Astrophysics, schmastrophysics

I do agree in part that dark matter and dark energy might not be a satisfactory explanation of some astronomical phenomena, but "the Big Furnace"? You gotta be kidding me.

Once again, this only reflects how America's education fails to give its children a proper understanding of science. Look what happens when you get your science from preachers.

Evolutionists accuse creationists of inventing a "God of the Gaps" to cover for their ignorance of true science. It would appear that the high priests of astrophysics have their own Gods of the Gaps, namely dark matter and dark energy.

Evolutionists accuse creationists of inventing a "God of the Gaps" to cover for their ignorance of true science. It would appear that the high priests of astrophysics have their own Gods of the Gaps, namely dark matter and dark energy.

Evolutionists accuse creationists of inventing a "God of the Gaps" to cover for their ignorance of true science. It would appear that the high priests of astrophysics have their own Gods of the Gaps, namely dark matter and dark energy.

I blame David Heddle. If he'd have properly fine-tuned his puddle, we'd all be so much happier...

...But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.

Ah, the "oscillating universe" theory: a "big crunch" (which will, of course, involve a lot of heat) leading to -- and providing the raw material for -- the next "big bang" -- and a whole new universe! I can live widdat. Have the YEC's got a timetable?

it is conceivable, for example, that dark matter doesn't exist

Jacob Bekenstein obviously doesn't know anything about getting a new theory like MOND accepted by the scientific community. He should have gone to school boards and demanded that MOND be taught in grade school and high school classrooms. Why wasn't he screaming about critically examining gravitational theory? Where were the politicians crowing about teaching alternate explanations to dark matter?

I just don't get it.

Have the YEC's got a timetable?

Equating "gaps" with "god of the gaps" is like equating "closet" with "monster in my closet."

Science is a work in progress and many theories have gaps. In science, you attempt to fill in the gaps with reasonable explanations. In a "god of the gaps" theology, any gaps are presumed unfillable, and taken as proof of some supernatural explanation. Historically, the gaps have eventually been filled, turning this into a process of steady retrenchment into ever more minor objections.

That's a surprisingly infomative site with an interesting compilation of science articles... as long as you ignore the "signing statements" that tell you what the article =really= means (handily color-coded for your convenience in not reading).

This from AIG a few days ago:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedback/2006/0602.asp

I always thought that distant starlight was a problem for YEC's but apparently not.

the inferno will happen on 6/6/(0)6!

Probably the same as they did after 6/6/66 !

That's over. What will the six-crazed maniacs do now?

I always thought that distant starlight was a problem for YEC's but apparently not.

From the "analysis" from the AiG post that Peter Henderson's post #104489:

"Big bang supporters themselves acknowledge that the big bang could not have produced anything heavier than lithium, so the only way to explain the heavier elements, like carbon, is to say that the stars did it. Notice there is no observational evidence or recorded eyewitness accounts to support this, just man's fallible opinions about the past."

For some reason spectra from ionized elements from stars that we've seen explode don't constitute "observational evidence".

It's interesting that there are repeated references to "man's fallible opinions about the past". Apparently man's opinions (supported by observation, mathematics, and reason) are "fallible" when they involve any thing over 6000 years old. But when man's opinions about any thing which happened 6000 years ago or less are supported by devine revelation (and contradicted by observation, mathematics, and reason), they are completely infallible.

Sigh...

tonylon: That is "warm dark matter". It is reasonably clear to astronomers that there is insufficient warm dark matter to explain the rotation of stars in spiral galaxies. Thus the conjectured 'cold dark matter' which interacts only gravitationally.

But when man's opinions about any thing which happened 6000 years ago or less are supported by devine revelation (and contradicted by observation, mathematics, and reason), they are completely infallible.

6/6/06 is the day of the Beast. The Rapture will take place on the Lord's day 7/7/07, ie. next year, being seven years after the millenium.
Of course, if it doesn't happen then, then there's 23/12/12, when the Mayan calender runs out, or sometime in 2018, 70 years after Israel was founded, or after that....

The number of times that they use the word assumption, actually makes me think that they believe that all science is based on assumptions (except their interpretation of the bible of course).

I've completed and passed an Open University course on Astronomy, and there was a section of it which covered basic cosmology, such as whether or not the Universe is open or closed ie what will be the eventual fate of the Universe ? The teaching videos that came with the course were really excellent and dealt with most of the subjects that Jason Lisle has rubbished in his article, like stellar evolution, determining the distances to astronomical objects etc. The thing that really amazes me is that Jason Lisle describes himself as an astrophysicist. When I read this piece of nonsense I wondered what type of answers he gave when he was studying for his degree/PhD. I'm sure they were nothing like the ideas he has expressed in his AIG feedback essay !

6/6/06 is the day of the Beast.

I always thought that distant starlight was a problem for YEC's but apparently not.

Oh you who doubt the mark of the beast and the coming rapture (by the way can I have your car when it comes?) the next certain end of the world will be 6/6/2013. If you add the digits of the year it comes to tada!!!-06. If that doesn't end the universe Pat Robertson can leg-press your body from here to the asteroid belt.(usually reliable sources say he can -with some cheating- leg press 1000 pounds!).By the way I've met the antichrist and his name is Wayne Allard.

It IS kind of interesting that galaxies are observed to spin faster (and cohere better) than a best-guess extrapolation (based on our limited knowledge of local conditions) allows. OK, so maybe Newtonian and Einsteinian physics have made some invalid simplifying assumptions (or we've done so to make the equations tractable) and galaxies are NOT best modeled as one huge gravitational point source at the center orbited by gravitationally insignificant satellites. Maybe galaxies obey known equations after all, if we redistribute the mass according to (again) extrapolations based on best observations of local conditions - even if this condition is hard to model.

Still, the notion that 85% (!!) of the total mass-energy of the known universe is composed of "dark energy", without any clue what that IS, is discouraging. Does "dark energy" mean *anything* beyond "something we need to insert into our equations to make them match observation"? How would we ever test for this stuff? It sounds a lot like "we just don't understand".

Still and all, even thinking of finding answers to these questions in the Bible exceeds any useful concept of sanity. Instead, I submit that these folks don't understand the issues and don't see any utility in doing so. As Sagan wrote, their world is haunted by demons.

So fine, these folks are surrounded by an impermeable bozone layer. But help me out here anyway. What IS dark energy? How would we detect it?

Flint asked:
What IS dark energy? How would we detect it?

Take one bible, a foreskin collector and a child less than 7 years old , beat until firm, wash child's mouth out with soap if any awkward questions arise. Any questions?

We also know that stars that begin as gas and are then compacted into protostars and then become full fledged stars on the mainsequence for millions of years. This is not known; it is blindly assumed by those who reject biblical creation. Have you or anyone else ever observed a star form? It supposedly takes millions of years (in the secular model), so no one could actually observe it even in principle. Those who believe in the big bang and secular models of star formation have no observational evidence that these things have occurred nor is there any sort of recorded eyewitness account.

The proton-proton cycle turns hydrogen to helium in a star Although this is not directly observed, we do directly observe the neutrinos that are produced in the process. So we have good scientific reasons to accept this theory.

The difference AiG sees is that we have indirect observed evidence of the fusion process, i.e. neutrinos. Apparently they don't think you can use indirect evidence to support the formation of stars, despite plentify observation that lead to the conclusion of star formation.
What the article really says is that, since nuclear fusion doesn't violate their interpretation of Scripture, they'll allow that it happens as described.
It's still fundamentally inconsistent because the nature of fusion in relation to a star's operation is something we can use to determine the approximate age, distance, composition, etc. of stars.

Flint:

I wanted to respond to this:

Still, the notion that 85% (!!) of the total mass-energy of the known universe is composed of "dark energy", without any clue what that IS, is discouraging. Does "dark energy" mean *anything*
beyond "something we need to insert into our equations to make them match observation"? How would we ever test for this stuff? It sounds a lot like "we just don't understand".

'Dark energy' is best thought of as a label for a set of observations that don't make sense but do tie together. The most direct piece of evidence is based on supernovae (the explosions of massive stars) - see http://supernova.lbl.gov/PhysicsTodayArticle.pdf which appear to be further away than they should be. There are other lines of evidence that agree with these results (for example, from studying the large scale structure around us in surveys like this one - http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/2dFGRS/ These observations taken together seem to confirm that the observed expansion of the Universe cannot be accounted for by matter (dark or otherwise) and we call the extra component 'dark energy', a name which I think is deeply confusing.

It is fair to say that we lack a sensible theoretical understanding of what 'dark energy' might be; it could appear on either side of Einstein's equations - ie as a component of energy or a modification to gravity. Further observations are needed to get a grip on its physics and test theoretical ideas, but it does seem to be here to stay.

Sorry to be so OT, I thought it was worth adding to the pot.

Well, we know dark matter exists, we're made of it, and the planet we're standing on is also made of it. We also detect particles of dark matter all the time. The real dark matter question is what type and quantity of dark matter is needed to explain our observations? I know it's a pedantic point, but it seems that most people don't realize that dark matter really means matter that doesn't emit light, like rocks, or planets, or neutrinos. It doesn't necessarily mean weird stuff we've never seen before. (unless you want to throw black holes into the weird stuff category)

Still, the notion that 85% (!!) of the total mass-energy of the known universe is composed of "dark energy", without any clue what that IS, is discouraging.

Re#104564 Hi Chris. I am an avid viewer of the "Sky at night". Along with Horizon, it's one of the best science programmes on TV over here, in my opinion, and one of the reasons why I find creationism so nonsensical. Your contributions to it are excellent and I think you are doing a really good job at popularising science here in the UK.

Sir Patrick, as you probably know, was once director of the Armagh planetarium in Co. Armagh here in NI, and it was a visit to this establishment that kindled my interest in astronomy. Although it's out of commission at the moment they hope to be up and running again within the next year or so, courtesy of a European grant.

I really do hope that the BBC don't drop the "Sky at night" if anything were to happen to Sir Patrick or if he was unable to continue.

Comment #104489 Posted by Peter Henderson on June 8, 2006 04:08 PM (e) This from AIG a few days ago: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedba... I always thought that distant starlight was a problem for YEC's but apparently not.

That's exactly what I thought when I read the article Moses !

He accounted for observations of distant novas by postulating that the star that supposedly went nova never really existed, but the "blob" (Morris' word) of light indicating the occurrrence of a nova was created en route to earth --- the star was never really there.

So God, in all his mighty truthiness, created -- or allowed someone else to create -- a universe full of deceiving information, including a planet full of fake fossils made to look much older than the universe itself. But we're expected to believe that the books whose content this same God dictated can be taken at face value.

Do the YECs explain why we should disbelieve a universe full of physical evidence, and believe one book without a hiccup of doubt? Of those two, which is easier to fake?

If I remember my history correctly, the idea that the universe's prime mover is an "evil genius" (which is what this creationist rubbish amounts to) was debunked by philosophers and theologians several centuries ago. Basically, if you go that way, you end up doubting everything you perceive, including your own sensory inputs, and retreating into your own closed bubble-verse -- which some would call "hell."

"Apparently, Dembski feels that when God dictated Genesis, He was trying to convey the story by speaking to Moses not in metaphors, but in a observationally referenced discription of relatavistically adjusted space/time - clearly a good framework for a talk with a bronze age shepherd"

fnxtr: I vaguely remember some YEC site claiming that in the process of rushing away from Earth (which is, of course, the center of God's universe), all the other stars and galaxies aged about eighteen billion subjective-years during the six thousand REAL years of the universe's lifetime. So the rest of the universe is eighteen billion years old and six thousand years old at the same "time."

That site also called on us all to reject all that highfalutin' science and logic stuff and stick to "the solid ground of empiricism." What. Ever.

Remember, ID is not about religion, though. Not a bit. It's science all the way down.

All the way down the drain?

looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God

looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God

This scares the crap out of me. These people actually do want to hasten the "end of the world." George Bush anyone?

Hmmm... so how fast and in what direction would G---, uh, the Designer have to be travelling to make billions of years look like six days to us earthlings? Anyone?

— fnxtr

Flint says:

"What IS dark energy?"

To complement what others said there is also this view:

The latest WMAP release prefered the Lamda-CDM model. ( http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/03/16/wmap-results-cosmology-makes-sense/ ) It explains dark energy with a cosmological constant in the standard cosmology. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy ) The cosmological constant is the vacuum energy. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant )

Sounds neat, but a problem is that the cosmological constant is the worst finetuning known. So then the question becomes:

"What IS vacuum energy?"

Comment #104699 Posted by fnxtr on June 9, 2006 09:34 AM (e) Sounds more like Reagan, actually.

fnxtr wrote: Hmmm... so how fast and in what direction would G---, uh, the Designer have to be travelling to make billions of years look like six days to us earthlings? Anyone?

stevaroni:

Don't forget the Lorentz contraction. If we're receding from the rest of the universe at 99.9999999964 percent of the speed of light, then our length would be contracted by that same factor of 1.6 million:1 (IIRC, too lazy to get the physics book out of my bookcase.) I also think our mass would be that same factor of 1.6 million:1 greater than our rest mass.

I would have loved to see that scope output that you described!

2) For some reason we don't see the 21 octaves of doppler shift.

This is simply the theoretic complement of infinite wavelength radiation. Near-infinite frequency radiation could appear visible, given a sufficient v/c.

If we're receding from the rest of the universe at 99.9999999964 percent of the speed of light, then our length would be contracted by that same factor of 1.6 million:1 (IIRC, too lazy to get the physics book out of my bookcase.) I also think our mass would be that same factor of 1.6 million:1 greater than our rest mass.

our length would be contracted by that same factor of 1.6 million:1 ... our mass would be that same factor

Laser wrote I would have loved to see that scope output that you described!

Re "I also think our mass would be that same factor of 1.6 million:1 greater than our rest mass."

Would that be enough to explain the sun orbiting the Earth?

(Ducking for cover here.)

Henry J:

I know you're asking a silly question tongue-in-cheek, but here's a (semi) serious answer: the sun is about 200,000 times more massive than the earth. So, with the earth's relativistic mass, the earth would be slightly more massive than the sun, and the sun could be said to orbit the earth (more accurately, both would orbit a point somewhere between them, but that point would be closer to the earth).

HOWEVER, the above scenario involves the earth moving at 99.999..% of the speed of light but the sun not doing so. Obviously, with such a great difference in their velocities, the earth would quickly leave the sun behind, and the orbiting would last approximately zero seconds. For any orbiting to happen, both the sun and earth would have to be moving at 99.999..% of the speed of light, so both bodies would have their mass increase by the same factor. The sun would still be about 200,000 times more massive than the earth, and the earth would orbit the sun.

:)

This scares the crap out of me. These people actually do want to hasten the "end of the world." George Bush anyone?

Sounds more like Reagan, actually.

Not all evangelical Christians are dispensationalists of course. There are 3 other views within the church on Christ's return:

http://biblia.com/coming/millennium.htm

However, it seems to me that sadly, the evangelical wing of the church is keen to adopt this view (dispendationalism) as the only belief in the same way as it has lurched dogmatically into young Earth creationism.

Well, clearly, the Big Furnace is simply stellar evolution as explained by g- uh, the Designer, to Bronze Age nomads:

"You've only got 5 billion more years, or so. Hurry up and evolve, wouldja?"

Popper's Ghost,

"The universe is composed of mass and energy. Do we have any clue of what those ARE?"

Not to nit-pick your words here, but there lurks a conceptual misconception therein. Mass and energy are not two entities that exist independently, nor can one be converted into the other. Both of these exist side-by-side in what we refer to as mass-energy.

Lenny,

So by my sitting around in the Garden State I am holding up some divine cosmic plan for the end of days? I feel so important!

Nick Matzke,

AS I have pointed out in this forum on many occasions, the concept of "falsifiability" and "testability" does NOT at all imply that a non-falsifiable or non-testable proposal is non-scientific. It merely means that acceptance of the idea is contingent on it not being contradicted by data. Dark matter/energy joins the ether and EM fields and a host of other past and future ideas that gain currency because they provide a useful working model. And they may indeed be correct. There is nothing illogical about the prospect that a most effective, correct working model may turn out to be experimentally non-falsifiable.

AS I have pointed out in this forum on many occasions, the concept of "falsifiability" and "testability" does NOT at all imply that a non-falsifiable or non-testable proposal is non-scientific. It merely means that acceptance of the idea is contingent on it not being contradicted by data.

Wrong again. Acceptance of an idea is contingent on BOTH testability AND non-failure of whatever tests are performed on the idea. If an idea is non-falsifiable (i.e., "it is the way it is because God, by definition, created it that way"), then, by definition, it will never be contradicted by data. That's what "non-falsifiable" means.

Are you trying to tell us (for example) that we should accept Lyndon LaRouche's latest conspiracy theory because it includes an assertion that all contradictory facts are part of a coverup?

It merely means that acceptance of the idea is contingent on it not being contradicted by data.

Flint & Raging Bee,

I am obviously not proposing that the absence of contradiction is sufficient for acceptance.Acceptance is predicated on usefulness, and the more useful the more we tend to accept. But the absence of contradiction is necessary for acceptance. And the more opportunities for contradiction, the greater the support derived from the absence of contradiction. What I am proposing is that the absence of opportunity to contradict is no reason to reject as "unscientific".

Orbiting teapots, anyone? I'm afraid that the lack of opportunity for contradiction places anything firmly and irretrievably in the domain of "belief".

Of course, what to me is a downgrade, to someone else might appear as an upgrade, and I have reasons to suspect that Ms. Clouser would in fact feel that way.

What I am proposing is that the absence of opportunity to contradict is no reason to reject as "unscientific".

The universe is composed of mass and energy. Do we have any clue of what those ARE?

— Carol Clouser

Not to nit-pick your words here, but there lurks a conceptual misconception therein. Mass and energy are not two entities that exist independently, nor can one be converted into the other. Both of these exist side-by-side in what we refer to as mass-energy.

"The high binding energy of a uranium or plutonium nucleus has mass, and when the nucleus fissions, some of the binding energy is converted into other forms of energy, like light, heat, and blast."

This sounds like the binding energy decreases when a uranium nucleus fissions, and is factually untrue as one look at the famous BEPN graph readily reveals.

Orbiting teapots, anyone? I'm afraid that the lack of opportunity for contradiction places anything firmly and irretrievably in the domain of "belief".

— Aureola Nominee, FCD in response to Carol Clouser

What I am proposing is that the absence of opportunity to contradict is no reason to reject as "unscientific".

— Glen Davidson

And why are you proposing this?

Clouser's firmly with the IDists in trying to redefine science into something that includes mere speculation into its definition.

The high binding energy of a uranium or plutonium nucleus has mass, and when the nucleus fissions, some of the binding energy is converted into other forms of energy, like light, heat, and blast.

— Carol Clouser

This sounds like the binding energy decreases when a uranium nucleus fissions, and is factually untrue as one look at the famous BEPN graph readily reveals.

Mr. Emba:

Are you arguing that something that cannot be shown (in principle) to be false is something else from belief? That it is, indeed, knowledge (let alone scientific knowledge)?

Then what is belief? How do you separate belief from knowledge?

By the way, IIRC Galileo Galilei became convinced of the falsity of geocentrism due to his observations of the "imperfections" on the face of the moon and other disproof of the "celestial perfection" claimed by Aristotelism. That happened quite early, and well before the usefulness of the heliocentric model had been established.

"Total binding energy does decrease after fission, as I stated. Meanwhile, the famous binding energy per nucleon does increase, as you state. So what?"

Well, That is false. Total Binding energy increases when a uranium nucleus fissions to the tune of 200 MeV, something explained long ago (By Lisa Meitner, I think) by relating it to the mass defect.

Aureola,

Acceptance of heliocentrism was based on the phases of venus.

Ms. Clouser:

yes, also that, too. In both cases, not on "usefulness" at all, but on observation. Hard evidence.

And why are you proposing this?

— Emba

Perhaps for the reasons she stated, and which you omitted?

scientific hypotheses must exist within the range of testing in some manner or other.

Clouser's firmly with the IDists in trying to redefine science into something that includes mere speculation into its definition.

— Emba

Carol was explicitly proposing "usefulness" as an important criterion, as opposed to "mere speculation". You, by engaging in quote mining and strawman attack, are the one currently with the IDiots.

By the way, IIRC Galileo Galilei became convinced of the falsity of geocentrism due to his observations of the "imperfections" on the face of the moon and other disproof of the "celestial perfection" claimed by Aristotelism. That happened quite early, and well before the usefulness of the heliocentric model had been established.

Ms. Clouser: yes, also that, too. In both cases, not on "usefulness" at all, but on observation. Hard evidence.

I should have written above, "The calendar was out of alignment with Ptolemaic calculations of the heavens."

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

Glen:

I was careful not to say that the Galileian observations disproved geocentrism; they disproved Aristotelism, and in so doing took the geocentric model down from the pedestal of undisputable truth.

That, by the way, is also part of the reason why the Catholic Church was so p***ed off with my old compatriot.

Right, sorry I didn't indicate clearly that that was not your position.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

No problem, Glen. I realized you were not attributing that position to me, but one can never be too explicit, so I simply clarified.

Glen and William,

Guys, I never thought I would live to see the day when either of you long time antagonists of mine would defend anything I say. Perhaps you do so for the greater goal of attacking each other.

Glen, you are right on literalism and wrong on usefulness. The term usefulness includes all the attributes of a good theory you mentioned and then some - elegance, simplicity, explanatory power, thematicness, and so on. When Wentzel's alternate explanation of photoelectricity based on waves was rejected in favor of Einstein's based on particles, this was done for reasons of elegance and you would certainly not describe that as unscientific. ("Dasi is eon fondle", said Einstein, "it is a hoax", but it worked nonetheless.) Heliocentric was certainly far more elegant and simple, and therefore useful, than the Ptolemaic model that had grown to a Hodge Page of over 70 spheres.

May I ask you, Glen, to stop reading hidden, sinister motives into what I say. Just relax and take what I say at face value, literally if you will.

William, you are right on usefulness and wrong on literalism. But I don't want to go off topic here. I do appreciate your supporting correct statements whatever their source (me in this case).

The term usefulness includes all the attributes of a good theory you mentioned and then some - elegance, simplicity, explanatory power, thematicness, and so on. When Wentzel's alternate explanation of photoelectricity based on waves was rejected in favor of Einstein's based on particles, this was done for reasons of elegance and you would certainly not describe that as unscientific. ("Dasi is eon fondle", said Einstein, "it is a hoax", but it worked nonetheless.) Heliocentric was certainly far more elegant and simple, and therefore useful, than the Ptolemaic model that had grown to a Hodge Page of over 70 spheres.

Dark matter/energy joins the ether and EM fields and a host of other past and future ideas that gain currency because they provide a useful working model. And they may indeed be correct. There is nothing illogical about the prospect that a most effective, correct working model may turn out to be experimentally non-falsifiable.

May I ask you, Glen, to stop reading hidden, sinister motives into what I say. Just relax and take what I say at face value, literally if you will.

What I am proposing is that the absence of opportunity to contradict is no reason to reject as "unscientific".

When Wentzel's alternate explanation of photoelectricity based on waves was rejected in favor of Einstein's based on particles, this was done for reasons of elegance and you would certainly not describe that as unscientific.

Glen,

It sometimes appears as if the gulf between physicists and biologists is as great as that between scientists and non-scientists. You alluded to this and, in my opinion, it goes a long way in explaining some of the arguments going on here. Biologists just don't have as much opportunity and experience with grand theory formation as physicists do. And it is frequently so much easier to settle biological mysteries by going into a lab and tinkering with some specimens than it is in physics.

Are you arguing that something that cannot be shown (in principle) to be false is something else from belief? That it is, indeed, knowledge (let alone scientific knowledge)?

— Aureola Nominee, FCD

By the way, IIRC Galileo Galilei became convinced of the falsity of geocentrism due to his observations of the "imperfections" on the face of the moon and other disproof of the "celestial perfection" claimed by Aristotelism. That happened quite early, and well before the usefulness of the heliocentric model had been established.

AS I have pointed out in this forum on many occasions, the concept of "falsifiability" and "testability" does NOT at all imply that a non-falsifiable or non-testable proposal is non-scientific. It merely means that acceptance of the idea is contingent on it not being contradicted by data.

No, I'm claiming that as a matter of historical record, numerous scientific theories have been accepted as factual with hardly a shred of testability at stake. Their explanatory power was so great that the scientific community adopted them very early on and only as the decades passed were experiments conceived and tried.

But the absence of contradiction is necessary for acceptance. And the more opportunities for contradiction, the greater the support derived from the absence of contradiction.

What I am proposing is that the absence of opportunity to contradict is no reason to reject as "unscientific".

So by my sitting around in the Garden State I am holding up some divine cosmic plan for the end of days? I feel so important!

And why are you proposing this?

— Glen Davidson

Perhaps for the reasons she stated, and which you omitted?

And what did I "omit"? Was her text somehow made inaccessible by my comments?

What did you "omit"? Apparently only where I explicated what I mean by "opportunity to contradict", which was:scientific hypotheses must exist within the range of testing in some manner or other.

The reason for merging into this sort of definition I used above is that Carol obviously argues for "science" that she claims is compatible with the Bible, but which fails to be testable, either by the plain meaning of Biblical texts, as well as by science. And since "contradiction" is a word with such broad meanings, I suspect that she means to slip one by us.

I dealt in more depth with issues of falsibiability and the like at the following link. I can't go through everything in every post:

Do you think that I missed the "usefulness" criterion that she mentioned?

If you are ignorant enough to believe that pragmatism alone is sufficient to obviate the issue of "opportunity for contradiction" (even if it turned out to be sufficient), then you really don't understand scientific matters---or in what proper argumentation consists.

Or do you think that Carol is such an authority that she should not be questioned?

Also, I refer once again to context. We know how and what she argues, so have cause to believe that she is trying to redefine science to accept "mere speculation". You ought to pay attention to the controversy in its whole before coming in and accusing people people, quite falsely as it happens.

You're about as fair here as in your claim that to say "wing" literally means some organism's wing. That's absurd. Words take on new "literal" meanings (as far as "literal" can mean anything), so that to say "wing" might as readily refer to the wing of a building or an airplane as the wing of a bird or an insect.

Yes, you could apologize to Carol for your false statements about what constitutes literalism.

You have no business coming in here and pretending that "usefulness" really did answer the question of why one would give up "opportunity for contradiction" as some sort of criterion. Just because you're willing to fall for such a simplistic primary criterion for science does not give you any right to accuse others of your false charges, as if we should be so simple-minded as well.

Lenny,

Read what I write CAREFULLY, try HARD to understand what it says (it may require the full exertion of all your mental faculties), then if you have some intelligent commentary to make, I may respond.

Thanks for warning me about those not nice people. I will keep an eye on them.

And you don't equate "explanatory power" with "potentially falsifiable". I see. Maybe that's where we differ: to me, in order to "explain" something, a theory must also "not explain" something else.

— Aureola Nominee, FCD

William,

"I've seen her in action before. She seems to have evolved a more nuanced view. And as before, she is not acknowledging that she is disagreeing with her previous posts. To reiterate, I would not be concerned if you mocked her for contradicting herself."

More nuanced view? About what? Not only do I not acknowledge disagreeing with any previous posts of mine, I emphatically state that no such disagreement exists. Care to elaborate?

" If "literal" is not the best word, or worse, is incorrect for this purpose, I'm happy to use something else, but nothing I've seen has suggested a good alternative."

If I recall correctly, our key argument pertained to the meaning of "literal". I am glad to see you concede the point. Better late than never.

"So do you agree that Carol's sense of "literalism" includes assertions that since somewhere, sometimes, "yom" means era, it is accurate to tell everyone that Genesis 1 is literally talking about seven time eras? That was the point of my "wing" analogy. You know, "context"?"

Now YOU are distorting my position. I claim that "yom" is used in three different ways in the Hebrew Bible (all of which are by definition "literal"), that frequency of use is not at all decisive here, and that the context in Genesis in fact allows for the era translation.

Now, I don't mind debating these points, but I will not allow you to distort what I say, just as you are right to not allow Glen to get away with similar distortions.

More nuanced view? About what? Not only do I not acknowledge disagreeing with any previous posts of mine, I emphatically state that no such disagreement exists. Care to elaborate?

William,

And now that you have taken the time to check out the facts pertaining to Binding Energy changes as a result of the fission of uranium, I imagine you are ready to concede that point too.

This must be your night for concessions. It's OK. It's good for the soul.

STJM,

Read the previous posts. I did not start this.

closes eyes...

"Clouser, Clouser, Clouser"

opens eyes...

did it work?

is she gone?

And my point is that this is often ahistorical. Atomism didn't really falsify anything in its day. It simply explained so many phenomena that despite widespread opposition, it took over. The fact that there were numerous things it couldn't explain but should have, or worse, explained wrong, hardly slowed down its acceptance.

(...and by the way, I don't think this position can be construed as being Popperian strictu sensu).

Jeeze. What's the world coming to, when wamba, Aureola, Glen, Carol, Flint, Raging Bee, Emba and Lenny nearly simultaneously dump on and support each other (well, maybe it's not so surprising with Lenny ;-))...?

How bout this: Can I suggest we resolve the difference between the definitions of science (falsifiability, usefulness, and testability), by the following statements:

One way of testing something is by using it to make predictions. If the predictions work, then the hypothesis is useful. If the predictions don't work, then the hypothesis is falsified.

If an idea (I hesitate to use the term theory or hypothesis) is not useful, that's because no predictions can be made that are successful, or because no predictions can be made at all. Thus the idea under these circumstances is either not science, or not good science.

ID fails on all accounts. It's not useful because ANYTHING can be done by the unknown designer, it's not falsifiable for the same reason, and for those few predictions that have been made (IC), they've been falsified, and are not useful as a consequence.

What d'ya think?

I think I agree. As I was saying (or trying to say, at the very least) to me if something isn't falsifiable in principle, it cannot be useful; which can be restated to say that if it is useful, then it is falsifiable.

ID isn't either.

I may respond

Total binding energy does decrease after fission, as I stated. Meanwhile, the famous binding energy per nucleon does increase, as you state. So what?

— Carol Clouser

Well, That is false.

Total Binding energy increases when a uranium nucleus fissions to the tune of 200 MeV, something explained long ago (By Lisa Meitner, I think) by relating it to the mass defect.

Like I said, my assertion is not just correct, but it is trivially obvious.

No, I'm claiming that as a matter of historical record, numerous scientific theories have been accepted as factual with hardly a shred of testability at stake. Their explanatory power was so great that the scientific community adopted them very early on and only as the decades passed were experiments conceived and tried.

— Emba

I've seen her in action before. She seems to have evolved a more nuanced view. And as before, she is not acknowledging that she is disagreeing with her previous posts. To reiterate, I would not be concerned if you mocked her for contradicting herself.

— Carol Clouser

More nuanced view? About what? Not only do I not acknowledge disagreeing with any previous posts of mine, I emphatically state that no such disagreement exists. Care to elaborate?

If "literal" is not the best word, or worse, is incorrect for this purpose, I'm happy to use something else, but nothing I've seen has suggested a good alternative.

So do you agree that Carol's sense of "literalism" includes assertions that since somewhere, sometimes, "yom" means era, it is accurate to tell everyone that Genesis 1 is literally talking about seven time eras? That was the point of my "wing" analogy. You know, "context"?

And my point is that this is often ahistorical. Atomism didn't really falsify anything in its day. It simply explained so many phenomena that despite widespread opposition, it took over. The fact that there were numerous things it couldn't explain but should have, or worse, explained wrong, hardly slowed down its acceptance.

— Aureola Nominee, FCD

Wait... I think you may be attacking something which I am not defending at all.

No, I'm claiming that as a matter of historical record, numerous scientific theories have been accepted as factual with hardly a shred of testability at stake. Their explanatory power was so great that the scientific community adopted them very early on and only as the decades passed were experiments conceived and tried.

— Glen Davidson

Sure, you just don't have any evidence. Heliocentrism was not accepted because of its "usefulness" so much as that it passed the tests that could be mustered, and at first largely because it was more "elegant" than geocentrism.

You're confusing ...

And what were those supposed to be? Pragmatism? Sorry, I'm not falling for that one. There's a whole lot more to science than just "usefulness". Elegance, the lack of extraneous parts to the theory, and the human judgment of "sense" all come into play.

— Emba

Sure. But you quote-mined Carol, who actually had a whit more complicated assertion than the "mere speculation" that you mocked and criticized. Her assertion could be good or bad as a philosophy of science argument, but you did not address it.

And what did I "omit"? Was her text somehow made inaccessible by my comments?

— Emba

Uh no. You just blasted at a rather blatant strawman. As I had stated. The bit about "usefulness".

Apparently you don't mind twisting a nuanced argument into the one you understand, then shooting at that strawman. You really do fit the definition of tackling a strawman, while I do not.

— Emba

You are being disingenous here. I was criticizing you for not addressing Carol's actual argument.

It was quite blatant on your part.

— Emba

There was nothing nuanced about your choice of "mere speculation" as a quick summary of Carol, and there is nothing I omitted that suggested such a choice of words on your part was actually not an incompetent hatchet job. The words you think I should have quoted do not in any way shape or form address this inaccuracy of yours.

— Emba

The reason for merging into this sort of definition I used above is that Carol obviously argues for "science" that she claims is compatible with the Bible, but which fails to be testable, either by the plain meaning of Biblical texts, as well as by science. And since "contradiction" is a word with such broad meanings, I suspect that she means to slip one by us.

— Emba

I do not trust Carol's intentions either, but I do not accept exaggerated criticisms.

I would be perfectly unconcerned if you had mocked Carol for contradicting herself from a few months back, or some such. Instead, I saw two posters in a row take a rather reasonable stance that gets batted about by respectable, knowledgeable, nonpostmodern philosophers of science and then quote-mine it.

— Emba

I dealt in more depth with issues of falsibiability and the like at the following link. I can't go through everything in every post:

— Emba

I don't expect you to. But perhaps you can treat philosophers of science with the same respect you treat biologists?

The great majority are not Popperians. It really is a subtle issue,

— Emba

and you aren't helping things by thinking it is and waltzing into the debate with all the intelligence your typical creationist brings to his attacks on science.

— Emba

Do you think that I missed the "usefulness" criterion that she mentioned?

— Emba

No. I think you omitted it and created a strawman. Sort of like what I've been saying?

I made no claims as to what I believe, beyond what philosophers of science have noted for decades: the philosophy of science is very difficult, and in particular there are no simple on-off switches, with EZ-REED labels like "falsifiability" and "paradigm shift" that demarcate science from pseudoscience.

— Emba

Or do you think that Carol is such an authority that she should not be questioned? What I said: don't quote-mine.

— Emba

Apparently you have a very poor conception of what "quote-mining" is.

She did not claim "mere speculation" passes the bar. You mocked her for saying so.

— Emba

Of course I didn't. Once again your inability and/or unwillingness to honestly address the issues rears its ugly head. I didn't claim she said that "mere speculation" passes muster, I wrote: IOW, Clouser's firmly with the IDists in trying to redefine science into something that includes mere speculation into its definition.

Also, I refer once again to context. We know how and what she argues, so have cause to believe that she is trying to redefine science to accept "mere speculation". You ought to pay attention to the controversy in its whole before coming in and accusing people people, quite falsely as it happens.

— Emba

I've seen her in action before. She seems to have evolved a more nuanced view. And as before, she is not acknowledging that she is disagreeing with her previous posts. To reiterate, I would not be concerned if you mocked her for contradicting herself.

And what were those supposed to be? Pragmatism? Sorry, I'm not falling for that one. There's a whole lot more to science than just "usefulness". Elegance, the lack of extraneous parts to the theory, and the human judgment of "sense" all come into play.

— Emba

Sure. But you quote-mined Carol, who actually had a whit more complicated assertion than the "mere speculation" that you mocked and criticized. Her assertion could be good or bad as a philosophy of science argument, but you did not address it.

And what did I "omit"? Was her text somehow made inaccessible by my comments?

— Emba

Uh no. You just blasted at a rather blatant strawman. As I had stated. The bit about "usefulness".

Apparently you don't mind twisting a nuanced argument into the one you understand, then shooting at that strawman. You really do fit the definition of tackling a strawman, while I do not.

— Emba

You are being disingenous here. I was criticizing you for not addressing Carol's actual argument.

It was quite blatant on your part.

— Emba

There was nothing nuanced about your choice of "mere speculation" as a quick summary of Carol, and there is nothing I omitted that suggested such a choice of words on your part was actually not an incompetent hatchet job. The words you think I should have quoted do not in any way shape or form address this inaccuracy of yours.

— Emba

The reason for merging into this sort of definition I used above is that Carol obviously argues for "science" that she claims is compatible with the Bible, but which fails to be testable, either by the plain meaning of Biblical texts, as well as by science. And since "contradiction" is a word with such broad meanings, I suspect that she means to slip one by us.

— Emba

I do not trust Carol's intentions either, but I do not accept exaggerated criticisms.

I would be perfectly unconcerned if you had mocked Carol for contradicting herself from a few months back, or some such. Instead, I saw two posters in a row take a rather reasonable stance that gets batted about by respectable, knowledgeable, nonpostmodern philosophers of science and then quote-mine it.

— Emba

I dealt in more depth with issues of falsibiability and the like at the following link. I can't go through everything in every post:

— Emba

I don't expect you to. But perhaps you can treat philosophers of science with the same respect you treat biologists?

The great majority are not Popperians. It really is a subtle issue,

— Emba

and you aren't helping things by thinking it is and waltzing into the debate with all the intelligence your typical creationist brings to his attacks on science.

— Emba

Do you think that I missed the "usefulness" criterion that she mentioned?

— Emba

No. I think you omitted it and created a strawman. Sort of like what I've been saying?

I made no claims as to what I believe, beyond what philosophers of science have noted for decades: the philosophy of science is very difficult, and in particular there are no simple on-off switches, with EZ-REED labels like "falsifiability" and "paradigm shift" that demarcate science from pseudoscience.

— Emba

Or do you think that Carol is such an authority that she should not be questioned?

— Emba

What I said: don't quote-mine.

She did not claim "mere speculation" passes the bar. You mocked her for saying so.

— Emba

IOW, Clouser's firmly with the IDists in trying to redefine science into something that includes mere speculation into its definition.

Also, I refer once again to context. We know how and what she argues, so have cause to believe that she is trying to redefine science to accept "mere speculation". You ought to pay attention to the controversy in its whole before coming in and accusing people people, quite falsely as it happens.

— Emba

I've seen her in action before. She seems to have evolved a more nuanced view. And as before, she is not acknowledging that she is disagreeing with her previous posts. To reiterate, I would not be concerned if you mocked her for contradicting herself.

Sure, you just don't have any evidence. Heliocentrism was not accepted because of its "usefulness" so much as that it passed the tests that could be mustered, and at first largely because it was more "elegant" than geocentrism.

— Emba

I mentioned five theories that were accepted far more through their "usefulness" than their falsifiability.

atomism, evolution, relativity, inflation, RNA world, and the like.

The only one that you respond to, you get wrong rather ignorantly. Essentially no tests were available at first, and what little was there was mixed. Lack of parallax favored geocentrism, for example.

— Emba

Elegance had very little to do with the acceptance of heliocentrism. Kepler's nested Platonic solid model of the solar system was very elegant, for example, but totally useless.

— Emba

Geocentrists of Galileo's day conceded the usefulness of heliocentrism.

— Emba

You're confusing ...

— Emba

Someone who doesn't know the actual history should not comment on who is confused.

An adequate theory must meet a number of standards. Empirical falsifiabity is one, but so is logical coherence; and there are others that involve relevance. At various times, a particular criterion may be more salient than the others because of the state of play of the science in question. Right now, for example, a debate is underway apropos of string theory as to what extent a theory requires a connection to observational facts in order to count as science. If lab tests show up that can confirm or disconfirm versions of string theory, that issue will fade away. Or maybe people will eventually go along with Suskind and decide that an overwhelmingly elegant and comprehensive theory doesn't need a direct test. Or maybe it will become part of a third thing equidistant between philosophy and physics.

In the context of discussions on Panda's Thumb, falsification is a big deal for the historically contingent reason that the Popperian doctrine is rhetorically useful to Creationists and ID types. It is not clear to me, why falsifiability should be the crucial dimension of scientific methodology instead of merely a (perhaps) crucial dimension of scientific methodology.

You're about as fair here as in your claim that to say "wing" literally means some organism's wing. That's absurd. Words take on new "literal" meanings (as far as "literal" can mean anything), so that to say "wing" might as readily refer to the wing of a building or an airplane as the wing of a bird or an insect.

— Emba

Nevertheless, the distinction in sense of "wing" meaning animal's wing, as opposed to the now-permanent metaphor that applies to buildings and airplanes, is real.

If "literal" is not the best word, or worse, is incorrect for this purpose, I'm happy to use something else, but nothing I've seen has suggested a good alternative.

— Emba

Yes, you could apologize to Carol for your false statements about what constitutes literalism.

— Emba

So do you agree that Carol's sense of "literalism" includes assertions that since somewhere, sometimes, "yom" means era, it is accurate to tell everyone that Genesis 1 is literally talking about seven time eras? That was the point of my "wing" analogy. You know, "context"?

I did not pretend anything about "usefulness".

— Emba

You have no business coming in here and pretending that "usefulness" really did answer the question of why one would give up "opportunity for contradiction" as some sort of criterion.

In my reply to Aureola I listed five or so famous examples.

— Emba

I take it you are opposed to the experimental procedure?

— Emba

As in, the question of what makes for good philosophy of science is decided by observation of what has worked well in the past, as opposed to just declaring victory and ignoring all those fussy details that go into reality.

— Emba

It is not clear to me, why falsifiability should be the crucial dimension of scientific methodology instead of merely a (perhaps) crucial dimension of scientific methodology.

— Jim Harrison

By the way, my intention is to be out of this thread now (likely I won't even read it). There is no point in belaboring the crucial nature of evidence for theories up to this point, since anyone who knows history knows that few if any theories were considered contenders if they were not open to contradiction by the available (usually accumulated) evidence, and had passed (for the most part, at least) that "test" implicitly or explicitly.

ID fails to be science for this (false where it makes reasonable "predictions", unfalsifiable where it resists making "predictions" in order not to fall before the evidence) and many other reasons.

If anyone denies this, too bad for them.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

Is it possible for a hypothesis to be useful without making predictions? Doesn't seem like it to me. (If a model gives a way of caculating where something will appear in the sky, that's a testable prediction.)

Henry

William Emba,

"Total binding energy per nucleon, integrated over one nucleus (uranium or plutonium, say) is indeed less than total binding energy per nucleon, averaged over two daughter nuclei produced by fission, as is obvious from the BEPN curve, and since the difference in BEPN is just under 1 Mev per nucleon, this does come to 200 Mev or so. However, this doesn't account for the binding energy needed to fuse the two daughter nuclei back into one parent nucleus, and therefore is completely, totally irrelevant to my statement."

I have twice now tried to instruct you in some basic physics here, but you persist in repeating your ignorance. Now you propose to muddy the waters by introducing this red herring about fusing the daughter nuclei back together again. The fact of the matter is that the total binding energy, of all the particles in the event, present after the fission event is greater than before, contrary to your previous assertions. The BEPN graph makes that abundantly clear and you would get no release of energy (in the form of KE of liberated neutrons, gamma ray photons, etc.) if this were not the case. If you tried to do what you now propose, to fuse the daughter nuclei together, the total Binding Energy would go DOWN and that would require an INPUT of energy.

Your ignorance of physics is matched by your being totally clueless of linguistics. Why do you refuse to learn from those who clearly are more knowledgable and intelligent than you when they volunteer their time and energy to try to help you?

Your ignorance of physics is matched by your being totally clueless of linguistics. Why do you refuse to learn from those who clearly are more knowledgable and intelligent than you when they volunteer their time and energy to try to help you?

Is binding energy the net emission of energy from a reaction, or is it the energy that retained within the particles? (In U fission the former is a positive value, the later is a reduced value.)

Henry

Jeeze. What's the world coming to, when wamba, Aureola, Glen, Carol, Flint, Raging Bee, Emba and Lenny nearly simultaneously dump on and support each other (well, maybe it's not so surprising with Lenny ;-))...?

Binding energy basically is the energy you need to take a system apart. The PE of a bound system is less than the energy of its constituents, it takes work to separate those systems.
Speaking in terms of the elements and their nuclei, the general trend in the lighter end of the mass spectrum is that you see an increasing binding energy as the mass of the nucleons per atom increases. Also, some of the mass is "sacrificed" in the process, making the the mass of nucleons in the nucleus measurably different than that for the equivalent number of free nucleons.
From Na to Xe, though, binding energy remains relatively stable throughout, because the nucleus is too large to evenly distrube the b.e. all the way across, and so some of the increasing b.e. is balanced by the repulsion of like charges in the protons. There is a curve where some elements on the lighter end have an increasing b.e., and others on the heavier end have a decreaseing b.e. but the curve is pretty squashed compared to the two extremes on either end.
Above the mass of Xenon, b.e. tends to decrease as you increase mass because the nucleus is too large to be so well-balanced and the repulsive forces start to gain more favor. Heavier elements' nuclei tend to be less firmly connected as a result.
This is why power generation through fusion is generally pursued with lighter elements, and via fission with the heavier elements. Middleweight nuclei are so tightly bound that splitting them or sticking them together doesn't produce a viable amount of excess energy.
With a few bumps, this is the trend you can see for yourself here.
The above was all culled from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_Energy

I have twice now tried to instruct you in some basic physics here, but you persist in repeating your ignorance

How the heck did *I* get dragged into this? I don't have any horse in this race.

Is it possible for a hypothesis to be useful without making predictions? Doesn't seem like it to me. (If a model gives a way of caculating where something will appear in the sky, that's a testable prediction.)

I really am a sweetheart of a guy. Really. :)

It's just that nazis, klansmen, leninists and fundies all seem to bring out the dark side in me.

And all for much the same reasons.

Lenny,

"It's just that nazis, klansmen, leninists and fundies all seem to bring out the dark side in me."

I would have thought you would be quite comfortable in bed with a leninist, if any of them are still around.

Since I am not on your list, you ought to turn your brighter side, if you indeed have one, my way.

STJM,

Sir, if you have nothing of substance and relevance to contribute, why don't you just SHUT UP.

I would have thought you would be quite comfortable in bed with a leninist, if any of them are still around.

Since I am not on your list

, you ought to turn your brighter side, if you indeed have one, my way.

GvlGeologist,

Let me try and elaborate a bit on my earlier point which elicited so much debate. I will do so by considering as an example the area of electromagnetic (EM) fields.

It is a fact that all interactions between charged particles, certainly all those known in the 1800's, can be explained as just that, forces between particles, without resort to the concept of "fields". It certainly would be more complicated to do so, and Maxwell's equations would need to be drastically revised, but this is no excuse for inventing the existence of an entity (in this case, fields) out of whole cloth. The fact that the field concept agrees with observation is no help here, because so does the 'no field' approach.

So the field idea per se has no falsifiable or testable evidence in its favor. Why then was it adopted? And it was a real adoption, mind you. The electric and magnetic fields not only were associated with energy, but EM waves were also associated with monentum. The alternative was to accept that the law of conservation of momentum is violated in many interactions between charged particles. Only by associating momentum with EM waves could the conservation law be "saved". So why not dispense with the unfalsifiable fields AND the conservation of momentum, at least for electromagnetic interactions, and so be it! That would be the logical conclusion based strictly on the raw data. So why the fields?

Because they had explanatory power (how one particle can act on another at a distance) and simplicity (much less complicated than the alternative) and symmetry (the roles of electric and magnetic fields are mirrored in each other, change either field and you generate the other) and elegance. In short they felt good to the human mind! They were useful!

Nobody is saying that evidence is not crucial in science. And the same can be said of testability and falsifiability. I am sure that the field idea would have been discarded (albeit reluctantly) had a shred of evidence appeared to contradict it. And that is as it should.

BUT MAN DOES NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE. Usefulness also counts! It's more complicated than just looking at the evidence (as William Emba pointed out earlier).

There are many other such examples.

Nobody is saying that evidence is not crucial in science. And the same can be said of testability and falsifiability. I am sure that the field idea would have been discarded (albeit reluctantly) had a shred of evidence appeared to contradict it. And that is as it should.

STJM,

First I want to apologize for that "shut up" remark. I got carried away there.

Second, you really have no idea as to what my motives are. The last thing I would want to do is bring God into science.

Third, your insults add up to nothing when you will not address the substance of the arguments. As a matter of fact, your flailing in the wind with wild and baseless insinuations about my motives only lends credence to the idea that you (and some others here) have nothing to offer by way of meaningful critique.

you can lie all you want.

anybody who doesn't already know your motivations can easily do a search for your posts on PT and ATBC and find out for themselves.

I mereley alert the ignorant to your idiocy ahead of time, hopefully to head off yet another ridiculous rant by yourself, which is where it always ends up.

I have no intention of starting a discussion with you; that's been done numerous times already.

You're simply a waste of time, to put it bluntly.

It is a fact that all interactions between charged particles, certainly all those known in the 1800's, can be explained as just that, forces between particles, without resort to the concept of "fields".

Michael Faraday first realized the importance of a field as a physical object, during his investigations into magnetism. He realized that electric and magnetic fields are not only fields of force which dictate the motion of particles, but also have an independent physical reality because they carry energy.

His demonstrations established that a changing magnetic field produces an electric field.

And it was a real adoption, mind you. The electric and magnetic fields not only were associated with energy, but EM waves were also associated with monentum. The alternative was to accept that the law of conservation of momentum is violated in many interactions between charged particles

The specific features of Faraday's field concept, in its 'favourite' and most complete form, are that force is a substance, that it is the only substance and that all forces are interconvertible through various motions of the lines of force. These features of Faraday's 'favourite notion' were not carried on. Maxwell, in his approach to the problem of finding a mathematical representation for the continuous transmission of electric and magnetic forces, considered these to be states of stress and strain in a mechanical aether. This was part of the quite different network of beliefs and problems with which Maxwell was working. snip On the other hand, Maxwell was not only limited by his belief that all force must be mathematically described as classical Newtonian force, but also further limited by his belief that all energy, including the energy of the electromagnetic field, is mechanical energy: "In speaking of the Energy of the field, however, I wish to be understood literally. All energy is the same as mechanical energy, whether it exists in the form of motion or in that of elasticity, or in any other form. The energy in electromagnetic phenomena is mechanical energy. The only question is, Where does it reside?"

BUT MAN DOES NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE.

— Carol Clouser

Second, you really have no idea as to what my motives are.

— Carol Clouser

Third, your insults add up to nothing when you will not address the substance of the arguments.

— Carol Clouser

Second, you really have no idea as to what my motives are. The last thing I would want to do is bring God into science.

Andrew,

Yes, Faraday was a key proponent of the field concept. But I would not quite say, as the article you quoted does, that he "realized" the fields were necessary. Instead, he preferred to visualize phenomena and "adopted" or "favored" the field approach.

Whether Faraday and Maxwell suspected that "particles" of charge existed, such as the electron or proton, is not germaine here. They certainly knew that charge existed, moved and flowed, and exerted forces.

Let me makes this as simple as I can. Say a charged object is accelerating. You can say that its magnetic field is changing over time and this generates an electric field, which in turn acts on a stationary second charged object nearby. (Magnetic fields don't act on stationary charges.) This is how Faraday and Maxwell would express it. Or, you can directly relate the force on the stationary charge to the acceleration of the first charge and say nothing about mediating fields.

See the difference?

Andrew,

Oh, I forgot. That verse about man not living on bread alone is by Moses in Deuteronomy. I generally do not quote that other fellow.

....you really have no idea as to what my motives are.

....Judah Landa's latest work titled IN THE BEGINNING OF....I found the book at www.Amazon.com and it made a great impression on me.

Carol wiggled about thusly:

But I would not quite say, as the article you quoted does, that he "realized" the fields were necessary. Instead, he preferred to visualize phenomena and "adopted" or "favored" the field approach.

Assuming we could read Faraday's mind (or what's left of it today) and verify such a claim, the important difference between these two thought processes would be...what? Or is Carol trying to weasel her way out of a factual refutation of her factual claims?

I can't see why everybody is overlooking the obvious. This bible passage obviously refers to the sun going nova, destroying the Earth and everything on it (due roughly 4 billion years from now), and not the end of the universe.

Hey, Carol:

I have a theory.

"Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin" was really an instruction to the palace builders.

It means "Measure twice, cut once".

Discuss.

I think it means "Double, double toil and trouble".

I'm writing a book, "The Shakespeare Code", to explain my hypothesis.

:)

Peter: see comment 105016

Peter: by the way, our sun is too small to nova. Once the hydrogen is consumed, it'll 'burn' some helium, swell up into a red giant, consume the terrestrial planets, and eventually become a white dwarf.

Peter,

What Bible passages are you referring to?

fnxtr,

Correct me if I am wrong, but the total output in the visible range by the sun should increase when it swells to red gianthood. Does it not therefore follow that at some distance from the sun where it cannot be seen now, it will become visible at that stage and creatures (if they exist) witnessing the event would see a "nova" (new star)?

Correct me if I am wrong, but the total output in the visible range by the sun should increase when it swells to red gianthood. Does it not therefore follow that at some distance from the sun where it cannot be seen now, it will become visible at that stage and creatures (if they exist) witnessing the event would see a "nova" (new star)?

— Caorol

I think Carol is right. Lemme go get my astrophysics textbook.

Nope, I was wrong. Looks like you need a white dwarf, which sucks matter from a nearby star. the matter piles up on the degenerate-pressure-stabilized surface, until you get a big kaboom, which is the novae.

A nova is a strong, rapid increase in the brightness of a star. The word comes from the latin for "new star," because often a star previously too dim to be seen with the naked eye can become the brightest object in the sky (besides the sun and the moon) when it becomes a nova. Novae are now known to be caused by a star briefly re-igniting after having lain dormant for many years. Stars shine due to the nuclear fusion reactions in their cores, which process hydrogen into helium, releasing energy in the process. When the hydrogen is used up, sun-like stars slough off their outer envelopes, and become very small, very hot "white dwarfs." These white dwarfs are the inert cores of dead stars which have used up all of their available fuel. Now, stars often come in pairs, or "binaries," where two stars are in orbit around each other. If one of the stars in a binary is a white dwarf, and the other begins evolving into a red giant (a stage near the end of the life of a star, but before the white dwarf stage), the white dwarf can begin gravitationally attracting some of the gas from the atmosphere of the red giant to itself. Most of this gas will be hydrogen, and when the hydrogen reaches the surface of the incredibly hot white dwarf, it rapidly ignites, creating a large nuclear explosion on the surface of the star. This is what we see in our sky as a nova.

) is a cataclysmic nuclear explosion caused by the accretion of hydrogen onto the surface of a white dwarf star.

A nova and supernova are two different beasts. A nova is actually a binary system, usually a normal star like the Sun and a small dense white dwarf. They orbit closely, and the white dwarf can actually draw hydrogen gas off the normal star. The fierce gravity of the white dwarf compresses the material, and if enough builds up on the surface it can fuse into helium, releasing a sudden and tremendous amount of energy. We see the star brighten quickly, and fade over time. There are two types of supernovae. One is very similar to a nova: a binary system with a normal star and a white dwarf. If the gas coming from the normal star comes at just the right rate, it can pile up more efficiently than in a regular nova. When it finally fuses, the release of energy can be much larger than a nova, and can actually blow the white dwarf apart. To be honest, no one is completely sure how this works. Some models involve two white dwarfs coalescing. The other type of supernova involves a star with a mass greater than about 8 times the Sun's. There are a great many details involved, so I'll be brief. The star fuses hydrogen into helium in the core. When hydrogen runs out, the helium fuses into carbon, the carbon into oxygen, and so on, until the core is mostly iron. Unlike the previous elements, iron does not release energy when it fuses. When the pressure builds enough to fuse iron, it robs the core of heat and electrons, both of which are needed to support the mass of the star. The core collapses, a flood of neutrinos is released, and the outer layers of the star explode outward in a supernova.

'course, that's if you're using the strict definition of nova. I suppose Carol is right that if you simply mean new star, the total luminosity of the red dwarf might in fact make the sun more visible elsewhere in the galaxy

I thought red giants were cooler and less energetic than their previous stage, and therefore would be LESS visible than before . . . . . ?

Sorry, I slept through all those high school lectures about the HR diagram. Any astronomers out there who can . . . well . . . enlighten me?

I thought I indicated that I was using the term "nova" in the sense of its literal (oh, oh, bad word) definition, that of a "new" star. But thank you for informing me that a red giant is not a white dwarf. I really need PT for that!

Lenny,

Red giants ARE cooler but their total surface area is greater, a factor that tends to increase lumionosity.

As usual, PT is a great font of information. I thought that novae were in fact "tired-out" red giants, and had in fact been telling my students (from an outmoded text, I think) that. Now I'll have to revise my lecture on that topic, which is actually coming up in less than a week. Thanks, RG, for the links.

Incidentally, if you haven't looked at the Bad Astronomy website (or book, which is how I found out about it), it's a great website - has lots of info on commonly held misconceptions about science, including creationism!

Lastly, Lenny, if you look at an HR diagram, you'll see that red giants (and supergiants) are generally higher on the diagram than the main sequence, indicating that they are more luminescent, even though they are cooler. Carol is correct!!! The larger surface area allows more light to be released, even though on a per square meter basis red giants aren't giving off as much light as our own.

GvlGeologist,

"Carol is correct!!!"

Why do you sound so surprized? Of course, I am correct. I usually am. Even Lenny will confirm that. Have you ever seen me state something that turned out to be incorrect?

Back to the off-topic. Total radiation energy output, as I recall, varies directly as the fourth power of the temperature and the first power of the surface area. The redness of the giants indicate they must be cooler (than white stars), tending to decrease their total output, while their giantness tends to increase their total output. What I couldn't recall was which dominates in this case. I guess it depends on how much larger they get.

So, what is the answer to my original question to fnxtr? Could our sun, when it gets to the red giant stage, be construed as a nova (new star) by some distant civilzation?

Why do you sound so surprized? Of course, I am correct. I usually am. Even Lenny will confirm that. Have you ever seen me state something that turned out to be incorrect?

My first post, hope this works.

Carol said:

"Total radiation energy output, as I recall, varies directly as the fourth power of the temperature and the first power of the surface area. The redness of the giants indicate they must be cooler (than white stars), tending to decrease their total output, while their giantness tends to increase their total output."

"Could our sun, when it gets to the red giant stage, be construed as a nova (new star) by some distant civilzation?"

I don't think I totally agree on this. The energy output is proportional to the mass of the star, not the surface area. The luminosity of a red giant may be more but it is spread out more thinly due to the greater surface area. This would tend to make the star look dimmer than our sun is today if looking at it from outside of our solar system. If a distant civilization could see our sun as a red giant then they likely have no problem with seeing our sun as it is today, too.

I freely admit I have no qualifications with astronomy (it is something of a minor hobby) so if anyone out there spots something wrong with my post, feel free to correct me. Anyway, here is an interesting link:

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/CosmosNotes/stars.htm

Lastly, Lenny, if you look at an HR diagram, you'll see that red giants (and supergiants) are generally higher on the diagram than the main sequence, indicating that they are more luminescent, even though they are cooler.

Carol is correct!!!

Of course, I am correct. I usually am. Even Lenny will confirm that.

Caveat: this is how I remember it from 1st year astronomy:

Red giants are larger, but cooler. They radiate more infrared and less visible light. So they do radiate from a larger surface, but the total energy has decreased. Makes sense from a nuclear standpoint: helium fusion releases less energy than hydrogen fusion.

So, Carol, in short, my answer would be "not yet". The star would fade, even though it is in fact larger.

If the graviational energy of the red giant overcomes the (decreasing) radiative energy, the star collapses and brightens again. That's where you'd get yer nova.

"gravitational", of course.

Graviational energy is when you gain weight at Thanksgiving.

Sure. But you quote-mined Carol, who actually had a whit more complicated assertion than the "mere speculation" that you mocked and criticized. Her assertion could be good or bad as a philosophy of science argument, but you did not address it.

— Glen Davidson

It is not "complicated". It was a glib assertion, arguably not worthy of comment.

It had no bearing on the need for evidence that is needed for the acceptance of theories,

"Usefulness" is the strawman, which you can't see around to understand the relevant issues.

I didn't address "usefulness" because it answered nothing at all regarding the necessity for evidence.

You are being disingenous here. I was criticizing you for not addressing Carol's actual argument.

It requires a truly simple mind to suppose that bringing up "usefulness" addresses the purported need for evidence for a theory to exist (for instance, to compete with another theory that explains the evidence). It is because you yourself resort to such tripe that you insist that I should have addressed the non sequitur used against the claims that evidence is necessary.

It was quite blatant on your part.

There was nothing nuanced about your choice of "mere speculation" as a quick summary of Carol, and there is nothing I omitted that suggested such a choice of words on your part was actually not an incompetent hatchet job. The words you think I should have quoted do not in any way shape or form address this inaccuracy of yours.

I mentioned the "omission" because all of us, including you, use partial quotes primarily for the sake of reference, not because we're trying to hide something. You accused me of "omitting" something that I found not worth addressing as it had been written.

Perhaps it is time that you learn that others find different things worth addressing, particulary those of us who understand science criteria than what we see in your posts.

Those of us who know that "usefulness" per se hardly eliminates the need for evidence don't have to conform to your groundless belief that it "addresses" the evidence issue.

If it is a "reasonable stance" it should be argued as one.

Throwing "usefulness" against the claims that evidence is needed to back up a theory is not an argument,

it is a meaningless assertion, one that you repeat.

Again you lie about the "quote mine". It is absolutely wrong to claim that just because someone brought up "usefulness" that it addressed the issue, and that it was worthy of comment in return. Though I don't particularly expect you to understand that, or you would have in the first place.

You just don't like it that your simplistic approach isn't treated as authoritative.

I don't expect you to. But perhaps you can treat philosophers of science with the same respect you treat biologists?

Btw, it is your lack of regard for logic and philosophy that most annoys me here, well, after the dishonesty of claiming that ignoring a useless argument constitutes quote mining.

The great majority are not Popperians. It really is a subtle issue,

Your confusion of choosing between two theories that explain the evidence with the need for theories to be supported by evidence is not attractive.

How very stupid of you. Intelligent people do not always address non sequiturs, and your inability to understand that "usefulness" does not address the need for evidence shows that once again you are projecting your egregious mistakes.

Do you think that I missed the "usefulness" criterion that she mentioned?

I made no claims as to what I believe, beyond what philosophers of science have noted for decades: the philosophy of science is very difficult, and in particular there are no simple on-off switches, with EZ-REED labels like "falsifiability" and "paradigm shift" that demarcate science from pseudoscience.

And still you utterly fail to demonstrate how "usefulness" obviates the need for evidence.

She did not claim "mere speculation" passes the bar. You mocked her for saying so. Of course I didn't.

Once again your inability and/or unwillingness to honestly address the issues rears its ugly head. I didn't claim she said that "mere speculation" passes muster, I wrote: IOW, Clouser's firmly with the IDists in trying to redefine science into something that includes mere speculation into its definition.

But that's over (I hope), and now I will simply mock you for claiming that "usefulness" addresses the claim that evidence is necessary for any theory to be properly accepted.

You don't seem to get it through your head that there are good philosophical means of addressing issues, and that yours fails utterly to approach the level of philosophy, or even of decent meta-science.

Well, Bill, I did glance at your BS after all. Since you can't and don't intelligently support anything that you say (at least the little that I read--I'm not going to go on reading mere lies and false claims), I really don't have anything substantive to add. I can only register my amazement at your inability to understand, and at your mendacity.

Apparently all you can do is repeat your falsehoods. Well do it then. I have explained things in my posts, and you seem not even to understand explanation any more than you do science, linguistics, and philosophy. Your stupidity and dishonesty is harmful primarily to yourself, and only mildly to others.

And now I probably am out of this thread for good. There can be no value in tangling with someone who has so little regard for understanding and truth as Emba reveals himself to be in his posts.

Glen D
http://tinyurl

Well, Bill, I did glance at your BS after all, since I was a bit bored and a bit curious. Since you can't and don't intelligently support anything that you say (at least the little that I read--I'm not going to go on reading mere lies and false claims), I really don't have anything substantive to add. I can only register my amazement at your inability to understand, and at your mendacity.

Apparently all you can do is to repeat your falsehoods. Well do it then. I have explained things in my posts, and you seem not even to understand explanation any more than you do science, linguistics, and philosophy. Your stupidity and dishonesty is harmful primarily to yourself, and only mildly to others.

And now I probably am out of this thread for good. There can be no value in tangling with someone who has so little regard for understanding and truth as Emba reveals himself to be in his posts.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

Lenny and STJM,

Of course I was kidding. But that does not mean what I said was not correct.

For those of you wondering what an HR (Hertzsprung-Russell) diagram is, I submit my class website:
http://inst.sfcc.edu/~gmead/Stars/stars.htm

Caveat: The website was created for Freshman-level non-science students, has been simplified, and is my understanding (as a general Earth Scientist, not an astronomer) of what is correct.

BTW: My understanding is that a nova ("new star") is generally considered to be a sudden (days to months) phenomenon. The transition to a red giant from a normal main-sequence star would undoubtedly take millions of years (AFAIK) so would never be considered to be a nova, even if it did become brighter over that time interval.

fnxtr:
Although He-fusion does release less energy, the star still has a high temperature in the core: ~100 million K, vs. ~14 million k for a yellow H-fusion star. This leads to H fusion in the outer envelope. The cooler temperatures at the surface are more a result of the larger surface area than the total energy released. And the temperatures are not insignificant - about 3000 k for a red star vs. 6000 K for a yellow star.

Roger that. Thank you for the clarification.