Further news from The End of All Things department

I was writing about this earlier. Michael Moyer at Scientific American notes,

Once again, the world is about to end. The latest source of doomsday dread comes courtesy of the ancient Mayans, whose calendar runs out in 2012, as interpreted by a cadre of opportunistic authors and blockbuster movie directors. Not long before, three separate lawsuits charged that the Large Hadron Collider would seed a metastasizing black hole under Lake Geneva. Before that, captains of industry shelled out billions preparing for the appearance of two zeros in the date field of computer programs too numerous to count; left alone, this tick of the clock would surely have shaken modern civilization to its foundations.

And more. Well, there is always a catastrophe somewhere; right now, the floods in Pakistan.

It looks like an interesting SciAm issue, though I don't think that fear of catastrophe is - as claimed - the outcome of "pattern-seeking brains." That's just another neuro Darwinism crock. For one thing, for most catastrophes, there is no pattern. That's the problem.

If there are 18 houses down the street from you, and 14 of the owners have been murdered in the last three weeks, I would be surprised if you were still living in #19 tonight. I wouldn't advise it. A decision to move in with your sister for a while would be an instance of pattern-seeking.

Pattern-seeking causes us to buy home insurance and auto insurance. Provided we have enough common sense to realize that bad things happen to heedless people. If we don't realize it, our mortgage bankers and motor vehicle departments usually realize it for us, via their lending rules or regulations.

No, I think the situation is more like this: We know we will die; we just don't want it to happen any time soon. So we seek to rid our lives of risk, sometimes going overboard in risk assessment and reaction, or leaning too hard in one direction vs others. Anyway, many of us do feel better going overboard than under water.

Such people can indeed be a pain in the neck. The guy who smokes two packs a day, but is worried about a supposed "metastasizing black hole under Lake Geneva" is a case in point. The two packs a day are a pattern; the supposed hole would be unique. The pattern is precisely what he avoids thinking about.

Cosmology: Who really cares how it washes out at the end?

At the Canadian Science Writers’ Association convention in Sudbury, Ontario, our Sunday dinner speaker was American theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University, who presented sample clips from famous sci-fi films. And a whole lot more.

Would you be astonished to learn that the films portray implausible or impossible physics? No? Filmmakers value audience numbers more than atomic numbers. His clips entertained, but did not surprise:

However, his talk frequently targeted religion and politics: although he professed to respect theists, he offered snarky asides suggesting that fear of science is growing in Canada (because it might damage religion), adding, "In many ways I hope it does, but it wasn't designed to do that."

Dr. Krauss also told the assembled science communicators that in many key science controversies, there is only one side and journalists confuse matters by seeking out both sides.

Not so. New discoveries in science often result from minor, not major, deviations from an expected result.

Read more here.

Cosmology: The universe is a cosmic computer?

Yes, the universe looks fixed, but that doesn't mean that a god fixed it, says cosmologist Paul Davies, in a Guardian article, so titled.

Noting that

Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient "coincidences" and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist.

he dismisses both intelligent design and the idea that there are zillions of flopped universes:

The multiverse theory certainly cuts the ground from beneath intelligent design, but it falls short of a complete explanation of existence. For a start, there has to be a physical mechanism to make all those universes and allocate bylaws to them. This process demands its own laws, or meta-laws. Where do they come from? The problem has simply been shifted up a level from the laws of the universe to the meta-laws of the multiverse.

Yes, and that's only for a start. With any luck, my next co-authored book will address the many other problems as well.

So what does Davies propose?

I propose instead that the laws are more like computer software: programs being run on the great cosmic computer. They emerge with the universe at the big bang and are inherent in it, not stamped on it from without like a maker's mark.

Over at Faith, Beer, and Other Things That Interest Geoff, Geoff Robinson makes the point that

Davies wants to go down the pantheistic route, as far as I can tell.

[ ... ]
Pantheism makes all of nature God. So how can pantheism give you a valid observer/non-observer distinction? I don't see how it can. Atheism and pantheism are very similar if not the same. One says nature is all there is (by and large). The other just labels everything as "god."

I am not sure that Robinson is entirely correct here, because pantheism allows for the existence of minds whereas modern materialism essentially does not, as Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard and I discuss in The Spiritual Brain, and that is a crucial distinction.

In any event, pantheism is an old tradition, largely rejected in the West for a number of reasons, including, I believe, the one that Robinson cites (observed-observer distinction).

Hence, I find Davies' willingness to revisit it most interesting. It just shows what a conceptual mess materialism has become!

Did you see where this surfer dude has solved the riddle of the universe?

Eat your hearts out, pocket-protected physics nerds:

He has high hopes that his new theory could provide what he says is a "radical new explanation" for the three decade old Standard Model, which weaves together three of the four fundamental forces of nature: the electromagnetic force; the strong force, which binds quarks together in atomic nuclei; and the weak force, which controls radioactive decay.

Sometimes the surf's up:

The reason for the excitement is that Lisi's model also takes account of gravity, a force that has only successfully been included by a rival and highly fashionable idea called string theory, one that proposes particles are made up of minute strings, which is highly complex and elegant but has lacked predictions by which to do experiments to see if it works.

And sometimes it isn't:

But some are taking a cooler view. Prof Marcus du Sautoy, of Oxford University and author of Finding Moonshine, told the Telegraph: "The proposal in this paper looks a long shot and there seem to be a lot things still to fill in."

And a colleague Eric Weinstein in America added: "Lisi seems like a hell of a guy. I'd love to meet him. But my friend Lee Smolin is betting on a very very long shot."

Well, if it's still around when Paris Hilton is no longer front page news ...

A friend writes,

I don't know how hard to laugh at this, but it seems to be part of a trend in science these days: "Hold the presses! Everything you know is wrong." (Except Darwinian evolution, of course.)

Who believed in the flat earth? - Nobody?

In response to my post about myths about science and religion, one kind reader asked about older worldviews. I can't post more than this now but, thanks to another kind reader, I have a link to the medieval cosmos, which looked like the illustration linked here.

It was not flat. It could not be flat. It only makes sense as a series of concentric spheres, between which 3-D travel was possible. Any time someone tells you that people back then thought the Earth was flat, you can politely but safely write that person off as an ignoramus.

Be warned: The modern ignoramus is more virulent and pernicious than the older kind, because he is apt to be a materialist or a Darwinist of some sort - so he must be right, and to heck with facts.

Ten weirdest cosmology theories in print today: In Fluffo's litterbox tomorrow

Here's a link to the 10 weirdest cosmology theories (that New Scientist is prepared to take seriously enough to publish), and yes they are weird. Here's one:

10. In the Matrix - Maybe our universe isn't real. Yale Philosopher Nick Bostrum has claimed that we are probably living inside a computer simulation. Assuming it ever becomes possible to simulate consciousness, then presumably future civilisations would try it, probably many times over. Most perceived universes would be simulated ones - so chances are we are in one of them. In that case, perhaps all those cosmological oddities such as dark matter and dark energy are simply patches, stuck on to cover up early inconsistencies in our simulation.

Right, prof. Right ... uh ...

Now, I don't mind a bit of fun, like anyone else. I thought the turtles all the way down theory was okay, actually, except for the giant turtles. If they could get rid of that part, ...

I find intriguing the fact that the type of people who take this stuff seriously would probably oppose allowing teenagers to learn that there are evidence-based problems with Darwinism.

I am really looking forward to a reputable social scientist doing a serious study on who believes Darwinism and why.

Check out the current discount price for Faith@Science, a collection of essays on a variety of topics at the intersection of Faith Avenue and Science Street.

Thinkquote of the day: Why you can take the Bible seriously but not literally on science issues

Mid-twentieth century scholar Bernard Ramm writes,

The language of the Bible with reference to cosmological matters is in terms of the prevailing culture. Biblical cosmology is in the language of antiquity and not of modern science, nor is it filled with anticipations which the future microscope and telescope will reveal. We do not agree with over-zealous expositors who try to find Einsteinian and modern astro-physical concepts buried in Hebrew words and expressions. We also disagree with the religious liberals who object to Biblical cosmology because it is not scientific. We object to the over zealous because it was not the intention of inspiration to anticipate modern science, and we object to the modernist because he sees too much in what is to us a truism. We concur with Calvin, who taught that Gen. 1 is a record of the creation of the world in the language of the common man and from the viewpoint of common sense. His actual words are: “For to my mind this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy and the other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere ... It must be remembered, that Moses does not speak with philosophical acuteness on occult mysteries, but states those things which are everywhere observed, even by the uncultivated, and which are in common use.” (John Calvin, Genesis, I, 79 & 84], quoted and discussed in B.L. Ramm, The Christian View of Science and Scripture , [1955] Paternoster: Exeter, Devon, 1967 reprint, pp.65-66)

Yes, and not just the Bible either. And not just in ancient times. Virtually every speaker of English refers to the sun "rising" and "setting," even though we all know that technically the Earth's rotation causes the appearance. But so? In the same way, we refer to bacteria, sowbugs, and flu virus as "bugs" even though none of them are insects. In the same way, a Biblical writer referred to the "ends of the earth." Did he know for sure whether the Earth had ends? So what if it doesn't? So what if the sowbug is really a crustacean like the lobster? Language choices are usually intended to convey an idea. It's the underlying idea we need to grasp.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being denied tenure at Baylor.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

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