Well, the way they used to tell the story (all the things that currently make up our universe exploded into already existing space) would leave room for space itself to be infinite. But then they changed the story to one where space itself was created by BB, and has been expanding out from the singularity ever since. So with the new version, not even the space part of our universe can be infinite, because it can’t be both infinite and expanding.
We were talking of freshly erupted rock from Mt. St. Helens as one example, so it is dated to the day in that case by direct observation, but you have a good point a some of the rock ejected may have been from older rock in the throat of the volcano which was not completed liquified but ejected as unaltered rock without having it’s radiometric clock reset. That makes collecting of specimens and identification of sources important in interpreting results.
It is helpful to know the approximate age in order to chose which isotopes to test for as if you use a technique inappropriate, the isotopes will either be gone, or not yet changing. Sort of lIke weighting something, only this is something not visible. You need to know what you are weighing in order to use the right scales. You can’t weigh a feather or a truck on a bathroom scale.
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Then nobody would be thinking at that level, and there would be no progress in understanding on that frontier. Just as if we were to dispense with experts in epidemiology and vaccines & such - and just “think for ourselves” - the result would be that we go back to living without vaccines.
“Common sense” has not always been the historical panacea that you make it out to be. At one time it was “common sense” (and quite well-grounded, no-less!) that the earth just doesn’t move. But thanks to science, the opposite has become part of what you [everybody else] freely labels as ‘common sense’ today. If you find any value in better understanding the cosmos you live in, then thank God for those “smart cosmologists” of both then and now, for helping us stretch our minds in unfamiliar directions. It’s always a good exercise to do that even if not all of those directions pan out.
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Do you seriously not know what rationality is?
You know the only answer I can give.
The thing I wonder about is why did no one see the unobservable nature of a ‘singularity’ that can affect change without changing.
My university degree is in physics. I work as a software developer, a field in which I have to put many of the things that I learned at university into practice. More than that, I have actually been in situations where failing to put what I learned at university into practice has resulted in bad things happening.
You’re completely missing the point, Mike. I’m not denying that we can hear static from the cosmic microwave background. I’m just pointing out that our ability to hear static from the cosmic microwave background is a red herring. There are other aspects of the cosmic microwave background in addition to the static that we hear that scientists measure, and it is these other aspects that scientists use to test the Big Bang theory and alternative hypotheses about the formation of the universe.
It’s like driving a car. You can hear the noise that the engine makes, but you don’t use the engine noise to tell whether or not you’re breaking the speed limit. You use a speedometer or a GPS device, which measure completely different things. By focusing on the noise that the static makes, what you are doing is the cosmological equivalent of trying to defend yourself against a speeding ticket by trying to argue about the sound of your car engine.
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False. I dismiss it because his original statements were truthful and accurate, and therefore any subsequent statements he may have made to the contrary would be neither truthful nor accurate. For example, when Colin Patterson truthfully and accurately rejected ToE as part of science by equating it to the history of England, it wouldn’t matter if he later claimed that he changed his mind and now considers the history of England to be a part of empirical science. It wouldn’t matter because the history of England is still a one time historical event that cannot be observed, repeated, and tested… and is therefore still not a part of science - despite Patterson changing his mind about it.
But hey, you are free to believe that the study of the history of England is a part of empirical science if you want to.
It’s commonly known as Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection, right? I personally go out of my way to call it common descent evolution just so I don’t have to field a bunch of “corrections” concerning micro evolution vs macro evolution, or hear stories about how putting a small fish in a pond with bigger fish will cause that fish to “evolve” into producing bigger offspring - therefore “evolution” is fact.
If Popper referred to it by the shorter “natural selection” - it was with the clear implication that he was talking about Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Besides, nobody denies genetic mutations or natural selection. It’s just that natural selection is a far cry from “goo to you by way of the zoo”.
But yes, Popper, Patterson and I were all talking about the same exact thing.
Popper pointed out both of those flaws with the idea of common descent evolution. He said that for a theory to be a scientific theory, it must be falsifiable. We falsify via observation and repeated testing. Patterson understood what Popper was saying, and spelled it out for anyone who didn’t. Here is the statement from his book Evolution again…
“If we accept Popper’s distinction between science and non-science, we must ask first whether the theory of evolution by natural selection is scientific or pseudoscientific (metaphysical)… Taking the first part of the theory, that evolution has occurred, it says that the history of life is a single process of species-splitting and progression. This process must be unique and unrepeatable, like the history of England. This part of the theory is therefore a historical theory about unique events, and unique events are, by definition, not part of science, for they are unrepeatable and so not subject to test.”
Just read the first line, Steve. He explicitly identifies Popper by name, and speaks about his distinction between science and non-science. Then Patterson even alludes to Popper calling Darwin’s idea a “metaphysical research program” i.e. “non-science”. Note also in that first line that Patterson uses the longer name - “the theory of evolution by natural selection” - which is often shortened to either “evolution” or “natural selection”.
But yes, besides these things that Popper said, he also pointed out that Darwin’s idea of common descent evolution was a tautology (survival of the fittest = survival of those who survive).
I appreciate your comment. I look forward to hearing your explanation for how a universe that is expanding out equally in all directions from a single point can be said to not have a center? Any ideas?
This is so far from true, that I presume you are clueless in regards to physics, because the alternative is lying. At any range of temperature applicable to terrestrial processes and dating procedures, there is no temperature effect. There is no discernable neutrino effect either, in case that was next. Nor is completely ionized heavy nuclei applicable.
This kind of statement is why YEC cannot be taken seriously. Of course, dating techniques which apply to timescales of tens of millions of years do not yield accurate results for a few decades. I could talk about kitchen scales versus truck scales, but that has been done before to no avail.
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Understood. But now I’m asking generally - like when we don’t know by direct observation. How do we know whether or not any (or all) of those results are discordant? What do we test the radiometric tests against?
I pray for that day to come. It’s getting closer. But I sense that you are not ready for that conversation just yet… nor is this the thread for it.
Correction: What YOU freely label as common sense today. I’m still well-grounded.
The point of this thread is to expose the bizarre and nonsensical cosmos these smart cosmologists have many believing they live in.
And the first thing I’m trying to expose is the bizarre and nonsensical claim from these smart cosmologists that a universe that expanded equally in all directions from a CENTER POINT would not have a CENTER.
Oh, and how other smart cosmologists say that the WMAP and “axis of evil” suggest that the earth is the center while the first smart cosmologists are saying there is no center. Odd, no?
But what came after the big bang? As I understand it, hot energy was shooting out from the singularity in all directions, and then as things began to cool down, some this energy transformed into the first matter. Does that sound legit? I’m picturing supercooling a lightning bolt or a ray of sunshine to create matter. Is that how it works?
This article can tell you more than I know, and I have relied on it for most of my knowledge of radiometric dating. I think that immediate concern is addressed on page 23 of the article.
https://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html#page%2019
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Yes. And I also know why you won’t just give it. (It’s because you will put your irrationality on full display by showing your Yes answer to the second question right next to your No answer to the first. 
)
No you don’t. Have you stopped beating your wife?
You lost me there. But the safe and Biblical answer is that there never existed any such thing as this singularity, the big bang, or the 14 billion year span of events claimed by modern cosmology.
Before I reconciled macroevolution with Genesis, I was an old earth creationist, and 14 billion years has long been a non-issue for me.
Yet, ironically, no matter what some expert physicist or neurologist says, I know that I am capable of affecting change. This ties rather nicely into “then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” In other words the Spirit of God turned determinate matter into a self-determining creature.
To what Biblical question?
Since you have clearly misunderstood both Popper’s claim and his argument supporting it, your opinion here is ungrounded in fact.
History as an academic subjects includes scientific components but also nonscientific components. The fact that history studies the past has precisely nothing to do with either part of that statement.
Right – because Darwin advanced his theory as a mechanism to explain how evolution happens. It is not (and was not when Darwin proposed it) the only possible theory of evolution. These theories are explanations for how common descent occurred; common descent is what needs to be explained.
Exactly. What you call common descent evolution is not what Popper claimed was not empirically testable. Popper never questioned common descent, as you should have already seen from the quotation provided above.
Yes, that was the theory he was questioning – not common descent.
Quite. Popper (for a while) challenged the testability of the former but not the latter.
Where did Popper ever say that conclusions about the past were untestable? You’re making all kinds of claims here without the slightest support, and in this case in direct opposition to the clear words of the man you’re claiming as the authority.
In any case, it matters not at all what either Popper or Patterson said. It is a matter of fact that the hypothesis that natural selection acted at different points of evolution is testable with empirical data. We know this because it frequently is tested with empirical data and not infrequently rejected as a hypothesis. If you claim that something is impossible and yet that something can routinely be observed to occur, your claim is wrong. Your claims about both natural selection and common descent are wrong.
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Hi Mike,
I think that the point of what I am saying is being missed…one cannot simply hide ones head in the sand when it comes to the epistemological search. when we discuss evolution for example, non Christian individuals are using science to prove the biblical account flawed (or even wrong supposedly). The problem with that is that from what basis are those views being made? I would argue that the mainstream science model refuses to accept intelligent design (or even guided)…so any Christian that follows any interpretation of the data from individuals who state there is no god are going to be following the wrong path from the get go.
That is why the discussion must include this stuff. Iinterpretation I think always has its bias, my bias is that God explained to us the past and the future state of this world (and universe). I use the illustration in my previous post about using science as authoritative vs the bible as authoritative and how that might affect our salvation if we are wrong, because in all honesty, what is the purpose of a Christian who refuses to use God as his source of all authority? One cannot make the claim that the bible is flawed because men wrote it…that completely ignores the “inspiration” bit. An all knowing God is not going to allow corruption of his own words, especially given the lengths he has gone to in order to preserve the bible in the face of repeated attempts to destroy it and wipe it from history.
So back to the O.P’s BB, where is the proof of the very first part of the event according to the secular scientific view of it? Where did the energy and matter come from and what started it? Individuals talk at great length about the “theory of the Big Bang”, gone to great lengths to describe it in detail, and yet the most fundamental aspect of it remains completely blank! To me that is sounding a lot like “pie in the sky” marketing hype. The Bible model explains the big bang quite well I think (not without some theological issues of course) and yet it is discounted or, as is the case with TEism, is has to comply with the secular version of events because ancient bible writers, inspired by an all knowing God, knew nothing of the principles of modern science. To me that seems an absurd position…those writers only knew of God because He told them. Surely the same should apply to science? God invented the idea, why wouldn’t he also explain what is necessary to the bible writers for them to understand things about the worlds existence that are important to them (such as the world being created in 6 literal days in Genesis…repeated again in the 4th commandment)?
When we look at the fossil record, the amount of unstable elements in diamonds that disagree with the secular science model of age, the obvious sedimentary flows across continents such as the United States, genome tracing that supports the origins of our race coming from the same place as the Bible account, volcanic rock age issues, DNA research pointing to obvious design rather than evolution…and lots of other research results, why do even TEists continue to discount the credibility of the YECers? That does not seem to be a good position to take given so much of the research by YEC science is showing up consistencies with the Bible accounts of both creation and the flood and exposing significant problems with the secular interpretation of the science.
So then when you read the latest story about a new exo-planet discovery or something, you’re not actually involved in this discovery, right? You are just getting the same things told to you about it as I am, right?
In other words, you couldn’t possibly VERIFY the existence of this alleged planet at all, could you?
I always get the many points you make, James. I did so in my first thread too. It’s just that most of your points are diversions away from the crux of the matter.
So yes, I understand completely that you think there is a consilience of redshift and CMB - and therefore… BIG BANG!
But Doppler/speed redshift is only one possibility. There is also the possibility of gravitational redshift, second-order Doppler redshift, and energy loss redshift. So is the universe even actually expanding? Not every cosmologist thinks so. And in the Biblical worldview, second-order redshift (caused by lights moving perpendicular to us) makes perfect sense to me.
And did you know that the CMB was predicted to come from one direction (the direction of the BB event), but is detected coming from all directions? It was supposed to be 5K, but they say it is only 2.7K - which matches the background radiation of the universe in general.
“This energy density [of the background radiation] is not too different from the energy densities observed in other astrophysical phenomena in the universe, such as starlight, cosmic rays, galactic magnetic fields and so on. Does this mean that the microwave background also is of astrophysical origin and not a relic of the big bang?” —*V. Narlikar, “Was there a Big Bang?” New Scientist Vol. 91, pp. 19-21.
It was supposed to be lumpy, but they say it’s smooth. It was supposed to be way more powerful than it is.
“The latest data [on background radiation] differ by so much from what theory would suggest as to kill the big bang cosmologies. But now, because the scientific world is emotionally attracted to the big-bang cosmologies, the data is ignored.” —* Fred Hoyle, “The Big Bang in Astronomy,” in New Scientist, 92 (1981), p. 522.
“The big bang theory includes a microwave background . . but this success is tempered by the fact that it was expected to be between ten and a thousand times more powerful than is actually the case.” —* Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe (1983), p. 181.
The point is that neither you nor I could possibly verify any of this stuff. We are both just reading things that other people say, and deciding whether or not to believe those things. So please stop teaching me about the scientific method - as if that somehow makes your choice to believe the things you heard more valid than my choice to question those same things - and just answer the original question of the thread to the best of your ability…
Is it possible for a universe that expanded equally in all directions from a CENTRAL POINT to not have a CENTER?
What say you?