Science and God

On Fri, 3 Nov 2006 16:10:38 UTC, p4.TakeThisOut@enzym.rnd.uni-c.dk (Peter B. Juul)
wrote:

>
> However the "turns out 15 billion years is 6 days to an outside
> observer" is complete and utter nonsense. Please stop - or bring forth
> the evidence.
>

Well, to be fair, we now have the citation where we can look it up, in
principle. However, if a calculation in General Relativity unlike Special)
is simple, then it's incredible that it could even begin to be a
conclusive demonstration.


--
Dan Drake
dd.TakeThisOut@dandrake.com
http://www.dandrake.com/
porlockjr.blogspot.com
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"Dan Drake" <dd.RemoveThis@dandrake.com> writes:

> Well, to be fair, we now have the citation where we can look it up, in
> principle.

My apologies to Bob, then.

Bob, instead of all of us having to go and find that book (I honestly
don't even know where to look, except to buy it from Amazon), could I
talk you into giving us the Cliff Notes?

--
Peter B. Juul, o.-.o "Yes," said Winnie-the-Pooh.
The RockBear. ((^)) "I see now," said Winnie-the-Pooh.
I speak only 0}._.{0 "I have been Foolish and Deluded," said he,
for myself. O/ \O "and I am a Bear of no Brain at All."
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"rjbjr" <rjburnsjr.RemoveThis@comcast.net> writes:

> You claim the science involved in equating 15 billion years to the 6 days of
> creation "is complete nonsense".

I do.

> If my claim is supported, what will you say then?

I will say that my understanding of the theories of relativity has
changed, and that I was wrong, when I claimed it to be nonsense. I
don't hold to the modern sort of "debate" in which you have to claim
to be right beyond all reason. I debate to enlighten others and be
enlightened myself. Sometimes we have to accept that we simply work
from different premises, and that's fine too.

> Where would I start? Depends on what level of understanding you start with?
> Are you aware of the concept of time dilation?
> Do you understand that time measurements are affected by motion and gravity
> and the position of the observer? Do you understand that a clock on our sun
> runs more slowly than the same kind of clock here on earth?

I am. I am also aware that this effect is quite observable in our GPS
systems, which has to compensate for it.

(actually - observed from Earth the clock on the sun will seem to run
slower. On the Sun it would seem to run at the correct speed, whereas
a clock on Earth would seem to run too fast. That's the relativity bit
)

> Can you agree that it would be reasonable for the author of Genesis to use a
> position (frame of reference) other than the earth in timing the events
> described?

Not really, no. The concept of a "day" is Earth local. A "day"
on another planet is of a different length - not because of time
dilation, but because that planet would have another rate of rotation.

Why would the author of Genesis use another position for his timing
and still talk about days?

> If you agree with that, can you agree that the times we measure
> now from our frame of reference on the earth will be vastly different?

IF I agreed with that I would have to agree that said times would be a
little different. Not vastly.

But OK, I get the premises, let's get the numbers

--
Peter B. Juul, o.-.o "All great epics come to an end. The Iliad. The
The RockBear. ((^)) Odyssey. War and Peace. Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I speak only 0}._.{0 Just kidding. The Tolstoy book is a ringer.
for myself. O/ \O Doesn't belong on this list. Too literal.
Not enough monsters." - New York Newsday
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"rjbjr" <rjburnsjr.RemoveThis@comcast.net> writes:

> Dear Mr. Juul,
> Well. It seems my post to you from two days ago got dropped.

It did not, and I replied to it.

My reply is available at this address:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.christian/msg/19962a3ae6036f98

Other than writing that reply, I looked into the gravitational time
dilation equations. However, they were too complicated for me, so I
decided not to do the math. If needed I can go back and look at it
some more.

What was obvious was that for the observer to see 6 days go by, while
a clock on Earth measured 15 billion years, the observer would have to
be very close to an insanely large mass.

> Notice that "In the beginning...." the Comic Clock was ticking a million
> million times faster than the clock we use today on earth. The frequency
> difference is the same as the temperature difference.
>
> In other words, our clock from our frame of reference on earth today is a
> million million times slower than the universal clock at the start of the
> big bang.

I assume you mean "faster"? For our clocks to measure 15 billion
years, when the observer measures six days, our clocks must be running
insanely fast.

Also, I don't get where the temperature based time dilation comes
from. Gravitational time dilation, check. Speed based time dilation,
check. But temperature? Where do you get that?

> We measure the age of the universe, with our clocks at approximately 15
> billion years. The question is, how does that time period appear to someone
> who was there at the time the Big Bang occurred? His watch runs a million
> million times faster than ours.

there is no "time at which the Big Bang occured". You said yourself
that time began when matter formed. But I get what you mean.

> Divide 15 billion years by a million million. You get 15 divided by a
> thousand. So, 15 billion of our years equals 15 thousanths of a year
> according to the Cosmic Clock. Now, 15 thousandths of a year equals 5.5
> days!
>
> OOPs! Guess I was wrong? That's not exactly 6 days.

that is very unimportant. The current scientific guess at the
universe's age is "12 to 18 billion years", so that presents no
problem.

What does present a problem, however, is that you gave me absolutely
no clue, why said observer's watch would run a million million times
as fast.

You just say "it does" and then go on to explain why that would mean
that said observer would see 15 bilion years to be 5.5 days. That math
I could have done myself - actually, I did, because I wanted to find
the numbers to put into the gravitational time dilation equations.

I would be very interested in seeing the math that Dr. Schroeder did
to get to the "million million times as fast" figure. (913 billion, to
be more exact, but that's besides the point.)

> I'm sure Dr. Schroeder doesn't want me to post his entire book on a message
> board. To see how he dates the individual days of creation, you'll have to
> buy his book.

I hope you can supply some more relevant numbers. If not, I have a
very hard time seeing why Schroeder's book should interest me in the
slightest.


--
Peter B. Juul, o.-.o "We haven't lost and we never will
The RockBear. ((^)) Today you came into our grasp
I speak only 0}._.{0 We are going to kill you
for myself. O/ \O We are going to kill you
By giving you lots of water to drink"
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

Dear Peter,
My comments below.

"Peter B. Juul" <p4.TakeThisOut@enzym.rnd.uni-c.dk> wrote in message
news:86psc0yt87.fsf@enzym.rnd.uni-c.dk...
> "rjbjr" <rjburnsjr.TakeThisOut@comcast.net> writes:
>
> > Dear Mr. Juul,
> > Well. It seems my post to you from two days ago got dropped.
>
> It did not, and I replied to it.
>
> My reply is available at this address:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.christian/msg/19962a3ae6036f98
>
> Other than writing that reply, I looked into the gravitational time
> dilation equations. However, they were too complicated for me, so I
> decided not to do the math. If needed I can go back and look at it
> some more.
>
> What was obvious was that for the observer to see 6 days go by, while
> a clock on Earth measured 15 billion years, the observer would have to
> be very close to an insanely large mass.
>
> > Notice that "In the beginning...." the Comic Clock was ticking a million
> > million times faster than the clock we use today on earth. The
frequency
> > difference is the same as the temperature difference.
> >
> > In other words, our clock from our frame of reference on earth today is
a
> > million million times slower than the universal clock at the start of
the
> > big bang.
>
> I assume you mean "faster"? For our clocks to measure 15 billion
> years, when the observer measures six days, our clocks must be running
> insanely fast.

This is confusing. I'm referencing the tick rate of the cosmic clock from
the frame of reference of an observer on earth. The tick rate we measure is
the frequency of the radiation we see in the CBR today. Say, the CBR at the
time of the beginning was emitted at 3 million million cycles per second.
On earth now, we measure that same wave that was emitted at the beginning of
time as 3 cycles each second. So, from our perspective, it would take a
million million seconds to observe the 3 million million first cycles of CBR
that were emitted at the "start". Only one second went by for the observer
who lived in the beginning observing those first million million events. We
take a million million seconds to observe the same number of events.

Does that help?

>
> Also, I don't get where the temperature based time dilation comes
> from. Gravitational time dilation, check. Speed based time dilation,
> check. But temperature? Where do you get that?
>
Temperature is a measure directly proportional of the frequency of the
background radiation, the CBR. If you know the relative temperatures, you
know the relative frequencies. The expansion of space produces the
identical effect on the frequency of electromagnetic waves as does relative
motion between a light source and an observer. Thus you get the effect of
time dilation.

Does that help any?

> > We measure the age of the universe, with our clocks at approximately 15
> > billion years. The question is, how does that time period appear to
someone
> > who was there at the time the Big Bang occurred? His watch runs a
million
> > million times faster than ours.
>
> there is no "time at which the Big Bang occured". You said yourself
> that time began when matter formed. But I get what you mean.
>
> > Divide 15 billion years by a million million. You get 15 divided by a
> > thousand. So, 15 billion of our years equals 15 thousanths of a year
> > according to the Cosmic Clock. Now, 15 thousandths of a year equals 5.5
> > days!
> >
> > OOPs! Guess I was wrong? That's not exactly 6 days.
>
> that is very unimportant. The current scientific guess at the
> universe's age is "12 to 18 billion years", so that presents no
> problem.
>
> What does present a problem, however, is that you gave me absolutely
> no clue, why said observer's watch would run a million million times
> as fast.
>
> You just say "it does" and then go on to explain why that would mean
> that said observer would see 15 bilion years to be 5.5 days. That math
> I could have done myself - actually, I did, because I wanted to find
> the numbers to put into the gravitational time dilation equations.
>
> I would be very interested in seeing the math that Dr. Schroeder did
> to get to the "million million times as fast" figure. (913 billion, to
> be more exact, but that's besides the point.)

I think I did show the math. It was so simple, you probably didn't notice.
The temperature of the universe at "quark confinement" was 3 million million
degrees K. We can see the radiation that was emitted at that "time" today.
But, we calculate the temperature of that radiation today as 3 degrees K.
Just divide the two values. Since frequency of the radiation is
proportional to the temperature, we get the million million factor. The
frequency of the light emitted at the start was a million million times
faster than what we observe on earth today.

I sure hope I'm relating all this properly.

One additional note that might help. There are three things that affect
light frequency; gravity, speed and the stretching of space. The first two
are familiar and relate to the special and general theory of relativity.
The key is that the speed of light is constant. Since observers at
different points of observation see the same light at the same speed, but at
different frequencies, Einstein taught that it is the perception of time
that changes between the observers. But, to solve the equations for time
dilation based on gravity and speed, you have to have location information.
You have to be specific about where the observers are.

But, Schroeder notes that we can take a third approach and look at the
universe as a whole. The expanding universe has the same effect on light
frequency and therefore, time dilation, as does gravity and relative speed.
I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but that makes sense to me. It
also makes sense that the writer of Genesis would choose that point of view
as well.

The math involved in calculating the dates for the individual days is only
slightly more complicated. Once you pick the right perspective, things
become pretty simple.

Now, my question is. Does this all stand up to scrutiny? There are many
bright people posting here. Your opinions please.

Bob


>
> > I'm sure Dr. Schroeder doesn't want me to post his entire book on a
message
> > board. To see how he dates the individual days of creation, you'll have
to
> > buy his book.
>
> I hope you can supply some more relevant numbers. If not, I have a
> very hard time seeing why Schroeder's book should interest me in the
> slightest.
>
>
> --
> Peter B. Juul, o.-.o "We haven't lost and we never will
> The RockBear. ((^)) Today you came into our grasp
> I speak only 0}._.{0 We are going to kill you
> for myself. O/ \O We are going to kill you
> By giving you lots of water to drink"
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

"rjbjr" <rjburnsjr.RemoveThis@comcast.net> writes:

> Dear Peter,
> My comments below.

Since I have a limited understanding of the involved physics and
Schroeder is thus able to confuse me with terms with which I am
unfamiliar[1], I will instead refer you to an article, that makes some
sense to me: http://www.talkreason.org/articles/schroeder.cfm




[1] Basically, the explanation makes as much sense to me, as when
Geordi on Star Trek suggests to Picard that they reverse the polarity
of the tractor beam and redirect it to the warp core.

--
Peter B. Juul, o.-.o "We haven't lost and we never will
The RockBear. ((^)) Today you came into our grasp
I speak only 0}._.{0 We are going to kill you
for myself. O/ \O We are going to kill you
By giving you lots of water to drink"
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

rjbjr (rjburnsjr@comcast.net) wrote:

> About the birds. I've already talked about that and you responded in
> another post.
> Bird is a mistranslation. The original Hebrew was "winged insect".

Well, no. That's the ordinary meaning of the Hebrew word. The word can
also mean "winged insect" and is used that way occasionally. But the
predominant meaning is "bird."

--
Opus the Penguin
The best darn penguin in all of Usenet
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On Wed, 08 Nov 2006 04:11:49 GMT, while bungee jumping, Opus
the Penguin <opusthepenguin+usenet@gmail.com> shouted thusly:


>rjbjr (rjburnsjr@comcast.net) wrote:
>
>> About the birds. I've already talked about that and you responded in
>> another post.
>> Bird is a mistranslation. The original Hebrew was "winged insect".
>
>Well, no. That's the ordinary meaning of the Hebrew word. The word can
>also mean "winged insect" and is used that way occasionally. But the
>predominant meaning is "bird."

So what other word has the primary meaning of,
"winged insect"? And what verse are you discussing?

--

Azaliah (ats-al-yaw'-hoo) "Jah has reserved"

<((>< <((>< <((><

"Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth."
- John 17:17
..
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

To the point!
G.Schroeder makes "Pseudoscience" - a work using scientific background,
but not scientific in methods, with many words covering the errorneous
parts.


Peter B. Juul wrote:
> "rjbjr" <rjburnsjr RemoveThis @comcast.net> writes:
>
> > Dear Peter,
> > My comments below.
>
> Since I have a limited understanding of the involved physics and
> Schroeder is thus able to confuse me with terms with which I am
> unfamiliar[1], I will instead refer you to an article, that makes some
> sense to me: http://www.talkreason.org/articles/schroeder.cfm
>
>
>
>
> [1] Basically, the explanation makes as much sense to me, as when
> Geordi on Star Trek suggests to Picard that they reverse the polarity
> of the tractor beam and redirect it to the warp core.
>
> --
> Peter B. Juul, o.-.o "We haven't lost and we never will
> The RockBear. ((^)) Today you came into our grasp
> I speak only 0}._.{0 We are going to kill you
> for myself. O/ \O We are going to kill you
> By giving you lots of water to drink"
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

Azaliah (_giantwaffle_@yahoo.com) wrote:
> Opus the Penguin <opusthepenguin+usenet@gmail.com> shouted thusly:
>>rjbjr (rjburnsjr@comcast.net) wrote:
>>
>>> About the birds. I've already talked about that and you
>>> responded in another post.
>>> Bird is a mistranslation. The original Hebrew was "winged
>>> insect".
>>
>>Well, no. That's the ordinary meaning of the Hebrew word. The word
>>can also mean "winged insect" and is used that way occasionally.
>>But the predominant meaning is "bird."
>
> So what other word has the primary meaning of,
> "winged insect"? And what verse are you discussing?
>

The verses under discussion are Genesis 1:20,21. The word is there
translated as "birds," referring to the kind of creature God created
on Day 5. As I say, that word CAN have the meaning of "winged
insect" but that is not its primary meaning.

I don't believe there is a Hebrew word that has "winged insect" as
its sole meaning. That meaning would have to be determined from
context.

For example, the word under discussion is used in Lev 11:20 and Deut
14:19, but in both cases the adjective "swarming" is attached in
order to make the meaning clear.

The word itself just means "winged things," so in Gen 1:20,21 it may
well refer to birds and winged insects both without distinction. In
other contexts, the word is clearly used to refer to birds alone.

E.g. in Gen 8:20 where Noah builds an altar and makes a sacrifice of
every clean animal and every clean "winged thing". Or in Lev 11:13
where the sorts of "winged things" that may not be eaten are
specified as the eagle, the vulture, and the osprey. This is the
common usage of the word, so it's usually translated "bird."

--
Opus the Penguin
The best darn penguin in all of Usenet
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

On Wed, 08 Nov 2006 16:28:42 GMT, while bungee jumping, Opus
the Penguin <opusthepenguin+usenet@gmail.com> shouted thusly:


>Azaliah (_giantwaffle_@yahoo.com) wrote:
>
>> Opus the Penguin <opusthepenguin+usenet@gmail.com> shouted thusly:
>>>rjbjr (rjburnsjr@comcast.net) wrote:
>>>
>>>> About the birds. I've already talked about that and you
>>>> responded in another post.
>>>> Bird is a mistranslation. The original Hebrew was "winged
>>>> insect".
>>>
>>>Well, no. That's the ordinary meaning of the Hebrew word. The word
>>>can also mean "winged insect" and is used that way occasionally.
>>>But the predominant meaning is "bird."
>>
>> So what other word has the primary meaning of,
>> "winged insect"? And what verse are you discussing?
>>
>
>The verses under discussion are Genesis 1:20,21. The word is there
>translated as "birds," referring to the kind of creature God created
>on Day 5. As I say, that word CAN have the meaning of "winged
>insect" but that is not its primary meaning.
>
>I don't believe there is a Hebrew word that has "winged insect" as
>its sole meaning. That meaning would have to be determined from
>context.
>
>For example, the word under discussion is used in Lev 11:20 and Deut
>14:19, but in both cases the adjective "swarming" is attached in
>order to make the meaning clear.
>
>The word itself just means "winged things," so in Gen 1:20,21 it may
>well refer to birds and winged insects both without distinction. In
>other contexts, the word is clearly used to refer to birds alone.
>
>E.g. in Gen 8:20 where Noah builds an altar and makes a sacrifice of
>every clean animal and every clean "winged thing". Or in Lev 11:13
>where the sorts of "winged things" that may not be eaten are
>specified as the eagle, the vulture, and the osprey. This is the
>common usage of the word, so it's usually translated "bird."

Okay, but why is anyone suggesting "winged insects"
in that verse?

--

Azaliah (ats-al-yaw'-hoo) "Jah has reserved"

<((>< <((>< <((><

"Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth."
- John 17:17
..
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

Azaliah (_giantwaffle_@yahoo.com) wrote:

> Okay, but why is anyone suggesting "winged insects"
> in that verse?

For that you're going to have to track this discussion upthread to
where the claim was made and/or ask the guy who made the claim. I
just dropped by to pick a nit.

--
Opus the Penguin
The best darn penguin in all of Usenet
 >> Stay informed about: Science and God 

On Fri, 3 Nov 2006 23:16:44 UTC, "rjbjr" <rjburnsjr.RemoveThis@comcast.net> wrote:

>... The exegesis that tries to reconcile the text with science
> > requires reading plenty of things in a special way that's dictated not by
> > the plain or traditional sense of the text, but by a result one wants to
> > reach.

[Just restating my thesis for context]

> ... The time
> > scale is only part of it. We have plants on land long before there were
> > any plants at all (as opposed to bacteria). Grasses and fruits a billion
> > years too early, and so on. These are explained away, but it's still
> > awkward to imagine Omniscience writing something that is supposed to be
> > taken as Truth and not finding a way to make it roughly accurate. And so
> > on.
> >
> I agree with you that the Day 3 description for the appearance of grass and
> plants on land is difficult to rationalize... You imply that this interpretation is forcing the Bible to fit
> with today's science. That's not true. Schroeder reports that as far back
> as 700 years ago, Biblical scholars had discussed this very point.

Well, I'd like to see that. IPOF I'm not sure what "this point" is. If
it's that grasses appeared a billion years later than the green things
that live in water, I'd be very interested. If it's that the Bible isn't
to be taken literally, fine; I can only wish they had got that point
across to their successors.

> I still
> think it's reasonable to compress the development of plants into day 3
> rather than breaking up the later narrative for each type of plant that
> emerges from the origins on day 3. I can understand, however, why you
> aren't convinced.

Right: because to me it would be far more reasonable just not to mention
particular plants where mentioning them puts them a billion years out of
place.

>... The way I read it, is the flying
> insects were created on Day 5. The basis for other flying creatures were
> created the same day from the DNA that started in the waters.

"The basis for other flying creatures" isn't a term I can understand,
relative to science. It seems to mean that DNA for birds and DNA for
pterodactyls and DNA for bats were all assembled from something(s) in the
sea, and sat somewhere offstage waiting for their cues in the Mesozoic and
Cenozoic perhaps 150 million years later. In fact, the DNA of the flying
vertebrates to which we have access (birds and bats) is not like that of
watery creatures, but like their actual relatives as known by
evolutionists 100 years before DNA analysis: birds, like other archosaurs
(group including birds, dinosaurs, crocodilians...); bats, like other
mammals.

(The point of the DNA bit: science *predicted* this. It didn't need a new
exegesis of the sacred text to be made to fit.)

On ordinary scientific reasoning, we conclude that birds are descended
from dinosaurs or something closely related, splitting in the
mid-Mesozoic; and bats are descended from early mammals, at about the
start of the Cenozoic. There is no other interpretation of the evidence
that isn't simply special pleading. But it appears that God decided to
create misleading DNA evidence -- just to trick materialists?

> The things
> that crawl mentioned in Day 6 were mammal
related

Your interpretation. While I haven't read the Hebrew, my reading of any
English translation indicates that we're seeing land animals generally:
Mammals and reptiles (for which our name happens to mean "Things that
creep") and insects and other things on the ground. The beloved old KJV
has "every thing that creepeth upon the earth", which is no different from
the others. But now we are to understand that it isn't really intended to
mean "every" "thing"; it just means mammals. To me, this looks like the
Procrustes method of textual interpretation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes
In principle it is ok, and even good practice to decide on the correct
translation of a text based on what makes sense in light of all we know.
But the text derived in that way does not *predict* the things that we
used in order to get the translation to come out right.

>... My point is that the you can't accept the plain
> sense of Scripture.

And as the True Fundamentalists(*) say, when you do that, why believe any
of the rest? Maybe it's all figurative, and you modernists are killing
religion with your free intepretations.

(*) As opposed to 80% fundamentalists, like C. S. Lewis, whose position
one can respect without necessarily agreeing with it.

>... The Bible tells us to continually test our understanding of the
scripture.
> To me, this is an instruction to use reason and science to give us a deeper
> understanding of what the scripture is saying.

I do agree with this, along with Saint Augustine and Galileo and other
famous people. (Come to think of it, I don't know chapter and verse of
where it tells us that. I'd appreciate the reference.)

>... Not everything written there is literal science. Some of
> it is scientific and some just instructional stories. It takes science to
> help me decide which is which. But, since science is not infallible and
> there are so many unanswered scientific questions about the universe, I'll
> know I'll never have the complete accurate interpretation for all parts of
> the Bible. But, it's still fun to try.

So we fit the text to some known science, and then have to decide whether
to go on and find an approach that fits the rest of science; or to stop
there and use this level of Bible interpretation as evidence against other
bits of science; or just to allow for the idea that it's poetry and not
really an account of history.

(Or, the road few dare to take, and with good reason:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_%28book%29
)

--
Dan Drake
dd.RemoveThis@dandrake.com
http://www.dandrake.com/
porlockjr.blogspot.com
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