A few points of correction to an otherwise excellent post (which will, alas, educate nobody):
@Thalassokrator said in #90:
> you can only use radiocarbon dating for determining the age of organic remnants which are younger than 75,000 years
True. In fact the measurement of ages bigger than ~60.000 years is already quite error-prone and shouldn't be taken at face value. There are other decay processes, though, which can be used in a similar way. See also Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%E2%80%93Ar_dating
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argon%E2%80%93argon_dating
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium%E2%80%93thorium_dating
etc.
> Indeed it is. And the Big Bang theory makes testable predictions and is based on observable evidence:
The evidence you quote is correct, but there is more to it: the Big Bang follows directly from the laws of quantum mechanics and this is the best (tested) theory physics has to offer. About one third of all the machinery surrounding us is directly based on quantum effects (including your computers CPU and the LASER in CD-ROM drive). The properties of an electron have been predicted and the prediction were correct up to the 12th digit behind the comma - talk about precision. It is hard to believe that we oculd build and predict all with this theory that but were fundamentally mistaken when we applied it to the origin of the universe.
> Decompose makes it sound like it splits up into its constituent parts. It does not (necessarily).
In some way it does and i wouldn't be too harsh with physical illiterati. We also say i.e. someone had a "heart attack" which the correct medical term is "yyocardial infarction". Basically the parts of a nucleus (protons, neutrons and a few gluons, because atomic nuclei are held together by residues of the strong force) indeed tear apart, leaving (one or more) smaller nuclei, some stray particles (depending on the decay: fast and slow neutrons, protons, neutrinos, photons, ...) and some energy (usually heat). If you sum that all up you get what you had before, more or less.
> And these gas clouds don't contain elements heavier than Lithium at all! Big stars however DO contain elements heavier than Lithium. That's because they fuse lighter elements into heavier ones in their cores by a process known as nuclear fusion.
Hold on: These gas clouds typically do contain heavier elements. But as they contract they start to rotate (like the skater rotates faster when drawing the arms in, conservation of momentum) and heavy and light elements are somewhat separated. Most stars, when they are finished forming, contain mostly hydrogen and some helium, therefore. If you look at the composition of the planets, though, you see the the densest (the "rockiest ones") are the innermost ones whereas the outer ones are equally balls of mostly hydrogen.
> After a while the star contains a small amount of heavy elements (meanwhile it has radiated away energy in the form of light). The heavy elements cannot have come from outside the star, it's surrounded only by the gas clouds (which don't contain heavy elements).
Not so fast: when the sun formed it basically was a ball of mostly hydrogen and a bit of helium, which contracted under its own gravitational force. Contracting things become hotter and denser and at one point hydrogen nuclei started to fuse: first to deuterium, then to helium. This process is still going on in the sun and makes it shine (yes, indeed, it also stops the further contraction). But after about 10 Billion years the hydrogen will be exhausted. The sun(s center) will contract further, now that nothing holds it back any more and as the core gets hotter another process starts: Helium nuclei are fused to lithium and carbon. Then again, when all the helium is exhausted, the sun contracts again and a new process starts fusing carbon to oxygen, etc.. All this ends with iron (element 26), because fusing iron to heavier elements doesn't release energy. At this point the sun contracts even further and the electrons are pressed into the nuclei making protons to neutrons. Basically a single big "nucleus" of about 10km radius is formed from most of the suns remaining mass. The rest is blasted off in a final big explosion. It is in this explosion, lasting a few seconds, where all elements heavier than iron are formed by proton bombardment of the gas surrounding the core (the sun has an "atmosphere" similar to earth, only it consists of very hot gas.
If someone finds it elevating to be created by a god: i find it elevating to be star dust!
All this is based not only on the precise knowledge of the processes involved. That also means that the distribution of elements have to be in certain relations and in fact these relations have been found by observing absorption spectrae. It has also been found - see above, there are only particles with even numbers of protons/neutrons involved - that elements with even numbers should be there in much bigger quantities than elements with odd numbers of particles inside the nucleus. What should i say, exactly this is the case in the observable universe. In fact the elements life is based upon: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen - are the most common elements in the universe. Maybe it is not such an outside chance that life started?
> This is a hyper literalist reading of the bible. Why shouldn't Genesis be read as a metaphor?
Because "god" doesn't work as a metaphor. "God" only works absolute. Consider the first commandment: you shall have no gods beside me. isn't that a bit strange, given a god with a monotheistic attitude? IF there are no other gods, as he says is the case, then this commandment makes about as much sense as: THOU SHALT HAVE NO THIRD EYE!! Or there are indeed other gods and we are to lie to him that he is the only one??
Set aside the xtian (or, rather: jewish) doorstoppers for a moment and look at all the "holy books": they all have in common that they promise there followers to be somehow "chosen", "redeemed" or otherwise better than the rest of mankind. Only this makes it possible to start with "i bring peace to earth" and proceed to "kill them if they don't elieve what you believe". Here is, for example Deuteronomy 20, 11-13 (New International Version):
> When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.
[Ahh, a religion of peace.]
> If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to
> forced labor and shall work for you."
[So, by "peace" they mean in fact "slavery".]
> If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to
> that city. When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the
> sword all the men in it."
I might be too rotten morally to appreciate a genocide, but to me that sounds rather disgusting. And if this god is a god of peace and love he needs some serious language education!
> People who take Genesis to be hyper literal in my opinion don't appreciate the magnificent poetry it contains!
Well, the part i just quoted sounds more like "Mein Kampf" than anything else.
> The Bible is and was not ever intended to be a science book and that's ok, isn't it?
According to the bible whale are fish ((Jonah 1:17 comp. to Matthew 12:39-41) and bats are birds (Leviticus 11:13-19), so if it is a science book it is definitely not one about biology.
> The point is that such a view is unfalsifiable. And that isn't a good thing, it
> is a bad thing. It means that it cannot make any testable predictions. It's
> therefore worthless for science.
I would like to have a discussion about empiriocritizism as you just hinted at. Still, as far as this discussion is concerned the probable differences in our views are neglectable. Suffice it to say that rubbish is not only worthless for science but for anything else too. Even in daily life i have to have a model of reality i can draw conclusions from. And from "god made the world appear older than it is" nobody can conclude anything - save for what i said above: believing is suspending critical thinking and vice versa.
> Furthermore the author is conflating the colloquial use of the term "theory"
> with the meaning of a scientific theory (scientists demand a lot more than
> just plausibility from a framework of interconnected hypotheses before they
> agree to call it a theory) here, but I'll let that one slide.
The classic! A theory has ... but see above, #85. "God exists and has created the world in 6 days" explain nothing (why not 10 days?, who created god?, ...) and predicts nothing (show me a provable, observable course of action god will take under certain circumstances, otherwise my point stands).
> Not much is assumed. Certainly not what the author thinks is
> assumed is actually assumed.
Actually the only thing assumed is that the laws of nature are the same everywhere.
@Thalassokrator said in #90:
> you can only use radiocarbon dating for determining the age of organic remnants which are younger than 75,000 years
True. In fact the measurement of ages bigger than ~60.000 years is already quite error-prone and shouldn't be taken at face value. There are other decay processes, though, which can be used in a similar way. See also Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%E2%80%93Ar_dating
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argon%E2%80%93argon_dating
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium%E2%80%93thorium_dating
etc.
> Indeed it is. And the Big Bang theory makes testable predictions and is based on observable evidence:
The evidence you quote is correct, but there is more to it: the Big Bang follows directly from the laws of quantum mechanics and this is the best (tested) theory physics has to offer. About one third of all the machinery surrounding us is directly based on quantum effects (including your computers CPU and the LASER in CD-ROM drive). The properties of an electron have been predicted and the prediction were correct up to the 12th digit behind the comma - talk about precision. It is hard to believe that we oculd build and predict all with this theory that but were fundamentally mistaken when we applied it to the origin of the universe.
> Decompose makes it sound like it splits up into its constituent parts. It does not (necessarily).
In some way it does and i wouldn't be too harsh with physical illiterati. We also say i.e. someone had a "heart attack" which the correct medical term is "yyocardial infarction". Basically the parts of a nucleus (protons, neutrons and a few gluons, because atomic nuclei are held together by residues of the strong force) indeed tear apart, leaving (one or more) smaller nuclei, some stray particles (depending on the decay: fast and slow neutrons, protons, neutrinos, photons, ...) and some energy (usually heat). If you sum that all up you get what you had before, more or less.
> And these gas clouds don't contain elements heavier than Lithium at all! Big stars however DO contain elements heavier than Lithium. That's because they fuse lighter elements into heavier ones in their cores by a process known as nuclear fusion.
Hold on: These gas clouds typically do contain heavier elements. But as they contract they start to rotate (like the skater rotates faster when drawing the arms in, conservation of momentum) and heavy and light elements are somewhat separated. Most stars, when they are finished forming, contain mostly hydrogen and some helium, therefore. If you look at the composition of the planets, though, you see the the densest (the "rockiest ones") are the innermost ones whereas the outer ones are equally balls of mostly hydrogen.
> After a while the star contains a small amount of heavy elements (meanwhile it has radiated away energy in the form of light). The heavy elements cannot have come from outside the star, it's surrounded only by the gas clouds (which don't contain heavy elements).
Not so fast: when the sun formed it basically was a ball of mostly hydrogen and a bit of helium, which contracted under its own gravitational force. Contracting things become hotter and denser and at one point hydrogen nuclei started to fuse: first to deuterium, then to helium. This process is still going on in the sun and makes it shine (yes, indeed, it also stops the further contraction). But after about 10 Billion years the hydrogen will be exhausted. The sun(s center) will contract further, now that nothing holds it back any more and as the core gets hotter another process starts: Helium nuclei are fused to lithium and carbon. Then again, when all the helium is exhausted, the sun contracts again and a new process starts fusing carbon to oxygen, etc.. All this ends with iron (element 26), because fusing iron to heavier elements doesn't release energy. At this point the sun contracts even further and the electrons are pressed into the nuclei making protons to neutrons. Basically a single big "nucleus" of about 10km radius is formed from most of the suns remaining mass. The rest is blasted off in a final big explosion. It is in this explosion, lasting a few seconds, where all elements heavier than iron are formed by proton bombardment of the gas surrounding the core (the sun has an "atmosphere" similar to earth, only it consists of very hot gas.
If someone finds it elevating to be created by a god: i find it elevating to be star dust!
All this is based not only on the precise knowledge of the processes involved. That also means that the distribution of elements have to be in certain relations and in fact these relations have been found by observing absorption spectrae. It has also been found - see above, there are only particles with even numbers of protons/neutrons involved - that elements with even numbers should be there in much bigger quantities than elements with odd numbers of particles inside the nucleus. What should i say, exactly this is the case in the observable universe. In fact the elements life is based upon: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen - are the most common elements in the universe. Maybe it is not such an outside chance that life started?
> This is a hyper literalist reading of the bible. Why shouldn't Genesis be read as a metaphor?
Because "god" doesn't work as a metaphor. "God" only works absolute. Consider the first commandment: you shall have no gods beside me. isn't that a bit strange, given a god with a monotheistic attitude? IF there are no other gods, as he says is the case, then this commandment makes about as much sense as: THOU SHALT HAVE NO THIRD EYE!! Or there are indeed other gods and we are to lie to him that he is the only one??
Set aside the xtian (or, rather: jewish) doorstoppers for a moment and look at all the "holy books": they all have in common that they promise there followers to be somehow "chosen", "redeemed" or otherwise better than the rest of mankind. Only this makes it possible to start with "i bring peace to earth" and proceed to "kill them if they don't elieve what you believe". Here is, for example Deuteronomy 20, 11-13 (New International Version):
> When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.
[Ahh, a religion of peace.]
> If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to
> forced labor and shall work for you."
[So, by "peace" they mean in fact "slavery".]
> If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to
> that city. When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the
> sword all the men in it."
I might be too rotten morally to appreciate a genocide, but to me that sounds rather disgusting. And if this god is a god of peace and love he needs some serious language education!
> People who take Genesis to be hyper literal in my opinion don't appreciate the magnificent poetry it contains!
Well, the part i just quoted sounds more like "Mein Kampf" than anything else.
> The Bible is and was not ever intended to be a science book and that's ok, isn't it?
According to the bible whale are fish ((Jonah 1:17 comp. to Matthew 12:39-41) and bats are birds (Leviticus 11:13-19), so if it is a science book it is definitely not one about biology.
> The point is that such a view is unfalsifiable. And that isn't a good thing, it
> is a bad thing. It means that it cannot make any testable predictions. It's
> therefore worthless for science.
I would like to have a discussion about empiriocritizism as you just hinted at. Still, as far as this discussion is concerned the probable differences in our views are neglectable. Suffice it to say that rubbish is not only worthless for science but for anything else too. Even in daily life i have to have a model of reality i can draw conclusions from. And from "god made the world appear older than it is" nobody can conclude anything - save for what i said above: believing is suspending critical thinking and vice versa.
> Furthermore the author is conflating the colloquial use of the term "theory"
> with the meaning of a scientific theory (scientists demand a lot more than
> just plausibility from a framework of interconnected hypotheses before they
> agree to call it a theory) here, but I'll let that one slide.
The classic! A theory has ... but see above, #85. "God exists and has created the world in 6 days" explain nothing (why not 10 days?, who created god?, ...) and predicts nothing (show me a provable, observable course of action god will take under certain circumstances, otherwise my point stands).
> Not much is assumed. Certainly not what the author thinks is
> assumed is actually assumed.
Actually the only thing assumed is that the laws of nature are the same everywhere.