Many people try to keep science and religion separate. Even believers will compartmentalise their religious beliefs separately from their scientific knowledge. In fact, some theologians see attempts to justify religious beliefs with scientific evidence as a slippery slope. Father George Coyne, for example, warned that scientific knowledge is relative. Conclusions alter as more evidence produces better knowledge of reality. Therefore a theology which justifies itself in scientific terms lays itself open to being proven wrong (see “Scientism” in the eyes of the beholder). Specifically this warning has been made when religious leaders have tried to justify their beliefs using “big bang” cosmology (see Bad science, bad theology).
Mind you – religious apologists who get started on this slippery slope have a solution. Just ignore, or deny, new scientific knowledge. Victor Stenger describes an example of this in his contribution, Godless Cosmology, to the new book 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists.
He refers to the claim made by some apologists like Dinesh D’Souza and William Lane Craig that “big bang” cosmology shows that the universe, including space and time, started as a singularity. That this must have had an external cause – and you can guess what (or who) they claim for the cause.
It’s always worth checking out quotes used by religious apologists. The full sentence this was taken from reads:
“The final result was a joint paper by Penrose and myself in 1970, which at last proved that there must have been a big bang singularity provided only that general relativity is correct and the universe contains as much matter as we observe.”
But – at the end of the same paragraph Hawking adds:
“It is perhaps ironic that, having changed my mind, I am now trying to convince other physicists that there was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe – as we shall see later, it can disappear once quantum effects are taken into account.”
So, it was rather dishonest of D’Souza to extract 8 words from the book to give exactly the opposite meaning conveyed by the same paragraph!
Stenger points out that Craig also has not corrected this argument – despite it being explained to him in 2003! And the argument, together with attributions top Hawking and Penrose, is till being used by other apologists. For example Father Robert Spitzer claimed only the other day (see New astrophysical discoveries leave little to no room for Atheism, expert says):
“Every single Big Bang model shows the existence of what scientists call a ‘singularity,’ and the existence of each singularity demands the existence of an external ‘element’ to the universe,” and “every Big Bang theory, including the one known as Quantum theory, confirms the existence of singularities.” Finally, “There is no way to ignore the fact that it demands the existence of a singularity and therefore of a Creator outside space and time.”
Strange! I thought quantum theory was a reason to abandon the singularity concept!
Very interesting post.
I think the problem between both is that religion tends to stay fixed, not to evolved.
As the world evolves, as knowledge grows, and as life conditions change, we change. For religion to remain relevant and effective as a source of spiritual guidance and support for billions of people, it too must change.
Today, the world’s great religions find themselves at a critical juncture. Adhering to values and beliefs that are often thousands of years old, they are finding it increasingly difficult to provide the spiritual guidance and moral authority necessary to face the challenges of modern society. So the question is: Can the great religious traditions of the world reinvent themselves in order to address the needs and hopes of a complex, materialistic, and increasingly secular twenty-first-century world?
Well scientology is a a reinvention and you could say with the liberal theologians obscuring the concept of God to something very abstract the have already begun to change. But ultimately for their religion to work they have to change without changing. Or rather change but say its always been that way. Much easier and more logical to just abandon religion.
The Capitalist Dictatorship Falsifies Basic Science!
Michio Kaku, Wendy Freedman, Dennis Overbye, Nicholas
Wade, Brian Greene, etc. Are Exposed as Liars!
Today basic medicine, science including climatology, astrophysics and even both Einstein’s Special Theory and General Theory of Relativity are brazenly and routinely falsified at the direction of genuinely Fascist elements for political/religious reasons. These scientifically fabricated and bizarre distortions are mixed in with some actual science and are passed off as “the new science” in exhaustive falsifications lasting for hours on NOVA, FRONTLINE, National Geographic Channel, CUNY TV, and even the so-called “History Channel” In addition, the above-mentioned so-called “cosmologists” publish an endless stream of books, videos and magazine and newspaper articles to try to popularize this fiction and pass it off as good coin. Not to mention the new textbooks! The media, including the science media is simply a privatized arm of the U.S. “intelligence agency,” a vast army of legions of professional liars in every area of politics and every academic discipline and includes even so-called “comedians” working in service to the capitalist dictatorship of millionaires and billionaires. The U.S. media is very similar to Blackwater, Dyncorp, Custer Battles and Triple Canopy, etc. the armed military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, except that the media has always been privatized. Can you say Total Brainwash of the youth? Not to mention the adult population!
There is also a maximal attempt to confuse the masses in order to keep them susceptible to the constant stream of lies originating from NASA and the U.S. government, which have threatened to ram through a revisit of the Moon and have even tried to pump up support for a Mars mission! (?) There is no possibility that a manned trip to Mars would ever return. Rocketry is a primitive form of space travel and there is no acknowledged attempt of efforts to develop the nuclear powered electromagnetic motor used by so-called UFOs, which are documented to have visited the Earth for Millennia. Moon and Mars trips obviously make no sense except to keep NASA and its suppliers in business and one more pretext to divert money from social spending and to boost U.S. patriotism. Under public pressure the Obama Regime has recently supposedly cancelled the Moon and Mars ventures and states that it will privatize the role of NASA going even further than Bush in privatization schemes for the U.S. government. (See below.) The widespread academic opposition to these wide-scale falsifications of science and money wasting ventures is never given equal time! We demand and will take some time to refute the U.S.-led capitalist dictatorship’s lies.
The Capitalist Dictatorship’s Attempt to Falsify the
Age of the Universe to Help Provide False Belief in “god”
The capitalists have tried to falsify the actual age of the Universe and the infinite cycle of a Big Bang followed by a Big Crunch, meaning a closed rather than an open Universe, because the reality of a closed Universe does not fit with the religious brainwash of a single creation and belief in a supernatural fictitious “god.” (The statecraft of capitalism’s alliance with religion and belief in “god” and other superstition is exposed further below.) The reality is that the process of contraction of the Universe began soon after the Big Bang, which began the process of expansion. The process of contraction began with the first condensations of gas after the Big Bang. At first the process of expansion was dominant, but the processes of expansion and contraction exist simultaneously from shortly after the Big Bang until finally the process of contraction becomes dominant and all galactic matter is finally drawn into Supermassive Black Holes, which today form the centers of all spiral galaxies and elliptical galaxies in the process of becoming spiral galaxies. These Supermassive Black Holes, which are growing larger continuously, finally link up all existing matter of the Universe at one spot, one huge super-maximal Black Hole known as the Singularity in the Big Crunch, at which time critical mass in the true and ultimate sense is reached for another Big Bang Cycle and the beginning of another Universe.
Ninety-five Percent of Matter in the Universe Exists in the Form of Energy According
To Einstein’s Formula E=mc2! Black Holes Completely Reverse that Relationship and
Solve the Equation for Mass: M=E/c2 thus Supplying the so-called “Missing Mass”!
The critical mass density required for the Big Crunch to occur is 1 x 10 to the negative 29th of a gram per cubic centimeter (approximately 5 hydrogen atoms per cubic meter), according to the calculation from the General Theory of Relativity, which predicted Black Holes. Neutrinos are now known to have mass which may be sufficient to supply the supposed “missing mass.” (See below.) But probably even more significant is the recent paper in Science (November 21, 2008) which shows that 95% of matter in the Universe exists in the form of energy according to Einstein’s formula E=mc2. This relationship would reverse in a Black Hole and the so-called “missing mass” would gradually appear as the contraction of the Universe allowed the energy-mass relationship to shift so that in a practical and real sense Einstein’s formula would be solved for mass: m=E/c2. Though the authors of the paper fail to draw this conclusion that is the inescapable significance of those papers. See below. The fact that the expansion and contraction of the Universe occur simultaneously is one more example of the Law of Unity of Opposites, the Second Law of and Historical Materialism and the correctness of the scientific philosophy of Dialectical and Historical Materialism, as opposed to the false philosophies of idealism and metaphysics, which are the only philosophies permitted to be seriously taught in U.S. colleges and universities, and which form the underlying basis for all phony “cosmological” theory! See further below!
Black Holes Have Mass and a Size, Which
Can Be Calculated, and Rotate on an Axis!
In addition, in the Big Crunch matter most certainly does NOT collapse to “a single point less than the size of a single molecule,” a totally ridiculous assertion by the so-called “string theorists” (see below) designed to try to discredit the Theory of the Big Bang/Big Crunch Cycle of the Universe. Black Holes are formed exclusively of condensed nuclear material; protons and neutrons (composed of quarks) and electrons (composed of leptons) devoid of their orbits and all motion, all collapsed together. The end point of all matter in the Big Crunch is a Single Black Hole, the so-called “singularity.” All Black Holes have the same mass density, which is said to be infinite, and which vary only in actual mass depending on how many stars and how much nuclear material they contain. The only difference is the difference in mass, which is constantly increasing as matter changes from its energy form when entering a Black Hole. See above cited article in Nature, November 21, 2008. Note that while some of the information provided below may appear to be somewhat technical it is necessary for any subsequent challenges which might be made of this dialectical and historical materialist analysis. An educated reader should be able to understand most of it and follow for the most part the explanations, which have in turn vast political implications. A few key references are provided and the reader can research the area independently.
Black Holes have mass and size just as neutron stars (pulsars) also have mass!! All Black Holes, both Stellar Black Holes and Supermassive Black Holes (the result of combination of millions of solar masses) which form the center of evolving elliptical galaxies and all spiral galaxies, also rotate extremely rapidly just like neutron stars, some of which are estimated to be only 8 to 20 miles in diameter, and rotate in 1.4 milliseconds to 30 seconds! All stars rotate on a central axis to some degree due to the angular momentum of gas approaching the center of the proto-star prior to the ignition of hydrogen fusion. In other words the gravitational collapse of gas in star formation is not uniform just as its opposite, an explosion such as the Big Bang is not uniform. When the radius of the star is reduced drastically in stellar collapse the angular momentum remains the same but the momentum of inertia is sharply reduced. The standard example is that of a figure skater spinning with outstretched arms who speeds up by pulling in his/her arms. Black Holes are formed from the collapse of the largest Blue Giant stars 5 to 20 or more solar masses. Neutron stars are formed from the explosion of stars with 1.35 to 2.1 solar masses in a Type II, Type Ib or Type Ic supernova explosion. The rapid rotation of Supermassive Black Holes is in fact the reason Spiral Galaxies exist in the flattened disk form they do with spiral arms—because of the huge gravitational force exerted by the rapid rotation of Supermassive Black Holes which form their galactic centers! As the rotating Supermassive Black Hole in the galactic center gradually increases in size through accumulation/accretion of more stellar material and gas, the elliptical galaxy, which is in the process of becoming a spiral galaxy, first flattens due to the rapid rotation of the Supermassive Black Hole in its center. It should also be noted that as would be expected there exist a high number of stellar black holes in the galactic center drawn by their strong gravitational fields on their way to join the central Supermassive Black Hole. According to observations of the Chandra X-Ray Telescope released in a July 16, 2005 report there are 10,000 stellar black holes along with numerous neutron stars orbiting the Supermassive Black Hole in the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy, officially designated Sagittarius A (SGR A)! The Supermassive Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy has a mass of 3.7 million solar masses, while a Supermassive Black Hole in the constellation Virgo 50 million light years distant contains a Supermassive Black Hole with the mass of 3 billion solar masses.
The spiral arms comprised of outlying stars are formed by the combination of the gravitational force coming from the rapidly rotating galactic center and the relative gravitational attraction of one outlying star to another based on their actual distances from one another. As the outlying stars approach neighboring stars due to gravity this leaves other areas where stars are much less concentrated giving rise to the appearance of usually 2 major spiral arms originating from each end of the central bar often found in the galactic center, as well as several minor spiral arms, all of which are actually in the process of being gradually drawn inexorably toward the galactic center. The gravitational force of the Black Hole, the mass of which is steadily increasing, gradually overcomes the outward centripetal force caused by its rapid rotation.
Central bars form after the Supermassive Black Hole in the center of a large spiral reaches a certain size and are therefore found more prevalently in more massive galaxies where the required mass is reached sooner. Central bars form when stellar orbits in a spiral galaxy become unstable and deviate from a circular path. The tiny elongations in the stars’ orbits grow and become locked into place, forming a bar. The bar becomes even stronger as it locks more and more of these elongated orbits into place. Eventually a high fraction of the stars in the galaxy’s inner region join the bar. The galactic center thus attracts both gas and stars. This concentration of gas at the center of spiral galaxies does result in the formation of new stars but does not represent the primary or original source of star formation, which occurs in the beginning of formation of galaxies from gravitational condensation and collapse of primordial gas clouds. The central bars draw a large amount of gas towards the galactic center, fueling this new star formation, building central bulges of stars, and feeding the Supermassive central black hole. The formation of a bar may be one of the last stages in the evolution of a spiral galaxy prior to its eventual total collapse entirely into its central Supermassive Black Hole.
Information Overload by NASA and U.S. Government Propagandists is used to Distract
Focus Away from the Significance and Central Role Black Holes Play in the Process
Of Contraction of the Universe which Finally Becomes Dominant in the Big Crunch!
In the interest of accuracy and it is also important to mention that this information is being misused by NASA and other U.S. government propagandists to try to distract from and obscure the significance of black holes and the central role black holes play in the process of contraction of the Universe, which ultimately becomes dominant over the simultaneous process of expansion. First, it is a fact that matter generally enters a black hole through a combination of both gravitation and magnetism. Matter in the accretion disk, which spins around the black hole, can only enter the black hole after it loses its angular momentum. The inertia of the material in the accretion disk keeps it spiraling in a disk rather than falling straight into the black hole. The inertia in turn is due to the mass of the material in the disc and the gravitational field caused by the extremely rapid rotation of the black hole itself. An accretion disc is a rotating disk of gas, dust and other matter that may form around any of a variety of stars or other massive objects from protostars to white dwarfs to neutron stars to stellar black holes and Supermassive Black Holes and even quasars (see below). While the accretion disc of a young star or protostar usually contains dust which later consolidates or accretes to form planets and other objects, the accretion disk of a black hole, which may also contain stars, feeds matter directly into the black hole.
According to a report in the July 22, 2006 Nature, and another 2008 paper by F. Casse Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 50 124020 (9pp) confirming the 1973 theory of Starobinsky and Churilov, the spinning gas in an accretion disc generates its own magnetic field which powers a wind of charged particles directed away from the black hole. The wind of charged particles transfers angular momentum from the inner regions of the disk outward in a twin jet phenomenon perpendicular to the plane of the accretion disk allowing angular momentum to be conserved, meaning to remain balanced or constant. This transfer of angular momentum outward slows down the spinning gas near the center, allowing gravitation to draw matter into the black hole. The magnetic field also causes turbulence and friction to build up within the disk. The friction heats up the gas to millions of degrees, causing it to glow brilliantly in the ultraviolet and X-ray bands. In Supermassive Black Holes large jets of plasma flow away from the accretion disc perpendicular to its center at almost the speed of light. These jets of plasma travel outward along the magnetic field lines which are twisted by the rotating accretion disk. It should be noted that the material which flows outward in the jets represents only a tiny amount of material extracted from the accretion disk. (Plasma, which is found in the accretion disk closest to the black hole, is a partially ionized gas, where a certain proportion of electrons are free, not being bound to atoms or molecules, unlike the gas form of matter. This permits electrical conduction of magnetic fields. Plasma is considered the fourth state of matter in addition to solid, gas and liquid.
Redshift Measurement of Quasars puts
The Age of the Universe at 28 Billion Years!
The process where matter enters a black hole from its accretion disk may be greatly expanded during the formation of quasars where a Supermassive Black Hole at a galactic Center accretes a huge amount of matter in the order of billions of stars. When two black holes combine or a stellar black hole enters a Supermassive Black Hole in a galactic center the process causes the emission of radio waves and even visible light. When hundreds of millions to billions of stars and enormous amounts of gas first combine to create a Supermassive Black Hole in the center of a galaxy the energy released is exponentially increased and is known as a quasar. In a quasar this radiation is emitted across the entire spectrum almost equally, from X-rays to the far-infrared with a peak in the ultraviolet-optical bands, with some quasars also being strong sources of radio emission and of gamma-rays. Quasars are the most visibly luminous objects in the Universe and are also the strongest energy source in the Universe. A quasar is simply an accelerated process of formation of a Supermassive Black Hole in an early galaxy. The release of gravitational energy by matter falling towards a massive black hole in the formation of a quasar is the only process known that can produce such high power continuously, energy far greater than the fusion process which powers stars. Quasars easily outshine their host galaxies. (The light we see is from the huge superheated accretion disk, which is greatly enlarged due to the high density of matter in such galaxies. Stellar explosions such as Supernovas and gamma-ray bursts can create the same level of energy, but only for a few minutes.
All observed quasar spectra have red shifts between 0.06 and 6.5. Applying Hubble’s law to these red shifts, it can be shown that they are between 780 million and 28 billion light-years away, a measurement which is NOT due to gravitational lensing, although this has been reported for some extremely bright quasars. This is proof that the Universe itself is at least 28 billion years old! So the most recent “estimates” of the Hubble Constant and the actual age of the Universe by NASA, Wendy Freedman and company and the media (a privatized arm of the U.S. “intelligence community”) are obviously totally false! (See below.) The process of quasar formation occurred regularly in the early Universe in the formation of galaxies with huge densely concentrated gas and stars. It should be obvious that the first galaxies to form in the Universe generally contained the highest volume and concentration of gas, which in turn created the highest concentration and densities of stars. The Supermassive Black Holes at the center of those early galaxies became quasars. Galaxies without such high densities of matter develop more along the lines of our own Milky Way Galaxy and Andromeda, for example. Formation of galaxies is still occurring but generally they do not become quasars because the volume and density of gas is insufficient. An exception is 3C 273 in the constellation Virgo which is only 33 light years away with a luminosity equal to 2 trillion times that of our sun or about 100 times the total light of the Milky Way. Their discovery by Maarten Schmidt in 1967 was early strong evidence against the totally discredited steady state theory of Fred Hoyle, and in favor of the Big Bang Theory. Blazers, incidentally are the same as quasars but have their perpendicular jets in direct alignment with our galaxy, while quasars have their jets pointed away in another direction.
As part of the escalating campaign of Big Lies, in March 2009 NASA made the totally disingenuous statement on a National Geographic Channel so-called “Naked Science” show that “while black holes are associated with galaxies we (who we?) do not yet know what that relationship is!” The motive for that feigned ignorance/Big Lie is to try to obscure the documented reality that the matter of all galaxies is entering black holes as part of the ongoing contraction of the Universe, which begins shortly after the Big Bang and takes places simultaneously with the process of expansion and finally becomes dominant. As explained herein expansion of the Universe has slowed down enormously since the Big Bang and will be overtaken by the process of contraction until all mass in the Universe has again entered the final Black Hole, the so-called final singularity in the Big Crunch. At that point there will be another Big Bang and another Universe will begin. In addition, NASA and other government propagandists have attempted to overemphasize the accretion disk/jet phenomenon and the huge energy produced as matter enters a black hole or quasar, almost to make it appear that black holes and quasars are “expelling” matter as much as drawing it in, virtually standing black holes on their head and falsely ascribing all sorts of “observations” to black holes, in order to divert focus from the primary role of black holes as the mechanism or engine of contraction of the Universe and the beginning of the Big Crunch!
One example is the false claim by the fraudster, James Geach, hyped in the July 7, 2009 New York Times by the determined “intelligence community” propagandist Dennis Overbye, that black holes fueled so-called Lyman alpha “blobs,” glowing clouds of gas in the early universe. But that lie was immediately refuted with the obvious explanation that cold gas streaming into a protogalaxy would heat up and glow from the gravitational energy alone! (See: “Lyman Alpha Blobs as an Observational Signature of Cold Accretion Streams into Galaxies” by Mark Dijkstra and Abraham Loeb, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, June 5, 2009.) These fraudulent NASA/U.S. government propagandists hope that most viewers know absolutely nothing and will believe virtually anything that they are told by someone claiming to be a “scientist” or “professor” and that most people will not do their own research, or will remain at least confused and vulnerable to their next bizarre fantastical claim. That is why the information which appears here should be forwarded by email and networked in every possible way nationally and internationally in order to counter the U.S. capitalist dictatorship’s Big Lies. The objective of the capitalist dictatorship is to render the population more susceptible to their lies in every area including politics and economics, which also have little to no basis in reality. The capitalist dictatorship now resorts to the come on of “naked science” in order to try to sex-up their Big Lie propaganda in theoretical astrophysics, while simultaneously presenting truthful “Naked Science” reports in other areas and in other National Geographic programs in order to help their Big Lies blend in.
In response to the heavy push on the so-called “History Channel,” etc. it should be noted that the Theory of the Big Bang was first proposed by Georges-Henri Lemaître, who had both a PhD in physics and was an ordained priest. Lemaître studied at the University of Leuven, the University of Cambridge, Harvard and MIT. The little read report was first published in 1927 in the Annales de la Société Scientifique de Bruxelles (Annals of the Scientific Society of Brussels) and later in Nature: G. Lemaître, The Beginning of the World from the Point of View of Quantum Theory, Nature” 127 (1931), n. 3210, pp. 706. Lemaître called it “the hypothesis of Primeval Atom” and also referred to it as “the Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation,” with the word “creation” obviously reflecting his religious bias. As explained above the Universe did not originate from a single point less than the size of a single molecule as falsely proposed by the string theorists, who now are pushing Lemaître. As explained above the end point of all matter in the Big Crunch is a Single Black Hole, the so-called “singularity.” As mentioned all Black Holes have the same mass density, which is said to be infinite, and which vary only in actual mass depending on how many stars and how much nuclear material they contain. The only difference is the difference in mass, which is constantly increasing as matter changes from its energy form when entering a Black Hole according to E=M/c2, Einstein’s formula from the Special Theory solved for mass. See cited article in Nature, November 21, 2008. The singularity contains the combined mass of all nuclear material from all stars and gas in the Universe. The designation: “Big Bang Theory” first derived from a derogatory reference to the theory of an expanding Universe by Fred Hoyle on the BBC on March 1949 over 20 years after it was first proposed. The truth as explained above and herein is that the processes of expansion and contraction of the Universe coexist from shortly after the Big Bang until finally the process of contraction becomes dominant and there is a Big Crunch followed by another Big Bang and formation of another Universe.
It is a fact that Lemaître applied Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity to Cosmology, but was NOT a spearhead of religion supposedly leading physics as Lemaître is presently falsely being portrayed on the so-called “History Channel.” Lemaître also preceded Edwin Hubble in deriving what became known as Hubble’s Law and even calculated the Hubble Constant but was not able to prove the linear relation which Hubble did in 1929. Lemaître has rarely been given the credit he is due for first proposing the Big Bang Theory for 3 reasons: 1.) The theory of an expanding Universe was opposed at the time he first proposed it by Einstein and others, 2.) For political-religious reasons explained herein the capitalist dictatorship has always opposed the Big Bang Theory because the natural logic of a Big Bang implies a Big Crunch and a cyclic nature of the Universe rather than a single creation which leaves the most room for “a creator” and 3.) U.S. nationalism/jingoism, where the U.S. capitalist dictatorship always prefers that whenever possible credit be given to an American. Edwin Hubble was an American lawyer. Although Lemaître had received numerous Belgian and international scientific honors only recently have the capitalists been pushing Lemaître in order to focus on the fact that he was a priest and that his theory speaks of a moment of “creation.” The so-called “History Channel” focuses on this language in an attempt to inject the sophisticated form of creationism/intelligent design also espoused by Francis Collins, Obama’s new choice for head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). See below.
The Hubble Constant is a calculation of the speed at which the Universe is expanding and is crucial in calculating the age of the Universe. Four methods have been used to estimate the Hubble Constant and age of the Universe. The most recent method employed by Allan Sandage, et al measures: 1.) the distances to Type 1a Supernovae explosions in distant galaxies and then 2.) confirms those measurements by comparing the relative luminosities of Cepheid variable stars as so-called “standard candles,” while Wendy Freedman’s NASA team uses Cepheid Variable stars alone, which is a lot less accurate. Freedman’s method especially is an easy method in which to either err or to deliberately falsify results as she and her NASA team have clearly done. (See below.) The typical errors in calculating the Hubble Constant include: 1.) “the universal, yet unjustified Period-Luminosity relation of Cepheid (variable stars), 2.) neglect of selection bias in magnitude-limited samples or 3.) the errors which are inherent to the adopted models, which cause most values of the Hubble Constant and corresponding estimates of the age of the Universe to be incorrect as explained in detail in the most comprehensive review which has yet been published, which also includes the Sandage team’s most recent calculation of the Hubble Constant to date of 62.3 +or–1.3, which is based on measurements to 279 galaxies: “The expansion field: the value of the Hubble Constant,” by G.A Tammann, A. Sandage and B. Reindl, Astron Astrophys Rev (2008), 8 July 2008, 15:289-331, DOI 10.1007/s00159-800-9912-y.
This value of the Hubble Constant corresponds to an age of the Universe of approximately 13.7 billion years, which should be sufficient to permit the Big Crunch. However even this method of calculation of the Hubble Constant, which as exhaustively explained and documented by Allan Sandage et al, is fraught with potential errors cited above, which Sandage takes account of and systematically avoids. As mentioned above Wendy Freedman and Co. on the other hand use only Cepheid variable stars in their “calculations” and deliberately include faulty (fraudulent) data in their calculations as explained to this writer personally by Allan Sandage, therefore making Freedman & Co.’s method of determination of the Hubble Constant even easier to falsify. Such data is systematically excluded by Sandage, et al., as explained above. In response to the withering but suppressed critique by Sandage et al, known primarily only to other astrophysicists who follow these matters, Freedman has published a slew of pathetic papers addressing such topics as “correction of errors involving optical extragalactic background light (EBL), sampling-induced errors, magnitude errors, and random and optimal sampling,” etc. where she always comes up with ridiculously high (fraudulent) values for the Hubble Constant. Fraudulent data was necessary for Freedman & Co. to reinvent the entirely fictitious so-called “dark energy,” Einstein’s “Cosmological Constant,” (“My greatest blunder!” See below), which is declared to be “the opposite of gravity” and which has no scientific explanation whatsoever, but is proffered as “the reason” the capitalist dictatorship and its media (and textbook) propagandists now say that the expansion of the Universe has unexplainably “speeded up,” a “finding” which violates all previous findings not to mention all known rules of physics including the General Theory of Relativity! In other words this finding is totally invented, totally fabricated, a Big Lie to end all Big Lies! All designed to achieve political-religious-propagandistic objectives. See below. Legitimate opposing viewpoints are simply ignored and in practice not permitted to be heard! How jolly!
Regarding the most recent results given above for the Hubble Constant, this writer would still prefer to accept Sandage’s previous calculation of 55 +or-5, which has been repeatedly established in papers from 1975, 1982, 1986, 1990 and 1995, although it may certainly be possible that the 62.3 +or-1.3 value is the most accurate and it is certainly can be argued that 55 +or-5 is not that far removed from the new figure. The reason for this caution is that Allan Sandage is now 82 years old and although he is 100% intellectually intact and in control of all of his faculties his name is listed second in the above paper indicating that he himself may not have collected the data used in the calculation giving 62.3 +or-1.3 for the Hubble Constant. This writer has not spoken or corresponded with the other members of his team, as this writer has, with Allan Sandage. Sandages’s team also often includes A. Saha who was not included in the above paper, so this writer can not rule out alteration of the raw data to give a falsely high Hubble Constant by certain personnel who might be bribed by the NASA forces in charge of the Key Project, which was set up determined to achieve a certain result come hell or high water. This issue is important enough to the capitalist dictatorship so that they would leave no stone unturned to tweek the results in their direction for reasons explained further below. In addition, we are reminded that the Redshift of some quasars actually puts the age of the Universe at 28 billion years! See above.
The U.S. so-called “intelligence community” organized the so-called “Key Project” in order to cover up the cyclic nature of the Universe from Big Bang to Big Crunch. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was built primarily for the “Key Project.” This is an important point. The capitalist dictatorship chose Wendy Freedman to lead the project rather than the obvious choice, Allan Sandage, the legendary, most preeminent and world-renowned astrophysicist as well as the number one authority on the Hubble Constant along with his internationally renowned group of astrophysicist colleagues. See above. The reason was that Sandage’s studies up to that point had shown the Universe to be “between 14 and 18 billion years old, depending on what is assumed about the mass of the Universe.” This corresponds to a Hubble Constant, which he and colleagues had repeatedly calculated to be 55 +or-5 as cited above. An older age and smaller Hubble Constant, of course, would mean that the Universe contained easily enough matter to permit the Big Crunch, which is the key point the capitalist propagandists want to discredit because that would rule out a single creation and make the existence of a god, for which there is no scientific evidence whatsoever, even more unlikely! This is the actual statecraft behind the “Key Project.” See further below.
Freedman’s initial claim that the Universe was only 8 billion years old was obviously fraudulent, as have been all of her subsequent “estimations.” All of Freedman’s estimations of the age of the Universe and the Hubble Constant have been designed to try to fraudulently invalidate (!) the Big Bang, the Big Crunch especially and the cyclic nature of the Universe in particular. The preposterous claim of an 8 billion year age is a direct attack on the Big Bang, which has been verified worldwide. In her initial unrestrained enthusiasm to falsify and misinterpret her own data (see above) Freedman forgot about the 1.) Red shift discovered by Edwin Hubble (see below) and 2.) the detection of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which is the residual effect of the Big Bang both of which exist as irrefutable evidence for the Big Bang origin of the Universe! In January 2003 Freedman was made the Director of the Carnegie Observatories located in Pasadena, California where Allan Sandage works thereby placing her above him as a maneuver to make her fraudulent estimates of the Hubble Constant appear more authoritative in the public eye!
Note that even AFTER the 1965 discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation by Penzias and Wilson and its confirmation by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite in 1989 that its measurement produced a curve precisely matching a Planck curve, which most scientists have accepted as proof that the radiation is indeed from the beginning of the universe, the capitalist dictatorship has still made efforts to continue to try to deny the existence of the Big Bang, even publishing books with 466 pages (!) attacking the Big Bang such as the 1991 rubbish: “The Big Bang Never Happened” (!) by the totally discredited Eric Lerner. Anyone using simple inductive reasoning would immediately begin to smell a rat! Since the capitalist dictatorship and its media have not been able to refute the Big Bang they have now focused all their efforts in trying to refute the Big Crunch. The capitalist dictatorship has a long history of political meddling and sabotage in virtually all fields of scientific and medical research and a history of using scientific advances against the masses in order to control them and also to reduce the population according to their own perceived needs, e.g. from Bio-warfare to Bio-fuels (through enforced starvation, falsely portrayed as seeking “energy independence” and “clean energy.”).
NASA Propagandists Have Now Concocted the Fraudulent “theory of the
Big Rip” In Order to Try to Counter the Reality of the Big Crunch and
The Information which Appears Here now Found All Over the Internet!
NASA in a new propaganda blitz using their standard Big Lie technique in order to try to refute the information, which appears here and all over the Internet, has pushed back hard with the totally discredited claims on the National Geographic Channel March 2009 that 1.) “dark matter” forms a supposed “superstructure” of the universe from the very beginning of the Big Bang until the present 2.) the fictitious “dark energy” will eventually “become so strong” that it will overcome all 4 primary forces including the strong force, which holds quarks and gluons together to form protons, neutrons and other particles, and falsely claiming that the entire Universe will supposedly “fly apart ripping apart galaxies, stars, planets and eventually every speck of matter in a fantastical end to time” in what the fraudulent propagandist Robert Caldwell describes as “the Big Rip.” This is also known as the theory of the flat universe. Such brainwash already appears in the astrophysics textbooks of the capitalist dictatorship! We recommend that it be exposed as a Big Lie whenever and wherever it is encountered.
The capitalist cosmologists/propagandists have demonstrated that they can not coherently reply to any of the arguments advanced in this Materialist Analysis of Theoretical Astrophysics except through contrived, feigned ignorance, information overload and totally bizarre Big Lies, which require a religious-like faith (in dark energy and dark matter, for example) to actually believe them—their overall objective in the first place as explained here, so do not be intimidated by the doctoral degrees which they award themselves or the exalted positions held by these above-mentioned frauds in order to try to legitimize their lies and to try to control and monopolize this field as they try to do with all others. These false propagandists/“cosmologists” keep up a relentless barrage of lies in the major media and even physics journals to try to prove the existence of “dark matter,” for example, which they laughably claim is so dominant that it forms the “superstructure of the universe” but which they supposedly have only been able to detect as “two tiny pulses of heat deposited over the course of two years…” New York Times, December 18, 2009, a frankly pathetic false “finding” which the article admits is “no proof” but “tantalizing” (?) an adjective carefully chosen to try to make it appear as if everyone were are all rooting to try to prove their Big Lie. The reality is that there is no “dark matter.” And it can be predicted that the capitalist dictatorship will take over the science, if they have not already done so, of the new Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and highest energy particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland, when it finally goes on line in order to try to continue to concoct the existence of “dark matter” and “dark energy” as well as the fictitious “Higgs Boson” in order to try to “prove” the existence of god! The capitalist dictatorship is desperate and reeeediculous! So do not be intimidated by their Big Lies.
Through brazen false arguments and bizarre false analogies these phony “cosmologists” have even attempted to up the ante and generate maximum confusion by trying to brainwash people into believing that the laws of physics and theoretical astrophysics, such as the Laws of Quantum Mechanics, the Special Theory of Relativity and General Theory of Relativity, etc. are “not immutable” and are in a process of “constant evolution” supposedly like species of animals in Charles Darwin’s “The Evolution of Species.” The laws of physical science are thus directly compared to the evolution of species of animals! Einstein therefore supposedly only has “temporary relevance” giving virtually every kind of science fiction a basis in “reality.” (See: “Beyond Einstein,” Discover Magazine, April 2010). Einstein is also falsely quoted as believing in god: “learning to read the laws of physics is like reading the mind of god.” See comprehensive section on Einstein below.
The author of the Discover Magazine article moreover disingenuously announces: “physicists should not spin any theories that require the existence of things such as multiverses, that cannot be disproved.” This carefully contrived statement implies that because “multiverses,” etc. supposedly cannot be disproved these fraudsters do not have to actually PROVE any piece of science fiction currently being passed of as “science.” They imply that is the duty of genuine theoretical physicists to disprove every false theory used to bombard the public domain by the misnamed, so-called “intelligence community” led by characters such as Michio Kaku. The Materialist Analysis of Theoretical Astrophysics disproves their primary concoctions and it is a rule of the Court that a witness caught in one lie in testimony does not merit any further credibility by the Jury. This is especially true in science where it is clear that, above all else, Kaku & Co. are straining at the leash to inject confusion into basic physics. Their motives to create confusion are explained above. The title of the Discover Magazine article was incidentally borrowed from the title of a 1987 book by “intelligence community” fraudster, Michio Kaku, wherein Kaku first concocted so-called “String Theory” in the effort to supplant Quantum Mechanics. See below. It should be noted that Kaku, who hides his specious so-called “Beyond Einstein science,” behind a phony glib slick presentation, is equally at home spinning science fiction e.g. “parallel universes, time warps and the tenth dimension” as he is relentlessly fabricating false theories designed to compete with and supplant natural law and confuse as many people as possible behind a mantle of genuinely false knowledge.
There is no such thing as “Dark Energy” and the Universe has not suddenly increased its rate of expansion as falsely claimed by these frauds, as supposed “proof of its existence.” Just the opposite! The rate of expansion of the Universe has continued to slow since the Big Bang! All previous observations have indicated that is the case! While the Red Shifts of the most distant galaxies does indicate they are receding much more rapidly than closer galaxies this is because their light originated closer to the time of the Big Bang when the expansion rate was greater, but that is not the situation today. It should therefore be noted that although we may be able to receive light from galaxies which started its journey virtually at the beginning of the Universe, that light does not portray the reality at this point in time of that galaxy which was the source of that light. The reality is that today most of the Universe is undoubtedly relatively uniform in its development today except where there are huge clouds of gas from super novae explosions and where there are huge accumulations of matter such as the Great Wall of galaxies, the latter of which formed due to the irregularities which occurred in the Big Bang just as in any other explosion. In other words the light from our own galaxy, the Milky Way, would appear to an observer from the most distant galaxies to be receding at the same rate that their light is receding from our own galaxy! This should be a no-brainer but is rarely if ever mentioned. The only viewpoint which is ever mentioned is from the Earth as if it were the center of creation. Which it is not!
The Universe is not open! Just like the Earth itself the spatial curvature of the Universe is NOT flat! It is closed. In reality there are no “multiple universes,” which “pop out of Black Holes” or by any other explanation. The reason for this is that although in a Black Hole mass is infinite (see above), Critical Mass does not exist! Critical Mass is attained only in the Singularity, when all matter in the Universe comes together in one spot in the Big Crunch. See above. This is why the Large Hadron Collider cannot reproduce either the Big Bang or even a Black Hole. The reason for this is that even a Black Hole can form only when a Blue Giant star of sufficient mass collapses. See above.
There is also no “time travel” either in a practical sense despite the phenomena of time dilation described in Einstein’s Special Theory and gravitational time dilation described in Einstein’s General Theory, which was actually confirmed in the Pound-Rebka experiment. And there are no “worm holes.” For worm holes to exist just within the known Universe would require changing space-time topology and would require regions of negative energy, which do not actually exist. There are no “strings.” “String theory” is a mathematical attempt to try to refute and supplant, not explain, the Theory of Quantum Mechanics, the foundations of particle physics which were established during the first half of the twentieth century by Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Albert Einstein, etc.! See below for the most likely ready solution to the Grand Unified Theory.
Recent Findings Document that the Mass of the Universe
Increases as Matter Enters a Black Hole and the Final Singularity!
This Finding Totally Refutes Infinite Expansion of the Universe
And “String Theory!” The Fact That Neutrinos Have Mass Also
Provides Further Basis For the Big Crunch!”
The false claim that there is supposedly insufficient matter in the Universe to permit the Big Crunch to take place is entirely refuted by 2 discoveries. Perhaps even more significant than the work on neutrinos discussed below is the most recent paper published on November 21, 2008 in Science. More than 99% of the visible mass of the Universe is made up of protons and neutrons. Recent calculations of the mass of the nucleus found that that matter, which is composed of protons and neutrons, which are in turn are composed of quarks held together with gluons by the strong force, normally exists as 95% energy, according to the formula from Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity: E=mc2! This provides further confirmation for the Big Crunch. Why? The reason, not drawn as a conclusion by the authors of the paper, is that in a Black Hole and moreover in the final Black Hole, the “Singularity,” that relationship would be 100% reversed, with all matter existing in the form of mass: m=E/c2. The mass of the Universe would therefore increase according to these findings as matter enters a Black Hole as energy shifts to its mass equivalent! (Obviously this is the precise opposite of what occurs in a nuclear explosion where matter is converted entirely to energy according to the equation E=mc2.) (Science, Vol. 322, 5905:1198-1199 and 1124-1127) On the other hand such tidbit reports as “Excess Particles From Space may Hint at Dark Matter,” (Science, Vol. 322, 5905:1173) are only red herrings meant to titillate, to keep attention diverted away from focusing on key findings of genuine significance. There is no such thing as “dark matter.”
The discovery that neutrinos have mass also provides a further basis for the Big Crunch. This fact was first reported on July 1, 1998 by a collaboration of 120 U.S. and Japanese physicists at the Neutrino 98 meeting in Takayama, Japan and submitted to Physical Review Letters. (By Super-Kamiokande Collaboration (Y. Fukuda et al.) Phys.Rev.Lett.81:1562-1567,1998.) Neutrinos have sufficient weight to allow the Big Crunch! The experiment measured the differences in mass of the three types of neutrinos to be 0.1 eV or greater. The group reported that the simplest interpretation of the solar and atmospheric results is that the heaviest neutrino has a mass of 0.1 eV. However, they reported that since oscillations between the 3 types of neutrinos depend only on the differences in mass it is possible that the masses of all three neutrinos are fully 1 eV or greater, but that it is the mass differences which are much smaller. (They allow for the “possibility.” How nice! They know that the majority of physicists do not simply automatically accept the interpretation which is first proffered.)
This makes the most sense and is of course suppressed for political reasons. (See below.) If the mass of the neutrino is 1 eV that would mean that neutrinos account for more mass in the Universe than all of the protons and neutrons put together easily supplying the supposed “missing matter” necessary for the Big Crunch. As mentioned the critical mass density required for the Big Crunch to occur is 1 x 10 to the negative 29th of a gram per cubic centimeter (approximately 5 hydrogen atoms per cubic meter), according to the calculation from the General Theory of Relativity. In addition, the fact that neutrinos have mass also provides the basis for the Grand Unified Theory which links the gravitational force described in the General Theory of Relativity with the strong and the weak forces and electromagnetism described in the Theory of Quantum Mechanics. Einstein struggled and failed to formulate this theory, but it has already been shown that at high enough energies electromagnetism and the weak force are the same force known as the electroweak force. It is theorized that if energies are increased even further and neutrinos acquire mass, which has now been fully documented, all the known forces will reduce to the same force thus providing the basis for the Grand Unified Theory. This high energy level existed only during the very early expansion of the Universe known as the Planck Epoch, which existed up to 10 to the negative 43rd seconds after the Big Bang, where the four fundamental forces — electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force and gravitation — all had the same strength. After that point the energy level decreased and gravity separated from the other 3 fundamental forces and with the condensation of matter into the elementary particles
The Scientific Basis of Atheism:
The Origin of Matter is an Unknowable!
The capitalist dictatorship would have the masses believe that there is no limit on humankind’s knowledge, that everything is knowable and that everything was created by “god.” But this is false; there is a limit on knowledge and there is no god. Because of the fact that we exist as part of the Universe we can not exit the Universe, stand outside it and declare that a god, much larger than we are naturally but of course in our own image, who naturally is usually white and always male, never female, created the Universe. The corollary is that the origin of matter is an unknowable! The false claim of supposed “wormholes” by the string theorists of course is a way to try to condition peoples’ minds to believe that they can do the opposite and exit the Universe, and is designed to set up the belief patterns for belief in god! (And while you’re at it, after you have exited the Universe don’t forget to check out “god,” he’s right over there. Right near that wormhole you just crawled out of, Michio Kaku!) Modern science has answered virtually all questions except one: the origin of matter. This is an unknowable. What is knowable is the cyclic nature of the Universe and the evolution of life, which is inevitable given basic necessary conditions. See below. Today religion and “god” continue to be invoked by the capitalist dictatorship to explain both the origin of life, matter and the existence of the Universe, rather than simply agreeing that certain things are unknowable. The reason is that the capitalist dictatorship uses religion to control the masses is explained above.
The original basis for belief in god (multiple gods initially) and religion was due to humankind’s inability to explain natural events and life itself. Primitive society had to have an explanation for what could not yet be explained scientifically. The philosophy of antiquity was primitive, spontaneously evolved materialism (Engels), which found its expression in polytheism where various gods were invented in the minds of primitive peoples, which were thought to control different areas of life: There was a sun god, a moon god, a weather god(s) thought to control rain, thunder and lightning, a god for earthquakes, a god of the seas, a god for day, a god for night and in some societies a god to control almost every aspect of life. Polytheism however was incapable of clearing up the relation between mind and matter. As Engels explains: “the need to get clarity on this question led to the doctrine of a soul separable from the body, then to the assertion of the immortality of this soul, and finally to monotheism.” As humankind’s thought gradually advanced and natural events acquired scientific explanations, polytheism gave way to monotheism. The old materialism was therefore negated by idealism. But in the course of the further development of philosophy, idealism, too, has become untenable in a practical sense and has been negated by modern Dialectical and Historical Materialism, presently tightly suppressed by the capitalist dictatorship.
Prior to the development of modern materialism, which serves as the basis for this analysis, and existing simultaneously with its development, organized religion formed pacts with the existing power structures, pacts which have spanned the entire sequence of civilization from the primitive slave societies of Egypt, Greece and Rome to the feudalism-based monarchies of Europe to today’s rapidly hardening war-based capitalist dictatorship. When the French Monarchy and the nobility were overthrown in the French Revolution the Catholic Church was first rejected as a competing center of power but then embraced as indispensable by the emerging bourgeoisie, which emerged victorious under Napoleon Bonaparte when it became clear that the peasantry, which had carried out the revolution could not organize or wield power. The bourgeoisie quickly realized that religion was necessary to control the masses as under the Monarchy and signed the Concordat of 1801 that reestablished the Catholic Church in France but with reduced influence. This has continued into the modern day where the capitalist dictatorship uses the belief in god and religion to blunt the thrust for revolutionary change as explained above. NAZI Germany also signed the Reichskonkordat in 1933 with the Catholic Church and similar agreements with the protestant churches in Germany, which were an important step in international acceptance of the NAZIs. Today the capitalists work overtime to keep alive the belief in a “supreme being,” taking advantage of man’s arrogance and insistence to be able to explain everything. As mentioned above humankind cannot exit the Universe and is limited in this way.
In the same way the origin of matter is also thus unknowable. The scientific basis of atheism includes but is not limited to the knowledge of the Special Theory of Relativity, The General Theory of Relativity, The Theory of Quantum Mechanics, the Big Bang/Big Crunch Cycle of the Universe, the origin of life through the Primordial Soup Theory of Stanley Miller and Harold Urey and Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Through Natural Selection. This scientific basis of life and the Universe does not hold a place for a god. The capitalists’ propagandists try to keep the false idea of a god alive by claiming that science and religion are not incompatible. But they are entirely incompatible! There is no scientific basis for belief in a god and the religious Fascists know it very well. That is why they wage a continuous never-ending and ever-escalating battle against science in the classroom. The capitalists also front large organizations such as the John Templeton Foundation and the Stanford Templeton Research Institute for Nature, God and Science (STRINGS!) to try to reconcile religion and belief in god. The capitalist dictatorship has recently decided to push the theme of false unity of science and religion and belief in a god even more systematically with a TV series called “Closer to Truth: Cosmos. Consciousness. God,” which appears on the CUNY Channel, where they push the same disproved and discredited falsehoods already cited above such as “dark matter,” “dark energy,” “time travel” and “worm holes.” Good grief! Don’t be fooled for a second! This is simply creationism/intelligent design in disguise.
As an example of the escalation of the attack on science and materialism by religion and reaction, the Obama Regime has appointed a Jesus Freak, a well-known evangelist/sophisticated creationism propagandist and vehement anti-materialist, Francis Collins, as the new head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which directs funding of the majority of medical/scientific research in the United States. Though he strongly denies it Francis Collins, who is a scientist, is also a CREATIONIST, who professes the most sophisticated form of INTELLIGENT DESIGN where he attributes all scientific laws and findings no matter how complex to god! (This is another example of the Law of Unity of Opposites, which in this case is weighted toward reaction.) Note that the courts have already decided the obvious, that “intelligent design” is simply a form of creationism in a highly publicized case: Kitmiller v. Dover Area School District, 400 F. Supp. 2d 707, M.D. Pa. 2005. Collins is also the author of “The Language of God,” which absurdly claims the Big Bang and evolution were created by god (!) and states: “science offers no answers to the most pressing questions of human existence.” (!) This is a very Big Lie! Officially the Director of the NIH supposedly has very little power with decisions about how to spend the $30 billion annual budget being made by a committee of scientists or by the 27 directors of the individual institutes and centers, but Collins was chosen BECAUSE of his religious beliefs not in spite of them in order to provide him a bully pulpit for his beliefs. NIH funding is ALREADY highly politicized with the most worthwhile projects routinely rejected while the most ridiculous projects receive full funding! And contrary to Collins’ claim, human illness and disease DO constitute “one of the most pressing questions of human existence.” Because of his religious orientation the capitalist dictatorship previously appointed Collins head of the Human Genome Project. Although his ideology did not prevent him from doing his job there, where there were NOT so many different funding choices as at the NIH (where they are also much harder to follow), his high position and bully pulpit so to speak puts him in the position of hoodwinking chief advocate for his sophisticated form of creationism/intelligent design! The Pope of the NIH!
Note that Collins has also written: “the claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted.” But Collins provides no reason whatsoever why such materialist claims must be resisted. And even if the arguments for his claim were as plentiful as blackberries, Herr Collins would give us none of them. Collins presumably rejects all that is written above and herein because it exposes his superstitious ideology as a fraud! Collins also denies that the origin of matter is an unknowable, which it is. See above. Collins thus implies that HE can exit the Universe and see “god” and that “god” created the Universe when he states: “God stands outside of nature.” (!) How would he know? Collins appointment is one more example of the one-way dynamic of capitalism-imperialism. Never before has a creationism-propagandist, disguised or open, been appointed as head of NIH or to the Human Genome Project! The appointment of Collins represents an increase in reaction, an escalation in the capitalist dictatorships’ use of religion to befuddle the masses and emphasizes how important religion and superstition are to capitalist statecraft in order to keep the masses confused and brainwashed and further demonstrates the necessity for a Socialist Revolution in the United States!
Religious superstition can play no constructive role in either genuinely progressive thought or the process of organizing a Socialist Revolution in the United States. On the other hand the Socialist Revolution, while it does not support religion, permits no crushing of any religion nor does it not pit one religion against another as the capitalists do routinely as part of their strategy of divide and conquer. This is what the capitalists have done in Iraq and elsewhere as part of their strategy of divide and conquer. The future of religion will be determined by an open long-term debate over time in a revolutionary evolving society and the strength of scientific evidence in addition to the polemics carried out by proponents of all religions as well as the proponents of atheism and Dialectical and Historical Materialism.
NOTE: the following paragraphs precede the above paragraphs in the entire piece about Global Warming and are in the proper order as they appear in the Analysis and Theses.
The Runaway Greenhouse Effect has already occurred on Venus where all the CO2 is found in the 932 degrees Fahrenheit (500 degrees Centigrade) atmosphere. The water in the oceans of Venus, which were nearly the size of the oceans on Earth, all evaporated away very early because of the heat generated by the Runaway Greenhouse Effect caused by the fact that Venus receives 30% more sunlight than the Earth. The evaporating oceans finally boiled away completely after the temperature reached the temperature of the Venusian boiling point of water, the equivalent on Earth of a measly 212 degrees Fahrenheit—on its way to the present 932 degrees Fahrenheit! Once in the upper atmosphere ultraviolet radiation from the sun split the H20 apart into hydrogen, which disappeared into space and oxygen, which reacted with minerals on the surface and also disappeared from the atmosphere. The Evolution of Life is what prevented a Runaway Greenhouse Effect from occurring on Earth as it did on Venus! Life did not evolve on Venus, with the consequence that there was no plant and animal life to absorb the gradual build-up of CO2 from volcanoes, which eventually formed the thick atmosphere which exists on Venus today composed primarily of CO2 (96.5%) with the remainder nitrogen (3.5%) and other minor components expressed in a few parts per million, such as argon 70 ppm, carbon monoxide 17 ppm, helium 12 ppm, neon 7 ppm, plus a sulfuric acid cloud deck (sulfur dioxide—150 ppm) beginning at about 50 kilometers above the surface. In addition, there are only 20 parts per million of water vapor remaining from the huge oceans which once existed on Venus. On Earth the CO2 which was released into the atmosphere through volcanoes went into evolving vegetation and then animal life, which over hundreds of millions of years became deposited in the crust of the Earth as the fossil fuels coal and oil. There is no carbon found in the crust of Venus. That is how we know that life did not evolve on Venus! Today the frenzied burning of those fossil fuels here on Earth has resulted in having the huge amount of CO2 stored in them being released all at once into the atmosphere. The Earth’s carbon sinks, the Earth’s natural storage mechanisms for CO2—the rain forests other vegetation and the oceans—have a limit and are now being overwhelmed. As occurred on Venus billions of years ago, that process now appears to have reached the stage of the Runaway Greenhouse Effect here on Earth. Without a Socialist Revolution here in the United States, which is the only possible way to still reverse that process, the situation on Venus today is the future of the Earth in the not so distant future. We are presently experiencing the beginning of that future. Life on Earth will become totally unlivable far before we arrive at the situation existing on Venus today.
The temperature on Earth does not have to rise very much to destroy all life. This is the reality which fake “opposition” figures such as James Hansen and Al Gore and Steven Chu deliberately hide, while they attempt to control the issue and lead it to defeat. (See below.) As described elsewhere in the analysis of the Runaway Greenhouse Effect this process involves multiple positive feedbacks or vicious circles. The arctic sea ice normally reflects heat and light from the sun back into space, but this effect decreases as the ice is replaced by the darker sea water when the ice melts, which in turn absorbs more heat from the sunlight. This is known as the ice-albedo feedback or the ice-reflectivity feedback and is the most important feedback in the polar region. It was reported on NBC Evening News on May 13, 2009 that the polar ice may all be gone within 5 years. Because the North and South Poles act as thermostats for the planet the removal of that thermostat may result in an abrupt increase in global warming making life much more difficult and increasing the melting of the land ice on Greenland, raising the sea level much more rapidly.
In the 1951 science fiction/political film, The Day The Earth Stood Still, the Earth was visited by people in a flying saucer from a more advanced civilization which delivered an ultimatum at the end: “It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.” The result of Earth being reduced to a burned out cinder is clearly not limited to war and peace or even nuclear war. Although it goes without saying that capitalism-imperialism, due to its internal dynamic as explained herein, automatically extends violence everywhere and even to outer space with its Star Wars Program, etc. (which has thankfully not yet been realized in practice), capitalism has also extended its maximum violence to the environment. The environmental reality, not science fiction, is that with the onset of the Runaway Greenhouse Effect the Earth is now on course to become a burned out cinder like Venus! Only a Socialist Revolution can avert this catastrophe! It is our right and it is our duty, according to The Declaration of Independence, to avert this catastrophe by ending the capitalist dictatorship in the United States through a Socialist Revolution.
The falsely labeled “Archaea” bacteria, tube worms, which have evolved to live at temperatures of up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and the hyperthermophilic bacteria, which have evolved to live at water temperatures of up to 239 degrees Fahrenheit will be the last life on Earth because of their ability to live at high temperatures.. (Incidentally, “Archaea” was falsely so-labeled in order to spread confusion in science and to try to undermine in one blow both Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and the irrefutable Primordial Soup Theory of Stanley Miller and Harold Urey of 1953, who demonstrated that the basic building blocks of life; amino acids, purines, pyrimidines and carboxylic acids can all be produced by running electrical sparks simulating lightning through the most-likely original reducing atmosphere of Earth composed of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapor or steam. Later experiments by Miller demonstrated that the precise atmospheric mixture was not as important as the fact that it be a reducing atmosphere, meaning that it must contain NO oxygen, because the compounds necessary for life, namely amino acids, purines and pyrimidines (required for the synthesis nucleotides required to form RNA and DNA) and carboxylic acids (required for the synthesis of lipids) cannot be produced in an oxidizing atmosphere! In addition, it has been reported that Jeffrey L. Bada, who had been a graduate student of Stanley Miller and Adam P. Johnson a graduate student at Indiana University visiting Bada’s laboratory on an internship, working with co-workers, have discovered 22 amino acids in the original samples from the Stanley Miller-Urey experiments, including 10 that had not been previously reported. (The Miller Volcanic Spark Discharge Experiment, Adam P. Johnson, Daniel P. Glavin, Antonio Lazcano and Jeffrey L. Bada, Science, 17, October 2008. page 404, Vol. 322, no. 5900, DOI: 10.1126 science. 1161527). See also The New York Times, October 17, 2008. In a 1996 interview Stanley Miller also revealed that he had been able to produce pyridines and purines by creating more concentrated pre-biotic “dry beach” conditions, which would have been present in lakes lagoons and beaches on the primitive Earth. From that point everything is very clear.
Natural Origin of Nucleotides Finally Solved
As reported in the Nature Vol. 459 pp.239-242, May14, 2009 by Sutherland JD et al, the actual formation of ribosenucleotides proceeds from constituent parts of arabinose amino-oxazoline and anhydronucleoside intermediates rather than from free ribose and nucleobases, thus finally solving the problem of the natural origin of nucleotides. The starting materials for the synthesis were cyanamide, cyanoacetylene, glycoaldehyde, glyceraldehyde and inorganic phosphate, all of which are plausible prebiotic feestock molecules and the conditions of the synthesis were consistent with potential early-Earth geochemical models as made clear in the study. Although inorganic phosphate is only incorporated into the nucleotides at a later stage of the sythesis, its presence from the start is essential as it controls 3 reactions in the earlier stages by acting as a general acid/base catalyst, a nucleophilic catalyst, a pH buffer and a chemical buffer, according to the study! In addition, because these reactions take place at moderate temperatures this study by Sutherland et al. supports the Primordial Soup theory of Stanley Miller and Harold Urey first proposed by Thomas Darwin himself, who in his 1871 letter to the botanist Joseph Hooker stated that he believed that life evolved “in some little warm pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts.” (!) Urey and Miller indubitably read this letter which motivated their work described above, which is ruthlessly ridiculed by the NASA fakers and their supporters and is not even mentioned by Nicholas Wade in the New York Times, May 14, 2008 reference article! Self-replicating RNA molecules are well known today and have been extensively studied and described in the major media and peer review journals. And DNA clearly evolved from RNA. There is no credible dispute. Problem solved.
In 1969 a carbonaceous meteorite fell in Murchison Australia which had a high concentrations of amino acids, about 100 ppm, found in the same pre-biotic experiments of Stanley Miller, proving that the early evolution of life is a constant which occurs throughout the universe given certain favorable conditions, NOT that life came to Earth from comets or asteroids from elsewhere—the so-called “Theory of Panspermia,” which is also fraudulently being passed off as a “theory of life.” Cosmic rays and the heat of entry into Earth’s atmosphere would have destroyed all life potentially surviving the near absolute zero temperature of interstellar or interplanetary space. The goal of these determined and deliberate falsifiers is to keep the masses confused on as many scientific matters and political matters as possible. Because a confused person cannot act! False analysis of one issue leads in turn to false analysis of another. In such a situation the masses are much more likely to think what they are told to think and to do what they are told to do by the capitalist dictatorship. Since 1969 incidentally numerous carbonaceous meteorites have revealed the presence of amino acids.
Among the more recent false claims of evolution of life is the truly ridiculous claim that life supposedly “evolved at submarine vents” formed under the oceans where tectonic plates meet, for example the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. But it is a fact that submarine vents don’t make organic compounds, they decompose them! These vents are one of the limiting factors on what organic compounds would exist in the primitive oceans. At the present time, the entire ocean goes through those vents in 10 million years. So all of the organic compounds are destroyed every ten million years. That places a constraint on how much organic material could accumulate. In addition, it also provides a time scale for the origin of life. If all the polymers and other compounds that evolve are continuously destroyed that means life would have to start early and rapidly.
Looking at the process in detail, it is clear that long periods of time would be detrimental, rather than helpful to this fraudulent, totally contrived and deliberately misleading so-called “theory” of the origin of life which was created, among other reactionary reasons (see below), in order to provide a false pretext for NASA to carry out extremely costly and entirely unnecessary and useless space ventures using the primitive form of space travel, rocketry, to outlying planetary satellites under the false pretext of “searching for life,” wherever there might be water (!) discovered by spectral analysis for example, in order to keep their jobs and obtain continued government funding and to serve as yet one more pretext to divert money from social spending. The most recent ridiculous “projects’ in this series are the Obama plans to revisit the Moon to build a moon base and take a trip to Mars and trying to privatize, just like Bush, what should properly be part of the existing government, even after a Socialist Revolution in the United States! Privatization of government agencies reflects both the one-way dynamic of capitalism and its true inherent anarchy. Instead there should be a concerted attempt to develop (or back-engineer) the electromagnetic motor used by the UFO’s. This requires nuclear power and a structural material which is super-conducting at room temperature. That material exists and is known as the nanotube form of carbon, the hardest known material ever discovered, far harder than diamonds. But it is highly likely that there is too much money invested in rocketry the most primitive form of space travel, which is also backed by the oil industry. This is further proof of the almost entirely one-way dynamic of capitalism leading to Fascism, barbarism and finally the end of civilization; and now with the advent of the Runaway Greenhouse Effect, the end of all life on Earth. We need a Socialist Revolution here in the United States. In the final analysis all wars are won and lost on morale and every movement begins with the call. This analysis is part of that call.
William H. Depperman, Coordinator
United Front Against Racism
And Capitalism-Imperialism
Union Square Park
Revised March 22, 2010
If you are serious about looking like a bona fide crank on the Internet then DO IT PROPERLY!
You only made three extra long postings in a row.
Only three! What’s up with that?
Not good enough, William. Lift your game.
Real cranks can manage at least double that.
More effort from you is required.
Now look back over how you wrote your postings.
Notice anything missing?
No?
(Let me give you a little hint.)
ALLCAPS.
You can either post like this or
YOU CAN POST LIKE THIS.
Effective, yeah?
Next time, write everything in allcaps. It helps people understand you better and it looks good too.
Hope that helps.
Kthxbai.
To be fair to William, Cedric, he did actually make 2 more comments at least as long. For some reason they are held up in spam. I really don’t have the time to read through them to find out why. I am sure no one else would spend their time on them either so I have left them there. But he almost makes your grade to be a crank, doesn’t he?
William wastes his time putting his long essays as comments on irrelevant blogs where they won’t be read. He should set up his own website or write a book.
Anything to stop clogging up comments here. That will only discredit him and his arguments.
Ken wrote “Stenger points out that Craig also has not corrected this argument – despite it being explained to him in 2003! And the argument, together with attributions top Hawking and Penrose, is till being used by other apologists. ”
I note you do not actually provide a from Craig’s work to back this claim up.
In fact William Lane Craig in Astrophysics and Space Science published in 1999 wrote “Both the Hartle-Hawking and the Vilenkin models eliminate the initial singularity by transforming the conical hyper-surface of classical space-time into a smooth, curved hyper-surface having no edge” here Craig 4 years prior to 2003 states that Hawking’s model does not involve a singularity.
Matt – do you understand what Craig has said there? No, I didn’t think so.
It actually has nothing to do with Stenger’s point. And no – I haven’t checked with Craig. But Stenger raised this with Craig several years ago – in 2003 when Craig used the singularity argument in the debate. He notes that Craig continues to use the same argument – he has not modified it to take quantum mechanics into account (your 1999 quote doesn’t relate to that).
It is an issue between Craig and Stenger. I do tend to believe Stenger – after all he is the expert in this area, has debated Craig, and the acknowledgment of acceptance would have gone to him – not me.
The problem is that the original big bang models are based on relativity. They get to a singularity – but only by extrapolating beyond the situation where relativity applies. We know that is not valid but, so far, have not been able to achieve a theory of quantum gravity enabling that transition.
I actually don’t slavishly follow Craig’s arguments but am aware that he does some hand waving over the singularity to make it more amenable to his god belief. Other apologists are happier to make bald statements.
However, the fact remains that from a scientific perspective we don’t have a simple picture of what happened at the beginning of the big bang. We have some ideas and we have some leads – particularly there is hope of some progress in this area from the LHC.
But scientist are quite happy to say “I don’t know!”. It’s just that we also say “Let’s find out.”
In contrast theologians have jumped on the apparent gift of the big bang and it singularity (as originally proposed) to opportunistically present it as an argument for their god beliefs. Le Maitre warned Pope Pius about that and he has been proved right. If you base your argument on science you have got to be willing to change your conclusions when the science changes. Faith doesn’t work that way, does it?
Ken in the quote from the 1999 article does relate to the point you attribute to Stenger, your claim is that Craig mistakenly cited Hawking’s as accepting singularity and has never retracted that claim. The 1999 article shows Craig does acknowledge that the singularity issue is not Hawkings position. Hence, you are mistaken.
“He notes that Craig continues to use the same argument – he has not modified it to take quantum mechanics into account (your 1999 quote doesn’t relate to that).”
Well actually in the 1999 article I cited from Craig does discuss quantum mechanics, and other various models you refer to. So again what you say is false. You can check his other published arguments to see he addresses this as well.
“it is an issue between Craig and Stenger. I do tend to believe Stenger – after all he is the expert in this area, “
Yes but the issue being discussed is what is Craigs argument and what issues does he take into account. Stengers claim is testable, he says Craig offers a certain line of argument and has never modified it to address a certain point. We can test this, look at the arguments Craig has offered and see if he modifies them to address the point. The tests show that Stenger’s claims are false.
Good to see you taking falsified claims on faith Ken. How scientific.
Actually, Matt, the sentence you quote discusses a relativity model. Sure Craig refers in other parts to quantum models but rather vaguely and inappropriately (there is not an accepted quantum gravity model yet). The particular quote is to relativity.
The quote I used from Hawking’s book specifically goes beyond relativity. My point is the dishonest quoting of the first sentence in that paragraph. The example was by de Souza but other theologians often do the same.
Now Stenger refers to Craig’s use of the singularity argument in 2003, 4 years after the article of Craig’s you quote (and which I have). Obviously I am relying on Stenger’s version of the story here. However, I do have a video of that debate so I could check it out some time.
Checking this video would at least enable us to check Stenger’s claim that Craig used this argument in the debate. Personally I think we just have to take Stenger’s word for his claim that he has never seen a correction. Unless you can find something where Craig specifically refers to it.
So, I repeat, Craig’s quote you used refers to relativity models. It is not appropriate for the paragraph in Hawking’s book. We don’t have a model for incorporating quantum effects yet.
I am quite aware that people often use the word singularity inappropriately. Even cosmologists who are well aware of the issues. So in that sense I am not necessarily critical of use of the word.
But the real issue is whether one should use the big bang model to claim a need for an intelligent creator – whether we use on old model including singularities or a later model not. My point is that theologians do so opportunistically (and sticking to a pure relativistic big bang model leading to singularities is convenient for their aims). Hence they get caught out when science updates it’s theories.
For example – what if current evidence of previous or sister packet universes actually pans out? (Penrose has argued the case for this and appears to have some support in details of the background cosmological microwave radiation). What if we find evidence at the LHC for the postulated fields involved in formation of matter and inflation that have been proposed. Certainly there is no need to use the arguments of Craig and his mates to explain formation of the universe.
Part of the theological argument relies on these current gaps in our knowledge. They are truly “god of the gaps” “explanations.” As Le Maitre pointed out theology should stay away from being tested on this manner. But opportunism gets in the way, doesn’t it?
Ken, the sentence may not refer to quantum mechanics, but thats not the point your claim was that (a) Craig misquotes from Hawking and (b) Hawking does not hold the view Craig attributes to him and (C) Craig never updated this.
We now have esthablished that in fact you have no evidence for (a) and the quote I provided shows that Craig in fact does acknowledge that Hawking does not hold the view in question and took this into account years before Stenger mentioned his claim, Stengers claim then that Craig has never “updated” his argument is clearly and evidently false. This fact alone would give me pause about taking his word for it.
As to your other claims they again so a failure to understand the issues. You write “ My point is that theologians do so opportunistically (and sticking to a pure relativistic big bang model leading to singularities is convenient for their aims). Hence they get caught out when science updates it’s theories” But Craig does not rely on a particular model of big bang cosmology for his argument, his premise is that the universe began to exist, and the big bang is just one of several lines of independent argument he uses for this conclusion. His main argument is a philosophical/metaphysical argument about infinities that predates big bang cosmology for several years. This means the updating problem you refer to does not really apply, even if science changed it would only mean one line of argument no longer applies, Craig has stated this publically many times.
You then state “What if we find evidence at the LHC for the postulated fields involved in formation of matter and inflation that have been proposed. Certainly there is no need to use the arguments of Craig and his mates to explain formation of the universe.” this mistakenly assumes that Craig’s argument is an argument to the best explanation, but its not its a deductive inference, so talk of “need to explain” simply does not apply. Moreover, Craig has addressed this point many times, he offers several lines of argument for the claim the universe has a beginning, if one turns out to be mistaken that only shows that one of several lines fails. The cosmology is not even Craig’s main argument, his main one is a metaphysical one.
Finally you state “Part of the theological argument relies on these current gaps in our knowledge. They are truly “god of the gaps” “explanations.” This again misunderstands Craig’s argument, he does not argue Science cannot explain X therefore God does. His argument is deductive he argues we do know X and X entails Y, that is not an argument based on a gap.
Don’t get me wrong I am not saying I agree with Craig’s argument. I am aware that many of the issues, particular around infinity, A and B theories of time, cosmology etc. are technical and difficult, I also know they are a matter of dispute and debate amongst informed people. So for me the jury is out.
What I do object to is scientists commenting on Philosophical/Theological arguments and misrepresenting them, misunderstanding them and then on the basis of this dismissing them in a often cavalier and dismissive fashion
I also find it odd however, is that when a theological position is at odds with some scientific theory its not uncommon to here scientists attacking the theological position as irrational. Oddly enough the same scientists then attack Craig because he takes into account cosmological theories and claim that doing so his views shaky. Hardly a consistent position.
What I do object to is scientists commenting on Philosophical/Theological arguments and misrepresenting them, misunderstanding them and then on the basis of this dismissing them in a often cavalier and dismissive fashion.
I also find it odd however, is that when a theological position is at odds with some scientific theory its not uncommon to here scientists attacking the theological position as irrational.
I see Cedric, when I provide evidence that a scientist has distorted and misunderstood a theologians argument the response is simply name calling and ridicule. Thanks for confirming that your so called appeal to evidence is anything but.
“Evolution is simply meaningless mumbo jumbo about apes turning into humans, I have have read the works of CRI and they seem to me correct, I have never actually read any evolutionary biology but I don’t need to because of the Couteriers reply.” I take it you would consider this an adequate rebuttal of evolutionary biology, right.
I also got to love the circular reasoning, theism is bunk because there is no evidence for Gods existence, and I refuse to read consider or understand anyone who offers evidence because they are theists and theism is bunk. If scientists really endorse such an obviously circular methodology then any claim to their method being rigorous is on par with the idea that spaghetti monsters exist.
But Matt, you haven’t provided any evidence. You misread my post, assumed Stenger’s exposure of D’Souza’s dishonesty referred to Craig and then proceeded to dispense Ruth your straw man.
It would be more honest to admit your mistake and withdraw your attack than accuse either me or Stenger of distortion and misunderstanding.
…when I provide evidence that a scientist has distorted and misunderstood a theologians argument…
Huh? What evidence?
…theism is bunk because there is no evidence for Gods existence…
Yep. That’s pretty much it.
Theology is not evidence.
Theology is just mumbo-jumbo.
Equating theology with evidence is a good example of the meaningless bafflegab mumbo-jumboism that theologians employ.
Take Thor for example:
Thor is most likely just a pretty fairy tale.
Precious little evidence that Thor really exists.
Quite a bit of theology though.
But lots and lots of theological musing does not add up to a single jot of actual evidence for the existence of Thor.
Doesn’t work.
It’s dumb.
Evolution is simply meaningless mumbo jumbo about apes turning into humans…
Nope. The Theory of evolution rests upon evidence.
Evidence garnered by scientific investigation.
It requires no magic, invisible people.
It all comes down to investigation as opposed to revelation.
Science works differently from religion.
Any religion.
1: The issue Stenger raised of dishonestly quoting Hawking’s related to D’Souza. I think the evidence here is irrefutable. Your attempt to drag Craig into that specific issue was a diversion.
2: Craig does misrepresent the current science of big bang theory and Stenger takes issue with him over this. This is Craig’s claim that because our universe had a beginning, the ultimate universe had a beginning and to have a beginning things must have a cause. Now Stenger points out that while that argument may have been acceptable a few hundred years ago it is no longer so. Stenger says:
“They [D’Souza and Craig] are wrong in their assertion that everything that begins must have a cause. According to conventional interpretations of quantum mechanics, nothing “causes” the atomic transitions that produce light or the nuclear decays that produce nuclear radiation. These happen spontaneously and only their probabilities are determined.”
In the article you quote Craig does not deal with this fundamental aspect of quantum mechanics. His reference to quantum gravity is weird and in that part he really only considers ideas which have been proposed to (as he sees it) get around the problem of a singularity. He argues against them. The specific Hartle-Hawking model he refers to was an argument in relativity- not quantum mechanics. Craig still finishes by assuming that if things begin they have a cause.
3: This gets back to the problem of deductive logic – popular in the era before the modern scientific revolution. However, the sway of this approach had to be broken to enable that revolution which required interaction with reality. Clearly it still survives in theology.
4: Sure, the essence of logical arguments is powerful and acceptable. But in practice it is very faulty. This is because as a species we are not rational. We seek patterns and our arguments very often are a matter of rearranging our prejudices to justify a preconceived belief. This is why any logical argument must be examined specifically in the details of its assumptions. Being able to count to three doesn’t guarantee correctness.
5: It is in the nature of Craig’s stated assumptions in all his arguments that we can take issue. And these are assumption are about reality – an area of expertise for science. So scientists are quite warranted to pull him up on these.
A: I have already mentioned that Craig’s assumption of a “cause” is in conflict with current science of the big bang which must incorporate quantum effects.
B: Assuming an ultimate beginning to the wider universe on the basis of big bang theory is unwarranted. Consider the case of a woman who has a good theory of her own origins in time. But because of some defect in her brain she doesn’t know what came before (hasn’t worked out the details of her birth), has no definite knowledge of parents or siblings – or indeed any other person. She might assume her birth was the origin of humanity – but that would be arrogant on her part. In the future she may well be able to detect and interpret evidence of what cam before and of her coexisting siblings and cousins, despite the limitation in her brain.
This is the current situation with our theories of the origin of our universe – and we do have a lot of speculative ideas about what went before and coexists with our universe.
C: Craig also makes huge leaps in his assumption that the “cause” of the universe must be a personal creator. That is just completely out of the blue and a great example of how deductive logic gets manipulated. In contrast science studies these things – with evidence from the results (that is looking for “fossils” in the current situation of the universe with the CMB providing rich sources. In the future gravity waves will likely provide even richer sources). And from experiments in the lab (the LHC is an example).
Even today we can speculate and provide a number of scenarios or “causes” for the conditions which made the formation of the universe possible. Many of these are published.
6: Craig really is opportunist about the scientific evidence. His argument really does rely on deductive logic with all its problems of unwarranted assumptions. He is not really interested in checking against reality. And that is the problem with theology.
7: I believe, in fact I am sure, one can analyse Craig’s arguments from morality and from “fine-tuning” along similar grounds. There is the general problem of setting up an argument based on deductive logic and then making unwarranted assumptions so that he can produce his preconceived conclusions by following through the logic.
1. You write “The issue Stenger raised of dishonestly quoting Hawking’s related to D’Souza. I think the evidence here is irrefutable. Your attempt to drag Craig into that specific issue was a diversion.”
This is not honest, on MandM at http://www.mandm.org.nz/2010/08/gary-gutting-on-richard-dawkins-atheism.html#comment-83068 refering to this post, you stated
“On the so-called cosmological argument I have explained how people like Craig and de Souza have been caught completely misrepresenting the so-called “singularity” – to the extent of quoting from Hawkings in a way that says exactly the opposite of what he wrote.”
So its clear you did intend to include both De Souza and Craig in your assessment above. The fact is Craig has not claimed Hawking’s accepted singularity, nor has he refused to concede this you were mistaken when you said he did. Now you claim you only meant to refer to De Souza and I have dragged in Craig as a diversion. Please try not to tell lies in future.
2. You write
”Craig’s claim that because our universe had a beginning, the ultimate universe had a beginning and to have a beginning things must have a cause.”
This raises a new issue, but once again you are distorting Craig’s argument, nowhere has he argued that because our universe had a beginning the ultimate universe had a beginning. I have never seen Craig referenced ever where he gives the argument you attribute to him.
You argue Craig does distort the science by ignoring QM, the problem is this to is false. In his 1993 book on God and Big Bang Cosmology with Quentin Smith he notes the very issues Stenger refers to and addresses them. Now again his arguments may or may not be sucesful but to simply assert this is a problem and suggest he has never addressed it or distorts science by ignoring it is false. Again try not to lie.
Moreover, it seems to be that Stenger is here distorting the science here he says QM affirms that “nothing “causes” the atomic transitions that produce light or the nuclear decays that produce nuclear radiation.” But QM has not shown that absolutely nothing at all not even God, causes these things, at best science is that they have no physical cause exists or that its not determined by laws of nature. The problem is Craig’s argument is not that everything that exists has a physical cause or that everything that begins to exists is determined by a law of nature.
4. You go on to state Craig “makes huge leaps in his assumption that the “cause” of the universe must be a personal creator. That is just completely out of the blue” this is false. Craig does not assume this he has given various arguments for this conclusion such as his critique of Moriston in 2002. Again these arguments may or may not be sound but to simply assert he assumes this conclusion, and does not offer any reasons for it is false. Again try not to lie. I know that scientists unfamilar with the philosophical literature and might buy it, it does not make it true.
In all these issues the point is the same, you simply caricature what Craig has argued. I agree with you that if Philosophers comment on cosmology they should do so in an informed manner and not distort cosmology. I simply point out that the same is true in reverse, if Scientists comment on Philosophical arguments they should actually do so in an informed manner understanding these arguments and characterising them accurately not caricaturing or distorting what people say. You have clearly not done this with Craig because almost everything you say simply misunderstands or ignores what he has actually argued.
I note again however the fundamental inconsistency in your argument. You attack Craig for not taking into account latest scientific findings (like QM) you also however state its problematic for Craig to base his conclusions on such findings because to do so makes the results to tenative. Apparently, when science contradicts Craig the conclusions are sure enough for us to think he is wrong, when Craig draws conclusions from science the conclusions are tenative. You cant have it both ways.
Matt, I think in the interests of reasonable discussion you should avoid charging an honest contributor as lying. Deal with the issues instead of trying to wipe them off the table by personal attack.
OK you have taken a very vague inclusive comment of mine on your blog to attribute a specific charge on my part. I certainly didn’t mean it that way – as surely this post demonstrates as it discusses the specifics. However, I think with respect to Craig, who as far as I know doesn’t specifically use the Hawking’s quote, my comment is that he uses the science opportunistically. In my comment i was not being specific. I certainly withdraw that if you insist on interpreting it in that way which I didn’t intend.
However, D’Souza is clearly using the quote dishonestly. As I said you can clearly check that evidence.
2: in the article you quote Craig does discuss models which include consideration of our universe as just one of a more general universe. His discussion of these models is to eliminate the idea that the singularity can be removed and that there must be a real beginning from nothing to which he can apply his personal creator argument.
The fact is that if one is going to consider scientific models for the formation of our universe this subject has to be included (as Craig did in that article).
3: Obviously I don’t have in front if me the book you refer to – perhaps you could quote the specific passage to support your claim. However, the article you previously quoted to support your claim of Craig’s consideration of QM clearly doesn’t. Nowhere does he discuss this aspect and his concluding arguments that whatever exists has a cause and this is a personal creator clearly shows he has not accepted the inderterminism of QM.
In that article he effectively ridicules the idea that the “big bang is an event without a cause” and calls the idea that the universe could come out of nothing “metaphysically absurd.” The point is that scientifically it is not. To rely on old philosophical gems like ” out of nothing comes nothing” (which Craig quotes) is just not adequate when dealing with reality which is often counter intuitive. We need to interact with reality, not logic, to appreciate and understand this.
4: Perhaps you should acknowledge that Stenger understands QM better than you do. His statement is simply a fact about modern understanding if QM – even though it is counterintuitive. You have to appreciate that accepting this situation still enables us to use probabilities and make extremely accurate and important predictions. You use that technology every day and trust it even though it us at heart probabilistic rather than deterministic.
Of course we will develop better theories as science advances and one can’t rule out identifying specific causes. That is the nature of science. But really indeterminism doesn’t worry most people who use it. There are a number of areas in science where powerful and accurate descriptions can result from a statistical analysis. There is no reason to assume that this will necessarily change.
I suppose it is inevitable that a theologian finds this difficult and easily resorts to a ” god of the gaps” argument to find causes. But really most of us aren’t worried by the lack of cause (it is so successful). In the end we should accept reality as it us – not reject it because it doesn’t correspond to our human perspective biases in our logic.
5: I don’t believe Craig has given any acceptable arguments for his claims for a personal creator as a cause. Maybe you find them acceptable – I certainly don’t but my criteria is probably very different to yours. This is a huge problem with theological deductive logic. You guys faithfully accept without evidence claims which we see as really weird. Not that being weird means we reject things (eg Spooky action at a distance). We just want evidence.
I can appreciate you can see theological evidence (you call it philosophical) and that may satisfy you. But modern science has only been possible because it broke away from such “evidence” – derived from the bible, Aristotle or, when those fail ,deductive logic. All the time ignoring that reality outside. The old idea that one could determine the number of teeth a horse had by consulting Aristotle or logic. When we know now that whatever Aristotle or logic says if we actually count the teeth we have actual reliable information.
Rejection of that old theological/”philosophical” approach has been essential to our modern success.
I think if you can appreciate he nature of science and my own complete apathy toward theology you might be able to get past these personal attacks. After all, to see others as “liars” surely is the ultimate protection against evidence.
1. So Craig does not misquote Hawking great we are agreed on that, Craig accepts Hawking denies a singularity.
2. We also accept that Craig does take into account other models and addresses them, so claims he does not are mistaken.
3. The book is an anthology of writings on the subject by Craig and Quentin Smith ( an atheist) which essentially respond to each other back and forth. I do not have a copy on my shelf. However, there is a reference to this part of the discussion in the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy which is online http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/.This is only however a reference to see the whole thing one would have to look at the original. But it does verfiy the fact that Craig has addressed this issue.
Your real telling piont however is when you note Craig argues something is ““metaphysically absurd.” and respond with ” The point is that scientifically it is not.” But that really does not address the issue, to show something is scientifically possible is not to show its metaphysically possible or even that its possible, it simply shows that one particular line of inquiry does not rule it out. Craig argues other lines of inquiries do, again you have to assume the controversial epistemological position that science is the only valid line of inquiry that exists. Where is your evidence for this? Can this claim be scientifically verfied? If not, then you are relying on philosophical assumptions which cannot be proven yourself.
You also seem to misunderstand the appeal to intiution, no one denies that reality is often counter intuitive. The point is however one should not start off assuming our intiutions are unreliable, if one did then one could not know anything at all, most of the basic axioms of logic, maths, and things like trust in the reliability of our cognitive faculties are known intuitively. Hence, while intuitions can be rejected in the face of counter evidence. The burden of proof then is on others to show that this particular intuition is false. Until you can show that things can come into existence out of nothing with no prior cause of any sort.
4. Of course I accept that Stenger understands QM better than I do. But my objection was not to the claim that standard interpretations of QM entail indeterminism. I objected to the philosophical/theological implication drawn from this, which was that nothing at all even God causes the events in question. Indeterminism does not warrant this conclusion. Determinism is the thesis that every event in the universe is caused by a prior state of the universe and and hence refers to physical causes. Indeterminism therefore entails only that the event has no physical cause. Indeterminism does not entail that God did not cause the event in question.
Its not that Stenger has misunderstood QM its that he has failed to grasp philosophical and theological distinctions and as such drawn a mistaken philosophical inference and I suggest that in Theology and Philosophy myself and Craig actually might know a bit more than a scientist does.
5. I suggest you simply do not understand deductive logic, an argument is deductive when its conclusion follows from its premises by laws of nature. Mathematical reasoning essential to physics uses deductive logic, similarly the making of predictions uses such logic, you can’t disparage it and accept science.
I will respond to your comment later – I specifically want to deal with this question of deductive logic and your faith in “other lines of inquiry.” I think these issues are important and fundamental and illustrate the inevitable conflict between religion and modern science.
However – few quotes from Stenger which clarify his understanding of Craig’s position:
“In 1970, cosmologist Stephen Hawking and mathematician Roger Penrose, using a theorem derived earlier by Penrose, proposed that a singularity exists at the beginning of the big bang. Extrapolating general relativity back to zero time, the universe gets smaller and smaller while the density of the universe and the gravitational field increases. As the size of the universe goes to zero, the density and gravitational field, at least according to the mathematics of general relativity, become infinite. At that point, Craig claims, time must stop and, therefore, no prior time can exist.
However, Hawking has repudiated his own earlier proof. In his bestseller A Brief History of Time he avers, “There was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe.” This revised conclusion, concurred to by Penrose, follows from quantum mechanics, the theory of atomic processes that was developed in the years following the introduction of Einstein’s theories of relativity. Quantum mechanics, which also is now confirmed to great precision, tells us that general relativity, at least as currently formulated, must break down at times less than the Planck time, 6.4 x 10-44 second, and distances smaller than the Planck length, mentioned earlier. It follows that general relativity cannot be used to imply that a singularity occurred prior to the Planck time and Craig’s use of the singularity theorem for a beginning of time is invalid. “
From the little I have read of Craig he does seem to desire to retain a singularity, in essence of not in word. His discussion of modern big bang models indicate his preference to return to the “standard model”. This obviously comes from his desire to have a beginning with a cause into which he can insert his “personal creator.”
And:
“Craig claims that if it can be shown that the universe had a beginning, this is sufficient to demonstrate the existence of a personal creator. He casts this in terms of the kalâm cosmological argument, which is drawn from Islamic theology.11 The argument is posed as a syllogism:
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
The kalâm argument has been severely challenged by philosophers on logical grounds, which need not be repeated here since we are focusing on the science. In his writings, Craig takes the first premise to be self-evident, with no justification other than common, everyday experience. That’s the type of experience that tells us the world is flat.
In fact, physical events at the atomic and subatomic level are observed to have no evident cause. For example, when an atom in an excited energy level drops to a lower level and emits a photon, a particle of light, we find no cause of that event. Similarly, no cause is evident in the decay of a radioactive nucleus.
Craig has retorted that quantum events are still “caused,” just caused in a non-predetermined manner—what he calls “probabilistic causality.” In effect, Craig is thereby admitting that the “cause” in his first premise could be an accidental one, something spontaneous—something not predetermined. By allowing probabilistic cause, he destroys his own case for a predetermined creation. “
I don’t think Craig really gets into QM much (and his discussion under “Quantum Gravity” was to me misnamed. However, a few theologians are opportunistically attempting to squeeze their god into that space. Stenger deals with this in another of his books (The Quantum Gods).
A common problem with QM – people seem to think that because QM is counter intuitive, but highly supported experimentally, and not understood by most then we can use it to “explain” anything else we don’t understand. So not only “god of the gaps” but “consciousness of the gaps”, etc. There are certainly some mad ideas around out there.
You object to the idea that “nothing at all even God causes the events in question.” What you must realise that putting the word “God’ into the sentence changes exactly nothing. There is just no evidence for that sort of causality at all, no matter how hard people have looked for it. That is just a fact. So, in light of that it is just not permissible to insist that there is a cause for everything – just relying on assumption and common sense. One would have to disprove current QM to include that as a logical argument.
Matt – re your question of Cedric “find me one theologian who has attempted to defend the existence of Thor or provided evidence for his existence? “. Come off it. Their must have been many of them around a few thousand years ago when that god belief was common. I am aware that some people today adhere to this and similar beliefs – perhaps they consider themselves theologians in that religion.
Perhaps you are making the mistake of thinking the word “theologian” only apply to your particular god belief?
Matt, I have raised the issue of theologians opportunistically using science to support their religious claims. Clearly D’Souza’s extreme cherry picky of Hawkings is a blatant example. However, in essence, anytime theologians quote from scientific works with this purpose they open themselves up to this charge.
I personally believe Craig can be accused of the opportunist quoting of scientific works (although not as blatantly as D’Souza). This arises from his desire to give scientific credibility to a universe with a beginning and cause.
“It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning (Many Worlds in One [New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176).”
Of course Craig he is arguing for a universe with a beginning and a cause (his god). But commentators have caught him out on this one too; Apparently two paragraphs later Vilenken says:
“Theologians have often welcomed any evidence for the beginning of the universe, regarding it as evidence for the existence of God… So what do we make of a proof that the beginning is unavoidable? Is it a proof of the existence of God? This view would be far too simplistic. Anyone who attempts to understand the origin of the universe should be prepared to address its logical paradoxes. In this regard, the theorem that I proved with my colleagues does not give much of an advantage to the theologian over the scientist. As evidenced by Jinasena’s remarks earlier in this chapter, religion is not immune to the paradoxes of Creation.
Now, I have said before that this sort of opportunism, which is a manifestation of using logic to “prove” an argument, a preconceived conclusion, is perfectly natural. Science as a profession has ways of getting around, or at least minimising this. Basically validation against reality and the social processes involved.
Theology doesn’t – and hence is very prone to this sort of opportunism.
Theological mumbo jumbo has been used to separate the faithful from their cash for a long, long LONG time.
(That’s how all those heathen temples and shrines were bought and paid for. That’s how priests of all flavours and stripes throughout the ages and crossing all cultures justified their paychecks.)
Passing around the collection plate has been a profitable enterprise long before people started watching TV evangelists.
How does [insert your brand-name god handle here] communicate to the faithful and reveal his presence to us all? His/her/it’s/their ways are mysterious and unknowable yet all around us and obvious if only we choose to see the trooth.
Pity the infidel and their lack of faith.
If you believe then evidence for [insert your brand-name god handle here] is simply a matter of lifting up your eyes and gazing in wonder at the miraculous glory. Behold the sign from heaven itself.
Matt, need to clarify things as I think our understanding of scientific methodology and knowledge, and of the nature of deductive conclusions, conflicts.
You seem to see scientific knowledge as just “a particular line of enquiry” which can be ignored as desired if another line gives you the preferred answer.
Can you specify this other “line” more specifically than “metaphysical?”
What is it’s relationship to objective reality? How is it’s “knowledge” validated?
What do you think the relationship of scientific knowledge is to reality?
How is it validated?
What specifically are these “laws of nature” you use to obtain your conclusions deductively?
And how do you validate these conclusions? Or do you accept them as self validated because they have been deduced?
You seem to see scientific knowledge as just “a particular line of enquiry” which can be ignored as desired if another line gives you the preferred answer. …,Can you specify this other “line” more specifically than “metaphysical?”
I think science is one method of gaining knowledge about the world, I think there are others. For example science can tell us that a particular action will have particular consquences, it cannot tell us wether these consquences are good or bad, thats where ethics comes in. Scientific inquiry will leave it open either way which consquence is good or bad, hence the morality of either action will be possible from a scientific perspective, ethical inquiry however may eliminate one possibility.
The same is true here, from a scientific perspective several options may be possible. Metaphysical ( philosophical) inquiry however may eliminate some of these options, that is no more discarding science than ethical inquiry is.
Craig’s conclusions are that certain situations are metaphysically impossible, pointing out that they are scientifically possible does not refute this, what would refute it would be actually addressing his argument for this conclusion or arguing it is metaphysical possible.
So Matt – when I talk about the various models/theories for the origin of out universe, their problems and supporting evidence, I am being scientific. When I make a judgment about looting in Christchurch, or withholding the truth of my actions from my spouse (moral judgments) I am being metaphysical?
Seems to be a very wasteful use of the word!
So several scientific models are available for the origins of our universe. None of them involve your god. Basically becuase their is no structured god hypothesis.
We can evaluate these models, we can (and are) testing them. The experiments at the LHC. The increased resolution in the cosmic microwave background. In the future we believe we will be able to use gravity waves (eg the LISA experiment) to get an even clearer picture.
In the process we are going to discard some of these models, narrow down on others, perhaps adopt one definite model.
Now what moral judgments, moral methodology (your metaphysics) can be used to differentiate between these models?
I certainly don’t see any.
Give me a clear example of your claim that a theory, model, observation may be scientifically permissible but are ruled out for metaphysical reasons?
What possible metaphysical reason could be used to validate or invalidate either of the proposed inflationary mechanisms, for example?
Sounds very much like a feeble theological attempt to return to the days when theology held sway, That the church could dictate that the heliocentric model of the solar system was OK to use but not true – because it was ruled out on metaphysical (theological) grounds.
Come off it. WE don’t want to return to those days.
If you examine quantum physics and then you will see evidence (REAL EVIDENCE) that the Christian god exists. Enjoy.
P.S.
As far as I can tell, this moron really and truely believes this wonderful, wonderful stuff. It’s not actually a parody or anything.
Many people try to keep science and religion separate. Even believers will compartmentalise their religious beliefs separately from their scientific knowledge. In fact, some theologians see attempts to justify religious beliefs with scientific evidence as a slippery slope. Father George Coyne, for example, warned that scientific knowledge is relative. Conclusions alter as more evidence produces better knowledge of reality. Therefore a theology which justifies itself in scientific terms lays itself open to being proven wrong (see “Scientism” in the eyes of the beholder). Specifically this warning has been made when religious leaders have tried to justify their beliefs using “big bang” cosmology (see Bad science, bad theology).
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Very interesting post.
I think the problem between both is that religion tends to stay fixed, not to evolved.
As the world evolves, as knowledge grows, and as life conditions change, we change. For religion to remain relevant and effective as a source of spiritual guidance and support for billions of people, it too must change.
Today, the world’s great religions find themselves at a critical juncture. Adhering to values and beliefs that are often thousands of years old, they are finding it increasingly difficult to provide the spiritual guidance and moral authority necessary to face the challenges of modern society. So the question is: Can the great religious traditions of the world reinvent themselves in order to address the needs and hopes of a complex, materialistic, and increasingly secular twenty-first-century world?
If you find it interesting you can check the rest of it:http://singyourownlullaby.blogspot.com/2009/09/evolution-of-religion.html
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Well scientology is a a reinvention and you could say with the liberal theologians obscuring the concept of God to something very abstract the have already begun to change. But ultimately for their religion to work they have to change without changing. Or rather change but say its always been that way. Much easier and more logical to just abandon religion.
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Materialist Analysis of Theoretical Astrophysics
The Capitalist Dictatorship Falsifies Basic Science!
Michio Kaku, Wendy Freedman, Dennis Overbye, Nicholas
Wade, Brian Greene, etc. Are Exposed as Liars!
Today basic medicine, science including climatology, astrophysics and even both Einstein’s Special Theory and General Theory of Relativity are brazenly and routinely falsified at the direction of genuinely Fascist elements for political/religious reasons. These scientifically fabricated and bizarre distortions are mixed in with some actual science and are passed off as “the new science” in exhaustive falsifications lasting for hours on NOVA, FRONTLINE, National Geographic Channel, CUNY TV, and even the so-called “History Channel” In addition, the above-mentioned so-called “cosmologists” publish an endless stream of books, videos and magazine and newspaper articles to try to popularize this fiction and pass it off as good coin. Not to mention the new textbooks! The media, including the science media is simply a privatized arm of the U.S. “intelligence agency,” a vast army of legions of professional liars in every area of politics and every academic discipline and includes even so-called “comedians” working in service to the capitalist dictatorship of millionaires and billionaires. The U.S. media is very similar to Blackwater, Dyncorp, Custer Battles and Triple Canopy, etc. the armed military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, except that the media has always been privatized. Can you say Total Brainwash of the youth? Not to mention the adult population!
There is also a maximal attempt to confuse the masses in order to keep them susceptible to the constant stream of lies originating from NASA and the U.S. government, which have threatened to ram through a revisit of the Moon and have even tried to pump up support for a Mars mission! (?) There is no possibility that a manned trip to Mars would ever return. Rocketry is a primitive form of space travel and there is no acknowledged attempt of efforts to develop the nuclear powered electromagnetic motor used by so-called UFOs, which are documented to have visited the Earth for Millennia. Moon and Mars trips obviously make no sense except to keep NASA and its suppliers in business and one more pretext to divert money from social spending and to boost U.S. patriotism. Under public pressure the Obama Regime has recently supposedly cancelled the Moon and Mars ventures and states that it will privatize the role of NASA going even further than Bush in privatization schemes for the U.S. government. (See below.) The widespread academic opposition to these wide-scale falsifications of science and money wasting ventures is never given equal time! We demand and will take some time to refute the U.S.-led capitalist dictatorship’s lies.
The Capitalist Dictatorship’s Attempt to Falsify the
Age of the Universe to Help Provide False Belief in “god”
The capitalists have tried to falsify the actual age of the Universe and the infinite cycle of a Big Bang followed by a Big Crunch, meaning a closed rather than an open Universe, because the reality of a closed Universe does not fit with the religious brainwash of a single creation and belief in a supernatural fictitious “god.” (The statecraft of capitalism’s alliance with religion and belief in “god” and other superstition is exposed further below.) The reality is that the process of contraction of the Universe began soon after the Big Bang, which began the process of expansion. The process of contraction began with the first condensations of gas after the Big Bang. At first the process of expansion was dominant, but the processes of expansion and contraction exist simultaneously from shortly after the Big Bang until finally the process of contraction becomes dominant and all galactic matter is finally drawn into Supermassive Black Holes, which today form the centers of all spiral galaxies and elliptical galaxies in the process of becoming spiral galaxies. These Supermassive Black Holes, which are growing larger continuously, finally link up all existing matter of the Universe at one spot, one huge super-maximal Black Hole known as the Singularity in the Big Crunch, at which time critical mass in the true and ultimate sense is reached for another Big Bang Cycle and the beginning of another Universe.
Ninety-five Percent of Matter in the Universe Exists in the Form of Energy According
To Einstein’s Formula E=mc2! Black Holes Completely Reverse that Relationship and
Solve the Equation for Mass: M=E/c2 thus Supplying the so-called “Missing Mass”!
The critical mass density required for the Big Crunch to occur is 1 x 10 to the negative 29th of a gram per cubic centimeter (approximately 5 hydrogen atoms per cubic meter), according to the calculation from the General Theory of Relativity, which predicted Black Holes. Neutrinos are now known to have mass which may be sufficient to supply the supposed “missing mass.” (See below.) But probably even more significant is the recent paper in Science (November 21, 2008) which shows that 95% of matter in the Universe exists in the form of energy according to Einstein’s formula E=mc2. This relationship would reverse in a Black Hole and the so-called “missing mass” would gradually appear as the contraction of the Universe allowed the energy-mass relationship to shift so that in a practical and real sense Einstein’s formula would be solved for mass: m=E/c2. Though the authors of the paper fail to draw this conclusion that is the inescapable significance of those papers. See below. The fact that the expansion and contraction of the Universe occur simultaneously is one more example of the Law of Unity of Opposites, the Second Law of and Historical Materialism and the correctness of the scientific philosophy of Dialectical and Historical Materialism, as opposed to the false philosophies of idealism and metaphysics, which are the only philosophies permitted to be seriously taught in U.S. colleges and universities, and which form the underlying basis for all phony “cosmological” theory! See further below!
Black Holes Have Mass and a Size, Which
Can Be Calculated, and Rotate on an Axis!
In addition, in the Big Crunch matter most certainly does NOT collapse to “a single point less than the size of a single molecule,” a totally ridiculous assertion by the so-called “string theorists” (see below) designed to try to discredit the Theory of the Big Bang/Big Crunch Cycle of the Universe. Black Holes are formed exclusively of condensed nuclear material; protons and neutrons (composed of quarks) and electrons (composed of leptons) devoid of their orbits and all motion, all collapsed together. The end point of all matter in the Big Crunch is a Single Black Hole, the so-called “singularity.” All Black Holes have the same mass density, which is said to be infinite, and which vary only in actual mass depending on how many stars and how much nuclear material they contain. The only difference is the difference in mass, which is constantly increasing as matter changes from its energy form when entering a Black Hole. See above cited article in Nature, November 21, 2008. Note that while some of the information provided below may appear to be somewhat technical it is necessary for any subsequent challenges which might be made of this dialectical and historical materialist analysis. An educated reader should be able to understand most of it and follow for the most part the explanations, which have in turn vast political implications. A few key references are provided and the reader can research the area independently.
Black Holes have mass and size just as neutron stars (pulsars) also have mass!! All Black Holes, both Stellar Black Holes and Supermassive Black Holes (the result of combination of millions of solar masses) which form the center of evolving elliptical galaxies and all spiral galaxies, also rotate extremely rapidly just like neutron stars, some of which are estimated to be only 8 to 20 miles in diameter, and rotate in 1.4 milliseconds to 30 seconds! All stars rotate on a central axis to some degree due to the angular momentum of gas approaching the center of the proto-star prior to the ignition of hydrogen fusion. In other words the gravitational collapse of gas in star formation is not uniform just as its opposite, an explosion such as the Big Bang is not uniform. When the radius of the star is reduced drastically in stellar collapse the angular momentum remains the same but the momentum of inertia is sharply reduced. The standard example is that of a figure skater spinning with outstretched arms who speeds up by pulling in his/her arms. Black Holes are formed from the collapse of the largest Blue Giant stars 5 to 20 or more solar masses. Neutron stars are formed from the explosion of stars with 1.35 to 2.1 solar masses in a Type II, Type Ib or Type Ic supernova explosion. The rapid rotation of Supermassive Black Holes is in fact the reason Spiral Galaxies exist in the flattened disk form they do with spiral arms—because of the huge gravitational force exerted by the rapid rotation of Supermassive Black Holes which form their galactic centers! As the rotating Supermassive Black Hole in the galactic center gradually increases in size through accumulation/accretion of more stellar material and gas, the elliptical galaxy, which is in the process of becoming a spiral galaxy, first flattens due to the rapid rotation of the Supermassive Black Hole in its center. It should also be noted that as would be expected there exist a high number of stellar black holes in the galactic center drawn by their strong gravitational fields on their way to join the central Supermassive Black Hole. According to observations of the Chandra X-Ray Telescope released in a July 16, 2005 report there are 10,000 stellar black holes along with numerous neutron stars orbiting the Supermassive Black Hole in the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy, officially designated Sagittarius A (SGR A)! The Supermassive Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy has a mass of 3.7 million solar masses, while a Supermassive Black Hole in the constellation Virgo 50 million light years distant contains a Supermassive Black Hole with the mass of 3 billion solar masses.
The spiral arms comprised of outlying stars are formed by the combination of the gravitational force coming from the rapidly rotating galactic center and the relative gravitational attraction of one outlying star to another based on their actual distances from one another. As the outlying stars approach neighboring stars due to gravity this leaves other areas where stars are much less concentrated giving rise to the appearance of usually 2 major spiral arms originating from each end of the central bar often found in the galactic center, as well as several minor spiral arms, all of which are actually in the process of being gradually drawn inexorably toward the galactic center. The gravitational force of the Black Hole, the mass of which is steadily increasing, gradually overcomes the outward centripetal force caused by its rapid rotation.
Central bars form after the Supermassive Black Hole in the center of a large spiral reaches a certain size and are therefore found more prevalently in more massive galaxies where the required mass is reached sooner. Central bars form when stellar orbits in a spiral galaxy become unstable and deviate from a circular path. The tiny elongations in the stars’ orbits grow and become locked into place, forming a bar. The bar becomes even stronger as it locks more and more of these elongated orbits into place. Eventually a high fraction of the stars in the galaxy’s inner region join the bar. The galactic center thus attracts both gas and stars. This concentration of gas at the center of spiral galaxies does result in the formation of new stars but does not represent the primary or original source of star formation, which occurs in the beginning of formation of galaxies from gravitational condensation and collapse of primordial gas clouds. The central bars draw a large amount of gas towards the galactic center, fueling this new star formation, building central bulges of stars, and feeding the Supermassive central black hole. The formation of a bar may be one of the last stages in the evolution of a spiral galaxy prior to its eventual total collapse entirely into its central Supermassive Black Hole.
Information Overload by NASA and U.S. Government Propagandists is used to Distract
Focus Away from the Significance and Central Role Black Holes Play in the Process
Of Contraction of the Universe which Finally Becomes Dominant in the Big Crunch!
In the interest of accuracy and it is also important to mention that this information is being misused by NASA and other U.S. government propagandists to try to distract from and obscure the significance of black holes and the central role black holes play in the process of contraction of the Universe, which ultimately becomes dominant over the simultaneous process of expansion. First, it is a fact that matter generally enters a black hole through a combination of both gravitation and magnetism. Matter in the accretion disk, which spins around the black hole, can only enter the black hole after it loses its angular momentum. The inertia of the material in the accretion disk keeps it spiraling in a disk rather than falling straight into the black hole. The inertia in turn is due to the mass of the material in the disc and the gravitational field caused by the extremely rapid rotation of the black hole itself. An accretion disc is a rotating disk of gas, dust and other matter that may form around any of a variety of stars or other massive objects from protostars to white dwarfs to neutron stars to stellar black holes and Supermassive Black Holes and even quasars (see below). While the accretion disc of a young star or protostar usually contains dust which later consolidates or accretes to form planets and other objects, the accretion disk of a black hole, which may also contain stars, feeds matter directly into the black hole.
According to a report in the July 22, 2006 Nature, and another 2008 paper by F. Casse Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 50 124020 (9pp) confirming the 1973 theory of Starobinsky and Churilov, the spinning gas in an accretion disc generates its own magnetic field which powers a wind of charged particles directed away from the black hole. The wind of charged particles transfers angular momentum from the inner regions of the disk outward in a twin jet phenomenon perpendicular to the plane of the accretion disk allowing angular momentum to be conserved, meaning to remain balanced or constant. This transfer of angular momentum outward slows down the spinning gas near the center, allowing gravitation to draw matter into the black hole. The magnetic field also causes turbulence and friction to build up within the disk. The friction heats up the gas to millions of degrees, causing it to glow brilliantly in the ultraviolet and X-ray bands. In Supermassive Black Holes large jets of plasma flow away from the accretion disc perpendicular to its center at almost the speed of light. These jets of plasma travel outward along the magnetic field lines which are twisted by the rotating accretion disk. It should be noted that the material which flows outward in the jets represents only a tiny amount of material extracted from the accretion disk. (Plasma, which is found in the accretion disk closest to the black hole, is a partially ionized gas, where a certain proportion of electrons are free, not being bound to atoms or molecules, unlike the gas form of matter. This permits electrical conduction of magnetic fields. Plasma is considered the fourth state of matter in addition to solid, gas and liquid.
Redshift Measurement of Quasars puts
The Age of the Universe at 28 Billion Years!
The process where matter enters a black hole from its accretion disk may be greatly expanded during the formation of quasars where a Supermassive Black Hole at a galactic Center accretes a huge amount of matter in the order of billions of stars. When two black holes combine or a stellar black hole enters a Supermassive Black Hole in a galactic center the process causes the emission of radio waves and even visible light. When hundreds of millions to billions of stars and enormous amounts of gas first combine to create a Supermassive Black Hole in the center of a galaxy the energy released is exponentially increased and is known as a quasar. In a quasar this radiation is emitted across the entire spectrum almost equally, from X-rays to the far-infrared with a peak in the ultraviolet-optical bands, with some quasars also being strong sources of radio emission and of gamma-rays. Quasars are the most visibly luminous objects in the Universe and are also the strongest energy source in the Universe. A quasar is simply an accelerated process of formation of a Supermassive Black Hole in an early galaxy. The release of gravitational energy by matter falling towards a massive black hole in the formation of a quasar is the only process known that can produce such high power continuously, energy far greater than the fusion process which powers stars. Quasars easily outshine their host galaxies. (The light we see is from the huge superheated accretion disk, which is greatly enlarged due to the high density of matter in such galaxies. Stellar explosions such as Supernovas and gamma-ray bursts can create the same level of energy, but only for a few minutes.
All observed quasar spectra have red shifts between 0.06 and 6.5. Applying Hubble’s law to these red shifts, it can be shown that they are between 780 million and 28 billion light-years away, a measurement which is NOT due to gravitational lensing, although this has been reported for some extremely bright quasars. This is proof that the Universe itself is at least 28 billion years old! So the most recent “estimates” of the Hubble Constant and the actual age of the Universe by NASA, Wendy Freedman and company and the media (a privatized arm of the U.S. “intelligence community”) are obviously totally false! (See below.) The process of quasar formation occurred regularly in the early Universe in the formation of galaxies with huge densely concentrated gas and stars. It should be obvious that the first galaxies to form in the Universe generally contained the highest volume and concentration of gas, which in turn created the highest concentration and densities of stars. The Supermassive Black Holes at the center of those early galaxies became quasars. Galaxies without such high densities of matter develop more along the lines of our own Milky Way Galaxy and Andromeda, for example. Formation of galaxies is still occurring but generally they do not become quasars because the volume and density of gas is insufficient. An exception is 3C 273 in the constellation Virgo which is only 33 light years away with a luminosity equal to 2 trillion times that of our sun or about 100 times the total light of the Milky Way. Their discovery by Maarten Schmidt in 1967 was early strong evidence against the totally discredited steady state theory of Fred Hoyle, and in favor of the Big Bang Theory. Blazers, incidentally are the same as quasars but have their perpendicular jets in direct alignment with our galaxy, while quasars have their jets pointed away in another direction.
As part of the escalating campaign of Big Lies, in March 2009 NASA made the totally disingenuous statement on a National Geographic Channel so-called “Naked Science” show that “while black holes are associated with galaxies we (who we?) do not yet know what that relationship is!” The motive for that feigned ignorance/Big Lie is to try to obscure the documented reality that the matter of all galaxies is entering black holes as part of the ongoing contraction of the Universe, which begins shortly after the Big Bang and takes places simultaneously with the process of expansion and finally becomes dominant. As explained herein expansion of the Universe has slowed down enormously since the Big Bang and will be overtaken by the process of contraction until all mass in the Universe has again entered the final Black Hole, the so-called final singularity in the Big Crunch. At that point there will be another Big Bang and another Universe will begin. In addition, NASA and other government propagandists have attempted to overemphasize the accretion disk/jet phenomenon and the huge energy produced as matter enters a black hole or quasar, almost to make it appear that black holes and quasars are “expelling” matter as much as drawing it in, virtually standing black holes on their head and falsely ascribing all sorts of “observations” to black holes, in order to divert focus from the primary role of black holes as the mechanism or engine of contraction of the Universe and the beginning of the Big Crunch!
One example is the false claim by the fraudster, James Geach, hyped in the July 7, 2009 New York Times by the determined “intelligence community” propagandist Dennis Overbye, that black holes fueled so-called Lyman alpha “blobs,” glowing clouds of gas in the early universe. But that lie was immediately refuted with the obvious explanation that cold gas streaming into a protogalaxy would heat up and glow from the gravitational energy alone! (See: “Lyman Alpha Blobs as an Observational Signature of Cold Accretion Streams into Galaxies” by Mark Dijkstra and Abraham Loeb, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, June 5, 2009.) These fraudulent NASA/U.S. government propagandists hope that most viewers know absolutely nothing and will believe virtually anything that they are told by someone claiming to be a “scientist” or “professor” and that most people will not do their own research, or will remain at least confused and vulnerable to their next bizarre fantastical claim. That is why the information which appears here should be forwarded by email and networked in every possible way nationally and internationally in order to counter the U.S. capitalist dictatorship’s Big Lies. The objective of the capitalist dictatorship is to render the population more susceptible to their lies in every area including politics and economics, which also have little to no basis in reality. The capitalist dictatorship now resorts to the come on of “naked science” in order to try to sex-up their Big Lie propaganda in theoretical astrophysics, while simultaneously presenting truthful “Naked Science” reports in other areas and in other National Geographic programs in order to help their Big Lies blend in.
In response to the heavy push on the so-called “History Channel,” etc. it should be noted that the Theory of the Big Bang was first proposed by Georges-Henri Lemaître, who had both a PhD in physics and was an ordained priest. Lemaître studied at the University of Leuven, the University of Cambridge, Harvard and MIT. The little read report was first published in 1927 in the Annales de la Société Scientifique de Bruxelles (Annals of the Scientific Society of Brussels) and later in Nature: G. Lemaître, The Beginning of the World from the Point of View of Quantum Theory, Nature” 127 (1931), n. 3210, pp. 706. Lemaître called it “the hypothesis of Primeval Atom” and also referred to it as “the Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation,” with the word “creation” obviously reflecting his religious bias. As explained above the Universe did not originate from a single point less than the size of a single molecule as falsely proposed by the string theorists, who now are pushing Lemaître. As explained above the end point of all matter in the Big Crunch is a Single Black Hole, the so-called “singularity.” As mentioned all Black Holes have the same mass density, which is said to be infinite, and which vary only in actual mass depending on how many stars and how much nuclear material they contain. The only difference is the difference in mass, which is constantly increasing as matter changes from its energy form when entering a Black Hole according to E=M/c2, Einstein’s formula from the Special Theory solved for mass. See cited article in Nature, November 21, 2008. The singularity contains the combined mass of all nuclear material from all stars and gas in the Universe. The designation: “Big Bang Theory” first derived from a derogatory reference to the theory of an expanding Universe by Fred Hoyle on the BBC on March 1949 over 20 years after it was first proposed. The truth as explained above and herein is that the processes of expansion and contraction of the Universe coexist from shortly after the Big Bang until finally the process of contraction becomes dominant and there is a Big Crunch followed by another Big Bang and formation of another Universe.
It is a fact that Lemaître applied Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity to Cosmology, but was NOT a spearhead of religion supposedly leading physics as Lemaître is presently falsely being portrayed on the so-called “History Channel.” Lemaître also preceded Edwin Hubble in deriving what became known as Hubble’s Law and even calculated the Hubble Constant but was not able to prove the linear relation which Hubble did in 1929. Lemaître has rarely been given the credit he is due for first proposing the Big Bang Theory for 3 reasons: 1.) The theory of an expanding Universe was opposed at the time he first proposed it by Einstein and others, 2.) For political-religious reasons explained herein the capitalist dictatorship has always opposed the Big Bang Theory because the natural logic of a Big Bang implies a Big Crunch and a cyclic nature of the Universe rather than a single creation which leaves the most room for “a creator” and 3.) U.S. nationalism/jingoism, where the U.S. capitalist dictatorship always prefers that whenever possible credit be given to an American. Edwin Hubble was an American lawyer. Although Lemaître had received numerous Belgian and international scientific honors only recently have the capitalists been pushing Lemaître in order to focus on the fact that he was a priest and that his theory speaks of a moment of “creation.” The so-called “History Channel” focuses on this language in an attempt to inject the sophisticated form of creationism/intelligent design also espoused by Francis Collins, Obama’s new choice for head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). See below.
The Hubble Constant is a calculation of the speed at which the Universe is expanding and is crucial in calculating the age of the Universe. Four methods have been used to estimate the Hubble Constant and age of the Universe. The most recent method employed by Allan Sandage, et al measures: 1.) the distances to Type 1a Supernovae explosions in distant galaxies and then 2.) confirms those measurements by comparing the relative luminosities of Cepheid variable stars as so-called “standard candles,” while Wendy Freedman’s NASA team uses Cepheid Variable stars alone, which is a lot less accurate. Freedman’s method especially is an easy method in which to either err or to deliberately falsify results as she and her NASA team have clearly done. (See below.) The typical errors in calculating the Hubble Constant include: 1.) “the universal, yet unjustified Period-Luminosity relation of Cepheid (variable stars), 2.) neglect of selection bias in magnitude-limited samples or 3.) the errors which are inherent to the adopted models, which cause most values of the Hubble Constant and corresponding estimates of the age of the Universe to be incorrect as explained in detail in the most comprehensive review which has yet been published, which also includes the Sandage team’s most recent calculation of the Hubble Constant to date of 62.3 +or–1.3, which is based on measurements to 279 galaxies: “The expansion field: the value of the Hubble Constant,” by G.A Tammann, A. Sandage and B. Reindl, Astron Astrophys Rev (2008), 8 July 2008, 15:289-331, DOI 10.1007/s00159-800-9912-y.
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This value of the Hubble Constant corresponds to an age of the Universe of approximately 13.7 billion years, which should be sufficient to permit the Big Crunch. However even this method of calculation of the Hubble Constant, which as exhaustively explained and documented by Allan Sandage et al, is fraught with potential errors cited above, which Sandage takes account of and systematically avoids. As mentioned above Wendy Freedman and Co. on the other hand use only Cepheid variable stars in their “calculations” and deliberately include faulty (fraudulent) data in their calculations as explained to this writer personally by Allan Sandage, therefore making Freedman & Co.’s method of determination of the Hubble Constant even easier to falsify. Such data is systematically excluded by Sandage, et al., as explained above. In response to the withering but suppressed critique by Sandage et al, known primarily only to other astrophysicists who follow these matters, Freedman has published a slew of pathetic papers addressing such topics as “correction of errors involving optical extragalactic background light (EBL), sampling-induced errors, magnitude errors, and random and optimal sampling,” etc. where she always comes up with ridiculously high (fraudulent) values for the Hubble Constant. Fraudulent data was necessary for Freedman & Co. to reinvent the entirely fictitious so-called “dark energy,” Einstein’s “Cosmological Constant,” (“My greatest blunder!” See below), which is declared to be “the opposite of gravity” and which has no scientific explanation whatsoever, but is proffered as “the reason” the capitalist dictatorship and its media (and textbook) propagandists now say that the expansion of the Universe has unexplainably “speeded up,” a “finding” which violates all previous findings not to mention all known rules of physics including the General Theory of Relativity! In other words this finding is totally invented, totally fabricated, a Big Lie to end all Big Lies! All designed to achieve political-religious-propagandistic objectives. See below. Legitimate opposing viewpoints are simply ignored and in practice not permitted to be heard! How jolly!
Regarding the most recent results given above for the Hubble Constant, this writer would still prefer to accept Sandage’s previous calculation of 55 +or-5, which has been repeatedly established in papers from 1975, 1982, 1986, 1990 and 1995, although it may certainly be possible that the 62.3 +or-1.3 value is the most accurate and it is certainly can be argued that 55 +or-5 is not that far removed from the new figure. The reason for this caution is that Allan Sandage is now 82 years old and although he is 100% intellectually intact and in control of all of his faculties his name is listed second in the above paper indicating that he himself may not have collected the data used in the calculation giving 62.3 +or-1.3 for the Hubble Constant. This writer has not spoken or corresponded with the other members of his team, as this writer has, with Allan Sandage. Sandages’s team also often includes A. Saha who was not included in the above paper, so this writer can not rule out alteration of the raw data to give a falsely high Hubble Constant by certain personnel who might be bribed by the NASA forces in charge of the Key Project, which was set up determined to achieve a certain result come hell or high water. This issue is important enough to the capitalist dictatorship so that they would leave no stone unturned to tweek the results in their direction for reasons explained further below. In addition, we are reminded that the Redshift of some quasars actually puts the age of the Universe at 28 billion years! See above.
The U.S. so-called “intelligence community” organized the so-called “Key Project” in order to cover up the cyclic nature of the Universe from Big Bang to Big Crunch. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was built primarily for the “Key Project.” This is an important point. The capitalist dictatorship chose Wendy Freedman to lead the project rather than the obvious choice, Allan Sandage, the legendary, most preeminent and world-renowned astrophysicist as well as the number one authority on the Hubble Constant along with his internationally renowned group of astrophysicist colleagues. See above. The reason was that Sandage’s studies up to that point had shown the Universe to be “between 14 and 18 billion years old, depending on what is assumed about the mass of the Universe.” This corresponds to a Hubble Constant, which he and colleagues had repeatedly calculated to be 55 +or-5 as cited above. An older age and smaller Hubble Constant, of course, would mean that the Universe contained easily enough matter to permit the Big Crunch, which is the key point the capitalist propagandists want to discredit because that would rule out a single creation and make the existence of a god, for which there is no scientific evidence whatsoever, even more unlikely! This is the actual statecraft behind the “Key Project.” See further below.
Freedman’s initial claim that the Universe was only 8 billion years old was obviously fraudulent, as have been all of her subsequent “estimations.” All of Freedman’s estimations of the age of the Universe and the Hubble Constant have been designed to try to fraudulently invalidate (!) the Big Bang, the Big Crunch especially and the cyclic nature of the Universe in particular. The preposterous claim of an 8 billion year age is a direct attack on the Big Bang, which has been verified worldwide. In her initial unrestrained enthusiasm to falsify and misinterpret her own data (see above) Freedman forgot about the 1.) Red shift discovered by Edwin Hubble (see below) and 2.) the detection of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which is the residual effect of the Big Bang both of which exist as irrefutable evidence for the Big Bang origin of the Universe! In January 2003 Freedman was made the Director of the Carnegie Observatories located in Pasadena, California where Allan Sandage works thereby placing her above him as a maneuver to make her fraudulent estimates of the Hubble Constant appear more authoritative in the public eye!
Note that even AFTER the 1965 discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation by Penzias and Wilson and its confirmation by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite in 1989 that its measurement produced a curve precisely matching a Planck curve, which most scientists have accepted as proof that the radiation is indeed from the beginning of the universe, the capitalist dictatorship has still made efforts to continue to try to deny the existence of the Big Bang, even publishing books with 466 pages (!) attacking the Big Bang such as the 1991 rubbish: “The Big Bang Never Happened” (!) by the totally discredited Eric Lerner. Anyone using simple inductive reasoning would immediately begin to smell a rat! Since the capitalist dictatorship and its media have not been able to refute the Big Bang they have now focused all their efforts in trying to refute the Big Crunch. The capitalist dictatorship has a long history of political meddling and sabotage in virtually all fields of scientific and medical research and a history of using scientific advances against the masses in order to control them and also to reduce the population according to their own perceived needs, e.g. from Bio-warfare to Bio-fuels (through enforced starvation, falsely portrayed as seeking “energy independence” and “clean energy.”).
NASA Propagandists Have Now Concocted the Fraudulent “theory of the
Big Rip” In Order to Try to Counter the Reality of the Big Crunch and
The Information which Appears Here now Found All Over the Internet!
NASA in a new propaganda blitz using their standard Big Lie technique in order to try to refute the information, which appears here and all over the Internet, has pushed back hard with the totally discredited claims on the National Geographic Channel March 2009 that 1.) “dark matter” forms a supposed “superstructure” of the universe from the very beginning of the Big Bang until the present 2.) the fictitious “dark energy” will eventually “become so strong” that it will overcome all 4 primary forces including the strong force, which holds quarks and gluons together to form protons, neutrons and other particles, and falsely claiming that the entire Universe will supposedly “fly apart ripping apart galaxies, stars, planets and eventually every speck of matter in a fantastical end to time” in what the fraudulent propagandist Robert Caldwell describes as “the Big Rip.” This is also known as the theory of the flat universe. Such brainwash already appears in the astrophysics textbooks of the capitalist dictatorship! We recommend that it be exposed as a Big Lie whenever and wherever it is encountered.
The capitalist cosmologists/propagandists have demonstrated that they can not coherently reply to any of the arguments advanced in this Materialist Analysis of Theoretical Astrophysics except through contrived, feigned ignorance, information overload and totally bizarre Big Lies, which require a religious-like faith (in dark energy and dark matter, for example) to actually believe them—their overall objective in the first place as explained here, so do not be intimidated by the doctoral degrees which they award themselves or the exalted positions held by these above-mentioned frauds in order to try to legitimize their lies and to try to control and monopolize this field as they try to do with all others. These false propagandists/“cosmologists” keep up a relentless barrage of lies in the major media and even physics journals to try to prove the existence of “dark matter,” for example, which they laughably claim is so dominant that it forms the “superstructure of the universe” but which they supposedly have only been able to detect as “two tiny pulses of heat deposited over the course of two years…” New York Times, December 18, 2009, a frankly pathetic false “finding” which the article admits is “no proof” but “tantalizing” (?) an adjective carefully chosen to try to make it appear as if everyone were are all rooting to try to prove their Big Lie. The reality is that there is no “dark matter.” And it can be predicted that the capitalist dictatorship will take over the science, if they have not already done so, of the new Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and highest energy particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland, when it finally goes on line in order to try to continue to concoct the existence of “dark matter” and “dark energy” as well as the fictitious “Higgs Boson” in order to try to “prove” the existence of god! The capitalist dictatorship is desperate and reeeediculous! So do not be intimidated by their Big Lies.
Through brazen false arguments and bizarre false analogies these phony “cosmologists” have even attempted to up the ante and generate maximum confusion by trying to brainwash people into believing that the laws of physics and theoretical astrophysics, such as the Laws of Quantum Mechanics, the Special Theory of Relativity and General Theory of Relativity, etc. are “not immutable” and are in a process of “constant evolution” supposedly like species of animals in Charles Darwin’s “The Evolution of Species.” The laws of physical science are thus directly compared to the evolution of species of animals! Einstein therefore supposedly only has “temporary relevance” giving virtually every kind of science fiction a basis in “reality.” (See: “Beyond Einstein,” Discover Magazine, April 2010). Einstein is also falsely quoted as believing in god: “learning to read the laws of physics is like reading the mind of god.” See comprehensive section on Einstein below.
The author of the Discover Magazine article moreover disingenuously announces: “physicists should not spin any theories that require the existence of things such as multiverses, that cannot be disproved.” This carefully contrived statement implies that because “multiverses,” etc. supposedly cannot be disproved these fraudsters do not have to actually PROVE any piece of science fiction currently being passed of as “science.” They imply that is the duty of genuine theoretical physicists to disprove every false theory used to bombard the public domain by the misnamed, so-called “intelligence community” led by characters such as Michio Kaku. The Materialist Analysis of Theoretical Astrophysics disproves their primary concoctions and it is a rule of the Court that a witness caught in one lie in testimony does not merit any further credibility by the Jury. This is especially true in science where it is clear that, above all else, Kaku & Co. are straining at the leash to inject confusion into basic physics. Their motives to create confusion are explained above. The title of the Discover Magazine article was incidentally borrowed from the title of a 1987 book by “intelligence community” fraudster, Michio Kaku, wherein Kaku first concocted so-called “String Theory” in the effort to supplant Quantum Mechanics. See below. It should be noted that Kaku, who hides his specious so-called “Beyond Einstein science,” behind a phony glib slick presentation, is equally at home spinning science fiction e.g. “parallel universes, time warps and the tenth dimension” as he is relentlessly fabricating false theories designed to compete with and supplant natural law and confuse as many people as possible behind a mantle of genuinely false knowledge.
There is no such thing as “Dark Energy” and the Universe has not suddenly increased its rate of expansion as falsely claimed by these frauds, as supposed “proof of its existence.” Just the opposite! The rate of expansion of the Universe has continued to slow since the Big Bang! All previous observations have indicated that is the case! While the Red Shifts of the most distant galaxies does indicate they are receding much more rapidly than closer galaxies this is because their light originated closer to the time of the Big Bang when the expansion rate was greater, but that is not the situation today. It should therefore be noted that although we may be able to receive light from galaxies which started its journey virtually at the beginning of the Universe, that light does not portray the reality at this point in time of that galaxy which was the source of that light. The reality is that today most of the Universe is undoubtedly relatively uniform in its development today except where there are huge clouds of gas from super novae explosions and where there are huge accumulations of matter such as the Great Wall of galaxies, the latter of which formed due to the irregularities which occurred in the Big Bang just as in any other explosion. In other words the light from our own galaxy, the Milky Way, would appear to an observer from the most distant galaxies to be receding at the same rate that their light is receding from our own galaxy! This should be a no-brainer but is rarely if ever mentioned. The only viewpoint which is ever mentioned is from the Earth as if it were the center of creation. Which it is not!
The Universe is not open! Just like the Earth itself the spatial curvature of the Universe is NOT flat! It is closed. In reality there are no “multiple universes,” which “pop out of Black Holes” or by any other explanation. The reason for this is that although in a Black Hole mass is infinite (see above), Critical Mass does not exist! Critical Mass is attained only in the Singularity, when all matter in the Universe comes together in one spot in the Big Crunch. See above. This is why the Large Hadron Collider cannot reproduce either the Big Bang or even a Black Hole. The reason for this is that even a Black Hole can form only when a Blue Giant star of sufficient mass collapses. See above.
There is also no “time travel” either in a practical sense despite the phenomena of time dilation described in Einstein’s Special Theory and gravitational time dilation described in Einstein’s General Theory, which was actually confirmed in the Pound-Rebka experiment. And there are no “worm holes.” For worm holes to exist just within the known Universe would require changing space-time topology and would require regions of negative energy, which do not actually exist. There are no “strings.” “String theory” is a mathematical attempt to try to refute and supplant, not explain, the Theory of Quantum Mechanics, the foundations of particle physics which were established during the first half of the twentieth century by Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Albert Einstein, etc.! See below for the most likely ready solution to the Grand Unified Theory.
Recent Findings Document that the Mass of the Universe
Increases as Matter Enters a Black Hole and the Final Singularity!
This Finding Totally Refutes Infinite Expansion of the Universe
And “String Theory!” The Fact That Neutrinos Have Mass Also
Provides Further Basis For the Big Crunch!”
The false claim that there is supposedly insufficient matter in the Universe to permit the Big Crunch to take place is entirely refuted by 2 discoveries. Perhaps even more significant than the work on neutrinos discussed below is the most recent paper published on November 21, 2008 in Science. More than 99% of the visible mass of the Universe is made up of protons and neutrons. Recent calculations of the mass of the nucleus found that that matter, which is composed of protons and neutrons, which are in turn are composed of quarks held together with gluons by the strong force, normally exists as 95% energy, according to the formula from Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity: E=mc2! This provides further confirmation for the Big Crunch. Why? The reason, not drawn as a conclusion by the authors of the paper, is that in a Black Hole and moreover in the final Black Hole, the “Singularity,” that relationship would be 100% reversed, with all matter existing in the form of mass: m=E/c2. The mass of the Universe would therefore increase according to these findings as matter enters a Black Hole as energy shifts to its mass equivalent! (Obviously this is the precise opposite of what occurs in a nuclear explosion where matter is converted entirely to energy according to the equation E=mc2.) (Science, Vol. 322, 5905:1198-1199 and 1124-1127) On the other hand such tidbit reports as “Excess Particles From Space may Hint at Dark Matter,” (Science, Vol. 322, 5905:1173) are only red herrings meant to titillate, to keep attention diverted away from focusing on key findings of genuine significance. There is no such thing as “dark matter.”
The discovery that neutrinos have mass also provides a further basis for the Big Crunch. This fact was first reported on July 1, 1998 by a collaboration of 120 U.S. and Japanese physicists at the Neutrino 98 meeting in Takayama, Japan and submitted to Physical Review Letters. (By Super-Kamiokande Collaboration (Y. Fukuda et al.) Phys.Rev.Lett.81:1562-1567,1998.) Neutrinos have sufficient weight to allow the Big Crunch! The experiment measured the differences in mass of the three types of neutrinos to be 0.1 eV or greater. The group reported that the simplest interpretation of the solar and atmospheric results is that the heaviest neutrino has a mass of 0.1 eV. However, they reported that since oscillations between the 3 types of neutrinos depend only on the differences in mass it is possible that the masses of all three neutrinos are fully 1 eV or greater, but that it is the mass differences which are much smaller. (They allow for the “possibility.” How nice! They know that the majority of physicists do not simply automatically accept the interpretation which is first proffered.)
This makes the most sense and is of course suppressed for political reasons. (See below.) If the mass of the neutrino is 1 eV that would mean that neutrinos account for more mass in the Universe than all of the protons and neutrons put together easily supplying the supposed “missing matter” necessary for the Big Crunch. As mentioned the critical mass density required for the Big Crunch to occur is 1 x 10 to the negative 29th of a gram per cubic centimeter (approximately 5 hydrogen atoms per cubic meter), according to the calculation from the General Theory of Relativity. In addition, the fact that neutrinos have mass also provides the basis for the Grand Unified Theory which links the gravitational force described in the General Theory of Relativity with the strong and the weak forces and electromagnetism described in the Theory of Quantum Mechanics. Einstein struggled and failed to formulate this theory, but it has already been shown that at high enough energies electromagnetism and the weak force are the same force known as the electroweak force. It is theorized that if energies are increased even further and neutrinos acquire mass, which has now been fully documented, all the known forces will reduce to the same force thus providing the basis for the Grand Unified Theory. This high energy level existed only during the very early expansion of the Universe known as the Planck Epoch, which existed up to 10 to the negative 43rd seconds after the Big Bang, where the four fundamental forces — electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force and gravitation — all had the same strength. After that point the energy level decreased and gravity separated from the other 3 fundamental forces and with the condensation of matter into the elementary particles
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The Scientific Basis of Atheism:
The Origin of Matter is an Unknowable!
The capitalist dictatorship would have the masses believe that there is no limit on humankind’s knowledge, that everything is knowable and that everything was created by “god.” But this is false; there is a limit on knowledge and there is no god. Because of the fact that we exist as part of the Universe we can not exit the Universe, stand outside it and declare that a god, much larger than we are naturally but of course in our own image, who naturally is usually white and always male, never female, created the Universe. The corollary is that the origin of matter is an unknowable! The false claim of supposed “wormholes” by the string theorists of course is a way to try to condition peoples’ minds to believe that they can do the opposite and exit the Universe, and is designed to set up the belief patterns for belief in god! (And while you’re at it, after you have exited the Universe don’t forget to check out “god,” he’s right over there. Right near that wormhole you just crawled out of, Michio Kaku!) Modern science has answered virtually all questions except one: the origin of matter. This is an unknowable. What is knowable is the cyclic nature of the Universe and the evolution of life, which is inevitable given basic necessary conditions. See below. Today religion and “god” continue to be invoked by the capitalist dictatorship to explain both the origin of life, matter and the existence of the Universe, rather than simply agreeing that certain things are unknowable. The reason is that the capitalist dictatorship uses religion to control the masses is explained above.
The original basis for belief in god (multiple gods initially) and religion was due to humankind’s inability to explain natural events and life itself. Primitive society had to have an explanation for what could not yet be explained scientifically. The philosophy of antiquity was primitive, spontaneously evolved materialism (Engels), which found its expression in polytheism where various gods were invented in the minds of primitive peoples, which were thought to control different areas of life: There was a sun god, a moon god, a weather god(s) thought to control rain, thunder and lightning, a god for earthquakes, a god of the seas, a god for day, a god for night and in some societies a god to control almost every aspect of life. Polytheism however was incapable of clearing up the relation between mind and matter. As Engels explains: “the need to get clarity on this question led to the doctrine of a soul separable from the body, then to the assertion of the immortality of this soul, and finally to monotheism.” As humankind’s thought gradually advanced and natural events acquired scientific explanations, polytheism gave way to monotheism. The old materialism was therefore negated by idealism. But in the course of the further development of philosophy, idealism, too, has become untenable in a practical sense and has been negated by modern Dialectical and Historical Materialism, presently tightly suppressed by the capitalist dictatorship.
Prior to the development of modern materialism, which serves as the basis for this analysis, and existing simultaneously with its development, organized religion formed pacts with the existing power structures, pacts which have spanned the entire sequence of civilization from the primitive slave societies of Egypt, Greece and Rome to the feudalism-based monarchies of Europe to today’s rapidly hardening war-based capitalist dictatorship. When the French Monarchy and the nobility were overthrown in the French Revolution the Catholic Church was first rejected as a competing center of power but then embraced as indispensable by the emerging bourgeoisie, which emerged victorious under Napoleon Bonaparte when it became clear that the peasantry, which had carried out the revolution could not organize or wield power. The bourgeoisie quickly realized that religion was necessary to control the masses as under the Monarchy and signed the Concordat of 1801 that reestablished the Catholic Church in France but with reduced influence. This has continued into the modern day where the capitalist dictatorship uses the belief in god and religion to blunt the thrust for revolutionary change as explained above. NAZI Germany also signed the Reichskonkordat in 1933 with the Catholic Church and similar agreements with the protestant churches in Germany, which were an important step in international acceptance of the NAZIs. Today the capitalists work overtime to keep alive the belief in a “supreme being,” taking advantage of man’s arrogance and insistence to be able to explain everything. As mentioned above humankind cannot exit the Universe and is limited in this way.
In the same way the origin of matter is also thus unknowable. The scientific basis of atheism includes but is not limited to the knowledge of the Special Theory of Relativity, The General Theory of Relativity, The Theory of Quantum Mechanics, the Big Bang/Big Crunch Cycle of the Universe, the origin of life through the Primordial Soup Theory of Stanley Miller and Harold Urey and Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Through Natural Selection. This scientific basis of life and the Universe does not hold a place for a god. The capitalists’ propagandists try to keep the false idea of a god alive by claiming that science and religion are not incompatible. But they are entirely incompatible! There is no scientific basis for belief in a god and the religious Fascists know it very well. That is why they wage a continuous never-ending and ever-escalating battle against science in the classroom. The capitalists also front large organizations such as the John Templeton Foundation and the Stanford Templeton Research Institute for Nature, God and Science (STRINGS!) to try to reconcile religion and belief in god. The capitalist dictatorship has recently decided to push the theme of false unity of science and religion and belief in a god even more systematically with a TV series called “Closer to Truth: Cosmos. Consciousness. God,” which appears on the CUNY Channel, where they push the same disproved and discredited falsehoods already cited above such as “dark matter,” “dark energy,” “time travel” and “worm holes.” Good grief! Don’t be fooled for a second! This is simply creationism/intelligent design in disguise.
As an example of the escalation of the attack on science and materialism by religion and reaction, the Obama Regime has appointed a Jesus Freak, a well-known evangelist/sophisticated creationism propagandist and vehement anti-materialist, Francis Collins, as the new head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which directs funding of the majority of medical/scientific research in the United States. Though he strongly denies it Francis Collins, who is a scientist, is also a CREATIONIST, who professes the most sophisticated form of INTELLIGENT DESIGN where he attributes all scientific laws and findings no matter how complex to god! (This is another example of the Law of Unity of Opposites, which in this case is weighted toward reaction.) Note that the courts have already decided the obvious, that “intelligent design” is simply a form of creationism in a highly publicized case: Kitmiller v. Dover Area School District, 400 F. Supp. 2d 707, M.D. Pa. 2005. Collins is also the author of “The Language of God,” which absurdly claims the Big Bang and evolution were created by god (!) and states: “science offers no answers to the most pressing questions of human existence.” (!) This is a very Big Lie! Officially the Director of the NIH supposedly has very little power with decisions about how to spend the $30 billion annual budget being made by a committee of scientists or by the 27 directors of the individual institutes and centers, but Collins was chosen BECAUSE of his religious beliefs not in spite of them in order to provide him a bully pulpit for his beliefs. NIH funding is ALREADY highly politicized with the most worthwhile projects routinely rejected while the most ridiculous projects receive full funding! And contrary to Collins’ claim, human illness and disease DO constitute “one of the most pressing questions of human existence.” Because of his religious orientation the capitalist dictatorship previously appointed Collins head of the Human Genome Project. Although his ideology did not prevent him from doing his job there, where there were NOT so many different funding choices as at the NIH (where they are also much harder to follow), his high position and bully pulpit so to speak puts him in the position of hoodwinking chief advocate for his sophisticated form of creationism/intelligent design! The Pope of the NIH!
Note that Collins has also written: “the claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted.” But Collins provides no reason whatsoever why such materialist claims must be resisted. And even if the arguments for his claim were as plentiful as blackberries, Herr Collins would give us none of them. Collins presumably rejects all that is written above and herein because it exposes his superstitious ideology as a fraud! Collins also denies that the origin of matter is an unknowable, which it is. See above. Collins thus implies that HE can exit the Universe and see “god” and that “god” created the Universe when he states: “God stands outside of nature.” (!) How would he know? Collins appointment is one more example of the one-way dynamic of capitalism-imperialism. Never before has a creationism-propagandist, disguised or open, been appointed as head of NIH or to the Human Genome Project! The appointment of Collins represents an increase in reaction, an escalation in the capitalist dictatorships’ use of religion to befuddle the masses and emphasizes how important religion and superstition are to capitalist statecraft in order to keep the masses confused and brainwashed and further demonstrates the necessity for a Socialist Revolution in the United States!
Religious superstition can play no constructive role in either genuinely progressive thought or the process of organizing a Socialist Revolution in the United States. On the other hand the Socialist Revolution, while it does not support religion, permits no crushing of any religion nor does it not pit one religion against another as the capitalists do routinely as part of their strategy of divide and conquer. This is what the capitalists have done in Iraq and elsewhere as part of their strategy of divide and conquer. The future of religion will be determined by an open long-term debate over time in a revolutionary evolving society and the strength of scientific evidence in addition to the polemics carried out by proponents of all religions as well as the proponents of atheism and Dialectical and Historical Materialism.
NOTE: the following paragraphs precede the above paragraphs in the entire piece about Global Warming and are in the proper order as they appear in the Analysis and Theses.
The Runaway Greenhouse Effect has already occurred on Venus where all the CO2 is found in the 932 degrees Fahrenheit (500 degrees Centigrade) atmosphere. The water in the oceans of Venus, which were nearly the size of the oceans on Earth, all evaporated away very early because of the heat generated by the Runaway Greenhouse Effect caused by the fact that Venus receives 30% more sunlight than the Earth. The evaporating oceans finally boiled away completely after the temperature reached the temperature of the Venusian boiling point of water, the equivalent on Earth of a measly 212 degrees Fahrenheit—on its way to the present 932 degrees Fahrenheit! Once in the upper atmosphere ultraviolet radiation from the sun split the H20 apart into hydrogen, which disappeared into space and oxygen, which reacted with minerals on the surface and also disappeared from the atmosphere. The Evolution of Life is what prevented a Runaway Greenhouse Effect from occurring on Earth as it did on Venus! Life did not evolve on Venus, with the consequence that there was no plant and animal life to absorb the gradual build-up of CO2 from volcanoes, which eventually formed the thick atmosphere which exists on Venus today composed primarily of CO2 (96.5%) with the remainder nitrogen (3.5%) and other minor components expressed in a few parts per million, such as argon 70 ppm, carbon monoxide 17 ppm, helium 12 ppm, neon 7 ppm, plus a sulfuric acid cloud deck (sulfur dioxide—150 ppm) beginning at about 50 kilometers above the surface. In addition, there are only 20 parts per million of water vapor remaining from the huge oceans which once existed on Venus. On Earth the CO2 which was released into the atmosphere through volcanoes went into evolving vegetation and then animal life, which over hundreds of millions of years became deposited in the crust of the Earth as the fossil fuels coal and oil. There is no carbon found in the crust of Venus. That is how we know that life did not evolve on Venus! Today the frenzied burning of those fossil fuels here on Earth has resulted in having the huge amount of CO2 stored in them being released all at once into the atmosphere. The Earth’s carbon sinks, the Earth’s natural storage mechanisms for CO2—the rain forests other vegetation and the oceans—have a limit and are now being overwhelmed. As occurred on Venus billions of years ago, that process now appears to have reached the stage of the Runaway Greenhouse Effect here on Earth. Without a Socialist Revolution here in the United States, which is the only possible way to still reverse that process, the situation on Venus today is the future of the Earth in the not so distant future. We are presently experiencing the beginning of that future. Life on Earth will become totally unlivable far before we arrive at the situation existing on Venus today.
The temperature on Earth does not have to rise very much to destroy all life. This is the reality which fake “opposition” figures such as James Hansen and Al Gore and Steven Chu deliberately hide, while they attempt to control the issue and lead it to defeat. (See below.) As described elsewhere in the analysis of the Runaway Greenhouse Effect this process involves multiple positive feedbacks or vicious circles. The arctic sea ice normally reflects heat and light from the sun back into space, but this effect decreases as the ice is replaced by the darker sea water when the ice melts, which in turn absorbs more heat from the sunlight. This is known as the ice-albedo feedback or the ice-reflectivity feedback and is the most important feedback in the polar region. It was reported on NBC Evening News on May 13, 2009 that the polar ice may all be gone within 5 years. Because the North and South Poles act as thermostats for the planet the removal of that thermostat may result in an abrupt increase in global warming making life much more difficult and increasing the melting of the land ice on Greenland, raising the sea level much more rapidly.
In the 1951 science fiction/political film, The Day The Earth Stood Still, the Earth was visited by people in a flying saucer from a more advanced civilization which delivered an ultimatum at the end: “It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.” The result of Earth being reduced to a burned out cinder is clearly not limited to war and peace or even nuclear war. Although it goes without saying that capitalism-imperialism, due to its internal dynamic as explained herein, automatically extends violence everywhere and even to outer space with its Star Wars Program, etc. (which has thankfully not yet been realized in practice), capitalism has also extended its maximum violence to the environment. The environmental reality, not science fiction, is that with the onset of the Runaway Greenhouse Effect the Earth is now on course to become a burned out cinder like Venus! Only a Socialist Revolution can avert this catastrophe! It is our right and it is our duty, according to The Declaration of Independence, to avert this catastrophe by ending the capitalist dictatorship in the United States through a Socialist Revolution.
The falsely labeled “Archaea” bacteria, tube worms, which have evolved to live at temperatures of up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and the hyperthermophilic bacteria, which have evolved to live at water temperatures of up to 239 degrees Fahrenheit will be the last life on Earth because of their ability to live at high temperatures.. (Incidentally, “Archaea” was falsely so-labeled in order to spread confusion in science and to try to undermine in one blow both Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and the irrefutable Primordial Soup Theory of Stanley Miller and Harold Urey of 1953, who demonstrated that the basic building blocks of life; amino acids, purines, pyrimidines and carboxylic acids can all be produced by running electrical sparks simulating lightning through the most-likely original reducing atmosphere of Earth composed of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapor or steam. Later experiments by Miller demonstrated that the precise atmospheric mixture was not as important as the fact that it be a reducing atmosphere, meaning that it must contain NO oxygen, because the compounds necessary for life, namely amino acids, purines and pyrimidines (required for the synthesis nucleotides required to form RNA and DNA) and carboxylic acids (required for the synthesis of lipids) cannot be produced in an oxidizing atmosphere! In addition, it has been reported that Jeffrey L. Bada, who had been a graduate student of Stanley Miller and Adam P. Johnson a graduate student at Indiana University visiting Bada’s laboratory on an internship, working with co-workers, have discovered 22 amino acids in the original samples from the Stanley Miller-Urey experiments, including 10 that had not been previously reported. (The Miller Volcanic Spark Discharge Experiment, Adam P. Johnson, Daniel P. Glavin, Antonio Lazcano and Jeffrey L. Bada, Science, 17, October 2008. page 404, Vol. 322, no. 5900, DOI: 10.1126 science. 1161527). See also The New York Times, October 17, 2008. In a 1996 interview Stanley Miller also revealed that he had been able to produce pyridines and purines by creating more concentrated pre-biotic “dry beach” conditions, which would have been present in lakes lagoons and beaches on the primitive Earth. From that point everything is very clear.
Natural Origin of Nucleotides Finally Solved
As reported in the Nature Vol. 459 pp.239-242, May14, 2009 by Sutherland JD et al, the actual formation of ribosenucleotides proceeds from constituent parts of arabinose amino-oxazoline and anhydronucleoside intermediates rather than from free ribose and nucleobases, thus finally solving the problem of the natural origin of nucleotides. The starting materials for the synthesis were cyanamide, cyanoacetylene, glycoaldehyde, glyceraldehyde and inorganic phosphate, all of which are plausible prebiotic feestock molecules and the conditions of the synthesis were consistent with potential early-Earth geochemical models as made clear in the study. Although inorganic phosphate is only incorporated into the nucleotides at a later stage of the sythesis, its presence from the start is essential as it controls 3 reactions in the earlier stages by acting as a general acid/base catalyst, a nucleophilic catalyst, a pH buffer and a chemical buffer, according to the study! In addition, because these reactions take place at moderate temperatures this study by Sutherland et al. supports the Primordial Soup theory of Stanley Miller and Harold Urey first proposed by Thomas Darwin himself, who in his 1871 letter to the botanist Joseph Hooker stated that he believed that life evolved “in some little warm pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts.” (!) Urey and Miller indubitably read this letter which motivated their work described above, which is ruthlessly ridiculed by the NASA fakers and their supporters and is not even mentioned by Nicholas Wade in the New York Times, May 14, 2008 reference article! Self-replicating RNA molecules are well known today and have been extensively studied and described in the major media and peer review journals. And DNA clearly evolved from RNA. There is no credible dispute. Problem solved.
In 1969 a carbonaceous meteorite fell in Murchison Australia which had a high concentrations of amino acids, about 100 ppm, found in the same pre-biotic experiments of Stanley Miller, proving that the early evolution of life is a constant which occurs throughout the universe given certain favorable conditions, NOT that life came to Earth from comets or asteroids from elsewhere—the so-called “Theory of Panspermia,” which is also fraudulently being passed off as a “theory of life.” Cosmic rays and the heat of entry into Earth’s atmosphere would have destroyed all life potentially surviving the near absolute zero temperature of interstellar or interplanetary space. The goal of these determined and deliberate falsifiers is to keep the masses confused on as many scientific matters and political matters as possible. Because a confused person cannot act! False analysis of one issue leads in turn to false analysis of another. In such a situation the masses are much more likely to think what they are told to think and to do what they are told to do by the capitalist dictatorship. Since 1969 incidentally numerous carbonaceous meteorites have revealed the presence of amino acids.
Among the more recent false claims of evolution of life is the truly ridiculous claim that life supposedly “evolved at submarine vents” formed under the oceans where tectonic plates meet, for example the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. But it is a fact that submarine vents don’t make organic compounds, they decompose them! These vents are one of the limiting factors on what organic compounds would exist in the primitive oceans. At the present time, the entire ocean goes through those vents in 10 million years. So all of the organic compounds are destroyed every ten million years. That places a constraint on how much organic material could accumulate. In addition, it also provides a time scale for the origin of life. If all the polymers and other compounds that evolve are continuously destroyed that means life would have to start early and rapidly.
Looking at the process in detail, it is clear that long periods of time would be detrimental, rather than helpful to this fraudulent, totally contrived and deliberately misleading so-called “theory” of the origin of life which was created, among other reactionary reasons (see below), in order to provide a false pretext for NASA to carry out extremely costly and entirely unnecessary and useless space ventures using the primitive form of space travel, rocketry, to outlying planetary satellites under the false pretext of “searching for life,” wherever there might be water (!) discovered by spectral analysis for example, in order to keep their jobs and obtain continued government funding and to serve as yet one more pretext to divert money from social spending. The most recent ridiculous “projects’ in this series are the Obama plans to revisit the Moon to build a moon base and take a trip to Mars and trying to privatize, just like Bush, what should properly be part of the existing government, even after a Socialist Revolution in the United States! Privatization of government agencies reflects both the one-way dynamic of capitalism and its true inherent anarchy. Instead there should be a concerted attempt to develop (or back-engineer) the electromagnetic motor used by the UFO’s. This requires nuclear power and a structural material which is super-conducting at room temperature. That material exists and is known as the nanotube form of carbon, the hardest known material ever discovered, far harder than diamonds. But it is highly likely that there is too much money invested in rocketry the most primitive form of space travel, which is also backed by the oil industry. This is further proof of the almost entirely one-way dynamic of capitalism leading to Fascism, barbarism and finally the end of civilization; and now with the advent of the Runaway Greenhouse Effect, the end of all life on Earth. We need a Socialist Revolution here in the United States. In the final analysis all wars are won and lost on morale and every movement begins with the call. This analysis is part of that call.
William H. Depperman, Coordinator
United Front Against Racism
And Capitalism-Imperialism
Union Square Park
Revised March 22, 2010
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William!
No.
Your technique still needs work.
If you are serious about looking like a bona fide crank on the Internet then DO IT PROPERLY!
You only made three extra long postings in a row.
Only three! What’s up with that?
Not good enough, William. Lift your game.
Real cranks can manage at least double that.
More effort from you is required.
Now look back over how you wrote your postings.
Notice anything missing?
No?
(Let me give you a little hint.)
ALLCAPS.
You can either post like this or
YOU CAN POST LIKE THIS.
Effective, yeah?
Next time, write everything in allcaps. It helps people understand you better and it looks good too.
Hope that helps.
Kthxbai.
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To be fair to William, Cedric, he did actually make 2 more comments at least as long. For some reason they are held up in spam. I really don’t have the time to read through them to find out why. I am sure no one else would spend their time on them either so I have left them there. But he almost makes your grade to be a crank, doesn’t he?
William wastes his time putting his long essays as comments on irrelevant blogs where they won’t be read. He should set up his own website or write a book.
Anything to stop clogging up comments here. That will only discredit him and his arguments.
Sent from my iPod
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But he almost makes your grade to be a crank, doesn’t he?
Hmm. I suppose I should cut him some slack.
Five posts in total? The last two being at least as long?
Well, alright.
William, I’ve decided to let you off this time.
Don’t let it happen again though.
Ken might not be inclined to intercede on your behalf in the future.
Remember lad, ALLCAPS!
It’s the wave of the future.
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Ken wrote “Stenger points out that Craig also has not corrected this argument – despite it being explained to him in 2003! And the argument, together with attributions top Hawking and Penrose, is till being used by other apologists. ”
I note you do not actually provide a from Craig’s work to back this claim up.
In fact William Lane Craig in Astrophysics and Space Science published in 1999 wrote “Both the Hartle-Hawking and the Vilenkin models eliminate the initial singularity by transforming the conical hyper-surface of classical space-time into a smooth, curved hyper-surface having no edge” here Craig 4 years prior to 2003 states that Hawking’s model does not involve a singularity.
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Matt – do you understand what Craig has said there? No, I didn’t think so.
It actually has nothing to do with Stenger’s point. And no – I haven’t checked with Craig. But Stenger raised this with Craig several years ago – in 2003 when Craig used the singularity argument in the debate. He notes that Craig continues to use the same argument – he has not modified it to take quantum mechanics into account (your 1999 quote doesn’t relate to that).
It is an issue between Craig and Stenger. I do tend to believe Stenger – after all he is the expert in this area, has debated Craig, and the acknowledgment of acceptance would have gone to him – not me.
The problem is that the original big bang models are based on relativity. They get to a singularity – but only by extrapolating beyond the situation where relativity applies. We know that is not valid but, so far, have not been able to achieve a theory of quantum gravity enabling that transition.
I actually don’t slavishly follow Craig’s arguments but am aware that he does some hand waving over the singularity to make it more amenable to his god belief. Other apologists are happier to make bald statements.
However, the fact remains that from a scientific perspective we don’t have a simple picture of what happened at the beginning of the big bang. We have some ideas and we have some leads – particularly there is hope of some progress in this area from the LHC.
But scientist are quite happy to say “I don’t know!”. It’s just that we also say “Let’s find out.”
In contrast theologians have jumped on the apparent gift of the big bang and it singularity (as originally proposed) to opportunistically present it as an argument for their god beliefs. Le Maitre warned Pope Pius about that and he has been proved right. If you base your argument on science you have got to be willing to change your conclusions when the science changes. Faith doesn’t work that way, does it?
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Ken in the quote from the 1999 article does relate to the point you attribute to Stenger, your claim is that Craig mistakenly cited Hawking’s as accepting singularity and has never retracted that claim. The 1999 article shows Craig does acknowledge that the singularity issue is not Hawkings position. Hence, you are mistaken.
“He notes that Craig continues to use the same argument – he has not modified it to take quantum mechanics into account (your 1999 quote doesn’t relate to that).”
Well actually in the 1999 article I cited from Craig does discuss quantum mechanics, and other various models you refer to. So again what you say is false. You can check his other published arguments to see he addresses this as well.
“it is an issue between Craig and Stenger. I do tend to believe Stenger – after all he is the expert in this area, “
Yes but the issue being discussed is what is Craigs argument and what issues does he take into account. Stengers claim is testable, he says Craig offers a certain line of argument and has never modified it to address a certain point. We can test this, look at the arguments Craig has offered and see if he modifies them to address the point. The tests show that Stenger’s claims are false.
Good to see you taking falsified claims on faith Ken. How scientific.
Retract your comments they are false.
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Actually, Matt, the sentence you quote discusses a relativity model. Sure Craig refers in other parts to quantum models but rather vaguely and inappropriately (there is not an accepted quantum gravity model yet). The particular quote is to relativity.
The quote I used from Hawking’s book specifically goes beyond relativity. My point is the dishonest quoting of the first sentence in that paragraph. The example was by de Souza but other theologians often do the same.
Now Stenger refers to Craig’s use of the singularity argument in 2003, 4 years after the article of Craig’s you quote (and which I have). Obviously I am relying on Stenger’s version of the story here. However, I do have a video of that debate so I could check it out some time.
Checking this video would at least enable us to check Stenger’s claim that Craig used this argument in the debate. Personally I think we just have to take Stenger’s word for his claim that he has never seen a correction. Unless you can find something where Craig specifically refers to it.
So, I repeat, Craig’s quote you used refers to relativity models. It is not appropriate for the paragraph in Hawking’s book. We don’t have a model for incorporating quantum effects yet.
I am quite aware that people often use the word singularity inappropriately. Even cosmologists who are well aware of the issues. So in that sense I am not necessarily critical of use of the word.
But the real issue is whether one should use the big bang model to claim a need for an intelligent creator – whether we use on old model including singularities or a later model not. My point is that theologians do so opportunistically (and sticking to a pure relativistic big bang model leading to singularities is convenient for their aims). Hence they get caught out when science updates it’s theories.
For example – what if current evidence of previous or sister packet universes actually pans out? (Penrose has argued the case for this and appears to have some support in details of the background cosmological microwave radiation). What if we find evidence at the LHC for the postulated fields involved in formation of matter and inflation that have been proposed. Certainly there is no need to use the arguments of Craig and his mates to explain formation of the universe.
Part of the theological argument relies on these current gaps in our knowledge. They are truly “god of the gaps” “explanations.” As Le Maitre pointed out theology should stay away from being tested on this manner. But opportunism gets in the way, doesn’t it?
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Ken, the sentence may not refer to quantum mechanics, but thats not the point your claim was that (a) Craig misquotes from Hawking and (b) Hawking does not hold the view Craig attributes to him and (C) Craig never updated this.
We now have esthablished that in fact you have no evidence for (a) and the quote I provided shows that Craig in fact does acknowledge that Hawking does not hold the view in question and took this into account years before Stenger mentioned his claim, Stengers claim then that Craig has never “updated” his argument is clearly and evidently false. This fact alone would give me pause about taking his word for it.
As to your other claims they again so a failure to understand the issues. You write “ My point is that theologians do so opportunistically (and sticking to a pure relativistic big bang model leading to singularities is convenient for their aims). Hence they get caught out when science updates it’s theories” But Craig does not rely on a particular model of big bang cosmology for his argument, his premise is that the universe began to exist, and the big bang is just one of several lines of independent argument he uses for this conclusion. His main argument is a philosophical/metaphysical argument about infinities that predates big bang cosmology for several years. This means the updating problem you refer to does not really apply, even if science changed it would only mean one line of argument no longer applies, Craig has stated this publically many times.
You then state “What if we find evidence at the LHC for the postulated fields involved in formation of matter and inflation that have been proposed. Certainly there is no need to use the arguments of Craig and his mates to explain formation of the universe.” this mistakenly assumes that Craig’s argument is an argument to the best explanation, but its not its a deductive inference, so talk of “need to explain” simply does not apply. Moreover, Craig has addressed this point many times, he offers several lines of argument for the claim the universe has a beginning, if one turns out to be mistaken that only shows that one of several lines fails. The cosmology is not even Craig’s main argument, his main one is a metaphysical one.
Finally you state “Part of the theological argument relies on these current gaps in our knowledge. They are truly “god of the gaps” “explanations.” This again misunderstands Craig’s argument, he does not argue Science cannot explain X therefore God does. His argument is deductive he argues we do know X and X entails Y, that is not an argument based on a gap.
Don’t get me wrong I am not saying I agree with Craig’s argument. I am aware that many of the issues, particular around infinity, A and B theories of time, cosmology etc. are technical and difficult, I also know they are a matter of dispute and debate amongst informed people. So for me the jury is out.
What I do object to is scientists commenting on Philosophical/Theological arguments and misrepresenting them, misunderstanding them and then on the basis of this dismissing them in a often cavalier and dismissive fashion
I also find it odd however, is that when a theological position is at odds with some scientific theory its not uncommon to here scientists attacking the theological position as irrational. Oddly enough the same scientists then attack Craig because he takes into account cosmological theories and claim that doing so his views shaky. Hardly a consistent position.
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What I do object to is scientists commenting on Philosophical/Theological arguments and misrepresenting them, misunderstanding them and then on the basis of this dismissing them in a often cavalier and dismissive fashion.
The Courtier’s reply.
I also find it odd however, is that when a theological position is at odds with some scientific theory its not uncommon to here scientists attacking the theological position as irrational.
Theology is meaningless mumbo-jumbo about magic, invisible sky people whereas a scientific theory is based upon evidence.
Investigation, not revelation.
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I see Cedric, when I provide evidence that a scientist has distorted and misunderstood a theologians argument the response is simply name calling and ridicule. Thanks for confirming that your so called appeal to evidence is anything but.
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Cedric
“Evolution is simply meaningless mumbo jumbo about apes turning into humans, I have have read the works of CRI and they seem to me correct, I have never actually read any evolutionary biology but I don’t need to because of the Couteriers reply.” I take it you would consider this an adequate rebuttal of evolutionary biology, right.
I also got to love the circular reasoning, theism is bunk because there is no evidence for Gods existence, and I refuse to read consider or understand anyone who offers evidence because they are theists and theism is bunk. If scientists really endorse such an obviously circular methodology then any claim to their method being rigorous is on par with the idea that spaghetti monsters exist.
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But Matt, you haven’t provided any evidence. You misread my post, assumed Stenger’s exposure of D’Souza’s dishonesty referred to Craig and then proceeded to dispense Ruth your straw man.
It would be more honest to admit your mistake and withdraw your attack than accuse either me or Stenger of distortion and misunderstanding.
Come on. Engage with the real issues.
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…when I provide evidence that a scientist has distorted and misunderstood a theologians argument…
Huh? What evidence?
…theism is bunk because there is no evidence for Gods existence…
Yep. That’s pretty much it.
Theology is not evidence.
Theology is just mumbo-jumbo.
Equating theology with evidence is a good example of the meaningless bafflegab mumbo-jumboism that theologians employ.
Take Thor for example:
Thor is most likely just a pretty fairy tale.
Precious little evidence that Thor really exists.
Quite a bit of theology though.
But lots and lots of theological musing does not add up to a single jot of actual evidence for the existence of Thor.
Doesn’t work.
It’s dumb.
Evolution is simply meaningless mumbo jumbo about apes turning into humans…
Nope. The Theory of evolution rests upon evidence.
Evidence garnered by scientific investigation.
It requires no magic, invisible people.
It all comes down to investigation as opposed to revelation.
Science works differently from religion.
Any religion.
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Perhaps I can summarise for you Matt.
1: The issue Stenger raised of dishonestly quoting Hawking’s related to D’Souza. I think the evidence here is irrefutable. Your attempt to drag Craig into that specific issue was a diversion.
2: Craig does misrepresent the current science of big bang theory and Stenger takes issue with him over this. This is Craig’s claim that because our universe had a beginning, the ultimate universe had a beginning and to have a beginning things must have a cause. Now Stenger points out that while that argument may have been acceptable a few hundred years ago it is no longer so. Stenger says:
In the article you quote Craig does not deal with this fundamental aspect of quantum mechanics. His reference to quantum gravity is weird and in that part he really only considers ideas which have been proposed to (as he sees it) get around the problem of a singularity. He argues against them. The specific Hartle-Hawking model he refers to was an argument in relativity- not quantum mechanics. Craig still finishes by assuming that if things begin they have a cause.
3: This gets back to the problem of deductive logic – popular in the era before the modern scientific revolution. However, the sway of this approach had to be broken to enable that revolution which required interaction with reality. Clearly it still survives in theology.
4: Sure, the essence of logical arguments is powerful and acceptable. But in practice it is very faulty. This is because as a species we are not rational. We seek patterns and our arguments very often are a matter of rearranging our prejudices to justify a preconceived belief. This is why any logical argument must be examined specifically in the details of its assumptions. Being able to count to three doesn’t guarantee correctness.
5: It is in the nature of Craig’s stated assumptions in all his arguments that we can take issue. And these are assumption are about reality – an area of expertise for science. So scientists are quite warranted to pull him up on these.
A: I have already mentioned that Craig’s assumption of a “cause” is in conflict with current science of the big bang which must incorporate quantum effects.
B: Assuming an ultimate beginning to the wider universe on the basis of big bang theory is unwarranted. Consider the case of a woman who has a good theory of her own origins in time. But because of some defect in her brain she doesn’t know what came before (hasn’t worked out the details of her birth), has no definite knowledge of parents or siblings – or indeed any other person. She might assume her birth was the origin of humanity – but that would be arrogant on her part. In the future she may well be able to detect and interpret evidence of what cam before and of her coexisting siblings and cousins, despite the limitation in her brain.
This is the current situation with our theories of the origin of our universe – and we do have a lot of speculative ideas about what went before and coexists with our universe.
C: Craig also makes huge leaps in his assumption that the “cause” of the universe must be a personal creator. That is just completely out of the blue and a great example of how deductive logic gets manipulated. In contrast science studies these things – with evidence from the results (that is looking for “fossils” in the current situation of the universe with the CMB providing rich sources. In the future gravity waves will likely provide even richer sources). And from experiments in the lab (the LHC is an example).
Even today we can speculate and provide a number of scenarios or “causes” for the conditions which made the formation of the universe possible. Many of these are published.
6: Craig really is opportunist about the scientific evidence. His argument really does rely on deductive logic with all its problems of unwarranted assumptions. He is not really interested in checking against reality. And that is the problem with theology.
7: I believe, in fact I am sure, one can analyse Craig’s arguments from morality and from “fine-tuning” along similar grounds. There is the general problem of setting up an argument based on deductive logic and then making unwarranted assumptions so that he can produce his preconceived conclusions by following through the logic.
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Ken
1. You write “The issue Stenger raised of dishonestly quoting Hawking’s related to D’Souza. I think the evidence here is irrefutable. Your attempt to drag Craig into that specific issue was a diversion.”
This is not honest, on MandM at http://www.mandm.org.nz/2010/08/gary-gutting-on-richard-dawkins-atheism.html#comment-83068 refering to this post, you stated
“On the so-called cosmological argument I have explained how people like Craig and de Souza have been caught completely misrepresenting the so-called “singularity” – to the extent of quoting from Hawkings in a way that says exactly the opposite of what he wrote.”
So its clear you did intend to include both De Souza and Craig in your assessment above. The fact is Craig has not claimed Hawking’s accepted singularity, nor has he refused to concede this you were mistaken when you said he did. Now you claim you only meant to refer to De Souza and I have dragged in Craig as a diversion. Please try not to tell lies in future.
2. You write
”Craig’s claim that because our universe had a beginning, the ultimate universe had a beginning and to have a beginning things must have a cause.”
This raises a new issue, but once again you are distorting Craig’s argument, nowhere has he argued that because our universe had a beginning the ultimate universe had a beginning. I have never seen Craig referenced ever where he gives the argument you attribute to him.
You argue Craig does distort the science by ignoring QM, the problem is this to is false. In his 1993 book on God and Big Bang Cosmology with Quentin Smith he notes the very issues Stenger refers to and addresses them. Now again his arguments may or may not be sucesful but to simply assert this is a problem and suggest he has never addressed it or distorts science by ignoring it is false. Again try not to lie.
Moreover, it seems to be that Stenger is here distorting the science here he says QM affirms that “nothing “causes” the atomic transitions that produce light or the nuclear decays that produce nuclear radiation.” But QM has not shown that absolutely nothing at all not even God, causes these things, at best science is that they have no physical cause exists or that its not determined by laws of nature. The problem is Craig’s argument is not that everything that exists has a physical cause or that everything that begins to exists is determined by a law of nature.
4. You go on to state Craig “makes huge leaps in his assumption that the “cause” of the universe must be a personal creator. That is just completely out of the blue” this is false. Craig does not assume this he has given various arguments for this conclusion such as his critique of Moriston in 2002. Again these arguments may or may not be sound but to simply assert he assumes this conclusion, and does not offer any reasons for it is false. Again try not to lie. I know that scientists unfamilar with the philosophical literature and might buy it, it does not make it true.
In all these issues the point is the same, you simply caricature what Craig has argued. I agree with you that if Philosophers comment on cosmology they should do so in an informed manner and not distort cosmology. I simply point out that the same is true in reverse, if Scientists comment on Philosophical arguments they should actually do so in an informed manner understanding these arguments and characterising them accurately not caricaturing or distorting what people say. You have clearly not done this with Craig because almost everything you say simply misunderstands or ignores what he has actually argued.
I note again however the fundamental inconsistency in your argument. You attack Craig for not taking into account latest scientific findings (like QM) you also however state its problematic for Craig to base his conclusions on such findings because to do so makes the results to tenative. Apparently, when science contradicts Craig the conclusions are sure enough for us to think he is wrong, when Craig draws conclusions from science the conclusions are tenative. You cant have it both ways.
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Matt, I think in the interests of reasonable discussion you should avoid charging an honest contributor as lying. Deal with the issues instead of trying to wipe them off the table by personal attack.
OK you have taken a very vague inclusive comment of mine on your blog to attribute a specific charge on my part. I certainly didn’t mean it that way – as surely this post demonstrates as it discusses the specifics. However, I think with respect to Craig, who as far as I know doesn’t specifically use the Hawking’s quote, my comment is that he uses the science opportunistically. In my comment i was not being specific. I certainly withdraw that if you insist on interpreting it in that way which I didn’t intend.
However, D’Souza is clearly using the quote dishonestly. As I said you can clearly check that evidence.
2: in the article you quote Craig does discuss models which include consideration of our universe as just one of a more general universe. His discussion of these models is to eliminate the idea that the singularity can be removed and that there must be a real beginning from nothing to which he can apply his personal creator argument.
The fact is that if one is going to consider scientific models for the formation of our universe this subject has to be included (as Craig did in that article).
3: Obviously I don’t have in front if me the book you refer to – perhaps you could quote the specific passage to support your claim. However, the article you previously quoted to support your claim of Craig’s consideration of QM clearly doesn’t. Nowhere does he discuss this aspect and his concluding arguments that whatever exists has a cause and this is a personal creator clearly shows he has not accepted the inderterminism of QM.
In that article he effectively ridicules the idea that the “big bang is an event without a cause” and calls the idea that the universe could come out of nothing “metaphysically absurd.” The point is that scientifically it is not. To rely on old philosophical gems like ” out of nothing comes nothing” (which Craig quotes) is just not adequate when dealing with reality which is often counter intuitive. We need to interact with reality, not logic, to appreciate and understand this.
4: Perhaps you should acknowledge that Stenger understands QM better than you do. His statement is simply a fact about modern understanding if QM – even though it is counterintuitive. You have to appreciate that accepting this situation still enables us to use probabilities and make extremely accurate and important predictions. You use that technology every day and trust it even though it us at heart probabilistic rather than deterministic.
Of course we will develop better theories as science advances and one can’t rule out identifying specific causes. That is the nature of science. But really indeterminism doesn’t worry most people who use it. There are a number of areas in science where powerful and accurate descriptions can result from a statistical analysis. There is no reason to assume that this will necessarily change.
I suppose it is inevitable that a theologian finds this difficult and easily resorts to a ” god of the gaps” argument to find causes. But really most of us aren’t worried by the lack of cause (it is so successful). In the end we should accept reality as it us – not reject it because it doesn’t correspond to our human perspective biases in our logic.
5: I don’t believe Craig has given any acceptable arguments for his claims for a personal creator as a cause. Maybe you find them acceptable – I certainly don’t but my criteria is probably very different to yours. This is a huge problem with theological deductive logic. You guys faithfully accept without evidence claims which we see as really weird. Not that being weird means we reject things (eg Spooky action at a distance). We just want evidence.
I can appreciate you can see theological evidence (you call it philosophical) and that may satisfy you. But modern science has only been possible because it broke away from such “evidence” – derived from the bible, Aristotle or, when those fail ,deductive logic. All the time ignoring that reality outside. The old idea that one could determine the number of teeth a horse had by consulting Aristotle or logic. When we know now that whatever Aristotle or logic says if we actually count the teeth we have actual reliable information.
Rejection of that old theological/”philosophical” approach has been essential to our modern success.
I think if you can appreciate he nature of science and my own complete apathy toward theology you might be able to get past these personal attacks. After all, to see others as “liars” surely is the ultimate protection against evidence.
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Ken, we are making progress.
1. So Craig does not misquote Hawking great we are agreed on that, Craig accepts Hawking denies a singularity.
2. We also accept that Craig does take into account other models and addresses them, so claims he does not are mistaken.
3. The book is an anthology of writings on the subject by Craig and Quentin Smith ( an atheist) which essentially respond to each other back and forth. I do not have a copy on my shelf. However, there is a reference to this part of the discussion in the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy which is online http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/.This is only however a reference to see the whole thing one would have to look at the original. But it does verfiy the fact that Craig has addressed this issue.
Your real telling piont however is when you note Craig argues something is ““metaphysically absurd.” and respond with ” The point is that scientifically it is not.” But that really does not address the issue, to show something is scientifically possible is not to show its metaphysically possible or even that its possible, it simply shows that one particular line of inquiry does not rule it out. Craig argues other lines of inquiries do, again you have to assume the controversial epistemological position that science is the only valid line of inquiry that exists. Where is your evidence for this? Can this claim be scientifically verfied? If not, then you are relying on philosophical assumptions which cannot be proven yourself.
You also seem to misunderstand the appeal to intiution, no one denies that reality is often counter intuitive. The point is however one should not start off assuming our intiutions are unreliable, if one did then one could not know anything at all, most of the basic axioms of logic, maths, and things like trust in the reliability of our cognitive faculties are known intuitively. Hence, while intuitions can be rejected in the face of counter evidence. The burden of proof then is on others to show that this particular intuition is false. Until you can show that things can come into existence out of nothing with no prior cause of any sort.
4. Of course I accept that Stenger understands QM better than I do. But my objection was not to the claim that standard interpretations of QM entail indeterminism. I objected to the philosophical/theological implication drawn from this, which was that nothing at all even God causes the events in question. Indeterminism does not warrant this conclusion. Determinism is the thesis that every event in the universe is caused by a prior state of the universe and and hence refers to physical causes. Indeterminism therefore entails only that the event has no physical cause. Indeterminism does not entail that God did not cause the event in question.
Its not that Stenger has misunderstood QM its that he has failed to grasp philosophical and theological distinctions and as such drawn a mistaken philosophical inference and I suggest that in Theology and Philosophy myself and Craig actually might know a bit more than a scientist does.
5. I suggest you simply do not understand deductive logic, an argument is deductive when its conclusion follows from its premises by laws of nature. Mathematical reasoning essential to physics uses deductive logic, similarly the making of predictions uses such logic, you can’t disparage it and accept science.
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Sorry, I forgot to change my e-mail on that last one and so my wifes pic came up instead of me.
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Cedric, perhaps you can find me one theologian who has attempted to defend the existence of Thor or provided evidence for his existence?
Apart from assertions, caricature, and name calling, do you have any actual evidence for what you say, or is talk of evidence just a smoke screen.
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I will respond to your comment later – I specifically want to deal with this question of deductive logic and your faith in “other lines of inquiry.” I think these issues are important and fundamental and illustrate the inevitable conflict between religion and modern science.
However – few quotes from Stenger which clarify his understanding of Craig’s position:
From the little I have read of Craig he does seem to desire to retain a singularity, in essence of not in word. His discussion of modern big bang models indicate his preference to return to the “standard model”. This obviously comes from his desire to have a beginning with a cause into which he can insert his “personal creator.”
And:
I don’t think Craig really gets into QM much (and his discussion under “Quantum Gravity” was to me misnamed. However, a few theologians are opportunistically attempting to squeeze their god into that space. Stenger deals with this in another of his books (The Quantum Gods).
A common problem with QM – people seem to think that because QM is counter intuitive, but highly supported experimentally, and not understood by most then we can use it to “explain” anything else we don’t understand. So not only “god of the gaps” but “consciousness of the gaps”, etc. There are certainly some mad ideas around out there.
You object to the idea that “nothing at all even God causes the events in question.” What you must realise that putting the word “God’ into the sentence changes exactly nothing. There is just no evidence for that sort of causality at all, no matter how hard people have looked for it. That is just a fact. So, in light of that it is just not permissible to insist that there is a cause for everything – just relying on assumption and common sense. One would have to disprove current QM to include that as a logical argument.
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Matt – re your question of Cedric “find me one theologian who has attempted to defend the existence of Thor or provided evidence for his existence? “. Come off it. Their must have been many of them around a few thousand years ago when that god belief was common. I am aware that some people today adhere to this and similar beliefs – perhaps they consider themselves theologians in that religion.
Perhaps you are making the mistake of thinking the word “theologian” only apply to your particular god belief?
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Matt, I have raised the issue of theologians opportunistically using science to support their religious claims. Clearly D’Souza’s extreme cherry picky of Hawkings is a blatant example. However, in essence, anytime theologians quote from scientific works with this purpose they open themselves up to this charge.
I personally believe Craig can be accused of the opportunist quoting of scientific works (although not as blatantly as D’Souza). This arises from his desire to give scientific credibility to a universe with a beginning and cause.
For instance he quotes Vilenkin:
Of course Craig he is arguing for a universe with a beginning and a cause (his god). But commentators have caught him out on this one too; Apparently two paragraphs later Vilenken says:
Now, I have said before that this sort of opportunism, which is a manifestation of using logic to “prove” an argument, a preconceived conclusion, is perfectly natural. Science as a profession has ways of getting around, or at least minimising this. Basically validation against reality and the social processes involved.
Theology doesn’t – and hence is very prone to this sort of opportunism.
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Cedric, perhaps you can find me one theologian who has attempted to defend the existence of Thor or provided evidence for his existence?
Wow.
The stupid. It burns.
What do you think theology is?
You’ve clearly never really thought about it much.
“Perhaps you can find me one theologian who has attempted to defend the existence of Baal or provided evidence for his existence?”
“Perhaps you can find me one theologian who has attempted to defend the existence of Shiva or provided evidence for his existence?”
“Perhaps you can find me one theologian who has attempted to defend the existence of Ares or provided evidence for his existence?”
News Flash: There’s more than just one magic, invisible sky person supposedly out there. Your particular brand-name god is something of a late comer.
Nor is he particularly original.
Theological mumbo jumbo has been used to separate the faithful from their cash for a long, long LONG time.
(That’s how all those heathen temples and shrines were bought and paid for. That’s how priests of all flavours and stripes throughout the ages and crossing all cultures justified their paychecks.)
Passing around the collection plate has been a profitable enterprise long before people started watching TV evangelists.
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As usual, interesting clips Cedric, thanks.
Theological mumbo jumbo has been used to separate the faithful from their cash for a long, long LONG time.
Too right, even Matt’s website seems to have a “donation” facility, carrying on the time tested tradition.
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How does [insert your brand-name god handle here] communicate to the faithful and reveal his presence to us all? His/her/it’s/their ways are mysterious and unknowable yet all around us and obvious if only we choose to see the trooth.
Pity the infidel and their lack of faith.
If you believe then evidence for [insert your brand-name god handle here] is simply a matter of lifting up your eyes and gazing in wonder at the miraculous glory.
Behold the sign from heaven itself.
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Matt, need to clarify things as I think our understanding of scientific methodology and knowledge, and of the nature of deductive conclusions, conflicts.
You seem to see scientific knowledge as just “a particular line of enquiry” which can be ignored as desired if another line gives you the preferred answer.
Can you specify this other “line” more specifically than “metaphysical?”
What is it’s relationship to objective reality? How is it’s “knowledge” validated?
What do you think the relationship of scientific knowledge is to reality?
How is it validated?
What specifically are these “laws of nature” you use to obtain your conclusions deductively?
And how do you validate these conclusions? Or do you accept them as self validated because they have been deduced?
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Ken,
You seem to see scientific knowledge as just “a particular line of enquiry” which can be ignored as desired if another line gives you the preferred answer. …,Can you specify this other “line” more specifically than “metaphysical?”
I think science is one method of gaining knowledge about the world, I think there are others. For example science can tell us that a particular action will have particular consquences, it cannot tell us wether these consquences are good or bad, thats where ethics comes in. Scientific inquiry will leave it open either way which consquence is good or bad, hence the morality of either action will be possible from a scientific perspective, ethical inquiry however may eliminate one possibility.
The same is true here, from a scientific perspective several options may be possible. Metaphysical ( philosophical) inquiry however may eliminate some of these options, that is no more discarding science than ethical inquiry is.
Craig’s conclusions are that certain situations are metaphysically impossible, pointing out that they are scientifically possible does not refute this, what would refute it would be actually addressing his argument for this conclusion or arguing it is metaphysical possible.
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So Matt – when I talk about the various models/theories for the origin of out universe, their problems and supporting evidence, I am being scientific. When I make a judgment about looting in Christchurch, or withholding the truth of my actions from my spouse (moral judgments) I am being metaphysical?
Seems to be a very wasteful use of the word!
So several scientific models are available for the origins of our universe. None of them involve your god. Basically becuase their is no structured god hypothesis.
We can evaluate these models, we can (and are) testing them. The experiments at the LHC. The increased resolution in the cosmic microwave background. In the future we believe we will be able to use gravity waves (eg the LISA experiment) to get an even clearer picture.
In the process we are going to discard some of these models, narrow down on others, perhaps adopt one definite model.
Now what moral judgments, moral methodology (your metaphysics) can be used to differentiate between these models?
I certainly don’t see any.
Give me a clear example of your claim that a theory, model, observation may be scientifically permissible but are ruled out for metaphysical reasons?
What possible metaphysical reason could be used to validate or invalidate either of the proposed inflationary mechanisms, for example?
Sounds very much like a feeble theological attempt to return to the days when theology held sway, That the church could dictate that the heliocentric model of the solar system was OK to use but not true – because it was ruled out on metaphysical (theological) grounds.
Come off it. WE don’t want to return to those days.
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So Matt – when I talk about the various models/theories for the origin of out universe, their problems and supporting evidence, I am being scientific.
Ah but maybe you are ignoring the scientific evidence for the Christian god?
(As opposed to Thor)
That’s right Ken.
Evidence.
Real SCIENTIFIC evidence.
Quantum physics.
(…hushed awe from a suddenly interested audience…)
Sound pretty sciency, right?
(Not just physics, oh no.)
We’re talking quantum physics!!!!
If you examine quantum physics and then you will see evidence (REAL EVIDENCE) that the Christian god exists.
Enjoy.
P.S.
As far as I can tell, this moron really and truely believes this wonderful, wonderful stuff. It’s not actually a parody or anything.
(giggle)
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