(December 23, 2011 at 10:15 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote: Three things:
First, relativity predicts time dihilation as an object approaches the speed of light. Objects. Not light.

I think you mean "dilation". But in any event, I fail to see how this addresses anything I said.

(December 23, 2011 at 10:15 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote: Second, measuring the speed of light is not dependant upon whether or not clocks are perfectly synchronized unless you're specifically measuring the time Dihilation of objects moving at various speeds (like what is necessary to allow the GPS to continue functioning.)

So how does one go about measuring the one way speed of light without perfectly synchronizing the two clocks use. (I think Zhang has already shown that attempts to measure the one way speed over a closed loop really measures the two way speed. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-way_speed_of_light and http://books.google.com/books?id=jryk42J...&q&f=false which is a big book where you cannot read all the pages but you might want to take a look at Chapter 7 in particular (begins on page 377) as well as the last few chapters. Please note relative to the book, I do not pretend to understand it all, especially all the math. But from reading the conclusions, I think it does support the conventionality thesis and the possibility for the anisotropic speed of light in one direction as long as the two way speed is constant and isotropic.)

(December 23, 2011 at 10:15 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote: Third, you need to understand relativity and physics better if you're going to refute it, especially using these ridiculous creationist conventions.

If I was trying to refute relativity and/or physics, I would certainly need to understand both better. However, I am not trying to refute either. Furthermore, I think the above cites demonstrate that the anisotropic synchrony convention is not a "ridiculous creationist convention" but falls within the allowances of relativity.

(December 23, 2011 at 10:15 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote: That's cute, but the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy doesn't constitute a scientific journal. It's philosopy. Not science.
Yes, the experiements (all of them) that establish the speed of light and relativity both do shoot down those things because those things are wrong.
Yes, people still work on things and experiments despite mountains of experimental and practical evidence otherwise. That's why we have "creation science" and even actual scientific research behind things that have been supposedly 'proven' wrong because sometimes things supposedly proven correct are actually wrong.
This happened when we figured out gravity and the heliocentric solar system vs. earth being the center of the universe.

I realized that the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy is not a scientific journal. However, it does cite the original papers, many of which are in scientific journals. Maybe you need to go look at the original papers. So far all you have provided is a conclusion that the conventionality thesis and ASC are wrong but have not provided any reasons. I have provided several sites that cite the work of those who clearly are competent in relativity and physics and are not creationists (as far as I can tell from their writings) and what they say certainly seems to support both.

Now I freely admit that I have not read all these things completely (the book is over 500 pages long and not all are available online) and I also admit again that the math presented is far beyond my level so I may have missed some important point. So to further the discussion, why not present something more than mere conclusions on your part?

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(December 23, 2011 at 10:22 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Of course, this is why our understanding of the subject was enhanced with the use of satellites and probes as points of reference. Differing speeds, differing trajectories, differing positions........... same readings. You failed hard on this one.

So I am correct (the "Of course" indicates you think I was correct in what I said) but somehow I failed hard on this one. I don't understand your position.

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(December 24, 2011 at 5:18 am)Zen Badger Wrote: You misunderstand my point RJh4, If Lisles theory was correct there would be no change in the observed times of Io's emergence from behind Jupiter. It wouldn't matter where Earth was in relation to Jupiter because the transit time would always be zero.
The fact that Roemer did in fact observe a delay in transit means that the further away from Jupiter Earth is the longer it is taking the light to reach us and therefore its velocity is finite.

The actual speed might be open to question (plus or minus a percentage point), but it is nonetheless a finite speed.
And not the instantaneous speed that Lisle is claming.

I don't think I misunderstood you. I just think you are not considering the change in frame of reference and the synchronization issue when a clock is moved. I will refer you particularly to Chapter 7 of the book I cited earlier as it discusses Roemer's work (some of the discussion appears to be on the missing pages) but the conclusion from the book seems to be quite clear and that is that even in ASC, the clocks would read differently and there would be no experimental difference no matter what sychronizing convention one used as long as the two way speed of light remains constant in the two frames.

(December 27, 2011 at 1:04 am)rjh4 Wrote:

(December 24, 2011 at 5:18 am)Zen Badger Wrote: You misunderstand my point RJh4, If Lisles theory was correct there would be no change in the observed times of Io's emergence from behind Jupiter. It wouldn't matter where Earth was in relation to Jupiter because the transit time would always be zero.
The fact that Roemer did in fact observe a delay in transit means that the further away from Jupiter Earth is the longer it is taking the light to reach us and therefore its velocity is finite.

The actual speed might be open to question (plus or minus a percentage point), but it is nonetheless a finite speed.
And not the instantaneous speed that Lisle is claming.

I don't think I misunderstood you. I just think you are not considering the change in frame of reference and the synchronization issue when a clock is moved. I will refer you particularly to Chapter 7 of the book I cited earlier as it discusses Roemer's work (some of the discussion appears to be on the missing pages) but the conclusion from the book seems to be quite clear and that is that even in ASC, the clocks would read differently and there would be no experimental difference no matter what sychronizing convention one used as long as the two way speed of light remains constant in the two frames.

Apart form the obvious conundrum of judging ASC with something that ASC supposedly overturns, how exactly does any of this apply to Roemers observations?

Roemer was only observing the ONE WAY SPEED OF LIGHT not 2 way. Try to understand that.

By the way, none of this " that is that even in ASC, the clocks would read differently and there would be no experimental difference no matter what sychronizing convention one used as long as the two way speed of light remains constant in the two frames." makes any sense.

Please explain what it is supposed to actually mean.

(December 27, 2011 at 9:09 am)Zen Badger Wrote: Apart form the obvious conundrum of judging ASC with something that ASC supposedly overturns, how exactly does any of this apply to Roemers observations?

Roemer was only observing the ONE WAY SPEED OF LIGHT not 2 way. Try to understand that.

By the way, none of this " that is that even in ASC, the clocks would read differently and there would be no experimental difference no matter what sychronizing convention one used as long as the two way speed of light remains constant in the two frames." makes any sense.

Please explain what it is supposed to actually mean.

Zen, did you bother reading any of the book that I cited? I think it explains things better than I ever could. It clearly says that different synchrony conventions would not result in any experimental observational differences like you suggest and it provides the math to back it up. So I will leave it to you to read it and comment on it if you wish. Remember, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean that what the book says isn't valid.

My position is that your arguments are apologetic garbage; already considered and dismissed as factually inaccurate. "Theories" only clung to by those who must absolutely believe that their fiction has been proven a fact, or that is it even a remote possibility. It has not, it is not. Fail.

Let's have ourselves a little fun RJ, lets call a point A, and a point B. Lets call the trip from A-B: Outgoing. Lets call the trip from B-A: Incoming. We'll begin at A. A one way trip will be A-B or B-A, roundtrip will be A-B-A. Which of these two routes would you like to propose light moving at different speeds. The A-B leg, or the B-A leg (or, the entire A-B-A, if you'd rather choose that)? Also, what modification would you like to make? An increase in speed, or a decrease (be specific if at all possible)?

(December 27, 2011 at 1:04 am)rjh4 Wrote: I think you mean "dilation". But in any event, I fail to see how this addresses anything I said.

It has to do with the whole 'clock sychronization' thing you've been talking about. The only reason they would be unsynchronized as per relativity is because of time dilation.
One of the many tests of relativity include things like taking a 747 around the world and taking an atomic clock sychronized with another atomic clock on the ground and measuring the difference from time dilation.
An atomic clock is required because the effect is so small at such low speeds, but it is measurable.

On that point, given that that test is one that confirms relativity (which states that light is the same speed in all directions, among other things) it would in turn disprove ASC.

(December 27, 2011 at 1:04 am)rjh4 Wrote: So how does one go about measuring the one way speed of light without perfectly synchronizing the two clocks use. (I think Zhang has already shown that attempts to measure the one way speed over a closed loop really measures the two way speed. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-way_speed_of_light and http://books.google.com/books?id=jryk42J...&q&f=false which is a big book where you cannot read all the pages but you might want to take a look at Chapter 7 in particular (begins on page 377) as well as the last few chapters. Please note relative to the book, I do not pretend to understand it all, especially all the math. But from reading the conclusions, I think it does support the conventionality thesis and the possibility for the anisotropic speed of light in one direction as long as the two way speed is constant and isotropic.)

and I counter that human space exporation, which all use relativity's principles and relativity (in which our instraments utterly depend upon for successful operation) prove beyond any conclusive doubt that the speed of light is just under 300,000 kilometers per second.
I pointed this out, but it was apparently ignored.
Earlier in this thread, I even provided a link to a camera that operates at a trillion frames per second - enough to actually capture light in transit.
That's just the modern metholodogy - the past methodologies never use any method that indicates ASC because all of those would produce a varying result.
That is to say that depending on the text, the speed of light would never measure the same in any given test because the varying distances light would travel would vary between instantaneous and half c enough to produce varying results.
Any test that uses three seporate directions for light to travel (or any odd number) would prove that light only has one speed beyond a reasonable doubt.
Given that
1) Our space program uses relativity ("one way" light speed) as a measure for all of their tools and instraments succesfully - in other words, if light travels away from the earth at half light speed and we expect it to reach its destination at full light speed for a critical in-flight adjustment to a probe's trajectory would result in total failure of an entire mission consistently multiple times. Instead, voyager 1 and 2 were two of the m ost successful space probe missions ever devised and executed, both of which required many, many of these adjustments over the course of their mission.
The fact is that given that the earth is constantly moving and that if light speed weren't the same in every direction, then light would never measure at the same speed anywhere ever. At any given time, the earth is spinning around its axis, revolving around the sun, and the sun is revolving around the galaxy and the galaxy itself is rotating and moving.
2) Measuring the speed of light uses methods that do not depend on the direction of light and all such tests have given the same results (differing only through refinement of the methods).
3) If your book supports light being more than one speed, it's simply wrong for the above reasons.
I'll admit that I didn't read your book, if only because I don't have the time or patience to read over your entire book. I read the introduction, the table of contents, and a few selected points in the book to get a sense of what it's saying.
The book outright stated in the intro that it's there to tell you everything but that which tells you that there's a universally constant speed of light. It certainly pulls out several scientific papers, but the ones about the anisotropic synchrony convention curiously do not in the list of selected scientific papers.

I'm not even going to go into all the physics related problems that simply cease to work if ASC were true - those being things like electromagnetism. It is, simply, wrong.

(December 27, 2011 at 1:04 am)rjh4 Wrote: If I was trying to refute relativity and/or physics, I would certainly need to understand both better. However, I am not trying to refute either. Furthermore, I think the above cites demonstrate that the anisotropic synchrony convention is not a "ridiculous creationist convention" but falls within the allowances of relativity.

Except that it doesn't for many, many reasons that I pointed out above.

(December 27, 2011 at 1:04 am)rjh4 Wrote: I realized that the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy is not a scientific journal. However, it does cite the original papers, many of which are in scientific journals. Maybe you need to go look at the original papers. So far all you have provided is a conclusion that the conventionality thesis and ASC are wrong but have not provided any reasons. I have provided several sites that cite the work of those who clearly are competent in relativity and physics and are not creationists (as far as I can tell from their writings) and what they say certainly seems to support both.

I have a theory that aliens crashed at roswell, new mexico many years ago and they are being experimented upon and the technology is being reverse engineered at Area 51.
If you think that theory is wrong, I can show you pictures of area 51 and links to online news sources about something crashing in new mexico over five decades ago that the government seemed to cover up.

Or perhaps we should talk about my theories on the JFK assassination.
Marylin Monroe's death? Ancient aliens?

My point is that intermixing crap with facts doesn't make the conclusion factual or even factually based. Yes, scientific papers were linked and used as a basis, but one of relativity's primary principles is that physics is the same everywhere.
Because ASC postulates that light speed isnt' the same everywhere, it cannot exist with relativity and relativity has been proven as much as scientific facts can be.

(December 27, 2011 at 1:04 am)rjh4 Wrote: Now I freely admit that I have not read all these things completely (the book is over 500 pages long and not all are available online) and I also admit again that the math presented is far beyond my level so I may have missed some important point. So to further the discussion, why not present something more than mere conclusions on your part?

My conclusions have already been proven because relativty disproves ASC. If you need further proof, perhaps you should ask the internet or a physicist why and how we know that sunlight reaches the earth in 8 minutes or how voyager is able to make precision adjustments at a time consistent with our command signals reaching the probe and it reacting exactly when we expect it to assuming it reaches the probe in X time when X time is synchronus with C instead of half C.

THere's a almost limitless number of ways in which C is used in science, astronomy, and physics and all of them assume (correctly) that C = C in all instances and it literally couldn't be any other way without thorwing science back into the dark ages.

ASC's only purpose is to say "Hey - I can obscure the rdiculousness of the bible with MATH!" and it can't even do that right.

If you're still wondering why I'm almost 100% certain that ASC is crap, look no further than a particle accelerator. The thing about relativity is that the speed of light is the absolute limit of the speed of everything in the universe. Objects can't even reach the speed of light, but they can get fantastically close. In particle accelerators, that's 99.9999999999999999% or better of the speed of light.
Would you like to guess what that measured speed is at any given place within any given accelerator?

There's also that plane experiement with the two atomic clocks i mentioned. That test was evidence for relativity because it measured the effect of time dilation, which is absolutely related to the speed of light and I can guarentee you that that speed of light was thought to be C and not half C or C times infinity or any number other than C.

If you still doubt that, look at any GPS receiver. Those have their clocks constantly adjusted for time dilation because of the differing location and relative speeds of the satilites and the clocks on those machines and on the ground have to be synchronized. Given that they were built on relativity being a thing, their clocks are adjusted according to the time dilation predicted by relativity (which is a funciton of C). So, this machine is a practical benefit of the speed of light always being the speed of light. Always.

Therefore, Anisotropic synchrony convention is wrong.

(December 27, 2011 at 1:19 pm)Rhythm Wrote: My position is that your arguments are apologetic garbage; already considered and dismissed as factually inaccurate. "Theories" only clung to by those who must absolutely believe that their fiction has been proven a fact, or that is it even a remote possibility. It has not, it is not. Fail.

Let's have ourselves a little fun RJ, lets call a point A, and a point B. Lets call the trip from A-B: Outgoing. Lets call the trip from B-A: Incoming. We'll begin at A. A one way trip will be A-B or B-A, roundtrip will be A-B-A. Which of these two routes would you like to propose light moving at different speeds. The A-B leg, or the B-A leg (or, the entire A-B-A, if you'd rather choose that)? Also, what modification would you like to make? An increase in speed, or a decrease (be specific if at all possible)?

Ah. Another one that doesn't want to even look into the book that I cited (which is by a physicist) and doesn't want to consider the math provided in the book. Suit yourself.

And as to your little game...I'm not playing. I already said that I am no expert in relativity and I am quite sure you could confuse me with whatever you are up to. But the book I cited clearly says what I indicated and it is clear from reading the book that the position was not taken with the Bible in view. According to the book, as long as the two way speed of light is isotropic and constant, then there should be no observational differences no matter what convention one uses for clock synchronization. Argue with the math and conclusions of the book...not me.

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(December 27, 2011 at 4:18 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote: I'll admit that I didn't read your book, if only because I don't have the time or patience to read over your entire book. I read the introduction, the table of contents, and a few selected points in the book to get a sense of what it's saying.
The book outright stated in the intro that it's there to tell you everything but that which tells you that there's a universally constant speed of light. It certainly pulls out several scientific papers, but the ones about the anisotropic synchrony convention curiously do not in the list of selected scientific papers.

I'm not even going to go into all the physics related problems that simply cease to work if ASC were true - those being things like electromagnetism. It is, simply, wrong.

Chapter 7 provides the math and conclusion that any clock synchronization method can be used and there will be no observational differences based on the various transformations provided. While this does not explicitly say ACS, it certainly allows for it. The relativity as per Edwards and the others do not change Einstein relativity, they just generalize it with Einstein relativity being a special case. If you don't want to believe it...fine. I just think it disingenuous to say that ACS is merely some Bible apologetic garbage when the book written by physicists certainly appears to allow for it.

(December 27, 2011 at 5:55 pm)rjh4 Wrote: Chapter 7 provides the math and conclusion that any clock synchronization method can be used and there will be no observational differences based on the various transformations provided. While this does not explicitly say ACS, it certainly allows for it. The relativity as per Edwards and the others do not change Einstein relativity, they just generalize it with Einstein relativity being a special case. If you don't want to believe it...fine. I just think it disingenuous to say that ACS is merely some Bible apologetic garbage when the book written by physicists certainly appears to allow for it.

First of all, I told you that ASC is WRONG. I didn't mention it being bible apologist crap. I said it was WRONG and I explained, in detail, as to why.

Don't be disingenuous to me by telling me that I said something that I did not.

Second of all, it's a logical fallacy to appeal to authority, so don't tell me that because this book is written by physicists it overrides the reality of the points I brought up for no other reason than because they're physicists and they included math.
Physicists can be wrong and often are wrong more often than they are right. This is a fact of life for all science if for no other reason than being right requires peer reviewed evidence and even that isn't always a guarentee.

Third of all, Anisotropic Synchrony Convention was a paper written by Jason Lisle which only appears in the Answers in Genesis "Research Journal". It has not been peer reviewed and appears in no actual scientific journals. This paper and your book disagree with relativity for many reasons that I highlighted in my previous post.
These are not made up reaons but are entirely practical and testable and many of them have, in fact, been tested and would be very different if the speed of light is different.
In fact the reason that light travels at the speed of light is because light is massless. This is why objects with mass can never actually reach the speed of light.
This also means that other massless energies (like gravity) also travel at teh speed of light for the exact same reason that light does (also neutrinos and other forms of electromagnetism).

So if light didn't travel at the same speed everywhere, this would affect gravity as well, which would have a far more noticable effect.

Also, I can't drive this point enough - we have a fucking camera that can capture light in transit. I linked a goddamn video of what this camerca captured several posts ago.

The idea that light travels at varying speeds depending upon your position is WRONG. Therefore, ASC is WRONG. Your book is WRONG.
Those physicists who state otherwise are also WRONG and should be discredited to their profession.

If you cant explain the concept without simply saying "read the book" you don't understand it well enough to have a debate about it. Speaking of people who don't even want to engage in something..A....B...ABA....decrease, increase?

(December 27, 2011 at 7:25 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote: First of all, I told you that ASC is WRONG. I didn't mention it being bible apologist crap. I said it was WRONG and I explained, in detail, as to why.

Don't be disingenuous to me by telling me that I said something that I did not.

You are correct. Sorry about that.

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(December 27, 2011 at 7:26 pm)Rhythm Wrote: If you cant explain the concept without simply saying "read the book" you don't understand it well enough to have a debate about it.

I will agree with you here. So I will not say anything more about it. Debate (if that is what I was doing) over.

(December 16, 2011 at 7:14 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Repetition doesn't add weight to any given claim Stat. Maybe you should slow down and demonstrate the veracity of any single claim before moving on the the next? If it was bullshit the first time, it's going to bullshit the next time. Unless you have some modifications to make to any of these claims that would give us reason to reassess them? Or, you could stop complaining about science and do science. Be the man who closes the book, so to speak.

Repeating an un-refuted claim is a very rational way to keep your feet to the fire until you either concede the point or refute it, your choice.

(December 16, 2011 at 7:37 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: We've already been down this road. I have fully explained what I believe and why. Just because you pretend I haven't doesn't mean that I haven't. It only says something about your intellectual honesty.

No I am sorry, "I use the laws of logic because I like the results." does nothing to account for their existence. I can say, "I use this computer because I like the results." but that does nothing to account for the very existence of the computer I am using. So you have still not accounted for the laws of logic given your worldview regardless of what you may think.

(December 16, 2011 at 8:36 pm)Minimalist Wrote: A fact true of all gods everywhere since the dawn of time which was not 6,000 years ago.[/code]

Assertion made above.....now waiting for proof.

(December 17, 2011 at 8:09 am)Zen Badger Wrote: Interesting article that, it starts by assuming that the bible is correct and anyone who doesnt believe it is wrong.
Yep folks, that thar be real scientifical stuff, yuk,yuk.

You start by assuming the Bible is incorrect and proceed from there, so why are you allowed to start on biased ground but not creationists? Special pleading!

Quote: It then goes on to talk about light cones and the like which is real science......

So you must have missed the fact that those light cone diagrams explain exactly how ASC is completely mathematically possible?

Quote: And then we get to the crux of the article on page 18, which is basically "a miracle occurs"
Yep, real science indeed......

Please directly quote where Lisle states a miracle occurs, thanks.

Quote: (Strange thing is that I could not copy and paste the relevent passage. It would appear that Lisle doesn't want people quoting his work)

Yeah those PDFs are pretty mysterious aren't they? Funny how the article is also available in web form, which of course you could have found if you really wanted to support your case.

Quote: You know what Stat?

No, what Zen?

Quote:
The "slow transport method" that you claimed Roemer used was actually proposed by Einstein as a way of getting around the problems imposed by time dilation generated when you try to seperate your two measuring devices so as to measure c.

Yes, good so far. Of course Einstein proposed this after he had settled on using ISC because it would only be valid with ISC.

Quote:Since Roemer made his discovery two and a half CENTURIES before Einsteins work he would've known nothing about Relativity, time dilation or the slow tranport method.

You crack me up, that doesn't stop Roamer's method from using the slow transport method even though it was 'discovered' by Einstein years later, just like people could conduct experiments that involved gravity before the 'discovery' of the laws of motion. The movement of the second clock in the experiment (Jupiter's moon) would be an example of the slow transport method. You are too much Zen.

Quote: And if you weren't just a vacous emptyheaded handpuppet for the disingenous malarkey merchants parading themselves as creation "scientists" and actually had some genuine knowledge of the subject you would've known that.

"Sticks and stones Love, sticks and stones."

Quote: No, I asked where Einstein said it, not where some cretinist fucktard claimed he said it.

Did you notice I didn't have any issues copying and pasting from Lisle's article? Funny how that works huh? Lisle is an appropriate authority on such matters and cites his sources, you can certainly find the piece of Einstein's work he cites and double check it if you don't believe him, however that's not my job to double check all of his facts.

Quote: Translated, " No Scientific body has even looked at it"

Did you miss the part about it being peer-reviewed? You are really off your game today aren't you?

Quote: Ok then how about a list of institutions that have reviewed it, or even a list of who it has been submitted to?

You'd have to look to the Answers Journal for that information, it's not my job to do your hunting for you just like I wouldn't expect you to find the peer reviewers for Science or Nature.

Quote: BTW Stat, this place you claim to work at as a scientist. Do they know you're a scientist or do they still think you're the janitor?

John is our janitor. They actually really like thescientific work I do.

(December 17, 2011 at 8:31 am)Darwinning Wrote: Evolution is a process which can be (and has been) proven to occur. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_evolution#Specific_examples]

No, that's micro-evolutoin through natural selection which is accepted and was even first developed by creationists (Blythe). If you are going to believe all life on Earth originates from a single common ancestor (the portion of evolution creationists object to) you are going to have to provide more than this.

Quote: Perhaps you do not ascribe to the idea that all life on Earth was formed this way, but surely you accept the fact that evolution through natural selection as a process is real?

Absolutely, creationists don't believe Noah took 60,000 different animals onto the Ark.

Quote: Creation is also a process, but I have yet to see any evidence that it can occur.

Depends on what you would accept as evidence.

Quote: I, for one, cannot accept any explanation for life on Earth that relies on a process that cannot be proven to occur. If you have any references (so no talky, just links) to support the claim that Creation as a process is real, please share.

So then you do not believe in Abiogenesis because it has never been proven to naturally occur?

Quote: I believe that quote is referring to the current scientific consensus that the Earth is about four and a half billion years old, based mostly on radiometric dating. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_earth]

That would be interesting if that was really what the quote was referring to considering the fact that consensus does not determine scientific fact and radiometric dating is not a "law of nature".

Quote: I find it a lot easier to believe a man named Michelangelo existed and painted a ceiling a few hundred years ago than I find it to believe some supernatural being named God existed and created the universe 6.000 years ago. The latter requires far more assumptions and fantasizing about the world around us.

How is your personal opinion about what you find easier to believe relevant to what really happened? I find it quite easy to believe in the God of scripture and in creation, does that mean it happened then?

Quote: Also, I do not believe that was the point. It's not that "Goddidit" is not the correct answer (it isn't, but that's irrelevant here), it's that it fails to explain the world around us without requiring extreme assumptions that cannot be substantiated. Meanwhile, “Michelangelo did it” requires us only to assume a man named Michelangelo could paint rather well.

So you are saying that even if God really did create the world, and that is really the correct answer we should adopt an answer that is wrong because you feel it has better explanatory power? That seems a bit irrational doesn't it?

Quote: Occam's razor is a marvelous tool. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor]

Not all logicians even accept Occam's razor, but even the ones who do only accept it when the two competing ideas are equal in all other areas. Of course I accept Creation because I feel it is far superior to Evolution, and you accept Evolution because you feel it is superior so invoking the razor here is inappropriate.

Quote: Induction may be flawed, but it hardly proves the existence of God. However, I like your argument. It has a certain elegance to it, like those mathematical tricks that show that 1=2.

I am not merely saying induction is flawed, I am saying that in an atheistic universe it has no foundation at all. A person has no rational basis to assume uniformity in nature in a purely material world, yet science assumes this to be the case all the time.

Quote: I firmly believe the opposite it true. Everyone in his or her hearts of hearts knows there is no God, but some surpress this knowledge because they are afraid of being alone (and wrong).

You know this to be true how?....

Quote: An answer is not the same as an explanation. "Goddidit" is the former, but not the latter. It's not easy either, because it requires the assumption that God exists in the first place and thus begs the question "Who made God?".

So saying Michelangelo painted the Sis-teen Chapel is not an explanation for where the painting came from? Archeology uses such explanations all the time, and not many would suggest that archeologists are being unscientific. Would this also beg the question who painted Michelangelo? I don't think so.

Quote: Yes, but it's our friend Occam's razor again. Even if there was no evidence (see above) for the old age of Earth (and thus seas of time), I would still have less trouble /assuming/ the existence of said seas of time than the existence of God.

Sure, but seas of time is not all you really need now is it? You need billions of particles, billions of interactions that all build up over the eons to give us the amazing complexity we see today. Creation is starting to sound like the simpler explanation to me.

Quote:
If people actually comprehended the implications of using God or scripture as an answer or explanation of the world around them (and the assumptions required) nobody woud believe the ridiculous notion that these things are true in the first place.

Not so, people have to borrow from that very worldview all the time in order to even make their own logically cogent. Then they use these borrowed principles to argue against the very worldview they borrowed them from, it's a philosophical nightmare.

Good discussion thought Darwinian!

(December 17, 2011 at 11:51 am)Darwinning Wrote: The idea that every trait _must_ have some sort of survival advantage is patently false. As long as the trait does not pose (too great) a disadvantage to the survival rate of the species it can arise and persist.

Sorry, I think you are the one who is misguided on this one. This may be the case for very small and insignificant traits, but if the trait is anything significant the organism would have to devote time and energy into developing and preserving it which would be a huge disadvantage. So the religious belief in God had to provide an evolutionary advantage or else it would have not been selected for.

Quote: In this view, theists are simply suffering from the some of the side-effects of the evolution of our species. How ironic.

In my view atheists are less developed according to the very theory they champion, which is also ironic.

(December 17, 2011 at 1:23 pm)helmespc Wrote: Not to drudge up ancient history in this thread, but I didn't see this fallacy addressed anywhere. Nothing makes my blood boil like misstating accepted science as if it were "incorrect" and thus proving the opposite... Statler's statement here is completely and utterly a LIE based on wishful thinking. In fact, the background radiation of the universe was measured and pointed EXACTLY to the big bang. The cosmological radiation matches up with everything else we know about the cosmological model.... it most certainly is not, and never will be, evidence for the ignorant conclusion that the universe is 6000(!) years old...

Speaking of wishful thinking...

Sure Big Bang Cosmologists have proposed possible solutions to the Horizon Problem, but to date none of them can explain the uniformity in background radiation given the Big Bang timescale.

(December 18, 2011 at 8:59 am)Darwinning Wrote: Let me start by saying that I know nothing about cosmology. There. I'm an idiot, but I'll still respond.

None of us on here are experts on cosmology, so I am glad you still responded.

Quote: I think I agree with that. Nothing wrong with pretending light particles move a different speeds for different observers; even if it seems a bit silly to me.

No more silly than pretending it moves at different speeds dependent on the observer's velocity like Einstein proposed. A lot of this stuff is not intuitive.

Quote: This may be the case for the ASC convention, but certainly not for the ASC model. Occam's razor should apply to the model and its predictions.

It's not a model though, it's a convention. The trick is figuring out which convention of time measurement Genesis uses.

Quote: Spontaneous star formation vs. spontaneous supreme being formation (a being which subsequently creates the universe). I think Occam's razor serves us well here; the former requires far fewer assumptions than the latter.

I think the latter actually requires fewer assumptions.

Quote: So, if I assume God exists and no model for the formation of blue stars is ever found, I will have "a strong confirmation of the ASC model". Not the kind of evidence I was looking for, really. Lack of evidence or theory for the formation of blue stars does not equate to proof of creation. That's just silly. Again, Occam is our friend.

Did you mist the whole part where he was pointing out that the numbers and locations of blue stars we do observe are consistent with ASC?

Quote: The rest of the proofs for the model in the paper can likewise be dismissed. Thanks for wasting my time. It was fun.

To say I am underwhelmed with your supposed refutation of the paper would be a gross understatement.

(December 19, 2011 at 4:00 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote:

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Yes, I went over with Statler ages ago regarding ASC and the speed of light.
He doesn't seem to quite understand just how impossible space travel would be if we used a different 'convention' than what relativity uses because that would make communication with space probes impossible - communications would arrive to the probes at half the speed of light and return instantaneously.

Nevermind that 'instantaneous' travel being impossible and our assumptions about C have thus far been proven correct as far as telescopes can see - nevermind the practical applications both on the ground and in space that all rely on relativity being absolutely correct.

I'm sorry, Statler, but simply using a 'different measuring tool' doesn't make ASC's idea that the physical constants of the universe aren't exactly the same regardless of the observer's position - including the speed of light and there's plenty of data (like NASA's entire history of space travel) to prove it.

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After our previous conversations on ASC I eventually just arrived at the conclusion that you didn't even understand the idea well enough to properly discuss it, I see nothing has changed in the last 12 months. You seem to still live under the delusion that conventions are normative rather than descriptive. Space travel and communication would be just as possible using ASC as it is and was using ESC, just like it would have been using English units rather than Metric units.

(December 21, 2011 at 12:42 pm)Darwinning Wrote: That's the bit that confused me in the article. Is the author suggesting that the speed of light is different in relation to Earth, or in relation to the observer? Both seem ludicrous, and I can come up with all sorts of problems for both, but it was never quite clear to me from the article which of these nutty proposals it was putting forward.

The Earth and the observer are one and the same in the article because Genesis is told from the perspective of an Earthly observer.

(December 22, 2011 at 2:52 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote: EDIT:
Oh, there's also this.
Statler and others, if you check out that link, you'll notice that we filthy humans have invented a camera that can capture light in transit.
Perhaps it's just me, but given that we can speed-time light in real time frame-by-frame, we can easily tell now if light moves at a speed other than 300,000 km a second. That is, using a method you creationists can't BS around given that it's been well established in other reliable methods. I have yet to see any such major headlines by anyone anywhere stating that light moves at a speed other than 300000 km/second.

You see! This is what I was talking about, if you actually understood ASC you would not say stuff like this. In ASC light only moves instantaneously towards the observer, so the fact you can capture it en route moving tangentially to the observer is no surprise at all. Move along folks, nothing to see here.

(December 22, 2011 at 2:58 pm)helmespc Wrote: That the laws of physics would change based on point of observation is completely without basis in reality. We've never seen it happen and have no reason to believe its true. Simply more wishful thinking by the willfully ignorant.

So you are completely denying Special Relativity? Nice.


Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and have a great New Year!