There was no Big Bang, there is no dark matter.

[horvendile]

There's no concrete facts, frankly.. just educated guesses and religion.

That I think is very unfair to cosmology/astrophysics as a science. Just because something is not proven beyond any doubt it needn't be as baseless as religious cosmological explanations.

 

[Sabastian]

There's no concrete facts, frankly.. just educated guesses and religion.

That I think is very unfair to cosmology/astrophysics as a science. Just because something is not proven beyond any doubt it needn't be as baseless as religious cosmological explanations.

hrmm, you sound a bit hypocritical here. It has not been proven beyond a doubt that the universe is without a reason for being giving credence to a creationist type genesis. Cause and effect. If the universe started with a bang what was the cause? I think it is very unfair for you to absolutely dismiss a possible cause for the universe on a baseless assumption. They don't know if the universe was created with an intension or not. Stop intellectually penalizing religious explanations as if they were entirely baseless. Granted there is good reason to be skeptical of any specific religious explanation with regards to the universe but on a larger scale when we are asking questions about why not nothing as opposed to everything it gets a little more difficult to dismiss a creationist type explanation. Look here... http://www.westminsterhall.us/hfs3/index.html maybe this man can give you reason to question your own assumptions.

Henry F. Schaefer III was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1944. He attended public schools in Syracuse (New York), Menlo Park (California), and Grand Rapids (Michigan), graduating from East Grand Rapids High School in 1962. He received his B.S. degree in chemical physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1966) and Ph.D. degree in chemical physics from Stanford University (1969). For 18 years (1969-1987) he served as a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. During the 1979-1980 academic year he was also Wilfred T. Doherty Professor of Chemistry and inaugural Director of the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Texas, Austin. Since 1987 Dr. Schaefer has been Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and Director of theCenter for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia. His other academic appointments include Professeur d'Echange at the University of Paris (1977), Gastprofessur at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochshule (ETH), Zurich (1994, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2002), and David P. Cr aig Visiting Professor at the Australian National University (1999). He is the author of more than 975 scientific publications, the majority appearing in the Journal of Chemical Physics or the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Critical to Professor Schaefer's scientific success has been a brilliant array of students and coworkers; including 42 undergraduate researchers who have published papers, 70 successful Ph.D. students, 40 postdoctoral researchers, and 49 visiting professors who have spent substantial time in the Schaefer group. A number of his students have gone on to positions of distinction in industry (AT&T, American Cyanamid, Avaya, Chemical Abstracts, Computational Geosciences, Dow Chemical, Electronic Arts, GAUSSIAN, Goodrich, Henkel, Hughes Aircraft, IBM, Komag, Mobil Research, Molecular Simulations, Monsanto, OpenEye, OSI Software, Pharmaceutical Research Associates, Proctor & Gamble, Q-CHEM, Ricoh, Schroedinger, SciCo, and Sugen). Five of his graduated Ph.D.'s have successfully started their own companies. Several have gone on to successful careers in government laboratories, including the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, NASA Ames, National Cancer Institute, National Center for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health (Bethesda), Naval Research Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories. Charles Blahous went directly from his Ph.D. studies with Dr. Schaefer to the position of American Physical Society Congressional Scientist Fellow, and eventually to positions of significant importance in the U.S. political system (chief of staff for Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming; and currently chief strategist for President George W. Bush's initiative to reform social security).
Many of Dr. Schaefer's students have accepted professorships in universities, including the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Georgia Tech, University of Georgia, University of Giessen (Germany), University of Girona (Spain), University of Grenoble (France), University of Guelph (Ontario), University of Illinois-Chicago, University of Illinois-Urbana, Johns Hopkins University, University of Kentucky, University of Manchester (England), University Of Marburg (Germany), University of Mississippi, National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan), University of North Dakota, Osaka University (Japan), Pohang Institute of Science and Technology (Korea), Portland State University, Pennsylvania State University, Rice University, Rikkyo University (Tokyo), Stanford University, University of Stirling (Scotland,) University of Stockholm (Sweden), University of Tasmania (Australia), Texas A&M University, the University of Texas at Arlington, and Virginia Tech.
Dr. Schaefer has been invited to present plenary lectures at more than 180 national or international scientific conferences. He has delivered endowed or named lectures or lec ture series at more than thirty major universities, including the 1998 Kenneth S. Pitzer Memorial Lecture at Berkeley and the 2001 Israel Pollak Distinguished Lectures at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. He is the recipient of nine honorary degrees, with two more scheduled. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the London-based journal Molecular Physics and President of the World Association of Theoretically Oriented Chemists. His service to the chemical community includes the chairmanship of the American Chemical Society's Subdivision of Theoretical Chemistry (1982) and Division of Physical Chemistry (1992).
Professor Schaefer's major awards include the American Chemical Society Award in Pure Chemistry (1979, "for the development of computational quantum chemistry into a reliable quantitative field of chemistry and for prolific exemplary calculations of broad chemical interest"); the American Chemical Society Leo Hendrik Baekeland Award (1983, "for his contributions to computational quantum chemistry and for outstanding applications of this technique to a wide range of chemical problems"); the Schroedinger Medal (1990); the Centenary Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry (London, 1992, as "the first theoretical chemist successfully to challenge the accepted conclusions of a distinguished experimental group for a polyatomic molecule, namely methylene"); the American Chemical Society Award in Theoretical Chemistry (2003, "for his development of novel and powerful computational methods of electronic structure theory, and their innovative use to solve a host of important chemical problems"). In 2003 he will also receive the annual American Chemical Society Ira Remsen Award, named after the first chemistry research professor in North America.
During the comprehensive period of 1981 - 1997 Dr. Schaefer was the sixth most highly cited chemist in the world; out of a total of 628,000 chemists whose research was cited. The Science Citation Index reports that by December 31, 1999, his research had been cited more than 30,000 times. The U.S. News and World Report cover story of December 23, 1991 speculated that Professor Schaefer is a "five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize". His research involves the use of state-of-the-art computational hardware and theoretical methods to solve important problems in molecular quantum mechanics.

He is also a devout Christian. Would you also dismiss his conclusions so off hand as "baseless"? I personally believe that there is still reason to hope for a cause but I doubt that it is centered on the existence of humans.

 

[horvendile]

hrmm, you sound a bit hypocritical here.

But I like to think I'm not.

It has not been proven beyond a doubt that the universe is without a reason for being giving credence to a creationist type genesis.

I'm not sure if I interpret that sentence correctly - oh wait, now I think I understand.
Well, my answer is thus:
It is very seldom that something can be proven not to exist. That is however no reason to believe that it (whatever it may be) does exist. An example that - and you must take my word for this - is not intended to be insulting: It has not been proven that fairies don't exist. Yet, I don't believe in them. Why? Because there is no believable data that speaks for their existence. I would not not necessarily require absolutely 100% proof to believe in fairies since, once again, very few things are 100% proven. But there would have to exist enough data to make it seem a reasonable explanation.

In cosmology there are truckloads of data supporting i.e. big bang. We can not know that there isn't a god behind it all, but I see no special reason beyond personal preference to believe so. Unfortunately my personal preference has no bearing at all on what is actually true. Thus, until convincing contradicting data appears I will not pay much heed to religious explanations.

Stop intellectually penalizing religious explanations as if they were entirely baseless.

Not everything that is written within religion is automatically wrong, but on the other hand it being religious does not give it any additional credence. Science and religion are fundamentally different, and my original point was that it is unfair to pretend that they are not.

an amazing amount about Henry F. Schaefer

He is also a devout Christian. Would you also dismiss his conclusions so off hand as "baseless"?

There are state leaders that believe in astrology (and not only the famous Reagan example). Yet that does not strengthen the case of astrology.

I personally believe that there is still reason to hope for a cause but I doubt that it is centered on the existence of humans.

And I am absolutely not trying to forbid you to think so. Mayhap I also would find it an encouraging thought. However, that does not compensate for lack of scientific data.

 

[London Geezer]

Well one of the reasons why not much is being done to prove something does not exists is because, in the already tight handed world of creditors to the scientific community, i dont think the first objective of someone spending 100Million dollars is to prove that something does NOT exists... he would rather spend that money for projects that can actually help i.e. developing new tech etc.

I mean, people are already screaming for the immense funding needed for space travel (just to name one), imagine what they would do if Bush came up saying "We are going to spend 1 Billion Dollars to prove that Gravitons do not exist!!!!"...

 

[Sabastian]

In cosmology there are truckloads of data supporting i.e. big bang. We can not know that there isn't a god behind it all, but I see no special reason beyond personal preference to believe so. Unfortunately my personal preference has no bearing at all on what is actually true. Thus, until convincing contradicting data appears I will not pay much heed to religious explanations.

horvendile, I accept your skepticism on the matter. It seems however you are more willing to accept other sorts of explanations that there is little evidence of as well over the creationist line of thinking. While you are entitled to have your own opinion on the issue of why everything is that does not mean that there is convincing and contradicting data to support it. They really don't know why the universe is here. I actually think that the big bang theory is good but if the universe has a beginning what was the cause? I think that science ought to try to prove the creationist theory is wrong and find out the truth of the matter just like they do with any theory. It should be tested instead of ignored it is a central theme to the existence of man. Why are we here? What are we doing here? etc... The easy answer is no reason at all. But I find it interesting that conditions for our existence to be are not as common as it was once thought to be... pure luck? I don't know and the simple fact of the matter is that neither do you or anyone else in any absolute sense.

Not everything that is written within religion is automatically wrong, but on the other hand it being religious does not give it any additional credence. Science and religion are fundamentally different, and my original point was that it is unfair to pretend that they are not.

You see I am not really addressing any religion in particular. Rather only the idea that the universe and its existence quite possibly do have a cause and an extension of that idea is that we are a part of it. If everything has a reason for being then so do we. Again if the universe began with an explosion what was the cause and was it intentional or not?

There are state leaders that believe in astrology (and not only the famous Reagan example). Yet that does not strengthen the case of astrology.

I posted the man and his credentials. He is one of the most sought after people in the field. If you truly think that science and religion are not fundamentally different then to make some sort of correlation between the religious beliefs of any state leader and one of the most qualified men in quantum mechanics is disingenuous at best. In other words you are turning a blind eye to what the man has to say even though he is a most noteworthy scientist which has little to nothing to do with star charts.

And I am absolutely not trying to forbid you to think so. Mayhap I also would find it an encouraging thought. However, that does not compensate for lack of scientific data.

There is no scientific data to say otherwise..... they don't know. What is science without not knowing .... and wanting to know? Sure there are some in this world who think that there is a god and that everything was created for a reason (essentially) but because you don't believe in their specific religions whatever they may be you also quell the idea that the universe was created with some sort of intension without any evidence to say that it was not. I think, horvendile, that you are an intellectual person and a very agreeable one, but lets not dismiss any theories or ideas until they are proven wrong. That BTW is a cardinal characteristic of science a theory is just as good as any until it is proven to be wrong in some way. Open mindedness is a good thing particularly when we don't know.

Ironically it was the search for god and truth that lead man to pursue science and later cosmology and other lines of study that brought us the big bang theory. Science and religion are two separate things and I agree but science is rooted in the pursuit of the absolute truth. I don't want to pursue that debate again however. But as time goes by science will continue by its very nature to try to determine what the absolute truth is and that will include the nature of the universe including its origins and the cause behind it.

 

[MfA]

There is no truth outside of mathematics. I have faith, in Occam's razor.

 

[Sabastian]

There is no truth outside of mathematics. I have faith, in Occam's razor.

Objective/absolute truth can be quantified using Math? The big bang theory is based on purely mathematical equations. MFA what was the cause of the big bang? Cause and effect is measured mathematically. You can dismiss the notion that the universe was created with an intension all you like but it seems you favor on a personal level that there is not any reason for the universe to exist then state it as fact without the mathematical ability to prove it is so.

 

[pascal]

Some people just believe there are many universes possible and we are lucky to live in this one. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/susskind03/susskind_index.html

"Man’s place in the universe is also being reexamined and challenged. A megaverse that diverse is unlikely to be able to support intelligent life in any but a tiny fraction of its expanse. Many of the questions that we are used to asking such as 'Why is a certain constant of nature one number instead of another?' will have very different answers than what physicists had hoped for. No unique value will be picked out by mathematical consistency, because the landscape permits an enormous variety of possible values. Instead the answer will be 'Somewhere in the megaverse the constant is this number, and somewhere else it is that. And we live in one tiny pocket where the value of the constant is consistent with our kind of life. That’s it! There is no other answer to that question.'

"The kind of answer that this or that is true because if it were not true there would be nobody to ask the question is called the anthropic principle. Most physicists hate the anthropic principle. It is said to represent surrender, a giving up of the noble quest for answers. But because of unprecedented new developments in physics, astronomy and cosmology these same physicists are being forced to reevaluate their prejudices about anthropic reasoning. There are four principal developments driving this sea change. Two come from theoretical physics, and two are experimental or observational.

"On the theoretical side, an outgrowth of inflationary theory called eternal inflation is demanding that the world be a megaverse full of pocket universes that have bubbled up out of inflating space like bubbles in an uncorked bottle of Champagne. At the same time string theory, our best hope for a unified theory, is producing a landscape of enormous proportions. The best estimates of theorists are that 10**500 distinct kinds of environments are possible.

edited: got the link from this thread: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9719

 

[Sabastian]

Some people just believe there are many universes possible and we are lucky to live in this one. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/susskind03/susskind_index.html

"Man’s place in the universe is also being reexamined and challenged. A megaverse that diverse is unlikely to be able to support intelligent life in any but a tiny fraction of its expanse. Many of the questions that we are used to asking such as 'Why is a certain constant of nature one number instead of another?' will have very different answers than what physicists had hoped for. No unique value will be picked out by mathematical consistency, because the landscape permits an enormous variety of possible values. Instead the answer will be 'Somewhere in the megaverse the constant is this number, and somewhere else it is that. And we live in one tiny pocket where the value of the constant is consistent with our kind of life. That’s it! There is no other answer to that question.'

"The kind of answer that this or that is true because if it were not true there would be nobody to ask the question is called the anthropic principle. Most physicists hate the anthropic principle. It is said to represent surrender, a giving up of the noble quest for answers. But because of unprecedented new developments in physics, astronomy and cosmology these same physicists are being forced to reevaluate their prejudices about anthropic reasoning. There are four principal developments driving this sea change. Two come from theoretical physics, and two are experimental or observational.

"On the theoretical side, an outgrowth of inflationary theory called eternal inflation is demanding that the world be a megaverse full of pocket universes that have bubbled up out of inflating space like bubbles in an uncorked bottle of Champagne. At the same time string theory, our best hope for a unified theory, is producing a landscape of enormous proportions. The best estimates of theorists are that 10**500 distinct kinds of environments are possible.

edited: got the link from this thread: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9719

I know I read that thread and the links. Is it luck? We don't know. The idea that our existence is extraordinary is not foreign to religious doctrine in fact the idea bolsters it to a degree. I found that article interesting. Existence is so interesting sometimes it is overwhelming.

 

[horvendile]

First I want to say that I am not ready to speculate about what caused the universe, especially as natural laws as we know them break down when we come really close to the beginning. I'm not even sure that talk about cause and effect makes any sense there. But I make no pretense of any expertise here. That does not mean that I condemn all speculation; on the contrary, it can be very interesting. What I keep coming back to however is that that alone does not make it as scientifically credible as the big bang theory.

I think that science ought to try to prove the creationist theory is wrong and find out the truth of the matter just like they do with any theory. It should be tested instead of ignored it is a central theme to the existence of man.

And how would you test it? It depends on what you mean with creationist theory.
If you refer to why the universe exists in a teleologic sense I don't see how that could be tested.
If you refer to classical creationism á la Genesis, Christian Science or something similar my short answer is that such a check has already been conducted.

You see I am not really addressing any religion in particular. Rather only the idea that the universe and its existence quite possibly do have a cause

Well, that might answer that...

(About Scaefer; Horvendile's note) I posted the man and his credentials.

Yes, I noticed
I don't doubt that he's very good in his field. Problem is, that hasn't got anything to do with his christian mission. I don't have the time to discuss this thoroughly at the moment (one might think that odd since I do some work for the Swedish equivalent of Skeptical Inquirer (albeit a considerably less flashy publication), but that's actually precisely the reason right now!), but I read up quickly on what he has to say, primarily on the page you linked to. As far as I can see he failed to make any connection whatsoever between his field of expertise and his faith other than the odd vague "I know my way in quantum chemistry and I'm a christian too" (not an actual quote). In fact, his primary argument seems to be that there has existed great scientists that were also christians. That is as true as irrelevant.

That BTW is a cardinal characteristic of science a theory is just as good as any until it is proven to be wrong in some way. Open mindedness is a good thing particularly when we don't know.

There I don't quite agree. I can have a theory that there is a teapot orbiting Pluto. It is very hard to prove that wrong, but it is still not as good a theory as e.g. big bang. The core point, actually the point of my entire argument, is that it is not enough that no contradicting evidence exists for a theory to be good; there also has to exist data (with "data" in a broad meaning) that make my theory credible in a positive way - not just non-negative. I agree that open mindedness is good, probably even necessary, for inventing new theories. But the theory must be put to test, and then absence of negative evidence is not enough.

As has been correctly noted I can not know that there is not a maker behind the universe, but on the other hand I have yet to see a reason to, er, actively believe that there is.

Before I finish I also want to say that it has been a pleasant experience to have a calm and sober discussion on the subject.

 

[Sabastian]

There is a point where much of this all breaks down to ideas, and philosophical debates can arise from them particularly when the theory gets to the point where all our tools we use to measure break down. Then we are in an area were we don't know or understand what is happening. But simple ideas can be imposed and we can ask questions like does the universe have a purpose? etc.. There are only two possible answers to that sort of question.....yes or no. I am not professing the indeed the universe is created with an intension, only that if we don't know then we cannot assume to know. So in essence the odds are 50/50 of the universe having a purpose or cause of some sort or not. The assumption that the universe is without reason or purpose is just that .... an assumption because we don't know.

If you think about it the idea that so much could exist for no reason or cause is a rather odd suggestion and the idea that there must be a cause or reason for it a logical conclusion. I couldn't possibly tell you what that might be and based on all the things we know about the universe nor could you and that is why I ask the question about the cause of the universe because you don't know ether. It kind of forced an admission of sorts because I know you don't know. There is no evidence to support the idea that there is no cause and so why would we assume it? However because cause and effect is such a primary element of physics, the question of what was the cause of the universe does lend credibility to the query. Even to the point where it may lay a bias for the idea that indeed the universe and everything in it does serve a cause whatever it might be. I just think it is a hopeful thing that we ought to pursue and do it with an open mind, particularly were we know so little about why the universe exists at all.

As a side note, I do find it interesting that we might be the only ones in the entire universe looking for the cause of it before I read that article that pascal posted I assumed that possibly there were lots of other intelligent life forms in the universe but what that article suggests is that we are extraordinary in our circumstance. I wouldn't try to make of it more then that but it certainly downplays the idea that alien life will be coming to visit us here anytime soon. [action]uninstalls SETI software[/action]