Creation vs. Evolution

[Swift]

What I believe Pako is saying is that teaching evolution as theory or fact without anything else leads children to believe that it IS fact. Generally speaking, children beleive adults when it comes to things they don't totally understand. If you only show them one way to do a certain thing, they will usually believe it is THE way to do said thing.

What I'm talking about is balance. You can talk about the scientific proof of parts of evolution until you're blue in the face(and so could I because I've learned a lot in this thread) but the fact of the matter is that it isn't proven from A to Z and shouldn't be presented as such. I grew up in the public schools and is WAS presented as how it happened, not how it could have happened.

 

[Danoff]

What I believe Pako is saying is that teaching evolution as theory or fact without anything else leads children to believe that it IS fact. Generally speaking, children beleive adults when it comes to things they don't totally understand. If you only show them one way to do a certain thing, they will usually believe it is THE way to do said thing.

What I'm talking about is balance. You can talk about the scientific proof of parts of evolution until you're blue in the face(and so could I because I've learned a lot in this thread) but the fact of the matter is that it isn't proven from A to Z and shouldn't be presented as such. I grew up in the public schools and is WAS presented as how it happened, not how it could have happened.

Evolution is about as close to scientific fact as it gets. If you say evolution should be taught not as fact, but as possibility (especially if you want it on equal footing with mythology), then all of science would have to be taught that way.

The same science that brings you electricity, makes your computer run, keeps your house standing, grows your food, and provides you with medicine would have to be taught as "possibility".

 

[Swift]

Evolution is about as close to scientific fact as it gets. If you say evolution should be taught not as fact, but as possibility (especially if you want it on equal footing with mythology), then all of science would have to be taught that way.

The same science that brings you electricity, makes your computer run, keeps your house standing, grows your food, and provides you with medicine would have to be taught as "possibility".

Ok, close to fact and scientific don't go together. You can't have an almost fact in science can you? That pretty much destroys the credibility of said science. But, how is the study of evolution the same as the study of say comptuer engineering besides the fact that they follow the same general process. Except of course we have computers and we're still trying to prove evolution as fact.

Electricity isn't a possibility, it can be shown to anyone in the US at almost any given time, along with farming, medicne, architecture and so on. Those are proven technologies that exist in everyday life in America. How is it the same to compare a theory to my house?

 

[Pako]

Like I said, that's an impossible feat. There have been too many commonly accepted myths throughout history for them all to be taught. Hell even if you just restrict it to "right now" there are probably thousands of "commonly accepted" creation myths.

I doubt there are thousands of commonly accepted creation myths, in fact I would be willing to wager on it.

 

[Danoff]

Ok, close to fact and scientific don't go together. You can't have an almost fact in science can you? That pretty much destroys the credibility of said science. But, how is the study of evolution the same as the study of say comptuer engineering besides the fact that they follow the same general process. Except of course we have computers and we're still trying to prove evolution as fact.

Electricity isn't a possibility, it can be shown to anyone in the US at almost any given time, along with farming, medicne, architecture and so on. Those are proven technologies that exist in everyday life in America. How is it the same to compare a theory to my house?

Electricity is about as provable as evolution, as is most science. There is no such thing as fact in science - since it is based on observations and flawed reasoning. It is not a fact that the sun will come up tomorrow just because it came up yesterday. That degree of skepticism can tear down all of science (and reality and religion). But if you accept electricity as fact, you should also accept evolution - as they're equally supported.

I doubt there are thousands of commonly accepted creation myths, in fact I would be willing to wager on it.

I might also be willing to wager on it. Just depends on the definition of "commonly".

 

[Swift]

Electricity is about as provable as evolution, as is most science. There is no such thing as fact in science - since it is based on observations and flawed reasoning. It is not a fact that the sun will come up tomorrow just because it came up yesterday. That degree of skepticism can tear down all of science (and reality and religion). But if you accept electricity as fact, you should also accept evolution - as they're equally supported.

I love these debates.

Anyway, I can see dozens of proofs for electricity, but I don't see any for evolution of many from an ameoba(sp).

 

[Danoff]

I love these debates.

Anyway, I can see dozens of proofs for electricity, but I don't see any for evolution of many from an ameoba(sp).

Most people do an evolutionary experiment with fruit flies when they're in high school. Did you do that one?

 

[Perfect Balance]

Evolution has been proved, I have said that at least 3 times so far in this thread. The origin of life and how things evolved from ameoba's hasn't, but evolution has.

 

[Sage]

Luh-dee-duh, here we go again…

• The thread title is misleading.
• Evolution is as factual as facts can possibly get – anybody who says that evolution doesn’t exist has clue what they’re talking about, period. Go raise fruit flies for a month and try to tell me that evolution doesn’t exist. The process of evolution (i.e., mutations occurring in the genetic sequence, resulting in more or less fit species which are selected against) is visible and factual.
• Evolution does not explain our origins. It explains processes that have happened after we “originated”.
• Thus, the thread title is misleading, because it implies that Creation and Evolution are parallel topics, when in fact they have nothing to do with each other.

Having said that…

• Evolution was taught to me as a fact. It should continue to be taught as such, because it’s as factual as 2=2.
• I have never been taught that evolution is what “made” the universe, and I don’t anticipate it ever being taught that way, because that would be hogwash.
• I have been taught that the Big Bang is the current theoretical cause of the universe’s creation – I have never been taught that the Big Bang is fact.

Is everyone on the same page now?

 

[Keef]

I don't thinkthe Big Bang is what created the universe. I think the universe never was created, but it was and is infinite. I think the empty space called the universe is infinite, has no structure, and is simply empty space. However, we know that the objects inside the universe move around. I think the matter within the universe is constantly expanding and contracting in an nifinite process. This "big bang" was just one of an infinite number that happened in th past and will happen in the future.
The matter in the universe is there, right? Now, just as an easy starting point, we'll talk about a, not "the", big bang. The matter was compressed very tightly from its collective gravity, then exploded, like a supernova, and pieces went everywhere. It shot out and combined or seperated to form everything. I think after a super long period of time, the exppansion from this explosion that we can measure will slow because of the gravity of all the matter. The matter will slow, stop, them start contracting in toward the center of mass in the universe. Keep in mind the universe is just empty space with no structure. All the matter in this space will continue contracting, gaining ridiculous velocity in the process. It will all collide at the center of mass, compress extremely tightly, then, because of the tremendous heat, it will explode violently outward. After a while, the matters' collective gravity will once again slow it, pull it back in, compress it, it will explode again... This process will just keep happening over and over again.
I realize "infinite" is unfathomable to the human mind and seems to make no sense, as the matter had to come from somewhere. But maybe it didn't. Maybe it really is infinite.
That's my idea, that the matter in the universe had no origin.

 

[GT4_Rule]

I don't thinkthe Big Bang is what created the universe. I think the universe never was created, but it was and is infinite. I think the empty space called the universe is infinite, has no structure, and is simply empty space. However, we know that the objects inside the universe move around. I think the matter within the universe is constantly expanding and contracting in an nifinite process. This "big bang" was just one of an infinite number that happened in th past and will happen in the future.
The matter in the universe is there, right? Now, just as an easy starting point, we'll talk about a, not "the", big bang. The matter was compressed very tightly from its collective gravity, then exploded, like a supernova, and pieces went everywhere. It shot out and combined or seperated to form everything. I think after a super long period of time, the exppansion from this explosion that we can measure will slow because of the gravity of all the matter. The matter will slow, stop, them start contracting in toward the center of mass in the universe. Keep in mind the universe is just empty space with no structure. All the matter in this space will continue contracting, gaining ridiculous velocity in the process. It will all collide at the center of mass, compress extremely tightly, then, because of the tremendous heat, it will explode violently outward. After a while, the matters' collective gravity will once again slow it, pull it back in, compress it, it will explode again... This process will just keep happening over and over again.
I realize "infinite" is unfathomable to the human mind and seems to make no sense, as the matter had to come from somewhere. But maybe it didn't. Maybe it really is infinite.
That's my idea, that the matter in the universe had no origin.

Thats what they teach at my school. Thats the most commonly accepted theory on universe, I suppose.

 

[Touring Mars]

Although current evidence suggests that the universe is infact expanding at an increasing rate i.e. it is accelerating, and not decelerating... hence the cyclical Big Bang/Big Crunch theory is not particularly convincing

 

[GT4_Rule]

But what if we're at the expanding section of the cycle, and for example, after 50 billion more years, it starts to shrink, losing the momentum of the Big Bang, and countered by all the gravity of galaxies, stars, etc. Maybe, but just maybe, we're at the expanding part of the cycle. Then it would make sense.

 

[Keef]

That's physically impossible. Once something gets initial acceleration, it will always decelerate from that point on. The Big Bang theory implies that there was one enourmous explosion that started the whole system moving outward. If this was the case, and now I see the flaws with my idea, the universe would be slowing fairly uniformly. The only way to explain the measurable explansion is by saying there have been some other great explosions somewhere else within the universe, accelerating certain masses again, or by collision between many objects that accelertated them in a different direction, stuff like that. The only way that it could be expanding more now than yesterday is if something else exploded or all the collisions added up over time.

 

[Famine]

That's physically impossible. Once something gets initial acceleration, it will always decelerate from that point on.

You're assuming that there's a closed system at work here.

What forces could be acting on the universe to slow it down? Gravity? Don't think so - if you're assuming a closed system then the universe contains everything, including all of the gravity possible and has done so since the beginning of time. If it had enough gravity acting to slow down its expansion now (contracting forces outnumbering expansive forces), it wouldn't have expanded in the first place (contracting forces outnumbered expansive forces)...

All this means that there isn't a closed system at work, so the phrase "physically impossible" cannot be bandied around lightly.

 

[Keef]

But this here Big Bang thing, supposedly, was large enough and put enough accelerative force into all the matter that it flew out and is just now beginning to slow. The universe doens't have any gravity itself in my idea, it's just an empty nothing that's infinite. The matter has all the gravity, obviously. All the matter in the universe acts just like an enourmous super nova. It blows up and takes off, it starts slowing, it eventually stops and starts contracting, it smacks together with tremendous force, it shrinks to a nearly impossibly small size, the heat generated bakes it blow up again, nad it just keeps doing this over and over. Once it got that initial acceleration from the "Big Bang" it wouldn't accelerate any more after that. It would only begin to slow down.
But scientists are observing that the universe is, or was, since light is extremely slow, accelerating away from our veiwing point, Earth,
Wait, I just confused myself. Just forget all that. Even though the matter is slowing down, it is still all getting further apart. The outer edge stuff slows down the slowest, and the inner stuff, since it's closest to the center of mass and gravity, slows down quickly, and that puts more space in between all the objects.
So we can't measure if all the matter is actually slowing or accelerating relative to the center of gravity in the universe, only if it's accelerating or slowing relative to the earth, since that's our viewing point. Or do they whip out some crazy trig and calculus to do some angle stuff and pathagoreanize it out?

 

[Famine]

Newton's First Law of Motion is...

"An object at rest or travelling in uniform motion will remain at rest or travelling in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net force."

For the universe's expansion to slow - or in fact change speed in any way - there must be a force acting upon it. I'm only aware of four forces - magnetic, gravitational, strong and weak nuclear forces. It cannot be gravity - since the universe contains all matter it also contains all gravity and for the gravitational force to be strong enough to slow the expansion of the universe it must always have been so and the first expansion phase - the Big Bang - would never have occurred unless:

• The universe is not a closed system.
• Planck's Constant was different at the Big Bang than it has been for the rest of the universe's existence.

Given this, and Mars's quite correct point that the rate at which the universe is expanding seems to be increasing, not decreasing, why do you assert that the opposite is true?

For the universe's expansion to slow there must be a force acting upon it to slow it down. What is this contractile force you believe is acting on the periphery of the universe to slow the expansion?

(incidentally, the increased rate of expansion is consistent with M-theory)

 

[Keef]

I guess I was just really confused at what you were saying. I understand now that gravity would have always been the same because the mass was always the same. Of course, I always new that, I just couldn't apply it to the situation. I understand your point, and now I'm off to look up M-theory, or "Googlebomb", if you will.

 

[GT4_Rule]

Or the universe might be an exception to the laws, as there is in almost everything else.

 

[ledhed]

Newton's First Law of Motion is...

"An object at rest or travelling in uniform motion will remain at rest or travelling in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net force."

For the universe's expansion to slow - or in fact change speed in any way - there must be a force acting upon it. I'm only aware of four forces - magnetic, gravitational, strong and weak nuclear forces. It cannot be gravity - since the universe contains all matter it also contains all gravity and for the gravitational force to be strong enough to slow the expansion of the universe it must always have been so and the first expansion phase - the Big Bang - would never have occurred unless:

• The universe is not a closed system.
• Planck's Constant was different at the Big Bang than it has been for the rest of the universe's existence.

Given this, and Mars's quite correct point that the rate at which the universe is expanding seems to be increasing, not decreasing, why do you assert that the opposite is true?

For the universe's expansion to slow there must be a force acting upon it to slow it down. What is this contractile force you believe is acting on the periphery of the universe to slow the expansion?

(incidentally, the increased rate of expansion is consistent with M-theory)

What force do you think is acting on it to speed it up ? For every action there is an equal and opposite reation ......so any idea's ?

 

[Touring Mars]

What force do you think is acting on it to speed it up ? For every action there is an equal and opposite reation ......so any idea's ?

Here's what one of the experts on the subject has to say about it... (Alan Guth) (.pdf file - Acrobat Reader required) - bit on the heavy-going side though...

The precise explanation for the accelerated expansion remains a mystery, but apparently the universe is permeated with a material of negative pressure, creating a gravitational repulsion that is similar to the driving froce of inflation, but with a much smaller magnitude. This negative pressure material has come to be called the dark energy of the universe. Dark energy is distinct from dark matter, since dark energy has negative pressure and is uniformly distributed throughout the universe, while dark matter has approximately zero pressure and is clumped into galaxies and clusters of galaxies.

 

[kennythebomb]

I can't imagine the math people have to do to compute these things about how the universe is accelerating and all *scared*

 

[bobnsmith]

The big bang is not an explosion of matter but an expansion of space itself. Ie the space between matter is expanding. The matter itself is not moving but it is getting further apart due to space expanding.

Therefore the expansion of space is not bounded by the same laws of motion as matter. For example newtons laws of motion do not apply to the expansion of space. Also the expansion of space can violate the lightspeed barrier without conflicting with relativity.

However the force of gravity still causes matter to attract. If two masses are close enough then the gravitational attraction between them will outweigh the rate of expansion of space between the two masses, and so they will appear to move towards one another. This is the case with andromeda the nearest galaxy to us. It is moving towards us as it is so close the acceleration due to gravity outweights the rate of expansion of space between us.

 

[Keef]

I'm going to sick Famine on you.

Anyway, is this expanding "space" what scientists call "dark matter"? Obviously it's transparent and cannot be physically felt and we have no instruments that can "see" it. You agree that masses are getting further apart from one another. I understand the part about mass not moving, but, if they aren't, there isn't really isn't a rational way to explain what they are doing according to the normal definition of "move", which, of many, is "a change in position." We can observe that the matter, planets for example, have changed position, which means they are moving. I guess it makes sense to say that they aren't moving and it is in fact the "nothing" that's expanding, but since we can't see or touch that nothing it isn't feasible to base a measurement on that "nothing". So we base our measurments on things we can see, which are the planets.
It makes sense either way, the planet moved or the space expanded, but it makes more sense to assume that a physical object moved rather than assuming that some invisible nothing actually did something. Do you believe in ghosts? I don't.
That really wasn't an important rant, but you get my drift, I'm sure.

Here's another thing: If there once was no space in between matter, you could assume it was one mass at that time. That makes more sense to us than saying "there wasn't any space, but they were different pieces." Since we can assume that it was one mass, we could assume that mass exploded, somehow, and that the now seperate masses were moving away from that explosion point. Which is the accepted theory today.
Now that I think about it, the regular theory makes more sense in respect to the expansion, but your's makes more sense with respect to the mechanisms of gravity.

 

[Touring Mars]

The big bang is not an explosion of matter but an expansion of space itself. .

Good first post 👍 Welcome to GTPlanet, bob... this is my understanding of the Big Bang as well (kind of)... that it's incorrect to consider it as simply an explosion of matter that subsequently scatters into the nothingness... if that were the case, we'd have a hard job explaining how the universe looks the way it does now...

we base our measurments on things we can see....
....It makes sense either way, the planet moved or the space expanded, but it makes more sense to assume that a physical object moved rather than assuming that some invisible nothing actually did something. Do you believe in ghosts? I don't.

The problem is, these detailed observations we make of visible objects such as galaxies has led us to the conclusion that dark matter does indeed exist... the movement and clustering of galaxies is consistent with the fact that the majority of the mass in the known universe is not directly visible by current methods. It doesn't mean that you have to believe in ghosts to believe in dark matter... (we cannot see magnetic fields but yet they influence the movement of physical objects too - we can infer the presence of a magnetic field by observing the movement of objects within the field)

Since we can assume that it was one mass, we could assume that mass exploded, somehow, and that the now seperate masses were moving away from that explosion point. Which is the accepted theory today.
.

I don't think it is the accepted theory... to consider the 'big bang' like a conventional explosion is not right. The homogeneity of the current universe (i.e. the fact that each part of the entire universe contains roughly the same amount of mass as any other (on a cosmic scale) ) means that the theory of a single, exploding mass is not consistent with the observable facts. If anything, it's almost like the opposite of an explosion - i.e. matter came together after the Big Bang - as local inhomogeneities gave way to the forces of gravity.

 

[Famine]

Therefore the expansion of space is not bounded by the same laws of motion as matter. For example newtons laws of motion do not apply to the expansion of space. Also the expansion of space can violate the lightspeed barrier without conflicting with relativity.

That isn't strictly true though - and in any case Newton's Laws of Motion do not just apply to matter (though thanks to the wave/particle duality everything in the universe is matter, including the universe itself).

Nor can expansion of space exceed "c" (the speed of light in a vacuum).

However the force of gravity still causes matter to attract. If two masses are close enough then the gravitational attraction between them will outweigh the rate of expansion of space between the two masses, and so they will appear to move towards one another. This is the case with andromeda the nearest galaxy to us. It is moving towards us as it is so close the acceleration due to gravity outweights the rate of expansion of space between us.

Again, this isn't strictly true either, but it's true enough from a certain level, without having to go all Hawking.

It's also interesting to note that, of the four universal forces (gravity, magnetism, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force), gravity is by far the weakest - and dispropotionately so.

 

[Keef]

Oops, sorry for my inhospitality, but the world is tough, and caring for others just slows you down. I hope you stick around, you sound pretty smart.
But one question for someone who may know: I've noticed that a lot of people who haven't filled out profiles and only have 1 or 2 posts--usually it's the people that are turning 50 or so on the birthday board--always seem to have a "GT4 percentage complete" of "11.22." percent. What's the deal with that?

Ramblings aside, I thought about bob's theory and it does make a lot of sense. I think I'm going to start supporting this one now, even though it still leaves many questions about this "dark matter" stuff and the origins of it. In the beginning was there no space at all in between all the matter in the universe, before the "big bang"? If there was no space, couldn't you classify the matter as one piece? Couldn't you then define the expansion as an explosion of matter? How did this dark matter al the sudden start expanding if it didn't exist at that time? Or did it, just very densly, which means that there had to be space in between the matter?
I've never heard of this view until bob's post; I've always had the idea that the big bang was an explosion of matter. I don't know where I learned it, because I don't remember it from school, so I may have gotten it from the Discovery Channel.

 

[Famine]

11.22 is the default number. If you haven't entered a number, 11.22% is it.

Don't think of the Big Bang as an explosion of anything - and try not to think of matter exclusively as chunky things. Thanks to wave-particle duality, matter and energy are interchangeable with each other. The stuff you're thinking of as matter didn't exist until several thousandths of a second after the Big Bang.

 

[bobnsmith]

That isn't strictly true though - and in any case Newton's Laws of Motion do not just apply to matter (though thanks to the wave/particle duality everything in the universe is matter, including the universe itself).

Newton's Laws of Motion are framed in relation to mass only. I don't see how they can be applied to anything but matter.

Nor can expansion of space exceed "c" (the speed of light in a vacuum).

Some galaxies do appear to be "moving" away from us faster than light due to expansion.

 

[Keef]

Competition. Better make me some popcorn and call some buddies.