Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Washington Post, 2005 - "[Bush's] comments drew sharp criticism yesterday from opponents of the theory, who said there is no scientific evidence to support it and no educational basis for teaching it. Much of the scientific establishment says that intelligent design is not a tested scientific theory but a cleverly marketed effort to introduce religious -- especially Christian -- thinking to students. Opponents say that church groups and other interest groups are pursuing political channels instead of first building support through traditional scientific review."
TIME, 2009 - While most scientists would write off the [Large Hadron Collider] event as a freak accident, two esteemed physicists have formulated a theory that suggests an alternative explanation: perhaps a time-traveling bird was sent from the future to sabotage the experiment. Bech Nielsen of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, Japan, have published several papers over the past year arguing that the CERN experiment may be the latest in a series of physics research projects whose purposes are so unacceptable to the universe that they are doomed to fail, subverted by the future. [...] The theory as to why the universe rejects the creation of Higgs bosons is based on complex mathematics, but, Nielsen tells TIME, "you could explain it [simply] by saying that God, in inverted commas, or nature, hates the Higgs and tries to avoid them."
h/t Revnant Dream
I suggest that we call in Torchwood to investigate.
Let me assure you that nothing happens in the multiverse, that should not or must not happen.
If something is happening, that's the way it should be and the only way it can be.
I wish I’d had this information back in grade five.
“Miss Penner my mastery of the recorder is so unacceptable to the universe that I am doomed to fail.”
Is there anything the TOTUS can't do?
Well, I'm a scientist and an engineer and an atheist, but I'll be the first to acknowledge that theoretical physics and intelligent design are kissing cousins, in that they both consist of people who really ought to know better just making crap up.
Theoretical physics is called that because it makes no empirically testable predictions. Much of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity wasn't empirically testable until the 1980's, when strong empirical evidence was produced courtesy of the space program. The whole idea of the Large Hadron Collider was to empirically test some aspects of theoretical particle physics. Which is great, and as it should be, but people like Nielsen trying to explain "most governments don't want to spend billions of dollars on research with no practical value" by invoking Terminator birds from the future are just an embarassment to everyone doing real science at the LHC.
Daniel,
at least science can state there's logic behind theoretical physics. The same cannot be said for "Intelligent Design" propaganda.
And the caption reads...
"When Scientists don't get out enough"
US Democrats the Party of Science
"Bringing science back to it rightful place in society."
When I read the 2005 Piece I wanted to simply replace Intelligent Design with Global Warming, Christian with environmentalist and substitute Obama for Bush.
Party of science my a__!
Whenever I read the words 'intelligent design', I think of the Christians who talk about how their god designed and built this universe as a back-drop for the likes of us. Not a very salable idea in this era of scientific discovery.
However, I don't hear this claim from from the competition. I have never heard anyone talking about how Allah built the universe at all. It seems he is there mainly to dole out imaginary virgins to suckers who bought into the explode your body scam.
Perhaps that is why it is the Christians who invent, create and build everything in the world while the Allah gang tries to blow it all up using Christian ordinance of course since they too are unable to design and build anything.
Sorry to stray a bit off topic .. sort of
“The starter’s gun went off. While Science was fiddling with its shoelaces, Ideology was halfway around the track." - George Jonas
Editor's Note: This post is not intended as invitation for a debate on the merits or lack thereof of evolutionary theory. Thanks.
1000 YBP the concensus was much different...
Cartographers marked their maps with "Here Be Dragons" where previously it was "Mere Incognito".
Now our self appointed wise men mark where they have no knowledge, "HERE BE NO DRAGONS."
Nobody is talking about time travelling birds, except the idiot Time writer. I think he must have gotten the idea from a (much better, btw) NYT article on the same subject, in which the author compares, in principle, the creation of the Higgs boson sending ripples back through time to prevent said creation, to "...a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather." It's just a helpful analogy.
An entertaining, and similar, theory, is that activating the LHC would destroy the universe, past, present, and future. Therefore, the only possible universes are ones in which the collider has never been successsfully activated. Since our universe exists, that means the collider has not and will never work. So we would expect to see an endless series of random events preventing it from ever being turned on.
Kate, ah yes the "pre-emptive" strike. But we can talk about ID all we want correct? Since it is not ID, nor science?
oops, switch ID with evolution in the last sentence.
Right on Daniel Ream, absolutely correct.
The "science" of theoretical physics is no more real than religion.
Even Einstein, the creator of modern physics rejected his own theory of relativity because it does not work, since then the followers of Einstein's unified theory have created fairies to make it work like Neutron Stars, Dark matter, Dark energy and Higgs bosons all of which are no more real than santa clause or the tooth fairy.
The problem with modern science is that it is impossible to throw out the bad science due to political and peer pressure, both of which would look stupid(and lose funding) at this point to admit they have been chasing rainbows for decades with billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars.
WTF are you talking about, Allan? Can you not read?
Aaron: "Let me assure you that nothing happens in the multiverse, that should not or must not happen. If something is happening, that's the way it should be and the only way it can be."
You've accepted MSG then?
Somewhat related to Kate's post (I hope!) is that what troubles me today is that scientific study is being brought into disrepute.
People like Al Gore are shamelessly hijacking science for their own personal gain. And increasingly, universities, were most science is done, are being suffocated by political correctness and left-wing ideology.
You are simply not permitted to be a professor today unless you lean heavily to the left (or remain silent in the face of it all if you wish to hold on to your job).
As a result I fear that the ordinary citizen, who foots the bill for much of this, and who watches from the sidelines, will eventually reject science.
This is a dangerous state of affairs, because if it happens, then we return to the dark ages.
If you think science was hijacked by Al Gore, consider the communication technology that has been hijacked by big corporations who have used that science to create devices that force people (mainly the younger generation) to walk around or sit around like zombies all day and into the night STARING AT THE PALMS OF THEIR HANDS.
Thus, rendering them incapable of functioning in a healthy society and of maturing into responsible citizens.
Although, to be fair, many baby boomer generation failed to mature into responsible citizens too, but for different reasons that they are still smoking.
I might add that none of this has anything to do with any god. Who needs a god, with our welfare programs and a master card!
Are you Daniel Ream?
Durward, you haven't a clue what you're talking about.
Einstein never rejected relativity, and he was never successful at developing a unified theory. And the experimental evidence supporting relativity is so massive that to deny that it is either true and at least at excellent approximation to the truth would be perverse.
Pure quack science.
Ian (11:14) suggests; "When Scientists don't get out enough".
Or 'When scientists don't get enough'... ;)
No, I'm Daniel Ream. Who's on first?
To Chris Gordon - yes, I know Nielsen himself didn't invoke the time-traveling birds, but his theory seems to rest largely on the evidence that governments don't want to pour money down the Higgs boson hole. If the universe really is conspiring to prevent the creation of the Higgs boson, then Occam's Razor tells us that the most effective way of having that happen is that when they turn the LHC on, nothing useful happens. Nothing at all. No Higgs boson, no useful data, just nothing interesting happening. If the universe is capable of violating its own causality to drop bread crumbs on the LHC's power supply, surely "Nope, no Higgs bosons here today. Sorry. Maybe next week. Try again next week" is within its grasp.
Next the Times author is going to invoke the "Infinite Probablity Drive".
co2, what kind of nutjob are you?
you won't dare to punch me if you met me, but condemning me to excruciating pain anonymously via Internet is somehow Okay?
No, dude, I am MSG free and living a happy and healthy life. Good luck to you, anonymous moron.
Aaron:
Try not to get upset at plant food.
I AM LOST CAN SOMEONE SIMPLIFY THIS FOR ME ? WHAT IS THE JUXSTAPOSE SAYING ?
Paul in calgary.
If Star Trek's alternate universes have taught me anything....
(joking)
I think there are extreme views on both sides.
Just my thoughts.
Once there are four or five freak accidents in a row, get back to me.
BTW, the bird does not have to travel in time. It could be that there are an infinite number of universes, and that they can only survive as long as the LCH doesn't fire up. We happen to be on a luck streak... Maybe the only universe that does survive is one where the LCH has so many snafus it gets shut down for budget reasons.
How often has science been wrong in the past?
Plate tectonics was suggested 100 years ago and laughed at. It was years before it's became acceptable. What about the Big Bang or the pulsating universe? Again they argued.
Now arguments about Global warming. And scientists with a political bent looking for taxpayers handouts are screaming "the end of the world as we know it."
Science by concensus - what a travesty.
Allan, your comment about "Intelligent Design" propaganda is just secular propaganda passed off as educational enlightenment.
How rational is it to believe everything came from nothing? I contend that your leap of faith is much bigger than those who believe in Intelligent Design.
Here is a poem to help you think.
Big Bang.
From a grain of sand leaps the end of time.
From a speck of dust bursts the conscious mind.
From the emptiness spreads infinity.
From the nothingness blooms all that you see.
From a lifeless void gasps a breath divine.
Your Faith is in Chance, but in God is mind.
DoDoDoDo,DoDoDoDo,DoDoDoDo. Not just a crap commemt but the theme from the Twilight Zone.
It is not possible for anything to come from
nothing. Therefore, since there is something,
there must never have been nothing.
Bingo, Vitruvius! And the measly human mind inside my cranium cannot conceive of nothingness, let alone nothingness without a beginning. No time. no matter to explode at the precise moment of the big bang. No space for the matter to splatter in to. To me, it must mean that time in continually expanding in both directions. Get your minds around that, oh you atheists. By the same token, I cannot fathom what creative force must be the cause of all that, but whatever it is, it has to be the great mystery we call God. And He/She/It is beyond any human created definition, neither the Judeao/Christian version nor any other. I've always liked M Scott Peck's definition of the stages of spiritual growth.
"Stage I is chaotic, disordered, and reckless. Very young children are in Stage I. They tend to defy and disobey, and are unwilling to accept a will greater than their own. Many criminals are people who have never grown out of Stage I.
Stage II is the stage at which a person has blind faith. Once children learn to obey their parents, they reach Stage II. Many so-called religious people are essentially Stage II people, in the sense that they have blind faith in God, and do not question His existence. With blind faith comes humility and a willingness to obey and serve. The majority of good law-abiding citizens never move out of Stage II.
Stage III is the stage of scientific skepticism and inquisitivity. A Stage III person does not accept things on faith but only accepts them if convinced logically. Many people working in scientific and technological research are in Stage III.
Stage IV is the stage where an individual starts enjoying the mystery and beauty of nature. While retaining skepticism, he starts perceiving grand patterns in nature. His religiousness and spirituality differ significantly from that of a Stage II person, in the sense that he does not accept things through blind faith but does so because of genuine belief. Stage IV people are labeled as Mystics."
If one scientist says something stupid, and ten thousand scientists laugh at him, who do you suppose will get interviewed by Time?
Crazy shit sells. Always has, always will. It's dishonest in the extreme for you to suggest that these goofy theories are anything other than either a fun thought-experiment of no scientific value, or the deluded ranting of a quack.
And Stage V is when a larger asteroid than the one that went by just 8700 miles away hits and your mystics along with the rest of us go poof. So much for religiousness and spirituality.
A scientist, physics innovator and university lecturer who attends our church has reached Stage IV.
Ever since I was I child, I have been acutely aware that our teachings are more of the mystical nature, since the very word is used in our hymns.
It is certainly a different understanding than atheists stuck at Stage 1 (I am God of my own universe).
Thanks Louise.
Naw, stage 4 is just a regression to stage 2. It's the natural cycle of life - you're born, you poop yourself, you wear diapers, you think you know everything, you realize how much you don't know ... then you hit midlife, and go through the same steps in reverse order - you think you know everything, you wear diapers, you poop yourself and then you die. Ditto for your idea of "spirituality" - if you've made it to stage 3 and then become "spiritual" again, you're not actually moving to a new stage. It's just your senility beginning to show itself.
Dave:
Death can come at any moment.
Generations of human beings have lived and died without being killed by and asteroid, but many have suffered untimely deaths for their beliefs by control freaks throughout history.
Awe, Alex. You're just not old enough yet. With any luck, you'll reach stage 4 before the asteroid hits and you'll die happy.
You're right Luise, I'm not old enough to be senile yet. Luckily, it doesn't run in my family anyway, so it's extremely unlikely that I'll ever turn to you imaginary friends and your happy-happy-land.
With any luck, we'll find a cure for mental illness in the next decade, and you'll be able to spend your final years alert and rational instead of babbling about angels and demons while simultaneously filling your diapers.
And who would these "imaginary friends" of mine be, Alex? It appears you didn't read that part of my response to Vitruvius that precedes my posting of Peck's thesis.
Funny, I don't remember even thinking about imaginary friends in happy-happy land, or angels and demons let alone mention any in my post. You seem to be stuck at stage 3. Peck does say that not everyone reaches stage 4 in their lifetime, or for that matter, even stage 2. You seem to be currently at stage 3, the stage where it's apparently imperative to lash out at any transcendental philosophy. Good luck with the rest of your journey, which I hope includes becoming a more careful reader.
And by the way, it's Louise, not Luise. But I've been called worse. Some folks have a hard time spelling that name and frequently leave out the "i".
Alex:
The Soviet Union used to deem those who disagreed with them as mentally ill.
That is, if those who deemed those that suffered from the opiate of the masses were not in a position of influence. Among those were scientists, doctors and those whose religion inspired their discoveries and their compassion.
Many thousands of priests, monks and nuns were outright slaughtered for their beliefs. It's all a matter of historical record.
I hope you're not suggesting that part of your final solution would be to institutionalze those whose pursuit of inner peace has reached a higher level than yours.
The difference between your philosophy and mine, I would submit, is that I understand there is a physical realm and a spiritual realm. Two different fields of knowledge.
It never makes a human being smarter when his mind is closed to either important aspect of our existence.
Well said Alex! Written like a true stage I.
Overheard a scientist telling God he can do anything God can do.
So God said, "Can you create man from a lump of dirt?"
The scientist said "Sure! I just have to add some ammonia acids, some proteins, some..."
But God interrupted and said, "first you'll have to get your own dirt."
It was a generalization, Louie, don't get your panties in a knot. If you don't buy into those particular beliefs, good for you; you're way ahead of 99% of the "spiritual people" out there. It doesn't really make a big difference though, since you're still advocating the acceptance of irrational beliefs based solely on mysticism. Not only are you advocating it, but you're actually claiming that belief systems based on unfalsifiable, baseless assumptions are in fact superior to logic, reason, and the scientific method. You pretend that there's a difference between your "actual belief" and "blind faith", which is really just an obvious attempt to make you feel better about your rejection of reason by inventing a distinction which simply doesn't exist. The entire argument is a facade designed to pretty-up the acceptance of irrational beliefs. It's the equivalent of putting makeup on a pig, and just about as effective.
I want to hear Alex's description of what existed the "second" before the big bang. Alex, can you conceive of a "nothingness" in which neither time (even if only a second) nor space with all those quasars and exploding nubulae even existed? That, to me is the Great Mystery that all humans have struggled to explain. Just because their answers come up short, and in many cases are outright wacky, doesn't mean that the big question does not exist nor that the search for answers is extremely awe inspiring.
Alex:
As Bob Dylan once sang:
Don't criticize what you can't understand.
It's obvious you make no effort to understand what millions of people throughout the millenia have come to understand.
Not much has changed in human nature. Lives are played out on different stages, with increasing levels of scientific understanding and technological advance.
Human beings belittling others who have either more money, more knowledge or any type of achievement or understanding is a part of human nature that's well understood in the religious tradition.
Quite honestly, your tactic exposes your level of understanding of human nature ... which is somewhere around zero and which is easily recognizable.
Instead of attempting to equalize yourself by ripping down others (notice that it's not working), it would be better is you attempted to make yourself better. Throwing off the shackles of your self-imposed prison of ignorance would be a good place to start.
Alex, I believe you are confusing "spiritual" people with "religious" people. There is a huge difference between the two, but they are not always mutually exclusive.