Creation or Evoloution? Big Bang or Big Belief -- which is it?

[Lydiot]

So in the video I posted, at what point does it no longer show reality? I presume you think that our solar system is accurately described and understood by us. How about nearby solar systems? Our galaxy? Nearby galaxies?

[KL-666]

Though it is your good right to believe what you like, you are stuck in the basic assumption that there is a real reality out there.

Even your friends the scientists have left that concept. They do not want to be involved in the discussion about the realness of reality. So they have withdrawn to pure science with abstract models. Anything that goes further than that, they want to have nothing to do with. That is religion of every ones own choice.

Kind regards, Vincent

[SkyBoat]

@Lydiot--Fabulous video. Simply awe inspiring and underscored my comments about how our brains, forged some 4 million years ago evolving into the modern brain, is deep in our chromosomal structures still primitive in so many ways. Yet we have been able in the past 7000-10,000 years, give or take, bring an astonishingly rapid advancement with that brain that now can conceive, literally transcend all the primitive structures still firmly embedded in our biology, and to use that great metaphor from the end scene of Arthur C. Clarke's immortal film 2001: A Space Odyssey, knowing we are made of the stuff of stars (thank you Carl Sagan) we are evolving into the star child.

One very important fact to keep in mind in this whole discussion about evolution is that we as a species is continuing to evolve. Most laypeople would poo-poo that idea or take great offense at it, but from a purely biological perspective, the current state of Homo sapiens sapiens is no more fixed in time than any of our hominin predecessors. We cannot measure the rate of our evolution because we have no metric to know what are the traits that are as we speak being selected in the chromosomal soup of the approximately 7.1 billion humans for the changes in the species overall. It is extemely important to realize that what we call race is not a species differentiator in H. sapiens. It is an environmental selector that runs, very roughly speaking, to provide an advantage for both climate and diet among what were for tens of thousands of years fairly isolated populations.

The fascinating question, now, unless a supervirus or some sort of plague wipes us all out, that through technology we have for the most part eliminated that isolation and all of those groups now have regular contact with all of the other groups, what will the impact be on the evolutionary engine? Will we meld into a more homogeneous species over the next 10,000 years and and what we know as visible racial differences literally fade away? No one knows. If some catastrophic event happened either through a natural disaster or the result of a World War destroying the world-wide-wide web and infrastructure (by ground, air and sea) of open access to anywhere on the planet and that once again plunges the survivors into isolated groups, the evolutionary path of humans might fracture into species differentiation as it was between about 2 million and 10,000 years ago when there several Homo groups living on the planet simultaneously.

This has been the case in the past. The first link to The Smithsonian Institution's website on Human Evolution provides a very good interactive graphic of the human family tree: http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-family-tree. Here is a very nice graphic with photos of the representative skulls for each species. It is not quite up to date because of very recent discoveries. The most exciting is that of Homo naledi, which is included in the second graphic. There is also a prospective third hominin to be added to the family tree found in a cave in Russia called Homo denisova. To date only a female finger bone and a male's molar have been found, along with artifacts. DNA analysis indicates the two remains date at approximately 40,000 years old http://www.crystalinks.com/denisova.html



Image Courtesy of Prateeklala. http://visual.ly/timeline-hominid-evolution


Image courtesy of National Geographic

And now the real truth of it all...Heh, he:


Image Courtesy of Elizabeth McNamara, http://www.teachersnetwork.org/powertolearn/web/Prehistory%20Web%20Quest/

If any of you have seen Kevin Costner's film, Water World, you see a futuristic scenario where the human population is forced into small isolated groups because the world has become flooded and no one knows where there is any dry land. There are only legends of it. Costner's character, known only as Mariner has the ability to swim under the sea and breathe. Nobody can figure out how he does this until he reveals that he has gill slits in his neck right below his ears, allowing him to breathe both air in in the water. Although this is science fiction, it is not that far fetched of an adaptation that might appear in the species. What I suspect is that the writers looked at human embryonic development and adapted one of the stages as evolutionary change that was "logically" already in the human genome so it would make sense it might appear. Here is a graphic of embryonic development and you can see that at six weeks there is a place on the neck labled "gill slits. More properly, these are called pharyngeal arches, and they never have anything to do with breathing, but a great deal to do with the neck and ears. But for Hollywood, it works, and speculatively is within the range of "what if" humans were forced into that kind of global watery environment and the evolutionary engines entered a phase of punctuated equilibrium and speciation began to fragment the Homo line.


Image Courtesy of ExpertsMind.com http://www.expertsmind.com/questions/fourth-week-to-eight-week-embryonic-development-30131318.aspx

Woooh. In one post I've covered everything from cosmology to evolution to human evolution and speculated on the future of our species. I'm worn out. That's more than enough for one day. Hope you enjoyed reading it and I look forward to your responses.

[Lydiot]

One very important fact to keep in mind in this whole discussion about evolution is that we as a species is continuing to evolve. Most laypeople would poo-poo that idea or take great offense at it, but from a purely biological perspective, the current state of Homo sapiens sapiens is no more fixed in time than any of our hominin predecessors. We cannot measure the rate of our evolution because we have no metric to know what are the traits that are as we speak being selected in the chromosomal soup of the approximately 7.1 billion humans for the changes in the species overall. It is extemely important to realize that what we call race is not a species differentiator in H. sapiens. It is an environmental selector that runs, very roughly speaking, to provide an advantage for both climate and diet among what were for tens of thousands of years fairly isolated populations.

The fascinating question, now, unless a supervirus or some sort of plague wipes us all out, that through technology we have for the most part eliminated that isolation and all of those groups now have regular contact with all of the other groups, what will the impact be on the evolutionary engine? Will we meld into a more homogeneous species over the next 10,000 years and and what we know as visible racial differences literally fade away? No one knows.

I agree. I personally think "visible racial differences" will persist, and that's simply because they're entirely irrelevant for modern man, and ultimately arbitrarily chosen based on sociological issues. So, because we probably will be somewhat isolated and still probably have differences in preference I'm betting enough of these will persist. But of course, it could also be that in time we'll essentially redefine (or "undefine") just what these races are. Rather than for example white we might get some other hue that takes over, but not brown/black/yellow/red (or whatever crude descriptor one wants to use). After thousands of years, who knows what some groups will look like. Not that I expect green hair to develop naturally, but certainly it could be very different from now.

In addition, the issue of our evolution will probably - as you point out - hinge greatly on technology. The way I see it we have several huge problems facing us in the upcoming century already. Between the allocation of resources and technological advances we have a lot to think about. One thing will be just what we're going to do with cutting edge technology related specifically to evolution. We can already save those who are weak so they can procreate (I know that sounds horrible, just bear with me), and we can make people who normally wouldn't be able to procreate do so. So we've already begun our fight with natural selection (the philosophical caveat being that since we are a part of nature our actions sort of become part of that selection anyway), and it's only going to get "worse", or at least more questionable:

- Once we are able to cure severe diseases such as cancer, but at great cost, who will get the treatment?
- Once we are able to not just select embryos for implantation, but modify their genome, at great cost, who will get to pick their babies?
- Once we are able to change the genome of the living, at great cost, who will get it?
- Once we are able to actually construct custom sequences, then what?

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that people are willing to spend a great deal on improving the chances of prosperity of their offspring. Lower odds for disease, more muscle mass in men, bigger brains maybe, better vision etc.... all "a la carte" is a given for those with the means. We risk ending up with a "lesser" class and a group of "better" people, along the demographic lines we've decided to allow in society.

I think the main force working against that is natural disasters, and possibly an untenable societal situation where people simply start a revolution with incredible consequences.

I also wouldn't be surprised if we in our homo-sapien-centric narcissistic arrogance overlook something relatively trivial, genetically alter ourselves, yet fail to protect ourselves against some new virus or perhaps alien life form carried over on a meteorite, and then we get decimated. Heck, we might face huge problems with a lack of effective antibiotic in the very near future, yet we blow tremendous amounts of money and resources on relatively irrelevant things. Hey, perhaps we'll see a grand equalizer where a huge epidemic truly does allow for only the strongest to survive, and they might be neither the smartest nor wealthiest.

If any of you have seen Kevin Costner's film, Water World,

I tried to forget it! Thanks a lot buddy!

Woooh. In one post I've covered everything from cosmology to evolution to human evolution and speculated on the future of our species. I'm worn out. That's more than enough for one day. Hope you enjoyed reading it and I look forward to your responses.

Yes, and enjoyable read!

[SkyBoat]

@Vincent,

I just completed a long post, and when I finished it up, I saw yours. Your reasoning puzzles me because I don't understand what value, if any, you place on observation. Let's say you were with Galileo in 1610 when he pointed his telescope at Jupiter and for the first time in human history saw it had four moons (We know now it has 67) and that they were clearly moving around the planet. As his good friend, he offers you the chance to look through the telescope. Now, standing there beside him you can see Jupiter with your naked eye as a very bright dot in the sky that does not twinkle (that is what distinguishes a planet from a star when you walk outside and look up into the night sky).

Would you have looked through the telescope, or would you have declined it, not wanting to have to change your world view that what you could see would change looking at Jupiter with your eyes only, forever? Would you have preferred to just continue to believe Jupiter was a single object in the sky and let Galileo believe that it had four moons in orbit around it? Is this what you are saying, or am I reading you all wrong?

Another question I have is have any of the astronomers that you favor for their theories produced a video similar to the ones Lydiot and I posted that represent their view of the universe. I absolutely would love to watch it, as many as you could come up with.(in my case, data observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which I have mentioned is available to anyone in the world who wants to download their data), analysis of the data, and finally, a model designed on the observation, analysis and theory derived from the first two. From there, they can use the SDSS data already coded into, I would certainly guess some kind of supercomputer, that already has each of the observed objects plotted in the programming, and from there build their video.

So they are taking real observations, correctly plotted into the program of a supercomputer that can allow them to do the number crunching necessary to build a virtual model of the universe and then convert that into a video format. It may appear Disneyesque, but what you are watching is not just CGI, You are watching a voyage in which every object is plotted in exactly the right place as the SDSS observed it. That is no small feat.

The light wave/particle theory has been subjected to rigorous testing over several decades both in the laboratory and in deep space observations. Yes, it seems to be completely counter-intuitive, but many things in relativity and quantum theory do. Both Einstein and Heisenberg correctly predicted its properties before science had the technological tools to adequately test it. We now have those tools and there are ongoing experiments to better understand it. There are those who don't accept it, but none of the skeptics have yet to put forth a theory that definitively topples the wave/particle theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80%93particle_duality

Respectfully, Vincent, the problem I see with your perspective on many of these issues is that you cling to theories on the fringe (for reasons I don't understand; I hope at some point you might explain why you find them far more compelling than mainstream thought) and that not a single one of these skeptics has produced a paper or discovery that in a compelling and decisive way overturns the mainstream thought. Instead, they remain on the edge of their respective fields, sometimes for decades, like Dr. Arp, and, from my frame of reference remain stuck so deep in their own skepticism they cannot every bring themselves to change course, when in the mainstream, the field has changed course dramatically several times in the past 100 years, Hubble's discovery of the expanding universe, the discovery of the cosmic background radiation by Crick and Watson in the early 1960s that led to the formulation of the Big Bang theory and the dating of the universe, the discovery of Black Holes in the 1970s--huge battles were fought over that--the establishment of the Cosmological Constant less than 10 years ago, the discovery of the first exoplanets. Each of these were gigantic paradigm shifts in astronomy and physics. They shook the mainstream of the field to its foundation, but the mainstream adapted and the skeptics stayed on the sidelines and continued to doubt or protest each one, and none of them have ever overthrown the prevailing world view with a WOW discovery or paper that turns the field on its head. So, again, with all due respect, I really don't understand what draws you to the furthest edge of science in your thinking.

As you say, kind regards,

SkyBoat

[IAHM-COL]

@Skyboat

I find myself on the edge of this conversation, interested but mostly unwilling to participate. Thou, I will interject now, for a second, because you are totally missing the very important point that Vincent raised.

I will not start a 1000 word post. Instead, I will redirect you to a central treaty of philosophy of the sciences.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59/59-h/59-h.htm

Have a good read. After that revisit Vicent's Posts and rethink what is the meaning of his positions.

IH-COL

[SkyBoat]

@IAHM-COL and KL-666;

IAHM-COL, thank you for directing me to Decartes' Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences. It was a fascinating read and one that I wish I had read years ago to have an understanding of the Cartesian scientific method.

To be truthful, I found it quite unsettling as Decartes is so adamant that, on the one hand he posits the four rules for scientific inquiry, then spends most of the treatise explaining why he does not trust the perceptions the results from conducting research based on those four rules would produce. I found this completely inconsistent with his immortal statement cogito ergo sum. I kept thinking if that is the true sum of the human experience, how can anything be trusted as truth? And then Decartes goes on to present a complicated logic for the existence of God and truth. I finished the work thoroughly confused.

So I went to Wikipedia so see if I could gain some added insight into Descartes as a man and in reading through his biography I came across the name of the philosopher, John Locke. And a light went on. You see, my religious tradition, the movement that became my denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) was founded by men who were educated in Scotland during the Enlightenment and were very heavily influenced by the work of John Locke. Locke was not just a physicist, but wrote on political, economic, religious and social issues, and was required reading in the universities these men attended before they eventually emigrated to America. So, that Lockian perspective on perception has been engrained in me since I was a child. Rather that the Cartesian perspective of the senses cannot ultimately be trusted because they are limited, I have been educated in a world view that says the senses must be trusted because they are all that we have to interact with what is out there in the world. Do you see the huge difference in how data will then be interpreted between these two epistemological points of view?

For example, back in 1993, Comet Shoemaker—Levy 9 broke apart and created what astronomers call a “String of Pearls” and a year later, in July 1994, collided with Jupiter. The impacts were so large they were easily visible with my 6 inch (150mm) Newtonian reflector telescope, so I set it up in the yard and invited all the neighbors over for a viewing party.


Image: Hubble Space Telescope

Jupiter was high in the southern sky, so it was an easy target. The first fragments began colliding on July 16. Jupiter was approximately 860 million km (431,965,443 nm) from Earth.

All I had to do was go to the JPL Shoemaker-Levy 9 Impact website and get the impact times for each of the fragments. We couldn’t see the cometary string because it was behind the planet, so we had to wait for the impact “crater” to rotate into view. I put crater in quotes, because Jupiter is a gas giant, and what we would be seeing, we hoped, was some kind of evidence of the collision. Now the good thing is that Jupiter’s rotation is extremely fast, its day is only 9.84 Earth hours! The Hubble Space Telescope, however was high enough that it had a different angle and line of sight on Jupiter, so, as you see above, it captured photos of the comet’s String of Pearls. The Galileo space probe was also in the Jupiter system and able to be configured to capture images, as was Voyager 2 and several other space probes.

As the comet’s fragments, some several kilometers in diameter approached Jupiter, all the world's major observatories were trained on it. There were lots of theories what might happen but no one knew for sure what would happen. Descartes would have been beside himself with glee over the situation. As it was, the angle of the impact was close enough to the visible side of the planet that when the first large pieces began impacting there were huge flashes of light visible to the observatories, calculated at thousands of miles high above Jupiter’s atmosphere.

But wait. There is another issue here that has to be taken into account. That is the time it takes light to travel from Jupiter to Earth. C = 186,000 m/s or 300,000 km/s, and at Jupiter’s distance that converts to about 48 minutes.

When that light flash arrives at Earth, the astronomers looking through their telescopes were looking back in time 48 minutes.

My neighborhood Jupiter party is excited while we wait the 48 minutes for the light from Jupiter to reach us. Then as I peer through the eye piece, right on time the dark round smudges come into view as predicted. I call everyone over to get in line to take a look. The humongous dark explosion cloud tops rotate into view one after another. We are very cognizant of the historical uniqueness of this moment.



The Big Question:

So, now the Cartesian view versus the Lockian view. Looking at Jupiter and knowing how far it is away from Earth, I know that the light is 48 minutes old, because, the speed of light, C, has been set as a constant. Is the image of Jupiter I viewed in July 1994 the truth or just one of a possible number of truths? And if the latter, how does one distinguish which of those truths I was perceiving according to Cartesian logic? Or do I have it all wrong?

As a Lockian, I contend that I saw the actual remnant of the cometary fragment's collision on Jupiter 48 minutes after the light containing that information got to my eyes aided by my telescope that is a piece of technology designed to allow me to accurately see what actually happened (my 6 inch mirror does not have enough light-gathering surface to capture the flash--it is a matter of mirror technology and the physics of how many photons can be collected on the surface and bounced to the eye piece) And I further contend, that the science that under-girds what I just described is reliable and that it will always be reliable because it has both internal (theoretical) and external (experimental) consistency when I use my telescope. What will the Cartesian say about that same event under the same conditions?

Video igitur possum intelligere,

SkyBoat



This is me standing with the 100 inch Hooker Telescope on Mt Wilson (Above Pasadena, California), which Edwin Hubble used to make his discovery in 1929 that the universe is expanding and the Milky Way Galaxy is but one among millions. (Photo taken in 2009)

[KL-666]

Hello skyboat,

Do not be confused! There is no issue with your observations and agreeing to see the same as many people say they do. Also the accurateness of measurements and calculations are not an issue of concern. This is all being done within something we call reality. The only thing that can not be done is prove the realness of that reality from within.

The meaning of life is one of the biggest motivations to go out and research things. Philosophers and scientists have evolved their insights over thousands of years. (There is more further going thinking after Descartes.) Currently they find that for answering questions on the meaning of life, one must thoroughly make sure that one is not going to research in an area that can not be proven real. One of the major questions in this field is: Of what can we be most sure? This is closely related to perception (in the broadest sense, not just looking). If we can not perceive something in it's essence, then we can not be sure about the realness of it.

This research in the realness of everything is broader than the area of science. The brightest of philosophers and scientists participate in it. They all agree on that we have no proof of the realness of reality, so it can not be a vehicle for answers to the meaning of life. Yet the scientists say: That being true, does not take away the fact that we can do a lot of interesting research within that reality (you may think of it as the whole universe). We'll build a construct of truth within the area of reality, but we are not going to claim anything about the realness of the construct as a whole.

If you understand this, then you understand Einstein saying:

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Meaning: We have no proof of the realness of reality, but there is enough agreement on the content we perceive within it, that the agreement is a workable enough environment.

Strange thing to say for a thorough bread scientist, is it not? We do not understand such statements, because we mere mortals are not aware that there is a lot of thought put in the realness of things. For ourselves we take the easy way out and simply state that reality is real.

I have put these different views in a picture. You know that i think pictures are not perfect, so just use it as an illustration that may give you an "aha that's what you mean" moment. If not, just forget about it.



Philosophers and scientists live with a world view that has realness as the most important proving that needs to be done. Secondary is reality and research within that reality. Reality is under scrutiny of realness research.

The public arbitrarily elects reality to be real. Everything has to happen within that real reality, so consequently realness research becomes something insignificant happening somewhere within that reality.

Now think of me talking from the philosophers and scientists angle. Then discussing Hubble, Arp, etc... can be very interesting. But it is a discussion solely within the framework of reality. From such discussion nothing can be said about the meaning of life.

Christof Wetterich is a completely different story. With his second scientifically equally valid universe, he operates in the area of realness research. [edit] Had he said: my universe is better, then he would be in the league with Hubble, Arp, etc... But he says that the universes are equal (and they technically are). Then questions arise about what this means for the realness of reality. [/edit]

As i said before, have a look at Edmund Husserl for post Cartesian thinking. I am sorry, i do not immediately have a book title in mind at the moment.

Kind regards, Vincent

[IAHM-COL]

Hi Skyboat

Yes. Indeed. It is very easy to end up all confused after reading the "Discourse of the Method". It is a must read, and one that it is, a must re-read, as well.

I. "Cogito ergo Sum".

The interpretation I got from the Discourse of the Method reading is that "thruth/s" is/are unattainable. According to this Cartesian position, there is only 1 thesis he could be certain of. The thesis is that he exists. And he knew that, out of the logic that he thought of the question: "Do I exist?". Given that "something" a.k.a as "I" or "me" thought of that question, then that something exists. With that interpretation, you can derive a few interesting facts. i) you can't be sure that anything else exist via this method. ii) you can not know What you are. Only that you are. and iii) Certainly, that is not a social thesis, because, the existence of others, come to you not via "Corgito" but via "experience" ... and experience is one but deceiving.

The Cartesian posture is the central "dogma" of positivism. And it responds to epistemological principles. And it separates the philosophical and teological discouse from the merely scientific discourse.
That is what KL666 have been defending all along.

II. Jupiter

Your example about Jupiter is a good point of clarification. As you can see, you have outlay a set of rules that must be met, in order for following the clear conclusion of knowing the distance between Jupiter and the earth. As KL666 very early put it: it is just a matter of making the set of rules, and make the calculations. Set a more complex set of rules, for more complicated calculation, and recurse ad infinitum.

None of those rules are "thruth" in the strictest sense. They are conventions.

Is the speed of light constant a fact, a constant of a convention? That is quite a hard one right there. First off, why is the light forced to travel / limited to travel at a given speed. What are the constrains? If the light really can / should behave as a particle, why does the media of travel not have a dragging effect? What is the consequence of the light travelling in extreme conditions such as real vacuum, vs infinite gravitational/infinite density "black holes" cores. and these effects on both the particle (foton) and wave nature (the duality of light). And after putting all that in the table, can we talk of the universal constant (c) ?

Furthermore, within the limits, and once ASSUMED c, we can indeed make a calculation of the distance between earth and Jupiter. But not one deviant of biases: Per example, the observer bias. Is the distance between any point in the equator of each object the same as the distance between poles on these planets? Are we really determining a constant, or a variable within a reasonable margin of variation?

Furthermore, the bias of the instrument of measure. is there distortions due to our instruments? Like diffraction, reflections, scatters, that make all together collected the whole data set (an infinite) impossible. And limit us to collect a distorted sample, from which we have to use extrapolations?

To finally, be falling into the Cartesian trap of recognizing that what we see, and what we interpret of what we see, is limited to our own current understanding?

The attainability of truth just goes away. The search of truth is not the realm of the sciences.

III. Our scientific pursue is dependent on understanding that We don't know

The classical example is the atom. Sure, named on its indivisibleness. Certainly, when we devoid ourselves of the KNOWN FACT that atom is undivisible, the thing just (literally) explodes in front of our own eyes, in an ever-growing array of subatomical particles. And talk about Bohr. Bohr works no more to our current and changing assumptions over nuclear physics and chemistry.

The other classical example, the flaten earth. The "WE KNOW" posture, almost killed the poor Gallileo that just said: Wait a minute -- maybe we quite don't know yet.

So that's how it goes. You doubt. Then you learn.

[Lydiot]

The attainability of truth just goes away. The search of truth is not the realm of the sciences.

First of all, what relevance is it if we can't attain truth? If we can't attain it, then why bother talking about it? It changes literally nothing. Whatever we can reasonably consider we know is most likely is what we can work on. Nothing else.

So how is any conversation advanced by pointing out that we can't know absolute truth?

Secondly, If the above is half wrong in that absolute truth can be attained, just not through science, then through what?

III. Our scientific pursue is dependent on understanding that We don't know

The classical example is the atom. Sure, named on its indivisibleness. Certainly, when we devoid ourselves of the KNOWN FACT that atom is undivisible, the thing just (literally) explodes in front of our own eyes, in an ever-growing array of subatomical particles. And talk about Bohr. Bohr works no more to our current and changing assumptions over nuclear physics and chemistry.

The other classical example, the flaten earth. The "WE KNOW" posture, almost killed the poor Gallileo that just said: Wait a minute -- maybe we quite don't know yet.

So that's how it goes. You doubt. Then you learn.

And scientists doubt all the time. They frequently state that their theories are the currently most likely descriptions of "reality". That's what most of them say. Someone insisting earth is flat will today be called a nutcase because we've "proven" it is not. But honestly, I haven't been everywhere on the planet, so how do I know? How do I know that it takes X minutes for light to bounce off Jupiter before it hits earth? I don't. I know none of these things because we can't know the realness of reality.

But again, then so what? How does that practically change anything?