ChessPlayer

I mean, there is the fossil record, DNA evidence, genome projects, biogeographical studies, observational studies on short-lived species (insects, bacteria, etc.) These are all rather empirical. As to the idea that a bird does not become a hippo, I would agree as would every evolutionary biologist out there. Ditto on a monkey or chimp becoming a man. Evolution merely says that the evidence points towards common ancestors between species. For example, a monkey does not become a man. However, the scientific evidence does support the idea that both man and monkeys descended from a common ancestor. Regarding the missing link argument is again a rather wrong notion. It implies some sort of linear chain between species which again, is not something evolutionary biologists support. It also tends to lead to an ad infinitum sort of argumentation. For example, many evolutionary biologists will cite Archaeopteryx as an example to which the creationist will ask for a link between Archaeopteryx and another species. And we continuum ad infinitum. Of course, as no one can provide a complete fossil record, some claim this as a victory which is a scientifically immature view on the subject. Does the fossil record have gaps? Of course. Fossilization is extremely rare. However, the fossil evidence we have does suggest the idea of common ancestry according to the vast majority of SMEs. The Irenaeus quote you presented does not seem either particularly evolutionary or creationist in nature to me. Rather, it sounds like he is responding to Gnostics who claimed that material things (including man) were created by lesser entities (in the quote's context angels). This makes sense given that Gnostics believed that God would not deign to create the physical universe and they concluded a lesser being would have created all that is material. Once again, this is not what theistic evolutionists believe. Irenaeus was arguing that Christian orthodoxy holds that God created the material world in addition to that which is not seen. It's almost as if the book Against Heresies was written (in part) to respond to the Gnostics. Now, I would never claim that the early Church Fathers were theistic evolutionists. They had no idea what evolution even was. Moreover, as I mentioned in my previous post, people like St. Basil supported a young earth interpretation. However, Augustine, Origen, Philo, etc. all write about a less literalistic view of Genesis. This idea was never considered heterodoxy or heretical within the Church as a whole. In essence, we agree that God's handiwork is beautiful to behold. However, where we disagree is that I can reconcile this handiwork with the scientific consensus. I don't think the evolution takes away from God's power. Nor do I think accepting the scientific consensus should be viewed with skepticism by the Church. As the Psalmist writes, "the heavens declare the glory of God." I see science as merely one way for us to experience the grandeur of God. From the Big Bang to evolution to microbiology to particle physics. To me, denying the evidence in front of us seems to be denouncing this creative work as lie meant to mislead humanity.

Thank you for clarifying. I would simply disagree with you regarding the nature of the science it seems. While you argue that evolutionary biology is inadequate as a method for explaining speciation, I (and more importantly most SMEs) would disagree with such an assertion. I also don't understand what you mean by empirical science over "historical theoretical science." Are you saying that evolutionary biologists don't study empirical evidence? I can always appreciate a good Star Wars reference :). And with regards to the Gnostics, I think we are in agreement as to their heretical views. Gnostics argued (among other things) that a lesser entity (not God) created the material world, that the physical world is evil in it's entirety, that God is unknowable in any personal sense, that sin does not exist in the traditional sense and that only knowledge is needed in order to achieve salvation. Theistic evolutionists do not follow any of these ideas nor do we seek to glorify creation over the Creator. I would argue that I am probably even more in awe of God's creative work after shifting away from YEC to TE. Nor does theistic evolution reduce Eve and Adam to simply feminine and masculine spiritual powers. Funnily enough, Irenaeus of Lyons, whom you quoted, seemed to view Genesis in a more allegorical and less literalistic way in his work Against Heresies. This is the same text where he discussed the Gnostics. He obviously disagreed with the Gnostics regarding their theological positions but that does not mean he supported such the hyper-literalistic interpretation of Genesis to which you hold. I am not saying that the ancient Church was of one mind on the issue. Certainly St. Basil championed the literalistic interpretation in the 4th century. So in that sense, it is not a modern idea. However, he is one of the few I could find who wrote openly on the subject and Biblical scholars point to Philo, Irenaeus, Origen and Augustine who all provided various less hyper-literal interpretation of the creation account. I would simply contend that the rise of hyper-literal interpretations of Genesis are correlated with the Great Awakening and the subsequent rise in fundamentalism it birthed.

Ok so let's deal with this irreducible complexity argument first. It is pretty much an all or nothing argument. The argument goes that certain things in biology are so complex they simply cannot evolve. This argument is not a new one. Darwin even discusses it in his writings. One of Behe's more common criticisms regards the flagellum which consists of around 40 proteins in many species. If one is gone, the rest of the flagellum will not function. Behe argues that because of this, the flagellum is irreducibly complex as no one protein could have been naturally selected until every single other one was in place. The problem with such an argument is that it ignores the inherent "blindness" in evolution. Evolution does not set cells towards one goal (a flagellum in this case). Rather, selection are made towards mutations that provide uses. If the combination of these mutations lead to some ancillary use, that is selected for as well. In the case of the flagellum, the proteins selected for have other uses throughout the cell. In fact numerous pathways have been proposed as to how flagellum form and the benefits each protein provides to the cell. In other words, researchers have reasonable explanations as to how this "irreducibly complex" part of biology could form. This already disproves the idea that there is no possible way for these biological characteristics to evolve. Ultimately, Behe's argument is a logical fallacy - the argument from ignorance. He is arguing that because he cannot see how it would evolve, it could not evolve. I am confused. Here you seem to agree with me that theism and evolution can live in harmony and that the only problem with evolution is the scientific "issues" with it presented above which would make it contrary to God's revelation to us through the natural world. But elsewhere you seem to indicate that Christianity and evolution are theologically opposed. Which position are you supporting here? Do you think evolution and Christianity are theologically opposed or not? Analyzing things is in my nature unfortunately. And here is where I get confused with your previous statement and why I asked you the question above regarding theological opposition. I am unsure of how you get the idea that science has been raised above Scripture via theistic evolution. Nor do I see how this is part of the "modern Laodicean church" as you put it. As I mentioned before, numerous Jewish and Christian scholars from around the time of Christ or shortly after did not view Genesis in the literalistic manner you seem to understand it. This less literalistic approach is not a "modern" idea. It is an orthodox idea found within the writings of the ancient Church and contemporary Jewish thinkers.

If I may, I would argue that people have not always held to the literalistic viewpoint on Genesis as you do and as such it would be unwise to say that it is "evidence of the Laodicean nature of the modern church" as you put it. As I have mentioned, Augustine, Philo, Origen and many others all wrote about Genesis and interpreted it in a very different manner than a modern Christian fundamentalist. And these were Christian and Jewish scholars separated a few centuries (or decades in the case of Philo) from Christ. I would say that fundamentalism has drastically changed our view of Genesis shifting it more towards a literalistic interpretation. If anything is a modern view, it would be such levels of literalism found in certain branches of Fundamentalist Christianity which came to life during the 19th century. It has substantially changed how Christians view Genesis (especially in the West and in the US in particular). I don't really see how you are getting that evolutionary biology is a dying field. Nor do I see the connection with String Theory (a model connecting quantum mechanics and the Standard Model) and panspermia (a theory of abiogenesis on Earth) have anything to do with evolution. You seem to be conflating these ideas together as a sort of conspiracy designed to push out God. Given the presence of Christian evolutionists, astrobiologists and theoretical physicists I'm unsure how any of these are designed to push out God. And here I think we arise at the crux of your argument. And it is an argument that has been made rather extensively by fundamentalists. The argument that evolution and Christian theology are incompatible with each other is, in my view, flawed. No theistic evolutionist doubts the providence and creative work of God. Rather, we celebrate the genius of the Creator who is able to work through the natural world in such a miraculous way. By accepting science we acknowledge that our Creator allows us to learn about him not just through his Word but through his creation as the Psalms say. Wow. Just wow. Did you take this line from the 19th century colonialism talking points?

So you would agree with his trade war against China, his continued backing (via arms sales) of the Saudi war in Yemen, his handling of N.K., and his agreement with dictators like Putin and Xi over his intelligence community and democratic activists? These all seem like highly problematic decisions that have been criticized by members of both major political parties.

This idea that "free money begets a sloppy attitude" is unsubstantiated by most scientific studies on UBI. To be clear, UBI in it's current form would not be enough to live off. If it were enough, we would be in a post-scarcity civilization. For example, one study on UBI found no negative or positive impact on full-time employment but found that part-time employment in things such as caregiving increased by 17% (Jones et al, 2018). Most people don't realize that there is already one state in the US that practices UBI through an oil dividend (Alaska). Again, I'm not a huge fan of Yang's plan but I do feel that UBI in general gets a bad reputation which is somewhat undeserved.

Although I am not particularly sad to see Epstein gone given the accusations leveled against him, the rate of suicides in US prisons and jails is astoundingly high. The unfortunate situation is not unusual for the US criminal justice system which tends to be built around making profits for private companies rather than keeping prisoners safe while they await trial and attempting to rehabilitate them after conviction. I am truly saddened that Epstein will never face a day in court and that his alleged victims will never have a judge pronounce him guilty. That closure was stolen from them.

I agree with parts of this and some parts less so. What I think you get correct is that the Bible was never intended as a scientific treatise nor does it give any answers as to the exact manner in which God created. That is why we have theistic evolutionists, old earth creationists and young earth creationist each with a different view on how the creative work of God came to pass. The important recognition of all of these views is that God is the Uncaused Cause or Prime Mover as Aquinas put it. I'm curious what pitfalls you see in evolution. Would you care to elaborate? Additionally, although I agree that Augustine is certainly not infallible, there is no denying his influence over the modern church (especially in the West - in Orthodoxy he is viewed differently). I would say that referring to all of his theological writings as bad is probably an overstatement.

No. I merely brought up Neanderthals in response to a point regarding evolutionary biology, speciation and reproduction. I felt that dhchristian had a slightly inaccurate view on the subject and provided Neanderthals as a counterexample.

I'm not that your points really respond to modern views on theistic evolution. Generally theistic evolutionists view Genesis in a less literalistic manner than certain branches of fundamentalist Christianity. Theistic evolutionists argue for an approach similar to certain members of the early Church like Augustine or Origen or even Jewish scholars from the time such as Philo. These thinkers viewed Genesis in a very different manner than the Christian fundamentalist movement which had its origins in the 19th century. I see what you're getting at but once again I think you are misunderstanding evolution. Definitions of life generally include the definition of being able to reproduce. Evolution really only concerns what happens to life upon generations of mutation and reproduction. How and why reproduction or life itself began is the subject of abiogenesis. Early life and reproduction was likely mitosis driven as it still seen in single celled organisms such as bacteria. This entire idea of a lizard giving birth to a chicken in an egg is a gross mischaracterization of evolutionary biology as well. Speciation does not happen that quickly. Instead it is slight changes over long periods of time that leads to speciation. This means that there is no worry about such massive differences as to produce problems with reproduction. And we know that certain groups separated by little time (on an evolutionary timeline) from a common ancestor can reproduce. Perhaps one of the best known is examples are modern homo sapiens and Neanderthals who coexisted and based on DNA evidence reproduced. Humans still contain Neanderthal DNA in small amounts (generally around 1% according to most studies). Regarding string theory, it is one model as to how a quantum mechanics and the Standard Model could be unified. CERN is mostly about collecting data on high energy particles. The data is somewhat helpful for explaining how quantum mechanics and the Standard Model can be reconciled but that is not the only purpose. It should be noted that String Theory is not the only option available to physicists and although certain extra dimensions are proposed, I'm not sure exactly why you see this as relevant to evolutionary biology. Could you explain the connection you see here? Panspermia doesn't really conflict with evolution. I'm not sure where you are getting that. It's more dealing with how life appeared on Earth in the first place rather than how it evolved on Earth. This is once again more of an abiogenesis question than an evolutionary biology question.

I would say this is a problem. Just to name a few problematic positions of Trump (which have drawn bipartisan criticism), he denigrates women and has explicitly referred to sexually assaulting them (the infamous bus recording), has continued to back the Saudi war in Yemen (despite bipartisan legislation against the war and the humanitarian crisis it causes), attacked a Gold Star family (after they spoke at the Democratic Convention), called into question Sen. John McCain's service to the country and supported Putin over members of the intelligence community that he appointed. This is not to mention the numerous lies he has told in office. You may like some of his policies but saying you agree with him on everything is way overboard.

Hmm... Not entirely sure I agree here. Why would you characterize theistic evolution as weaker (either scientifically or theologically) than YEC or OEC? BTW, I've broken up your post into smaller bits to try and get to a few of the key points. Hope you don't mind. I think this is more pertinent to the question of abiogenesis than evolution. Evolution deals with how species mutate and change over long periods of time. After long periods, this leads to speciation. Abiogenesis is the study of how life arose (i.e. how that egg or chicken or more probably a single celled organism came to exist). Somehow, people tend to conflate the two concepts. I'm not sure where you are getting this idea. Perhaps you are referring to the idea of panspermia. This is a hypothesis in the truest sense of the word and hard to advance to the stage of a scientific theory until we start exploring other planets in greater detail. Either way, the idea of panspermia is in it's infancy. As to the extra-dimensional stuff, this I haven't heard and I work in a science based field and have plenty of friends in astrophysics. CERN really isn't focused on other dimensions. That is misinformed. It's focusing on particle physics and mostly deals with subatomic particles. If you have some link to this research and extra dimensions please share your source.

UBI is an interesting concept that is rather future looking. I've heard a lot of commentators on both the left and the right express interest in the subject mostly due to the gradual and probably inevitable influence of machine learning in the workforce. Yang is very much in this technocratic mode of thinking. He argues that UBI will be necessary in a future where robots are doing a substantial part of the work. I would say this is likely true. However, the way that he is currently rolling it out has a lot of holes that people on both sides of the political aisle are concerned about. Notably, to receive UBI you need to give up claims on other benefits. Additionally, the cost is high of course and the way Yang funds it is going to be VAT (according to Yang) which is generally considered to be a regressive form of taxation (hurting those with less disposable income more). If he has added a different stream of income since I last heard him talk about UBI this could change my opinion but in general I think his current plan is not a particularly good form of UBI. TL,DR: UBI is a good idea for the future. Yang's plan needs more work.

Okay. We are getting at something. Cost and economic damage are serious concerns. As I think I mentioned earlier, I have no doubt that this will cost a ton of money nor do I doubt that it will be disruptive. The point of the plan is to provide governmental assistance during that transition period to more renewable sources. Whenever we face a crisis as a country we tend to rely on government spending as one way of helping us through it (think both World Wars, the Great Depression, etc.). The goal of this is to push the private sector in a certain direction. In this case, the crisis is anthropogenic climate change. One proposal made in H.R. 109 is to provide assistance to those currently working in fast disappearing sectors of the fossil fuel industry (such as coal) while we transition our economy to a more sustainable framework. In essence, it aims to take into account the disruption caused by such a transition both for workers and the economy as a whole. As to the social justice aspect, the Green New Deal does discuss certain aspects of social justice. Namely that certain communities are more impacted by climate change, pollution, etc. than others. I don't see the redistribution of wealth angle unless we consider every plan which would involve taxes and benefits to be redistribution of wealth. In that case, you would have to argue that Social Security, public education and many other programs would have to go as well. If you believe that, we could have that discussion but I think it may be outside the scope of the topic presented. It is hard to respond to your claims without having a source. I am assuming you are referring to the debunked conspiracy theory from the 2009 illegally hacked emails of researchers from East Anglia University's Climate Research Unit (CRU) which were taken out of context and distorted in order to attempt to show that data had been manipulated. This was shown to be a false conspiracy theory after several governmental and independent watchdog groups reviewed the emails in full. See the House of Commons (UK) 2010 Committee on Science and Technology's report on the subject in addition to the EPA's 2010 report, Penn State's 2010 Report, NSF's 2011 report, the independent international panel set up by the Royal Society's 2010 report, and the US Chamber of Commerce's 2011 Report. Once again, I have provided sources. I have stated numerous times during this discussion that I am not going to advocate for a particular political group or politician. As I've mentioned before, I do not care who promoted or cosponsored a bill as long as the text of the bill is sound and it leads the country in a good direction. In this case, I will promote the idea of good stewardship for God's creation which I feel has been lacking in certain members of the Christian community who continue to ignore the science behind climate change. To me, this is an environmental, economic and most importantly moral issue. Insinuating that anyone who presents a different opinion is a partisan hack is simply disparaging and adds no value to the conversation.

Again, I am not offended by your use of your Scripture nor is the idea of climate change in conflict with your idea of the beginning and ending of Earth. As I mentioned in my previous post, climate change will not end the Earth and that is not what scientists are saying. What they are saying is that massive environmental disaster awaits us if we keep going down our current path. This has the possibility to drastically increase the amount of refugees and poor in the world (see the IPCC report). Remember, we are charged by Christ to protect the poor and welcome the stranger. We should not be knowingly contributing to the future suffering of humanity. In my view, it would be antithetical to the teachings found in the Bible to continue to be poor stewards of creation. However, I am somewhat annoyed by your continuing effort to push the idea of anthropogenic climate change as a hoax perpetuated by the left. That is simply misinformed. I presented you a number of articles in various scientific publications for your perusal in my previous post. As I have mentioned before, this should not be a partisan issue nor am I advocating for one party or political affiliation. Rather, as a concerned Christian and scientist, I fear that we, as a Christian community, are ignoring the threats posed by climate change to God's creation. Instead, we merely attack those along partisan lines rather than seeing if the ideas being presented on a particular issue are valid. In this case, the Green New Deal is being vilified by certain members of the Christian community simply because it was proposed by someone left of center. This ignores our charge of Christian stewardship.

I am sorry if my use of "worry" and "hypothetical" in some way mischaracterized your position on the issue. I just don't see how, based on the text of the plans laid forth in H.R. 109, there is any evidence to suggest foul play. That's why I mostly see these objections as simply hypothetical. They rely on as of yet unproven ulterior motives. Again, I am merely suggesting that the idea of a Green New Deal is a good policy. I am not trying to defend any particular politician or political group. I am saying that the science indicates that we need a massive environmental and economic shift away from fossil fuels and towards other sources of energy in addition to other measures in order to combat climate change. Furthermore, I think this fits in line with a traditional Christian view of stewardship of God's creation. I welcome any objections or improvements regarding how we get to such a goal. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, there are flaws with pretty much every viable alternative energy source but these flaws simply cannot compare to the damage being done by fossil fuels. I fail to grasp how you are calculating a greater harm from this plan.

Firstly, climate change is happening and the link to human actions is shown in numerous scientific studies. Some of the more famous studies include: B.D. Santer et.al., “Contributions of Anthropogenic and Natural Forcing to Recent Tropopause Height Changes" 2003 V. Ramaswamy et.al., “Anthropogenic and Natural Influences in the Evolution of Lower Stratospheric Cooling" 2006 Wrigley and Santer, "A probabilistic quantification of the anthropogenic component of twentieth century global warming" 2012 I could go on listing these studies forever but most people don't honestly have the time to read them. And that's ok. Honestly, speaking a chemist, scientists are abysmally poor communicators of even very serious and impactful data as we have to qualify everything with statistics. If you have time to read through a few of these, that's great. If not, I would suggest leaning on the expertise of people that have spent their life studying a subject. The impact of fossil fuels on CO2 production and other greenhouse gases has been known for around a century. I simply don't understand why people continue to ignore subject matter experts and years of research and deny the reality of climate change being linked to human activity. The only conclusion I have really reached is that people don't like being given bad news and having to change how they live as a result. However, while I can understand the gut reaction to not liking the scientific data available and wanting to ignore it, I cannot understand the idea that somehow this is all an elaborate hoax. Where is the evidence for such a massive conspiracy? Why would subject matter experts over at least half a century team up to do this? If scientists are all getting paid exorbitant amounts of money to lie where is my Lamborghini? And how in the world is this all coordinated? Your claims that this is all a hoax are frankly offensive. This isn't a partisan issue. This is simply the data we have. You can choose not to believe the data. That's fine. You do not have the right to disparage the work of these researchers by calling it a hoax without providing evidence for such a claim. That is simply out of line.

If Willa doesn't mind I will try to address a lot of these concerns here. Renewable energy isn't perfect by any means. Everything is going to have an impact. The real question is how does the benefit compare to the impact. Let's deal with these by category. Wind - Personally I'm not a huge fan of wind power. Someone may change my mind but having worked in a renewable energy lab for years, I was never impressed by wind as a major source of power. As to the negatives however, I think they are being slightly exaggerated. According to a study from the National Research Council in 2007 there is no statistically relevant fraction of bird deaths caused by wind turbines. Do wind turbines kill birds? Of course. However, that number pales in comparison to damage done by oil production, high tension cables and even house cats. A further study in combination with avian experts in 2012 backed up this report. As to changing weather patterns, this has been largely debunked as well. Climatologists did a massive study on this back in Europe in 2014 which was published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature. They concluded there was no statistically significant adverse impact from wind turbine farms (see Vautard et al, 2014). In other words, the impact has been blown out of proportion if you would pardon the pun. Solar - This I view as an ok option for renewables. There is some evidence of heating near solar farms as Ayin Jade mentions (see Barron-Gafford, et al. 2016 in Nature for more). However, it should be noted that there are confounding variables here such as land clearance and other factors that the researchers could not draw a statistically causal link. Additionally, although I'm sure there is a problem with photovoltaic cells and fires based on the chemical makeup of those cells, we should compare this with the risk of coal, oil and natural gas which are much more flammable due to the nature of the long carbon chains present. The major thing solar has going for it is the vast improvements it has made over the last decade. As with wind, there are problems but NRC studies once again show that these pale in comparison to the impact of fossil fuels. I favor a multifaceted approach. As I've mentioned, I'm a big fan of nuclear energy as modern nuclear power plants are remarkably safe and produce a vast amount of power in return for a small (although long-lasting) environmental impact in the form of waste material. Additionally, although other renewable sources do have downsides, these downsides are largely exaggerated and the scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports a switch from fossil fuels to renewable sources even with the potential downsides. The Green New Deal in general does not favor any one particular form of renewable or long term energy solution over another. Criticisms of other forms of energy are certainly valid. However, as I mentioned before, I don't think the criticisms of these alternative sources of energy are on par with the criticisms of fossil fuels. Nor do I believe that these minor issues should cause us to abandon the Green New Deal as a model.

Thanks for the numbering. It makes things certainly easier to follow. Although we may be able to lump 1 and 3 together as I do below. 1 and 3) Ok. So you are worried it is simply a lie/scam and that politicians will use it to get other things? This seems rather hypothetical to me and is rather hard to prove in my view. I know Rep. Ocasio-Cortez does self-identify as a democratic socialist. Is that what is causing you to worry that there will be wealth redistribution? There are also numerous cosponsors to the legislation who are not democratic socialists and the text of the bill mentions nothing about redistribution. Again, I don't really care all that much about the sponsors of the legislation but rather the stated goal and purpose of the legislation. In my view, it shouldn't matter who proposes an idea but rather if it is a good bill or not. In my view, the text of H.R. 109 sets forth a good goal for energy independence and environmental/economic improvement. I don't really want to go too far beyond the scope of the legislation proposed because that really gets us into more of a political/tribal discussion rather than a policy oriented conversation. 2) As I mentioned previously, I certainly would not defend that quote if she did make those statements. And keeping electricity costs affordable is certainly important and mentioned in the text of H.R. 109. You and I are in complete agreement that electricity should be available at a reasonable rate to people living in the US. I would merely point out that we need to transition that energy from fossil fuels to renewable and nuclear sources very quickly. Hence, I believe the Green New Deal is the correct path.

This seems rather nihilistic or at the very least deterministic. Climate change won't end the world but it is causing significant hardship for people around the world and that is only going to get worse if we do nothing about it. If our job as humanity is caretakers of the planet then shouldn't we strive to protect creation rather than labeling it a non-issue?

Regarding your first point, in what ways do you see the blueprint as unrealistic? Do you believe the timetable is too rapid or the cost is too high or some combination? Regarding Fmr. Gov. Napolitano, I had trouble finding that quote. Could you link me the article? It seems either to be a terrible political move or something that may be slightly out of context. However, the increase in utility prices in general is certainly a big concern. However, we have made massive strides in terms of renewable energy since even a decade ago especially in solar. Nuclear is still probably the best option in my opinion for a fast transition but I think the point of the Green New Deal is to provide some government backing before the private sector takes over (a la the original FDR New Deal) to make sure the prices do not rise to ridiculous levels. In fact, access to affordable electricity is specifically mentioned in the text of H.R. 109. It sounds like you are more worried about implementation (i.e. cost, where the costs fall, corruption) and hypocrisy (noting that wealthy people tend to have a larger carbon footprint) then any objection to a national plan to reduce the impact of climate change. Would that be a correct interpretation of your thoughts or am I missing the mark?

Let me preface this discussion by saying that I am a Christian and a scientist. I recently joined the forums and was curious as to people's objections to the Green New Deal. To set some ground for people who don't know what I'm talking about, the Green New Deal is an economic/environmental plan put forward by members of the Democratic Party in the United States (notably freshman Rep. Ocasio-Cortez) which aims to leverage the power of the US Congress to promote investment and spending in the areas of renewable energy, sustainable farming, climate disaster relief and more. The ultimate goal is of course to reduce global carbon emissions from fossil fuels to zero by 2050 as recommended by the UN and numerous scientific studies. The entire text of the Green New Deal bill put on the floor by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is rather short. It does not include provisions such as preventing people from eating beef (which has been a talking point I have seen) nor does it require any spending. The bill itself is more of an outline of the goals than an actual plan to combat climate change. I would encourage you to go to the website for Congress and read the text of the bill. H.R. 109 on the Congressional website in case you are curious. I currently stand in support of this type of deal. With the vast majority of subject matter experts publishing the data, it is incontrovertible that climate change is happening and that humanity has played a role. I also believe that, based on the evidence, it is a crisis surpassing both World Wars and requires a massive national infrastructure, economic, scientific and environmental effort. I'm not going to pretend that it will be cheap or easy but I think that the current state of the science indicates an all hands on deck approach. Simply put, I support a Green New Deal. However, based on the views I've seen expressed here, I know that this view is likely not going to be the majority and that's ok. I am curious mostly about having a discussion and listening to people's objections to the Green New Deal. So I'll list a few questions just to get the ball rolling. I look forward to talking with you all. Thanks. Have you actually read the bill? (If not I would encourage you to look it up. H.R. 109 as mentioned above.) What are your objections to a plan like the Green New Deal (cost, etc.)? Do you think there is another way to deal with climate change if not a concerted national effort (private industry, etc.)? If you like certain parts of the Green New Deal but not others could you elaborate on those differences?

I don't think the article in question is really saying what you think it is saying. The story itself focused around the measurement of the Hubble constant which is used in measurements of the rate of expansion of the universe. If you want to discuss what the "center" of the universe is, I think the correct way of describing the results is that the "center" of the observable universe is the observer. This is because, according to cosmological models, the universe is expanding and due to the constancy of the speed of light in a vacuum (c) in combination with this expansion there is a light horizon per se. As any observer anywhere cannot see beyond this light horizon each observer is the center of that section of the universe they happen to be observing.

So this is somewhat inaccurate from what I know of string theory. I'm a chemist but several of my friends are in physics so I have some knowledge of this area although I am by no means an expert. String theory does not make an assertions regarding the origins of the universe. It mostly seeks to unify quantum mechanics and Einstein's theories. While both of these systems work well and are acceptable, the rules that they establish seem to break down in certain rare cases (black holes, etc.). String theory seeks to unify these. The goal of some is to get a Grand Unified Theory (GUT) which accounts for both Einstein's equations and quantum mechanics. In the simplest terms, string theory wants to clean up the math and find a more elegant way of describing physics.

I know it's a bit of an older topic but I found it interesting. Firstly, there are a lot of different branches even within the transhumanist movement. The SENS research community aim to eliminate biological aging as a way to reach biological "immortality" while others are more in the camp of mind uploading (which brings on a ton of other philosophical questions as it would be a copy of your mind rather than your actual mind). Still others favor a combination approach using nanorobotics. The SENS and nanorobotics approaches are very promising in the next 30-40 years in my opinion to at least increase life expectancy. Note that I put immortality in quotation marks earlier. This is because even if you achieved a life free of disease and would not die of what we would call "natural causes," entropy is the great equalizer and under known models of physics, you would eventually die even if it took trillions of years. Now on to the moral questions. Firstly, I don't think there would be moral problem with SENS or nanorobotics. Both of these approaches are the philosophical equivalent of taking pharmaceuticals, or in the cybernetics case, giving an amputee a prosthetic. Perhaps you could argue that the Theseus Ship Paradox is relevant for cybernetics. Either way, I don't see those two technological paths to transhumanism becoming a moral problem for theists. The mind uploading approach is slightly different as I'm not sure how we should view copies of human minds which eventually diverge from the original mind in terms of thought. It is certainly an interesting area of debate. As I said previously, transhumanism does not grant immortality in the way we think of God as immortal. It would allow us to live vast lifespans and do many things but we cannot escape that we are physical beings bound by entropy and even if we live for a long time, we will eventually pass on.