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

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Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Show the math and the assumptions made.



Why?
  • Professor Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in high energy physics (a field of science that deals with the very early universe), writing in the journal "Scientific American", reflects on:

    how surprising it is that the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe should allow for the existence of beings who could observe it. Life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values.
    Although Weinberg is a self-described agnostic, he cannot but be astounded by the extent of the fine-tuning. He goes on to describe how a beryllium isotope having the minuscule half life of 0.0000000000000001 seconds must find and absorb a helium nucleus in that split of time before decaying. This occurs only because of a totally unexpected, exquisitely precise, energy match between the two nuclei. If this did not occur there would be none of the heavier elements. No carbon, no nitrogen, no life. Our universe would be composed of hydrogen and helium. But this is not the end of Professor Weinberg's wonder at our well-tuned universe. He continues:

    One constant does seem to require an incredible fine-tuning -- The existence of life of any kind seems to require a cancellation between different contributions to the vacuum energy, accurate to about 120 decimal places.
    This means that if the energies of the Big Bang were, in arbitrary units, not: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000, but instead: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000001, there would be no life of any sort in the entire universe because as Weinberg states:

    the universe either would go through a complete cycle of expansion and contraction before life could arise, or would expand so rapidly that no galaxies or stars could form.
I suppose you could argue with Prof Steven Weinberg.

Maybe you could ask him?
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
  • Professor Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in high energy physics (a field of science that deals with the very early universe), writing in the journal "Scientific American", reflects on:

    how surprising it is that the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe should allow for the existence of beings who could observe it. Life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values.
    Although Weinberg is a self-described agnostic, he cannot but be astounded by the extent of the fine-tuning. He goes on to describe how a beryllium isotope having the minuscule half life of 0.0000000000000001 seconds must find and absorb a helium nucleus in that split of time before decaying. This occurs only because of a totally unexpected, exquisitely precise, energy match between the two nuclei. If this did not occur there would be none of the heavier elements. No carbon, no nitrogen, no life. Our universe would be composed of hydrogen and helium. But this is not the end of Professor Weinberg's wonder at our well-tuned universe. He continues:

    One constant does seem to require an incredible fine-tuning -- The existence of life of any kind seems to require a cancellation between different contributions to the vacuum energy, accurate to about 120 decimal places.
    This means that if the energies of the Big Bang were, in arbitrary units, not: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000, but instead: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000001, there would be no life of any sort in the entire universe because as Weinberg states:

    the universe either would go through a complete cycle of expansion and contraction before life could arise, or would expand so rapidly that no galaxies or stars could form.
I suppose you could argue with Prof Steven Weinberg.

Maybe you could ask him?


That other physicists do not take his argument very seriously should tell you something. The problem with this is that he assumes that the constants he is talking about could be any different. At best it is an argument from ignorance.
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
That other physicists do not take his argument very seriously should tell you something. The problem with this is that he assumes that the constants he is talking about could be any different. At best it is an argument from ignorance.
tell that to Scientific American and to the good scientist.
 

Shaul

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
The Biblical account of creation, regarding the origin of homo sapiens is false; because the Biblical geneaology of Jesus's family tree has a time span of 77 generations listed between his generation and Adam whom the Bible claims was the "first man". Reference: (Luke 3:23-38) and Eve whom the Bible claims as the mother of all the living. (Genesis 3:20)

Of course, the Bible is wrong about the origin of mankind; in fact, there were people prior to the 76th generation before Christ that allegedly was spawned by Adam and Eve.

Adam as being the first man and perpetrator of original sin is an important premise of Christianity. If Adam wasn't the first man, then there isn't actually any "origin sin". Jesus supposedly died on the Cross to save humankind from "original sin". If there isn't any "original sin" from which to be saved, then Jesus Christ's death on the Cross is pretty pointless and meaningless. Evidently, there were many generations of people prior to the 76th generation before Christ whom the Bible claims was spawned by Adam. So then, Adam, Eve and original sin are mythological. There is neither any "first man" nor "original sin" throughout human evolution. Thus, Jesus Christ having died on the cross to save mankind from "original sin" is not reality but is rather mythological.

Based on genetic diversity, there's never been a human population bottleneck as low as one primordial couple.
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.
 

Shaul

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
The Biblical account is irreconcilable with a heck of a lot more than evolution.

The order of events in Genesis has the Earth created before the Sun. Evolution seems like a quibble against that major error.
You have misinterpreted the Biblical account. You then have created a straw man argument. You haven’t proved anything.
 

Shaul

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I've copied and pasted what I myself have written in my own words. From nobody else online will you find what I've written.

There's overwhelming fossil record evidence as well as genetic evidence of significant enough gene pool changes within a species changing over the course of many generations resulting in organisms having genetic traits different enough from their distant ancestors; so that there'd be no possible sexual reproduction occurring between somebody who were to have distant ancestral genetic traits with anybody living in the current population. There's little doubt all life forms share a common ancestor; so then, evolution is about as debatable as the Earth's ellipsoid shape.
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.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
You have misinterpreted the Biblical account. You then have created a straw man argument. You haven’t proved anything.
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.
 

Salvador

RF's Swedenborgian
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.

Evolution is a verifiable theory as well as proven fact. You must have missed what I wrote in post #20 where I well-explained how evolution is proven fact.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
  • Professor Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in high energy physics (a field of science that deals with the very early universe), writing in the journal "Scientific American", reflects on:

    how surprising it is that the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe should allow for the existence of beings who could observe it. Life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values.
    Although Weinberg is a self-described agnostic, he cannot but be astounded by the extent of the fine-tuning. He goes on to describe how a beryllium isotope having the minuscule half life of 0.0000000000000001 seconds must find and absorb a helium nucleus in that split of time before decaying. This occurs only because of a totally unexpected, exquisitely precise, energy match between the two nuclei. If this did not occur there would be none of the heavier elements. No carbon, no nitrogen, no life. Our universe would be composed of hydrogen and helium. But this is not the end of Professor Weinberg's wonder at our well-tuned universe. He continues:

    One constant does seem to require an incredible fine-tuning -- The existence of life of any kind seems to require a cancellation between different contributions to the vacuum energy, accurate to about 120 decimal places.
    This means that if the energies of the Big Bang were, in arbitrary units, not: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000, but instead: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000001, there would be no life of any sort in the entire universe because as Weinberg states:

    the universe either would go through a complete cycle of expansion and contraction before life could arise, or would expand so rapidly that no galaxies or stars could form.
I suppose you could argue with Prof Steven Weinberg.

Maybe you could ask him?
This is what some might call a sharpshooter argument. Where you fire into the side of the barn and then paint bullseye around the bullet holes.
There's no sense in checking off the boxes of life according to this universe in a theoretical one where selective pressure would be been completely different. This argument doesn't demonstrate that life would be impossible without the conditions that exist currently, only that other life would have adapted to the conditions of that universe.

"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, “This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!” This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it’s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for." -Douglas Adams

In the famous puddle analogy, the hole which the water sits wasn't fine tuned to accommodate the water, the water adapted to the shape of the hole.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
  • Professor Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in high energy physics (a field of science that deals with the very early universe), writing in the journal "Scientific American", reflects on:

    how surprising it is that the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe should allow for the existence of beings who could observe it. Life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values.
    Although Weinberg is a self-described agnostic, he cannot but be astounded by the extent of the fine-tuning. He goes on to describe how a beryllium isotope having the minuscule half life of 0.0000000000000001 seconds must find and absorb a helium nucleus in that split of time before decaying. This occurs only because of a totally unexpected, exquisitely precise, energy match between the two nuclei. If this did not occur there would be none of the heavier elements. No carbon, no nitrogen, no life. Our universe would be composed of hydrogen and helium. But this is not the end of Professor Weinberg's wonder at our well-tuned universe. He continues:

    One constant does seem to require an incredible fine-tuning -- The existence of life of any kind seems to require a cancellation between different contributions to the vacuum energy, accurate to about 120 decimal places.
    This means that if the energies of the Big Bang were, in arbitrary units, not: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000, but instead: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000001, there would be no life of any sort in the entire universe because as Weinberg states:

    the universe either would go through a complete cycle of expansion and contraction before life could arise, or would expand so rapidly that no galaxies or stars could form.
I suppose you could argue with Prof Steven Weinberg.

Maybe you could ask him?

Cool.

However, one thing I immediatly notice... your quote does not show this professor drawing the conclusion that you drew.

Also, what do his peers think of his argument and conclusions?
Or is there only one side to this story?
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
You have misinterpreted the Biblical account. You then have created a straw man argument. You haven’t proved anything.
Dry land and plants on the third day; the Sun and Moon on the fourth day. What am I misinterpreting?
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Cool.

However, one thing I immediatly notice... your quote does not show this professor drawing the conclusion that you drew.

Also, what do his peers think of his argument and conclusions?
Or is there only one side to this story?
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
ir
.

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."

ir
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
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Professor Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in high energy physics (a field of science that deals with the very early universe), writing in the journal "Scientific American", reflects on:

how surprising it is that the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe should allow for the existence of beings who could observe it. Life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values.

Although Weinberg is a self-described agnostic, he cannot but be astounded by the extent of the fine-tuning. He goes on to describe how a beryllium isotope having the minuscule half life of 0.0000000000000001 seconds must find and absorb a helium nucleus in that split of time before decaying. This occurs only because of a totally unexpected, exquisitely precise, energy match between the two nuclei. If this did not occur there would be none of the heavier elements. No carbon, no nitrogen, no life. Our universe would be composed of hydrogen and helium.

Except that Weinberg's position is exactly that the universe is NOT fine tuned!

A Designer Universe?

"Looked at more closely, the fine-tuning of the constants of nature here does not seem so fine. We have to consider the reason why the formation of carbon in stars requires the existence of a radioactive state of carbon with an energy not more than 7.7 MeV above the energy of the normal state. The reason is that the carbon nuclei in this state are actually formed in a two-step process: first, two helium nuclei combine to form the unstable nucleus of a beryllium isotope, beryllium 8, which occasionally, before it falls apart, captures another helium nucleus, forming a carbon nucleus in its radioactive state, which then decays into normal carbon. The total energy of the beryllium 8 nucleus and a helium nucleus at rest is 7.4 MeV above the energy of the normal state of the carbon nucleus; so if the energy of the radioactive state of carbon were more than 7.7 MeV it could only be formed in a collision of a helium nucleus and a beryllium 8 nucleus if the energy of motion of these two nuclei were at least 0.3 MeV--an energy which is extremely unlikely at the temperatures found in stars.

Thus the crucial thing that affects the production of carbon in stars is not the 7.65 MeV energy of the radioactive state of carbon above its normal state, but the 0.25 MeV energy of the radioactive state, an unstable composite of a beryllium 8 nucleus and a helium nucleus, above the energy of those nuclei at rest.2 This energy misses being too high for the production of carbon by a fractional amount of 0.05 MeV/0.25 MeV, or 20 percent, which is not such a close call after all."

But this is not the end of Professor Weinberg's wonder at our well-tuned universe. He continues:

One constant does seem to require an incredible fine-tuning -- The existence of life of any kind seems to require a cancellation between different contributions to the vacuum energy, accurate to about 120 decimal places.

This means that if the energies of the Big Bang were, in arbitrary units, not: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000, but instead: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000001, there would be no life of any sort in the entire universe because as Weinberg states:the universe either would go through a complete cycle of expansion and contraction before life could arise, or would expand so rapidly that no galaxies or stars could form.
I suppose you could argue with Prof Steven Weinberg.

Maybe you could ask him?

Maybe you should ask him about his comments saying specifically that the Beryllium resonance above isn't as fine tuned as many lead you to believe?

The problem with this cancellation is that it depends strongly on quantum gravity, which *everyone* admits we don't understand. And Weinberg notes that it is quite possible there is a deeper reason for this calculation. We simply don't know at this point.
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
Since fine tuning suggests a God...

Except it doesn't. Even if we accept the idea of "fine tuning" (which makes several problematic assumptions), how much more "fine tuned" must a god that creates a specific universe be, than that universe by itself?

It doesn't solve the mystery, if anything, it makes it a bigger mystery.

The idea of a multiverse (for example) would solve the problem (if it's even real) and we have exactly the same evidence for that as we have for a god: none.

The existence of unknowns doesn't make made up just-so stories and myths any more believable.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
That other physicists do not take his argument very seriously should tell you something. The problem with this is that he assumes that the constants he is talking about could be any different. At best it is an argument from ignorance.


Weinberg is a top-notch physicist. He also strongly criticized the fine tuning argument. The quotes given are not representative of his views.

In fact, Weinberg is one of the more outspoken atheists.
 
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