Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Are We Really Anti-Science?
I do not think so at all for the following reasons (among others):
There are over 5,000 cataloged theorems in science, some of the most famous of which are:
The General Theory of Relativity
The Special Theory of Relativity
Quantum Theory
The Standard Model of Particle Physics
Newtonian Physics
The Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution (NDT)
Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory (AGW)
Some scientists would have it that if we have serious doubts about the latter two theories we are anti-science. Never mind that we buy into by far the majority of the 5,000 theories in the catalog, if we doubt Darwin or Man-made Global Warming we are not supporting science! This is rank nonsense.
Not only is it nonsense, in itself the statement is anti-science, since science is an open quest for the truth, and along with that quest comes reasonable doubts about the existing base of evidence supporting the current theories of science.
Let us examine Darwin briefly:
1) There are no intermediate forms for the species, especially for the Pre-Cambrian period as Darwin’s Theory demands. None!
2) Speciation during the Pre-Cambrian period was almost immediate and left virtually no time at all for gradual evolution as Darwin demands.
3) Microevolution requires infinite time to hopefully produce the complex molecule structures in animals by random selection, which is mathematically impossible.
Therefore, one can quite properly have doubts about NDT.
Then let us examine Anthropogenic Global Warming briefly:
1) Base data was massaged to fit.
2) Sufficient knowledge of the interaction of the sun, clouds, water vapor, and cosmic rays is lacking in the formulations.
3) Earth’s natural rotation cycles account for most temperature variations.
4) There are unscientific motivations to sell the public on AGW by frightening them in order to gain massive economic and fiscal control over our resources and governments.
Thus, there are valid reasons to doubt AGW has been properly analysed.
I do not think so at all for the following reasons (among others):
There are over 5,000 cataloged theorems in science, some of the most famous of which are:
The General Theory of Relativity
The Special Theory of Relativity
Quantum Theory
The Standard Model of Particle Physics
Newtonian Physics
The Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution (NDT)
Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory (AGW)
Some scientists would have it that if we have serious doubts about the latter two theories we are anti-science. Never mind that we buy into by far the majority of the 5,000 theories in the catalog, if we doubt Darwin or Man-made Global Warming we are not supporting science! This is rank nonsense.
Not only is it nonsense, in itself the statement is anti-science, since science is an open quest for the truth, and along with that quest comes reasonable doubts about the existing base of evidence supporting the current theories of science.
Let us examine Darwin briefly:
1) There are no intermediate forms for the species, especially for the Pre-Cambrian period as Darwin’s Theory demands. None!
2) Speciation during the Pre-Cambrian period was almost immediate and left virtually no time at all for gradual evolution as Darwin demands.
3) Microevolution requires infinite time to hopefully produce the complex molecule structures in animals by random selection, which is mathematically impossible.
Therefore, one can quite properly have doubts about NDT.
Then let us examine Anthropogenic Global Warming briefly:
1) Base data was massaged to fit.
2) Sufficient knowledge of the interaction of the sun, clouds, water vapor, and cosmic rays is lacking in the formulations.
3) Earth’s natural rotation cycles account for most temperature variations.
4) There are unscientific motivations to sell the public on AGW by frightening them in order to gain massive economic and fiscal control over our resources and governments.
Thus, there are valid reasons to doubt AGW has been properly analysed.
Labels: Anti-Science, Darwinism, Global Warming, Science
Saturday, August 20, 2011
The Universe?
Where did the Universe come from? We Don’t Know!
It seems to me that many if not most creationists and cosmologists are stuck in one or more ruts:
1. The Universe was created ex nihilo by God via the Big Bang or;
2. The Universe created itself, somehow, according to Stephen Hawking, following some sort of unknown cosmic disturbance (in the nothingness!), or;
3. There are many universes stretching back to infinity; ours just happens to be one that is well-suited for life. So there is a sort of steady state of universes forming and dissolving from minus infinity to plus infinity.
These, of course are not truly scientific theories since they cannot be observed or tested. One might simply label them “Just So” stories.
4. Along comes Superstring Theory that purports to show that the Big Bang came from the collision of two M-branes in existence prior to the Big Bang. This is pure mathematical speculation that cannot have an iota of truth to it that we can verify using the scientific method, not to mention asking where the M-branes came from in the first place!
There is nothingness to begin with, or else there is a plethora of universes to begin with. Either way, no proof is possible. The main reason to create an ex nihilo Big Bang is to support the existence of God the Creator, the First Cause, The Architect. The main reason to create a self-starting Universe or a Multiverse stretching to infinity is to deny the existence of God the Creator, and to support scientific materialism.
We cannot know what was in existence, or was not in existence, before the Big Bang. So it is a matter of taste or faith, take your pick.
Where did the Universe come from? We Don’t Know!
It seems to me that many if not most creationists and cosmologists are stuck in one or more ruts:
1. The Universe was created ex nihilo by God via the Big Bang or;
2. The Universe created itself, somehow, according to Stephen Hawking, following some sort of unknown cosmic disturbance (in the nothingness!), or;
3. There are many universes stretching back to infinity; ours just happens to be one that is well-suited for life. So there is a sort of steady state of universes forming and dissolving from minus infinity to plus infinity.
These, of course are not truly scientific theories since they cannot be observed or tested. One might simply label them “Just So” stories.
4. Along comes Superstring Theory that purports to show that the Big Bang came from the collision of two M-branes in existence prior to the Big Bang. This is pure mathematical speculation that cannot have an iota of truth to it that we can verify using the scientific method, not to mention asking where the M-branes came from in the first place!
There is nothingness to begin with, or else there is a plethora of universes to begin with. Either way, no proof is possible. The main reason to create an ex nihilo Big Bang is to support the existence of God the Creator, the First Cause, The Architect. The main reason to create a self-starting Universe or a Multiverse stretching to infinity is to deny the existence of God the Creator, and to support scientific materialism.
We cannot know what was in existence, or was not in existence, before the Big Bang. So it is a matter of taste or faith, take your pick.
Labels: Religion, Science, Universe
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Why the Universe, Life and Man?
Nature Holds its Secrets Very Close!
I doubt the ability of modern man to reconstruct accurately the creation of ideas or memes regarding the fundamental questions of why the universe, why life, and why man. Then to follow accurately the causal chain of events and, more importantly, the sporadic evolution of these ideas down from ancient times to the present.
These chains and idea evolutions lead to one philosophy or another, one religious belief or another, one sect or another, or, as has also transpired, the nihilistic, atheistic state of non-belief in anything—except for, perhaps, the incremental and incomplete knowledge that science brings to the question.
There are attempts, of course, to chronicle all of this learning, and a long list of ancient scholars to peruse, but they all suffer from similar ills: bias, incomplete knowledge of the universe, and, ultimately, flawed views of why the universe, life, and man.
The best modern man can do is to trace the literature still in existence that treats the subject of “why everything”, and then to put their hope of greater clarity upon legions of philosophers, scientists and other scholars to pick up the trails that have been developed so far, and move our knowledge forward an incremental step or two.
But the scientists and scholars suffer from exactly the same deficiencies as the ancients did, except for degree: initial bias; lack of complete knowledge of their own mini-subject; and, in particular, knowledge of the entire universe of subjects that must be brought to bear; and more specifically, lack of sufficient training and firm grasp of the totality of philosophy, science, history and religion as they apply to the question of why the universe.
The fact is that every major philosophical system has been shown to have logical flaws that cannot be resolved, bringing each of them ultimately to an unbridgeable impasse. (This includes the following systems: Materialism; Positivism; Thomism; Critical Realism; Personalism; Phenomenology; and Existentialism among others.) Reference: Ideas of the Great Philosophers, Sahakian and Sahakian, Barnes and Noble, 1966. One cannot or should not use flawed philosophy in this quest.
Science, too, suffers from the same contretemps---the existing and frustrating ultimate limits to their knowledge of the universe, as opposed to their speculations on its origin, such as the Big Bang, the Multiverse Concept (invented to avoid the presumption of a First Cause) or the latest Self-Generation of the Universe a la Hawkins. These logical and physical constructs cannot be observed or proven. Thus, science, too, fails us at the limit, which is precisely where it ought to be our very best tool. Legions of scientists cannot break through the ultimate barriers of nature, such as: What was there before the Big Bang? Can we make something out of nothing? Did God have a hand in creation?
History is frustratingly incomplete on the subject also, or else it is riddled with superstition and myth if you go back far enough. One can incorporate a favorite myth or two or a large set of Gods into the answer, but that is hardly progress.
Thus, I doubt the ability of modern man to penetrate the final barriers of nature.
Labels: Religion, Science, Universe
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Settled Science?
FOR THE RECORD, SCIENCE IS NEVER SETTLED!
Anthropogenic Global Warming or AGW theory is not settled science.
Darwinism, or the descent with modification theory, is not settled science.
The Big Bang theory is not settled science.
The Multiple Universe theory is not settled science.
String Theory is not settled science.
Etc. Etc. ad nauseam!
Science is a collection of working theories that are useful and lasting to the degree that they accurately describe and predict behaviors in the material universe. When their predictive powers, either forward or reverse, are in question, it is apparent that the "science" is not settled, although scientists find it highly useful to work AS IF they are true and to follow the consequences as far as possible--until they fail to work well, predict well, or even show correspondence with past data. That many scientists sign up to a given theory is no real indication that the theory is correct. Alfred N. Whitehead remarked once, in effect, that the surest indicator that a theory is wrong is the number of scientists that sign up to it.
Perhaps the most egregious example of false science applied in the real world was Eugenics, where tens of thousands of people were neutered by law back in the 1930's, before it was stopped. This is a story that should be an object lesson for us all, especially since we are being sold by many that AGW is a critical threat to mankind, without sufficient scientific validation. Let us see the true scientific validation reports before we pour trillions of dollars into various enterprises that tout a solution to AGW.
Labels: Science
Thursday, March 12, 2009
List of Vital Issues for America
Here is my updated list as of march, 2009:
1. Christianity--growing its moral importance to our citizens.
2. Islam--recognizing that we are at both active and passive war with Islam.
3. Conservatism--getting the traditional fiscal and social conservative message to the public.
4. Liberalism--defeating their outrageous propositions to change America, and ensuring they do not have another opportunity in the future.
5. Education--revising our education system to give a better education, and take the federal government out of it. Let the states run education.
6. Science--honest, scientific tracking of climate change; energy breakthroughs; improve the environment, research on nuclear energy.
7. Globalization--bringing more nations back into higher wealth and lower poverty.
8. US Government--reforms in Congress, the Judiciary (SCOTUS in particular), and the Administration.
9. US Financial Stability--reform of the budget, reduction in spending.
10. UN and World Politics--deemphasize the UN in favor of friendly democratic nations.
11. World Poverty--work to end starvation of masses of people.
12. WMD Proliferation--stop it by force; carry a big stick. Give ultimatums to Iran and N. Korea.
13. Natural Resources--conservation of scarce resources is a must.
14. The European Union--partner, ally, or dedicated trade enemy? Walk carefully!
15. China--carry a very big stick. Reduce imports.
16. Social Changes in the US--preserve our effective institutions and traditions from socialistic, and communitarian changes.
17. Security--support the GWOT, keep the Patriot Act, allow all policemen to arrest, hold and deport illegals after a hearing before a local judge.
18. Immigration--cap the flow with strong, complete fences, deport illegals, create an effective guest worker program.
19. Corruption in Government--our legislators, judges, and the administration have gone wild, and must be reined in. It is not accidental that the immigration bill is being reinstated. Return to original intent of the Constitution.
20. Administration-- work to unseat Obama, his bunch of radicals, and all of the leftist Congressmen in 2010 and 2012.
21. Defense--Bolster troop power by two or three additional divisions, and continue major weapon programs, perhaps at a somewhat lower pace.
Labels: Citizenship USA, Islam and Others, Worldview
Labels: Government, Science, Worldview
Friday, February 20, 2009
Intelligent Design (Rev II)
A Very Brief Sketch of the Current State of Affairs
A number of critics of Intelligent Design (ID) have rejected this effort as interfering with their thrust to discredit Darwinian evolution. These critics believe that injecting what they see as yet another theory of evolution that is incomplete and certainly not as comprehensive as Darwinian Evolution Theory, or DT, to be simply off target and a waste of intellectual energy. Other critics have a different view, that of welcoming any attacks on DT, especially if they are as scientifically valid, as ID proponents believe, and that make a serious contribution to the understanding of macro and micro evolutionary biology, or biology per se.
These critics look to ID as merely a tool of discovery of some new and important phenomena and relationships to add to the general knowledge, and not a new theory of biological everything. Their view is that if it is good science, it should be supported for where it leads, and if the stronghold of DT is breached, so much the better, since random genetic mutation over complex organisms as in DT is the main target. The ID community has been jumping into the conceptual breaches of DT almost from its inception, notably using what they call the Wedge Approach.
What is the Wedge Approach used by many Intelligent Design adherents today? As I understand the wedge approach, it is meant to divide strong Darwinian Evolution Theory adherents, on the one hand, from those who are beginning to doubt DT; and on the other hand, to divide those who believe ID is merely unscientific Creationism, from those who believe ID does not champion Creationism at all, and is actually quite scientific in nature and useful.
This approach, then, is meant to stress marginal DT advocates by showing the deficiencies of random genetic mutation and natural selection. It is also intended to establish a hard decoupling of ID Theory itself from the stigma of Biblical Creationism. Their honest approach thus says "We don't know who, what, when why or how the universe, man and life has been created and evolved, but we are chipping away at a few aspects of the question."
There has been no secret about this approach. It was well-documented by Phillip Johnson in several of his books years ago, so there should be no surprise to it for anyone that has kept up.
The attack on DT by ID adherents (and others as well) is being carried out on both the macro and micro levels of evolutionary biology. From the macro level, it has been demonstrated that virtually none of the proposed hierarchies of evolving species have any true, unfettered, fundamental organizing principles—not, morphology, not DNA, and not genomes, for instance. They are all in startup trouble beginning at the Cambrian Period, demonstrations of valid common descent chains notwithstanding.
A more telling factor is that the billions of years that DT evolution supposedly required for random mutations and natural selection to work has been severely reduced, to the point that it appears to be mathematically impossible for random mutation/natural selection to have worked at all beyond single trivial steps, let alone the millions and millions of steps between the cell and a human being. That is, except for trivial adaptations entirely within species.
It has been pointed out that mutation/natural selection cannot create new biological information. Just how speciation takes place without the generation of new biological information is an unknown. However, it is true that single mutations of lower cellular structures do occur, just not at the scale of eukarotes.
Further, one of the standard retorts of DT adherents is that DT predicts what will be discovered in the so-called gaps in the fossil records. So the current lack of fossil proof, which many important DT’ers now acknowledge, will be taken care of in due course. Thus, DT’ers have exercised faith in their theory of an "inverse" version of “The God of the Gaps”, just as the ID’ers have been accused of having in their theory.
The ID’ers, on the other hand, have firmly divorced themselves from the Creationist label by demonstrating that they looking for sure signs of design, but not trying to identify the designer at all. No longer are they in the position of supporting a God of the Gaps.
Their tests to detect design have evolved around common sense identification of unnatural material things, the Dembski mathematical elimination or Explanatory Filter test, and the Behe “irreducible complexity” test, among others. When applied to such systems as the bacterial flagellum the tests clearly leave us with the question: “If this is not an example of intelligent design, and it is mathematically impossible for it to have evolved by mutation/natural selection, then what could possibly be the answer?” The ID’ers of today do not inject God as the answer into this situation.
Many people in science are reluctant to accept the idea that it is actually intelligent design that is at work, for that might mean that the next step would be a religious or transcendental interpretation that is unacceptable to them. Unlike true scientists, they are not going where the data takes them, but are ignoring it, because one of the possible outcomes does not fit into their preconceived notions of how things should be for methodological naturalism to hold. Thus, they still attack ID Theory ferociously, using somewhat specious definitions of what science is, and is not, in order to exclude ID from consideration.
So, the attack on ID immediately revolves around the definition of science, which the methodological naturalists or materialists claim to be the study of natural phenomena, and that only. Philosophers of science, however, totally reject this definition, and as a matter of fact, reject the current attempts at defining science canonically at all as being woefully incomplete and exclusive of what they believe science to be. They cite the existence of immaterial entities such as numbers to extend the universe of possibilities beyond the material, thereby negating methodological naturalism.
Further, they state that there is no fine line that can be drawn between what is science and what is not science, because no definition can bridge the problems of necessity and sufficiency adequately, without leaving some number of activities on the wrong side of the line that otherwise measure up to being true science. Not the least of which are most of the scientific investigations of the past 100 years or more, which is rediculous. Of the ten or fifteen most revered scientists of the past century, at least nine of them are avowed theists, including Einstein, but that most certainly does not invalidate their work.
These philosophers of science are dismissive of other scientists in various disciplines who state that ID is not science, because they are way out of their area of specialty, and are pontificating on things for which they have no proper foundation in scientific philosophy.
J. P. Moreland states that; “There is no set of necessary and sufficient conditions by which to define science.” He does agree, however, that there are useful rules of thumb that can help to clarify what science is. He believes that the application of the methods and tools of science in ID Theory can be accepted, then, as being within the purview of science.
But what of the usual tests of good science practice? The utility of a theory can be demonstrated by its ability to explain phenomena, and by its ability to predict further aspects of phenomena. Does ID Theory demonstrate these capabilities? The answer is yes.
ID Theory provides an excellent explanation of some observed phenomena that other approaches have not equaled. It is a theory that generates not only explanations, but also testable results, either positive or negative, as has been shown in the cases of the bacterial flagellum and blood clotting mechanisms, among others. The attempts at refuting these two examples have all failed as of this writing.
The argument rages on, with each side--pro and contra ID Theory--taking hard hits and then recovering to throw their own punches back: a “How could you possibly believe in ID?” from the DT’ers, and a plea from the ID’ers to “Please look at the evidence objectively!”
It is a show with an ID David facing a DT Goliath !
References:
1. Intelligent Design 101, H. Wayne House, General Editor, Kregel Publications, 2008.
2. The Edge of Evolution, Michael Behe, Free Press, 2007.
3. Intelligent Design, William Dembski, InterVarsity Press, 1999.
4. Doubts About Darwin, Thomas Woodward, Baker Books, 2003.
5. Darwin on Trial, Phillip Johnson, InterVarsity Press, 1993.
6. Intelligent Design Report, http://www.arn.org/
Labels: Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Science
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
A Cautionary Tale: Eugenics Redux
Tis is a little-remembered story of science and politics gone mad.
From “War Against the Weak”, by Ed Black
"In the first three decades of the 20th Century, American corporate philanthropy combined with prestigious academic fraud to create the pseudoscience eugenics that institutionalized race politics as national policy. The goal: create a superior, white, Nordic race and obliterate the viability of everyone else.
How? By identifying so-called “defective” family trees and subjecting them to legislated segregation and sterilization programs. The victims: poor people, brown-haired white people, African Americans, immigrants, Indians, Eastern European Jews, the infirm and really anyone classified outside the superior genetic lines drawn up by American raceologists.
The main culprits were the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune, in league with America’s most respected scientists hailing from such prestigious universities as Harvard, Yale and Princeton, operating out of a complex at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island. The eugenic network worked in tandem with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the State Department and numerous state governmental bodies and legislatures throughout the country, and even the U.S. Supreme Court. They were all bent on breeding a eugenically superior race, just as agronomists would breed better strains of corn. The plan was to wipe away the reproductive capability of the weak and inferior.
Ultimately, 60,000 Americans were coercively sterilized — legally and extra-legally. Many never discovered the truth until decades later. Those who actively supported eugenics include America’s most progressive figures: Woodrow Wilson, Margaret Sanger and Oliver Wendell Holmes."
Perhaps we should be wary of scientists with power. I know that a basketful of initialed organizations, including the NSF, have come out saying that global warming/climate change is serious stuff. But, you see, the fever has risen to the point that a scientist cannot get research grants, and PhD candidates cannot get their degrees unless they sign up the the orthodoxy of a grave problem. It smacks of the eugenics thrust in spades, where everyone was convinced it was for the best to sterilize those 60,000 people. Since GW is a highly scientific area, and since we are relying on "prestigious scientists" for technical advice, and highly dubious leaders of the movement, such as Algore, I believe we should go very slowly and carefully into this issue.
Find the good scientists, one's that have no axe to grind, no carbon offsets to sell, and no accolades to garner from collegues.
Labels: Global Warming, hypocrisy, politics, Science, World Opinion
Friday, November 09, 2007
A Working Idea for My Philosophy
The Information Content of Atoms and Molecules
Question 1: Do atoms, especially the lighter ones such as Hydrogen, carry excess information? Do heavier atoms carry excess information?
Question 2: In what manner do they carry excess information? What is the mechanism involved?
Question 3: We know that molecules have enormous excess information embedded in their structures, and we know in the case of DNA that it is encoded and algorithmic. Are there similar mechanisms at the level of the nucleus of atoms, or in the configuration and orbits of electrons, or both?
Question 4: Atoms form both heavier atoms and molecules in a myriad of ways, in particular to form the 92 elements of our makeup, during the period after the Big
Bang. What is the prescription for atom and molecule formation in the universe, and in particular DNA?
Question 5: Are atoms self-organizing as some molecules are—DNA for instance?
These are a few of the questions that I am attempting to formulate answers for from recent research. References would be helpful.
Addendum:
Question 6: Is the self-organizing principle really favorable to the mechanistic view of the origin of the universe, or is it a principle that must have an origin itself, and hence be favorable to the creation view?
