS an extremely powerful force at work on the earth which adds energy into the system.

It's called the sun.

I can't believe people still trot out this second law of thermodynamics thing. This is old old stuff. By that logic, snowflakes shouldn't exist either. Or is each snowflake hand crafted by God?

It is well known that, left to themselves, chemical compounds

That's right, except things aren't left to themselves, natural and biological influences impact systems, which can and does increase complexity on a small scale (earth being small scale compared to the cosmos).

greater disorder

Basic misunderstanding, the second law of thermodynamics isn't about order and disorder, it's about entropy. And the law allows for the local decrease of entropy as long as there is an offsetting increase elsewhere.

This 2nd law of thermodynamics thing has been long long debunked, I think the Discovery Institute even says to not try and use it to argue against evolution anymore.