Remember my post several weeks ago about [“The First Scientific Proof of God”?][georgie] The author, Georgie-boy Shollenberger popped up [in the comments yesterday][georgie-comments], and posted [a response][georgie-responds] on his blog.
This is how he describes this blog:
>This website is an example of how some math teachers are thinking and teaching
>your children. In general, this website is a Good Math, Bad Math web. On this
>web, debunking creationism is listed under the bad math category. So, your
>children are most likely taught by atheists. Is this what parents want?
If this blog is indeed an example of how math teachers are thinking and teaching, then I’m very flattered. I’m not a teacher, but I would very much *like* to be one; if my writing works well for teaching math, then that means I’m doing a good job.
But the second part: does “debunking creationism” imply atheism? For a guy who purports to have made the greatest discovery in the history of the world; and who claims to show why both math and logic need to be reexamined from their very roots, this is a pathetic claim.
First: Creationism is *not* the only possible theistic belief system.
Second: Creationism is *bad* theism. It consists of throwing away math, logic, science, and reason all in an effort to support a bizarre and unreasonable interpretation of one poorly translated religious text.
Third: I’m not an atheist.
He follows that intro with an interesting nonsequitur:
>Mathematicians review my suggestion to restudy mathematics. First, they do not
>believe that humans might be living on other planets. You might agree with them
>but my scientific proof requires other planets to maintain human life
>eternally. Apparently, the reviewers believe that the evening stars are merely
>lights as the ancients thought. How mindless. When seeking the effects of a
>proven God, planet earth is not the first planet that has humans and will not
>be the last planet that has humans.
Fascinating though process there, huh? I criticize him for sloppy mathematical arguments, and therefore “I do not believe that humans might be living on other planets”, and I “believe that the evening stars are merely lights”.
As a matter of fact, I *don’t* believe that there are humans living on other planets. But how one can conclude from my criticism of his math that I think “evening stars are merely lights”? (Or that I believe that humans don’t live on other planets, for that matter? Just because I *do* believe that humans don’t live on other planets doesn’t mean you can conclude that from my criticism of his sloppy math!)
>… But, the author gripes because my book must
>be purchased to determine what I say. Yet, mathematicians make and sell books
>regularly.
Yes, mathematicians make and sell books. But I’ve yet to see a major mathematical discovery that you could *only* see if you were willing to pay
the author.
For example, the other day, I wrote about Grigory Perelman’s proof of the Poincare conjecture. It’s available online for anyone who wants it:
* The entropy formula for the Ricci flow and its geometric applications
* Ricci flow with surgery on three-manifolds
* Finite extinction time for the solutions to the Ricci flow on certain three-manifolds
Or Conway’s surreal numbers? Yes, he wrote an [excellent book][onag] on them. He also made information on them widely available to all sorts of people. He showed them to Don Knuth, who wrote [the first book][knuth-book] on them. There’ve been articles on them all over – from Marvin Gardner in Scientific American to random people on personal websites. He didn’t demand that everyone give him money to see his work.
How about Einstein? He published relativity in a physics journal called “[Annalen der Physik][annalen]”. At the time, there was nothing like the internet, and scientists pretty much always published in journals (as they continue to do today). Annalen does *not* pay the authors of papers; it’s available in *every* major university library; and you are permitted to make personal copies of articles from it for academic use.
Mathematicians and scientists publish articles and books – but we don’t expect (or even particularly want) to be able to restrict access to our ideas *only* to people willing to give us money to see them.
Georgie-boy doesn’t do anything like that. If you want to see his wonderful, world-changing proof, you have to pay him for it.
Finally, he gets around to addressing my criticism of his *math*.
>The author focuses on the concept of infinite, but does not seem to understand
>the great mathematician, Georg Cantor, who discovered the transfinite numbers.
>Instead, the author (1) plays with Aristotle’s potential infinity, which Cantor
>calls the mathematical or bad infinity, (2) plays with ‘infinity by division,’
>which is a verb that defined the atom for the ancients atomists, (3) plays with
>’infinity by addition,’ which applies to Cantor’s transfinite numbers, and (4)
>plays with surreal numbers in which infinity becomes a real number. I would
>throw John Conway’s surreal numbers into the circle file. Then, the author
>charges me with saying that God is a number infinity. At no time have I ever
>gave God a number because. God is not a number. God’s oneness opposes the
>universes’ manyness and thus precedes all finite and infinite numbers that will
>ever be found in the universe.
Why did I talk about Aristotle’s potential infinity? Because Georgie-boy *specifically claims that mathematicians use Aristotle’s infinity*. Infinity by addition and infinity by division are the two forms of infinity discussed by Aristotle. The horror! The horror! I actually *criticized* Georgie-boy by *addressing his arguments*! Oh, will my unfairness and unreasonability never cease?!
Oh, and why would he throw Conway’s surreals in the trash? Who knows? It’s particularly interesting the way that he juxtaposes Cantor and the transfinite numbers in defense of his ideas, while tossing Conway and the surreals into the trash. Because, you see, the surreals are based *on the same concept of ordinals* as the transfinite numbers. *(Note: the previous paragraph originally had a typo; where it currently says “transfinite numbers”, I originally repeated “surreal numbers”. Thanks to commenter “Noodle” for the catch.)*
>My suggestion to restudy mathematics is a serious matter because I discovered
>the first scientific proof of God. I conclude that this discovery has vast
>potentials in mathematics and all sciences. With this proof, big changes can be
>expected.
Yes, his theory has *vast potential*. It’s going to change the world! It’s going to revolutionize all of math and science! And all you need to do to learn about it is: **buy his book**! Because he won’t tell you about it otherwise.
>… For instance, Cantor’s transfinite numbers must be developed by our
>mathematicians so we can understand the universe’s atoms, the cosmology of God,
>and the cells of all the living bodies. Unfortunately, the atheistic
>mathematicianc believe that we live only in world of numbers. The theory of God
>will not go away during the life of any person. Today’s mathematicians have a
>choice to work with 85% of the people in the USA who believe in God. On the
>other hand, they can live privately ‘in their box of finites.’ I hope to
>convince ‘the majority’ in the USA that the field of mathematics is falling
>apart and must thus be reformed but also expanded considerably.
Yeah, we need to start studying transfinite numbers, because *nobody* has been studying anything like that. (Except, of course, for thousands of number theorists.)
And we need to stop being atheists (even when we aren’t), because the existence of god means, ummm, well, ummm…. Not very much in terms of math?
And mathematics is falling apart! Just because we’ve managed to accomplish trivial little things like proving the Poincare conjecture and Fermat’s last theorem; characterizing the fundamental limits of mathematics, and silly things like that means *nothing*. Mathematics is falling apart! Who can save us?!
Why, nothing can save us except Georgie-boy!
As long as we send him some cash.
[georgie]: http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/07/restudying_math_in_light_of_th.php
[georgie-comments]:http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/07/restudying_math_in_light_of_th.php#comment-194071
[georgie-responds]: http://georgeshollenberger.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-mathematicians-are-teaching-your.html
[onag]: http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=goodmathbadma-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1568811276&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000ff&bc1=000000&bg1=ffffff&f=ifr
[knuth-book]: http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=goodmathbadma-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0201038129&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000ff&bc1=000000&bg1=ffffff&f=ifr
[annalen]: http://www.wiley-vch.de/publish/en/journals/alphabeticIndex/2257/
Good Math/Bad Math
The beauty of math; the humor of stupidity.
I find it hilarious that he is so fixated on how Atheists are destroying America and yet he holds the proof of God in his hands which would surely save American from the godless heathens.
Unfortuantely he can’t save America unless he gets paid.
That moral compass of his must be pointing due south.
I’d say that anyone who claims to be knowldegable about math and logic and then concludes that “all mathematicians are atheists” (I won’t even bother anyone with the many layers of logical fallacy in that one statement) has demonstrated his own un-fitness to craft a convincing argument of any sort.
Wow, Pi Guy. You just failed to refute his argument and argued ad hominem that this implies his other arguments are false. Please, people!
Rev BigDumbChimp:
Yeah, that’s exactly what makes me really annoyed at this guy. It’s not just that he’s an idiot (although he is), or that his arguments are garbage (although they are). To me, the fundamental thing is, *if* he actually did what he claimed, then withholding it unless he gets paid for it is, at a minimum, deeply unethical and immoral.
I’d like to know why he thinks that his god would approve of withholding such a piece of knowledge out of pure personal greed.
Hey! Back off and leave him alone about personal greed! Clearly he is just practicing up to be a Televangelist like Pat Robertson! Can I get an AAAAA-Men?
Rev. BigDumbChimp:
For some reason, you just made me think of the Northern Exposure episode where the gay couple wanted to buy a house from Maurice and turn it into a B&B. He was all for the idea till he found out they were gay, at which point he refused to sell it to them. They confounded him by pretending to believe his anti-gay stance was a business ploy, and doubled their offer.
As he said to Chris later, “At $40,000 my moral compass was firm. At 80 I was lost.”
George is lost.
Here’s an idea. Claim to be the classic YEC type trying to save America from the godless heathens, and that they can buy your book to save themselves. When they pay up, give them a book you previously wrote on critical thinking, debate and the scientific process as applied to the question of the existence of God.
I see no lies or contradictions in this, so long as you word things carefully in the initial claim.
One minor correction: it’s Martin Gardner, not Marvin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner
Mr. Shollenberger suffers from a dilemma: the sure knowledge that scientists and mathematicians are wrong/atheists, but the desire to beat them on their own turf by donning the trappings of mathematics. Unfortunately, he only adopts the trappings of mathematics, and doesn’t actually display any understanding. He’s a cargo cultist: building radios out of bamboo and wondering why the supply planes don’t drop those supplies he keeps requesting.
“Because, you see, the surreals are based on the same concept of ordinals as the surreal numbers.”
Wow, how tautological! I presume you meant surreals are based on the same concept… as reals? 🙂
Noodle:
I meant the surreals are based on the same concept of cardinals as Cantor’s transfinites. I’ll fix the error in the post.
Mark,
How did you figure out “circle file”==trash can?
oh man. I just went back and read the posts since last you visited his blog. Ugh. This killed me.
Up to this time? Spiritual Laws of life. What does that even mean? George has redefined the definition of Science and the Scientific method for the rest fo the world. Science is now the study of spiritual “laws” as well as natural provable laws? It just hurts to read the stupidity in that. You want to be able to reach through the blogosphere and shake the jackass out of him.
Miguel:
“Circle file” or “circular file” are american slang for “garbage can”.
I apologize if you were just being sarcastic :-). My wife is a non-native english speaker (actually, technically, she’s not a native speaker of *anything*), so I tend to assume that questions like that are serious ones.
One of the happy side effects of being an atheist is being at least one concept more at odds with cranks like this.
The dude is seriously confused, but his arguments are lucid enough to be great fun to pick apart.
From his comment:
“Today, the demonstration is known as the ’cause’ and the discovery is known as the ‘effects.’ ”
Dude, the theory isn’t reality. The description isn’t the object. The map isn’t the terrain.
“For instance, God is a theory.”
Dude, a god is a faith idea, descriptions that can’t be justified by observations. A theory is a particular type of fact idea, descriptions that can be *and have been* justified by observations.
“Also, the mind and brain are not the same thing.”
Dude, if you think that theories and reality are conflated, you aren’t allowed to keep anything separated without justification. Conversely, you will never see correlations and emergent properties, as the ones you just (dis)missed. Just saying.
From his post:
“God is not a number.”
Dude, first gods are theories, now they aren’t numbers in theories. How do you know? How do you know anything, using wishful thinking as you do? Sticking your head up your ass wont help you see.
George is lost and blind.
“He’s a cargo cultist”
A good and memorable description for this type of person.
Mark,
Thanks. It was a serious question 🙂 I’m not a native English speaker but I’ve been using it everyday for at least 20 years now, including long stays in the US. I had never heard the expression “circle file” before; one more new thing I learned today.
Nit: “Martin Gardner”, not “Marvin Gardner”.
BTW, your patience is admirable. I find it physically exhausting to read even a few lines of the kind of text you’re dissecting here.
George “Hot Tub” Shollenberger is back
Mark CC at Good Math, Bad Math has another takedown of the kook George Shollenberger. George is a grade A prime example of the appeal to other ways of knowing, but he’s even worse than that.
Cargo cult – that’s a good one, Mark.
I suggested a while ago that he have someone nominate him for a Nobel prize, if he actually had a scientific proof of God. His response was “The book is more important than a prize because what follows the ‘proof of God’ (Part I, Chapter 1) will help to launch all people into a new world. ”
So just, ummm…buy the book.
Haven’t been called Georgie-Boy since I was little boy. Too bad that the author has still not grown up and drawn respect for his seniors. Political symbols will not affect me.
I seem to have agitated the field of mathematica. So, I conclude that my blogs on mathematica were awakening and effective. If mathematicians are working on transfinite numbers, I am learning and glad because I can’t find this effort on the Internet. Can you link me to this effort?
On the other hand, I am not imprressed with the apparent lack of knowledge of the field of mathematics on the scientific methoid of proof. I expected applied mathematicians to express this knowledge. But, I found no knowledge of the scientific method in this set of comments or in the set of comments I became involved yeaterday. So, I am concerned because this lack of knowledge is a sign of atheism.
George:
Respect is something that needs to be earned. You aren’t entitled to it just because you’re older than I am. And you don’t deserve it. Why not? Well, there are exactly two possibilities about you:
(1) You’re right, and you have a world-changing proof, that will revolutionize science, medicine, mathematics, etc., but you choose to withold that proof out of greed. In that case, you are a disgusting, evil person, and certainly not worthy of respect.
(2) You’re wrong, and your proof is nonsense. In that case, you’re a foolish braggart running around talking about how amazing your nonexistent discoveries are; certainly not a person worthy of respect.
Mathematica is an expensive piece of computer software. I’m not sure how you agitate its field.
Want to see work on stuff like transfinite numbers? Well, first, you just might want to pull some of the surreal numbers work out of the trashcan. And then go check some actual mathematical journals on subjects like analysis, abstract algebra, and number theory. Topology probably wouldn’t hurt either.
Of course, since you already believe that you can overturn all of modern mathematics with a proof that no one is allowed to see without paying you, I rather doubt that you’ll make the effort to actually read a math journal. After all, you already know so much more than us mathematicians.
Mathematics uses mathematical proofs. Science uses the scientific method. They’re different. Get over it.
And how, exactly, is the “lack of knowledge of the scientific method of proof” a sign of atheism?
If anything, it’s the opposite. A lot of theists (though *certainly* not all, or even most) have no idea what the scientific method even *is*. On the other hand, most atheists come to their conclusions based on scientific evidence, which hopefully means that they know what science is about. It’s not guaranteed, but I find it’s a good indicator.
Well to address this, his bastardized version of the scientific method is not, in fact, the REAL scientific method. No scientist worth his salt would ever claim that supernatural hand wavings substitute for actual real hard evidence.
Oh and Mark,
Damn. Could not have expressed it any clearer.
I think you are giving George too hard a time, he claims to be a scientist and a theologian, NOT an ethicist. Although, a good snake oil salesman usually gives free samples.
I suspect his target demographic is weak faithed people looking for some sort of scientific justification for their belief (probably many, and at $27.95, do the math).
As has been said before, if you have evidence then you don’t need faith. If you have faith then you don’t need any evidence, in fact, any interest in evidence suggests a lack of faith.
Scientists (and even mathematicians) are curious skeptics by nature, always going on about evidence and proof, so it’s no surprise they appear atheistic.
George:
“I seem to have agitated the field of mathematica.”
You wish. Another comment showing that you don’t know much about math or science.
“But, I found no knowledge of the scientific method in this set of comments or in the set of comments I became involved yeaterday.”
This is laughable since you don’t use any science or much math in your own post.
Science: You don’t make any claim on observable reality.
Math: “God’s oneness opposes the universes’ manyness” – that one =/= many is trivial and goes nowhere here.
“On the other hand, I am not imprressed with the apparent lack of knowledge of the field of mathematics on the scientific methoid of proof. … So, I am concerned because this lack of knowledge is a sign of atheism.”
Science doesn’t imply atheism or not. But actually, there is a correlation between scientists and atheism, ie knowledge of the scientific method correlates *with* atheism. Go figure.
601:
“Scientists (and even mathematicians) are curious skeptics by nature, always going on about evidence and proof, so it’s no surprise they appear atheistic.”
No, there is also a correlation between being a scientist and being an atheist. IIRC, 80 % of the users of the most general explanatory theories ie biologists and cosmologists are atheists, even in US. Supernatural explanations have been found to be powerless explanations in science for many reasons, and natural explanations have been found to be powerful explanations. And perhaps education overall makes religions seem naive for many. But there is no “disproof of gods” in any science. Science is a tool.
Torbjörn:
Oh, I agree with you. My point was just that from a religious nut perspective, a scientist exhibits many scary attributes, like logic, experimentation and such, so they are easily assumed to be an atheist (or an atheist sympathizer) no mater what their belief.
Maybe, but if you could prove man created god(s), wouldn’t that be close enough?
Am I the only one who hears Alex from A Clockwork Orange when MarkCC says “Georgie boy”?
Come, come, come, Georgie boy. You’re a big strong chelloveck like us all. We’re not little children, are we, Georgie boy? What, then, didst thou in thy mind have?
George may have to make room up on that pedestal he’s standing on. Contenders include GEORGE HAMMOND’S SCIENTIFIC PROOF OF GOD WEBSITE, SCIENTIFIC PROOF FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD:
THE ZEPRO FORMULA, and The Science of God, among seemingly countless others. Will George have it in him to extend to these contenders the title of “co-discoverers”?
601:
“My point was just that from a religious nut perspective, a scientist exhibits many scary attributes, ”
Oh. Agreed.
“”But there is no “disproof of gods” in any science.”
Maybe, but if you could prove man created god(s), wouldn’t that be close enough?”
That is another question: is a disproof possible?
What you describe is one view. PaulW commented recently on Pharyngula along these lines, discussing the differences in “belief fixation” (ie how to justify beliefs) between science and religion, and how that helps describe and debunk religion from such a perspective. I think this is reasonable, but I can’t see that it will satisfy people who want to believe.
My pet idea is that studying causation more may also bear on this. What we already know of nature constrain causation and energy constance. For example, this year a paper demonstrated that superluminal nonnatural signals destabilises gauge theories (AFAIK all fundamental forces except gravity) so any switch and change energy manipulation outside of nature is potentially observable.
A valid theory that also is falsifiable could be based on that, that natural causes alone explains what we observe. One would only need to explore for example a large number of chemical reactions and/or gravitational experiments to say 5 sigma certainty. Or perhaps it is enough that the fine structure constant shows even better constancy all over the observable universe.
(One problem is perhaps that energy isn’t welldefined in general relativity. But AFAIK the expected theory of quantum gravity should take care of that since time is welldefined in quantum theories, so energy ought to be too according to Noether’s theorem or rather its QM equivalent.)
Wholesale “gods behind the curtain” doesn’t kill this since that is a more complicated and unfalsifiable “theory”. It would be a proof in the ordinary sense, and only special pleading with unreasonable doubt can be used against it.
But currently no such work is done what I know of. And I doubt it would be a result that learn us much beyond what it is constructed to explain, so it wouldn’t be very exciting and highly prioritised work, merely doable.
Blake:
Ah, so what was why it seemed familiar.
“A valid theory that also is falsifiable could be based on that, that natural causes alone explains what we observe.”
And the point being that nonnatural causes aren’t observed and therefore doesn’t exist in the parsimonious ie best theory.
I’d like to shut this guy in a room with Dr. Gene Ray and watch the ensuing hilarity.
evil Obscurantism
(deliberately witholding cubic knowledge)
No human “entity” exists
Cube is opposite perfection
Singularity is death worship
How do you decide who wins in a debate like that?
Blake:
That’s *exactly* what I had in mind when I used “Georgie-boy”. I was wondering if anyone would pick up on it!
(I *love* “A Clockwork Orange”; truly a brilliant book, and an amazing (if excruciating) movie by Kubrick.)
I personally believe in God and the creationist theory that God made the earth and all that but I also believe in evolution and the whole primortial earth thing also. First of all, if the big bang theory is true, where did the matter for the big bang come from and what caused it. Because the four fundamental forces, the strong and weak nuclear forces the electromagnetic force and gravitation; they would eventually reach an equilibrium and the big bang would not happen. So some outside force had to cause it to go boom. Also in Genesis, God made man and everything in seven days, but you have to remember God is outside of time, seven days to him could be well over 50 billion years to us. And what did he make before he made the animals. He made the earth and then he could let natural processes take over. Then he made the animals, the dinosaurs and all that. They die, and he makes human, and there is no proof that Adam and Eve had to have looked like us, thats just in art. Even if they did they were cast out of Eden, therefore God could have punished them by making them into neanderthals. Excuse my explanation. It’s probably shabby, but thats the best I could remember from a year ago. I also have a question, how is it that earth is the only planet of this type in the known universe? Thats extremely high odds. And how is it that we evolved from monkeys, if we did then why are their still monkeys? If you give me the reason of adaptation, we humans are more adapted for any environment than any monkey is except for climbing trees, but we’re still better off anyway.
I forgot to say one thing, I am a Ceramic Engineer now taking a BS course in nanomechanics and the ilke. Even though I believe in God, I still use math and science to prove everything, I really just use my faith on moral issues such as abortion or something like that. And I have taken enough math, physics and other sciences to say that this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Yes, Georgie-boy seems like a really loose wing-nut.
Hmmm, I will risk being termed a wing-nut too … because I came up with a potential Scientific/Logical Proof of God … seriously. However; mathematicians, scientists, physists are perfectly correct. I think technology and discoveries of the past century is more than proof enough … people would be better off viewing the bible as nothing more than fiction. My proof, which I hope atheists and agnostics like too (when you see it … you might think of it as a cop-out … but that is what makes it sound). The only people who need to do the changing (if they want to bother) or theologians (frankly … currently are people working with theology are really working with mythology, and nothing more). I have had this for a few years now … but I am still collecting some more research and such (besides … I work in a technical professional field so I do not have a lot of free time) … and will put it up on the internet for all to see. I admit, I am not a fan of science for profit, and I find peer review … free of any charges … is the key to forwarding intelegent kind. I think a lot of people could actually like my proof … just gotta convince those religious zealots. 😉
Drew,
You asked, “And how is it that we evolved from monkeys, if we did then why are their still monkeys?”
Man and monkeys have a common “ancestor”. If you look at any evolutionary tree that’s drawn it will show the man and monkey branches splitting apart millions of years ago.
Good question. No one knows yet. We may never know. However, trying to explain it by positing *another* entity is no good. Where did the matter for God come from, and what caused Him? You just replace one set of questions with an identical set.
The Big Bang wasn’t caused by some imbalance in forces. First, at the sort of energies that existed at the time of the BB, the four forces were combined. At high energies, the forces start acting identically. It’s been over a hundred years since we showed that the electric and magnetic forces were joined, and we fairly recently reached sufficiently high energies that the EM and weak forces combined into the electroweak force. Some theories predict that the next generation of particle colliders will reach high enough energies to merge the electroweak and the strong force.
Second, there is no evidence that some outside force had to cause the BB. As well, if you *do* accept that the BB was caused by an outside force, you have to then ask the question “What caused the outside force?” If everything has a cause, then that applies to *everything*, even God. If not everything needs a cause, then the Big Bang might not need a cause either. You can’t define the Big Bang as needing a cause and God as not without evidence.
Can you define what ‘outside of time’ means? As commonly used it is a meaningless statement, used as “He doesn’t have to obey anything that I find inconvenient.” Also, the Big Bang wasn’t some explosion of matter, it was an explosion of space/time. Time did not pass before the BB.
Science can currently explain the formation of the earth perfectly well from interstellar matter. There’s no need to invoke God for that. As well, is there anything in the bible that says that God created a whole bunch of different types of animals, then killed most of them off, then did the whole thing several more times before finally creating humans? What reason would He have to do this in the first place? Again, science can explain all of this perfectly well.
Do you remember where you heard this? Because it’s certainly wrong. First, finding earth-sized planets around other stars is *very* hard. We can find planets as big or bigger than Jupiter by watching the star very carefully and seeing if it ‘wiggles’. Earth-sized planets, though, are far too small to cause a visible wiggle in a star. We have to find them by much more difficult methods, which means we’ve only been able to find a couple so far.
Second, the known universe is a sphere a couple tens of billions of light years in radius. We can only *hope* to find planets on nearby stars in our own galaxy. Other galaxies are far, far too far away for us to find planets in them, no matter how large they are.
This is a common fallacy spread by some of the anti-evolution lobby. I’ll try to explain. First, we didn’t evolve from monkeys. We and modern monkeys evolved from a common ancestor. At some point several million years ago the common ancestor split into two species, one of which developed into modern humans while the other developed into some of the modern monkeys such as chimps (other types of monkeys split off earlier). The human line is currently thought to have branched into several different species as well, such as neanderthals and modern homo sapiens. We out-competed some of the branch species of humanity, however, and so they died out.
Now, why did the monkeys not die out? Because we weren’t competing with them. Monkeys stayed in the trees while we moved into the plains and became hunters. On the other hand, we *were* competing directly with the other branches of humanity. When there is direct competition, either one species wins and the others die, or the different species change and find different niches, thus eliminating the competition. With monkeys we found different niches (we moved out of the trees), while with the other humans we simply won.
Finally, humans are actually remarkably badly adapted to the environment. We’ve become extraordinary adapted to pack living and using tools. We’ve lost our natural weapons and we have some of the slowest-developing children of all the animals in the world. We make up for all of this with intelligence and tool-using. Again, we fill a different niche than most other things.
Drew: I apologize for the long post. ^_^ I just wanted to respond to *all* of your questions and concerns.
Drew:
“if the big bang theory is true, where did the matter for the big bang come from and what caused it.”
Causation is a large subject. Vague and unfounded terms is common, such as theology’s first cause. But the real meaning of causation and associated mechanisms is explored in physics. It has turned out that ‘first cause’ or an ‘origin’ doesn’t work as a physics principle, which is why modern cosmologies simply avoid using it.
There is a number of ways to do that. The easiest to understand happens to be compatible with the Lambda-CDM cosmology that best explains todays observations. Lambda-CDM is an inflation universe which is embedded in an eternal chaotic inflation multiverse. Ie our big universe is one of an infinite amount of universes, and the multiverse has always been here.
However, while multiverses seems to be perfectly good theories with a number of good consequences such as the one we discuss, they aren’t verified as of yet. “We don’t know” is actually a perfectly good answer in science, not the best but acceptable.
“Because the four fundamental forces, the strong and weak nuclear forces the electromagnetic force and gravitation; they would eventually reach an equilibrium and the big bang would not happen.”
On forces and equilibria, see Xanthir. In chaotic inflation it is a self-producing process in the multiverse. “It appears that in many models large quantum fluctuations produced during inflation which may locally increase the value of the energy density in some parts of the universe. These regions expand at a greater rate than their parent domains, and quantum fluctuations inside them lead to production of new inflationary domains which expand even faster. This leads to an eternal process of self-reproduction of the universe.
[The Good Math showing this snipped, sorry Mark.]
In other words, there was a beginning for each part of the universe, and there will be
an end for inflation at any particular point. But there will be no end for the evolution of
the universe as a whole in the eternal inflation scenario, and at present we do not have any
reason to believe that there was a single beginning of the evolution of the whole universe at
some moment t = 0, which was traditionally associated with the Big Bang.” ( http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0503/0503195.pdf )
“Lambda-CDM is an inflation universe which is embedded in an eternal chaotic inflation multiverse.”
I meant: Lambda-CDM is an inflation universe which can be embedded in an eternal chaotic inflation multiverse.