Richard Dawkins, Famed Atheist, Supports Free Bibles In Schools

[stu]

Quote from Ricter:

To me it explains why the universe appears so perfectly tuned for human life. I don't think it explains why the universe does have the constants and ranges that it does.

How does it explain why the universe appears so perfectly tuned for human life when all it says is - the universe has to accomodate human life for human life to observe the universe appears tuned for human life

The constants and ranges are the so called "tuning" for human life. So if it doesn't explain them as you say, how is it separately explaining why the universe appears tuned?

Aren't you saying the reason why the universe appears tuned to human life is because the universe accomodates human life for it to appear tuned ? That is the tautology of the anthropic principle.

 

[Spike Trader]

Quote from stu:

History suggests you don't really want to reason at all, but basically prefer to use a lot of insult and usually utter garbage that is simply untrue. Good guys don't really get to be deceitful the way you are.

You know , this observation is so true. Recently Jem has seemed to have hopped onto this wagon of attacking Obama the person instead of whatever political shortcomings he may have, even though we are in the midst of a global political and economic crisis.

 

[jem]

wtf... you are are drugs now.
I did not deny my statement... it is speculative pseudo science.
There is no proof of even one other universe.

But don't listen to me listen to the new york times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/books/review/15powell.html

Although string theory resists translation into ordinary language, its central conceit boils down to this: All the different particles and forces in the universe are composed of wriggling strands of energy whose properties depend solely on the mode of their vibration. Understand the properties of those strands, the thinking once went, and you will understand why the universe is the way it is. Recent work, most notably by Joseph Polchinski of the University of California, Santa Barbara, has dashed that hope. The latest version of string theory (now rechristened M-theory for reasons that even the founder of M-theory cannot explain) does not yield a single model of physics. Rather, it yields a gargantuan number of models: about 10500, give or take a few trillion.

Not one to despair over lemons, Susskind finds lemonade in that insane-sounding result. He proposes that those 10500 possibilities represent not a flaw in string theory but a profound insight into the nature of reality. Each potential model, he suggests, corresponds to an actual place - another universe as real as our own. In the spirit of kooky science and good science fiction, he coins new names to go with these new possibilities. He calls the enormous range of environments governed by all the possible laws of physics the "Landscape." The near-infinite collection of pocket universes described by those various laws becomes the "megaverse."

Susskind eagerly embraces the megaverse interpretation because it offers a way to blow right through the intelligent design challenge...

 

[jem]

Quote from Spiker:

You know , this observation is so true. Recently Jem has seemed to have hopped onto this wagon of attacking Obama the person instead of whatever political shortcomings he may have, even though we are in the midst of a global political and economic crisis.

I have tried to avoid personal attacks on on Obama because he seems like a smart guy to me and I try to respect the office, as long as the President does. When did I go after him personally. When he dropped a sexual innuendo about his wife going down on him... I thought he trashed the office himself and asked if French surrender jokes are next.

 

[bigarrow]

Obama didn't make a joke about oral sex. Maybe a junior high kid might think so.
Did you watch the tape of Michelle and Ellen doing pushups? Michelle didn't go all the way down. There I made all the righties giggle.

 

[jem]

Quote from bigarrow:

Obama didn't make a joke about oral sex. Maybe a junior high kid might think so.
Did you watch the tape of Michelle and Ellen doing pushups? Michelle didn't go all the way down. There I made all the righties giggle.

A double entendre is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first (more obvious) meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_entendre

you don't think conservatives giggle about sex do you.
Most of have had wives or have wives. Sex ceases to be a giggling matter after you have a lot of sex with the same women. it can be very good but is not giggly.

 

[stu]

Quote from jem:

wtf... you are are drugs now.
I did not deny my statement... it is speculative pseudo science.
There is no proof of even one other universe.

But don't listen to me listen to the new york times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/books/review/15powell.html

Although string theory resists translation into ordinary language, its central conceit boils down to this: All the different particles and forces in the universe are composed of wriggling strands of energy whose properties depend solely on the mode of their vibration. Understand the properties of those strands, the thinking once went, and you will understand why the universe is the way it is. Recent work, most notably by Joseph Polchinski of the University of California, Santa Barbara, has dashed that hope. The latest version of string theory (now rechristened M-theory for reasons that even the founder of M-theory cannot explain) does not yield a single model of physics. Rather, it yields a gargantuan number of models: about 10500, give or take a few trillion.

Not one to despair over lemons, Susskind finds lemonade in that insane-sounding result. He proposes that those 10500 possibilities represent not a flaw in string theory but a profound insight into the nature of reality. Each potential model, he suggests, corresponds to an actual place - another universe as real as our own. In the spirit of kooky science and good science fiction, he coins new names to go with these new possibilities. He calls the enormous range of environments governed by all the possible laws of physics the "Landscape." The near-infinite collection of pocket universes described by those various laws becomes the "megaverse."

Susskind eagerly embraces the megaverse interpretation because it offers a way to blow right through the intelligent design challenge...

That’s ok I won’t listen to you.

One minute you're misquoting Leonard Susskind like he is your hero. A brilliant theoretical physicist and as you described him in that usual clumsy way, a "great minds of science", whose research in quantum field theory statistical mechanics and cosmology is exceptional.

Then all of a sudden it's "speculative pseudo science". Then it isn't again.

Physics leads to various hypotheses called Multiverse. Anything widely acknowledged that way within science as hypotheses is not "speculative pseudo science".
You're confused as usual. Pseudoscience is a description given to something widely acknowledged as science within religion.

The New York Times doesn't mention the words "pseudo science" Perhaps they should also have waited until the following month in 2006, when the paper you keep throwing around as "what Hawking says" , shows it might be possible afterall to test for multiverse or string theory, through nothing less than that Hawking top-down approach you like to present all the time as authoritative.

Stabbing around in the dark for a creator the way you do isn't a particularly intelligent way to go. You might do yourself an injury though by the looks of it , you already have.

 

[jem]

Penrose says M theory itself is a collection of ideas, not even a theory. he says string theory is "Hardly Science"... so what do you think an unobservable, conjured up out of thin air multiverse based on string theory would be.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Dg_95wZZFr4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The new york times said that the speculation that every possible string theory solution is a universe... is in the spirit of kooky science and good science fiction. are you arguing that is substantially different that calling it pseudo science?

1. Stu you are an ignorant fool if you claim the multiverse is good scientific theory.
2.If you are not making that claim you are a troll fool for arguing about semantics. pseudo science vs not even a theory but a collection of ideas, in the spirit of good science fiction.

3. So which type of fool are you... ignorant or troll.

 

[stu]

Quote from jem:
Penrose says M theory itself is a collection of ideas, not even a theory. he says string theory is "Hardly Science"... so what do you think an unobservable, conjured up out of thin air multiverse based on string theory would be.

The new york times said that the speculation that every possible string theory solution is a universe... is in the spirit of kooky science and good science fiction. are you arguing that is substantially different that calling it pseudo science?

So wtf? Tell Penrose / The New York Times whatever - to talk with Hawking and Susskind. What the hell point are you trying to make?
It's YOU who keeps referring to them all as authoritative.

The one thing they are all clearly demonstrating is, whatever the science that suggests string and M theory, or the science that supports the more classical approach, there is none whatsoever that suggests an imaginary divine creator.

There is no comparison here however much you wish it weren't so.
Propositions based in science however speculative, do not compare in any way to wild mad guesses about some imaginary make-believe divine creator concept based on nothing at all.

Bottom line still no need for that magic tuner.

 

[jem]

I prefer the conclusions of scientists over trolls.


"Bernard Carr is an astronomer at Queen Mary University, London. Unlike Martin Rees, he does not enjoy wooden-panelled rooms in his day job, but inhabits an office at the top of a concrete high-rise, the windows of which hang as if on the edge of the universe. He sums up the multiverse predicament: “Everyone has their own reason why they’re keen on the multiverse. But what it comes down to is that there are these physical constants that can’t be explained. It seems clear that there is fine tuning, and you either need a tuner, who chooses the constants so that we arise, or you need a multiverse, and then we have to be in one of the universes where the constants are right for life.”

But which comes first, tuner or tuned? Who or what is leading the dance? Isn’t conjuring up a multiverse to explain already outlandish fine-tuning tantamount to leaping out of the physical frying pan and into the metaphysical fire?

Unsurprisingly, the multiverse proposal has provoked ideological opposition. In 2005, the New York Times published an opinion piece by a Roman Catholic cardinal, Christoph Schönborn, in which he called it “an abdication of human intelligence.” That comment led to a slew of letters lambasting the claim that the multiverse is a hypothesis designed to avoid “the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science.” But even if you don’t go along with the prince of the church on that, he had another point which does resonate with many physicists, regardless of their belief. The idea that the multiverse solves the fine-tuning of the universe by effectively declaring that everything is possible is in itself not a scientific explanation at all: if you allow yourself to hypothesize any number of worlds, you can account for anything but say very little about how or why."

http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=137

Quote from stu:

So wtf? Tell Penrose / The New York Times whatever - to talk with Hawking and Susskind. What the hell point are you trying to make?
It's YOU who keeps referring to them all as authoritative.

The one thing they are all clearly demonstrating is, whatever the science that suggests string and M theory, or the science that supports the more classical approach, there is none whatsoever that suggests an imaginary divine creator.

There is no comparison here however much you wish it weren't so.
Propositions based in science however speculative, do not compare in any way to wild mad guesses about some imaginary make-believe divine creator concept based on nothing at all.

Bottom line still no need for that magic tuner.