What is the difference between a Flat Earther and a Creationist?

KenS said:

Good question and I'm sure that scientists argue amongst themselves. Since fine tuning suggests a God, I'm sure it would be a debated subject.

But here are some other professors/scientists.

Fred Hoyle (British astrophysicist): "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."

George Ellis (British astrophysicist): "Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word 'miraculous' without taking a stand as to the ontological status of the word."

Paul Davies (British astrophysicist): "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature�s numbers to make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming".

Alan Sandage (winner of the Crawford prize in astronomy): "I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing."

John O'Keefe (astronomer at NASA): "We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cosseted, cherished group of creatures.. .. If the Universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in."

George Greenstein (astronomer): "As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency - or, rather, Agency - must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?"

Arno Penzias (Nobel prize in physics): "Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say 'supernatural') plan." (

Tony Rothman (physicist): "When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it's very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it."

Vera Kistiakowsky (MIT physicist): "The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine."

Robert Jastrow (self-proclaimed agnostic): "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

Frank Tipler (Professor of Mathematical Physics): "When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics." e Physics of Christianity

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Ed Harrison (cosmologist): "Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God � the design argument of Paley � updated and refurbished. The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one.... Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument."

Edward Milne (British cosmologist): "As to the cause of the Universe, in context of expansion, that is left for the reader to insert, but our picture is incomplete without Him [God]."

Barry Parker (cosmologist): "Who created these laws? There is no question but that a God will always be needed."

Drs. Zehavi, and Dekel (cosmologists): "This type of universe, however, seems to require a degree of fine tuning of the initial conditions that is in apparent conflict with 'common wisdom'."

Arthur L. Schawlow (Professor of Physics at Stanford University, 1981 Nobel Prize in physics): "It seems to me that when confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how. The only possible answers are religious. . . . I find a need for God in the universe and in my own life."

Henry "Fritz" Schaefer (Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia): "The significance and joy in my science comes in those occasional moments of discovering something new and saying to myself, 'So that's how God did it.' My goal is to understand a little corner of God's plan."

Wernher von Braun (Pioneer rocket engineer) "I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science."

Carl Woese (microbiologist from the University of Illinois) "Life in Universe - rare or unique? I walk both sides of that street. One day I can say that given the 100 billion stars in our galaxy and the 100 billion or more galaxies, there have to be some planets that formed and evolved in ways very, very like the Earth has, and so would contain microbial life at least. There are other days when I say that the anthropic principal, which makes this universe a special one out of an uncountably large number of universes, may not apply only to that aspect of nature we define in the realm of physics, but may extend to chemistry and biology. In that case life on Earth could be entirely unique."

Antony Flew (Professor of Philosophy, former atheist, author, and debater) "It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNAresearch have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design

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Shaul said:

Nothing you wrote here changes the fact that you have conflated the scientific terms of theory and fact. You don’t know what you are talking about.

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KenS said:

I don't think its random chance

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Shaul said:

No. Both the Biblical account and the theory of evolution can be right simultaneously without contradiction. All you have shown is your own ability for misinterpretation of the Biblical account.

Now as far as the concept of original sin and the number of generations between Adam and Jesus, I make no assertions. Those are matters for Christians. I am not a Christian, I am a Jew. I only address myself the the Jewish Bible. Claims of the Christian “New Testament” are not my concern.

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TagliatelliMonster said:

Evolution isn't random chance. It has random components, sure - but then again, what doesn't.

Here's the kicker for your "fine tuning" nonsense: it might very well be that the parameters of the universe aren't random chance either. It might very well be that the values aren't at all "variables" that even CAN have another value. The fact of the matter is that any "probability" calculation can ONLY be done based on what we currently know. As what we currently know is FAR FROM ENOUGH to make such a calculation, necessarily assumptions are going to have to be made. Assumptions that can not be demonstrated and which are very likely very arbitrary.

For crying out loud, we don't even have a clue about the process that kickstarts a universe. We don't know what the big bang is. And here you are, trying to tell us that it is possible to KNOW what the probability is for THIS universe to exist like it exists.


Be serious.


For all we know, the probability of this universe existing in the form that it exists (without magical intervention) is exactly 1 in 1.

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Darkforbid said:

Worst head in the sand 'it just is' argument ever

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Darkforbid said:

Worst head in the sand 'it just is' argument ever

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ImmortalFlame said:

That's not what the argument is saying, nor doing. It's a repudiation of an argument for having no justification.

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TagliatelliMonster said:

I didn't give any argument.

I showed how the argument being put forward to claim a god, is without justification and fundamentally flawed.

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• The book ignores the fact that the fundamental constants of physics (speed of light, fine structure constant, etc.) are not determined by the standard model but in fact are completely independent from the standard model; and these constants appear very much fine-tuned for life.
• The book claims that point-of-view invariance, via a theorem due to Emmy Noether, allows one to deduce classical mechanics, Newton’s law of gravity, Maxwell’s laws of electromagnetics, Einstein’s relativity, quantum mechanics, and more — essentially most if not all of the standard model. But Stenger’s mathematical reasoning is deeply fallacious here. Indeed, his conclusion cannot possibly be correct, because these individual theories are based on conflicting principles and make conflicting predictions.
• The book’s calculations of the effects of varying multiple parameters are not valid.
• The book does not satisfactorily deal with the extremely low entropy of the universe, which is one of the most significant instances of fine-tuning.
• The book does not mention the considerable controversy among researchers on some aspects of big bang cosmology, especially the inflation epoch, which itself requires incredible fine-tuning to produce the universe we see today.
• The book dismisses the fine-tuning of the cosmological constant, namely that it appears fine-tuned to least one part in 10120. But the consensus of other researchers is that this is arguably the most significant and inexplicable instance of fine-tuning.
• The book does not appear to appreciate the difficulty presented by the hierarchy and flavor problems of physics, which stem from the fact that some particle masses and fundamental forces are of modest size but others are orders of magnitude larger. As Barnes writes, “Stenger is either not aware of the hierarchy and flavor problems, or else he has solved some of the most pressing problems in particle physics and not bothered to pass this information on to his colleagues.”
• The book includes unprofessional criticisms of other researchers, one of which, amusingly enough, is self-refuting — it claims that the authors of two papers [Tegmark1998; Tegmark2006] “do not know what to make of” results in a third paper [Tegmark2001]. But the first author of the first two papers (Max Tegmark) is also the first author of the third paper. By the way, the second author of the first paper (Martin Rees) is an extremely knowledgeable figure in the field; he most certainly is not perplexed by the third paper.

Darkforbid said:

No you didn't you used Stenger’s The Fallacy of Fine Tuning which fails:

• The book ignores the fact that the fundamental constants of physics (speed of light, fine structure constant, etc.) are not determined by the standard model but in fact are completely independent from the standard model; and these constants appear very much fine-tuned for life.
• The book claims that point-of-view invariance, via a theorem due to Emmy Noether, allows one to deduce classical mechanics, Newton’s law of gravity, Maxwell’s laws of electromagnetics, Einstein’s relativity, quantum mechanics, and more — essentially most if not all of the standard model. But Stenger’s mathematical reasoning is deeply fallacious here. Indeed, his conclusion cannot possibly be correct, because these individual theories are based on conflicting principles and make conflicting predictions.
• The book’s calculations of the effects of varying multiple parameters are not valid.
• The book does not satisfactorily deal with the extremely low entropy of the universe, which is one of the most significant instances of fine-tuning.
• The book does not mention the considerable controversy among researchers on some aspects of big bang cosmology, especially the inflation epoch, which itself requires incredible fine-tuning to produce the universe we see today.
• The book dismisses the fine-tuning of the cosmological constant, namely that it appears fine-tuned to least one part in 10120. But the consensus of other researchers is that this is arguably the most significant and inexplicable instance of fine-tuning.
• The book does not appear to appreciate the difficulty presented by the hierarchy and flavor problems of physics, which stem from the fact that some particle masses and fundamental forces are of modest size but others are orders of magnitude larger. As Barnes writes, “Stenger is either not aware of the hierarchy and flavor problems, or else he has solved some of the most pressing problems in particle physics and not bothered to pass this information on to his colleagues.”
• The book includes unprofessional criticisms of other researchers, one of which, amusingly enough, is self-refuting — it claims that the authors of two papers [Tegmark1998; Tegmark2006] “do not know what to make of” results in a third paper [Tegmark2001]. But the first author of the first two papers (Max Tegmark) is also the first author of the third paper. By the way, the second author of the first paper (Martin Rees) is an extremely knowledgeable figure in the field; he most certainly is not perplexed by the third paper.

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ImmortalFlame said:

This is copied and pasted without reference from this blog:
Has cosmic fine-tuning been refuted? « SMR blog

What's more, the post you're quoting made no mention of Stenger's book or arguments, so why did you bring this up?

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Darkforbid said:

Well it's him writing about someone else's reasurch,, but I put the link in just to make you happy

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Subduction Zone said:

Have you read Genesis?

That the writers of Genesis had no clue as to the history of this Earth is rather obvious. And the point of this thread is that the difference between Flat Earth beliefs and creationist beliefs are often only a matter of degree of Bible literalism.

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Darkforbid said:

Really



No you didn't you used Stenger’s The Fallacy of Fine Tuning which fails:

• The book ignores the fact that the fundamental constants of physics (speed of light, fine structure constant, etc.) are not determined by the standard model but in fact are completely independent from the standard model; and these constants appear very much fine-tuned for life.
• The book claims that point-of-view invariance, via a theorem due to Emmy Noether, allows one to deduce classical mechanics, Newton’s law of gravity, Maxwell’s laws of electromagnetics, Einstein’s relativity, quantum mechanics, and more — essentially most if not all of the standard model. But Stenger’s mathematical reasoning is deeply fallacious here. Indeed, his conclusion cannot possibly be correct, because these individual theories are based on conflicting principles and make conflicting predictions.
• The book’s calculations of the effects of varying multiple parameters are not valid.
• The book does not satisfactorily deal with the extremely low entropy of the universe, which is one of the most significant instances of fine-tuning.
• The book does not mention the considerable controversy among researchers on some aspects of big bang cosmology, especially the inflation epoch, which itself requires incredible fine-tuning to produce the universe we see today.
• The book dismisses the fine-tuning of the cosmological constant, namely that it appears fine-tuned to least one part in 10120. But the consensus of other researchers is that this is arguably the most significant and inexplicable instance of fine-tuning.
• The book does not appear to appreciate the difficulty presented by the hierarchy and flavor problems of physics, which stem from the fact that some particle masses and fundamental forces are of modest size but others are orders of magnitude larger. As Barnes writes, “Stenger is either not aware of the hierarchy and flavor problems, or else he has solved some of the most pressing problems in particle physics and not bothered to pass this information on to his colleagues.”
• The book includes unprofessional criticisms of other researchers, one of which, amusingly enough, is self-refuting — it claims that the authors of two papers [Tegmark1998; Tegmark2006] “do not know what to make of” results in a third paper [Tegmark2001]. But the first author of the first two papers (Max Tegmark) is also the first author of the third paper. By the way, the second author of the first paper (Martin Rees) is an extremely knowledgeable figure in the field; he most certainly is not perplexed by the third paper.

Has cosmic fine-tuning been refuted? « Math Scholar

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TagliatelliMonster said:

No.

I just noted that we don't have nearly enough knowledge to make any kind of statements concerning the probability of the universe in that sense. And that for all we know (you seem to have missed those words), it might turn out that our universe existing in the form that it exists is an inevitable outcome of reality.

We simply do not know.
So any argument that tries to pretend otherwise to make any kind of point, is therefor inherently fallacious. Or just an opinion / belief.


Conclusions are, after all, only as good as the premises and the logic used. And if your premises consists of a tiny bit of knowledge with loads of speculation and unsupported assumptions... then the conclusion is equally speculative and unsupported.

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Darkforbid said:

That basically denied all reasurch by Physicists and cosmologists as fallacious

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Darkforbid said:

That basically denied all reasurch by Physicists and cosmologists as fallacious

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Like I said 'head in the sand'

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Darkforbid said:

That basically denied all reasurch by Physicists and cosmologists as fallacious

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TagliatelliMonster said:

No, not at all.
It is simply a recognition that there is much, much that we don't know.


Again, the conclusion is only as good as the premises and logic. And the fact is that the "fine tuning argument necessarily needs to make a BUTTLOAD of assumptions and speculate a LOT about all kinds of unknowns.

There are so many unknowns, speculations and assumptions involved that the argument is basically worthless.

That is my point. Nothing else.



Au contraire.

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ratiocinator said:

Total nonsense. We don't know nearly enough to say how probable the universe is - we don't even have a unified theory of what happens within our universe.

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Darkforbid said:

That basically denied all reasurch by Physicists and cosmologists as fallacious

Like I said 'head in the sand'

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Darkforbid said:

Fine tuning is about the invariance of universal constants (26) and forces,. If you argument is 'we don't know' you still need to explain, why the already observed constants are finely fixed

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