Is Creationism Science?

[Addai]

Well again it would be "begging the question".     To not say it, would prompt most people to ask "Why do you think it happened suddenly?"

 

 

No? Is it that Bible alone made him draw his conclusions?

Yes in some ways it did.    When he read the Bible he noticed some verses that made some cosmological statements.   He quotes some passages that mention things like "The heavens being stretched"   Which he believes related to the movement of Galaxies (our universe is constantly expanding).

 

At the same time he read other books.  He ran across a Indian/Hindu scientist (probably an Astrophysist) who mentioned that "the Bible was remarkable compared to other Holy books" especially his native Sutras, that it significantly had "more passages relating to verifiable cosmology then other works".

 

 

Does it seem to you that he lacked any argument that could be drawn from facts avaible to him and for this reason he explained through a miracle?

Well I guess you haven't been following the Singularity side discussion with Alpha.    Science really doesn't give you a way to explain most of this stuff.    The best you can do is "Nature of the Gaps" solution and say, "hopefully in the future we will discover more data that will help us understand how all this stuff came about".

Edited October 4, 2013 by Addai

[alphaparticle]

Alpha I wish I could post links here, but will recommend a youtube video.    The poster gave it an unfortunate polemical sounding title "Science v's God its the collapse of Physics as we know it"    But the video features Michio Kaku and some other big physicists (Don't know who they are).   Anyway Michio Kaku and this other guy make statements that trying to reconcile General Relativity with Quantum theory is not working out.   "Science is having a nervous breakdown" Michio at one point states (i.e. getting infinity values when working the equations etc).    And basically that they are at a loss of where to go next.....

 

 

I don't have a problem with that.    But it does have value when dealing with Evidentialists and some of their rhetoric.   i.e. claiming that only creationists "have faith" when it comes to forming their beliefs and outlook on life.   Clearly there is definitely an analog of Faith on the other side of the fence.

Michio Kaku is trying to make it exciting. sure, it is.... but I see no reason not to expect something. Everyone is trying to break the Standard Model, find some experimental crack by which to get a sense of where our next theory should be. And why shouldn't we expect it? The fact that we can and do expect there to be a 'next theory' that is even more precise, that covers even more ground in terms of scales, is to me a powerful testimony to the glory of our Creator. How else would we expect order all the way down and all the way up?

[Addai]

I agree with your sentiment but not so much with the conclusions.

 

 

There is a principle that for the life of me I can't remember its name.   I think its one of biology.   But it has to do with understanding systems.   I thought I read somewhere in biology there is a scale that grades lifeforms.   From virus to large mammals all have a numeric rating on where they fit into that scale.    A virus may be a 1, a bacteria a 2, small mammals 6 and so on...

 

Anyway according to that idea, it is hard to understand the complexity of systems.   You really need to be looking at something that is 2 levels below your own level to have a good grasp of the system.    It's a bit like the law of causes and affect.

 

And then you get some of the new findings.   Like what we learn with electron microscopes where we learn that even smallest of life forms end up having so much more complexity to them compared to what we really originally thought.

 

Anyway that is where the problem is.   The best we can do is try to come up with close approximations for things of the universe.   But there is always going to be some inexactitude that is going to lead to ineffability.   I personally like the old Jewish legend of the Golem when thinking of such things.   We are created in God's image and possess his creativity, but we can only ape his technique.

Edited October 4, 2013 by Addai

[alphaparticle]

addai i don't understand how this is a response to my post.

[Addai]

Well you seemed to be very optimistic of the idea that we could solve problems like singularity.   And I think there are various areas of science that show us that things are more complex and intricate then what we expect, than what we can write equations for and so on (especially given things like the "principle of parsimony", the phenomenon of "measurement error" etc.)

 

(I can expand on this if you don't get what I'm getting at.)

Edited October 4, 2013 by Addai

[alphaparticle]

Well you seemed to be very optimistic of the idea that we could solve problems like singularity.   And I think there are various areas of science that show us that things are more complex and intricate then what we expect, than what we can write equations for and so on (especially given things like the "principle of parsimony", the phenomenon of "measurement error" etc.)

 

(I can expand on this if you don't get what I'm getting at.)

 

Alright, but what I am talking about is fundamental physics which has a trend toward unification and surprising underlying simplicity. We aren't talking about trying to describe every physical state of a frog in terms of the basic laws of physics, we are talking about coming up with the next round of basic laws of physics which can successfully unify gravity into the rest of our apparatus. The reason the description of the frog becomes so impossible is merely because there are many parts, not because it is so hard to understand, in principle. There seems to me a rather large disanalogy.

[Addai]

Alright.   I do wonder about the infinity problem that Kaku speaks of concerning singularity.   Mathematics is not my strong suit, but I still wonder if problems like that are a result that the equations are not exact enough.   (They are built more for utility, than ultimate precision).

Edited October 4, 2013 by Addai

[alphaparticle]

Alright.   I do wonder about the infinity problem that Kaku speaks of concerning singularity.   Mathematics is not my strong suit, but I still wonder if problems like that are a result that are equations are not exact enough.   (They are built more for utility, than ultimate precision).

The infinity problem arises because there are an infinite degree of freedoms in space. Some infinities that arise in our theories can be renormalized away, others can't. It appears as though trying to introduce gravity into our most well established quantum theories presents a pernicious infinity that can't be easily dealt with.

[alphaparticle]

As far as how these theories are built, I can go through the basic concepts with you if you are that interested. They are built through a combination of observed fact and deduction. Our quantum mechanics theories are wildly successful at predictive power.

[Addai]

Thanks alpha I got some notions of that from some shows like Numbers and Connections, as well as from previous social science education (factorial models) but if you have a link or illustration or example that would be cool.