Contradictio in terminis
September 26, 2005The world is a backwards place. Eugenia blogged about this just now.
I find it appaling that a country that promotes itself as being the leader in democracy, freedom and free speech actually goes to great lengths to control whatever is thaught in public schools.
Look, if people want to believe that God created us, fine by me, it’s just as believable as a magical big bang; they both make no sense. No scientist has any decent idea on why or how the big bang actually happened; so in a sense, there is just as much proof for the big bang as their is for God-created-us-all. Personally, I ‘believe’ in the Big Bang, yet I acknowledge that that theory is anything but waterteight.
But do I want schools to stop teaching Creationism? Of course not! Creationism and Christianity is what shaped my country since the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire; it brought us to where we are today. It would be silly to discard 1500 years of our history just because in the past few centuries we came to doubt whatever the bible thought us.
I find it odd that Americans are so willing to make themselves look ridicoulous. A large part of the American people is one big contradictio in terminis; they forcefully want to put up this mask of Christian decency; they forcefully fight abortion, sex-before-marriage, condoms, and what not. My country, on the other hand, has a much more liberal policy: we legalized abortion, prosititution, we promote condoms, and we also “allow” soft-drugs (mariuhana, hash)(”allow” because they are still very much illegal). Some Republican party members even refer to my country as the “home of Satan”.
Then, Republican party members, please explain why drug abuse and drug related crimes are among the lowest in the world in my country? Why STDs are low in my country? Why the US has such high murder rates? Why the US has such high adultury rates? Such high divorce figures?
All this can be explained using quite a simple analogy: if you present someone with 100 doors, and then tell him he can enter all but number 23… Then which will he eventually enter? What is better: prohibit prostitution, and spend lots of money on fighting it; or just legalize it, control it, and tax it?
PS: for all the people against abortion, listen to “What It’s Like” by Everlast. Here’s the important verse:
Mary got pregnant from a kid named Tom who said he was in love
He said don’t worry about a thing baby doll I’m the man you’ve been dreamin’ of
But three months later he said he won’t date her or return her call
And she sweared god damn if I find that man I’m cuttin’ off his balls
And then she heads for the clinic and she gets some static walkin’ through the doors
They call her a killer, and they call her a sinner, and they call her a whoreGod forbid you ever had to walk a mile in her shoes
‘Cause then you really might know what it’s like to have to choose
Now you again.
World | 
> No scientist has any decent idea on why or how the big bang actually happened; so in a sense, there is just as much proof for the big bang as their is for God-created-us-all.
You are wrong. There IS some evidence that the Big Bang happened. It IS still a theory, but MOST scientists ACCEPT this theory, as at this point in time it is the only one that makes sense.
On the other hand, there is NO evidence that God EVER existed. So, if you are comparing the two in terms of evidence, the Big Bang has MORE of that than (any) God has. Sure, it might not be a lot of evidence (so far), but it’s surely a whole lot more than any religion can offer.
So, science - religion: 1-0
>Creationism and Christianity is what shaped my country since the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire; it brought us to where we are today.
Christianity is what kept my people united against the Turkish acquisition and slavery for 400 years too. I thank the Orthodox Church for keeping their shit together for once and guiding the nation to freedom. But this does not mean that because they helped in the past they are right on every matter. Or that we should teach our children bullshit *as a belief* rather than on historic/mythological ground.
> It would be silly to discard 1500 years of our history just because in >the past few centuries we came to doubt whatever the bible thought us.
No one said to remove Christian history/Bible from schools. I believe that every school should have 1-2 hours a week of classes on the WORLD’S RELIGIONS that discuss history, beliefs etc. Religion has helped the human race through its times in this planet, I don’t discard it as useless. But it would be wrong to take some of their silly dogmas and teach them as FACTS to our children. I am happy my children to LEARN about religions, but be FREE to decide for themselves on what to believe, *after* they have accumulated all points from both science and religion on the controversial subjects.
What I don’t want is to have religion classes before science classes though, because that will have already shape the opinion of an 8 year old kid and it would be too late to change it. Kids take info as facts at school and having the religious dogmas taught well before science classes, can do DAMAGE and alter perceptions. That’s where my problem is.
Comment by Eugenia — September 26, 2005 @ 6:11 pm
There IS some evidence that the Big Bang happened.
I was referring to the WHY and HOW. There is no theory that explains to us HOW the big bang happened. There is some evidence that it DID happen, but NOT how it came to be.
so I’d say science - religion: 0.1-0. :)
Or that we should teach our children bullshit *as a belief* rather than on historic/mythological ground.
Hey, I don’t want that either. What I was trying to say is that both can be taught alongside of one another, leaving the students to decide for themselves what they want to support/believe.
I said it to make my point about that even though I support evolution, it doesn’t mean I want our schools to stop teaching creationism, even though creationists DO want schools to stop teaching evolution.
I am happy my children to LEARN about religions, but be FREE to decide for themselves on what to believe, *after* they have accumulated all points from both science and religion on the controversial subjects.
Then I’d suggest you come to my country to put your kids to school :). Even our Catholic/Protestant school teach evolution– like the ones I attended.
Comment by Administrator — September 26, 2005 @ 6:18 pm
>I was referring to the WHY and HOW.
The WHY does not matter. Why do horses like to have sex with donkeys? It just happens, and while there is a reason for it I am sure, it doesn’t really matter, as long as it did happen. It IS interesting to know WHY, but usually it’s the same answer as with the HOW.
HOW: The Big Bang happened after the pressure became too big, it’s not difficult to figure this out. When you pressurize things too much while their weight is too big and their mass too small, they explode as some point.
Even if HOW and WHY is pretty much the same in science, but they’re not the fundamental scientific questions themselves. The fundamental question in science is “what patterns can we see?”
For example, you might ask HOW and WHY about a simple thing on your friend the scientist (e.g. how does the embryo becomes male or female?), and yet that scientist starts talking to you about patterns and observations instead of giving you a straight answer. That’s academic science, and it’s usually the most common one.
Comment by Eugenia — September 26, 2005 @ 6:35 pm
To be more clear:
ONLY philosophers care about WHY and HOW. Science does not. Science only observes.
Comment by Eugenia — September 26, 2005 @ 6:37 pm
HOW: The Big Bang happened after the pressure became too big
Argh, this is difficult in English :). What I mean is: how did that ball of matter come to be? In other words, what preceded the big bang? What (or who? who knows) created that ball of matter? Scientists can say: “The big bang happened because all the matter in the universe was compressed in a ball the size of a pinpoint”, but what made it like that? If the latter isn;t answered, than the former is meaningless too, to me.
Get me now?
Comment by Administrator — September 26, 2005 @ 6:41 pm
When science meets religion, science wins.
We still don’t think the Earth is the center of the universe?
Unless we can prove the existance of God (who’s to say we can’t) we should work on making our own lives better, and not to wait for a hand to come from the sky.
As for abortion… it’s arguably the taking of a human life. I don’t care if someone thinks just because it’s in your body it doesn’t have the right to live.
Of course I’m all for condoms and sex education.
Comment by mikesum32 — September 26, 2005 @ 6:53 pm
You are asking me to explain to you the chicken and the egg problem. I can’t do that. However, there is a point that you should consider: There is a theory that eventually the universe will implode again into this pinpoint thing and blow up again.
So who created that mass? Maybe it was a God indeed. The “God of the pinpoint Mass”. Should I start a new religion or should I keep investigating scientifically. You see, if we agree that the Big Bang is real, why go back and blame the creation of the pinpoint mass to another God? That brings no evidence at all, and yet in 100 years from now scientists MIGHT have an answer as to how this mass was created. I though, sure as hell and as the creator of the ‘God of the Pinpoint Mass’ religion, will have none to offer. So we are back at square one again.
Do you see how ridiculous that sounds? Well, if it’s ridiculous to have a God that created a needle head mass, why is it not ridiculous to think that God created man and the universe? What makes man so special? I don’t find anything special to Man, compared to other things around me. It just functions differently, it has different properties (intelligence is one of them, which is something that has come to evolve that way in order for the Man to survive the claws and teeth of tigers and lions), but other than that, it is just a part of nature, just like cats, stones, water and space dust. We put WAY too much importance to ourselves, the human race is a very snob pack of creatures.
Comment by Eugenia — September 26, 2005 @ 6:55 pm
We put WAY too much importance to ourselves, the human race is a very snob pack of creatures.
Oh yes, I very much agree with that. Man is by far not the pinnacle of evolution. If we really were, we wouldn’t be raping our own planet.
There is a theory that eventually the universe will implode again into this pinpoint thing and blow up again.
Yup, there’s also a theory that during this implosion (when the universe contracts instead of expands) time will run backwards– ie. we’ll become younger, but we won’t realize because all our thoughts are backwards too.
The theory of implosion has already been disproven due to the fact that the expansion speed of the universe is rising instead of slowing down. Where does this leave the big bang and the pinpoint of matter being created because the universe will contract?
What I was trying to say is that the theory of the big bang is only supported by rather thin evidence (”our universe is expanding so at some point it must have been all in the same place” and the “cosmic noise” (don’t know what it’s called in English)), and the big bang *by far* does not cover everything.
Also, I’m not saying that God put the ball in motion. I’m just saying that the big bang is scientifically a rather weak theory, so the chances of it collapsing is rather large.
People that believe in a God have more certainty about the universe than people who believe in the big bang; since you cannot disprove the existence of a God (it’s *faith*, after all). However, scientists *can* (and probably will, I think) disprove the big bang theory, in the future.
Comment by Administrator — September 26, 2005 @ 7:14 pm
> the big bang is only supported by rather thin evidence
Thin evidence is much better than no evidence at all. This is why I prefer a scientific explanation over any supernatural one. For me, it IS all about the evidence. And as I replied in the past in this very blog, take that from someone who has seen a UFO with her own two eyes, but of course, she can’t prove it. ;-)
Comment by Eugenia — September 26, 2005 @ 7:20 pm
The Universe is in an Infinate Loop the following will happen for eternity. in the exact order.
1) Big Bang
2) Galaxies spread out due to:
Velocity > Gravity
3) Velocity will eventually drop to a point where Gravity is larger, and the Universe will begin to collapse
4) at some point all matter will be compressed into one mass of matter
5) Big Bang
and so it continues, Everything that you have done today will have been done thousands if not millions of times before, one explaination for Deja Vu is that what you experience is “Echoes” from a previous loop where there is a slight miss-alignment in the loop, kind of what happens when audio and video go out of sync on a Video recording.
This Scientific theory and idea maybe obsurd to a few, I personally think it is valid, as at one point the universe will reach a point where it will collapse on its self.
the next question is… what caused this infinate loop?
Comment by Andrew Youll — September 26, 2005 @ 8:38 pm
Fourty-two.
Comment by Douglas Adams — September 27, 2005 @ 11:50 am
Douglas, what are you still doing around? :)
Anyway…
What causes the universe to ‘be’, like every area of science that scientists don’t have a consensus on, is fair game for people who wish to deal in religion. Scientists describe the observable and theorize on the calculable, but this division is what I believe should also be the separation between what is taught in public school and what is not.
Everything that is taught in a science class is an observable pattern which can be reproduced by anyone, anywhere in the world. Religion wants to explain even that which is outside the realm of repeatable observation: one person can travel the world, speak with people, study nature, meditate on it, and decide that Intelligent Design is truth, but a second person going on the same journey could determine just the opposite (as has happened in history many times over). It’s not repeatable, and cannot be proven true or false. This defies the scientific method.
Merriam-Webster’s definition of science as I understand to be used in the term ‘Science Class’ is this:
And their idea of the scientific method? (emphasis mine)
As I’ve expressed elsewhere, I am in favor of teaching of religion in, say, History or Religion class, but no religion’s philosophies have any place being taught as scientific fact.
Comment by Tom — September 29, 2005 @ 4:05 am
Speaking as a physics researcher, also always having been interested in epistemology, i can see a recurrent flaw here. The flaw is evident, imo, because of the use of that word, dreaded by any scientist. The word is “why”. Let me explain.
“why” is a very human word, deeply embedded in the “narrative” way we are accustomed to think of the world. We take an abstract, insulated situation and try to find an abstract, insualted situation that is the ‘cause’ of the former.
Q) The child is sitting inthe sandbox and crying. WHY is he crying?
A) (one of many possible causes) He’s crying because his toy broke.
That’s narrative: the situations are simple, abstract and consequential. Real world events in physics are complex and intertwined. Abstraction can only work for a very crass first draft of phenomena, basically just to enlist the laws involved that we’ll detail later:
Q) WHY did the stone fall to the ground?
A) Because of gravity
That’s simple enough for kids to be satisfied with, exactly because it’s in narrative form, but it just puts a label (gravity) on the mistery. It tends to go well with wrong mind models (”first there’s a stone floating in the air, then there’s this gravity thing pulling it down, SO it falls”), though it usually generates in smarter kids the dreaded
Comment by Kitty — September 30, 2005 @ 7:29 am
(continued)
… the dreaded chain of WHYs (”and why is there the gravity? and why…”).
The reality is that physics explains the HOW. The stone, the gravity and the earth are all involved together in a process that we can describe mathematically, has no precise start nor end save for our abstractions (”the stone” is an abstraction, as we should describe precisely its components at subatomic level, save that we can describe its motion “precisely enough” even if we don’t).
So, when you ask WHY the big bang happened, you’re thinking in narrative terms. Very human, sure, and especially very proper for ppl that usually dwelt in human sciences rather than more ‘hard’ sciences like physics and maths and chemistry.
The reality is that science bothers to describe the HOW, the WHY is our human way to simplify matters, and to put stuff in causal order. Which btw does not make entirely sense because the Big Bang as we postulate it today involved TIME as well as space. Thus you’re maybe asking ‘what happened before time started’, which is again very human, but doesnt make much sense :) Causes and beginnings, that’s what we are used to look for, but that doesnt mean they have a scientific meaning.
K
Comment by Kitty — September 30, 2005 @ 7:38 am
“Velocity will eventually drop to a point where Gravity is larger, and the Universe will begin to collapse”
Uhm, not according to anything I’ve ever read.
The latest evidence seems to suggest that the Universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate. As galaxies get farther apart, the gravitational attraction between them becomes weaker. The latter staement was true even before the discovery of the acceleration.
Scientists have speculated that something called “Dark Energy” is responsible for the apparent accelerating expansion, but I am not so sure (I am not a cosmologist, but I do understand simple concepts ;^).
My reasoning follows:
The farther we look into the cosmos, the further back in time we are seeing, as light travels at a finite speed (~300,000 kps). Our best instruments are showing us the Universe as it was half a billion years after the Big Bang, when the Universe was very much smaller, and everything was therfore closer together. I don’t recall the exact estimated size, but lets say the Universe back then was 200 million light years across. Did it take light 200 killion years to cross that distance? No. It took nearly 13,000 million years (13 billion), because of the Universes expansion.
At what speed does gravitational force propagate through the cosmos? Is it an instantaneous thing, or does it travel at a finite speed, as does light? If in fact the gravitational force travels at a finite speed, then masses at the edges of the Observable Universe would only now be exerting their (now greatly diminished) gravitational forces on each other. If the rate of the Universes’ accelleration is a constant, then it would appear to us looking back, that the rate increased once the Universe got to a certain size, when it was just too big for the gravitational force to have had enough time to travel between them by that point in history.
Obviously, what I’ve said so far says nothing about why there was a Big Bang, and I am making some assumptions (which I’ve not been able to find support for or against in all my years of searching) but I just wanted to give some reasons why I believe your model to be deeply flawed, and unlikely IMO to be the nature of things.
Comment by Trent Townsend — November 17, 2005 @ 5:44 pm