I thought that I responded with respect and humor... and then addressed the serious questions.

Instead we get to this? Strange.

The reason that this appeals to me is because of how it would answer a mind-bending mystery.
The two-slit experiment with individual detectors before and after each slit is one of the most mysterious things that I have ever tried to understand.
So far, that effort has left me feeling like I have tried to bench press a milling machine.

The two slit experiment involves the original proof that light is made up of waves, not particles.
Isaac Newton was such a powerhouse that the sciences mostly accepted the particle theory of light on his say so for almost 2 centuries. There were still a few who thought it was waves, then along came Thomas Young to put the matter to rest... He built a box that had 2 very narrow slits in the front, and a light source to shine through the slits. An interference pattern showed up on the bacl wall of the box.
Light was definitely made up of WAVES. Particles do not display the same type of interference pattern. (Particles can interfere with each other, which is why this experiment kept on getting more and more refined after the strange results began showing up.)
There were still lingering questions, so the experiment became more and more refined, until experimenters were shooting individual electrons, one at a time, at the 2 slit box (I am skipping a lot of chronology here Worth reading the true history.) Lo and behold, these fundamental particles were showing an interference pattern too!? How can that be when they are being shot at the box one at a time? One at a time! It's enough to make the head hurt right there, but wait... It got even more strange. MUCH more strange. When they blocked one slit, the electrons displayed a built up pattern on the back wall as regular particles would: individual strikes on the back wall. If they left the experiment running with both slits open an interference pattern showed up. (This is a very simplified description. The manipulation of electrons and the box involved bunches of little tricks and refinements.)
The experimenters set up detectors to watch the experiment. When the detectors were switched on, the experiment showed that particles went through the slits... When no one was watching (the detectors were turned off,) the interference patterns came back.

This experiment was repeated around the world with the same results. Then the scientists got tricky. They decided to fuck around with the electrons a little bit, show them who they were up against. They put the detectors -behind- the slits... "Haha, we'll show those tiny tricky little fuckers." MmmHmm. It was like a chess game... between two International Masters. Except humans found out that we've been playing at the grade school level all this time. Apparently we don't even know what the chess board really looks like.
So back to the MmmHmm response from the electrons.
Here's where the real magic appeared - it didn't matter if the detectors were placed in front of the slits or after - so essentially, a wave/particle would seem to go back in time and make the choice about demonstrating wave or particle results -after- it had already gone through the slits.
The human chess players tried an endgame move... Those pocket-protector wearing theoretical physicists went for the checkmate by having their detectors switch on -after- the electron would have been through the slit. It wasn't even turned on when the electron/wave first went through the slits... Holy shit on a shingle, the results were the same.
When there is a real time observation, the particles display particle like behavior. When there is no real time observation, and only a recording of the back of the box, there is an interference pattern. As soon as we try to watch an individual electron pass through an individual slit, we get a particle behavior result. No watchee, no particle. All wavey like.

I'm not making this up. I can't tally up how many hours of my adult life have been spent trying to bench press this full size milling machine.

Murray's theory is very compelling... I have something new to chew on when I try to lift that chunk of steel again.



Edited to clean up a little muddiness.

As you know, I've been offline for a while and have little time for any detailed response but thought I would type a quick note. First on age of the Earth in a prior post. I have no problem with dating Earth to billions of years, it does not matter to my view. My main point was that I hear arguments stating dates that are based on fluctuating dating systems. That gives rise to a margin of error that can be large when we speak of life forms, especially when Homo Sapien arose. The 6000 year old Earth believers base it on genealogy in the Torah but I have debated some of them as well on the Hebrew meanings of Genesis and the days not being solar days, as I stated earlier. I do not adhere to the 6000 year age for our planet.

Now do I know how old humans are? No, but neither does anyone else. We have estimates based on what little we know and the oldest I have seen is around 200,000 years but as I listed, the first civilization we have evidence of arose much later (3000-9000BC depending on whom you read). The problems with dating systems I mentioned can easily account for variations between biblical genealogy and the estimated age of human civilizations since that is a short time span in a much longer universal time span.

I disagree slightly on energy being used for evil. Energy also is used for order out of chaos. It can destroy but it also creates. Our universe is structured with energy and we see the Yin and Yang or positive and negative throughout the universe. Energy is neither good nor bad, we have free will to use it as we like. Jung believed in a collective unconscious. Whatever he believed and where it came from, I feel he was onto something. We do have archetypes. Perhaps these derive from consciousness in an energetic field like an informational echo or maybe the information is programmed into DNA that is inherited at birth. I just see informational transfer through energy and the ordering of matter in quantum physics (as the collapsing of a wave into an organized form). Am I right? Heck if I know since it would be hard to prove.

I see no reason why a creator could not set a universe and it's dimensions into motion and let the conscious energy do the work. Any such creator would be well beyond our intellect so all we can do is guess. I fall back on prophetic statements, whether there is any validation, and whether there is any evidence to analyze if an account is historical or not to give me a direction I can follow. I have to look at the data I am given. I can read physics research with some understanding as long as it doesn't go too far into or past calculus and I can understand biology fairly readily but I am also fairly comfortable with history and what constitutes a historical document. Anything beyond that is theoretical but theory is where the fun really begins.

I meant to say something about the nerve video, which I had seen before. My problem with it is we have no idea if there is some reason why it is designed that way or not. Just because we do not understand a reason does not mean there is none. In medicine they used to believe the appendix had no function also. It does have a function in the immune system but was called a vestigial organ when people were ignorant of this fact.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... rgans.html

"Vestigial Organs Not So Useless After All, Studies Find

Maggie Koerth-Baker
for National Geographic News
July 30, 2009

Appendix, tonsils, various redundant veins—they're all vestigial body parts once considered expendable, if not downright useless.

But as technology has advanced, researchers have found that, more often than not, some of these "junk parts" are actually hard at work...

Researchers studying mice discovered that the spleen stores monocytes, white blood cells essential for immune defense and tissue repair.

Previously, scientists had thought monocytes were made only in bone marrow, like other types of white blood cells, and were "stored" in the bloodstream.

But the new study found that the spleen contains ten times as many monocytes as blood—making it a far more important storehouse.

What's more, the spleen is the source of 40 to 50 percent of the monocytes involved in nursing lab mice back to health after a heart attack, said study co-author Filip Swirski of Massachusetts General Hospital's Center for Systems Biology in Boston."

We like to think we are intelligent but intelligence is a large scale and we seem to be more arrogant than intelligent.

His argument in the video that the design is deficient also did not go to the points of intermediate forms between organisms that speaks to Darwin's original problems addressed in his Origin of Species. It also does not go to the fact that the basis of life (nucleic acids) will not not survive without a protein (or perhaps a phospholipid layer) for protection and you need DNA or RNA to code for the protein. A simple virus needs a protein capsid, even though it utilizes a host cell and it's genetic material to code for many proteins. This is more of a conundrum than the chicken and egg. If the protein came first, how did the DNA or RNA then form? How could the genetic material code for the protein if it were not already created?

Life relies on exacting 3 dimensional structures in organic and biochemistry. Movement in space of the molecules forms the basis of life and an organisms function. Once that well coordinated movement fails you at minimum lose healthy functioning. If you change the structure slightly, you can quickly bring disease and death. You must have a valid 3D structure for an organism to arise and thrive. This is seen clearly in pharmacology where drugs must fit their receptors on cells. Read any graduate level pharmacology text and it is abundantly clear. Other cell receptors and immunology show it as well.

Even if DNA could somehow randomly arise, it could not hold it's structure without a myriad of protections and other systems to support the chemical reactions needed in order to replicate proteins. Having a million uears to "evolve" is meaningless if your nucleic acid spontaneously forms and then disintegrates within a few seconds.

We see this 3D variation/function in L and D isomers which have markedly different functions. L and D functions are shown in an example of methamphetamine. These two forms of a molecule appear to be the same formulaicly yet are not 3 dimensionally.

http://scienceblogs.com/moleculeoftheda ... d-you-bel/

"L-methamphetamine is a fine example of how molecules that vary only in their chirality can have very different biological effects. Chiral molecules have non-superimposable mirror images. L-methamphetamine, at left, below, is found in Vicks Vapor Inhalers. (Notice how they obfuscate the name a little bit by calling it “levmetamfetamine”). This is the mirror image of D-methamphetamine – the street drug. As you’ll see, the two compounds are very different medically despite having only a subtle structural difference."

A good summary of it. With little time, I will just list a few quotes from Einstein and Bohr to show that this even baffles genius level scientists.

Einstein:

"God does not play dice with the universe." It was more a show of his frustration with quantum results than anything.

Bohr:

"Einstein, stop telling God what to do!"

"If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet."

I wasn't sure if you or someone else was going to expound on this.

To my way of seeing things, this has led us right to the best part of the discussion : Why we believe the way that we do.

To some of us, we see the most excellent complexity of life and see The Hand of God.
To some of us, we see the most excellent complexity of life and see The Hand of Time.

It's interesting to me that we can both see that explanation for the why of the laryngeal nerve and come to such different conclusions.
To me, the explanation is like a headshot to the "no evolution across species" argument. Just a complete and immediate end. (Some folks have a difficult time separating a message from the messenger. I am -only- referring to the explanation.)
Obviously, that is not a universal reading of the "mystery of the laryngeal nerve."

I have a book by Michael Shermer - How We Believe that digs into the topic.

From a review of the book :


The difficulty in talking about this topic is that some of those who see The Hand of God are immediately hateful of those who see The Hand of Time, and vice versa.

I am going to have to sit down and thoroughly re-read this thread, but in the meantime, thank you Morris and PMB for making a thread worth reading.

No problem with disagreement on what it means. Being hateful is anti-Christian so anyone who hates another person, especially based on the others belief system and calls themselves a follower of Christ is a hypocrite. Even a cursory reading of any one of the Gospel accounts makes that evident. Heck, just read the parts in red. We all have our problems so attacking another person when we have faults is also hypocritical. My wife is not Christian and she is a better person than I am. My belief does not make me better than anyone else. I just strive to do what I believe is right. Most times I do and sometimes I do not.

I can see the hand of time argument but still hold that just extending time does not make things possible. I still need to have a mechanism behind the formation of the building blocks of life. Being a scientist has made that ingrained in my reasoning. If there is no valid way for DNA and RNA to form and be protected long enough to propogate, an infinite expanse of time is meaningless. Protein creation before DNA formation cannot happen as the molecule is not present without the nucleic acid code itself. We cannot have the product of software (an action by the computer hardware) before the actual code is written. If the protein was formed without DNA, then it is irrelevant that DNA would then form later to code for that protein. Why would nature form DNA if the proteins are already present? If it were needed to efficiently create other proteins, then that is not a case of random generation. We still have the problem of how these chemicals all came together in the correct ratio, distances, and temperatures to have the complex chemical reactions. DNA needs a specific range of temperatures not only to be created but to maintain it's 3 dimensional structure and jot denature. It slso will denature at incorrect pH levels.. Leave it with no protection and it is destroyed and becomes useless within a short time (no matter how many millions of years we have to wait).

The laryngeal nerve story is another theory but there is no data showing any verifiable link to a scientific proof for evolution. I listed human organs that were not understood, which were also listed as vestigial because the human mind was too limited in understanding. We tend to come up with theories when we do not understand something because that is how the mind works. It doesn't like loose ends. That is great for advancement of science but as has been shown throughout history, we later find out many of our theories were wrong.

I am holding out for someone to show intermediate species that show a link as Darwin stated in his book. Without that, Darwin said his theory could not be proven. We need verifiable data and not interpretations of what someone believes is true. There were no intermediates in his time and he believed the fossil record would bolster his theory within 50-100 years. When it did not arrive with much greater scientific knowledge and anility to fill the fossil record, his theory was already being pushed as fact in the public school system. By definition, his theory is not scientific because there is no data that proves it. This is why we still call it a theory.

After DNA was discovered by Watson and Crick and it was understood how massively complex it was as a coding molecule for the entire organism, we began to see some Darwinian adherents look to panspermia as a way to explain the seeding of life on Earth since many saw that the timing appeared to be too short on our planet for DNA and all of the life forms to have randomly occured. This was even without any known mechanism to say how DNA would form with no protecton and no known chemical container to build the molecule.

DNA is complex as I have stated. If anybody has not taken Biochemistry, read the PDF below. If you have taken General Chem, you know how a simple chemical reaction works and how you need the basic chemicals in a certain ratio at the correct temperatures and in a vessel that allows them to come into contact for bonds to form. It is difficult to have a reaction if you have other substances present that interfere with your reaction. If you have Na and Cl (or molecules containing thise ions) separated slightly, they will never react and that is a simple reaction. Add hundreds of needed constituent chemicals at similar distances and the task becomes much more difficult. Think of this as you try to imagine a random DNA molecule being formed and it being formed without any protein or vessel to contain it.

An expanse of time does not negate the criteria for the first reaction and subsequent reactions needed. If we skip ahead and just assume DNA is formed and the proteins are all coded, where did the RNA come from which is needed to replicate the DNA for further propogation of this single DNA strand?

EDIT: I meant DNA double helix. This does bring up another argument. DNA has two complementary strands. How did the opposing strand to form the double helix randomly form ar the exact time of the first steand in order that they could be in close enough proximity to bond, all unprotected from the elements? To me, knowing Chemistry, that is beyond rationality.

Why did DNA randomly code for the future needed proteins? Does that not bring up the idea that some information might already be embedded in nature/universe to be a template for the code that is DNA? Or is it more rational to presume that all of this is random chance? How long does DNA stay viable without protection? A million years so it can randomly form a second strand and also randomly form the needed RNA? A billion years? A trillion years?

Does the fact (proven in quantum experiments) that information/observation creating what we perceive as a material reality, collapsing a wave to a particle, not gove us pause and think it might be possible that it is beyond random chance? Is it random that these experiments are reproducible?

I still want to discuss some other quantum experiments besides the double slit and am sorry I have not done it yet. Hopefully I will get off my butt and do it one of these days.

https://www.atsu.edu/learning_resources ... alysis.pdf

NOTE at the top of page 2 where it shows information storage of DNA with bith coding and template strands (for RNA and protein synthesis).

^ Could you and PMB expand more on the impacts of timing in evolution? It's simple in terms of a single evolutionary upgrade, but, as you pointed out with the DNA, when you add in all the other supporting changes that have to happen at exactly the same time for the upgrade to survive (x the millions and millions of upgrades that have to happen to get from nothing to us...), that's where my mind trips. How does chance evolution produce a multitude of evolutionary factors that all line up at exactly the right time to advance organisms?

You stated it much quicker than I did. I tend to drone sometimes. That is my issue. No matter how long of a time span, in order for a mutation to take hold, it must propogate in the species. Assume it is mammalian, you need a male and female to produce offspring with the same trait. Assume we come from primates. Primates have 24 pairs of chromosomes and the theory is two were fused to create the 23 in humans. Say this fusion happened in an offspring of a primate. It would also have to occur in an opposing sex and they would have to mate so a long time period would not account for the chromosomal change to propogate. It would have to occur in multiple offspring in the same generation. Chromosomal fusion causes major abnormalities as well that normally leads to death. However, if it occurred and the offspring did not die, another would have to also mutate. If the mutation is random, multiple mutated offspring would be unlikely. This would have also had to be the case for a massive number of mutations for jist the variety of mammallian species we now see, let alone mutations of non-mammalian life that procreates.

However, the conundrum of protein vs DNA is a hard one for anybody to get around. If we cannot create and sustain one without the other, theorizing on mutations or jumps between single cells and animal species is mainly academic.

I confess that I have avoided the biological sciences my whole life... :dunce:
The ability of us humans to grasp the immensity of time (or physical scales) of the universe is terrible. When we see a mountain, our minds can't grasp that every cubic foot in that mountain is LOADED with interesting stuff even at our scale, let alone down to the microscopic, atomic and subatomic levels.
If we DO try to see that mountain, we see the surface of it only. If we think about it in our normal way, we miss 99.999999....% of what that mountain really is.
We automatically stamp our own level of experience on things that are so far beyond the span of a human lifetime or our ability to see/sense, that it effectively leaves us blindly holding the elephant's tail and thinking that we've caught a snake.
For most of history and prehistory, the humans started their reproduction at around 12-13, and finished around 20-25. (I don't have a cite for that... just what I vaguely recall from an anthropology class years ago.)
So count the number of generations in a single century... Now try to really consider how 1000 years feels to our brains... and multiply that thousand times 10, and times 10 again and again and again. And do it a BUNCH more. One of the problems is that our minds have a tendency to think in addition when the scale is actually logarithmic.
Time is mind-blowingly immense, and very few people actually try to think of it in anything other than the human scale. (That is from personal experience and discussions... with some pretty smart fellers.)

I am not going to try to argue biology with Murray.
I acknowledge your specialty and experience and am grateful to have you help us understand some of the mysteries.
Murray, do you have a rough idea of the portion of biological sciences that are still out there waiting to be discovered, explained, de-mystified?
Here's the way that I see the state of our discussion :We both see some mysteries in how the first self-replicating energy seeking molecule became self-replicating.

One side thinks that the formation of life required divine intervention... and portions of that group also determinedly deny ALL evolution, not just the "cross-species" variety.
Some think that the entire universe was created ~6000 years ago for the sole purpose and benefit of Mankind.
Others acknowledge the immensity of time (without trying to grok it) - and I am still trying to understand how the creation fits in to this viewpoint.

I think that the mechanism of life is natural, and that the mystery of how it first became self-replicating is lost in the vast eons of time (here on earth) because right now our laboratory is chockablock full of highly successful and varied organisms that gobble up the ingredients and energy available at such a rate and success that the more primitive life forms were all excluded a billion or more years ago.

Some people find this natural view of life to be offensive to their dignity... I've no idea why, and I've tried to understand this for years.

So in my universe view, there are two great mysteries:
1. The "source" of the Big Bang.
2. The first self-replicating energy seeking molecule.

I find many more mysteries in the Divine Creation theory.

I don't quite see the point of trying to explain what we clearly do not know - or pointing out the gaps in our knowledge beyond acknowledging that the gaps are there. We don't know the origins. We may never know them...
I fully acknowledge the unknowns here.

Google "God of the Gaps" to see my viewpoint on this.
My explanation is : we don't know. The reasons I hesitate to ascribe the mysteries to a divine being are many.

Wow. I've sat down and taken the time to actually read the thread, and look up (most) of the links. I'm impressed and very much in awe. Thank you for all of the good information. I have nowhere near the education you two have, and it is certainly interesting to hear the details. Please continue.

PMB, I was also raised in a very conservative Christian home where the answers were always "because God/Bible said/did so". As a small kid, I distinctly remember my mother telling me that I could not read a book about dinosaurs because they were fake, invented to support the Theory of Evolution.


LC echoed this idea, that "God" is outside of natural law.
At this point in my life, I tend to lean toward an intelligent creator. But I reject Christianity's idea that "God"/"Grand Designer"/"Creator" is outside of natural law. I believe this is a huge fallacy that religion perpetuates. My current opinion is that natural law and order are an expression of him, much like painting is an expression of an artist. Just like expression (the act and being) can't be separated from the artist, "God" cannot be separated from natural law.
I feel like this is a very poor example of the idea that I'm trying to convey.



Point taken.



It sounds like you two have narrowed this part of the discussion down to basically the same question. And at this point, an unanswerable one.

I'm interested in hearing more about this:


This leads me to a question I was going to ask earlier; is there something in the way the observer 'looks' at the quantum particle that makes it collapse one way versus the other? Is the 'look' actually an energy transfer? And does that energy transfer contain information that causes the quantum to collapse a certain way, whereas a different observer's 'look' contains information that would make it collapse the other way?

MorrisWR, I think what you said above is the key to everything (including karma).

To Mike's question of do I believe there are many unknowns in biology, I would say we know very little in any scientific field and biology is probably well behind most other sciences due to the complexity of life and biochemistry. I think we have come to the conclusion that none of us can give a reasonable answer for the first self replicating organism or biologic organisms so I'll move to quantum experiments, probabilities, and consciousness.

My circuitous route of DNA and species evolution was not to state it is a final verdict but to show that Darwinian theory is anything but set in stone as people believe. There are many holes. I saw ridicule of people in other threads who do not believe Darwin and that we are not using science. Alinsky tactic #5 in "Rules for Radicals" is ridicule, which I see used often and when confronted the person rarely has a valid argument. My point was to show there actually is a scientific view on the other side. The problem is the politically correct crowd does not want an opposing view to be heard. It is their view and nobody else need speak up.

Deciding if a creative force uses natural laws starting with a big bang leading to billions of years of evolution or a shorter time frame for species and geological formations is interesting but we must look at multiple disciplines in depth (which I am happy to do later). We could discuss statistical peer reviewed science (mathematics journals) of Torah code and hidden prophecy. We could discuss open prophecy that anyone can grasp through the direct text with time calculations. Biblical texts as historical documents vs stories using standard models of evaluating all historical texts. We could go into geology to examine the old vs new Earth. Over the past four years of studying different areas for clues, I base my current beliefs on many subjects. I have tried to keep my research open minded since preconceived notions and bias do not lead to truth. Coming from a non-religious background and disparaging religions as a scientist made it easy for me to study from a sceptical viewpoint. I still try to find things that will discredit my viewpoint because that is the way I have approached research at work. If I cannot shoot holes in my conclusions, my ideas can hold up until I find evidence to change my mind. This method disturbs many of the Christians I speak to but they can stand on their faith and I can stand on my faith based on my study.

For now, I wanted to post another interesting experiment using a single atom showing the quantum strangeness of particle and wave duality.

I am still using quotes from "Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness" by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner. The following is a short excerpt on one of the many experiments they discuss. The results are not what Newtonian physics would suggest.

“Any wave can be reflected. A semitransparent mirror reflects part of a wave and allows the rest to go through. A glass windowpane, for example, allows some light through and reflects some. At the glass, the wavefunction of each individual photon splits. Part of the photon wavefunction is reflected and part is transmitted. We can also have a semitransparent mirror for atoms. It splits an atom’s wavefunction into two wave packets. One packet goes through, and another is reflected…

We send in a single atom at a known speed and close the doors of the boxes when the wavefunction packets are inside the boxes. After that, each part of the wavefunction bounces back and forth in its box….

We know there is one, and only one, atom in each box pair because we observed an atom and sent one into each box pair. These days, with the proper tools, we can see and deal with individual atoms and molecules. With a scanning tunneling microscope, for example, we can pick up and put down, single atom...

Position a box pair in front of a screen on which an impacting atom would stick. Open a narrow slit in each box, at about the same time. An atom hits the screen. Repeat this with many identically positioned box pairs. You find that atoms cluster in some regions of the screen, but avoid other regions...

Each atom followed a rule allowing it to land in certain regions and forbidding it from landing in other regions…Now repeat this procedure with a new set of box pairs. This time have a different spacing between the boxes of each pair. You find the regions where the atoms clustered are spaced differently. The larger the spacing between the boxes of a pair, the smaller is the spacing between the places where atoms land….

Each and every atom followed a rule that depends on the spacing of its box pair. Each atom therefore had to “know” its box-pair spacing. Clearly, the experiment we just described is an interference experiment, like the two-slit experiment, and we’ll now call it an “interference experiment.” But we did not use any property of waves. Something of each atom had to come from each box because where atoms landed depended on the box-pair spacing. This interference experiment establishes that each atom had been a spread-out thing, in both boxes of its pair. (Nothing done outside the boxes while the atom is still inside has any effect at all.)”

I've been trying to figure out what this discussion really says about our viewpoints.
Murray, in the opening of this thread you made a "No wiki" requirement but I am going to break that in this post because I assume that you were referencing the use of a Wiki as a research source... I am going to use it for God of the Gaps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps as a definition or background, not as a scientific source. Cool?

I really enjoying wrestling with the unknowns... Like the source of the Big Bang, the weirdness of Special and General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and even the some of the "classical" physics of before the QM era.

My conclusion to the unknowns is that we don't know the answers yet... (and to some, we may never know!)
To my way of thinking, the alternate viewpoint seems to be "Because God." I don't mean this in a derogatory way- I am just expressing my simple viewpoint. I am aware that many who believe the way that Murray does also think deeply on the subject.

Here is why I resist the "Because God" point of view... Through all of history religions have been an authority (mostly THE authority) and have made claims as to how and why something exists, how long it has existed, the nature of time, space and matter, etc... (I am not referring to a single religion.)
It seems to me that in almost all cases in which a religion has made a claim (that has turned out to be something that should be in the realm of verification) they have been shown to be simple blowhards overstepping their knowledge.
Lots and lots of good men, women and children have died horrible deaths and lived tortured lives as a result of some of the witch hunts and pogroms that were orchestrated for increasing a religions power, authority and riches.

So I look at all "Because God" arguments with a wary and jaundiced eye. My predilection is to favor those who do not claim to know the answers to currently scientifically unanswered questions.

The questions then go into the "what if's" of philosophy...

What if we find microbial life on Mars? Enceladus? Europa? Titan?
Many of the religious bent will change their tune from "impossible!" to "well, of course. God put it there."

How far can the discoveries and push backs go? For some people, nothing will ever shake their faith.
If alien life forms from another star system landed on Earth with the news that there is a vibrant and thriving galactic community awaiting our arrival, those who have definitely said that there is no life outside of Earth (I know MANY people who have said this) would mostly nod their heads and say "Praise be to God."

I am unwavering in my hope that we'll be contacted by an alien culture, but I am wavering on the belief that it will happen. (Vast distances mostly, but also the growing realization of just how complicated and unlikely some of our human advancements have been.
The Drake Equation made me think that it was inevitable... ( http://www.seti.org/drakeequation) But lots and lots of chewing on the idea and it's detractors suggestions have made me think that the likelihood is much less than what I originally hoped/expected/believed.


N = The number of civilizations in The Milky Way Galaxy whose electromagnetic emissions are detectable.

R* = The rate of formation of stars suitable for the development of intelligent life.

fp = The fraction of those stars with planetary systems.

ne = The number of planets, per solar system, with an environment suitable for life.

fl = The fraction of suitable planets on which life actually appears.

fi = The fraction of life bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges.

fc = The fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.

L = The length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.


That's getting off on a tangent, but it is perhaps the most interesting question of all to me.





I didn't read the comments the same way that you did... I saw the comments as opposition to any form of theological rule, meaning policy decision being based on a representative's religious beliefs.
I'm also aware that I've an idealistic streak that leads me to disappointment and frustration with elected representatives frequently too.

This is not to be argumentative but to point out what seems to be a completely different viewpoint : For recorded history has shown that those who question the established religion are usually silenced or ridiculed, pretty regularly to the death.
You know I respect you Murray, so give me a fair shake in this point.

It looks to me like those who are "ridiculing" a religious viewpoint are actually trying to say something along the lines of "prove it or get it out of public policy."



I don't disparage religions... I disparage those who claim to have divine knowledge. There is a huge difference!



I have this book... Quantum Mechanics are weird to the human mind. General Relativity is almost as weird.
When I am confronted with an experiment/results that seems to defy common sense, my immediate supposition is that I (we) do not understand the underlying framework well enough to either set the test up or to interpret the results.
To a religionist, that may look like a copout, the same way that a religious viewpoint looks to me.

If we list all of the currently unanswered (unanswerable?) questions in science, it looks like each of our responses will be similar to previous responses.



Yes, that is the basic question. The purpose of fiddling around with the two-slit experiment was to try to pin it down, so to speak. The results kept coming back all caddywhompus and contrary to expectations, until finally, scientists began to accept that caddywhompus was the real result. There didn't seem to be a way to get a common sense result.
The "final" nail in the coffin for the goal of a common sense result was having the detectors behind the slits... Then the "final final" nail was having the detectors switch on after the electron (or other small enough chunk of energy/matter) would have already passed through the double slits - which would have meant to our common sense that the wave/particle would have had to go back in time to make a decision as to which robe it was going to wear that day. (Or alternately, that the wave/particle knows, is aware, and somehow reacts to us watching it, which is still something so new and strange to me that I can only include it in parenthesis at the end like this. )

Final result - The Two Slit Experiment has results too strange for us to fully understand.

For an explanation of our limitations that help to explain the results you can read up on Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_centu ... lec14.html


Emphasis on another mind blowing realization of the modern age... The Indeterminacy Principle isn't a product of our limited technology, but rather it is an inherent limitation of the universe. That's kind of weird... No matter how precise we measure, look, see - we reach a point where it is impossible to say with certainty that an item is in a certain position and moving at a certain speed.

Y'all are making a common and huge mistake. The model is not the object under study.

Ponder for a moment a model that perfectly described every possible observed measurement. In this sense it is a perfect model - there is no observation that the model fails to exactly describe and using the model even previously unknown phenomena are predicted and eventually observed just as the model predicts.

Now this model consists of squirrels in cages on wheels in pursuit of various nuts. As silly as it sounds it makes perfect predictions.

Not for one second would anyone believe the actual universe is made up of squirrels and cages and wheels and nuts - it's just a model! Quantum theory and the wave functions and their properties are the model so why would anyone actually belive the universe in any way is actually built out of wavefunctions?

Do not confuse the model for the object/system under study.