National Academy of Sciences says about creation of the universe by Go

GostHacked · May 24, 2016

Theistic evolution and Creationism/Special Creationism, just don't agree on how the universe was created.

That's the difference.

At the start you said it was not creationism. But it ismerely a permutation of the whole creationism movement. Now you make the claims that it is nothing more than creationism while it is not based on science.

Not only that your experts can't even come to the same conclusion about how it was all created. Don't worry real scientists have that mostly all figured out yet.

Edited May 24, 2016 by GostHacked

betsy · May 24, 2016

At the start you said it was not creationism. But it ismerely a permutation of the whole creationism movement. Now you make the claims that it is nothing more than creationism while it is not based on science.

Well theistic evolution is nothing more than creationism - not as defined by the NAS as to who/what they mean by creationism in their booklet.

When the NAS defines theistic evolution being a GOD-CREATED universe blah-blah-blah........it is creation!

They can coat it with every nuance they want to say, but it boils down to creation.

Not only that your experts can't even come to the same conclusion about how it was all created. Don't worry real scientists have that mostly all figured out yet.

Yeah....that's the difference between them: they don't agree on HOW it was created.

Edited May 24, 2016 by betsy

betsy · May 24, 2016

Not only that your experts can't even come to the same conclusion about how it was all created. Don't worry real scientists have that mostly all figured out yet.

The expert I quoted is the National Academy of Sciences, from the website of NASA.

They are real scientists. A lot are not merely mediocre biologists. A lot of the members are nobel prize winners.

You could say that the NAS is among, or is the most prestigious of science organization.

Edited May 24, 2016 by betsy

Moonlight Graham · May 25, 2016

THEISTIC EVOLUTION is claimed to be backed by scientific methodology!

No it certainly is not. There is absolutely zero scientific evidence to suggest theistic evolution exists or ever existed or is real in any way.

What the NAS says is "This belief, which sometimes is termed 'theistic evolution,' is not in disagreement with scientific explanations of evolution."

The reason it "is not in disagreement with scientific explanations of evolution" is because science doesn't yet know what happened before the big bang or what caused it. Nobody yet knows how all the matter in the universe was initially created before the big bang. In that regard, you could say "creationism is on the table", but only because it's impossible to 100% unequivocally rule out ANY theory of what happened before the big bang. In that sense, me thinking that Zeus or omnipotent giant cyborgs created the universe is also "not in disagreement with scientific explanations of evolution" and is "on the table".

But the existence of Zeus or omnipotent giant cyborgs or theistic evolution all fall under the logical fallacy of "argument from ignorance". That is to say, the NAS is full of crap in this case and should only comment on science, which says there is no evidence yet to suggest theistic evolution is real:

The argument from ignorance (or argumentum ad ignorantiam and negative proof) is a logical fallacy that claims the truth of a premise is based on the fact that it has not been proven false, or that a premise is false because it has not been proven true. This is often phrased as "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

If the only evidence for something's existence is a lack of evidence for it not existing, then the default position is one of mild skepticism and not credulity. This type of negative proof is common in proofs of God's existence or in pseudosciences where it is used as an attempt to shift the burden of proof onto the skeptic rather than the proponent of the idea. The burden of proof is on the individual proposing existence, not the one questioning existence.

betsy · May 25, 2016

No it certainly is not. There is absolutely zero scientific evidence to suggest theistic evolution exists or ever existed or is real in any way.

What the NAS says is "This belief, which sometimes is termed 'theistic evolution,' is not in disagreement with scientific explanations of evolution."

The reason it "is not in disagreement with scientific explanations of evolution" is because science doesn't yet know what happened before the big bang or what caused it. Nobody yet knows how all the matter in the universe was initially created before the big bang. In that regard, you could say "creationism is on the table", but only because it's impossible to 100% unequivocally rule out ANY theory of what happened before the big bang.

How can the NAS speak of SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONS if they hadn't conducted any scientific methodology?

What explanations are they on about?

How can science explain something if it doesn't know anything about it?

In that sense, me thinking that Zeus or omnipotent giant cyborgs created the universe is also "not in disagreement with scientific explanations of evolution" and is "on the table".

But the existence of Zeus or omnipotent giant cyborgs or theistic evolution all fall under the logical fallacy of "argument from ignorance".

No. That depends on what Zeus had to say about the creation of the universe, and whether it is not in disagreement with the scientific explanations of evolution.

Let's be honest here.....how many among religious scientists are followers of the Greek god? How many scientists read the creation story of the Greek god and applied science to it - either in faith, or to debunk the scripture of Zeus??

Among all religious scriptures - what scripture has the most to say about creation?

That is to say, the NAS is full of crap in this case and should only comment on science, which says there is no evidence yet to suggest theistic evolution is real:

Well, it did comment on science regarding theistic evolution.

The only problem we have here is that, you don't agree with their findings. You're butting heads with science.

You leave me no choice but to create the new thread that give evidence that the Creator of the universe is the

Abrahamic God of the Bible. Coming soon to a thread near you.

Edited May 25, 2016 by betsy

eyeball · May 25, 2016

Well, it did comment on science regarding theistic evolution.

The only problem we have here is that, you don't agree with their findings. You're butting heads with science.

Polite reassuring comments made to a particular audience do not constitute findings - revealed doesn't mean proved and your mole hill isn't a mountain.

Moonlight Graham · May 25, 2016

How can the NAS speak of SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONS if they hadn't conducted any scientific methodology?

What explanations are they on about?

How can science explain something if it doesn't know anything about it?

The NAS said "This belief, which sometimes is termed 'theistic evolution,' is not in disagreement with scientific explanations of evolution." Nowhere did the NAS say theistic evolution is actually any part of any scientific explanations of evolution. The NAS is just saying they don't conflict. Theistic evolution is not based on any science, it's a religious theory based on a guess and based on zero evidence.

Well, it did comment on science regarding theistic evolution.

The only problem we have here is that, you don't agree with their findings. You're butting heads with science.

What findings? What science? Neither the NAS nor anyone else has any evidence that theistic evolution is a real thing and not just a religious delusion. I'm butting heads with a science academy making non-scientific statements that it has no evidence or authority to make.

BubberMiley · June 2, 2016

Betsy's NAS source "proving" the existence of God, included the following conclusion:

Creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science. These claims subordinate observed data to statements based on authority, revelation, or religious belief. Documentation offered in support of these claims is typically limited to the special publications of their advocates. These publications do not offer hypotheses subject to change in light of new data, new interpretations, or demonstration of error. This contrasts with science, where any hypothesis or theory always remains subject to the possibility of rejection or modification in the light of new knowledge.

Either she didn't bother to read the whole thing or she never understood it to start with.

betsy · June 2, 2016

The NAS said "This belief, which sometimes is termed 'theistic evolution,' is not in disagreement with scientific explanations of evolution." Nowhere did the NAS say theistic evolution is actually any part of any scientific explanations of evolution. The NAS is just saying they don't conflict. Theistic evolution is not based on any science, it's a religious theory based on a guess and based on zero evidence.

What findings? What science? Neither the NAS nor anyone else has any evidence that theistic evolution is a real thing and not just a religious delusion. I'm butting heads with a science academy making non-scientific statements that it has no evidence or authority to make.

It does say, "indeed, it reflects the remarkable and inspiring character of the physical universe revealed by cosmology, paleontology, molecular biology, and many other scientific disciplines."

What science? Cosmology. Paleontology. Molecular Biology. They're specifically given by the NAS as to have provided the revelations!

I do have something to corroborate with the NAS! The following is an excerpt from Robert Jastrow -

was the founding director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and its head until 1981.
GISS research productivity, measured by peer-reviewed publications, must rank among the best in the nation, with a rate of at least three papers per scientist maintained for several years. In 2005, 73 publications by 17 civil service staff members are supplemented by 29 papers by other GISS researchers, including two emeritus staff members.

Robert Jastrow, with A.B. and A.M. from Columbia College in 1945 and Ph.D. in 1948 in nuclear physics, was a postdoctoral fellow at Leiden University, Netherlands in 1948-49, and a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 1949-50 and 1953. His work at Princeton led to discovery of the "Jastrow Potential" for interactions between protons and neutrons.

Dr. Jastrow was Chairman of NASA's Lunar Exploration Working Group from 1959 to 1961, an exciting period in NASA history described in his book Journey to the Stars.

Dr. Jastrow taught at Dartmouth and was at the Marshall Institute in Washington, D.C., after leaving GISS. He was Director and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Mount Wilson Observatory from 1992 to 2003, where he oversaw the refitting of the 100-inch telescope with state-of-the art adaptive optics that allowed unprecedented observing from a ground-based telescope.

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20080303/

Message from Professor Robert Jastrow

(Board of Advisors)

Recent developments in astronomy have implications that may go beyond their contribution to science itself. In a nutshell, astronomers, studying the Universe through their telescopes, have been forced to the conclusion that the world began suddenly, in a moment of creation, as the product of unknown forces.

The seed of everything that has happened in the Universe was planted in that first instant; every star, every planet and every living creature in the Universe came into being as a result of events that were set in motion in the moment of the cosmic explosion.

It was literally the moment of Creation.

From a philosophical point of view, this finding has traumatic implications for science. Scientists have always felt more comfortable with the idea of a Universe that has existed forever, because their thinking is permeated with the idea of Cause and Effect; they believe that every event that takes place in the world can be explained in a rational way as the consequence of some previous event. Einstein once said, "The scientist is possessed of a sense of infinite causation." If there is a religion in science, this statement can be regarded as its principal article of faith. But the latest astronomical results indicate that at some point in the past the chain of cause and effect terminated abruptly. An important event occurred-the origin of the world-for which there is no known cause or explanation within the realm of science. The Universe flashed into being, and we cannot find out what caused that to happen.

This is a very surprising conclusion. Nothing in the history of science leads us to believe there should be a fundamental limit to the results of scientific inquiry. Science has had extraordinary success in piecing together the elements of a story of cosmic evolution that adds many details to the first pages of Genesis.

The scientist has traced the history of the Universe back in time from the appearance of man to the lower animals, then across the threshold of life to a time when the earth did not exist, and then back farther still to a time when stars and galaxies had not yet formed and the heavens were dark. Now he goes farther back still, feeling he is close to success-the answer to the ultimate question of beginning-when suddenly the chain of cause and effect snaps. The birth of the Universe is an effect for which he cannot find the cause.

This is why it seems to me and to others that the curtain drawn over the mystery of creation will never be raised by human efforts, at least in the foreseeable future.

Although I am an agnostic, and not a believer, I still find much to ponder in the view expressed by the British astronomer E. A. Milne, who wrote, "We can make no propositions about the state of affairs [in the beginning]; in the Divine act of creation God is unobserved and unwitnessed."

http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth18b.html

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream.

He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

R. Jastrow, God and the Astronomers,1992, pg 107.

Robert Jastrow, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, calls this the most powerful evidence for the existence of God ever to come out of science.10

Robert Jastrow, "The Astronomer and God," in The Intellectuals Speak Out about God, ed. Roy Abraham Varghese (Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1984), p. 22.

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/does-god-exist-the-craig-pigliucci-debate#ixzz4ARkd7eRB

Edited June 2, 2016 by betsy

betsy · June 2, 2016

The NAS said "This belief, which sometimes is termed 'theistic evolution,' is not in disagreement with scientific explanations of evolution." Nowhere did the NAS say theistic evolution is actually any part of any scientific explanations of evolution. The NAS is just saying they don't conflict. Theistic evolution is not based on any science, it's a religious theory based on a guess and based on zero evidence.

What findings? What science? Neither the NAS nor anyone else has any evidence that theistic evolution is a real thing and not just a religious delusion. I'm butting heads with a science academy making non-scientific statements that it has no evidence or authority to make.

And as we see in the FAQ section of NASA - they still believe in the Big Bang!

The Big Bang theory is one of the most strongly supported theories in all of science. It explains the observed facts; it has made successful predictions; it has stood the test of time; and there is no alternate theory that the professional scientific community deems valid.

http://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/site/faq.html

Edited June 2, 2016 by betsy

BubberMiley · June 2, 2016

It does say, "indeed, it reflects the remarkable and inspiring character of the physical universe revealed by cosmology, paleontology, molecular biology, and many other scientific disciplines."

I see evidence that a minority of scientists believe in God. I also see evidence that the Universe exists. But you still haven't shown your promised evidence that anything existed before the universe did, which would be necessary if something were to "create" it. Can you point out any specific evidence within cosmology, paleontology, molecular biology, and many other scientific disciplines that shows this is the case?

betsy · June 2, 2016

I see evidence that a minority of scientists believe in God. I also see evidence that the Universe exists. But you still haven't shown your promised evidence that anything existed before the universe did, which would be necessary if something were to "create" it. Can you point out any specific evidence within cosmology, paleontology, molecular biology, and many other scientific disciplines that shows this is the case?

How would I know? I'm not the one who makes the claims - I'm simply quoting scientists! I'm not the one who discovered them. Why don't you ask the NAS?

But from what I read.....the order of complexity seems to be the most popular cites of scientists. Fine tuning.

Edited June 2, 2016 by betsy

betsy · June 2, 2016

I see evidence that a minority of scientists believe in God. I also see evidence that the Universe exists. But you still haven't shown your promised evidence that anything existed before the universe did, which would be necessary if something were to "create" it. Can you point out any specific evidence within cosmology, paleontology, molecular biology, and many other scientific disciplines that shows this is the case?

Jastrow didn't believe in God. He was a self-professed agnostic.

The findings however, had made him more than contemplate on the existence of God.

Oh, I found a cosmology example:

"Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God - the design argument of Paley-updated and refurbished. The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes, or design that requires only one. ... Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument."
E. Harrison, Masks of the Universe, 1985, 252, 263.

Edited June 2, 2016 by betsy

BubberMiley · June 2, 2016

Oh, I found a cosmology example:

Wouldn't the designer of a universe have to be at least as complex as the universe he designed? If the universe is so complicated it must have been designed, so too must be God! Aren't you just shifting the answer to creation back a level and then dismissing the question?

But your fine-tuning argument can also be switched around. Yes, one can imagine that the complex universe was tuned to a point that it can support life, but one can also imagine that life forms adapted to a point where they can survive in the complex universe.

betsy · June 2, 2016

Wouldn't the designer of a universe have to be at least as complex as the universe he designed? If the universe is so complicated it must have been designed, so too must be God! Aren't you just shifting the answer to creation back a level and then dismissing the question?

Why does the Designer have to be as complex?

But your fine-tuning argument can also be switched around. Yes, one can imagine that the complex universe was tuned to a point that it can support life, but one can also imagine that life forms adapted to a point where they can survive in the complex universe.

Why do you think adaptation is not part of design?

Edited June 2, 2016 by betsy

BubberMiley · June 2, 2016

Why does the Designer have to be as complex?

Does that not stand to reason? The watchmaker requires a very complicated system of brains and hands and watch factories to make a simple watch. How could the source of a system be less complex than the system it creates?

Why do you think adaptation is not part of design?

I don't. I was explaining an alternate view to the fine-tuning theory you cited. I do, however, believe there is more evidence to support the theory that life occurs where it can and adapts to survive, rather than that the universe was designed specifically to support life.

betsy · June 2, 2016

Does that not stand to reason? The watchmaker requires a very complicated system of brains and hands and watch factories to make a simple watch. How could the source of a system be less complex than the system it creates?

I don't. I was explaining an alternate view to the fine-tuning theory you cited. I do, however, believe there is more evidence to support the theory that life occurs where it can and adapts to survive, rather than that the universe was designed specifically to support life.

What reason? By whose?

The watchmaker is a human.

I don't. I was explaining an alternate view to the fine-tuning theory you cited. I do, however, believe there is more evidence to support the theory that life occurs where it can and adapts to survive, rather than that the universe was designed specifically to support life.

It's not an alternate view since in a finely-tuned universe, adaptation would definitely be part of design.

Edited June 2, 2016 by betsy

cybercoma · June 2, 2016

How would I know? I'm not the one who makes the claims

But you have made claims and they've been thoroughly refuted.

?Impact · June 2, 2016

I can make any claim I want about that which is unknown and you cannot prove me wrong.

Does that mean I am right?

Does that mean I am likely to be right?

I can however mock you scientists, and use terms like 'proof' and 'evidence' when I clearly have none.

BubberMiley · June 2, 2016

The watchmaker is a human.

Yes, and a human is a more complicated system than a watch.

It's not an alternate view since in a finely-tuned universe, adaptation would definitely be part of design.

I'm saying that you can look at the universe and say it was designed to support life, as the fine-tuning theory you cited suggests, or you can look at the universe and say life adapted in order to live within it. In one theory, the universe adapts to support life; in the other, life adapts to support itself.

eyeball · June 3, 2016

And as we see in the FAQ section of NASA - they still believe in the Big Bang!

http://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/site/faq.html

What NASA believes is that the theory known as the Big Bang is the most solid explanation for what it sees when it looks out into space.

Is believing the explanation for something the same thing as believing IN it or is there no distinction? To me believing in something appears to carry a connotation that is more political in nature than anything else. Why is it necessary?

bush_cheney2004 · June 3, 2016

What NASA believes is that the theory known as the Big Bang is the most solid explanation for what it sees when it looks out into space.

The why would NASA spend money researching other plausible theories and evidence that refutes the Big Bang singularity and infinite density ?

The "Big Bang" is still just a theory...not proven fact....yet it has many "believers".

Moonlight Graham · June 3, 2016

"Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God - the design argument of Paley-updated and refurbished. The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes, or design that requires only one. ... Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument."

E. Harrison, Masks of the Universe, 1985, 252, 263.

Sounds like philosophy and untested hypothesis to me.