Intelligent Design is not creationism

jcl · Jun 24, 2012

Quote from jem:

1. weinberg gave us the 10 to the 53. Its posted here on et dozens of times.
2. Penrose on video argues the multiverse idea is not enough to explain the fine tuning. Could you provide links to what you say Penrose is saying.

3. regarding the history of string theory and the multiverse conjecture...
we discussed this on ET from right about the time Susskind released his book.

I argued that Susskind was saying our universe appeared designed and Stu and typical ET atheist clowns argued I was wrong.

1. Can you please give me a link to the original source of the "10 to the 53", so that I can see what's meant with this number and how it's calculated.

2. Penrose says so in his recent book, and also in the very video - just listen to it. He's referring to the entropy curve and to string theory solutions, not to what you mean with fine tuning and the multiverse.

String theory solutions are _not_ the multiverse, at least not in the sense of differently "tuned" universes. String theory solutions generate vastly different universes with different geometry, and it's not even clear if every solution is a really existent universe, although Penrose believes that.

3. I can't comment on Susskind as I do not know his book.

Religious people tend to discuss by quoting "authorities", just as they quote the bible. But science works differently. Only theories and observations matter in science. It's certainly possible that some famous scientist says "the universe is fine tuned", but without knowing what he means and what observation he refers to, this is irrelevant. Understand his theory. Quotes can't replace arguments.

mike oxbig · Jun 24, 2012

The atheist story of creation:

âYea, in the beginning there was Nothing, and Nothing begat nothingânot even darkness. Nothing be praised! Then lo, for no reason Nothing became All That Is; yea Stuff happened to happen. Then behold, the pointless fumblings of the Hand of Chance (praised be Its name) breathed Life unto Itself. Lo, and Dead Stuff begat Live Monkeys! And it came to pass that the monkeys begat humans, such as Bill Maher. Thanks for Nothing!â

futurecurrents · Jun 24, 2012

Quote from mike oxbig:

The atheist story of creation:

âYea, in the beginning there was Nothing, and Nothing begat nothingânot even darkness. Nothing be praised! Then lo, for no reason Nothing became All That Is; yea Stuff happened to happen. Then behold, the pointless fumblings of the Hand of Chance (praised be Its name) breathed Life unto Itself. Lo, and Dead Stuff begat Live Monkeys! And it came to pass that the monkeys begat humans, such as Bill Maher. Thanks for Nothing!â

Except science does not say that in the beginning was nothing.

stu · Jun 25, 2012

Quote from mike oxbig:
The atheist story of creation:

âYea, in the beginning there was Nothing, and Nothing begat nothingânot even darkness. Nothing be praised! Then lo, for no reason Nothing became All That Is; yea Stuff happened to happen. Then behold, the pointless fumblings of the Hand of Chance (praised be Its name) breathed Life unto Itself. Lo, and Dead Stuff begat Live Monkeys! And it came to pass that the monkeys begat humans, such as Bill Maher. Thanks for Nothing!â

No, it's the theist story claiming to be what the atheist story is.

stu · Jun 25, 2012

Quote from jem:
You keep bringing up possibilities as if they are conclusions.

If it were obvious then explain how all the tuning were set and state whether you are making a conjecture or not.

And don't give me that conjecture about gravity causing it without putting gravity in the context of a multiverse....

Why haven't you listened to the authority you already relied upon to explain "how all the tuning were set" as you put it?
I suggest you listen better to Steven Weinberg who has already told you "I don't think it requires a fine tuning of the constants of nature."

Then stop trying to misunderstand what he does say just to insert the improbable possibility of a 'tuner/designer/creator/god as if they are conclusions.

murray t turtle · Jun 25, 2012

Quote from stu:

There are many bible believers that will say they and the Bible can prove you wrong. They have GOD on their side just as much as you.

=============
The trouble with many new traders [newbies] they want''predictions'' about the market Only the Bible has many accurate predictions;
many in a specific time period.

Mr. Stu-Your statement makes about as much sense as saying counterfeit $100 bills are the same as $100 bills.

1] God can easly create & destroy.Watch this Bible prediction-
...Gog[Rusisa], Gomer [germany] Persia[Iran] Put[Libya], Ethopia invade Israel{Ezekiel 38, 39}

2]Why invade Israel??Ezekiel predicts''have you come to take plunder,have you gathered your army to take booty/
to carry away silver and gold, to take away live stock & goods??Ezeliel 38, 39.[ Not a prediction on the price of gold, silver simply,they are part of wealth..]

3] Those chapters [Ezek 38, 39]are full of future predictions.Surely in that day there will be a great earthquake in the land of Israel.
4] Every wall shall fall..[quite a quake]
[5]'' Every man on the earth shall shake'' in that quake
6] God says he will enter in to judgement,on Israel's enemies
with brimstone with fire ,
with flood,
with pesteance,
with great hailsones.....................
[7] It takes 7 months to bury ther dead enemies of Israel. God says a result , he will ''be known in the eyes of many nations''
Hope this helps , it helped me

stu · Jun 25, 2012

Quote from murray t turtle:

=============

Mr. Stu-Your statement makes about as much sense as saying counterfeit $100 bills are the same as $100 bills.

murray t turtle, (not an alias, right?)
There is no genuine Bible. Only a version which agrees with your beliefs. There are genuine $100 bills, despite your agreement or beliefs.

jem · Jun 25, 2012

1.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kNpiX8XQhJM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

starting at 3min 40 secs

2. I see no info from anywhere saying Penrose does not mean what he says in this video.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WhGdVMBk6Zo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

3. There is a consensus of the the top scientists in the field with few holdouts that there universe appears fine tuned. But, there are a few different candidate explanations.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mlD-CJPGt1A" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Quote from jcl:

1. Can you please give me a link to the original source of the "10 to the 53", so that I can see what's meant with this number and how it's calculated.

2. Penrose says so in his recent book, and also in the very video - just listen to it. He's referring to the entropy curve and to string theory solutions, not to what you mean with fine tuning and the multiverse.

String theory solutions are _not_ the multiverse, at least not in the sense of differently "tuned" universes. String theory solutions generate vastly different universes with different geometry, and it's not even clear if every solution is a really existent universe, although Penrose believes that.

3. I can't comment on Susskind as I do not know his book.

Religious people tend to discuss by quoting "authorities", just as they quote the bible. But science works differently. Only theories and observations matter in science. It's certainly possible that some famous scientist says "the universe is fine tuned", but without knowing what he means and what observation he refers to, this is irrelevant. Understand his theory. Quotes can't replace arguments.

jcl · Jun 26, 2012

Thanks for the link. I can now see where those mysterious 10^56 that you quoted come from. It is the difference of the theoretically estimated vacuum energy to the observed value. In fact, other estimates gave an even higher difference, about 10^120.

Here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy

The theoretical value is obviously way off, and there are several explanations for this. The first problem is that it's just an estimate and can be completely wrong. Really calculating the vacuum energy requires a quantum gravity theory which we don't have yet. There's also the possibility that the estimate is correct, but the vacuum energy is cancelled out by a negative term of about the same amount. This was the fine tuning Weinberg was referring to - the vacuum energy and the negative term must be almost exactly the same in that case, for resulting in the much smaller observed value. However, as the physics behind this negative term is yet unknown, it can have any value, or it can be just identical to the vacuum energy. It makes not much sense to derive some fine tuning requirement from it.

And all this has absolutely nothing to do with some supernatural explanation. If you believe in the supernatural, it's your personal business, but nowhere in the field of physics, cosmology, or biology you'll find any phenomenon that would require supernatural miracles for an explanation.

jem · Jun 26, 2012

I see your point... nobel prize winner Weinberg must have gotten lucky when he figured out the apparent fine tuning 10 years before it was confirmed by observation. Heck what does he know about the subject.

Penrose really did not mean fine tuning when he said it either.
and
Dawkins was wrong in that video when he spoke of fine tuning and ..

a Oh yeah...

Hawking and Hartle must be off base, as well, for writing this silly thing about fine tuning and an outside agency, in their paper.

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0602/0602091v2.pdf

"... Furthermore, we have no control over the initial state of the universe, and there is certainly no opportunity for observing multiple copies of the universe. In fact if one does adopt a bottom-up approach to cosmology, one is immediately led to an essentially classical framework, in which one loses all ability to explain cosmologyâs central question - why our universe is the way it is. In particular a bottom-up approach to cosmology either requires one to postulate an initial state of
the universe that is carefully ﬁne-tuned [10] - as if prescribed by an outside agency or it requires one to invoke the notion of eternal inﬂation [11], which prevents one from predicting what a typical observer would see.

Here we put forward a diﬀerent approach to cosmology in the string landscape, based not on the classical idea of a single history for the universe but on the quantum sum over histories [12]. We argue that the quantum origin of the universe naturally leads to a framework for cosmology where amplitudes for alternative histories of the universe are computed with boundary conditions at late times only. We thus envision
a set of alternative universes in the landscape, with amplitudes given by the no boundary path integral [13].

Quote from jcl:

Thanks for the link. I can now see where those mysterious 10^56 that you quoted come from. It is the difference of the theoretically estimated vacuum energy to the observed value. In fact, other estimates gave an even higher difference, about 10^120.

Here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy

The theoretical value is obviously way off, and there are several explanations for this. The first problem is that it's just an estimate and can be completely wrong. Really calculating the vacuum energy requires a quantum gravity theory which we don't have yet. There's also the possibility that the estimate is correct, but the vacuum energy is cancelled out by a negative term of about the same amount. This was the fine tuning Weinberg was referring to - the vacuum energy and the negative term must be almost exactly the same in that case, for resulting in the much smaller observed value. However, as the physics behind this negative term is yet unknown, it can have any value, or it can be just identical to the vacuum energy. It makes not much sense to derive some fine tuning requirement from it.

And all this has absolutely nothing to do with some supernatural explanation. If you believe in the supernatural, it's your personal business, but nowhere in the field of physics, cosmology, or biology you'll find any phenomenon that would require supernatural miracles for an explanation.