<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You propose the existence of some objective time scale, by which our observed time is a mere approximation. In that case, wouldn't it be that "light is slowing down" is actually the case? So you're saying that since our observed time asymptotically approaches "the beginning", we can't actually observe it.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I proposed the existence of some objective time scale only in the course of aruging that there IS no meaningful objective timescale.
You obviously didn't read what I said: I said that the black hole stuff was worth reading because it gives you an idea about how utterly weird things are when you start talking about singularities. The universe is certainly not _exactly_ like a backwards black hole. The point is simply to understand how hard it is to talk about time when there is no "right" timescale on which to measure things against.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->QM doesn't support spontaneously generating jillions of kg of matter or ergs of radiation.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's what the whole inflationary period would have been all about.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->In fact, QM is as we know it only part of the story; the high-energy physics that would be required in a "universe-infinitesmal point" are quite different than QM.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those physics, however, come LATER. We are talking about the possibility that mater and anti-matter simply first came into being on what was, originally, a quantum scale, at least from our current perspective (again, it gets real screwy real fast to try and discuss these things in simple terms.)
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Couldnt BB not actually be an older universe destroyed by gravity? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not by gravity, per se, but it could be that our known universe might have been preceeded by a big crunch. It doesn't look like our universe is headed that way though: we look set for either a long slow heat-to-cold death or even more violent destruction of all particles ripping too far away from each other to interact. Or, even more extreme, perhaps string theory is correct, and at some point all the extra dimensions will spring open, pretty much wiping out everything we know.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And given all that, you'd really have us believe that scientists were wrong for thinking that he might have a rather disreputable agenda? Someone in Russia litters their scientific papers with constant references to Marxist theory and clearly twists data in order to fit some Marxist prediction. Scientists are rightly skeptical and have some prettyharsh words for such behavior. This guy does the same, and he' supposed ot be given a free pass?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Of course, the scientific community only has it out for creationists, not just any hack who manipulates data and distorts facts to meet a particular agenda.
<!--QuoteBegin-Aegeri+Feb 7 2005, 08:35 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Aegeri @ Feb 7 2005, 08:35 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And given all that, you'd really have us believe that scientists were wrong for thinking that he might have a rather disreputable agenda? Someone in Russia litters their scientific papers with constant references to Marxist theory and clearly twists data in order to fit some Marxist prediction. Scientists are rightly skeptical and have some prettyharsh words for such behavior. This guy does the same, and he' supposed ot be given a free pass?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Of course, the scientific community only has it out for creationists, not just any hack who manipulates data and distorts facts to meet a particular agenda. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Okay.....can you give an example of where the global scientific community accepted an obviously biased conclusion? Or do you just like to sling mud? <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Spacer+Feb 7 2005, 05:55 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Spacer @ Feb 7 2005, 05:55 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-AvengerX+Feb 7 2005, 03:31 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (AvengerX @ Feb 7 2005, 03:31 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> the big bang theory... hehe.. thats allways a good one... ok , let me give you a tid bit of information....
the big bang theory is about as plausible as this..... An ink factory explodes, and a 500 page novel is created..... yeah, when that happens, then I'll believe in big bangs <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> It's certainly more plausible than a big man in the sky creating everything in a week. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> says the man who crawled out of the ocean and evovled from a monkey.. listen monkey boy, what do you know anyways?
the world as it is is a relatively balanced universe ( sure thers small things but nothing too big) lets look at how that works
it could take years to build a sky scraper, and only minutes to destroy it. a human adult takes 20 years to develope but can be killed with one single gun shot, a red wood tree takes decades to grow and can be cut down in an hour.
get what I'm saving, its allways easier to destroy things then it is to create things, so how is it that anything exists at all? what is the force that tips the scale to the other direction into the posostive? how do you think any of that happens?
<!--QuoteBegin-AvengerX+Feb 7 2005, 10:30 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (AvengerX @ Feb 7 2005, 10:30 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> ok monkey boy, you go for that.
the world as it is is a relatively balanced universe ( sure thers small things but nothing too big) lets look at how that works
it could take years to build a sky scraper, and only minutes to destroy it. a human adult takes 20 years to develope but can be killed with one single gun shot, a red wood tree takes decades to grow and can be cut down in an hour.
get what I'm saving, its allways easier to destroy things then it is to create things, so how is it that anything exists at all? what is the force that tips the scale to the other direction into the posostive? how do you think any of that happens? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Are you trying to get at proving that there is a God? Because thats entirely beside the point and no one cares.
what are we dissucusiing here? Evolution, or Common Ancestory? the two are very diffrent. Evolution is simply when DNA changes and stuff. and we all know thats true, Darwin proved that back on the islands with the bird beaks and the turtle necks, but Common Ancestory is believeing that we came from apes or whales or skulk baits mom or what not.
Evolution - True proven thing to exist in the world
Common Ancestory - a good story to laugh about and give unaware people like skulk bait something to hang onto no matter how far fetched.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Are you trying to get at proving that there is a God? Because thats entirely beside the point and no one cares.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> and what skulkbait really means by "no one cares" is "i don't care".
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I proposed the existence of some objective time scale only in the course of aruging that there IS no meaningful objective timescale.
You obviously didn't read what I said: I said that the black hole stuff was worth reading because it gives you an idea about how utterly weird things are when you start talking about singularities. The universe is certainly not _exactly_ like a backwards black hole. The point is simply to understand how hard it is to talk about time when there is no "right" timescale on which to measure things against. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> BB theory depends on <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weyl%27s_postulate' target='_blank'>this</a>, so I think your speculation that there is no "objective time" is by default false in this debate. Space-time is objective in the sense that it is fundamental to the universe, however local measurements of it need not be "consistent." If you're going to use that to argue that there is no beginning of the universe, I call BS. If you're going to use it to argue that we can't *measure* the beginning of the universe, or observe it, then that would be true. However, we can infer it by indirect means. If you mean to say that the Planck Epoch lasted to infinity, I would counter that the Planck Epoch is an unstable state and would decay immediately. BB theory doesn't propose a mechanism for the BB; that is pure speculation. Especially, as you pointed out, because things get so weird near singularities, and the universe would most certainly have been a singularity pre-BB. The jillions of GeV of matter and energy aren't explained by the BB; only their present configuration. There is still the question of how they got there in the first place. And don't tell me loads of crap about zero-point energy, vacuum potential, anything like that, because that is theoretically based on our space-time metric, which didn't exist pre-BB, and looked entirely different for the first 10^-35 s of the universe. *edit* even if the universe is a series of "big crunch/big bounce" events, as you may propose, where did the original singularity come from? What caused the laws of quantum mechanics to come into being?
Also, if <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime' target='_blank'>quantization of space-time</a> is true, then Zeno's paradox holds no water for our universe, since it assumes an arbitrary, nonlinear, unquantized "time" in which you travel.
Anyway, Apos, are you a physicist, by any chance? Side note: <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-structure_constant' target='_blank'>summary</a> of the light-speed variation debate.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Feb 8 2005, 12:18 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Feb 8 2005, 12:18 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Are you trying to get at proving that there is a God? Because thats entirely beside the point and no one cares.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> and what skulkbait really means by "no one cares" is "i don't care". <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> No, I'm with Skulkbait on this one. AvengerX: shut the hell up. Do you notice that EVERYONE else that has participated in this conversation has either given proof, or been called on their lack of proof? Well, not only have you not given proof to support ridiculing common descent, you scoff at the very idea that you should be forced to prove your trusted beliefs. Well, put a sock in it; no one here is willing to listen to you babble on about how common descent is idiotic if you don't even care about some basic rules for debating.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Feb 8 2005, 12:18 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Feb 8 2005, 12:18 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Are you trying to get at proving that there is a God? Because thats entirely beside the point and no one cares.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> and what skulkbait really means by "no one cares" is "i don't care".<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What I mean is "it has nothing to do with the this thread". Though you are correct when you say that I don't care, because I really don't.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->but Common Ancestory is believeing that we came from apes or whales or skulk baits mom or what not.
Evolution - True proven thing to exist in the world
Common Ancestory - a good story to laugh about and give unaware people like skulk bait something to hang onto no matter how far fetched. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, or you could stop being an ignorant jackass and read the (several flipping pages worth) of evidence presented thus far for abiogenesis and whatnot
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Or so says a creationist site's interpretation of the controversy. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
WTH? Am I my own creationist website now? That's <b>my</b> conclusion based around reading and examining the report in question. But hey, I'm one of those wretched creationists too, so file me away under "creationist's interpretation" and put me on the ignore list.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I note that Setterfield also speaks of "secular" science and then his own contrasting sort of science. He speaks not of trying to find the truth without preconceptions, but rather that the Bible is true, and his job is simply to find the evidence to establish that. <b>His report begins with the goal of reconciling "the observational problems of astronomy and Genesis creation," as well as the idea that reality was created 6000 years ago.</b><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
AHAHAHAHAHA. You didnt read the report did yah son? You didnt even glance at it. You are reading everything off an evolutionary ganksheet. How else could you make that blatantly false statement I highlighted above unless you were? Here is the link, <a href='http://www.ldolphin.org/setterfield/report.html#3i' target='_blank'>AGAIN.</a> Open up Setterfields report, type in God as a text search. Type in creator, creation, jesus, biblical, bible - none of them come up. That's because in his report, Setterfield kept it 100% scientific, nothing but his evidence and analysis.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Again, sceintists are generally not all that amused when scientists start off by boldly contradicting all known facts without presenting any serious account for htis considerably huge claim.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, they were mildly interested, because it was 100% scientific, but definately needed to be challenged. Then they discovered that he was a creationist, and believed that, if correct, his article could be used in creationist apologetics, then out came the gank squad. He did not mention the fact that he was a creationist at all in the report, or attempt to tie anything like that in.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->This is not something scientists tend to be impressed with. If I litter my articles on cuttlefish reproduction with "and this suggests that Oswald couldn't have killed Kennedy" I can be guaranteed a fairly harsh response, especially if my work is painfully sloppy to begin with. If I then submit another painfuly tortured paper in which I never explictly say anything about Oswald, but purport to prove that people cannot be killed from book depositories... what do youtihnk the response is going to be? Are people going to be either fooled or amused?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You know what scientists arent impressed with either? It's when someone who hasnt read their work, who ignores their work when provided the opportunity, then grabs some libel off a desperately partisan website and makes fraudulent claims that are transparently false to anyone <b>without</b> a scientific background if they just took the time to quickly peruse the damn report.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Setterfield's work was chock full of obvious holes, methodological flaws, and statistical monstrosities right from the start, plus was filled with copious indirect references to a Biblical timeline that he was trying to squeeze into the data.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This just keeps getting better and better. You pick the tree, you make your own rope, toss it over the branch, make a noose, place head inside and then kick the bucket out from underneath yourself.... How am I supposed to treat your claims of "obvious holes" now?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Good grief: why did the tail end of the function just happen to occur right when the most accurate measurement methods are available, right at the time when we might want to test his hypothesis? How did he choose THAT very particular situation, when the very question first at hand was which data points should be used to construct the curve? Do you see the problem? Do you see why this would raise immediate suspicion?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No I dont. I think his argument rose and fell based on the previous dates before that time. If his claims about those previous dates/experiments could have been substantiated, then it would still follow that the most recent experiments wouldnt record the change his hypothesis claimed could have happened in the past. It was a perfectly reasonable request to make, that those figures be disregarded until his hypothesis could be disproved by other means. I am convinced his hypothesis was disproved by other means. But your "creationist" website tried to make that look like deception - it wasnt. He even kept those eliminated 70 data points, including the atomic clock, in table 2, which he analysed and compared along side the refined list of 120 odd points. If this is deception - then he sucks at it.
<!--c1--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->TABLE C
This would seem to indicate that any decay is following a non-linear pattern. These two facts have a bearing on the post 1960 results. A tapering rate of decay may get to the stage where it is undetectable or ceases, depending on the decay pattern. The significance of this is enforced by the results of equation (34) and the remarks pertaining thereto.<!--c2--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The whole thing is constructed under the assumption that it is now untestable: that we must rely on past measurements of more dubious value. The curve Setterfield picks is the one that would produce JUST this situation. <b>Never in the article is any other experimental justification given other than that the values wouldn't fit IF and only IF the exact curve Setterfield chose was in play. And how does this exact curve get picked?</b> Well he even gets his "original" value of c not by any observation, but simply extending his arbitrarily chosen curve back to when he believes Biblical creation started. In fact, here's his "scientific" reasoning for how all this inexplicably stuff works out, stuff that wasn't included in his article but underly his particular and otherwise inexplicable choices made in the article: "I will assume that this value held from the time of creation until the time of the fall, as in my opinion the Creator would not have allowed it to decay during His initial work." What sound science: because of his own interpretation of what HE thinks God might have done according to the Genesis account, he can arbitrarily decide when c began to decay so that it would fit his curve where c would decay in JUST such a way that it couldn't be tested for today! In other words, his whole curve, from which to derive the approximate age of the universe, is depedant on him arbitrarily deciding what God would have done during the creation week. A little presumptuous of Setterfield, no, to think Setterfield knows best what God was up to?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good Lord - its beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. Not only do you continue embarrasingly hammering away at Setterfield's report "God Bias", but you make <b>another</b> fraudulent claim that demonstrates again that you cant possibly have looked at the thing. Below is the relevant section to your absurd statements highlighted above in bold:
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->However, it is desirable to use only the most reliable values to determine the true situation. Birge11 summarized the best 13 values by six methods in the period 1874.8 to 1940, including those of Rosa/Dorsey and Mercier. Let us take Birge's basic list as definitive, as did Huttel47, Bergstrand48, and Cohen and DuMond49. These same data were advocated by de Bray50,51, and Mittelstaedt52. If the Table 7 and 8 values are added with the remaining starred data from Table 4, then a core of 51 of the most reliable results by 14 methods emerges. The most conservative estimates by the Roemer method are the official 1876.5 ±32 value and the 1861 ±13 result. Newcomb26 lists Nyren's 1883 treatment as the most definitive value by the Bradley method. Its best conservative early data are Lindenau's and Struve's 1843 value with Bradley's reworked average. These total an extra six points from two other methods. Thus, 57 best possible data by 16 methods can be listed as in Table 11 and associated Figures II, III, IV.
These Table 11 data give a mean c value at 52.5 Km/s above c now. Statistically, these data give a confidence interval of 99.46% that c was above its present value. A least squares linear fit indicates a decay of 2.79 Km/s per year with r = - 0.878 and a confidence of 99.99% in the decay correlation. Non linear fits give an improvement on the value of r. Initial independent analyses of these data at Newcastle University53 concluded that 'Any two stage curve fit gives a highly significant improvement over the assumption of a constant c value. Residuals reduced from 22,000 to under 2000.'
Thus 16 different methods of measurement by almost 50 different instruments all exhibit the decay trend. The only values that went against the trend were all rejected by the experimenters themselves or their peers. If this were simply the result of equipment unreliability and improved measurement techniques as Dorsey implied in 1944, then it would be a most unusual phenomenon in itself. Yet historically the measurements and past equipment have only been called into question because their values for c differed from those currently prevailing. This itself argues against any 'intellectual phase-locking'. The other option is that all 16 methods were registering c correctly within their error margins, but that c itself has changed. The above results are typical of a decaying quantity. The atom and atomic constants now need to be examined to see if they support the idea and answer Birge's criticism. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Here's a YOUNG Earth Creationist site coming to the same conclusion:
Here's what THEY have to say about the quality of the analysis: "Unfortunately, even a cursory glance at the data reveals that the above analysis is inappropriate for the given data set, and, hence, the conclusions drawn from it are not valid."
Hmm, cursory glance? Doesn't sound so watertight to me. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again! It's like you are doing this deliberately. Already in this post has a link been posted responding to that article. Do you simply not read anything unless it is posted in a body of text?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And, of course, as it happened, there were countless other ways to test the hypothesis that c had decayed the way Setterfield claimed. Not only did he not address any of them, but their abscence from discussion is particuarly glaring given that the tests would imply looking for the sorts of things I noted above: I didn't say that the universe would collapse: I said that radiation would have to be shooting out of radioactive isotopes so fast and so hard that it would rip everything we know to pieces. You think you can't last long near radioactive uranium: imagine Noah sailing around being bombarded by radiation a thousands times stronger, his every cell pummeled by charged particles ripping apart every chemical bond he's got.
Indeed, there are so MANY different things that would be different in a universe with a rapidly decaying c that it could not look almost anything like we imagine or observe today.
It's much the same with seafloor spreading. In the atlantic, there is a place in the crust that is welling up new seafloor from the depths as the plates head away from each other: a couple of centimeters each year, give or take. It was this that pushed South America and South Africa apart, and thus we have a fairly amazing thing on our hands: a record of the past earth that's almost like the rings of yearly growth on a tree. We can radioactively date the rocks farther and farther from the trench, and they get older as we head away from it. But even if you don't buy radioactive dating (which is absurd in itself, but whatever), the process extrapolated from current rates gives us more than a hundred million years of slow movement recorded in cooled volanic seafloor between African and SA. Now, creationists could indeed claim that the rate of this seafloor expansion was much faster in the past, and that would solve the problem, even though there is no known mechanism for this to have happened. But could that really have happened? And the answer is: no. If it had happened even a couple times as fast, let alone as fast as creationists would need to fit their 4,000-10,000 year timeline, the plates would have had to have moved so fast, and so much force would be required, that the surface of the planet would shatter, buckle, explode, and all sorts of other crazy stuff. And on a smaller scale, we can actually tell by looking at the seafloor how fast it once spread anyway, because the molten rock cools in very different ways depending on how fast it wells up. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As I said, I dont believe his theory either. Even Setterfield claims it has been answered and found wanting. I dont know enough to question or even understand much of what you typed here, but I'll take your word for it.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The point is, anyone who knows anything about the universe or earth history would have this number ready tospit out at a moments notice no matter how tired they were. It is so heavily tied in with other elements of these fields that it's like claiming to know what the founders wanted but not knowing any of their names. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Okay, sure. You win, I'm a horrible creationist who is dumb, and who hates science, and who wouldnt know reason from rubbish if you paid him. And in the spirit of inane extrapolations of mistakes made in posts, I'm going to accuse you of slandering me by making false claims about me insulting people. Sound pretty dumb? Sound completely irrelevant to the argument? It is. Nice dodge though btw, just ignore it and keep ploughing on.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And given all that, you'd really have us believe that scientists were wrong for thinking that he might have a rather disreputable agenda? Someone in Russia litters their scientific papers with constant references to Marxist theory and clearly twists data in order to fit some Marxist prediction. Scientists are rightly skeptical and have some prettyharsh words for such behavior. This guy does the same, and he' supposed ot be given a free pass?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
LOL. In light of the amazing amount of baseless and incorrect slanderous statements you made above: that just sums it up doesnt it? Y'know what mate? Forget this thread - I quit. I am sickened and disgusted by the way you have carried yourself and your argument, blanket credibility denials, slander and the outright disrespect of completely ignoring the links provided to you. You made your arguments based solely around obviously deceptive ganksheets probably provided by Talkorigins and friends, and they didnt stand up to the actual report itself. Two sides to every story - there might, just might, be a lesson here. Goodnight.
<span style='font-size:0pt;line-height:100%'>[Generally short for one of my posts, especially a discussion post, but you guys really aren't going to get anyhwere bickering back and forth from seperate corners of a room...in different buildings...across the world from eachother.]</span>
Anyway, I think the original intent of the thread has been found (or at least found to be impossible to know for certain); either way, we've got evolution to discuss now even if, for some reason, Darwin didn't want us to. It's really unimportant anyway since someone, somewhere, sometime would have theorized evolution eventually.
EpidemicDark Force GorgeJoin Date: 2003-06-29Member: 17781Members
<!--QuoteBegin-UltimaGecko+Feb 8 2005, 07:28 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (UltimaGecko @ Feb 8 2005, 07:28 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Tell me again how this relates to Darwin?
<span style='font-size:0pt;line-height:100%'>[Generally short for one of my posts, especially a discussion post, but you guys really aren't going to get anyhwere bickering back and forth from seperate corners of a room...in different buildings...across the world from eachother.]</span>
Anyway, I think the original intent of the thread has been found (or at least found to be impossible to know for certain); either way, we've got evolution to discuss now even if, for some reason, Darwin didn't want us to. It's really unimportant anyway since someone, somewhere, sometime would have theorized evolution eventually. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> It "evolved" into a discussion <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Fire Eel+Jan 16 2005, 11:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Fire Eel @ Jan 16 2005, 11:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
However, at least 2 Christians have told me this : At his dying bed, Darwin completely regretted his ideas to spread Evolution, to doubt and not believe in god. He started out as a Christian and he would die as one. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'd call that "covering your bases" because nobody truly knows whats after this lifetime.
<!--QuoteBegin-Sky+Feb 8 2005, 07:22 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Sky @ Feb 8 2005, 07:22 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Feb 8 2005, 12:18 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Feb 8 2005, 12:18 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Are you trying to get at proving that there is a God? Because thats entirely beside the point and no one cares.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> and what skulkbait really means by "no one cares" is "i don't care". <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> No, I'm with Skulkbait on this one. AvengerX: shut the hell up. Do you notice that EVERYONE else that has participated in this conversation has either given proof, or been called on their lack of proof? Well, not only have you not given proof to support ridiculing common descent, you scoff at the very idea that you should be forced to prove your trusted beliefs. Well, put a sock in it; no one here is willing to listen to you babble on about how common descent is idiotic if you don't even care about some basic rules for debating. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> coming from the guy who's most active in the "off-topic" forum? what exactly do you bring to community anyways? execpt for your funny belief system and annoying rantings and ravings.
you need to chill out , I understand I'd be pretty cranky if I was 18 and my balls still haven't dropped. but its ok man, just chill out monkey boy.
<!--QuoteBegin-AvengerX+Feb 8 2005, 05:49 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (AvengerX @ Feb 8 2005, 05:49 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Sky+Feb 8 2005, 07:22 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Sky @ Feb 8 2005, 07:22 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Feb 8 2005, 12:18 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Feb 8 2005, 12:18 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Are you trying to get at proving that there is a God? Because thats entirely beside the point and no one cares.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> and what skulkbait really means by "no one cares" is "i don't care". <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> No, I'm with Skulkbait on this one. AvengerX: shut the hell up. Do you notice that EVERYONE else that has participated in this conversation has either given proof, or been called on their lack of proof? Well, not only have you not given proof to support ridiculing common descent, you scoff at the very idea that you should be forced to prove your trusted beliefs. Well, put a sock in it; no one here is willing to listen to you babble on about how common descent is idiotic if you don't even care about some basic rules for debating. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> coming from the guy who's most active in the "off-topic" forum? what exactly do you bring to community anyways? execpt for your funny belief system and annoying rantings and ravings.
you need to chill out , I understand I'd be pretty cranky if I was 18 and my balls still haven't dropped. but its ok man, just chill out monkey boy. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> 1) I go to the offtopic forum because, ironically, it is one of the more "safe" forums, ie no "OMG NERF XX!" or "WE NEED MORE GUNS!!" threads, and talk about the coming versions and/or ports to our engines are for the most part nonexistent. Also, it is a fantastic meeting place for forumites to chat, and indeed sometimes it gets very personal. It certainly is not something I'm ashamed to be part of.
2) If you're balls didn't drop until you were 18, you have issues far beyond anything that can be solved with a post in the offtopic forum.
3) Maturity is more tied to behavior than age; even if you're older than I am you certainly are the more wont for maturity, judging by your crude insults and your apparent apathy towards all subjects you deign to post on.
4) As for your "contributions" to this community, I joined just a short while after you and I have yet to see a post from you that is actually helpful in any way shape or form. Especially in the I&S forum. You used to go crazy in there, if my memory serves me well, and it does. You've cooled off recently, but that's mainly because you just like bashing new people making the same mistakes you yourself made just a year ago or so. So good job; you're a far more valuable member of the community than I. Actually, how you can compare <b>anyone's</b> supposed value to the community to anyone else's is beyond me; this isn't a popularity contest man. This is a couple thousand people coming together anonymously to talk; if you want to turn it into "I'm contributing more to the forums because I post in I&S LOL!!11!!" then go ahead, but don't expect anything but derision or indifference from the rest of the community.
5) My "funny belief system" is actually Catholicism, just fyi. Except I put WHAT I BELIEVE TO BE acceptance and humanity in general before religious tradition. Also, I believe in science because God gave me 5 senses and an analytical mind; if He didn't want us to go probing around His Universe He wouldn't have created curiousity.
6) You do realize by calling me "monkey boy", an obvious dig at evolution brought on by your (unfounded) scorn of common descent, you are in fact insulting the entire human race. Did you forget you were supposed to be pretending to be human or something?
7) I said it once and I'll say it again, this is the Discussion forum. Back up what you post or don't post it, it's as simple as that. I at least make an attempt to make my "annoying rantings and ravings" make sense, unlike someone else who, say, claims a theory is complete bull just because he says it's impossible, even though there are vast swaths of information already posted proving that such a theory is indeed possible. Of course, that's just an example.....
this isn't the time or place for this disscussion, but we'll have it anyways
I posted a lot in I&S , and a lot of my ideas were bad... but a lot of them I just planted so they'd be flame bait and I could get into a good disscussion about them.. the others were just bad ideas
I'm gonna stop the needless fighting, because no one really wants to read it , and people would much rather get back to the topic at hand. so I'm going ot be the bigger man and overlook you.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->WTH? Am I my own creationist website now? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You are when you basically parrot the site you linked to, which isn't just any creationist site, but one of the guys most heavily involved in this controversy.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> How else could you make that blatantly false statement I highlighted above unless you were? Here is the link, AGAIN.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that in your universe, Setterfield only ever wrote one report, and never wrote anything prior or afterwards. His website doesn't exist either.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Open up Setterfields report, type in God as a text search. Type in creator, creation, jesus, biblical, bible - none of them come up. That's because in his report, Setterfield kept it 100% scientific, nothing but his evidence and analysis.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They didn't "discover" that the guy was a creationist. He'd been at this game for a long time. Like many creationists, he wised up and put out some papers with all the God stuff removed. But nobody is fooled when a wolf that's been visibly circling puts on sheeps clothing and saunters over.
Are you denying that his basic purpose was to reconcile evidence with a Biblical timeline? Can't you see how, even in his non-scientific report, he's couching otherwise inexplicable assumptions purely because this fits those preoccupations? You can't draw the curve until you first assume something about the data.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Not only do you continue embarrasingly hammering away at Setterfield's report "God Bias", but you make another fraudulent claim that demonstrates again that you cant possibly have looked at the thing. Below is the relevant section to your absurd statements highlighted above in bold:<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those paragraphs don't address the problem I pointed out at all.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Again! It's like you are doing this deliberately. Already in this post has a link been posted responding to that article. Do you simply not read anything unless it is posted in a body of text?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I can tell that you are getting desperate, because that response doesn't actually address the issue raised (wrong method for the data set). You're just eager to run out of here. The ICR, again, is a young earth creationist organization (one of the largest and most influential) that has every reason to believe that the speed of light changed or some other miracle possibility. So how am I exactly quoting "evolutionist" ganksheets again?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->LOL. In light of the amazing amount of baseless and incorrect slanderous statements you made above: that just sums it up doesnt it?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again: are you denying that Setterfield's other writing isn't chock full of his theological commitments? The fact that he publishes one paper snidely with all the 4000-year timeline references left out, but all the basic assumptions and hackneyed math still in place is not going to impress or fool anyone, and the self-conscious martyr pose is only going to snag true believers.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->As I said, I dont believe his theory either. Even Setterfield claims it has been answered and found wanting. I dont know enough to question or even understand much of what you typed here, but I'll take your word for it.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The whole point of the seafloor spreading example is that you can't just run into a room full of scientists, tell them something that is pretty much the equivalent of saying that the sun is actually an illusion according to a single statistical method, and expect them to take you seriously if you haven't at least done a cursory survey of what the other implications for that possibility are. Everyone is going to thing something is up. And guess what: they were right! Something was up.
In short:
-Setterfield had a long and STATED history of setting out to prove that evidence must fit the Biblical timeline. You can't deny this. -He publishes a sloppy paper with all the Bible references stripped out, but the basic assumptions all still in place. -Nobody was fooled.
Now, scientists are nasty and harsh to each other all the time: even among this incredible cabal of evolutionists you seem to think all conspired to quash Setterfield. They eviscerted his paper not only because of its obvious bias, but on the merits as well. Just because a few creationists want to polish the thing into a story of doesn't make it so.
And you obviously skipped over my "Oswald" story for a reason: why was that? I think it was because you wanted to portray my post as not aknowledging that the paper that was scoffed at lacked God references. But that was the whole explicit point of the Oswald section. So I wonder: who is pulling the wool over whose eyes here?
Wheee, you seem to be operating under some misunderstandings here. All I'm discussing is the possibilities for various understandings of the universe. All I'm pointing out is that there is no obvious incontrovertible case for a "start" to the universe in any meaningful sense. The universe may or may not have had any "start." There may or may not have been a cause for it. But nothing in science allows us to assume that there must have been. You can't very well throw the specific laws of space-time at me to assert that the universe couldn't have been a spontaneous particle/anti-particle appearance. All that is necessary for my purposes is simply to point out that there is no universal prohibition against such a thing happening, since we do, in fact, see it happen. I don't need to nail down a _particular_ account of physical laws, because we are ignorant of what they might be. All that is necessary is to point out that it is currently a logically possible state of affairs.
Don't you think that it's at least somewhat interesting that the total energy of the universe might potentially sum roughly to.... 0?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->as you may propose, where did the original singularity come from? What caused the laws of quantum mechanics to come into being?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, there is no necessary reason that they or it had to come "from" anywhere. The concept certainly is, at the very least, a pretty questionable use of language.
<!--QuoteBegin-Apos+Feb 8 2005, 07:49 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Apos @ Feb 8 2005, 07:49 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Don't you think that it's at least somewhat interesting that the total energy of the universe might potentially sum roughly to.... 0? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I am intrigued. Where'd you hear that, discussion about dark matter/energy?
I'm not operating under misunderstanding, I'm just challenging your assertion.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> There may or may not have been a cause for it. But nothing in science allows us to assume that there must have been.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Modern physics points to a finite universe; there are very very few people who hold the opinion that the universe is infinite now. Of course, popularity doesn't make things true, but on the other hand your claim is something similar to what Aegeri says when he compares God to an invisible pink unicorn in the sky. There is no evidence for your position. In fact, all the evidence speaks against it.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> You can't very well throw the specific laws of space-time at me to assert that the universe couldn't have been a spontaneous particle/anti-particle appearance. All that is necessary for my purposes is simply to point out that there is no universal prohibition against such a thing happening, since we do, in fact, see it happen. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes, I can. Spontaneous particle/anti-particle appearance <b>depends</b> on the laws of quantum physics, or a system similar to it. Are you familiar with Occam's razor? In this case, the mathematical scenario is much simpler than your "just-so" scenario, with exactly the same implications and premises. Talking about zero-point energy doesn't make sense at all unless you look at it under a QFT. Obviously you are misunderstanding what a particle/anti-particle appearance is. There's a reason that virtual particles are called virtual. Remember that the heisenberg uncertainty principle remarks that it's impossible to observe both the position and energy/state of a particle simultaneously. That is what zero-point energy comes from; zero-point energy can't be zero or measuring it would allow you to know both the energy and the position. It is sort of analagous to the schrodinger probability function of position. This also means that "if you can't observe it, it can happen." Which means that for sufficiently small times, particles can spontaneously appear with an antiparticle partner, annihilate, and leave no trace it ever happened. Theoretically the zero-point energy has a potential to be infinite. However, observation does not at all back this up, and is a very sticky issue. So, why don't you propose a mechanism by which some supermassive particle/antiparticle pair somehow appeared and stayed around without annihilating. Not to mention the fact that the space-time continuum out of which this supermassive particle would have appeared *didn't exist* until after the BB.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I don't need to nail down a _particular_ account of physical laws, because we are ignorant of what they might be. All that is necessary is to point out that it is currently a logically possible state of affairs.
Don't you think that it's at least somewhat interesting that the total energy of the universe might potentially sum roughly to.... 0?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> If you want to argue that there are no laws at all, and we are just working on approximations that happen to be modeled very well by a few equations - in the case of electromagnetism, 4 very simple equations with few terms, you're free to do so. But that takes you out of the realm of science into the realm of philosophy. And as you said, philosophy presents unworkable scenarios such as Zeno's paradox (which fortunately I pointed out isn't valid for our universe). See, there is no universal law preventing neon-green flying elephants from suddenly appearing, but we don't see it happen, do we?
If you count gravitational potential then perhaps you can argue that the total energy of the universe equals 0. But it's not a well-defined concept. Any particle massive enough to create the amount of energy measurable in the universe today must have necessarily been some sort of singularity, or it would never be able to annihilate within the time constraints given. And that doesn't explain why the BB was such an explosive event; it shouldn't have expanded at all.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I'm not operating under misunderstanding, I'm just challenging your assertion. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, you're definately misunderstanding. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Modern physics points to a finite universe; there are very very few people who hold the opinion that the universe is infinite now.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
For instance, you seem to have completely forgotten what brought us here. Was it science, or was it, in fact, philosophy? Well, what was the objection that Marine was originally making? It was that there just had to have been a prior cause for the universe, because there was a start. Well, no scientist has any evidence on that. It's a philosophical assumption. Which isn't to say that it can't be informed by science. But unless science can rule something out, which in this case it can't, then simply speculating about possibilities is all that's necessary to destroy the _necessity_ that Marine placed on his claim (i.e., that it's necessarily true).
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Yes, I can. Spontaneous particle/anti-particle appearance depends on the laws of quantum physics, or a system similar to it. Are you familiar with Occam's razor? In this case, the mathematical scenario is much simpler than your "just-so" scenario, with exactly the same implications and premises.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, wrong realm. This whole discussion is premised on logical possibility. It makes no sense to say that p/ap appearance (with inflationary scenario) depends on the "laws" of qm. When we're talking about the ultimate capabilities of existence. All we know is that it is not logically impossible for particles to appear without even violating thermodynamics. Whether or not this event happens to depend on QM in the particular instance we observe it is beside the point. The point is, it's not impossible. QM tells us that our very concept of "empty" or "nothing" is lacking on certain levels. As for the underlying substrate of laws that define possible existences, we are completely clueless. All we can do is speculate.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->So, why don't you propose a mechanism by which some supermassive particle/antiparticle pair somehow appeared and stayed around without annihilating. Not to mention the fact that the space-time continuum out of which this supermassive particle would have appeared *didn't exist* until after the BB.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, this is beside the point. No one is asking Marine to demonstrate what the first cause was. All we are discussing is what the possibilities include, and what we can rule out. I'm suggesting that we cannot rule out either a causeless start, or a non-start. The real problem, which currently is something that crippling string-theory, is that there are just too MANY possibilities, and there is currently no plausible way to test any of them!
Worse, I'm not even sure that, in the end, we can ever reduce the uncertainty of ANY of these major bi-conditionals concerning existence, because all we can do is push the definitions back a step: in the end, we are still working with the problem of trying to explain the existence of existence with the caveat that we can only draw observations from within existence. In short, the claim that we can infer this or that about existence is unwarranted.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->If you want to argue that there are no laws at all, and we are just working on approximations that happen to be modeled very well by a few equations - in the case of electromagnetism, 4 very simple equations with few terms, you're free to do so. But that takes you out of the realm of science into the realm of philosophy.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It takes us into the realm of possibility, which is no worse at all that you claiming that the universe started and that matter was created. In case you were wondering, that would kind of spoil the laws of thermodynamics (the purely speculative p/ap plus massive expansion route at least has the benefit of not violating that law), so we're already through the looking glass as far as observed natural laws once we start positing a start.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Any particle massive enough to create the amount of energy measurable in the universe today must have necessarily been some sort of singularity, or it would never be able to annihilate within the time constraints given.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What time constraints? How would any such concept be relevant to a frame of reference we would have no way of even defining?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And that doesn't explain why the BB was such an explosive event; it shouldn't have expanded at all.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, speculation is all we have. I can speculate all you want as to why, and the real problem will not be impossibility, but inability to say anything that is testable.
Again, recall where this discussion came from. It came from, essentially, refuting an argument of necessity.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Feb 8 2005, 07:43 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Feb 8 2005, 07:43 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> No answer for me, apos? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Now now, don't be testy. It isn't like I have all day to respond to extensive posts the second you desire it. Marine comes first, then you get yours.
Comments
I proposed the existence of some objective time scale only in the course of aruging that there IS no meaningful objective timescale.
You obviously didn't read what I said: I said that the black hole stuff was worth reading because it gives you an idea about how utterly weird things are when you start talking about singularities. The universe is certainly not _exactly_ like a backwards black hole. The point is simply to understand how hard it is to talk about time when there is no "right" timescale on which to measure things against.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->QM doesn't support spontaneously generating jillions of kg of matter or ergs of radiation.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's what the whole inflationary period would have been all about.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->In fact, QM is as we know it only part of the story; the high-energy physics that would be required in a "universe-infinitesmal point" are quite different than QM.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those physics, however, come LATER. We are talking about the possibility that mater and anti-matter simply first came into being on what was, originally, a quantum scale, at least from our current perspective (again, it gets real screwy real fast to try and discuss these things in simple terms.)
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Couldnt BB not actually be an older universe destroyed by gravity? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not by gravity, per se, but it could be that our known universe might have been preceeded by a big crunch. It doesn't look like our universe is headed that way though: we look set for either a long slow heat-to-cold death or even more violent destruction of all particles ripping too far away from each other to interact. Or, even more extreme, perhaps string theory is correct, and at some point all the extra dimensions will spring open, pretty much wiping out everything we know.
Of course, the scientific community only has it out for creationists, not just any hack who manipulates data and distorts facts to meet a particular agenda.
Of course, the scientific community only has it out for creationists, not just any hack who manipulates data and distorts facts to meet a particular agenda. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Okay.....can you give an example of where the global scientific community accepted an obviously biased conclusion? Or do you just like to sling mud? <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
the big bang theory is about as plausible as this..... An ink factory explodes, and a 500 page novel is created..... yeah, when that happens, then I'll believe in big bangs <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's certainly more plausible than a big man in the sky creating everything in a week. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
says the man who crawled out of the ocean and evovled from a monkey.. listen monkey boy, what do you know anyways?
big bang theory is a bunch of crap
the world as it is is a relatively balanced universe ( sure thers small things but nothing too big) lets look at how that works
it could take years to build a sky scraper, and only minutes to destroy it. a human adult takes 20 years to develope but can be killed with one single gun shot, a red wood tree takes decades to grow and can be cut down in an hour.
get what I'm saving, its allways easier to destroy things then it is to create things, so how is it that anything exists at all? what is the force that tips the scale to the other direction into the posostive? how do you think any of that happens?
the world as it is is a relatively balanced universe ( sure thers small things but nothing too big) lets look at how that works
it could take years to build a sky scraper, and only minutes to destroy it. a human adult takes 20 years to develope but can be killed with one single gun shot, a red wood tree takes decades to grow and can be cut down in an hour.
get what I'm saving, its allways easier to destroy things then it is to create things, so how is it that anything exists at all? what is the force that tips the scale to the other direction into the posostive? how do you think any of that happens? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Are you trying to get at proving that there is a God? Because thats entirely beside the point and no one cares.
Evolution - True proven thing to exist in the world
Common Ancestory - a good story to laugh about and give unaware people like skulk bait something to hang onto no matter how far fetched.
and what skulkbait really means by "no one cares" is "i don't care".
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I proposed the existence of some objective time scale only in the course of aruging that there IS no meaningful objective timescale.
You obviously didn't read what I said: I said that the black hole stuff was worth reading because it gives you an idea about how utterly weird things are when you start talking about singularities. The universe is certainly not _exactly_ like a backwards black hole. The point is simply to understand how hard it is to talk about time when there is no "right" timescale on which to measure things against.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
BB theory depends on <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weyl%27s_postulate' target='_blank'>this</a>, so I think your speculation that there is no "objective time" is by default false in this debate. Space-time is objective in the sense that it is fundamental to the universe, however local measurements of it need not be "consistent." If you're going to use that to argue that there is no beginning of the universe, I call BS. If you're going to use it to argue that we can't *measure* the beginning of the universe, or observe it, then that would be true. However, we can infer it by indirect means. If you mean to say that the Planck Epoch lasted to infinity, I would counter that the Planck Epoch is an unstable state and would decay immediately.
BB theory doesn't propose a mechanism for the BB; that is pure speculation. Especially, as you pointed out, because things get so weird near singularities, and the universe would most certainly have been a singularity pre-BB. The jillions of GeV of matter and energy aren't explained by the BB; only their present configuration. There is still the question of how they got there in the first place. And don't tell me loads of crap about zero-point energy, vacuum potential, anything like that, because that is theoretically based on our space-time metric, which didn't exist pre-BB, and looked entirely different for the first 10^-35 s of the universe. *edit* even if the universe is a series of "big crunch/big bounce" events, as you may propose, where did the original singularity come from? What caused the laws of quantum mechanics to come into being?
Also, if <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime' target='_blank'>quantization of space-time</a> is true, then Zeno's paradox holds no water for our universe, since it assumes an arbitrary, nonlinear, unquantized "time" in which you travel.
Anyway, Apos, are you a physicist, by any chance?
Side note: <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-structure_constant' target='_blank'>summary</a> of the light-speed variation debate.
and what skulkbait really means by "no one cares" is "i don't care". <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, I'm with Skulkbait on this one. AvengerX: shut the hell up. Do you notice that EVERYONE else that has participated in this conversation has either given proof, or been called on their lack of proof? Well, not only have you not given proof to support ridiculing common descent, you scoff at the very idea that you should be forced to prove your trusted beliefs. Well, put a sock in it; no one here is willing to listen to you babble on about how common descent is idiotic if you don't even care about some basic rules for debating.
and what skulkbait really means by "no one cares" is "i don't care".<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What I mean is "it has nothing to do with the this thread". Though you are correct when you say that I don't care, because I really don't.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->but Common Ancestory is believeing that we came from apes or whales or skulk baits mom or what not.
Evolution - True proven thing to exist in the world
Common Ancestory - a good story to laugh about and give unaware people like skulk bait something to hang onto no matter how far fetched.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, or you could stop being an ignorant jackass and read the (several flipping pages worth) of evidence presented thus far for abiogenesis and whatnot
WTH? Am I my own creationist website now? That's <b>my</b> conclusion based around reading and examining the report in question. But hey, I'm one of those wretched creationists too, so file me away under "creationist's interpretation" and put me on the ignore list.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I note that Setterfield also speaks of "secular" science and then his own contrasting sort of science. He speaks not of trying to find the truth without preconceptions, but rather that the Bible is true, and his job is simply to find the evidence to establish that. <b>His report begins with the goal of reconciling "the observational problems of astronomy and Genesis creation," as well as the idea that reality was created 6000 years ago.</b><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
AHAHAHAHAHA. You didnt read the report did yah son? You didnt even glance at it. You are reading everything off an evolutionary ganksheet. How else could you make that blatantly false statement I highlighted above unless you were? Here is the link, <a href='http://www.ldolphin.org/setterfield/report.html#3i' target='_blank'>AGAIN.</a> Open up Setterfields report, type in God as a text search. Type in creator, creation, jesus, biblical, bible - none of them come up. That's because in his report, Setterfield kept it 100% scientific, nothing but his evidence and analysis.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Again, sceintists are generally not all that amused when scientists start off by boldly contradicting all known facts without presenting any serious account for htis considerably huge claim.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, they were mildly interested, because it was 100% scientific, but definately needed to be challenged. Then they discovered that he was a creationist, and believed that, if correct, his article could be used in creationist apologetics, then out came the gank squad. He did not mention the fact that he was a creationist at all in the report, or attempt to tie anything like that in.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->This is not something scientists tend to be impressed with. If I litter my articles on cuttlefish reproduction with "and this suggests that Oswald couldn't have killed Kennedy" I can be guaranteed a fairly harsh response, especially if my work is painfully sloppy to begin with. If I then submit another painfuly tortured paper in which I never explictly say anything about Oswald, but purport to prove that people cannot be killed from book depositories... what do youtihnk the response is going to be? Are people going to be either fooled or amused?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You know what scientists arent impressed with either? It's when someone who hasnt read their work, who ignores their work when provided the opportunity, then grabs some libel off a desperately partisan website and makes fraudulent claims that are transparently false to anyone <b>without</b> a scientific background if they just took the time to quickly peruse the damn report.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Setterfield's work was chock full of obvious holes, methodological flaws, and statistical monstrosities right from the start, plus was filled with copious indirect references to a Biblical timeline that he was trying to squeeze into the data.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This just keeps getting better and better. You pick the tree, you make your own rope, toss it over the branch, make a noose, place head inside and then kick the bucket out from underneath yourself.... How am I supposed to treat your claims of "obvious holes" now?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Good grief: why did the tail end of the function just happen to occur right when the most accurate measurement methods are available, right at the time when we might want to test his hypothesis? How did he choose THAT very particular situation, when the very question first at hand was which data points should be used to construct the curve? Do you see the problem? Do you see why this would raise immediate suspicion?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No I dont. I think his argument rose and fell based on the previous dates before that time. If his claims about those previous dates/experiments could have been substantiated, then it would still follow that the most recent experiments wouldnt record the change his hypothesis claimed could have happened in the past. It was a perfectly reasonable request to make, that those figures be disregarded until his hypothesis could be disproved by other means. I am convinced his hypothesis was disproved by other means. But your "creationist" website tried to make that look like deception - it wasnt. He even kept those eliminated 70 data points, including the atomic clock, in table 2, which he analysed and compared along side the refined list of 120 odd points. If this is deception - then he sucks at it.
<!--c1--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->TABLE C
DATE DECAY (Km/s/yr)
1776 ±100 11.31
1838 ±98 4.83
1861 ±120 2.79
1887 ±14 2.17
1903 ±24 1.85
1934 ±6 1.03
1953 ±7 0.19
This would seem to indicate that any decay is following a non-linear pattern. These two facts have a bearing on the post 1960 results. A tapering rate of decay may get to the stage where it is undetectable or ceases, depending on the decay pattern. The significance of this is enforced by the results of equation (34) and the remarks pertaining thereto.<!--c2--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The whole thing is constructed under the assumption that it is now untestable: that we must rely on past measurements of more dubious value. The curve Setterfield picks is the one that would produce JUST this situation. <b>Never in the article is any other experimental justification given other than that the values wouldn't fit IF and only IF the exact curve Setterfield chose was in play. And how does this exact curve get picked?</b> Well he even gets his "original" value of c not by any observation, but simply extending his arbitrarily chosen curve back to when he believes Biblical creation started. In fact, here's his "scientific" reasoning for how all this inexplicably stuff works out, stuff that wasn't included in his article but underly his particular and otherwise inexplicable choices made in the article: "I will assume that this value held from the time of creation until the time of the fall, as in my opinion the Creator would not have allowed it to decay during His initial work." What sound science: because of his own interpretation of what HE thinks God might have done according to the Genesis account, he can arbitrarily decide when c began to decay so that it would fit his curve where c would decay in JUST such a way that it couldn't be tested for today! In other words, his whole curve, from which to derive the approximate age of the universe, is depedant on him arbitrarily deciding what God would have done during the creation week. A little presumptuous of Setterfield, no, to think Setterfield knows best what God was up to?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good Lord - its beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. Not only do you continue embarrasingly hammering away at Setterfield's report "God Bias", but you make <b>another</b> fraudulent claim that demonstrates again that you cant possibly have looked at the thing. Below is the relevant section to your absurd statements highlighted above in bold:
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->However, it is desirable to use only the most reliable values to determine the true situation. Birge11 summarized the best 13 values by six methods in the period 1874.8 to 1940, including those of Rosa/Dorsey and Mercier. Let us take Birge's basic list as definitive, as did Huttel47, Bergstrand48, and Cohen and DuMond49. These same data were advocated by de Bray50,51, and Mittelstaedt52. If the Table 7 and 8 values are added with the remaining starred data from Table 4, then a core of 51 of the most reliable results by 14 methods emerges. The most conservative estimates by the Roemer method are the official 1876.5 ±32 value and the 1861 ±13 result. Newcomb26 lists Nyren's 1883 treatment as the most definitive value by the Bradley method. Its best conservative early data are Lindenau's and Struve's 1843 value with Bradley's reworked average. These total an extra six points from two other methods. Thus, 57 best possible data by 16 methods can be listed as in Table 11 and associated Figures II, III, IV.
These Table 11 data give a mean c value at 52.5 Km/s above c now. Statistically, these data give a confidence interval of 99.46% that c was above its present value. A least squares linear fit indicates a decay of 2.79 Km/s per year with r = - 0.878 and a confidence of 99.99% in the decay correlation. Non linear fits give an improvement on the value of r. Initial independent analyses of these data at Newcastle University53 concluded that 'Any two stage curve fit gives a highly significant improvement over the assumption of a constant c value. Residuals reduced from 22,000 to under 2000.'
Thus 16 different methods of measurement by almost 50 different instruments all exhibit the decay trend. The only values that went against the trend were all rejected by the experimenters themselves or their peers. If this were simply the result of equipment unreliability and improved measurement techniques as Dorsey implied in 1944, then it would be a most unusual phenomenon in itself. Yet historically the measurements and past equipment have only been called into question because their values for c differed from those currently prevailing. This itself argues against any 'intellectual phase-locking'. The other option is that all 16 methods were registering c correctly within their error margins, but that c itself has changed. The above results are typical of a decaying quantity. The atom and atomic constants now need to be examined to see if they support the idea and answer Birge's criticism. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Here's a YOUNG Earth Creationist site coming to the same conclusion:
<a href='http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-179.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-179.htm</a>
Here's what THEY have to say about the quality of the analysis:
"Unfortunately, even a cursory glance at the data reveals that the above analysis is inappropriate for the given data set, and, hence, the conclusions drawn from it are not valid."
Hmm, cursory glance? Doesn't sound so watertight to me. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again! It's like you are doing this deliberately. Already in this post has a link been posted responding to that article. Do you simply not read anything unless it is posted in a body of text?
<a href='http://www.ldolphin.org/bowden.html' target='_blank'>Response</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And, of course, as it happened, there were countless other ways to test the hypothesis that c had decayed the way Setterfield claimed. Not only did he not address any of them, but their abscence from discussion is particuarly glaring given that the tests would imply looking for the sorts of things I noted above: I didn't say that the universe would collapse: I said that radiation would have to be shooting out of radioactive isotopes so fast and so hard that it would rip everything we know to pieces. You think you can't last long near radioactive uranium: imagine Noah sailing around being bombarded by radiation a thousands times stronger, his every cell pummeled by charged particles ripping apart every chemical bond he's got.
Indeed, there are so MANY different things that would be different in a universe with a rapidly decaying c that it could not look almost anything like we imagine or observe today.
It's much the same with seafloor spreading. In the atlantic, there is a place in the crust that is welling up new seafloor from the depths as the plates head away from each other: a couple of centimeters each year, give or take. It was this that pushed South America and South Africa apart, and thus we have a fairly amazing thing on our hands: a record of the past earth that's almost like the rings of yearly growth on a tree. We can radioactively date the rocks farther and farther from the trench, and they get older as we head away from it. But even if you don't buy radioactive dating (which is absurd in itself, but whatever), the process extrapolated from current rates gives us more than a hundred million years of slow movement recorded in cooled volanic seafloor between African and SA. Now, creationists could indeed claim that the rate of this seafloor expansion was much faster in the past, and that would solve the problem, even though there is no known mechanism for this to have happened. But could that really have happened? And the answer is: no. If it had happened even a couple times as fast, let alone as fast as creationists would need to fit their 4,000-10,000 year timeline, the plates would have had to have moved so fast, and so much force would be required, that the surface of the planet would shatter, buckle, explode, and all sorts of other crazy stuff. And on a smaller scale, we can actually tell by looking at the seafloor how fast it once spread anyway, because the molten rock cools in very different ways depending on how fast it wells up. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As I said, I dont believe his theory either. Even Setterfield claims it has been answered and found wanting. I dont know enough to question or even understand much of what you typed here, but I'll take your word for it.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The point is, anyone who knows anything about the universe or earth history would have this number ready tospit out at a moments notice no matter how tired they were. It is so heavily tied in with other elements of these fields that it's like claiming to know what the founders wanted but not knowing any of their names. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Okay, sure. You win, I'm a horrible creationist who is dumb, and who hates science, and who wouldnt know reason from rubbish if you paid him. And in the spirit of inane extrapolations of mistakes made in posts, I'm going to accuse you of slandering me by making false claims about me insulting people. Sound pretty dumb? Sound completely irrelevant to the argument? It is. Nice dodge though btw, just ignore it and keep ploughing on.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And given all that, you'd really have us believe that scientists were wrong for thinking that he might have a rather disreputable agenda? Someone in Russia litters their scientific papers with constant references to Marxist theory and clearly twists data in order to fit some Marxist prediction. Scientists are rightly skeptical and have some prettyharsh words for such behavior. This guy does the same, and he' supposed ot be given a free pass?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
LOL. In light of the amazing amount of baseless and incorrect slanderous statements you made above: that just sums it up doesnt it? Y'know what mate? Forget this thread - I quit. I am sickened and disgusted by the way you have carried yourself and your argument, blanket credibility denials, slander and the outright disrespect of completely ignoring the links provided to you. You made your arguments based solely around obviously deceptive ganksheets probably provided by Talkorigins and friends, and they didnt stand up to the actual report itself. Two sides to every story - there might, just might, be a lesson here. Goodnight.
<span style='font-size:0pt;line-height:100%'>[Generally short for one of my posts, especially a discussion post, but you guys really aren't going to get anyhwere bickering back and forth from seperate corners of a room...in different buildings...across the world from eachother.]</span>
Anyway, I think the original intent of the thread has been found (or at least found to be impossible to know for certain); either way, we've got evolution to discuss now even if, for some reason, Darwin didn't want us to. It's really unimportant anyway since someone, somewhere, sometime would have theorized evolution eventually.
<span style='font-size:0pt;line-height:100%'>[Generally short for one of my posts, especially a discussion post, but you guys really aren't going to get anyhwere bickering back and forth from seperate corners of a room...in different buildings...across the world from eachother.]</span>
Anyway, I think the original intent of the thread has been found (or at least found to be impossible to know for certain); either way, we've got evolution to discuss now even if, for some reason, Darwin didn't want us to. It's really unimportant anyway since someone, somewhere, sometime would have theorized evolution eventually. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
It "evolved" into a discussion <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
However, at least 2 Christians have told me this : At his dying bed, Darwin completely regretted his ideas to spread Evolution, to doubt and not believe in god. He started out as a Christian and he would die as one.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'd call that "covering your bases" because nobody truly knows whats after this lifetime.
and what skulkbait really means by "no one cares" is "i don't care". <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, I'm with Skulkbait on this one. AvengerX: shut the hell up. Do you notice that EVERYONE else that has participated in this conversation has either given proof, or been called on their lack of proof? Well, not only have you not given proof to support ridiculing common descent, you scoff at the very idea that you should be forced to prove your trusted beliefs. Well, put a sock in it; no one here is willing to listen to you babble on about how common descent is idiotic if you don't even care about some basic rules for debating. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
coming from the guy who's most active in the "off-topic" forum? what exactly do you bring to community anyways? execpt for your funny belief system and annoying rantings and ravings.
you need to chill out , I understand I'd be pretty cranky if I was 18 and my balls still haven't dropped. but its ok man, just chill out monkey boy.
and what skulkbait really means by "no one cares" is "i don't care". <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, I'm with Skulkbait on this one. AvengerX: shut the hell up. Do you notice that EVERYONE else that has participated in this conversation has either given proof, or been called on their lack of proof? Well, not only have you not given proof to support ridiculing common descent, you scoff at the very idea that you should be forced to prove your trusted beliefs. Well, put a sock in it; no one here is willing to listen to you babble on about how common descent is idiotic if you don't even care about some basic rules for debating. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
coming from the guy who's most active in the "off-topic" forum? what exactly do you bring to community anyways? execpt for your funny belief system and annoying rantings and ravings.
you need to chill out , I understand I'd be pretty cranky if I was 18 and my balls still haven't dropped. but its ok man, just chill out monkey boy. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
1) I go to the offtopic forum because, ironically, it is one of the more "safe" forums, ie no "OMG NERF XX!" or "WE NEED MORE GUNS!!" threads, and talk about the coming versions and/or ports to our engines are for the most part nonexistent. Also, it is a fantastic meeting place for forumites to chat, and indeed sometimes it gets very personal. It certainly is not something I'm ashamed to be part of.
2) If you're balls didn't drop until you were 18, you have issues far beyond anything that can be solved with a post in the offtopic forum.
3) Maturity is more tied to behavior than age; even if you're older than I am you certainly are the more wont for maturity, judging by your crude insults and your apparent apathy towards all subjects you deign to post on.
4) As for your "contributions" to this community, I joined just a short while after you and I have yet to see a post from you that is actually helpful in any way shape or form. Especially in the I&S forum. You used to go crazy in there, if my memory serves me well, and it does. You've cooled off recently, but that's mainly because you just like bashing new people making the same mistakes you yourself made just a year ago or so. So good job; you're a far more valuable member of the community than I. Actually, how you can compare <b>anyone's</b> supposed value to the community to anyone else's is beyond me; this isn't a popularity contest man. This is a couple thousand people coming together anonymously to talk; if you want to turn it into "I'm contributing more to the forums because I post in I&S LOL!!11!!" then go ahead, but don't expect anything but derision or indifference from the rest of the community.
5) My "funny belief system" is actually Catholicism, just fyi. Except I put WHAT I BELIEVE TO BE acceptance and humanity in general before religious tradition. Also, I believe in science because God gave me 5 senses and an analytical mind; if He didn't want us to go probing around His Universe He wouldn't have created curiousity.
6) You do realize by calling me "monkey boy", an obvious dig at evolution brought on by your (unfounded) scorn of common descent, you are in fact insulting the entire human race. Did you forget you were supposed to be pretending to be human or something?
7) I said it once and I'll say it again, this is the Discussion forum. Back up what you post or don't post it, it's as simple as that. I at least make an attempt to make my "annoying rantings and ravings" make sense, unlike someone else who, say, claims a theory is complete bull just because he says it's impossible, even though there are vast swaths of information already posted proving that such a theory is indeed possible. Of course, that's just an example.....
I posted a lot in I&S , and a lot of my ideas were bad... but a lot of them I just planted so they'd be flame bait and I could get into a good disscussion about them.. the others were just bad ideas
I'm gonna stop the needless fighting, because no one really wants to read it , and people would much rather get back to the topic at hand. so I'm going ot be the bigger man and overlook you.
anyways... back to darwin ...
You are when you basically parrot the site you linked to, which isn't just any creationist site, but one of the guys most heavily involved in this controversy.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> How else could you make that blatantly false statement I highlighted above unless you were? Here is the link, AGAIN.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that in your universe, Setterfield only ever wrote one report, and never wrote anything prior or afterwards. His website doesn't exist either.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Open up Setterfields report, type in God as a text search. Type in creator, creation, jesus, biblical, bible - none of them come up. That's because in his report, Setterfield kept it 100% scientific, nothing but his evidence and analysis.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They didn't "discover" that the guy was a creationist. He'd been at this game for a long time. Like many creationists, he wised up and put out some papers with all the God stuff removed. But nobody is fooled when a wolf that's been visibly circling puts on sheeps clothing and saunters over.
Are you denying that his basic purpose was to reconcile evidence with a Biblical timeline? Can't you see how, even in his non-scientific report, he's couching otherwise inexplicable assumptions purely because this fits those preoccupations? You can't draw the curve until you first assume something about the data.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Not only do you continue embarrasingly hammering away at Setterfield's report "God Bias", but you make another fraudulent claim that demonstrates again that you cant possibly have looked at the thing. Below is the relevant section to your absurd statements highlighted above in bold:<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those paragraphs don't address the problem I pointed out at all.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Again! It's like you are doing this deliberately. Already in this post has a link been posted responding to that article. Do you simply not read anything unless it is posted in a body of text?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I can tell that you are getting desperate, because that response doesn't actually address the issue raised (wrong method for the data set). You're just eager to run out of here. The ICR, again, is a young earth creationist organization (one of the largest and most influential) that has every reason to believe that the speed of light changed or some other miracle possibility. So how am I exactly quoting "evolutionist" ganksheets again?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->LOL. In light of the amazing amount of baseless and incorrect slanderous statements you made above: that just sums it up doesnt it?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again: are you denying that Setterfield's other writing isn't chock full of his theological commitments? The fact that he publishes one paper snidely with all the 4000-year timeline references left out, but all the basic assumptions and hackneyed math still in place is not going to impress or fool anyone, and the self-conscious martyr pose is only going to snag true believers.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->As I said, I dont believe his theory either. Even Setterfield claims it has been answered and found wanting. I dont know enough to question or even understand much of what you typed here, but I'll take your word for it.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The whole point of the seafloor spreading example is that you can't just run into a room full of scientists, tell them something that is pretty much the equivalent of saying that the sun is actually an illusion according to a single statistical method, and expect them to take you seriously if you haven't at least done a cursory survey of what the other implications for that possibility are. Everyone is going to thing something is up. And guess what: they were right! Something was up.
In short:
-Setterfield had a long and STATED history of setting out to prove that evidence must fit the Biblical timeline. You can't deny this.
-He publishes a sloppy paper with all the Bible references stripped out, but the basic assumptions all still in place.
-Nobody was fooled.
Now, scientists are nasty and harsh to each other all the time: even among this incredible cabal of evolutionists you seem to think all conspired to quash Setterfield. They eviscerted his paper not only because of its obvious bias, but on the merits as well. Just because a few creationists want to polish the thing into a story of doesn't make it so.
And you obviously skipped over my "Oswald" story for a reason: why was that? I think it was because you wanted to portray my post as not aknowledging that the paper that was scoffed at lacked God references. But that was the whole explicit point of the Oswald section. So I wonder: who is pulling the wool over whose eyes here?
Don't you think that it's at least somewhat interesting that the total energy of the universe might potentially sum roughly to.... 0?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->as you may propose, where did the original singularity come from? What caused the laws of quantum mechanics to come into being?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, there is no necessary reason that they or it had to come "from" anywhere. The concept certainly is, at the very least, a pretty questionable use of language.
I am intrigued. Where'd you hear that, discussion about dark matter/energy?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> There may or may not have been a cause for it. But nothing in science allows us to assume that there must have been.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Modern physics points to a finite universe; there are very very few people who hold the opinion that the universe is infinite now. Of course, popularity doesn't make things true, but on the other hand your claim is something similar to what Aegeri says when he compares God to an invisible pink unicorn in the sky. There is no evidence for your position. In fact, all the evidence speaks against it.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> You can't very well throw the specific laws of space-time at me to assert that the universe couldn't have been a spontaneous particle/anti-particle appearance. All that is necessary for my purposes is simply to point out that there is no universal prohibition against such a thing happening, since we do, in fact, see it happen. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, I can. Spontaneous particle/anti-particle appearance <b>depends</b> on the laws of quantum physics, or a system similar to it. Are you familiar with Occam's razor? In this case, the mathematical scenario is much simpler than your "just-so" scenario, with exactly the same implications and premises. Talking about zero-point energy doesn't make sense at all unless you look at it under a QFT. Obviously you are misunderstanding what a particle/anti-particle appearance is. There's a reason that virtual particles are called virtual. Remember that the heisenberg uncertainty principle remarks that it's impossible to observe both the position and energy/state of a particle simultaneously. That is what zero-point energy comes from; zero-point energy can't be zero or measuring it would allow you to know both the energy and the position. It is sort of analagous to the schrodinger probability function of position.
This also means that "if you can't observe it, it can happen." Which means that for sufficiently small times, particles can spontaneously appear with an antiparticle partner, annihilate, and leave no trace it ever happened. Theoretically the zero-point energy has a potential to be infinite. However, observation does not at all back this up, and is a very sticky issue.
So, why don't you propose a mechanism by which some supermassive particle/antiparticle pair somehow appeared and stayed around without annihilating. Not to mention the fact that the space-time continuum out of which this supermassive particle would have appeared *didn't exist* until after the BB.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I don't need to nail down a _particular_ account of physical laws, because we are ignorant of what they might be. All that is necessary is to point out that it is currently a logically possible state of affairs.
Don't you think that it's at least somewhat interesting that the total energy of the universe might potentially sum roughly to.... 0?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you want to argue that there are no laws at all, and we are just working on approximations that happen to be modeled very well by a few equations - in the case of electromagnetism, 4 very simple equations with few terms, you're free to do so. But that takes you out of the realm of science into the realm of philosophy. And as you said, philosophy presents unworkable scenarios such as Zeno's paradox (which fortunately I pointed out isn't valid for our universe). See, there is no universal law preventing neon-green flying elephants from suddenly appearing, but we don't see it happen, do we?
If you count gravitational potential then perhaps you can argue that the total energy of the universe equals 0. But it's not a well-defined concept. Any particle massive enough to create the amount of energy measurable in the universe today must have necessarily been some sort of singularity, or it would never be able to annihilate within the time constraints given. And that doesn't explain why the BB was such an explosive event; it shouldn't have expanded at all.
No, you're definately misunderstanding. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Modern physics points to a finite universe; there are very very few people who hold the opinion that the universe is infinite now.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
For instance, you seem to have completely forgotten what brought us here. Was it science, or was it, in fact, philosophy? Well, what was the objection that Marine was originally making? It was that there just had to have been a prior cause for the universe, because there was a start. Well, no scientist has any evidence on that. It's a philosophical assumption. Which isn't to say that it can't be informed by science. But unless science can rule something out, which in this case it can't, then simply speculating about possibilities is all that's necessary to destroy the _necessity_ that Marine placed on his claim (i.e., that it's necessarily true).
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Yes, I can. Spontaneous particle/anti-particle appearance depends on the laws of quantum physics, or a system similar to it. Are you familiar with Occam's razor? In this case, the mathematical scenario is much simpler than your "just-so" scenario, with exactly the same implications and premises.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, wrong realm. This whole discussion is premised on logical possibility. It makes no sense to say that p/ap appearance (with inflationary scenario) depends on the "laws" of qm. When we're talking about the ultimate capabilities of existence. All we know is that it is not logically impossible for particles to appear without even violating thermodynamics. Whether or not this event happens to depend on QM in the particular instance we observe it is beside the point. The point is, it's not impossible. QM tells us that our very concept of "empty" or "nothing" is lacking on certain levels. As for the underlying substrate of laws that define possible existences, we are completely clueless. All we can do is speculate.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->So, why don't you propose a mechanism by which some supermassive particle/antiparticle pair somehow appeared and stayed around without annihilating. Not to mention the fact that the space-time continuum out of which this supermassive particle would have appeared *didn't exist* until after the BB.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, this is beside the point. No one is asking Marine to demonstrate what the first cause was. All we are discussing is what the possibilities include, and what we can rule out. I'm suggesting that we cannot rule out either a causeless start, or a non-start. The real problem, which currently is something that crippling string-theory, is that there are just too MANY possibilities, and there is currently no plausible way to test any of them!
Worse, I'm not even sure that, in the end, we can ever reduce the uncertainty of ANY of these major bi-conditionals concerning existence, because all we can do is push the definitions back a step: in the end, we are still working with the problem of trying to explain the existence of existence with the caveat that we can only draw observations from within existence. In short, the claim that we can infer this or that about existence is unwarranted.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->If you want to argue that there are no laws at all, and we are just working on approximations that happen to be modeled very well by a few equations - in the case of electromagnetism, 4 very simple equations with few terms, you're free to do so. But that takes you out of the realm of science into the realm of philosophy.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It takes us into the realm of possibility, which is no worse at all that you claiming that the universe started and that matter was created. In case you were wondering, that would kind of spoil the laws of thermodynamics (the purely speculative p/ap plus massive expansion route at least has the benefit of not violating that law), so we're already through the looking glass as far as observed natural laws once we start positing a start.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Any particle massive enough to create the amount of energy measurable in the universe today must have necessarily been some sort of singularity, or it would never be able to annihilate within the time constraints given.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What time constraints? How would any such concept be relevant to a frame of reference we would have no way of even defining?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And that doesn't explain why the BB was such an explosive event; it shouldn't have expanded at all.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, speculation is all we have. I can speculate all you want as to why, and the real problem will not be impossibility, but inability to say anything that is testable.
Again, recall where this discussion came from. It came from, essentially, refuting an argument of necessity.
Now now, don't be testy. It isn't like I have all day to respond to extensive posts the second you desire it. Marine comes first, then you get yours.