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Eric Metaxas on fine tuning

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From the Wall Street Journal:

The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp.

Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all “just happened” defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really? More. (You have to pay to read the article.)

See also: Copernicus, you are not going to believe who is using your name. Or how. (no paywall) on how some try to get around fine tuning.

Note: Eric Metaxas

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Comments
#29 bornagain77
the ‘image of God’ is built into man, so every child intuitively knows that purpose/God exist and ‘how to do science’. Atheists live in denial of that correct epistemological basis for science. Only Christianity nourishes that correct belief for doing science
Imago Dei: http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/imago-dei/ http://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/image-god/Dionisio
December 29, 2014
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#28 Me_Think That Arduino thing seems pretty cool. Thanks.Dionisio
December 29, 2014
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Me_Think, the 'image of God' is built into man, so every child intuitively knows that purpose/God exist and 'how to do science'. Atheists live in denial of that correct epistemological basis for science. Only Christianity nourishes that correct belief for doing science: Out of the mouths of babes - Do children believe (in God) because they're told to by adults? The evidence suggests otherwise - Justin Barrett - 2008 Excerpt: • Children tend to see natural objects as designed or purposeful in ways that go beyond what their parents teach, as Deborah Kelemen has demonstrated. Rivers exist so that we can go fishing on them, and birds are here to look pretty. • Children doubt that impersonal processes can create order or purpose. Studies with children show that they expect that someone not something is behind natural order. No wonder that Margaret Evans found that children younger than 10 favoured creationist accounts of the origins of animals over evolutionary accounts even when their parents and teachers endorsed evolution. Authorities' testimony didn't carry enough weight to over-ride a natural tendency. • Children know humans are not behind the order so the idea of a creating god (or gods) makes sense to them. Children just need adults to specify which one. • Experimental evidence, including cross-cultural studies, suggests that three-year-olds attribute super, god-like qualities to lots of different beings. Super-power, super-knowledge and super-perception seem to be default assumptions. Children then have to learn that mother is fallible, and dad is not all powerful, and that people will die. So children may be particularly receptive to the idea of a super creator-god. It fits their predilections. • Recent research by Paul Bloom, Jesse Bering, and Emma Cohen suggests that children may also be predisposed to believe in a soul that persists beyond death. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2008/nov/25/religion-children-god-belief Justin Barrett - Why Would Anyone Believe in God? - Veritas at UC Davis - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I3GAaswAkc Young Children Think Like Scientists - 27 September 2012 Excerpt: "What these experiments show if you give the children one of these causal problems like figuring out how the machine works and then just leave the video recorder running, what you see is when the child is just spontaneously playing. … What they do is to do a bunch of experiments that will give them just information they need to figure out how the toy works," Gopnick said. http://www.livescience.com/23522-young-children-think-like-scientists.html Moreover, Me_Think you were shown that you were wrong in your belief that decoherence causes collapse. It's not my fault you refuse to believe the truth. So don't project onto me the false materialistic belief about machines being conscious. Moreover, Your denial of the reality of your own mind, the most sure thing you can know about reality, leads to the epistemological failure of science (Plantinga) Quantum Zeno effect “It has been experimentally confirmed,, that unstable particles will not decay, or will decay less rapidly, if they are observed. Somehow, observation changes the quantum system. We’re talking pure observation, not interacting with the system in any way.” Douglas Ell – Counting to God – pg. 189 – 2014 – Douglas Ell graduated early from MIT, where he double majored in math and physics. He then obtained a masters in theoretical mathematics from the University of Maryland. After graduating from law school, magna cum laude, he became a prominent attorney. The Mental Universe – Richard Conn Henry – Professor of Physics John Hopkins University Excerpt: The only reality is mind and observations, but observations are not of things. To see the Universe as it really is, we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things.,,, Physicists shy away from the truth because the truth is so alien to everyday physics. A common way to evade the mental universe is to invoke “decoherence” – the notion that “the physical environment” is sufficient to create reality, independent of the human mind. Yet the idea that any irreversible act of amplification is necessary to collapse the wave function is known to be wrong: in “Renninger-type” experiments, the wave function is collapsed simply by your human mind seeing nothing. The universe is entirely mental,,,, The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy. http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/The.mental.universe.pdf The Renninger Negative Result Experiment – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3uzSlh_CV0 Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester Excerpt: In 1994, Anton Zeilinger, Paul Kwiat, Harald Weinfurter, and Thomas Herzog actually performed an equivalent of the above experiment, proving interaction-free measurements are indeed possible.[2] In 1996, Kwiat et al. devised a method, using a sequence of polarising devices, that efficiently increases the yield rate to a level arbitrarily close to one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitzur%E2%80%93Vaidman_bomb-testing_problem#Experiments Experimental Realization of Interaction-Free Measurement – Paul G. Kwiat; H. Weinfurter, T. Herzog, A. Zeilinger, and M. Kasevich – 1994 http://www.univie.ac.at/qfp/publications3/pdffiles/1994-08.pdf Interaction-Free Measurement – 1995 Realization of an interaction-free measurement – 1996 The following video also clearly demonstrates that “decoherence” does not solve the measurement problem: The Measurement Problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7d5V71vUEbornagain77
December 29, 2014
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Dionisio @ 26,27 It's tipsiness (courtesy old friends - 5 in number actually, and we are doing some stuff with Arduino) and glitchy touch input combined. My laptop works fine and apparently it's (that's 'it is') conscious too. It just reported through an Arduino breathalyzer that I need to stop.Me_Think
December 29, 2014
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Me_Think We could switch to writing our comments in Spanish in order to avoid making mistakes in English. Would that work for you too? Let me know. :)Dionisio
December 29, 2014
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#23 Me_Think
My Bad. I should have know machines don’t have consciousness.
"should have know"? Did you mean "should have known" instead?Dionisio
December 29, 2014
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#23 Me_Think
My Bad. I should have know machines don’t have consciousness.
Any idea how or why that apostrophe got in there? You didn't answer any of the questions @20. Perhaps your computer has consciousness but it doesn't know English well? :) In my case, I'm the one who doesn't know this language well, hence I make grammatical and syntactical mistakes quite often.Dionisio
December 29, 2014
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BA77 @ 21
provided, and continues to provide, the necessary epistemological basis for doing modern science.
Do you believe scientist have inter departmental meeting and consult with Philosophers regarding the epistemological basis of the experiments they conduct ? BA77 @ 22
You are sorely mistaken.
Refer to your QM comments. I have pointed out to you that it is the instrument that detects the photons - not the experimenter's mind, so if you believe QM is about consciousness, you believe the instrument is conscious. You either believe that is true, or you believe QM is not about consciousness - Which one is it?
Remember, you are the one who personally denied to me that you have a mind! Or did you forget that little conversation Me_Think?
..and this is your conclusion from the following linked comment ? : Me_Think, if your conscious experience of ‘me’ is simply ‘a manifestation of physical brain’, exactly who is this ‘me’ suppose to be in your handle ‘Me’_Think? You have an amazing brain.Me_Think
December 28, 2014
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Dionisio @ 20 My Bad. I should have know machines don't have consciousness :-)Me_Think
December 28, 2014
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Me_Think you stated: "BA77 still thinks machines have consciousness so there is no point appealing to him." You are sorely mistaken. That would be your atheistic/materialistic comrade Hawking who thinks machines have consciousness: HAWKING'S FEAR OF HUMAN EXTINCTION IS ALL ABOUT PROGRAMMING http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2014/12/11/hawking-s-fear-of-human-extinction-is-al Remember, you are the one who personally denied to me that you have a mind! Or did you forget that little conversation Me_Think? https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/more-on-emergent-poofery/#comment-531038bornagain77
December 28, 2014
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Me_Think you state:
There are many scientists who believe in God, just that most of them don’t let that belief come in their way of work.
Contrary to what you think about belief in God getting in the way of doing science, the fact of the matter is that the belief that God created the universe. and that we were created in his image. provided, and continues to provide, the necessary epistemological basis for doing modern science.
The Threat to the Scientific Method that Explains the Spate of Fraudulent Science Publications - Calvin Beisner | Jul 23, 2014 Excerpt: It is precisely because modern science has abandoned its foundations in the Biblical worldview (which holds, among other things, that a personal, rational God designed a rational universe to be understood and controlled by rational persons made in His image) and the Biblical ethic (which holds, among other things, that we are obligated to tell the truth even when it inconveniences us) that science is collapsing. As such diverse historians and philosophers of science as Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Duhem, Loren Eiseley, Rodney Stark, and many others have observed, and as I pointed out in two of my talks at the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC), science—not an occasional flash of insight here and there, but a systematic, programmatic, ongoing way of studying and controlling the world—arose only once in history, and only in one place: medieval Europe, once known as “Christendom,” where that Biblical worldview reigned supreme. That is no accident. Science could not have arisen without that worldview. http://townhall.com/columnists/calvinbeisner/2014/07/23/the-threat-to-the-scientific-method-that-explains-the-spate-of-fraudulent-science-publications-n1865201/page/full Several other resources backing up this claim are available, such as Thomas Woods, Stanley Jaki, David Linberg, Edward Grant, J.L. Heilbron, and Christopher Dawson. Christianity Gave Birth To Each Scientific Discipline - Dr. Henry Fritz Schaefer - video http://vimeo.com/16523153 Epistemology – Why Should The Human Mind Even Be Able To Comprehend Reality? – Stephen Meyer - video – (Notes in description) http://vimeo.com/32145998 etc.. etc..
And although other worldviews have their failings when compared to Christianity as to providing the correct epistemological basis for doing science, atheism is without doubt the absolute worse worldview for providing a correct epistemological basis for doing modern science. This is because atheism holds that everything ultimately 'randomly' happens for no reason whatsoever. Which explains why there were no atheists at the founding of modern science. i.e. Why do the planets orbit as they do Kepler? Atheistic Kepler, 'For no reason at all' In fact for an atheist to even do modern science he must deny the teleology he sees in the universe and life. This 'denial of purpose' that atheistic scientists see in their work is born out in the following study and quotes:
Design Thinking Is Hardwired in the Human Brain. How Come? - October 17, 2012 Excerpt: "Even Professional Scientists Are Compelled to See Purpose in Nature, Psychologists Find." The article describes a test by Boston University's psychology department, in which researchers found that "despite years of scientific training, even professional chemists, geologists, and physicists from major universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Yale cannot escape a deep-seated belief that natural phenomena exist for a purpose" ,,, Most interesting, though, are the questions begged by this research. One is whether it is even possible to purge teleology from explanation. - per Evolution New and Views Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved. It might be thought, therefore, that evolutionary arguments would play a large part in guiding biological research, but this is far from the case. It is difficult enough to study what is happening now. To figure out exactly what happened in evolution is even more difficult. Thus evolutionary achievements can be used as hints to suggest possible lines of research, but it is highly dangerous to trust them too much. It is all too easy to make mistaken inferences unless the process involved is already very well understood. - Francis Crick Life, Purpose, Mind: Where the Machine Metaphor Fails - Ann Gauger - June 2011 Excerpt: I'm a working biologist, on bacterial regulation (transcription and translation and protein stability) through signalling molecules, ,,, I can confirm the following points as realities: we lack adequate conceptual categories for what we are seeing in the biological world; with many additional genomes sequenced annually, we have much more data than we know what to do with (and making sense of it has become the current challenge); cells are staggeringly chock full of sophisticated technologies, which are exquisitely integrated; life is not dominated by a single technology, but rather a composite of many; and yet life is more than the sum of its parts; in our work, we biologists use words that imply intentionality, functionality, strategy, and design in biology--we simply cannot avoid them. Furthermore, I suggest that to maintain that all of biology is solely a product of selection and genetic decay and time requires a metaphysical conviction that isn't troubled by the evidence. Alternatively, it could be the view of someone who is unfamiliar with the evidence, for one reason or another. But for those who will consider the evidence that is so obvious throughout biology, I suggest it's high time we moved on. - Matthew - per Evolution New and Views
Supplemental notes as to recent advances in science that were driven by the belief that God created the universe and that we were made in the image of God:
Privileged Species - How the cosmos is designed for human life - website http://privilegedspecies.com/ The Place of Life and Man in Nature: Defending the Anthropocentric Thesis - Michael J. Denton - February 25, 2013 Summary (page 11) Many of the properties of the key members of Henderson’s vital ensemble —water, oxygen, CO2, HCO3 —are in several instances fit specifically for warm-blooded, air-breathing organisms such as ourselves. These include the thermal properties of water, its low viscosity, the gaseous nature of oxygen and CO2 at ambient temperatures, the inertness of oxygen at ambient temperatures, and the bicarbonate buffer, with its anomalous pKa value and the elegant means of acid-base regulation it provides for air-breathing organisms. Some of their properties are irrelevant to other classes of organisms or even maladaptive. http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2013.1/BIO-C.2013.1 The Privileged Planet – video playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ohuG3Vj_48&list=PLbzQ4aXdqWD-9kjFsSm-cxNlzgrkJuko7 The very conditions that make Earth hospitable to intelligent life also make it well suited to viewing and analyzing the universe as a whole. - Jay Richards We Live At The Right Time In Cosmic History (To see the Cosmic Background Radiation) - Hugh Ross - video http://vimeo.com/31940671 The Fine-Tuning for Discoverability - Robin Collins - March 22, 2014 Excerpt: Predictive and Explanatory Power of Discoverability - Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation Prediction: DLO: Within the range of values of a given parameter p that yield near - optimal livability, p will fall into that subrange of values that maximize discoverability (given constraints of elegance are not violated). In every case that I was able to make calculations regarding whether the fundamental parameters of physics are optimized in this way, they appear to pass the test.[iv] This alone is significant since this hypothesis is falsifiable in the sense that one could find data that potentially disconfirms it – namely, cases in which as best as we can determining, such as a case in which changing the value of a fundamental parameter – such as the fine - structure constant – increases discoverability while not negatively affecting livability.[v] Below, I will look at a case from cosmology where this thesis could have been disconfirmed but was not.,,, The most dramatic confirmation of the discoverability/livability optimality thesis (DLO) is the dependence of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB) on the baryon to photon ratio.,,, ...the intensity of CMB depends on the photon to baryon ratio, (??b), which is the ratio of the average number of photons per unit volume of space to the average number of baryons (protons plus neutrons) per unit volume. At present this ratio is approximately a billion to one (10^9) , but it could be anywhere from one to infinity; it traces back to the degree of asymmetry in matter and anti - matter right after the beginning of the universe – for approximately every billion particles of antimatter, there was a billion and one particles of matter.,,, The only livability effect this ratio has is on whether or not galaxies can form that have near - optimally livability zones. As long as this condition is met, the value of this ratio has no further effects on livability. Hence, the DLO predicts that within this range, the value of this ratio will be such as to maximize the intensity of the CMB as observed by typical observers. According to my calculations – which have been verified by three other physicists -- to within the margin of error of the experimentally determined parameters (~20%), the value of the photon to baryon ratio is such that it maximizes the CMB. This is shown in Figure 1 below. (pg. 13) It is easy to see that this prediction could have been disconfirmed. In fact, when I first made the calculations in the fall of 2011, I made a mistake and thought I had refuted this thesis since those calculations showed the intensity of the CMB maximizes at a value different than the photon - baryon ratio in our universe. So, not only does the DLO lead us to expect this ratio, but it provides an ultimate explanation for why it has this value,,, This is a case of a teleological thesis serving both a predictive and an ultimate explanatory role.,,, http://home.messiah.edu/~rcollins/Fine-tuning/Greer-Heard%20Forum%20paper%20draft%20for%20posting.pdf Greer Heard Forum: Robin Collins – “God and the Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Discovery” – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBWmMU7BXGE
bornagain77
December 28, 2014
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#19 Me_Think
You, at least, need to understand that the results of a scientist who let’s God in his way of work...
What does it mean "who let's"? Did you mean "who lets" instead? How did the apostrophe got in there? What kind of device are you using to post your comments? Is English your first language? :)Dionisio
December 28, 2014
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Dionisio @ 18, BA77 still thinks machines have consciousness so there is no point appealing to him. You, at least, need to understand that the results of a scientist who let's God in his way of work will be exactly as IDers think: This process is impossible as it is beyond the UPB, so it was created by God. No further explanation is needed, as there can be no alternate mechanism ! How much progress do you think we would make in such a case ?Me_Think
December 28, 2014
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BA77 See post #16 and have fun.Dionisio
December 28, 2014
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BA77 Thank you for the information. That was fast! Let's see if our interlocutors say anything about this. :)Dionisio
December 28, 2014
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Dionisio @ 11,
How can that be? How can such a renown scientist believe in God? Are you sure that information is true? where did you get it from?
There are many scientists who believe in God, just that most of them don't let that belief come in their way of work.Me_Think
December 28, 2014
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#8 Seversky
If someone were able to build a multicellular organism...
Hey, slow down, don't go so fast. Shouldn't they show how to get the individual cells first? Again, no need to build anything, just write the steps to get it done, kind of like technical specs. Do you see what I mean? Then they should get ready to answer a number of questions about their description. Do you know anyone who could and would like to do this?Dionisio
December 28, 2014
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Dionisio here is a really good site on many founders of modern science and other famous scientists who believed in God: http://www.nobelists.net/ download in English http://nobelists.weebly.com/uploads/4/0/2/0/4020654/50-nobelists-english.pdfbornagain77
December 28, 2014
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Dionisio I found the information here at entry #12 Famous Scientists Who Believed in God http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/sciencefaith.htmlbornagain77
December 28, 2014
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#8 Seversky
If someone were able to build a...
Who said that someone has to build anything? They have to just show it, maybe even theoretically, explain it step by step, and be ready for a bunch of questions. That's all, buddy. Pretty simple. No need to get so upset. Take it easy. :)Dionisio
December 28, 2014
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BA77
Max Planck Planck was a devoted Christian from early life to death, was a churchwarden from 1920 until his death, and believed in an almighty, all-knowing, beneficent God.
How can that be? How can such a renown scientist believe in God? Are you sure that information is true? where did you get it from? :)Dionisio
December 28, 2014
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#8 Seversky
...the first thing you’d scream...
How do you know what would be my reaction?Dionisio
December 28, 2014
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Seversky, to be fair, should you not have to create your own dirt?
One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and get lost.” God listened very patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this, let’s say we have a man making contest.” To which the scientist replied, “OK, great!” But God added, “Now, we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.” The scientist said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt. God just looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!”
And to be even more fair, and to be absolutely certain God didn't have a hand in it, would not you have to have a sealed habitat in a universe that was as non-Theistic in its basis as could be? Perhaps Hell where all God's goodness is withheld?
“I have attempted to give you a glimpse…of what there may be of soul in chemistry. But it may have been in vain. Perchance the chemist is already damned and the guardian the blackest. But if the chemist has lost his soul, he will not have lost his courage and as he descends into the inferno, sees the rows of glowing furnaces and sniffs the homey fumes of brimstone, he will call out-: ‘Asmodeus, hand me a test-tube.’” Gilbert Newton Lewis “Gain in entropy always means loss of information, and nothing more.” Gilbert Newton Lewis – Renowned Chemist the maximum source of entropic randomness in the universe is found to be where gravity is greatest, Entropy of the Universe – Hugh Ross – May 2010 Excerpt: Egan and Lineweaver found that supermassive black holes are the largest contributor to the observable universe’s entropy. They showed that these supermassive black holes contribute about 30 times more entropy than what the previous research teams estimated. http://www.reasons.org/entropy-universe “Einstein’s equation predicts that, as the astronaut reaches the singularity (of the black-hole), the tidal forces grow infinitely strong, and their chaotic oscillations become infinitely rapid. The astronaut dies and the atoms which his body is made become infinitely and chaotically distorted and mixed-and then, at the moment when everything becomes infinite (the tidal strengths, the oscillation frequencies, the distortions, and the mixing), spacetime ceases to exist.” Kip S. Thorne – “Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy” pg. 476
Verse and Music:
Romans 8:20-21 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Creed – One Last Breath http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnkuBUAwfe0
Supplemental Notes:
"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." Max Planck - The Father Of Quantum Mechanics - Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], speech at Florence, Italy (1944) (from Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797)(Of Note: Max Planck Planck was a devoted Christian from early life to death, was a churchwarden from 1920 until his death, and believed in an almighty, all-knowing, beneficent God. Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger by Richard Conn Henry - Physics Professor - John Hopkins University Excerpt: Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the "illusion" of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism (solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist). (Dr. Henry's referenced experiment and paper - “An experimental test of non-local realism” by S. Gröblacher et. al., Nature 446, 871, April 2007 - “To be or not to be local” by Alain Aspect, Nature 446, 866, April 2007 (Leggett's Inequality: Verified to 120 standard deviations) http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/aspect.html
bornagain77
December 28, 2014
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Dionisio @ 7
I’d give away gratis all the fine-tuned parameters and challenge ANYONE (and their cousins) to show me how to build the first biological cell and the first multicellular organisms.
And how would that help exactly? If someone were able to build a multicellular organism in the laboratory the first thing you'd scream it him was "Design!" and then point out that this organism had not evolved naturally but been produced by an intelligent designer, specifically the scientist who achieved the breakthrough. The only way around it, as far as I see, is to create a large, sealed 'habitat' in which the conditions are as close to those on the early earth as we can get. The we watch it for half a billion years, say, to see what, if anything, emerges. I do admit, though, that we are probably going to need some divine assistance on running that one.Seversky
December 28, 2014
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I'd give away gratis all the fine-tuned parameters and challenge ANYONE (and their cousins) to show me how to build the first biological cell and the first multicellular organisms. The fine tuning thing just makes it worse, but without the fine tuning it would not be easy at all. My former employer could have had the best computers and the best software developers in the world, but still wouldn't have created the successful product they sold, had they lacked the brilliant ideas of the project leaders. Ideas go first. That's priceless. Other things can be bought using VISA or MasterCard. :)Dionisio
December 28, 2014
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Mung #3
The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all.
I just don’t see how that can possibly be true. Comments anyone?
Here's a quote from Rob Sheldon talking about why the big bang advocates added inflation into their theory http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/03/bang_for_the_bu083451.html
“But the inflationary claim is more spectacular because it was even more unexpected. Inflation was Alan Guth’s attempt to explain why the early universe after the Big Bang was so very “flat,”which is to say, why the force of the explosion matched the force of gravity to one part in 10 to the 60. To put this in perspective, there are about 10 to the 80 protons in the visible universe, so 10 to the 20 protons, about one grain of sand, would have unbalanced the Big Bang, causing it either to recollapse into a black hole, or to expand so fast as to never form stars and galaxies. One grain of sand more, one grain less and we would not be here.”
Wikipedia then says: "The inflationary epoch lasted from 10 to the -36 seconds after the Big Bang to sometime between 10 to the -33 and 10 to the -32 seconds. Following the inflationary period, the universe continues to expand, but at a less accelerated rate." So, does inflation then eliminate the fine-tuning? Comments anyone?awstar
December 27, 2014
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Mung, the fine tuning required for the Creation of Heavens & Earth is greater than that of Earth alone. There are probabilities (under)estimated for both H&E and E alone. H&E more fine tuned than E by quite a few orders of magnitude.ppolish
December 27, 2014
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There's a trick for getting pay-walled Wall Street Journal articles in their entirety. Google key words such as the title, and the link there will take you the complete article. Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God From what I've heard it's something to do with Google rankings, is why the WSJ does this. EDIT: Merry Christmas... ;Djstanley01
December 27, 2014
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The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all.
I just don't see how that can possibly be true. Comments anyone?Mung
December 27, 2014
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Fox News - Science and the Existence of God • Kelly File • - Eric Metaxas - 12/26/14 - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heXr3JTaYIUbornagain77
December 27, 2014
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