[Sandwich]

Ran across a good summary of the core argument... I love WikiWiki.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Schroeder

[Galemp]

A bit of a stretch, that is...

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by GalacticEmperor
A bit of a stretch, that is...

From 6 days to ~15 bil. years? You bet. But it's scientifically sound.

[diamondgeezer]

Haven't gotten off my arse to look aorund this site, but I like the name of it: www.infidels.org/index.shtml

[mikhael]

*TWWEEEEET!*

Fundamental misapplication/misunderstanding of Special and General Relativity.

Fifteen yard penalty.

Dude. That's like the grossest misuse of Einstein since Alcubierre.

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by mikhael
*TWWEEEEET!*

Fundamental misapplication/misunderstanding of Special and General Relativity.

Fifteen yard penalty.

Dude. That's like the grossest misuse of Einstein since Alcubierre.

What's wrong with it?

[Tiara]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
From www.infidels.org/index.shtml

Taken from The Skeptic Tank

"I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."

President George H. W. Bush, during an August 27, 1987 interview by Rob Sherman, as reported in Brochure # 8286 (circa 1991) published by American Atheist Veterans.

That is really a f*cked up statement to make.... Though he made it 16 years ago. But still...

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Sandwich


What's wrong with it?

Like Alcubierre, it shows a blatant disregard for relativity (both special and relative). Based on the tiny amount of information provided by Wikiwiki, I'd have to say its time to go grab the guy's book. I'm all for crazy theories, but they have to make sense. WikiWiki is making me think this guy is applying time scaled independently from space scaling. Since time and space scaling are intrinsically linked, this just doesn't seem possible or plausible. In short, on the surface, it looks about the same as the guy that decided that imaginary time was wrong: interesting idea, complete misapplication of the science.

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by mikhael

Like Alcubierre, it shows a blatant disregard for relativity (both special and relative). Based on the tiny amount of information provided by Wikiwiki, I'd have to say its time to go grab the guy's book. I'm all for crazy theories, but they have to make sense. WikiWiki is making me think this guy is applying time scaled independently from space scaling. Since time and space scaling are intrinsically linked, this just doesn't seem possible or plausible. In short, on the surface, it looks about the same as the guy that decided that imaginary time was wrong: interesting idea, complete misapplication of the science.

So you're saying that althoug hthings might "go slower", they'd also have a proportionally "shorter" distance to travel, thereby getting from point A to point B in the same amount of time?

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Sandwich


So you're saying that althoug hthings might "go slower", they'd also have a proportionally "shorter" distance to travel, thereby getting from point A to point B in the same amount of time?

Yes. I need more details before I can say with "The guy is nuckng futs!" or "Whoa. He might be right."

I will say that I find it very difficult to reconcile this idea with Hawking, but I'm open to odd ideas. I used to think Alcubierre was the bomb.

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by mikhael

Yes. I need more details before I can say with "The guy is nuckng futs!" or "Whoa. He might be right."

I will say that I find it very difficult to reconcile this idea with Hawking, but I'm open to odd ideas. I used to think Alcubierre was the bomb.

Read one of his first 2 books then.

[Rictor]

"I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."

HAHAHAHAHAHA  

Oh man, I'm more greatful than ever than I don't live within the jurisdiction of that monkey.

Anyone ever watch The Oblongs? "Dear White Male God, please send down Your holy fire to cleanse us of the Mud Races..."

[J.F.K.]

Originally posted by Sandwich
Relativity theory teaches that time passes much more slowly in conditions of great gravitational pressure than it does on earth. Using these familiar principles, Schroeder calculates that a period of six days under the conditions of quark confinement, when the universe was approximately a million million times smaller and hotter than it is today, is equal to fifteen billion years of earth time. Genesis and modern physics are reconciled.

That's off the site... interesting. Never considered that. But I'd like to know what Mik has to finish with.

[Top Gun]

Nah

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/addendaB.html#Schroeder

Here's Victor Stenger's (Popular American Physicist's) review, and it's quite scathing.

At times you get the impression that this book is a parody, with quite a few good chuckles when read in that context. However, the sections on evolution soon convince you that no parody is intended. They are just too unfunny, too dull. Schroeder trots out all the old, tiresome arguments about why "life could not have stared by chance" and how the simplest forms, even viruses, are "far too complex to have originated without there being an inherent chemical property of molecular self-organization and/or reaction enhancing catalysts at every step of their development" (85). He applies the usual creationist deception of calculating chance probabilities as if chance is the only operative mechanism, and then saying this "proves" that God intervenes along the way when they come out very low. And, of course, the "staccato aspect of the fossil record" refutes classical evolution. "These rapid changes cannot be explained by purely random mutations at the molecular-genetic level" (87).

Notice how often theists tell us that something cannot be explained except by God? They never seem to learn from history.

[Fr3z3r]

Well, I'm still impressed by Schroeder's theory and its explanation.

And about this: http://www.geraldschroeder.com/age.html ...

...could anyone EXPLAIN (mikhael?) what's wrong with it? K-I-S-S, please.

[Stryke 9]

Though my brain starts freezing up at the horrifyingly dull amount of math and abstruse physics theory involved in explaining how relativity works here, I think this more or less covered it:

Originally posted by Sandwich


So you're saying that althoug hthings might "go slower", they'd also have a proportionally "shorter" distance to travel, thereby getting from point A to point B in the same amount of time?

So it wouldn't matter if one could say that the formation of the universe took 16 billion years- if a day lasted two billion years or whatever at that point, then since time was stretched out you could only get one day's worth of stuff done in that two billion years, not two billion years' worth in that day. He even explains this flaw in his reasoning in the "Einstein's Theory" section, though he obviously doesn't notice it- see the part about heartbeats, etc.

[Stryke 9]

You know, on reading this... you can tell this guy's one of the Creationists just by looking at the way he makes points, never mind his actual content. It's all "Einstein tells us" and "the Torah says"- he considers it all true because someone in supposed authority told him so, not because it makes sense on its own. Beware of the person who writes that way- they also think that way, and there's no dealing with them, since if some famous guy said something, no matter how horribly and obviously wrong it was, he'll remember it and take it as Gospel- accuracy rated by mass media attention.

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Fr3z3r
Well, I'm still impressed by Schroeder's theory and its explanation.

And about this: http://www.geraldschroeder.com/age.html ...

...could anyone EXPLAIN (mikhael?) what's wrong with it? K-I-S-S, please.

The coolest part IMHO is the last paragraph.

[Descenterace]

Why do people think that low probabilites = impossible?  Just because the probability of humanity being here by chance are trillions to one against, doesn't mean that God intervened!  It just means that an extremely unlikely possibility happened.  If it HADN'T happened, we wouldn't be here to notice.

The question they're asking to prove the existence of God is 'what is the probability that humanity evolved by chance'.  The real question is 'what is the probability that humanity evolved by chance, given that we are here'.

Why do people pick out Earth's uniquities and say that they must have something to do with life?  There are billions of uniquities that Earth DOESN'T have.  If Earth didn't have a huge satellite but did orbit a Black Hole, then the life forms that may have evolved might say that life can only evolve around a Black Hole!  So Earth has a huge moon, orbits a single star, and is just the right distance from that star to make life possible.  Yes, that's unlikely, but IT CAN STILL HAPPEN!  And, to reiterate, if it hadn't happened we wouldn't be here to discuss why it hadn't happened.

Message to all die-hard Creationists:  Life is most likely an accident.  We're here because of a long string of coincidences.  Accept that unlikely things CAN happen and stop trying to use flawed statistical arguments to support your case.  Believe what you want and let others do the same.

Now, someone please close all 'Creation vs. Evolution' threads, because they never go anywhere.

[Rictor]

Aren't there several members who have "Yay, I'm a Creationist" in their sigs? Or is that just Rampage? Where are they all?

Now, the real question which relates to the Creationist viewpoint is how reliable is the Bible? I mean, is there any evidence as to who wrote it, why, when etc?

I may just be ignorant of the facts, but I have so far never encountered an official (Church + scholar sanctioned) explaination as to the origins of the Bible. Oh, except that whole Shakespeare thing, but I don't buy it..

Supporters of both theories are so adamantly supportive of their viewpoints that there real is no way to convince a person (or much less people) that they are wrong. Its a matter of personal belief.