Said GGG:
I’m having a hard time figuring out what your dispute with LeGrande is about. What is the debate about? Is it connected to a larger debate? Just curious.
It's sort of part of a bigger debate. Basically, LeGrande tells people that the big bang and "all from nothing" is scientifically plausible because everything is made up of "waves of nothing," which is an idea he got from some book by a guy named McLaughlin or some such.
But with my humble experience with physics and science (as in real sciences, hands on stuff, not evolutionary stuff) his claim seemed bizarre and incoherent - so I tried to figure out exactly what he was saying.
And then eventually, in his efforts to convince me that he was right and I was wrong, he said that when you look at the sun it's not where it appears but 2.1 degrees ahead of where it appears, due to the fact that the earth rotates 2.1 degrees in the 8.3 minutes it takes sunlight to reach the earth.
Now, if the sun orbited the earth, I'd say he was right, because if the sun did move 2.1 degrees after emitting the light, the light would be coming from where the sun was 8.3 minutes (and 2.1 degrees) ago. But since the sun still is where it was (relative to the center of the earth) the sun's light will still be coming from where the sun actually is.
So then for months LeGrande and I discussed the 2.1 degrees he claimed - me claiming that there was no 2.1 degrees, and him claiming that there was the 2.1 degrees of apparent displacement.
And he never provided a single scientific evidence or article supporting his claim, either. And he many times called me a liar and other things and never once provided a link to where I lied.
Then, in my efforts to try to get to the bottom of it, I formulated some simple questions which I've been asking him to apply his reasoning to. If he answers the questions in a way that agrees with his previous claims, then it'll be obvious to all that his claims are wrong because they don't agree with science.
If he answers in a way that agrees with science, then he will be contradicting his previous claims - but he doesn't want to contradict his previous claims because I already told him they were wrong and he told me I was lying.
So in the beginning, the issue was whether LeGrande's understanding of physics science was good. Then when he started making claims but not applying his theory to the questions I posed - and when he started calling me a liar, the issue then came to include the subject of LeGrande's veracity. He insists that he's been honest, and that I've been a
reprobate and serial liar, and yet he refuses to apply his claims of how things work to the examples I and others have provided.
As a matter of fact, he
said that he stands behind all of his posts. But if he stands behind his posts, shouldn't he be willing to apply his theory to my questions? or at least show where he answered them? and should he also not provide evidence when he accuses somebody of being a liar?
Another aspect has been that probably I raised the issue of whether his atheism gave him the freedom to lie as long as he was sure he wouldn't get caught. His response was of course that he's honest.
So now it seems he's refusing to admit that he's wrong, probably because it's obvious that he knows he's wrong and if he admitted he was wrong it would almost be an admission that he was wrong and knew it and refused to admit it for months -- and thus his false good reputation would be ruined, which would shed doubt in others mind when he gave them this absurd idea that all of matter is just waves of nothing and could quite easily have arisen from nothing.
Does that answer your question? If not, let me know, and I'll try again!
Thanks,
-Jesse