It's an easy thing to keep science and faith separate. God created the universe in 6 days. OK, his days are longer than ours. And it doesn't discuss the mechanism of creation - it only provides attribution. So science can be totally correct - and it just means we're figuring out how he did it.
Yep, I honestly have less of a problem with people who follow this line of reasoning. Even less of a problem if they take the 6 days thing as purely allegorical, as official Catholic theology dictates.
ZOMG. With Potassium-Argon dating you can figure out the direction and intensity of the local magnetic field at the time the lava got hard. So that's how we know the poles flipped and when!? *head asplode*
ZOMG. With Potassium-Argon dating you can figure out the direction and intensity of the local magnetic field at the time the lava got hard. So that's how we know the poles flipped and when!? *head asplode*
That is probably in the top 25 Coolest Things Ever (TM).
You could read "The Third Chimpanzee." It covers the origins of man, and is both extremely well cited and deeply contradictory to a young earth. I have a copy if you'd like to borrow it.
ZOMG. With Potassium-Argon dating you can figure out the direction and intensity of the local magnetic field at the time the lava got hard. So that's how we know the poles flipped and when!? *head asplode*
However, to argue effectively about, e.g. the age of the Universe, you would have to sit through something like eight hours of me talking at you about cosmology and even after that your problem is that well educated believers have comebacks for everything (as has been variously mentioned in this thread already).
Unfortunately you can be a scientist, even a good one, and believe in god.
Still, arguing about this stuff makes for excellent brain training and is also going to teach you a valuable lesson: it is near impossible to change people's minds and, more importantly, that changing people's minds is not the key goal.
People often use carbon dating to tell you when something was made. For example, we know this stone tool used by ancient humans is from X000 BC because of carbon dating. So let's say I have a stone tool that I carbon date to some year. Why would the stone tool carbon date differently than an unworked stone? How do you carbon date the age of the stone itself vs. the time since it has been used by humans?
A) You only carbon date stuff with carbon in it. So stone tool no, stone tool's wooden handle yes. Plants absorb radioactive 14C isotope from air, as long as plant lives concentration of 14C in plant ~= concentration of 14C in air (which is known). Plant dies -> 14C not replenished -> exponential decay depletes stone axe's handle of 14C. Measure 14C concentration today and extrapolate the decay backwads in time. Lot's of fiddly science bits in between.
To answer the original post, there is an extraordinary amount of evidence supporting the big bang theory.
My dad and I were debating this. He says that since the universe is expanding, we can't tell if that light was closer, sooner.
We actually can. There are many different ways to measure the "distance" to objects in space. If you're interested in that, you can read up here, but it's mostly just math. Suffice to say, astronomers are really good at measuring this stuff.
And that those estimates are based on a homogenous universe.
There are 4 main lines of supporting evidence for the big bang theory: the Hubble expansion of the universe, the cosmic microwave background, the relative abundances of the light elements, and the large-scale structure of the cosmos.
Hubble: What you already mentioned. Space is expanding. This confirms that at some point in the past, the universe was smaller.
Cosmic microwave background: This is my favorite one. Coming from all points in space is a very low-power radio signal. If you're familiar with black-body radiation, the spectrum of this radio signal corresponds incredibly closely with a black body radiating at about 2.7 kelvin. Here's a picture: Both the theoretical and measured curves are plotted on that. Yes, they're indistinguishable.
It is also very uniform over the entire sky. What it means is that when the universe was much younger, about a half a million years old, it was very hot. All the matter had so much energy the atoms couldn't hold on to their electrons. As a result, you get sort of a fog that light cannot pass through. So now we have confirmation that the universe used to be smaller, and hotter.
Relative abundances of the light elements: we can calculate how much hydrogen, helium, and lithium should have been created in the big bang, based off the temperature and density of the early universe. These were all formed in a tiny window shortly after the big bang: only about 17 minutes long. This is a little harder to measure, since new starts have been cranking out helium and lithium for billions of years, but if we try to find undisturbed areas and measure there, we get good agreement with what we expect from our calculations.
Large-scale structure of the cosmos: we have good evidence that the first galaxies formed relatively early on, about a billion or so years after the big bang. As the universe aged, galaxies grouped into clusters, and then superclusters, then structures we call walls and filaments. This line of evidence counts out something known as the steady-state model. Basically we observe that the structure of the stuff in the universe is changing over time.
Note that all four of these pieces of evidence are independent from each other. Therefore, any hypothesis that contradicts the big bang theory (and consequently the age of the universe) has to deal with all four of these.
This is the real reason we say big bang theory. There is a hideous preponderance of evidence in favor of it, and really nothing to the contrary. Any "theory" (in the colloquial sense) that claims the universe is 6000 years old is laughable.
Regarding Rym/Muppet's debate specifically, too much focus on fighting about "God" when what we're actually fighting about is "Intelligent Design" or even just "Design" including things like the "Simulation Hypothesis". They are not practical tools, but it can't be fully ruled out.
Starfox, Thanks!! It is really helpful when someone more knowledgable in the subject points out specific areas in which to educate myself.
A big problem with having been raised in the world of jesus is that I barely know where to start. AskMeFi pointed me to the Talk.Origins Archive, which has been super helpful. Considering Wikipedia's potential issues with bias, new research & notability, and NPOV sometimes equating to teaching the controversy, I hesitate to use it predominantly, since I have no filter by which to judge validity, even if I go to the sources & try to understand them myself. It's also often fairly hard to parse the more technical pages. I've looked up subjects I know decently and still found the presentation confusing. The same goes for plain googling.
It's an easy thing to keep science and faith separate.
That's what I don't understand about the religious peoples and what makes me angry with them. IMHO, you can believe what you want, but you need to realize that when you start trying to debate with science, science wins. If you want to believe in whatever God(s) you find attractive, that's fine. Just don't go saying that you find proof of an intelligent designer because bananas are easy to hold in your hand.
Oh my gosh, most of you people are ridiculously unhelpful to the OP. They just said they don't want to be condescended to and are asking for professional advice from the scientists here and what do you do? Merely tell them to "read a book" and "educate yourself" while getting into a retreaded flame-war about atheism. Good jorb.
I am not one of the FRC scientists, but looking up early Abiogenesis experiments like the 1950's Miller/Urey Experiment and Sidney W. Fox might be helpful. Look up the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis, for even though there is not a single proven model, most of the current theories currently revolve around this hypothesis. NY Times Article
Yeah, so they can be more than that many light-years away, but they have to have been emitting light for at least the number of years it takes light to travel to earth. Sheesh.
I am not one of the FRC scientists, but looking up early Abiogenesis experiments like the 1950's Miller/Urey Experiment and Sidney W. Fox might be helpful. Look up the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis, for even though there is not a single proven model, most of the current theories currently revolve around this hypothesis. NY Times Article
Yeah, we don't really have a well-established theory of abiogenesis at the moment, but we do have some solid ideas on the topic. The general picture is that first some kind of simple self-replicating molecule arises, which can then become more complex through many stages of an evolutionary process. TalkOrigins is also a great source on this issue, as it is for pretty much everything else.
It's important to keep in mind that the fact that we don't know yet doesn't make any explanation equally valid, and even if our current ideas on abiogenesis were all wrong it wouldn't invalidate evolution nor any other areas of science. It's also important not to confuse abiogenesis and evolution - abiogenesis is about the origin of life, while evolution is about how life changes with time once it's already there.
If all you want to do is demonstrate evolution, or disprove Young Earth Creationism, you don't have to go into abiogenesis at all. Typically, creationsts bring it up because they seem to think that if science doesn't have an explanation for absolutely everything, then this validates God as a scientific explanation; this is the "God of the gaps", a rather common type of argument from ignorance.
It's an easy thing to keep science and faith separate.
That's what I don't understand about the religious peoples and what makes me angry with them. IMHO, you can believe what you want, but you need to realize that when you start trying to debate with science, science wins. If you want to believe in whatever God(s) you find attractive, that's fine. Just don't go saying that you find proof of an intelligent designer because bananas are easy to hold in your hand.
It's not that simple, Joe. What makes it difficult for those people is that they believe not only in a God, but in a (mostly) literally true Bible. That does clash strongly with science, and so the level of cognitive dissonance that would be required to believe both is far greater.
It's an easy thing to keep science and faith separate.
That's what I don't understand about the religious peoples and what makes me angry with them. IMHO, you can believe what you want, but you need to realize that when you start trying to debate with science, science wins. If you want to believe in whatever God(s) you find attractive, that's fine. Just don't go saying that you find proof of an intelligent designer because bananas are easy to hold in your hand.
It's not that simple, Joe. What makes it difficult for those people is that they believe not only in a God, but in a (mostly) literally true Bible. That does clash strongly with science, and so the level of cognitive dissonance that would be required to believe both is far greater.
The reasoning I grew up with were things like: God could change his own rules (laws of nature, etc) Things that are constant now, weren't then. Or just simply that the bible, while entirely true, had moments of figurative language and metaphor.
The reasoning I grew up with were things like: God could change his own rules (laws of nature, etc) Things that are constant now, weren't then. Or just simply that the bible, while entirely true, had moments of figurative language and metaphor.
Those positions never really irked me. Except for the line that they are constant now. That's one of the reasons I actually appreciate the Catholic Church. They understand their religion as a growing/learning experience on some level, and are willing to adapt.
Really, your family sounds fairly reasonable so-far.
The reasoning I grew up with were things like: God could change his own rules (laws of nature, etc) Things that are constant now, weren't then. Or just simply that the bible, while entirely true, had moments of figurative language and metaphor.
Those positions never really irked me. Except for the line that they are constant now. That's one of the reasons I actually appreciate the Catholic Church. They understand their religion as a growing/learning experience on some level, and are willing to adapt.
Really, your family sounds fairly reasonable so-far.
God could change his own rules (laws of nature, etc)
Things that are constant now, weren't then.
Or just simply that the bible, while entirely true, had moments of figurative language and metaphor.
These three arguments...
There is literally no way to argue against them. This is the exact sort of logic that the "woowoos" James Randi often describes use. He has never, in his entire life, seen any person using said logic ever recant or come to reason.
I hate to sound cynical, but if these are the arguments being presented, they literally cannot be assailed. The claims define infinite goalposts they can always be moved to counter any rational argument. The only weakness (which is actually a perfect and complete weakness) is the begged question that there is such a being in the first place, but someone using this logic has already assumed this and will not question it.
There is nothing you can say that a person who believes that an omnipotent being can change the rules at any time could not counter with "Yes, and then god changed the rules, so your evidence has no bearing." I don't know if there is any hope for your arguments: they may well be beyond reason.
I don't know if there is any hope for your arguments: they may well be beyond reason.
Is there an echo in here? (;
People mean different things when they say that. I think my dad is uncomfortable having to rationalize around God and science, and would prefer a more scientifically sound explanation for things than God o' gaps. Again, he has said as much. If I show him good science and he rejects it, I can again ask him what would convince him. If I inject him with an ounce of doubt, I'll consider myself successful. That stuff's dangerous.
Totally harmless unless/until they start telling you that God wants you to start/stop doing [thing] or hate [group]. Up until that point, who cares?
There's atheists, and then there's atheists that REALLY REALLY *need* everybody to know there's no god. The latter group needs to sit back, relax, and take a deep breath.
The only weakness (which is actually a perfect and complete weakness) is the begged question that there is such a being in the first place, but someone using this logic has already assumed this and will not question it.
What does that mean? Especially the idea of a "perfect and complete weakness"?
Totally harmless unless/until they start telling you that God wants you to start/stop doing [thing] or hate [group]. Up until that point, who cares?
Oh it's past that point.
OK but at that point you have the "Well how do you know that's what God wants me to do? Didn't you say not all of the Bible is literal? Maybe this is allegory. Hey did you know you're not supposed to wear blended fabrics or eat seafood?"
Totally harmless unless/until they start telling you that God wants you to start/stop doing [thing] or hate [group]. Up until that point, who cares?
Oh it's past that point.
OK but at that point you have the "Well how do you know that's what God wants me to do? Didn't you say not all of the Bible is literal? Maybe this is allegory. Hey did you know you're not supposed to wear blended fabrics or eat seafood?"
Been done. A lot of the "slammer" questions atheists will pose to christians have been overdone by people who honestly have no clue and just want to be proven right. My variant would talk about the old covenant being abolished, and the new covenant established by jesus, and the old laws being symbolic representations of the separation of the chosen people and the world. But the reason to still hate gays is because Paul said to.
Either way, I am not interested in arguing their faith, or their do not should nots. That's something they have to do on their own. I'm just trying to erode a lesser foundation.
Oh my gosh, most of you people are ridiculously unhelpful to the OP. They just said they don't want to be condescended to and are asking for professional advice from the scientists here and what do you do? Merely tell them to "read a book" and "educate yourself" while getting into a retreaded flame-war about atheism. Good jorb.
I am not one of the FRC scientists, but looking up early Abiogenesis experiments like the 1950's Miller/Urey Experiment and Sidney W. Fox might be helpful. Look up the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis, for even though there is not a single proven model, most of the current theories currently revolve around this hypothesis. NY Times Article
"Read a book" is helpful advice. For one, it encourages going to validated resources rather than taking the word of a stranger. It also gets you more current information. In the sciences, 50-year-old information is often way behind.
Remember when the Human Genome Project started? And it was going to take like a decade? Well now I can buy a benchtop sequencer for 70 grand and sequence an entire human genome in less than a day.
It might sound mean, but it is legitimately the best answer.
Comments
Evolution, Age of Universe not looking at expansion/looking at expansion.
However, to argue effectively about, e.g. the age of the Universe, you would have to sit through something like eight hours of me talking at you about cosmology and even after that your problem is that well educated believers have comebacks for everything (as has been variously mentioned in this thread already).
Unfortunately you can be a scientist, even a good one, and believe in god.
Still, arguing about this stuff makes for excellent brain training and is also going to teach you a valuable lesson: it is near impossible to change people's minds and, more importantly, that changing people's minds is not the key goal. A) You only carbon date stuff with carbon in it. So stone tool no, stone tool's wooden handle yes.
There are 4 main lines of supporting evidence for the big bang theory: the Hubble expansion of the universe, the cosmic microwave background, the relative abundances of the light elements, and the large-scale structure of the cosmos.
- Hubble: What you already mentioned. Space is expanding. This confirms that at some point in the past, the universe was smaller.
- Cosmic microwave background: This is my favorite one. Coming from all points in space is a very low-power radio signal. If you're familiar with black-body radiation, the spectrum of this radio signal corresponds incredibly closely with a black body radiating at about 2.7 kelvin. Here's a picture:
- Relative abundances of the light elements: we can calculate how much hydrogen, helium, and lithium should have been created in the big bang, based off the temperature and density of the early universe. These were all formed in a tiny window shortly after the big bang: only about 17 minutes long. This is a little harder to measure, since new starts have been cranking out helium and lithium for billions of years, but if we try to find undisturbed areas and measure there, we get good agreement with what we expect from our calculations.
- Large-scale structure of the cosmos: we have good evidence that the first galaxies formed relatively early on, about a billion or so years after the big bang. As the universe aged, galaxies grouped into clusters, and then superclusters, then structures we call walls and filaments. This line of evidence counts out something known as the steady-state model. Basically we observe that the structure of the stuff in the universe is changing over time.
Note that all four of these pieces of evidence are independent from each other. Therefore, any hypothesis that contradicts the big bang theory (and consequently the age of the universe) has to deal with all four of these.Both the theoretical and measured curves are plotted on that. Yes, they're indistinguishable.
It is also very uniform over the entire sky. What it means is that when the universe was much younger, about a half a million years old, it was very hot. All the matter had so much energy the atoms couldn't hold on to their electrons. As a result, you get sort of a fog that light cannot pass through. So now we have confirmation that the universe used to be smaller, and hotter.
This is the real reason we say big bang theory. There is a hideous preponderance of evidence in favor of it, and really nothing to the contrary. Any "theory" (in the colloquial sense) that claims the universe is 6000 years old is laughable.
A big problem with having been raised in the world of jesus is that I barely know where to start. AskMeFi pointed me to the Talk.Origins Archive, which has been super helpful.
Considering Wikipedia's potential issues with bias, new research & notability, and NPOV sometimes equating to teaching the controversy, I hesitate to use it predominantly, since I have no filter by which to judge validity, even if I go to the sources & try to understand them myself. It's also often fairly hard to parse the more technical pages. I've looked up subjects I know decently and still found the presentation confusing. The same goes for plain googling.
I am not one of the FRC scientists, but looking up early Abiogenesis experiments like the 1950's Miller/Urey Experiment and Sidney W. Fox might be helpful. Look up the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis, for even though there is not a single proven model, most of the current theories currently revolve around this hypothesis.
NY Times Article
It's important to keep in mind that the fact that we don't know yet doesn't make any explanation equally valid, and even if our current ideas on abiogenesis were all wrong it wouldn't invalidate evolution nor any other areas of science. It's also important not to confuse abiogenesis and evolution - abiogenesis is about the origin of life, while evolution is about how life changes with time once it's already there.
If all you want to do is demonstrate evolution, or disprove Young Earth Creationism, you don't have to go into abiogenesis at all. Typically, creationsts bring it up because they seem to think that if science doesn't have an explanation for absolutely everything, then this validates God as a scientific explanation; this is the "God of the gaps", a rather common type of argument from ignorance.
God could change his own rules (laws of nature, etc)
Things that are constant now, weren't then.
Or just simply that the bible, while entirely true, had moments of figurative language and metaphor.
Really, your family sounds fairly reasonable so-far.
There is literally no way to argue against them. This is the exact sort of logic that the "woowoos" James Randi often describes use. He has never, in his entire life, seen any person using said logic ever recant or come to reason.
I hate to sound cynical, but if these are the arguments being presented, they literally cannot be assailed. The claims define infinite goalposts they can always be moved to counter any rational argument. The only weakness (which is actually a perfect and complete weakness) is the begged question that there is such a being in the first place, but someone using this logic has already assumed this and will not question it.
There is nothing you can say that a person who believes that an omnipotent being can change the rules at any time could not counter with "Yes, and then god changed the rules, so your evidence has no bearing." I don't know if there is any hope for your arguments: they may well be beyond reason.
People mean different things when they say that. I think my dad is uncomfortable having to rationalize around God and science, and would prefer a more scientifically sound explanation for things than God o' gaps. Again, he has said as much. If I show him good science and he rejects it, I can again ask him what would convince him. If I inject him with an ounce of doubt, I'll consider myself successful. That stuff's dangerous.
There's atheists, and then there's atheists that REALLY REALLY *need* everybody to know there's no god. The latter group needs to sit back, relax, and take a deep breath.
Either way, I am not interested in arguing their faith, or their do not should nots. That's something they have to do on their own. I'm just trying to erode a lesser foundation.
Remember when the Human Genome Project started? And it was going to take like a decade? Well now I can buy a benchtop sequencer for 70 grand and sequence an entire human genome in less than a day.
It might sound mean, but it is legitimately the best answer.