Care to define what you mean here? The Jeans Instability defines when a cloud of gas will condense into a star. So where does the limit come from?
And I thought it was about how the current Gen Z and Millennials are fighting it out in denim. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/jeans-millennials-gen-z/2021/05/09/8eae8d90-a9db-11eb-bca5-048b2759a489_story.html
Seriously, we have discussed star formation recently, and think it was addressed how it was indeed possible.
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Observing the constituents form is not particularly novel, all you need are some gamma rays or x-rays. Particle-Antiparticle pairs form spontaneously from photons with high enough energy. Then you just have to get electrons and protons close together to form hydrogen.
Observing the creation of fundamental forces is outside the realm of science. All science can describe is properties thereof.
As a side note, you can easily demonstrate that radiometric decay cannot have been significantly faster at any point: if any of the fundamental forces changed strength significantly (let alone changed by a factor of a million), then atoms larger than lithium would all fall apart.
Cosmology is based upon General Relativity, particle physics, and astrophysics. Together these tell a story of a beginning 13.8 billion years ago, small, dense, and hot, from which the forces separated and matter condensed as the universe cooled. Hydrogen formed in three steps. First as a quark gluon plasma around 1 microsecond after the beginning, second as quarks combined to make protons and neutrons around a tenth of a millisecond after the beginning, then with the formation of hydrogen atoms 400,000 years after the beginning. 73% of these atoms were hydrogen and 25% were helium. Particle accelerators simulate the physics at these stages according to the temperature cooling as the universe expanded.
A quick summary of this can be found here and here.
Nobody deals with the fact of unanswered question better than scientists. One of the things the discoveries of science provide is the means to ask many more questions. That is what happens when you give answers of substance to a lot of questions. Religion doesn’t even do that. Too often, all it does is simply tells people to stop asking questions - using question stopping empty answers like “God did it” and “It is a mystery.” But you don’t have to accept such a medieval promotion of ignorance to be a Christian.
People with dull hearts, closed eyes, shut ears and unused minds will never observe anything. But even worse such people try to forbid questions and the exploration of the truth because of their own lust for power and control by reserving assumed imaginary authority over such questions. If we doubted this pretense to authority over the origin of things then we might doubt the legitimacy of their claim to speak for God, and rightly so! They have no such authority and they do not speak for God. The very idea that God would give them such an authority or have them speak for Him is absurd. And by using religion in this way they are little different than the Pharisees whom Jesus condemned.
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Lots of holes in that argument.
So why is the historic position of the church better than the actual text? Which of the many historic positions do you claim is more accurate than the others?
Not true. Augustine’s (400 AD) interpretation aligned the text with his Greek understanding of the universe which was the science of his day. The church held that position until the Protestants rejected it.
The original question of this thread addressed how we can understand the water statements in Genesis 1. That answer is not difficult if the inspired text tells the story of the universe as science describes it, not just how humans once viewed the world. See my earlier text.
Physics 101.
How it was indeed possible? But it didn’t happen that way, did it? You can only come to another speculative answer - no one has observed the holy grail yet. Just because you’ve come to a seeming possibility does not make it so. This kind of ruse is the normal thing to do - we run into a problem, we speculate deeply on a scenario and voila! the critics have been answered. Please go back and try again.
I see that the latter two paragraphs are dedicated to casting a slur on those who believe what the bible says and calls into question the validity of your beloved big bang theory.
Firstly I made the statement that no one really understands what the atoms are, no one knows what the constituents are either. You’ve just proven that by regurgitating the accepted mythical big bang story. Deep down in their essence, no one knows what they are. Just like no one knows what light really is, or gravity or magnetic fields or electric fields. For instance, what is it that makes them interact over some separating distance with something else? You don’t know, nobody on earth knows and if they do they sure aren’t telling anyone else.
Secondly, your slur should be applied to Sir Isaac Newton and James Maxwell Clerk and see how well it fits. Tell them about saying “God did it”.
You will never observe the totality of a process that takes millions of years in the course of lifetime, or even the life of our species, but you can observe various phases of formation taking place. In much the same way, we can only see minor changes in species within the timeframe we live, but can see snapshots of those changes in the fossil record. We can only work with material and information at hand. Of course, we can always ignore that information, and just presume it was zapped into existence fully formed in its present state, but that leaves the question hanging of why the information exists in the first place and the ramifications of that.
Leaving us to present our interpretation of what we see. Since there are so many variables, we need to make some starting assumptions to narrow it down. Now, based on what our worldview is, those starting assumptions will differ. We have the same materials and information at hand, we reach different conclusions.
It might help those who want to believe in evolution. Biologist William Provine said:
[B]elief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism. . I believe he was an evolutionist.
The timeline given in Genesis 1 does not allow for any evolutionary process. Just to back it up that same timeline is given in Exodus 20:8-11 and again in Exodus 31:17.
But of course if you’re fully committed to the evolutionary paradigm then that timeline and the verses I’ve pointed out means absolutely nothing. In fact biologians simply call Genesis 1–11 a myth and anyone who wishes to argue otherwise a liar.
By the way - just to ask the old canard - if there was light all around, how come the bible verses say that it was night and then it was day?
Evolutionists like to say that plants popped up first and then the sun and moon came shining thru at some much later date. How long did the plants live in the dark before the sun came shining thru? OR if there was light all around, how did they go into the oxygen usage phase (in the dark) so they didn’t die? How did the first life arise from inanimate matter, etc. etc. etc.
Did the eyes evolve before the brains? How did the first humans mate if they didn’t have eyes with which to see their mate so they could find them to mate with? Did their sex organs evolve quickly enough before they died out as a species for lack of procreation? Did the sex organs evolve before the uterus? or the womb? How did they eat if they didn’t have a mouth and tongue or pharynx? What about the nervous system - when did that come into play? And the blood circulatory system? And the defense mechanisms? A rather interesting story this evolution thing once one starts to delve into it a little. But I’m sure you’ve answered those childish questions already, right?
You have to do better than that. I have taken Physics 101 along with several others. I have read the Jeans paper on “The Stability of a Spherical Nebula” where this was first addressed and there is no mention of a Jeans Mass limit. So someone else, or you, has come up with this. Where did you come across this? It is the Jeans Instability that determines when star formation will occur. And it also explains why stars are found in clusters.
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Your interpretation of Genesis 1 might not allow enough time. Other interpretations do.
Can’t a myth convey truth?
Not a question answered by evolution.
Light sensitive spots did evolve before brains.
You are either pulling our leg or don’t know the first thing about evolution.
You might want to read a biology textbook and note how sexual reproduction has changed from simple animals to mammals. If I remember my high school biology there are earthworms that are male and female at the same time and reproduce by getting together with another earthworm.
I will agree that these are very childish questions that don’t reflect well on you if you are seriously asking them. All of them would be answered if you would just read a high school level biology text.
This is a propaganda statement used by both sides of the war. I am not an atheist. I believe Genesis tells the same story as science if we stop restricting the interpretation to something only believed hundreds to thousands of years ago. God’s inspiration lets any generation read it as reality.
Many Christian scholars have argued against a 24-7 creation week, starting with Augustine (400 AD). The main reason is the word for day was not always used for 24 hours. Just like our day it could be shorter or longer, as in daytime or in Abraham’s day. For the verses referenced: believing people have believed many things about creation throughout history. Belief does not always mean reality.
Sadly, most of today’s Christians view Genesis 1-11 as myths. Why? The church could not give a reasonable explanation that accepted what Christians found in nature.
Genesis I never says that. God said “let there be light.” Then light came out of darkness. Then God called the light day. Did you actually read my post? It emphasizes that the Bible’s statements match Big Bang cosmology. The details and order do not conflict with science throughout the whole chapter. To get that much harmony shows God’s involvement in writing the text.
This argument comes from Augustine not modern atheists. The problem is eliminated when the chapter is read using it’s Hebrew structure instead of a linear list like most Christians prefer. That linear preference comes from the Greeks, not the Hebrews.
This whole paragraph is Young Earth propaganda. All of the questions have been answered long ago in evolution theories. Evolutionists have no problem with any of them. Have you ever tried understanding what your “enemy” actually believes? This paragraph tells me the answer is “no.” Your concept of evolution is not even similar to evolution.
This is what actual people who consider evolution to be a good way of explaining observations think about timing of developments:
Big Bang:13.798±0.021 GYA
Subatomic particles form as particle-antiparticle pairs formed by photons through E=m0yc^2 (rest mass * Lorentz factor * speed of light squared) between 10^-12 and 10^-4 seconds later
1H, 2H, 3H, 3He, 4He, 7Li & 7Be nuclei form 1-20 minutes later, through nuclear fusion.
Neutral atoms form from 18,000-380,000 years later
The sun forms ~4.7 GYA
Earth forms ~4.56 GYA
The Moon forms ~4.5 GYA
First life 3.8±0.3 GYA
First photosynthesis (by cyanobacteria) ~2.6 GYA
First eukaryotes ~2.2 GYA
First light-sensitive parts of cells (something beyond using light for energy) ~2.2 GYA
First life with some sort of defense mechanism (bacteria & protists)~2.1 GYA
Earliest sexual reproduction (most eukaryotes) ~2.1 GYA
First multi-cellular organisms ~1.5 GYA
First animals (sponges) ~700 MYA
First animals with light-sensitive cell patches (most groups that aren’t sponges) ~650 MYA
First mouth (most groups that aren’t sponges) ~650 MYA
First animals with a nervous system (most groups that aren’t sponges) ~650 MYA
First animals with miniature brain-like nerve cell clusters (most bilaterians) ~600 MYA
First animals with a circulatory system (most larger bilaterians) ~580 MYA
Earliest animals with some internal development of eggs (arthropods, mollusks & vertebrates have this, among others) ~550 MYA
First arthropod-type eyes (early arthropods)~550 MYA
First pharynx-type organs (chordates) ~530 MYA
First vertebrates ~520 MYA
First animals with vertebrate-type lensed eyes (earliest fish)~520 MYA
First tongue (jawed vertebrates) ~470 MYA
First land plants ~450 MYA
Earliest placental mammals ~80 MYA
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“Leaving us to present our interpretation of what we see. Since there are so many variables, we need to make some starting assumptions to narrow it down. Now, based on what our worldview is, those starting assumptions will differ. We have the same materials and information at hand, we reach different conclusions.”
This highlights the error in claims to be just reading what the text says, but it needs significant caveats. There is a range of possible interpretations for any data set, but also there are many interpretations that are unreasonable. Careful examination of the starting assumptions is necessary, and we must also consider what is the correct response to something that challenges those assumptions.
The assumption that Genesis 1 must be a literallistic “just the facts” scientific/historical account has several problems. A modern scientific approach is modern - it is not the way ancient Near Easterners thought or wrote. It is also off topic. The Bible is not a science or history textbook; it is a theological text. It’s not even a theology textbook; it uses the much more accessible style of narrative rather than the propositional approach of a typical textbook. The Bible is of great value as a source of historical information, but it omits a lot of things that a historian would want to know, and uses figurative language in keeping with the writing conventions of the day (and in keeping with making it more interesting to read). The historical information in the Bible is selected to illustrate theological points, not to give us a comprehensive history of ancient Israel. Yes, it is true, but we need to read carefully, checking all of the available evidence to test whether our understanding is correct, or whether we are being misled by our assumptions. This is why the historical understanding of the church is so valuable. While also subject to errors of their assumptions, the assumptions are likely to be somewhat different, and so they represent a helpful check. If we come up with an interpretation that is not supported by anyone in the previous few thousand years of biblical study, there’s a pretty good chance that we’re the ones who are wrong.
Another problem of claiming that the Bible is actually teaching modern science is that modern science is a shifting target. Noting that the Bible is compatible with modern science can be helpful as an apologetic. But we should not expect the Bible to be teaching science; rather than dealing with such secondary matters in a way that would be merely confusing to the original audience, the Bible focuses on theology and ethics. After all, if we want to know about science, we can go study the physical creation, but we need revelation to know about God and what He wants from us. It’s similar to the errors of pop end times speculation. Revelation is not the secret clue to predicting who will win the next election; rather, it warns us all to be ready for judgement while encouraging perseverance for the faithful.
In its current form, creation science is not a different conclusion based on examining the evidence from a different starting worldview. It is rejecting and misrepresenting the evidence because it does not support the starting worldview. Admitting that you do not accept something because it conflicts with your assumption is reasonable; after all, there will be some “noise” or “experimental error” in real data. But misrepresenting the data and the alternative interpretations is dishonest, whether it’s the History Channel’s alien nonsense, or creation science, or skeptical critics dismissing the Bible, or simplistic schemes of history like Marx’s.
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I found this quite surprising to the point of remaining skeptical. Sexual reproduction seems like the whole point and an integral part of the very structure of eukaryotic cells. With that big of a gap (2.2 GYA to 650 MYA) you would expect a large number of eukaryotic organisms with asexual reproduction. But despite encountering repeated claims that nearly all (and thus by implication not all) eukaryotes reproduce sexually, I can find no examples of eukaryotic organisms depending only on asexual reproduction. Do you know of any?
My guess at this point is that the truth is that what we really have in this gap are more primitive ancestors of the eukaryotic cell which it can be argued don’t really fit into either category: eukaryotic or prokaryotic, except by some arbitrary line by definition at the first improvement of the former over the latter.
oh… as I look more into this question I noticed that the estimates for the beginning of eukaryotes varies wildly from 1.6 billion years ago to 2.7 billion years ago… while (puzzlement) the estimates I am seeing for the beginning of sexual reproduction (of eukaryotes) is 1 billion years ago to 1.2 billion year ago. That still leaves a gap of at least 400 million years between the two which is still pretty big.
Sorry about that, I’ve fixed it.
There are some eukaryotes that rely on the piece-breaking-off approach (some sponges and hydrozoans), other can (most all plants, planarians, echinoderms, etc.), and others can self-fertilize if necessary (certain hermaphrodites, including most pyramidellids).