Critique of Intelligent Design

[damocles]

your discussions have been interesting and elucidating, although over a few heads (mine included). are we to assume that entropy exists as a determinant in the universe? if so, is not the universe on the way out at some point? also will orbits (around atoms and the sun ) change their character because of no additional impetus? if this is true, the delicate balance of the universe as we know it will either fail, or be replenished by the intelligent designer?

 

One possible answer if entropy works as modelled;

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death

 

Heat death of the universe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

 

The heat death is a possible final state of the universe, in which it has "run down" to a state of no free energy to sustain motion or life. In physical terms, it has reached maximum entropy.

 

Origins of the idea

The idea of heat death stems from the second law of thermodynamics, which claims that entropy tends to increase in an isolated system.

 

If the universe lasts for a sufficient time, it will asymptotically approach a state where all energy is evenly distributed. Hermann von Helmholtz is thought to be the first to propose the idea of heat death in 1854, 11 years before Clausius's definitive formulation of the Second law of thermodynamics in terms of entropy (1865). However, observations about the loss of available energy as heat had been formulated by Sadi Carnot as early as 1824.

(Rest of the article.....D.)

 

Entropy is considered to be as almost as bedrock as you can get in physics and still call it part of a theory subject to negation.

 

Will orbits change? Most definitely. The question is will they decay and at what rate. Current models suggest you have to pump energy into an orbiting mass to increase its radius interval from its primary gravitational influence mass tractor.

 

Atoms don't have objects that orbit within them per se. The actions at those scales are difficult for me describe as better than particle interchanges. That doesn't mean a game of co-operative billards as the "particles" especially the bosons and the leptons have areas of influence or uncertainty that merge and separate like multiple discrete ripples one "ripple" (interval)for each particle that appears and dissappears as an influence that started the ripple, itself, that appears and dissappears on the surface of a pond(If you can imagine that two dimensional extremely crude and extremely poor analogy.) with a regularity and order that is yet entirely unpredictable to an observer. Ripples merge and join and separate according to strict rules of behavior and the particles that we associate with the various ripples' characteristics(the particles to which to which we assign those characteristics) wink at us as we observe their ripple influence act over the interval with other ripples.

 

Well, that was clear as mud.

 

Best wishes;

[Southtown]

Well, that was clear as mud.

 

Best wishes;

Hehe, quantum is cool. :) I know nothing about it, but I find it very exotic.

[Southtown]

Other than directly measuring the speed of light against orbital periods, what other effects would be seen, specifically for a half-life decay?

 

The slowly rotating galaxies could be caused by the elongation of its sequence of light emissions.

 

You said it would cause local warming. What does that mean exactly, and could it be nullified by the universe's expansion?

 

Also, another effect would be an exponential increase in radiometric age readings.

 

I'm curious, but have no idea where to look, to know if c decay would cause mass bodies to increase in size or temperature. Any ideas?

[damocles]

Other than directly measuring the speed of light against orbital periods, what other effects would be seen, specifically for a half-life decay?

 

We use the cesium atom's radiating interval between the hyperfine limits in its ground state to set the interval defined as the second;

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

 

This article is about the unit of time. For other uses, see second (disambiguation).

The second (symbol: s) is the SI base unit of time.

 

Definition

The second is the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom.

(rest of the article....D.)

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfine_structure

 

Hyperfine structure

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

 

In atomic physics, hyperfine structure is a small perturbation in the energy levels (or spectrum) of atoms or molecules due to the magnetic dipole-dipole interaction, arising from the interaction of the nuclear magnetic dipole with the magnetic field of the electron.

(rest of the article....D.)

Note that to set the hyperfine structure bounds for the cesium atom's interval, the rsearchers had to use radio waves or LIGHT?

 

The slowly rotating galaxies could be caused by the elongation of its sequence of light emissions.

 

What? Doppler shift?

 

You said it would cause local warming. What does that mean exactly, and could it be nullified by the universe's expansion?

 

It means we would see the sky glow after 12 billion years, if ZPE was increasing even slightly..

 

Also, another effect would be an exponential increase in radiometric age readings

.

 

If you mean the universe appears older due to ZPE increase? It should appear younger.

 

I'm curious, but have no idea where to look, to know if c decay would cause mass bodies to increase in size or temperature. Any ideas?

 

GOOGLE "speed of light; variable".

GOOGLE Doctor Paul Davies.

 

Here is an article;

 

[

URL]http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54394,00.html[/url]

 

Was Einstein Wrong?

 

Reuters

 

12:30 PM Aug. 07, 2002 PT

 

SYDNEY -- A team of Australian scientists has proposed that the speed of light may not be a constant, a revolutionary idea that could unseat one of the most cherished laws of modern physics -- Einstein's theory of relativity.

 

The team, led by theoretical physicist Paul Davies of Sydney's Macquarie University, say it is possible that the speed of light has slowed over billions of years.

 

"That means giving up the theory of relativity and E-mc squared and all that sort of stuff," Davies told Reuters.

(snip)

 

The suggestion that the speed of light can change is based on data collected by UNSW astronomer John Webb, who posed a conundrum when he found that light from a distant quasar, a star-like object, had absorbed the wrong type of photons from interstellar clouds on its 12 billion year journey to earth.

 

Davies said fundamentally Webb's observations meant that the structure of atoms emitting quasar light was slightly but ever so significantly different to the structure of atoms in humans.

 

The discrepancy could only be explained if either the electron charge, or the speed of light, had changed.

 

"But two of the cherished laws of the universe are the law that electron charge shall not change and that the speed of light shall not change, so whichever way you look at it we're in trouble," Davies said.

(rest of the article...D.)

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The second law of thermodynamics convinced Doctor Davis that it wasn't the electron charge that changed. It, he believes, has to be the speed of light.

 

I don't buy that yet. Either that quasar light passed through something we don't know(negative matter?) or gravity is doing weird things on the macro-scale that we don't understand.

 

Best wishes from a fellow traveller struggling with quantum physics;.

[Southtown]

Thanks, sorry I took so long to reply. I appreciate your help.

 

It means we would see the sky glow after 12 billion years, if ZPE was increasing even slightly..

That figure is based on the assumption that c has never changed. If decay were exponential, the age could be easily squeezed into 10,000 years.

 

If you mean the universe appears older due to ZPE increase? It should appear younger.

Wait a minute, how do you figure? If increasing ZPE causes c decay, then calculating radiometric dating linearly would give an exponentially larger age, wouldn't it?

 

http://www.creationscience.com/FAQ15.html#wp1621525

[Southtown]

What? Doppler shift?

Whoops, sorry. I missed this question at first.

 

http://www.creationscience.com/FAQ15.html#wp1603006

[paultrr]

Why do you feel life arising through abiogenisis and evolving through natural selection is antithetical to a creator?

 

Some of that stems from the way that evolution itself tends to be presented or looked at. If everything has its origin in pure natural process then the biggest question becomes what is the use of invoking a God in the first place? However, in and of itself evolution does not have to be antithetical to a Creator. For one evolution is a by-product of scientific study. Science is designed to study nature. God by definition is supernatural and looked at in most religions as the creator of nature. When you look at it that way God is outside of nature. Science then is only capable of studying what goes on inside of nature. That being the case then what science finds is evolution is the process by which life came about. However, if God did create nature then God created nature in such a fashion that his or her's built in process that led to life is evolution is a possible thought in itself.

 

It really in the end boils down to weither one is a beliver or not and in one's own religious interpretation of things. For some evangelicals the idea that God could have used evolution runs counter to their worldview that God outlines everything in his Bible and that man is created in God's own image. But there are Christian's out there who find no problem with evolution and actually do not see the Bible as all that inerrant to begin with. Evangelical Christianity has never been the whole of what goes by the name of Christ out there. It may constitute the majoity of christian population at this time. But it is still just one facet of the whole christian religion. Add that to the fact that this world has other religions out there and one finds that not every religious person out there is at odds with the scietific theory of evolution.

[Pyrotex]

...I just find it extremely difficult to believe that something so amazing could form by accident. Every atom in our body had no "life" so to speak. They're just little particles, leaping about in an endless dance. How is it that they somehow, for no reason, happened to each one "fall" in place with the billions of other lifeless particles just like them,....

It never fails.

 

Those who "cannot" believe in Life as a naturally occuring, self-organizing process in a natural universe, always, ALWAYS describe the "scientific theory of the origin of life" in probability terms, using models that are totally, totally unreasonable. I'm not trying to pick on you in particular, Blazer, it's something that most if not all ID-fans do.

 

If the natural origin of life had to happen by atoms just accidently coming together, then I wouldn't believe it either! It is indeed stupid to think that Life could originate as a random accident involving billions of atoms, as you described.

 

There is a phrase for this kind of logic. It's called the "strawman fallacy". By describing the origin of life using a model that is unrealistic, ID-advocates are creating a "strawman" argument that they imply comes from scientists, and then (correctly) shoot it down as bogus. But the "strawman" argument is NOT the one that scientists are advocating.

 

I know this may go over like a lead balloon, because this tactic is used so often, damn near continuously, by the ID-advocates. It is easy to understand and easy to use. ID-advocates are putting words in the mouths of scientists, claiming (largely by implication) that scientists believe that Life originated as a random accident. They don't. That is NOT their argument! That is NOT what you will find in the modern biology books.

 

So, if you cannot believe that Life originated in a trillion-dice crapshoot, then by all means, DON'T believe it! It IS a bogus idea! I don't believe it either. But that doesn't lend any credit to ID. Because there is another explanation for how Life began as a natural self-organizing process. We can go into it if you really want to. But it IS "rocket science" in its complexity and difficulty. And you better be prepared to handle some math.

[Racoon]

Pyro...

You just love muck raking, don't cha'...:shrug: ;)

[Pyrotex]

Pyro...

You just love muck raking, don't cha'...:shrug: ;)

Raccy, me boy! Slumming, are ya?

 

Quite frankly, I don't even own a muck rake. I hardly even see much muck around here in Texas unless it rains real hard for several days.

 

Now what I love to do is to take ordinary workaday people, let them have their say, and take their posts apart, sentence by sentence, and then show them what they really said. It usually comes as a great shock to them.

[damocles]

It never fails.

 

Those who "cannot" believe in Life as a naturally occuring, self-organizing process in a natural universe, always, ALWAYS describe the "scientific theory of the origin of life" in probability terms, using models that are totally, totally unreasonable. I'm not trying to pick on you in particular, Blazer, it's something that most if not all ID-fans do.<snip>

 

So, if you cannot believe that Life originated in a trillion-dice crapshoot, then by all means, DON'T believe it! It IS a bogus idea! I don't believe it either. But that doesn't lend any credit to ID. Because there is another explanation for how Life began as a natural self-organizing process. We can go into it if you really want to. But it IS "rocket science" in its complexity and difficulty. And you better be prepared to handle some math.

 

It's been a long time since I visited this topic, but in summary;

 

The intelligent design theorists ignore some basics:

 

a. that the universe is huge.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040524.html (approximately some 156 billion LYs.)

 

b. that the physics of fine atomic structure force unusual predelictions of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen chemistry that is apparent everywhere we look.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2558

 

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_shostak_020404.html

 

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn7895

 

(It's a good explanation for amino acid chirality, and that is a good field test for abiogenesis.)

 

For more resources on the mistakes that many Intelligent design theorists make when they advance arguments against abiogenesis;

 

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/

 

Some of the topics covered, are as Pyrotex explains, using the wrong statistical models. mistaking local phenomenal probabilities for universal conditions, and ignoring chaos theory, as well as the evidence now accumalating that self organizing principles appear to be not only normal and usual in this universe, but necessary as a counter to the counter to entropy.

 

As always; best wishes,

[Pyrotex]

...using the wrong statistical models. mistaking local phenomenal probabilities for universal conditions, and ignoring chaos theory, as well as the evidence now accumalating that self organizing principles appear to be not only normal and usual in this universe...

Yeah. Thanks.

I was gonna say that, but I was busy. ;) :) :) :D :) :shrug:

[questor]

Pyro, if you have some good evidence against ID other than the tiresome

argument against the true believers, i'd like to hear it. let's stop pounding the Bible thumpers for awhile and post some good scientific facts against ID.

even some logical, unproven theories might suffice.

[Pyrotex]

Pyro, if you have some good evidence against ID other than the tiresome argument....

You find my argument tiresome? You've heard it before, then? Gosh, your patience must be wearing very thin.

 

There are two ways to manifest design in the construction of a system. You can find a process that is self-organizing and that under the right conditions, it will self-assemble into the desired system.

 

Or you can draft up blueprints and build it yourself. I use "draft", "blueprints" and "build" as metaphors for whatever actual processes an ID might use. Now, what do we want to build? A universe at least 27 billion light years in diameter. All components of the universe, including atoms, energy and Laws governing their behaviour will be designed and constructed.

 

To do this, we must have a "meta-universe" -- a place wherein constructon can take place, and an ID, who presumably "lives" in the meta-universe. This meta-universe, since it allows the creation of universes with selectable Laws, must be a meta-universe of a complexity and organization "HIGHER" than the universe to be constructed. The ID will wish to select a specific proton/electron mass ratio to enable atoms, a specific value for the strong force to make elements possible, specific value for electric charge to make molecules possible, and specific values for many other parameters so that arbitrarily large carbon molecules capable of storing information and reproduction will be possible. And so on for several pages...:phones:

 

The ID itself, must operate at a complexity vastly larger than the universe to be created, since for all the complexity of the universe, designing atoms within IT is impossible. Same for the other parameters. The ID must have skills or machines to enable it to implement parameter selections, something that cannot be done within the Laws of the universe under construction.

 

I will now skip over several pages of similar argument and cut to the chase. The meta-universe required by your scenario is vastly "larger" and more complex than our universe and SO is the ID itself.

 

We are then led to the question, "Where did the meta-universe and the ID come from?"

 

Such a VASTLY, VASTLY, VASTLY, VASTLY, VASTLY, VASTLY, VASTLY, complex entity could NOT have occured naturally, therefore IT MUST HAVE BEEN DESIGNED AND BUILT by a HID {Hyper Intelligent Designer}, living in a meta-meta-universe.

 

And so on and so on and so...

 

No doubt you find this very tiresome.

You are getting sleepy. Sleepy.

Your eyes are closing.

You only hear the sound of my voice... ... ... ...

[Tormod]

Such a VASTLY, VASTLY, VASTLY, VASTLY, VASTLY, VASTLY, VASTLY, complex entity could NOT have occured naturally, therefore IT MUST HAVE BEEN DESIGNED AND BUILT by a HID {Hyper Intelligent Designer}, living in a meta-meta-universe.

 

Also known as "Joe".

[Boerseun]

I've been told it was Bob. I'm now going to have to declare holy war on you and your infidel so-called 'country', Nor... whatsit... er, between us, 'till the seventh generation!

 

Thou shalt feel the wrath of Bob, sinner!

[Pyrotex]

I've been told it was Bob...!

now, now, now there...

 

The Hyper Intelligent Designer actually goes by the name of Billy Joe Bob. So you and Tormod are both correct. But it doesn't really matter, because HID's only accept worship from the "level" immediately below them--the ID's.

 

From what I can gather, the ID that goes by the name of Bubba Jehovah, the one who created OUR universe, is an "atheist" and doesn't believe in HID's. Man, is he ever gonna get his celestial *** kicked!! B) B) B) B)