Evolution debunked in 1 paragraph.

Discussion in 'Politics' started by peilthetraveler, Jun 19, 2011.

  1. Betapeg

    Betapeg

    Since you love to throw quotes around like they're one hundred dollar bills, here are some which state emphatically the universe probably came from nothing in random sequence and continues this random sequence on the quantum level and to some degree, even macro level (sand dune analogy).

    ==========

    In the everyday world, energy is always unalterably fixed; the law of energy conservation is a cornerstone of classical physics. But in the quantum microworld, energy can appear and disappear out of nowhere in a spontaneous and unpredictable fashion. (Davies 1983: 162)

    ==========

    The uncertainty principle implies that particles can come into existence for short periods of time even when there is not enough energy to create them. In effect, they are created from uncertainties in energy. One could say that they briefly "borrow" the energy required for their creation, and then, a short time later, they pay the "debt" back and disappear again. Since these particles do not have a permanent existence, they are called virtual particles. (Morris 1990: 24)

    ==========

    [Virtual particle pairs] are predicted to have a calculable effect upon the energy levels of atoms. The effect expected is minute—only a change of one part in a billion, but it has been confirmed by experimenters. In 1953 Willis Lamb measured this excited energy state for a hydrogen atom. This is now called the Lamb shift. The energy difference predicted by the effects of the vacuum on atoms is so small that it is only detectable as a transition at microwave frequencies. The precision of microwave measurements is so great that Lamb was able to measure the shift to five significant figures. He subsequently received the Nobel Prize for his work. No doubt remains that virtual particles are really there. (Barrow & Silk 1993: 65-66)

    ==========

    Once our minds accept the mutability of matter and the new idea of the vacuum, we can speculate on the origin of the biggest thing we know—the universe. Maybe the universe itself sprang into existence out of nothingness—a gigantic vacuum fluctuation which we know today as the big bang. Remarkably, the laws of modern physics allow for this possibility. (Pagels 1982: 247)

    ==========

    There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty [five] zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero. (Hawking 1988: 129)

    ==========

    There is a still more remarkable possibility, which is the creation of matter from a state of zero energy. This possibility arises because energy can be both positive and negative. The energy of motion or the energy of mass is always positive, but the energy of attraction, such as that due to certain types of gravitational or electromagnetic field, is negative. Circumstances can arise in which the positive energy that goes to make up the mass of newly-created particles of matter is exactly offset by the negative energy of gravity of electromagnetism. For example, in the vicinity of an atomic nucleus the electric field is intense. If a nucleus containing 200 protons could be made (possible but difficult), then the system becomes unstable against the spontaneous production of electron-positron pairs, without any energy input at all. The reason is that the negative electric energy can exactly offset the energy of their masses.

    In the gravitational case the situation is still more bizarre, for the gravitational field is only a spacewarp - curved space. The energy locked up in a spacewarp can be converted into particles of matter and antimatter. This occurs, for example, near a black hole, and was probably also the most important source of particles in the big bang. Thus, matter appears spontaneously out of empty space. The question then arises, did the primeval bang possess energy, or is the entire universe a state of zero energy, with the energy of all the material offset by negative energy of gravitational attraction?

    It is possible to settle the issue by a simple calculation. Astronomers can measure the masses of galaxies, their average separation, and their speeds of recession. Putting these numbers into a formula yields a quantity which some physicists have interpreted as the total energy of the universe. The answer does indeed come out to be zero within the observational accuracy. The reason for this distinctive result has long been a source of puzzlement to cosmologists. Some have suggested that there is a deep cosmic principle at work which requires the universe to have exactly zero energy. If that is so the cosmos can follow the path of least resistance, coming into existence without requiring any input of matter or energy at all. (Davies 1983: 31-32)

    ==========
     
    #491     Jul 8, 2011
  2. Betapeg

    Betapeg

    More quotes........

    ==========

    In general relativity, spacetime can be empty of matter or radiation and still contain energy stored in its curvature. Uncaused, random quantum fluctuations in a flat, empty, featureless spacetime can produce local regions with positive or negative curvature. This is called the "spacetime foam" and the regions are called "bubbles of false vacuum." Wherever the curvature is positive a bubble of false vacuum will, according to Einstein's equations, exponentially inflate. In 10^-42 seconds the bubble will expand to the size of a proton and the energy within will be sufficient to produce all the mass of the universe.

    The bubbles start out with no matter, radiation, or force fields and maximum entropy. They contain energy in their curvature, and so are a "false vacuum." As they expand, the energy within increases exponentially. This does not violate energy conservation since the false vacuum has a negative pressure (believe me, this is all follows from the equations that Einstein wrote down in 1916) so the expanding bubble does work on itself.

    As the bubble universe expands, a kind of friction occurs in which energy is converted into particles. The temperature then drops and a series of spontaneous symmetry breaking processes occurs, as in a magnet cooled below the Curie point and a essentially random structure of the particles and forces appears. Inflation stops and we move into the more familiar big bang.

    The forces and particles that appear are more-or-less random, governed only by symmetry principles (like the conservation principles of energy and momentum) that are also not the product of design but exactly what one has in the absence of design.

    The so-called "anthropic coincidences," in which the particles and forces of physics seem to be "fine-tuned" for the production of Carbon-based life are explained by the fact that the spacetime foam has an infinite number of universes popping off, each different. We just happen to be in the one where the forces and particles lent themselves to the generation of carbon and other atoms with the complexity necessary to evolve living and thinking organisms. (Stenger 1996)

    ==========

    Where did all the matter and radiation in the universe come from in the first place? Recent intriguing theoretical research by physicists such as Steven Weinberg of Harvard and Ya B. Zel'dovich in Moscow suggest that the universe began as a perfect vacuum and that all the particles of the material world were created from the expansion of space...

    Think about the universe immediately after the Big Bang. Space is violently expanding with explosive vigor. Yet, as we have seen, all space is seething with virtual pairs of particles and antiparticles. Normally, a particle and anti-particle have no trouble getting back together in a time interval ... short enough so that the conservation of mass is satisfied under the uncertainty principle. During the Big Bang, however, space was expanding so fast that particles were rapidly pulled away from their corresponding antiparticles. Deprived of the opportunity to recombine, these virtual particles had to become real particles in the real world. Where did the energy come from to achieve this materialization?

    Recall that the Big Bang was like the center of a black hole. A vast supply of gravitational energy was therefore associated with the intense gravity of this cosmic singularity. This resource provided ample energy to completely fill the universe with all conceivable kinds of particles and antiparticles. Thus, immediately after the Planck time, the universe was flooded with particles and antiparticles created by the violent expansion of space. (Kaufmann 1985: 529-532)

    ==========

    Vilenkin's tunneling condition relies on another effect of quantum mechanics, again a consequence of properties of the wave function. A wave function can often penetrate barriers with its tails, even if those would be too high for a corresponding classical particle...Vilenkin proposed in 1983 that the universe itself might have emerged by such a tunneling process. Our universe would the tail of a pioneering wave function that had once penetrated the barrier of the big bang and its singularity. But from where did the universe tunnel, and from where came the bulk of the wave function, whose tail our universe is supposed to be, before the tunneling process? Vilenkin's answer, obvious only at first sight: From nothing ...

    One can hardly attribute physical meaning to tunneling from nothing in a literal sense. Regardless, Vilenkin's postulate does have sense with regard to the wave function of the universe, endowed by the tunneling condition with certain initial values at vanishing volume. (Bojowald 2010: 222)
     
    #492     Jul 8, 2011
  3. jem

    jem

    just to take 3 of the authors of your quotes.

    weinberg the nobel prize winner who predicted the cosmological constant based on AP. His collaboration with Susskind is used to by Susskind when Susskind wrote that our universe appears spectaculary designed.

    Susskind then used Polchinski string theory calulations of allowable universes to speculate the reason our unverse looks designed - but not conclude designer... is because there are almost infinite other universes.

    here is an interesting quote from Susskind about Weinberg..

    How do you respond to critics who see the anthropic approach as quasi-religious or unscientific?

    " I cannot put it better than Steven Weinberg did in a recent paper:

    Finally, I have heard the objection that, in trying to explain why the laws of nature are so well suited for the appearance and evolution of life, anthropic arguments take on some of the flavor of religion. I think that just the opposite is the case. Just as Darwin and Wallace explained how the wonderful adaptations of living forms could arise without supernatural intervention, so the string landscape may explain how the constants of nature that we observe can take values suitable for life without being fine-tuned by a benevolent creator. I found this parallel well understood in a surprising place, a New York Times op-ed article by Christoph Schönborn, Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna. His article concludes as follows:

    Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, faced with scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, the Catholic Church will again defend human nature by proclaiming that the immanent design evident in nature is real. Scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of "chance and necessity" are not scientific at all, but, as John Paul put it, an abdication of human intelligence.

    There is evident irony in the fact that the cardinal seems to understand the issue much better than some physicists."


    http://evolutionarydesign.blogspot.com/2006/11/very-strong-anthropic-principle.html

    -----

    as you know.. hawking wrote...

    The premise of the fine-tuned universe assertion is that a small change in several of the dimensionless fundamental physical constants would make the universe radically different. As Stephen Hawking has noted, "The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. ... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life."[4]

    from wikipedia...


    Hawking's recent book states that our universe looks designed but that the multiverse hypothesis may be used to explain the fine tunings.

    ----

    Davies.... is one of the astronomers whose work cites the appearance of the fine tunings.

    --
     
    #493     Jul 8, 2011
  4. jem

    jem

    that the quotes you cited were either too old or part of the work which supports the multiverse hypothesis.

    as far as I can tell no serious scientist has argued our one universe got here by random chance after one big bang in decades. A respected scientist named smolin does stay outside the debate a bit... but I think he even speaks of more than one universe.

    its why this quote exists... which I showed you before... and it sums up the current debate...


    "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

    Finally if you read what Susskind wrote... you can see he noted in 2005 some scientists were holding out hope they could show why our universe seemed "special" without resorting to a multiverse but Susskind said that idea is more faith based than ID.
     
    #494     Jul 8, 2011
  5. Eight

    Eight

    Assumptions, if held a long time, become conclusions in people's minds and they will assert them as fact...

    Some guy was telling me how evolution is so obvious because of the similarities between species... I wasn't going to argue with the guy, can't stand him anyhow.. but I was laughing, because it's just as easy to say that the Designer had some design ideas that worked and He used them everywhere...
     
    #495     Jul 8, 2011
  6. Betapeg

    Betapeg

    Clearly, you see my quotes directly conflict with yours. Your assertion that "most if not all scientists accept" a fine-tuned universe is obviously untrue so you might want to back off such a baselessly arrogant statement. The physics clearly postulates the very real possibility of a random, spontaneous universe. What it doesn't postulate is a "fine-tuner". Such a postulation isn't physics. That is theology/philosophy. So when I'm told, "You are living in the 80s... learn some current science" I have to chuckle to myself because I had no idea "most if not all scientists" were all of a sudden believers in intelligent design. Which I don't believe for one second.
     
    #496     Jul 8, 2011
  7. Betapeg

    Betapeg

    Assumptions? Before you spout off more nonsense, read this. These are not assumptions but facts.

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

    "Evidence of common descent of living things has been discovered by scientists working in a variety of fields over many years. This evidence has demonstrated and verified the occurrence of evolution and provided a wealth of information on the natural processes by which the variety and diversity of life on Earth developed. This evidence supports the modern evolutionary synthesis, the current scientific theory that explains how and why life changes over time. Evolutionary biologists document the fact of common descent: making testable predictions, testing hypotheses, and developing theories that illustrate and describe its causes.

    Comparison of the genetic sequence of organisms has revealed that organisms that are phylogenetically close have a higher degree of sequence similarity than organisms that are phylogenetically distant. Further evidence for common descent comes from genetic detritus such as pseudogenes, regions of DNA that are orthologous to a gene in a related organism, but are no longer active and appear to be undergoing a steady process of degeneration.

    Fossils are important for estimating when various lineages developed in geologic time. As fossilization is an uncommon occurrence, usually requiring hard body parts and death near a site where sediments are being deposited, the fossil record only provides sparse and intermittent information about the evolution of life. Evidence of organisms prior to the development of hard body parts such as shells, bones and teeth is especially scarce, but exists in the form of ancient microfossils, as well as impressions of various soft-bodied organisms. The comparative study of the anatomy of groups of animals shows structural features that are fundamentally similar or homologous, demonstrating phylogenetic and ancestral relationships with other organism, most especially when compared with fossils of ancient extinct organisms. Vestigial structures and comparisons in embryonic development are largely a contributing factor in anatomical resemblance in concordance with common descent. Since metabolic processes do not leave fossils, research into the evolution of the basic cellular processes is done largely by comparison of existing organisms’ physiology and biochemistry. Many lineages diverged at different stages of development, so it is possible to determine when certain metabolic processes appeared by comparing the traits of the descendants of a common ancestor. Universal biochemical organization and molecular variance patterns in all organisms also show a direct correlation with common descent.

    Further evidence comes from the field of biogeography because evolution with common descent provides the best and most thorough explanation for a variety of facts concerning the geographical distribution of plants and animals across the world. This is especially obvious in the field of island biogeography. Combined with the theory of plate tectonics common descent provides a way to combine facts about the current distribution of species with evidence from the fossil record to provide a logically consistent explanation of how the distribution of living organisms has changed over time.

    The development and spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria, like the spread of pesticide resistant forms of plants and insects provides evidence that evolution due to natural selection is an ongoing process in the natural world. Alongside this, are observed instances of the separation of populations of species into sets of new species (speciation). Speciation has been observed directly and indirectly in the lab and in nature. Multiple forms of such have been described and documented as examples for individual modes of speciation. Furthermore, evidence of common descent extends from direct laboratory experimentation with the artificial selection of organisms—historically and currently—and other controlled experiments involving many of the topics in the article. This article explains the different types of evidence for evolution with common descent along with many specialized examples of each."
     
    #497     Jul 8, 2011
  8. Nonsense. I'll dumb it down for you. When a custom tailored suit doesn't fit those for whom it was not made, it doesn't mean the suit is defective or the tailor failed. It means you're STUpid for thinking it should fit anyone your pea brain can imagine.

    Pascal deliberately and specifically tailored his wager to a Christian God and never intended that it apply to all conceivable deities. Which means the wager didn't fail, your misapplication and ignorant "reasoning" failed.

    Just when I think you can't make yourself look any STUpider, you exceed my expectations. :p
     
    #498     Jul 9, 2011
  9. stu

    stu

    What is it you can't grasp about the words... Christian God or not , it fails for reasons already given.

     
    #499     Jul 10, 2011
  10. The wager only applies to a Christian God, therefore the "reasons already given" are irrelevant and only prove how STUpid you are to "think" they show it fails. What part of that don't you understand?
     
    #500     Jul 10, 2011