Please spell out what premises you are referring to. Thanks.
I agree I’ve never found the fine tuning argument very persuasive in general. I hardly claim any significant understanding of the specifics; however, I can’t help but think that:
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if various universal constants were different, perhaps we would be complex and intelligent high-energy plasma beings existing within streams of electrical energy, having this discussion about how fine-tuned our universe was for the existence of intelligent high-enegery plasma beings.
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are we saying that, if the universe were in fact different than it is in regards to it’s fine-tuning, that God could not figure out how to take the material within that universe and create intelligent entities with what is there? This is the only conceivable universe wherein God could have worked within it to create intelligent creatures and a meaningful reality? He could not have figured out how to do it if any of the constants were different?
Angels presumably exist in some sort of “created” reality not bound to our own natural laws, so I’m dubious of the idea that only within our universe’s physical fine-tuned constants can any intelligent beings exist.
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I would push back on the arguments people frequently make about the obvious ease of imagining other forms of life or intelligence, as I only know of the one based on our actual biology. But this also applies to the creationist account of our being-- given what I know of our biological existence, I can’t rigorously instantiate in my mind an alternate scenario where humans were created from scratch to be who we are, replete with the hereditary genetics and the adaptations that we embody.
To play devil’s advocate, this seems like a science of the gaps/ infinite regress type of argument. I’m curious to know what bases there are to consider any particular distribution.
And if it comes out to be “in our favor” (or not), does it make our reality less significant (or more)?
To me, there is an ambiguous sort of p-hacking going on when talking about “miraculous” phenomena, along the lines of pet peeves or “Arguments people should stop making” that need clarification.
Thanks.
Hi Doko, I want to point out that I would like people to stop making arguments that disparage the middle class. How exactly does being middle class mean one’s arguments or apologetics are bad?
As to arguing that one has never heard xyz supported before, therefore it must be false, that is a pure logical fallacy ad populum. It is a form of the everybody knows this to be true, therefore it is true. From Wiki:
In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum Latin for " argument to the people ") is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition must be true because many or most people believe it, often concisely encapsulated as: “If many believe so, it is so.”
What you are saying because many people don’t believe it, therefore it is false. This is why I think logic should be taught in school as it was 120 years ago.
New concepts and ideas that you have never heard of arise all the time and what you hear of or think of, or even what philosophers think of and argue for, has no bearing on the truth or falsity of a new argument. I once pointed out to a boss that every oil productive salt dome in the Gulf of Mexico basin had Sulphur in the cap rock" His response? “That can’t be true, I haven’t ever heard that!” I guess he thought he had heard of and knew everything. Such a view is a way to avoid having to actually THINK about new information or new arguments.
To clarify my view of the viability of fine tuning, Assume that the multiverse doesn’t exist and all we have is the one universe we can actually observe. It has a beginning in the form of a big bang, and therefore is not an eternally existing thing as had been previously believed by most astronomers (go look up Hoyles creation operator). Further this only universe we can observe or detect has physical constants that sure appear to have been rigged. From JUST the cosmological constant, quantum calculations say what the value should be and if it were that value, we would not exist. Galaxies would have been ripped apart by expansion. OBSERVATION shows that the true value of the cosmological constant is 120 orders of magnitude lower than what quantum suggests it should be. At the very least, this would say we won a lottery in the creation of this universe with a 10^-120 chance of success. Lets face it if you cheat at cards in a casino, you will be rigging the game far far less than 120 orders of magnitude, and the casino’s gang of Guido’s and Vito’s will come and escort you out. My point is, it doesn’t take 120 orders of magnitude change in the odds to get you tossed from a casino because THEY TAKE A FAR SMALLER CHANGE AS PROOF YOU ARE CHEATING. But somehow, we are not allowed to use a 120 order of magnitude change as evidence of ‘cheating?’
Now if the multiverse actually exists, yes, fine-tuning won’t work, but show me evidence (not an equation anyone can write an equation to show anything) that the multiverse exists.
I held it up as an example of a form of argument. If I held it up for mocking ridicule, I was a miserable failure since no one mocked or ridiculed. Nevertheless, I apologize for offending you.
Hi, Glenn. Hope you are feeling well today. I didn’t make an argument against fine tuning, sarcastic or otherwise. It’s an interesting factoid that begs for explanation, but I don’t consider it a strong argument for theism, let alone Christianity. I also didn’t say that scientists are the only objective humans on the planet.
Thank you for the lesson in post-modernism. A quick aside: I always find it odd when my fellow evangelicals rail against relativism, “subjective truth,” and post-modernism, yet they jump on the post-modern bandwagon to argue that science is biased. Strangely, it seems the only scientists whose work exhibits the blindness of materialism are those who research origins. The rest we can trust, except for the atheist climatologists out to destroy our God-ordained capitalist economy. (Sarcasm alert!)
Here’s one thing you’re missing: The scientific establishment is not a monolithic, homogeneous cabal out to destroy belief in God. Scientists, including physicists and biologists (gasp!), come from all walks of life and hold as many disparate beliefs/worldviews as the general public. You’ve talked to several Christian physicists here already. The president of BioLogos, Deb Haarsma, has a Ph.D. in astrophysics from MIT. I’m fairly sure that she’s a Christian. 
So, when the “atheist physicist” tries to find a handy explanation other than God, do you think all the Christian and Jewish physicists, who by your assessment also want their “worldview to be the right one,” nod their heads in approval?
Here’s something else you’re missing: Self-interest keeps scientists honest. Every single one of them must publish or perish. Just because one “atheist physicist” publishes an idea that is quite handy to the “atheist agenda” (whatever that is) doesn’t mean that the idea is given a free pass by the other atheists. Not how it works. If an atheist physicist could make his or her reputation by disproving the multiverse, I guarantee that the paper would be published post haste.
You see, the discoverer of the Big Bang was George Lemaitre, a Christian. Since he was a Christian and his hypothesis was greeted warmly by Christians, why did the atheist physicists accept the idea?
Christianity good, science good. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
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A quick response to clarify a few points.
First, there are two kinds of slavery in the Old Testament. Indentured servitude to pay off debts is envisioned for Israelites and a more permanent kind for prisoners of war. So both you and those you critique are right. Further, the OT does not speak with one voice on the topic, as there are different instructions for the treatment of slaves in OT different books.
Second, olam in Hebrew does not literally “mean” forever, though that may often be the intent of its use. It means either as far back as you can imagine (the distant past) or as far into the future as you can imagine (thus equivalent to forever). In modern Hebrew olam has shifted from a temporal term to a spatial term, meaning “world.” The transitional idea is as far as you can see (to the horizon).
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So basically forever?
Hi, Glenn. Hope you are feeling well today. I didn’t make an argument against fine tuning, sarcastic or otherwise. It’s an interesting factoid that begs for explanation, but I don’t consider it a strong argument for theism, let alone Christianity. I also didn’t say that scientists are the only objective humans on the planet.
Fair enough Jay.
The sad truth about us humans is that it is almost impossible for us to be totally objective because we all want our world view, whatever it is to be the correct one–and that includes atheist physicists who want their materialistic world view to be the right one.
Thank you for the lesson in post-modernism. A quick aside: I always find it odd when my fellow evangelicals rail against relativism, “subjective truth,” and post-modernism, yet they jump on the post-modern bandwagon to argue that science is biased. Strangely, it seems the only scientists whose work exhibits the blindness of materialism are those who research origins. The rest we can trust, except for the atheist climatologists out to destroy our God-ordained capitalist economy. (Sarcasm alert!)
First, you don’t know me well enough to know what I have railed against.
Here is where you are doing what you say I am doing in the next paragraph, and maybe I am abit lol. I think you are too. lol I believe in absolutism, where absolutism is called for, but I also know the weaknesses of human cognition and thinking power. I have spent a 47 year long career in science and boiled down to its essence our jobs were to create scientific theories, They happened to be theories of where oil was to be found, but it is the same process that goes on in all science when trying to theorize how to match disparate and sometimes contradictory facts into a coherent, cogent theory. I also know scientists have varying skill levels at this–we are not all equally good widgets who all get participation trophies. They bring their varying knowledge varying biases and sometimes an unwillingness to question their assumptions to the table with them. And that would include me and you. These are NOT the hallmarks of perfect objectivity. Call it post modernism or supercallifragilism, I don’t care; reality is reality.
When experiments are solid or one can lay out all the options and rule out all but one of them, then absolute certitude is called for.
Here’s one thing you’re missing: The scientific establishment is not a monolithic, homogeneous cabal out to destroy belief in God. Scientists, including physicists and biologists (gasp!), come from all walks of life and hold as many disparate beliefs/worldviews as the general public. You’ve talked to several Christian physicists here already. The president of BioLogos, Deb Haarsma, has a Ph.D. in astrophysics from MIT. I’m fairly sure that she’s a Christian.
No, I don’t, but I wonder why it isn’t that way? I present arguments for what I believe to be true. You will never find me arguing seriously for a point I have no belief in. This will illustrate my discomfort with why I wonder why it isn’t that way. My church brought a rabbi in to tell us about Judaism. I asked the rabbi a couple of questions (and it irritated many people in my not very evangelical church at the time), “What is the most important reason to be a Jew?” Her answer was, “Because my parents were.” I was very surprised. I am a Christian because I believe it is true, and expected her to voice the same thing. I would have liked that answer more than the one I got. So I asked, “Are our religious systems metaphysically true, or just different Saturday or Sunday clubs we all attend?” I basically got the clubs answer, but there was a lot of explanation that went with it.
I believe Christianity is true. I think people of other religions should think the same of theirs. My belief though, has implications both to Nature, the nature of reality and to my behavior. It entails how do we handle miracles and the biggest one of all, the resurrection. It has been my observation that Christians in science have very little impact on the philosophy that science presents to the world, mostly written by those top guys in all of our fields who are atheists(Weinstein, Hoyle, Deutsch, Dawkings, Dennett etc). And like with Quantum, I believe we have missed a wonderful opportunity to defend a basic Christian tenet of the soul, and advance the way the world sees Christianity at the same time.
I know the pressure against us in these environments is tough. I remember my last conversation with a pretty well known Christian physicist and he was struggling to hang on to his faith. He and I had conversed during my crisis but his was heartbreaking. I didn’t fully understand some of the things I am currently talking about on this list back then, but what am I to tell my friend when he said, “It just doesn’t look like Christianity is real!” Am I to agree with him and tell him believe anyway? sheesh, that won’t work; its like throwing an anchor to a drowning man.
Here’s something else you’re missing: Self-interest keeps scientists honest. Every single one of them must publish or perish.
And that publish or perish view leads to a significant rate of problems and papers that have to be recalled. As a cancer patient, the recall of a high percentage of cancer papers is rather disturbing. Note the source of the quote below:
“Glenn Begley was stymied. At the drug giant Amgen, where Begley was vice-president and global head of hematology and oncology research, he was struggling to repeat an animal study of tumor growth by a respected oncologist, published in Cancer Cell. One figure stood out as particularly impressive. But it was proving stubbornly resistant to replication.
In March of 2011, Begely saw a chance to play detective. At the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Orlando, he and a colleague invited the paper’s senior author out to breakfast. Across his orange juice and oatmeal, Begley floated the question: Why couldn’t his group get the same finding as the oncologist?”
The oncologist, whom Begley declines to name, had an easy explanation. ‘He said, ‘We did this experiment a dozen times, got this answer once, and that’s the one we decided to publish.’”
“Begley was aghast. ‘ I thought I’d completely misheard him,’ he says, thinking back on the encounter. ‘It was disbelief, just disbelief.’
As it turned out, the respected oncologist was in good company. A year later, Begley and Lee Ellis, a surgical oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, published a commentary in Nature about lax standards in preclinical research in cancer. They shared that Amgen scientists couldn’t replicate 47 of 53 landmark cancer studies in animals, including the respected oncologist’s.” Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, “The Power of Negative Thinking,” Science, Oct 4, 2013, p. 68
And as of 2017 it doesn’t look like it has changed: “Most scientists ‘can’t replicate studies by their peers’” https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778
Pardon if I say the pressure to publish is not a good thing. We need pressure to get it right.
Edited to add this reproducibility page from psychology http://www.psychfiledrawer.org/view_article_list.php
When I said that comment was an “aside,” I meant it was not directed specifically at you.
I’ve read your stories here and enjoyed them. However, your career was spent as an executive working for corporations (and occasionally yourself), where something called “profit” carries far more weight than that thing we call “truth.” For example, take your story in the other thread about the incorrect consensus on the North Sea oilfields. Do you think it still would have happened if there were no jobs or profits on the line? I doubt it.
Hmmm. You do realize that BioLogos was founded by Dr. Francis Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project and current director of the National Institutes of Health? He wrote a little book called The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.
I hear what you’re saying about that other crew, but the New Atheists aren’t so new anymore. At the moment, Jordan Peterson is kicking them around the ring, and he isn’t even a Christian.
I know. Scientists aren’t the only ones who struggle to reconcile science with faith. High school dropouts struggle just as much. Why do you think BioLogos exists? Hang around awhile and help us help them.
I agree. The system is not perfect. Never said it was. Personally, my first test for biased research is to see who’s funding it. Profit, remember? Pharma research is particularly subject to problems. And, of course, ego and reputation are equally powerful intoxicants, so we cannot simply trust everything that finds its way into a scientific journal.
Still, the simple fact that a leading scientific journal published that expose of “fake science” points to the difference between scientific and corporate research. When scientists veer away from facts, the truth eventually wins out. When corporations abandon reality, the truth rarely surfaces.
But, enough speculation from amateurs like myself. I would welcome comment from some working scientists, if they care to contribute.
Jay wrote:
When I said that comment was an “aside,” I meant it was not directed specifically at you.
Fair enough, I am often misunderstood in the same manner.
I’ve read your stories here and enjoyed them. However, your career was spent as an executive working for corporations (and occasionally yourself), where something called “profit” carries far more weight than that thing we call “truth.” For example, take your story in the other thread about the incorrect consensus on the North Sea oilfields. Do you think it still would have happened if there were no jobs or profits on the line? I doubt it.
I don’t mean this disparagingly, but it amazes me how cartoonish the view of industry and the oil industry in particular is. I think you don’t understand industry, especially the oil industry at all. Profit can’t be made if someone does dishonest things in the creation of their prospects. I certainly won’t say everyone is an angel in the industry, sadly many aren’t but the big companies tend to be far more ethical than people want to give them credit for.Most of the problems I have seen are among the small independents and solo practicioners and that is where my examples come from.
Here is why dishonesty means profit won’t happen, taken from personal experience and knowledge. Generally in exploration 1 well in 3 is a success,and the successful well must pay for the dry holes, or we lose money. Now this is probabilistic success rate, any 3 wells may be all dry holes or all successes, but over the long term that is the stat. Now, lets say a geologist wants to sell a well and get a ‘finders fee’ but there is a dry hole already in the prospect? They can erase it from the map and then the company that buys it will drill a dry hole, increasing the loss of money. I have seen that.
We used to get our seismic on film and they had surface location markings on the top and time axes on the sides. One guy actually cut a seismic line from somewhere else, and inserted it into the location markers for where we drilled. I had been young and naive when this happened to me. I got suckered and my client drilled a dry hole because of that.
In 2005, One guy working the east coast offshore was trying to sell some prospects there saying that there had been 5 ‘significant discoveries’ there. It just so happened that I was Area Geophysicist for the East Coast from 1981-1984 and I knew the following. Tiny traces of hydrocarbons were found; all wells were dry holes and there were no discoveries. I informed management of the issue and they corrected the situation. If we had believed him we could have spent $300 million dollars drilling a lie. No one wants that. we have enough trouble being successful and making a profit when we do everything correctly.
No, honesty is quite important in the oil industry to obtaining the goal of making a profit. We always discussed the pros and cons of every prospect.
Hmmm. You do realize that BioLogos was founded by Dr. Francis Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project and current director of the National Institutes of Health? He wrote a little book called The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.
Yes, I am aware of that, and still the vast majority of biologists remain atheist because (and I have read the book), Our statement that we believe God was involved in evolution (and I believe that too) lacks any observational evidence. It is a belief only. Just because we Christians believe that, doesn’t mean we have a good case to make that it was actually so. I believe in God; an Atheist doesn’t believe in God. How do we decide the difference? While I don’t think design in biology works because of evolution, it is always curious to me that we Christians are so condemnatory of those who are at least trying to see if biology might be different under the assumption that God is involve. If God is involved in evolution, I can’t think of anything physical he did with certainty and I doubt anyone else can as well. God is a useless assumption to the explanations of Biology. So, have I missed something?
I hear what you’re saying about that other crew, but the New Atheists aren’t so new anymore. At the moment, Jordan Peterson is kicking them around the ring, and he isn’t even a Christian.
I used to debate with atheists a lot, but I have been out of the arena for a while. I will have to look up Mr. Peterson.
I wrote:
what am I to tell my friend when he said, “It just doesn’t look like Christianity is real!” Am I to agree with him and tell him believe anyway? sheesh, that won’t work; its like throwing an anchor to a drowning man.
I know. Scientists aren’t the only ones who struggle to reconcile science with faith. High school dropouts struggle just as much. Why do you think BioLogos exists? Hang around awhile and help us help them.
I would, but my experience so far is that if anyone suggests God might have done something real in this world, friendly fire comes his way. If I am honest with myself, I can’t tell someone that there is no reason to believe God is involved in biology or other areas of science when there is nothing physical to point to? I might as well say little invisible pink faeries are involved in evolution. It is the fact that one can make a case for the soul in physics that makes me talk about that. I don’t want to say, there is no physical evidence of God in this science, but believe me He was involved. Im not that kind of guy.
Edited to add: doing the above would be like me telling investors, drill here. Trust me. I won’t show you any data supporting my view that you should drill here. Just believe.
Think I could sell the well? No way in a word that rhymes with well!
I agree. The system is not perfect. Never said it was. Personally, my first test for biased research is to see who’s funding it. Profit, remember? Pharma research is particularly subject to problems. And, of course, ego and reputation are equally powerful intoxicants, so we cannot simply trust everything that finds its way into a scientific journal.
Still, the simple fact that a leading scientific journal published that expose of “fake science” points to the difference between scientific and corporate research. When scientists veer away from facts, the truth eventually wins out. When corporations abandon reality, the truth rarely surfaces.
But, enough speculation from amateurs like myself. I would welcome comment from some working scientists, if they care to contribute.
I am retired now but was a working scientist and I have published in peer reviewed mainline science journals (not the top guys like Science and Nature, but still respectable ones). The above are my comments.
I’ve never considered “Darwinism” as a weasel word, or to imply more than it does. I have used it to try specifically to be more accurate than the word “evolution.” I would think evolution is a far more vague word, as it could imply the micro or macro variety.
Not to mention that the word “evolution” implies belief in common descent as much, if not more, than “Darwinism.” I can’t tell you how many times I have shared my doubts about “evolution” and people respond by presenting all the evidence for common descent.
Moreover, I’ve had people try to equivocate with the word “evolution.” “How can you deny evolution? Evolution is an observable fact, it has been tested in labs and practiced in breeding.” Alternately, I can accurately say that Ken Ham believes in “evolution.” So talk about a weasel word.
So if I ought not say “I’m skeptical of Darwinism,” and I know saying “I’m skeptical of evolution” is perilous, I assume the phrase “Darwinian evolution” is just as bad…
Any suggestions on what word I should use?
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Edit… wanted to add my appreciation for your thoughts on methodological naturalism. That has been the biggest challenge I’ve run into here, and I appreciate the page you linked. To me, it is self evident that the approach “I will follow the evidence wherever it leads” is a far superior approach to “I will follow the evidence unless it appears to lead to certain forbidden conclusions.”
One quick question, out of curiosity, on that topic… I concur with you that any miracle whose _sole_purpose is to deceive should not be entertained (God’s utilization of a lying Spirit in 1 Kings notwithstanding). That said, would you classify “unavoidable” appearance of age upon instantaneous creation to be in this category? Some I’ve read have accused it of such. I can perceive deception inherent if for example God crested light in transit showing a supernovae that never existed. However I wouldn’t see deceit in an instantaneous creation of Adam, his appearing say 20 years old when he was in fact 1 day old. thoughts?
And you know less about me than I know about you.
You re absolutely correct, but I still think your view of industry is a bit cartoonish. Just my opinion based on my experience. So, I call you. What is your experience with the oil industry?
Call me what? I was married into a family oil business for 25 years, though never directly involved. As a salesman between stints in college, I called on oilfield accounts from Lawton, Okla., to Graham, Texas.
Do I win a prize?
A kewpie doll!!! lol
Among the smaller operators, there are both honest and some shady operators. By the time a company grows to be an intermediate sized company, unethical behavior brings unwanted lawsuits that cut into profitability. profitability issues turn them towards ethics. So most of the bigger ones and some of the tiny ones, are quite honest.
I resemble that remark!
When I said profit carries more weight than truth, I wasn’t talking about honesty or dishonesty in business. I was talking about your earlier example of the consensus being wrong. The North Sea investment already had been made. There was no incentive to search for the truth because upper management had bet too much money the other way, and just speaking the truth was likely to get you fired.
Now, as far as I know, there isn’t a lot of money in theoretical physics, unless you write a bestseller or star in a TV show. The profit motive doesn’t play quite the same role in that realm as it does in corporate America. That’s all I was saying.
Now I understand your point. But money has nothing to do with it. Pride about not wanting to admit that one is wrong has everything to do with it. They would have had to admit to the board that they had spent bad money. Staying the course, cost us more money and thus was anti-profit. The VP and CEO who bought into the idea couldn’t change course. Now maybe they worried about their personal salaries, about being fired, and in that regard money had to do with it, but it wasn’t profit, it was salary.
If you think this kind of stuff doesn’t happen out there in the pure above board academic world, think again. It is hard to say you are wrong. Indeed it does, so to stay with the theme of this thread, here is another argument people should stop using: Something is true because an expert says so. I told yall my interests are very broad, below are results of Philip Tetlock’s studies of experts and how they are not correct any more than a chimpanzee. This goes for sports experts to political experts to every form of expert he could find. But pride shows through in their errors.
Psychologist Phillip Tetlock studied experts and their predictions over a number of years and found that the more famous an expert was, the worse were his predictions–why? because if he told the truth, the TV wouldn’t invite him back. lol Consider the next quote from an article on Tetlock’s work:
Tetlock also provided this important insight about hedgehogs: They may be playing a different game. As one such hedgehog noted, "I fight to preserve my reputation in a cutthroat adversarial culture. I woo dumb-ass reporters who want glib sound bites." Tetlock goes on to note that hedgehogs’ style of reasoning is what makes them compelling to the media. Their attention-grabbing predictions are rarely checked for accuracy and can be explained away when they are checked – they’re either soon to be right, almost right or were still correct predictions given the information available.
“Tetlock then cranked all those numbers through every kind of statistical thresher, flail, and grinder you can imagine, and the result was clear: Experts don’t actually exist. Specifically, experts were no better than nonexperts at predicting the future. They weren’t even as good as computer programs that merely extrapolate the past. The best experts could not explain more than 20% of the variability in outcomes, but crude algorithms could explain 25% to 30%, and sophisticated algorithms could explain 47%. Consider what this means. On all sorts of questions you care about-Where will the Dow be in two years? Will the federal deficit balloon as baby-boomers retire?-your judgment is as good as the experts’. Not almost as good. Every bit as good.”
“Which is not to say that experts are no different from you :! and me. They’re very different. For example, they’re much more confident in their predictions than nonexperts are, though they obviously have no reason to be. For example, the members of the American Political Science Association predicted in August 2000 that a Gore victory was a slam dunk.” Geoffrey Colvin, “Ditch the ‘Experts’” Fortune, Feb 6, 2006, p. 44
“Another part of the answer is especially troubling for the media. The awfulness of Tetlock’s experts was almost uniform whether they had doctorates or bachelor’s degrees, lots of experience or little, access to classified data or none. He found but one consistent differentiator: fame. The more famous the experts, the worse they performed. And of course it’s those of us in TV, radio and Newpapers, magazines, and on the web who bestow that fame.” Geoffrey Colvin, “Ditch the ‘Experts’” Fortune, Feb 6, 2006, p. 44
In one part of this study, Tetlock asked experts years ago to predict outcomes on seven different issues. In 1988, for example, he asked 38 Soviet experts whether the Communist Party would still be in power in 1993; and he asked 34 American political experts in 1992 whether President Bush would be re-elected later that year.
After the events occurred, Tetlock then re-contacted the experts to ask them about their predictions. In all seven scenarios, only slightly more than half of the experts correctly predicted the events that occurred. Still, even those who were wrong had been quite confident in their predictions. Experts who said they were 80 percent or more confident in their predictions were correct only 45 percent of the time. http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/1999/C/199902734.html
When experts were wrong, they interpreted events to fit their preconceived notions, rather than change their notions to fit reality. http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/1999/C/199902734.html
And when forced to face their errors, their pride gets in the way:
A new study found that most experts shrug off their errors, claiming that they were “almost” right and that their understanding of the situation was basically sound. http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/1999/C/199902734.html
So, with that as background let’s see what Einstein said when faced with his own egg on the face ego busting moment:
“In the 1920s German physicist Emil Rupp was widely considered the pre-eminent experimentalist of his time. By 1935 he had been exposed as a fraud…” Michael Brooks, “Histories: Einstein’s Convenient Untruths,” New Scientist, Nov 17, 2007
Einstein noticed an experiment with an amazing result. Emil Rupp had performed an experiment which claimed to produce an effect that Einstein could use to test the validity of quantum. This got Einstein interested in the work Rupp was doing. Rupp claimed to have created a coherent beam of light from hydrogen (I presume Lyman alpha) which was 15 cm long which was an amazing result. The original paper was peer reviewed, but no one, not even Einstein, noticed that the vacuum pump in Rupp’s original publication was in the wrong place. But that experiment allowed Rupp to gain an prestigious academic position and to get Einstein to work with him.
Einstein realized that Rupp’s coherent beam would allow him to use a wire grid to see if a grid of wires would block parts of the emission (as a beam of light emitted from a train would be temporarily blocked by the train passing a telephone pole). If it was emitted as a particle, the grid of wires would make no difference. The interference pattern would tell the tale. Einstein told Rupp what to do experimentally and Rupp said he followed the directions exactly.
Rupps results came back confirming Einstein’s classical preference. But Einstein thought there were some problems with the experiment and was initially critical suggesting that Rupp perform some other tests. Rupp shouldn’t be seeing what he claimed to be seeing. First Einstein saw that the speed of the atoms should have changed the frequency of the emission and not allowed a 15 cm long coherent beam of light. Rupp never mentioned how he avoided this problem but if the mirror were rotated correctly, it would avoid this problem. Einstein assumed Rupp must have done it accidentally.
The first two positive results disappointed Einstein because he saw problems. Rupp screwed up the set up and still got the right answer, and in the second set, he moved a slit which shouldn’t have made a difference but did. Einstein carried on. The third set of results were accepted by Einstein.
“Rupp’s experiments were ‘fully satisfying’ and ‘a convincing confirmation’ of his thinking. Rupp had created an interference pattern which verified that the classical picture was correct. Einstein wanted the original experiment re-run with the mirror position controlled correctly. Rupp reported he had gotten correct results more than a dozen times. Einstein then noticed that the hydrogen was at room temperature and that there was no way that the coherence of the beam could be longer than 3.5 cm, not the 15 cm claimed. Nevertheless, in spite of knowing this, Einstein had both of the papers published.
Other physicists were becoming sceptical and started throwing issues at Rupp. Rupp was forced to admit that he had superimposed and reprinted old pictures to get the results he had in older papers. Eventually Rupp, to save himself tried to have the printer change pages in a journal at the last minute. The journal editor told Walter Gerlach, who told Einstein, who remained silent about the fraud.
Gerlach finally stabbed the vampire in the heart by noting that Einstein’s directions to Rupp contained an error. Einstein had told Rupp to rotate the mirror in the wrong direction. This was Einstein’s error. When the mirror was rotated in that direction, the claimed interference pattern, and the claimed results could never have been observed. Rupp had performed a miracle!
“Einstein, he [Jeroen van Dongen] says, had doubts about Rupp from the beginning. Nonetheless, he continued to work with him until he got the experimental results he wanted.” Michael Brooks, “Histories: Einstein’s Convenient Untruths,” New Scientist, Nov 17, 2007
After it all fell apart, Einstein said, "I do not consider my considerations of those days to be superfluous or false,” Michael Brooks, “Histories: Einstein’s Convenient Untruths,” New Scientist, Nov 17, 2007
Scientists are human, exploration vice presidents are human and we all have pride and don’t want to admit when we are wrong. Profit has nothing to do with it.
Absolutely. I agree wholeheartedly. The problem with both “evolution” and “Darwinism” is that different people have different ideas about what these words actually refer to, and it’s all too easy for someone to leave their audience with a misleading impression as to what their position actually is. For example, take the “Scientific Dissent from Darwinism” which has been signed by over 1,000 scientists. Some people believe that they represent 1,000 scientists who believe in a young earth, when in actual fact the overwhelming majority of them are old-earth and in some cases even acknowledge common ancestry.
More precise terms such as “common ancestry” or “abiogenesis” for example. Also, be clear to distinguish between viewing evolution as incomplete versus incorrect.
I wouldn’t see a mature creation as deceptive if the ages concerned were very vague and imprecise. If it wasn’t possible to pin down a particular figure for the age of the earth, or if it could only be done with huge error bars (more than an order of magnitude or so), and if it wasn’t possible to identify evidence for specific past events, then a mature creation might be a possibility.
But that’s not what we see. The age of the earth has been pinned down to within ±1%. Some radiometric results (e.g. the date of the K-Pg event which killed off the dinosaurs) have been pinned down as accurately as one part in six thousand. Many rock formations show very clear and consistent histories of very detailed and complex series of events. You’re not talking about Adam being created with the appearance of being 20 years old. You’re talking about him being created with scars from a skateboarding accident on his thirteenth birthday that never happened, along with date-stamped X-rays and medical reports from the hospital treatment afterwards.
The instantaneous creation of a 20 year old Adam would require God to build in the results of 20 years of growth and learning. We aren’t born walking for instance. This would give a deceptive appearance of age to those who understand human growth and development.
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