Posted on 06/13/2008 8:50:06 PM PDT by Coleus
God is a negative. A prophesy is a positive assertion, a positive assertion can be falsified. None of the prophecies in the Bible are clear or fulfilled, thus they have been falsified.
For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matthew 12:39-40
So the best prophecy you have is one that was written years after the event? LOL
Can you prove that, because you have never seen me perform Handel's Messiah, I never will?
Are you prophesying that you are going to perform Handel's Messiah? If I prophesy that I am going to see Handel's Messiah and go see it does that make me a Prophet?
Either you were wrong when you said 'it is impossible to prove a negative' or you are wrong about there never being any future prophets.
You are correct, I can't predict that there will not be any prophets in the future. That would be a contradiction. The hypothesis is that it is impossible to predict the future. All it would take to falsify the hypothesis (prediction) is the existence of a prophet in the future. Similarly all it would take to disprove the Theory of Gravities prediction is for a rock not to drop when when it is released.
But we are confusing Theories with Prophecy. A theory is simply a testable observation of what is. It may predict that that the sun will rise tomorrow but it is an observation not a prediction. A prophecy would predict that on tomorrow the Sun will stand still in the sky while a man raises his hands. Would you care to place a wager on which one pans out?
"None of the prophecies in the Bible are clear or fulfilled, thus they have been falsified." [excerpt]When you don't have a valid argument, just hurl Elephants.
Change the subject? Hardly. Atheism is simply the acknowledgment of truth.
When you don't have a valid argument, just hurl Elephants.
I know that saying that there has never been a valid prophecy is shocking, but it is the truth. I studied religions for a long time before I realized the truth of that statement. It is the 8000 pound elephant in the corner that seems to be invisible to some people.
"Atheism is simply the acknowledgment of truth." [excerpt]Actually, Atheism isn't about any sort of acknowledgment of truth, but rather the denial of God:
athe·ism \'a-the-iz-em\ n : the belief that there is no God : denial of the existence of a supreme being [Middle French athéisme, from Greek atheos "godless", from a- + theos "god"]
I suspect you're actually taking a lot of that by faith. Do you actually know these things or are you just basing them on your faith in the scores of other people who believe and teach them -- just like the creationist people do with regards to their trusted leaders?
I have not found noteworthy evidence (other then the idea of inherited retrovirus dna, about which I do not know enough to be certain of) supporting ASBE. (All Species By Evolution.) The transitional form fossils are vastly scares and take huge leaps compared to the millions of generations which lived. Having grown up on a farm and just in general payed attention to the world around me, I know that there are occasional grotesque mutations. There are also extremes in size. I also know that if I gave you a bucket full of randomly sized and randomly colored marbles you could select out ones to demonstrate that the bigger ones were brighter colored or by selecting different ones you could demonstrate just the opposite.
If we had fossils from every 10 generations or so, going back a million years, that would be convincing. But we don't. What we have is a sparse collection of bone fragments, often consisting more of plaster then bone, and I have no way of knowing just what selectivity was performed in lining up those specimens. Only to a mind that believes with all their heart with a religious fervor that all life must have evolved does this appear as evidence.
See this lineup showing what microevolution has done. Look at the variation there. I see nothing in any of the fossil evidences that couldn't have been caused by the amount of normal variation as seen here.
But as to whether the theory of ASBE and your statement that the fossil records have not falsified it, I'm not so sure. I agree that people who are convinced that all came from nothing will buy easily into the idea - but not having that dogma myself, I have to ask myself "How long can we go on waiting for substantial solid evidence before the lack thereof does begin to falsify?" I also like to ask how much government money can we through behind a theory before it becomes impossible to tell whether the theory lives on the evidence or on the cash flow.
To those who are not bound by the dogma that "We know it came from nothing," the evidence is just not nearly so convincing. To us, it looks like the evolutionist believes with all his heart that all came from nothing and that one day the evidence will all come in, but in the mean time they just pretend that it's already in. Faith is the hope in things not yet seen.
By the way, I think this falsifies the theory of ASBE: Many mammals are vulnerable in two places, both of which are likely candidates to eliminate the victim from the gene pool either as a result of intentional harm by an enemy or wild animal or as a result of just getting slashed by a stationary stick while running through the woods. One is the jugular veins, right out in the open, just under the skin. I mean, the eyes, the spinal cord, the heart, lungs, etc., are all protected by a bone-armor plating. The eye only peers out as it needs to, but on all other sides is protected. As to the other unlikely vulnerability, I'll let you figure that one out, but here's a clue, if you've ever played back-yard soccer as a child or watched boys playing back-yard soccer you know what I'm talking about.
Just how much of a detriment does evolution have to cause before we admit that yeah, this doesn't make sense?
So do you agree that the jugular and balls example I cite above does falsify the theory of ASBE?
Thanks,
-Jesse
That's odd. I just proved that there is no sumo wrestler in my fridge by merely opening the door and looking inside.
I take the fossil record stuff on trust. My original background is microbiology, that I don't take on trust.
I agree that people who are convinced that all came from nothing will buy easily into the idea - but not having that dogma myself,
This something from nothing concept seems to be a major problem for you. What if I told you that everything is made up of waves of nothing. That matter is simply an emergent property of those waves of nothing. What if I also told you that the theories that those observations are based on are the most precise and accurate theories that we have. They are much more precise than any of Newtons Theories by an order of magnitude, even if they are probabilistic. And to answer your next question I have done the Stern-Gerlach and double slit experiment myself, many times actually. So I am not taking that on faith.
So do you agree that the jugular and balls example I cite above does falsify the theory of ASBE?
I don't think that it confirms or denies ASBE. If anything though it confirms it. The fact that in many ways we seem to be poorly designed lends credence to the theory. We also seem to have a lot of extraneous features, like a tail bone, appendix, and sinus cavities. Then there are the poor and vulnerable structural designs, from a structural engineering view point our knees are a nightmare, the same as our hips and spinal connection.
Here is something for you to think about. Your parents each contributed a living cell from themselves to create you. 'Soon' we will be able to trace your genetic lineage back as far as we want, differentiating the sources. Your DNA does a remarkably good job preserving the data. At some point we will be able to compare anyone's or any species genetic data and show when they had a single common ancestor. Right now, we are just doing crude comparison matches, very soon though, in the next 10 to 20 years they will be able to take any two samples and be able to determine how many generations back they had the same parents. At some point in the past you and I have the same parents, at some point in the past a chimpanzee and I have the same parents, at some point in the past I have the same parent as an earthworm, etc. Right now all we can do is crude comparisons and determine how much of the DNA is identical, so we know we are on the right track, but soon we will be able to identify the exact generational split. We carry our histories in us.
You falsified a positive claim. That is the purpose of testing and verification. If I claim that God doesn't exist how do you falsify that? ... Right, by demonstrating that God exists. Good luck on falsifying my claim that God doesn't exist. I will look forward to meeting God next time I open my refrigerator door :)
I can't prove that God doesn't exist. I can't prove a negative. It can only be disproved. Do you see the difference?
I just proved one. You must have a very special idea of "negative".
I just proved one. You must have a very special idea of "negative".
Saying a sumo wrestler isn't in your fridge isn't a negative (in this context), both sumo wrestlers and your fridge exist. Saying that there are no sumo wrestlers is a negative.
If I say that there are no leprechauns, then open the fridge and don't find a leprechaun, does that prove that there are no leprechauns?
In your view, what exactly is the difference between 'proving ~P' and 'falsifying P'? Logically speaking they are the same, so if you can't prove a "negative", neither can you falsify a "positive". But again, I am sure you have a very special notion of "negative" in mind that makes these troubles go away.
Hmm, let us change it a bit. I can't prove the Theory of Gravity. If I pick up a rock and drop it, I can demonstrate the TOG, that is evidence that supports the TOG. but it is not "proof.' On the other hand, if I picked up a rock and it didn't fall when I released it that would disprove the TOG. I can only falsify the TOG.
Some things can be proved. I can prove the existence of the rock, I can't 'prove' the nonexistence (negative) of the rock, you might be hiding it in your fridge.
Let me put it another way, when scientists build a theory they don't try to prove a theory, they look for exceptions to the theory. Any exceptions disprove the theory.
I'll try and address the other issues when I've more time, but the Stern-Gerlach sounds fascinating! I love the physical sciences! I would be just so happy if you might be so kind as to explain how you did the Stern-Gerlach experiment - you know, things like "How hot was your oven? What metal atoms did you use? (silver?) What sort of aparatus did you use, how did you detect the silver particles, how fast were they moving, and 'how many atoms which entered the magnetic field got out?'"
Thanks very much!
-Jesse
One of the things we did differently was we built a centrifuge and ran an electric current through the silver source to heat it. By varying the current and speed of the centrifuge we could vary the silver atom output. Our goal typically was to send a single atom through it at a time, but our apparatus liked to send clumps of atoms through. It had the advantage that we knew the velocity of the silver atoms and we could separate out the clumps on the output. Clumps deflected much less, but that made the output less pure.
You too can build your own Stern-Gerlach and double slit apparatuses at home : )
I don't remember the details like amps, temps, source velocity, etc. just that they were stable. We just tinkered with them until we got a reliable source. Once we had a reliable source of single atoms/wave packets < somewhat anyway : ) > we generally tried to invalidate Stern-Gerlach or get multiple results. For example, instead of stopping at the photographic plate (or phosphor screen we would run it through the double slit, with variations, to test our mathematically derived predictions. For some very odd reason our advisers didn't think we had accomplished anything unless we had the mathematical framework to back it up : )
Sadly and much to our dismay, we were unable to produce any new or unexpected results, which actually pleased our unimaginative advisers. What we were trying to do was determine velocity, position and spin concurrently, for at least a brief period of time. Like I said, everything is waves of nothing, with an emphasis on the nothing.
Thanks for the account of your experiment! I most enjoyed it. As to double-slit, I've never built one per se, but I've seen lots of wave interference patterns in other optical experiments. I have no doubt that light is(are?) waves. (By the way, if you shoot a laser through a thick piece of glass into a photo diode which feeds the input of an audio amp which drives a speaker, some most fascinating things can be heard! It's really just interference patterns, but you can hear them as you change the angle of the thick glass.)
As to Stern-Gerlach, doesn't that require an enormous vacuum? I'd never heard of the experiment before you mentioned it, but I've been searching google since then, and find that most sites speak only very abstractly of it. But from what I've gleaned, a diffusion type pump or something that gets to 10-6 Torr is needed. I'm assuming your whole apparatus was inside a vacuum chamber, on the centrifuge.
I guess you must have been detecting the silver atoms with photographic plate and must have done everything in a dark room?
As to light being a wave - I'm certain of that due to interference patterns. As to it being a particle, I'm not convinced. I realize that light does tend to arrive in quantum sizes, but I also know that in many cases it is generated in quantum sizes. For example, any fluorescent or chemically generated light will be due to an electron falling down a quantum number of level(s). What about incandescence? Do we actually know that it doesn't produce light in quantum sizes for its own reasons?
Furthermore, I'm not certain that our ways of detecting a single photon aren't applying their own quantization: If we were to play a low power continuous wave light beam on a photo-sensitive emitter in a photomultiplier tube, how do we know that the atom doesn't start ringing up like the glass in front of the loud voice singer, then finally, like the glass breaking, reach such a high energy state that it throws an electron, thereby quantizing it?
As a matter of fact, if electrons are quantum units, would it not be impossible to know whether the light was quantum or not as long as we're using electrons to convey that information? What if light were not quantum, how would we know it? Would we get an electron and a half off the first plate on the photomultiplier? :-)
Interestingly, some even claim to have demonstrated that super tiny antennas which are half a wavelength of visible light behave with light just like radio waves do with normal antennas.
As to all matter being waves, I'm not ready to accept that one yet. How does the Stern-Gerlach experiment prove that matter is waves? I would be most amused to see some photos of the photo plates from a good Stern-Gerlach experiment, if you know where I might find such a thing.
Thanks very much!
-Jesse
The Stern-Gerlach experiment proves that particles have intrinsic quantum numbers, eg, intrinsic angular momentum or spin. However, the other poster, by reasonings unknown, derives from this result, that matter is made of "waves of nothing." With respect to quantum-mechanical type experiments, people generally say that matter manifests wave-like or particle-like behaviors depending on what you are measuring, and leave it like that. However, to some, this comes to mean, by a slight of metaphysical hand, that matter is made of nothing. We might as well conclude that everything is nothing, and nothing exist. So, the Stern-Gerlach experiment proves that neither you nor I nor the other poster exists. See? That's Science. How can you argue with Science?
Say, I'd enjoy hearing a little about what you do and your background. As I mentioned before, I grew up on a small family farm. Between my sparse schooling and chores I did different scientific experiments with stuff I scavenged. I spent wonderful days playing with the conduction of electricity through gases - using an old pneumatic screendoor closer which I had modified as a vacuum pump. As a teenager I read J.J. Thompson's book about the conduction of electricity through gases and performed some of their simpler experiments. Eventually somebody gave me a computer (Texas Instruments TS1000, 2K of memory, 8K rom BASIC, connected to the TV) and I was hooked on programming. I also tinkered extensively with electronics. Now I work designing electronic circuit boards, writing firmware for microcntrollers and scripts for webserver stuff. I still have a great fascination with physical sciences, but alas do not get a lot of time to spend playing anymore.
By the way, with your background in microbiology, I'm surprised that you referred, even in quotations, to a virus as a form of life. Would you consider an effective chain letter also a form of life?
This something from nothing concept seems to be a major problem for you.
Yeah, and for the laws of thermodynamics..! It is simply scientifically irresponsible to teach as fact that all came from nothing when such violates so many known laws of physics and since it has never been demonstrated.
What if I told you that everything is made up of waves of nothing.
I think I'd have to question your sincerity or knowledge. That and I'd ask you to show me one :-)
Now if you said that everything were made up of waves of energy then I'd just want to discuss it more. This is possible anyway, although I as of yet have not been convinced that all matter is waves. I am convinced that light are waves, however.
That matter is simply an emergent property of those waves of nothing. What if I also told you that the theories that those observations are based on are the most precise and accurate theories that we have. They are much more precise than any of Newtons Theories by an order of magnitude, even if they are probabilistic.
This idea of waves of nothing seems a little far out. Please explain these waves of nothing to me. As I said, I'm nowheres near the brightest kid on the block, nor the most educated. But waves of nothing sounds like fairy tails. Perhaps if you clarify or rephrase that one then I'll be able to answer it - at present it's not even a coherent question.
And to answer your next question I have done the Stern-Gerlach and double slit experiment myself, many times actually. So I am not taking that on faith.
I still don't see how Stern-Gerlach or the double-slit proves that matter is waves or that vacuum can fluctuate or that all could have come from nothing. Are we just doing a bit of single-point extrapolation, here? :-)
I don't think that it confirms or denies ASBE. If anything though it confirms it. The fact that in many ways we seem to be poorly designed lends credence to the theory.
But the reason it appears to you (and all who share your dogma) to lend credence to the theory is because it has to in order to fit with the theory. In reality, selective pressure would not so well work to protect the eye, brain, spinal chord, lungs, heart, and so on and then leave a few extremely vital items hanging right out in harms way.
I'm pretty sure that there could be no specimen so unlikely that ASBE (All Species By Evolution) supporters would admit "Yeah, this doesn't make sense." It doesn't matter how illogical it is that ASBE brought about any unlikely creature -- the ASBE supporters will simply say "Well it must have been somehow fittest that way because it evolved that way." The problem is that some of the evidence appears to some to support the theory of ASBE, and some of the evidence appears to contradict it. So the evidence that appears to support it is used to support the theory, then the theory is used to explain away the evidence that contradicts it. This is at least semi-circular reasoning.
See look I can do the same thing, from the other side :-) Some things look like they were designed by in intelligent designer. So there must be an intelligent designer. So the reason some things have poor body design is because God created them that way. [ultra wide grin] Think my side is the only one that does that? :-)
Poor body design (hips, knees, etc.) give credence to the idea that God made mankind in the beginning but over the hundreds of generations, they have devolved. [grin] It happened to German Shepards. (that is to say that they devolved and many of them now have bad hips. But that's not the way they always were.)
We also seem to have a lot of extraneous features, like a tail bone, appendix, and sinus cavities. Then there are the poor and vulnerable structural designs, from a structural engineering view point our knees are a nightmare, the same as our hips and spinal connection.
I thought you were going to mention tonsils there for a minute [grin]!
Great point - is the selective pressure aimed at making better knees so weak that it can just barely keep them usable? Have knees always been a problem? I'm betting that in the beginning they were made good and were entirely adequate!
As to vestigial limbs/organs/glands, first of all, we don't know that they don't serve a purpose. Second, what are you saying? Is that how we got everything - by slowly losing it? :-)
Here is something for you to think about. Your parents each contributed a living cell from themselves to create you. 'Soon' we will be able to trace your genetic lineage back as far as we want, differentiating the sources. Your DNA does a remarkably good job preserving the data. At some point we will be able to compare anyone's or any species genetic data and show when they had a single common ancestor. Right now, we are just doing crude comparison matches, very soon though, in the next 10 to 20 years they will be able to take any two samples and be able to determine how many generations back they had the same parents.
Exactly as I described before!
Let me quote myself:
To us, it looks like the evolutionist believes with all his heart that all came from nothing and that one day the evidence will all come in, but in the mean time they just pretend that it's already in. Faith is the hope in things not yet seen.Exactly what I said! "One day we will have the evidence. I just know we will." Doesn't sound all that scientific to me.
Thanks,
-Jesse
When you observe a falling rock (or anything else) it imparts to you a particular instance of sense-knowledge. Theories are abstractions and as such must be grasped by the intellect and not the senses. You can't observe an abstraction. So, you can't demonstrate "the theory of gravity" by dropping a rock, no moreso can you demonstrate some "theory of color" by noticing that a particular apple is red. Abstractions apprehended by the intellect must be verified or refuted by acts of the intellect: reason, judgement, etc.
that is evidence that supports the TOG. but it is not "proof.'
Obviously it isn't proof, neither is noticing that an apple is red any sort of proof of a "theory of color", because all it is is an observation and not a body of reasoning. As if observation is all there is, and reasoning does not exist, you conclude from this that it isn't possible to verify theories of color or gravity. But this conclusion does not follow. What is wrong with saying that Newton's theory of gravity can be verified by computing the orbit of Ceres and comparing with observation? This is a completely comprehensible and sensible statement. I see no reason to avoid it and instead employ absurd Popperisms (however much in vogue they may be) like 'Newton's theory of gravity can't be verified but if the computed orbit of Ceres does not match observation then it is falsified."
I can prove the existence of the rock, I can't 'prove' the nonexistence (negative) of the rock, you might be hiding it in your fridge.
Why not? All you have to do is open the door, look inside, and note that there is no rock.
when scientists build a theory they don't try to prove a theory, they look for exceptions to the theory. Any exceptions disprove the theory.
As you know, astronomers discovered that the orbit of Uranus deviated from expectation. Physicists did not throw Newton's theory in the garbage. Rather they looked for an unknown object that was the cause.
That is what Aristotle thought. That everything could be determined by reason alone. What we have learned is that abstract reasoning has to be verified by observation, not more 'reasoning.'
What is wrong with saying that Newton's theory of gravity can be verified by computing the orbit of Ceres and comparing with observation?
Absolutely nothing is wrong with saying that it is verified. I verify the TOG every time I go flying. It isn't proof though. Proof is a higher standard than we are able to achieve.
I can prove the existence of the rock, I can't 'prove' the nonexistence (negative) of the rock, you might be hiding it in your fridge.
Why not? All you have to do is open the door, look inside, and note that there is no rock.
Because the rock could be anywhere and I would have to exhaustively search everywhere. That can't be done.
As you know, astronomers discovered that the orbit of Uranus deviated from expectation. Physicists did not throw Newton's theory in the garbage. Rather they looked for an unknown object that was the cause.
Yes, but they were unable to account for Mercuries deviation and Einsteins theory could. I will also agree with you that Einsteins (you didn't state this but I can guess) theory did not disprove Newtons theory, but rather built on it.
I fully understand that a virus doesn't have the ability to replicate on its own. It seems to be more of a way of passing information from one cell to another than anything else. Much of the DNA in your cells came straight from viruses. There is a theory though that encapsulated RNA (viruses) in the primordial soup are the very earliest form of life and that life evolved from that very primitive and simple exchange of information. Obviously viruses aren't alive in the conventional sense.
Yeah, and for the laws of thermodynamics..! It is simply scientifically irresponsible to teach as fact that all came from nothing when such violates so many known laws of physics and since it has never been demonstrated.
Actually stuff comes from nothing all of the time. Pair anti pair creation and destruction is constantly occurring.
Now if you said that everything were made up of waves of energy then I'd just want to discuss it more. This is possible anyway, although I as of yet have not been convinced that all matter is waves. I am convinced that light are waves, however.
You need to read up on the double slit experiment. It clearly demonstrates that light is both waves and/or particles. The same with atoms and even molecules as big as bucky balls. This may not make intuitive sense at first, but it helped me to understand that matter is an emergent property, just like the transition states between water vapour, water and ice.
This idea of waves of nothing seems a little far out. Please explain these waves of nothing to me. As I said, I'm nowheres near the brightest kid on the block, nor the most educated. But waves of nothing sounds like fairy tails. Perhaps if you clarify or rephrase that one then I'll be able to answer it - at present it's not even a coherent question.
Hmm, maybe a divergence will help explain it. The Michelson- Morley experiments proved that there is no ether. Einsteins theory demonstrated that light is a particle (that is what he got the Nobel for) waves have to travel in a medium, there is no medium for them to travel in. Einsteins Theory of relativity put it back in as Space-Time. Waves of nothing is Space-time. Good luck with that explanation :)
I still don't see how Stern-Gerlach or the double-slit proves that matter is waves or that vacuum can fluctuate or that all could have come from nothing. Are we just doing a bit of single-point extrapolation, here? :-)
Read up on the double slit experiment and its variations. This is basic fundamental science, the farthest thing from single-point extrapolation. It is the basis for almost all of our scientific research today, in physics anyway.
Poor body design (hips, knees, etc.) give credence to the idea that God made mankind in the beginning but over the hundreds of generations, they have devolved. [grin] It happened to German Shepards. (that is to say that they devolved and many of them now have bad hips. But that's not the way they always were.)
Devolution is an integral part of the theory of evolution, it is just that variations that don't help die and don't perpetuate as fast as good variations. Could your dogs survive without your assistance?
Do you have any evidence that in the beginning Man was perfect and has devolved over time?
Exactly what I said! "One day we will have the evidence. I just know we will." Doesn't sound all that scientific to me.
You seemed to overlook this statement. " Right now, we are just doing crude comparison matches, very soon though, in the next 10 to 20 years they will be able to take any two samples and be able to determine how many generations back they had the same parents."
We already have the evidence now of common ancestry. It is just that in the future we will be able to say with certainty exactly when and how it happened. Let me give you another analogy, right now we are at the musket stage in the arms race, in a few years we will have 50 caliber sniper rifles. It is the same basic technology (theory) just refined and improved. For the victim it doesn't really matter whether it is a ball that hits him or a high velocity bullet, the results are the same.
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