The Beryllium Isotope and the Fine Tuning of the Universe

I am not the least bitter about religion. I am an aethiest and I do think religion is a pointless throwback that is the source of many of the world's problems. However, I base my "beliefs" on scientific enquiry and if there was a shred of evidence for a God I would want it exploring to its natural conclusion. So far there isn't.

What I do hate is loons perverting science is a pathetic attempt to "prove" their ludicrous inventions.

ID is simply religious fanatics purposefully misunderstood evidence which is then perverted for a fanatical religious cause. Or as the rest of us call it, invention, misrepresentation, dishonesty and lying.
 
Where does the idea of God come from? Well, I think we have a very skewed point of view on an awful lot of things, but let's try and see where our point of view comes from. Imagine early man. Early man is, like everything else, an evolved creature and he finds himself in a world that he's begun to take a little charge of; he's begun to be a tool-maker, a changer of his environment with the tools that he's made and he makes tools, when he does, in order to make changes in his environment. To give an example of the way man operates compared to other animals, consider speciation, which, as we know, tends to occur when a small group of animals gets separated from the rest of the herd by some geological upheaval, population pressure, food shortage or whatever and finds itself in a new environment with maybe something different going on. Take a very simple example; maybe a bunch of animals suddenly finds itself in a place where the weather is rather colder. We know that in a few generations those genes which favour a thicker coat will have come to the fore and we'll come and we'll find that the animals have now got thicker coats. Early man, who's a tool maker, doesn't have to do this: he can inhabit an extraordinarily wide range of habitats on earth, from tundra to the Gobi Desert—he even manages to live in New York for heaven's sake—and the reason is that when he arrives in a new environment he doesn't have to wait for several generations; if he arrives in a colder environment and sees an animal that has those genes which favour a thicker coat, he says “I'll have it off him”. Tools have enabled us to think intentionally, to make things and to do things to create a world that fits us better. Now imagine an early man surveying his surroundings at the end of a happy day's tool making. He looks around and he sees a world which pleases him mightily: behind him are mountains with caves in—mountains are great because you can go and hide in the caves and you are out of the rain and the bears can't get you; in front of him there's the forest—it's got nuts and berries and delicious food; there's a stream going by, which is full of water—water's delicious to drink, you can float your boats in it and do all sorts of stuff with it; here's cousin Ug and he's caught a mammoth—mammoth's are great, you can eat them, you can wear their coats, you can use their bones to create weapons to catch other mammoths. I mean this is a great world, it's fantastic. But our early man has a moment to reflect and he thinks to himself, 'well, this is an interesting world that I find myself in' and then he asks himself a very treacherous question, a question which is totally meaningless and fallacious, but only comes about because of the nature of the sort of person he is, the sort of person he has evolved into and the sort of person who has thrived because he thinks this particular way. Man the maker looks at his world and says 'So who made this then?' Who made this? — you can see why it's a treacherous question. Early man thinks, 'Well, because there's only one sort of being I know about who makes things, whoever made all this must therefore be a much bigger, much more powerful and necessarily invisible, one of me and because I tend to be the strong one who does all the stuff, he's probably male'. And so we have the idea of a god. Then, because when we make things we do it with the intention of doing something with them, early man asks himself , 'If he made it, what did he make it for?' Now the real trap springs, because early man is thinking, 'This world fits me very well. Here are all these things that support me and feed me and look after me; yes, this world fits me nicely' and he reaches the inescapable conclusion that whoever made it, made it for him.

This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in—an interesting hole I find myself in—fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.

DNA - Digital Biota 2
 
Mihajlovic said:
It is still totally irrational, even if you write it in capitol letters. Chance and necessity! What is that? Can you explain the function of these two magical elements in your own words?!
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Mihaljovic, go and read the book. Don't quote things you don't understand, and proclaim your ignorance.

Chance = random mutation + gene duplication, necessity = natural selection + genetic drift + sundry other mechanisms.
 
What I don't understand is why anyone needs to feel "special".

I can eat, drink, cheer United on, scuba dive, love, work, gamble, watch movies, learn new things, laugh at people on the internet, read, scoff pineapple tarts, travel, play football, have a fryup, drive a car, and have a good night's sleep - all without feeling more special than a bunch of frozen helium atoms.
 
Mihajlovic said:
("purposefully misunderstood evidence perverted for a fanatical religious cause...") oh man!
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You have no idea.

There's an awful lot of dishonesty and lying for the sake of "disproving" scientific evidence. It pisses me off because of 2 reasons - (1) it's wilful ignorance of reality, which is frankly, feckwitted, (2), it's unChristian / unIslamic / unany sort of religious behaviour, meaning people who do it are unpleasant hypocrites.
 
Im red2 said:
http://www.origins.org/articles/ross_astroevidgodbible.html
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Unmitigated crap.

Arguments from ignorance, the lot of them.

This is exactly what I was referring to when I said

spinoza said:
There's an awful lot of dishonesty and lying for the sake of "disproving" scientific evidence. It pisses me off because of 2 reasons - (1) it's wilful ignorance of reality, which is frankly, feckwitted, (2), it's unChristian / unIslamic / unany sort of religious behaviour, meaning people who do it are unpleasant hypocrites.
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Im red2 said:
You read very fast.
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The first half was a history of the development of quantum mechanics and its relationship to astrophysics. Familiar stuff.

I started reading closely about halfway through. Then I stopped about 20 lines down at the design parameters section and started skimming again. Why? Because it was the puddle argument, which is also familiar to me.
 
RedEyez said:
It does seem unlikely; however, with the possibility of multiple universes, it doesn't mean it is. If we look at the very beginning of time, the event itself, in cosmology, the Big Bang is a scientific theory, which has sufficient evidence to back up it's existence, more so than any particular "superior being", the universe, space time continuum, everything, emerged from a tremendously dense and hot state, that's not to say that these events have been happening before, or are continuing to do so outside the scope of our own universe, we most likely will never know.

But the fine tuning and pointing to superior forces theories don't cut it with me, take winning a lottery, with odds of a few million to one, just because someone gets lucky, someone wins, it doesn't mean there was some superior being who manipulated the odds, fine tuned them so that this individual would win. The same with the Universe, just because we got lucky doesn't mean that there was some superior being who tampered with the odds.

But to understand the theory set out, we need to understand the various stages of creation, first the big bang.

As already mentioned, the Big Bang is a scientific theory, which has sufficient evidence to back up it's existence, more so than any particular "superior being", the universe, space time continuum, everything, emerged from a tremendously dense and hot state.

Next comes the primordial nucleosynthesis; which is the production of nuclei during the early stages of the universe.

After which comes many processes, such as the triple alpha process; in which 3 helium nuclei are transformed into carbon. Many of which are produced in stars.

We now need to attach the odds of each individual state happening on it's own merit, otherwise it would be like saying the lottery winner's chance of winning when they did was billions and billions to one, as there were millions of sperm at the time they were conceived, the odds of them ending up where they were on that particular day to buy that particular ticket, and you'd be examining everything. The fine tuning theory could then be extended to anything and everything, which still doesn't explain many of the world disasters, and why one particular person should be anymore fortunate than anyother.
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And yet the more scientists fine tune the big bang the more even the greatest scientists turn to the face of god. Although the Abiotic synthesis of organic molecules and abiotic production of organic polymers are possible, however unlikely it would have been, there is no logical explanation for the aggregation of molecules into protobionts. There is simply no way, (at the level of the human understanding anyway), that the aggregation could have happened spontaneously.

Plech you say believing in something beyond the human mind is arrogant, but is it arrogant for a baby to believe that there mother is still there even when she walks out of the room? Why is it so hard to believe that we are not the most superior being in this universe, and that some things are beyond our capability?
 
Kiwi_fan said:
And yet the more scientists fine tune the big bang the more even the greatest scientists turn to the face of god. Although the Abiotic synthesis of organic molecules and abiotic production of organic polymers are possible, however unlikely it would have been, there is no logical explanation for the aggregation of molecules into protobionts. There is simply no way, (at the level of the human understanding anyway), that the aggregation could have happened spontaneously.
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And before Copernicus, there was no way the seasons could be adequately explained. And before Newton, there was no way the tides could be explained. And before Watson and Crick, there was no way heredity could be explained...

And each time they were explained, religion had to make a tactical retreat, and seek its impenetrable mysteries elsewhere.

Plech you say believing in something beyond the human mind is arrogant, but is it arrogant for a baby to believe that there mother is still there even when she walks out of the room? Why is it so hard to believe that we are not the most superior being in this universe, and that some things are beyond our capability?
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I never said believing in something beyond the human mind was arrogant. I said believing that the Universe exists for the benefit of life and the human mind was arrogant. Parochial might have been a better word.

And I don't necessarily consider us the most superior creature on earth, let alone the Universe. As for that, I think it's quite likely that there are millions of more advanced species.
 
Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons.

DNA - So Long And Thanks For All The Fish
 
Plechazunga said:
Is there anything worth saying that that man didn't say, in a crystal-clear and hilarious manner?
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I doubt it.

Plechazunga said:
Although in fairness, the rest of SLATFATF isn't as good as that line
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I have a real soft spot for SLATFATF. Probably not as good a story as the other books but I do like various bits of it a great deal.

1) The biscuit/train station story
2) The Rain God
3) The old lady who saw them boning on the wong of the plane who was reasured that just about everything anyone had ever told her was wrong.
4) The man in Greenpeace getting very angry when Arthur tried to make a donation "to help the Dolphins"
5) Arthur getting angry at how good the fish was in LA and finally "Having a good day".
6) I even like God's final message and Marvins testy demise.

I could however be biased.
 
I have a real soft spot for SLATFATF. Probably not as good a story as the other books but I do like various bits of it a great deal.

1) The biscuit/train station story that was an old joke though
2) The Rain God that was good but not developed
3) The old lady who saw them boning on the wong of the plane who was reasured that just about everything anyone had ever told her was wrong. that was good
4) The man in Greenpeace getting very angry when Arthur tried to make a donation "to help the Dolphins" that was good
5) Arthur getting angry at how good the fish was in LA and finally "Having a good day". don't remember that bit
6) I even like God's final message and Marvins testy demise. that was sensational
 
The biscuit story was one of his old stories I believe which he finally found a use for. Hilariously.

It apparently happened to him 76, he told it on radio in 78 and it then gpot told and retold as an Urban Legend despite it actually happening to him.
 
Kiwi_fan said:
And yet the more scientists fine tune the big bang the more even the greatest scientists turn to the face of god. Although the Abiotic synthesis of organic molecules and abiotic production of organic polymers are possible, however unlikely it would have been, there is no logical explanation for the aggregation of molecules into protobionts. There is simply no way, (at the level of the human understanding anyway), that the aggregation could have happened spontaneously.
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Exactly, at this level of human understanding, which is why people like to fill the gaps with thoughts of higher beings, there's nothing wrong with this. I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to chemistry but will study the manipulation and creation of polymers, and you're right about protobionts. One day these things will be become clear, maybe not in my life time, or my children’s.

If we're talking about life, then we have to be able to define life specifically, one of my favorite quotes; 'DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself, And life, when organized into species, relies upon genes to be its memory system, So man is an individual only because of his intangible memory' - our souls, this is what goes beyond scientific explanation. Religion is an easy target, for some, it's a way of life, for others it's a way to fill the gaps in. There's no harm in it as long as it doesn't harm anyone else, it should a personal preference, no pushing your beliefs onto anyone else. Fine tuning for me on a personal level is to easy an excuse to use to fill the void, but then again, I too have my own beliefs to fill these gaps in.

Great debate anyway, some of the best i've had have been in the current events forum, always a pleasure to take time out from the crazy world of the general for a while.
 
Wibble said:
Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons.

DNA - So Long And Thanks For All The Fish
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Is that why they do tricks for us and obey our every command? If they could survive on land, we'd probably be taking them for walks in the park
 
Wibble said:
Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons.

DNA - So Long And Thanks For All The Fish
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dolphins taste nice, thin slices lightly fried
 
Danny_ said:
Is that why they do tricks for us and obey our every command? If they could survive on land, we'd probably be taking them for walks in the park
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They are so intelligent that we haven't noticed that they are running a very complex and subtle behavioural experiment on us. The mice are also in on it.
 
RedEyez said:
Exactly, at this level of human understanding, which is why people like to fill the gaps with thoughts of higher beings, there's nothing wrong with this. I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to chemistry but will study the manipulation and creation of polymers, and you're right about protobionts. One day these things will be become clear, maybe not in my life time, or my children’s.

If we're talking about life, then we have to be able to define life specifically, one of my favorite quotes; 'DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself, And life, when organized into species, relies upon genes to be its memory system, So man is an individual only because of his intangible memory' - our souls, this is what goes beyond scientific explanation. Religion is an easy target, for some, it's a way of life, for others it's a way to fill the gaps in. There's no harm in it as long as it doesn't harm anyone else, it should a personal preference, no pushing your beliefs onto anyone else. Fine tuning for me on a personal level is to easy an excuse to use to fill the void, but then again, I too have my own beliefs to fill these gaps in.

Great debate anyway, some of the best i've had have been in the current events forum, always a pleasure to take time out from the crazy world of the general for a while.
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I agree that this has been good debate in the sense that most of you have put your ideas foward in a manner which isn't overly aggressive and hasn't attacked religion. I think I will finish this off by saying you hit it on the head when you said that religion is a lifestyle for some. Because for people with strong beliefs in different religions, like myself, that is what it is; A lifestyle. It most certainly isn't a rosy, feel good belief to fill in the gap between my knowledge and the unknown. And for a lot of people the religous lifestyle can be very hard work and pushes you to the extremities of your faith, but we do it because me, and millions of people around the world have an upmost belief in our God, and the gift of eternal life he promised us. Our beliefs are just as logical as yours, and we certainly don't rely on inefficiencies in other theorys to strengthen our beliefs (however aethiests tend to do just that). In my religion, it is a fact that the likes of Moses, then the disciples existed, no one disputes that. It is also known, that someone great, someone who hundreds of writers at the time felt the need to write about his life existed, living by the name of Jesus. Whether or not he is the son of god is the question. I certainly believe he was, while Muslims don't. His existence on Earth is certainly why there are still millions of Christian followers around the world. My beliefs and those of millions of religious followers around the world are certainly no more far fetched than believing in no religion at all.
 
You don't need to believe in no religion so it can't be at all far fetched.

Yet again Douglas Adams puts it far better than I can.

Other people will ask how I can possibly claim to know? Isn’t belief-that-there-is-not-a-god as irrational, arrogant, etc., as belief-that-there-is-a-god? To which I say no for several reasons. First of all I do not believe-that-there-is-not-a-god. I don’t see what belief has got to do with it. I believe or don’t believe my four-year old daughter when she tells me that she didn’t make that mess on the floor. I believe in justice and fair play (though I don’t know exactly how we achieve them, other than by continually trying against all possible odds of success). I also believe that England should enter the European Monetary Union. I am not remotely enough of an economist to argue the issue vigorously with someone who is, but what little I do know, reinforced with a hefty dollop of gut feeling, strongly suggests to me that it’s the right course. I could very easily turn out to be wrong, and I know that. These seem to me to be legitimate uses for the word believe. As a carapace for the protection of irrational notions from legitimate questions, however, I think that the word has a lot of mischief to answer for. So, I do not believe-that-there-is-no-god. I am, however, convinced that there is no god, which is a totally different stance and takes me on to my second reason.

I don’t accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view. My view is that the moon is made of rock. If someone says to me “Well, you haven’t been there, have you? You haven’t seen it for yourself, so my view that it is made of Norwegian Beaver Cheese is equally valid” - then I can’t even be bothered to argue. There is such a thing as the burden of proof, and in the case of god, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best explanation we’d got, and we’ve now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. So I don’t think that being convinced that there is no god is as irrational or arrogant a point of view as belief that there is. I don’t think the matter calls for even-handedness at all. "
 
Kiwi_fan said:
In my religion, it is a fact that the likes of Moses, then the disciples existed, no one disputes that. It is also known, that someone great, someone who hundreds of writers at the time felt the need to write about his life existed, living by the name of Jesus. Whether or not he is the son of god is the question. I certainly believe he was, while Muslims don't. His existence on Earth is certainly why there are still millions of Christian followers around the world. My beliefs and those of millions of religious followers around the world are certainly no more far fetched than believing in no religion at all.
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I can't do better than Douglas Adams, but I can point out that you are using the word 'fact' where 'belief' is actually the proper term. And belief in something that cannot be proven is not remotely logical, it is purely a matter of faith.

Finally, as someone said, "atheism is a belief like not collecting stamps is a hobby." An atheist does not 'believe' in no religion.
 
Kiwi_fan said:
Why is it so hard to believe that we are not the most superior being in this universe, and that some things are beyond our capability?
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There is nothing wrong with that position by itself, but religion doesn't stop there. It decides exactly what those 'some things' are, on pain of death or damnation.

I'd rather butt up against the limits of our ignorance in the normal course of scientific exploration, than have someone religious define them in advance.
 
nickm said:
There is nothing wrong with that position by itself, but religion doesn't stop there. It decides exactly what those 'some things' are, on pain of death or damnation.

I'd rather butt up against the limits of our ignorance in the normal course of scientific exploration, than have someone religious define them in advance.
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which religion do you have in mind?
 
I'm always amused at how the religious types constantly need to reassure themselves that some chaps who know a bit about stuff (scientists) are still not so sure about God not existing. Almost every believer i've ever had an argument feels a need to bring up stuff like how Darwin renounced athiesm on his deathbed (false I think!) and how some vague Phd. from somewhere has spoken about the impenetrable mysteries of the universe and how only a higher being could be the possible answer.

You'd never catch an atheist bothering.
 
Red-Indian said:
I'm always amused at how the religious types constantly need to reassure themselves that some chaps who know a bit about stuff (scientists) are still not so sure about God not existing. Almost every believer i've ever had an argument feels a need to bring up stuff like how Darwin renounced athiesm on his deathbed (false I think!) and how some vague Phd. from somewhere has spoken about the impenetrable mysteries of the universe and how only a higher being could be the possible answer.

You'd never catch an atheist bothering.
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Oh yea, atheists are the new class of super cool people of the world, nothing EVER bothers them at all, they are above everything, clever and witty, most of the time enormously arrogant but hey, who gives a shit, they always have the right answer to every question, they just live their lives happy and free of any religious oppression yet at the same time they so much enjoy bashing any form of spirituality whatsoever.

An atheist can only define himself in the opposition to a theist, and you say they’re not bothered? Why do they all act like they are very bothered then? Trying to change the world in eradicating peoples religious beliefs in order to make it `a better place`? Atheists are very much bothered as soon as somebody disagrees with them on questions such as `meaning of life` , desperately trying to fill the void their own pointless philosophy has created. Man I’d rather be a `dreamer` for the rest of my life then ever identify with the atheist kind of people.
 
Mihajlovic said:
Oh yea, atheists are the new class of super cool people of the world, nothing EVER bothers them at all, they are above everything, clever and witty, most of the time enormously arrogant but hey, who gives a shit, they always have the right answer to every question, they just live their lives happy and free of any religious oppression yet at the same time they so much enjoy bashing any form of spirituality whatsoever.

An atheist can only define himself in the opposition to a theist, and you say they’re not bothered? Why do they all act like they are very bothered then? Trying to change the world in eradicating peoples religious beliefs in order to make it `a better place`? Atheists are very much bothered as soon as somebody disagrees with them on questions such as `meaning of life` , desperately trying to fill the void their own pointless philosophy has created. Man I’d rather be a `dreamer` for the rest of my life then ever identify with the atheist kind of people.
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That's crap. And it shows that you either didn't read or understand (or probably both) anything people have been saying.

Atheists don't have the right answer to every question - that is the province of religion. The atheists here just happen to be quite knowledgeable about certain things, among them, evolution, global warming, beryllium isotopes, philosophy, and, ironically, religion.

Atheists tend to define themselves as skeptics, which isn't in opposition to anything, except maybe gullibility and woolly thinking. There's so much of this everywhere that it doesn't make me angry anymore, just weary. This probably goes for most atheists here.
 
Mihajlovic said:
An atheist can only define himself in the opposition to a theist
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You do talk rubbish. You play at thinking about this stuff but you don't have the courage to do it right.
 
nickm said:
You do talk rubbish. You play at thinking about this stuff but you don't have the courage to do it right.
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No nick, you talk rubbish. The courage to do what right?!
 
spinoza said:
That's crap. And it shows that you either didn't read or understand (or probably both) anything people have been saying.

Atheists don't have the right answer to every question - that is the province of religion. The atheists here just happen to be quite knowledgeable about certain things, among them, evolution, global warming, beryllium isotopes, philosophy, and, ironically, religion.

Atheists tend to define themselves as skeptics, which isn't in opposition to anything, except maybe gullibility and woolly thinking. There's so much of this everywhere that it doesn't make me angry anymore, just weary. This probably goes for most atheists here.
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And as a Christian I pity you for feeling that way. It's also pretty damn ignorant to call the millions of religous followers gullible.
 
nickm said:
You do talk rubbish. You play at thinking about this stuff but you don't have the courage to do it right.
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he talks rubbish because he believes in a God? Is that it? If you look back you would see that he has posted very intelligently and I have a lot of respect for him
 
Kiwi_fan said:
he talks rubbish because he believes in a God? Is that it? If you look back you would see that he has posted very intelligently and I have a lot of respect for him
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Thanks kiwi. God bless you my brother in Christ. Keep on the good fight!:D
 
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