My review, critique, and analysis of this book.
A review of...
The Creator and the Cosmos [2nd ed], by Hugh Ross, Ph.D.
How the greatest scientific discoveries of the century reveal God.
Hugh has an interesting modus operandi.
He states that God-of-the-Bible exists because the Bible says so. And that the Bible is correct, accurate and true because it was inspired by God-of-the-Bible. So, therefore, the existence of God-of-the-Bible is the One True God, who has been proven to exist. Thus we can look at all of science (natural philosophy) with the “proven” presupposition that God-of-the-Bible exists, and judge whether those sciences are true or false.
Also, Hugh likes to set up strawman arguments. He’ll state ten different scientific positions, and rip apart one or two of the absurd ones. And then claim or imply that they’re all absurd.
He also likes to quote things out of context, and change the meaning in gross and negligent ways. Including quotes from the Bible itself. Well, whichever Bible he subscribes to; it’s not the Catholic’s Nicene Bible in Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek.
He often uses fallacious logical arguments. Appeals to emotion. Backwards logic (A-->B, B; therefore A).
He also often misstates, misleads, misrepresents science and quotes. I wonder if Hugh has heard of “thou shall not bear false witness.” Many religions hold it in high esteem, as do most secular morality systems.
I most feel sorry for Hugh’s readers who lack critical thinking and inquisitive skeptical attitudes. That is, the unwavering Christian believers who will hold up Hugh’s book and proclaim that science substantiates their untenable authoritarian Christian dogma. They’ll read the book (if they read the book) and find all sorts of feel-good affirmation in the Bible. And, without skepticism, will feel that they have scientific ammunition to decry the scientific heresies in mainstream science. Hugh’s book is not mainstream science; it’s a Christian apologist tract.
Let’s take a look at Hugh’s illogic, chapter by chapter. Passages from the book may be redacted or clarified; I recommend you buy the book and read it for yourself. If you can stomach this piece of crap.
Chapter One — The Awe-Inspiring Night Sky.
This logic is flawed. It presupposes that human being cannot forge their own meaning and purpose in life.
It presupposes that life does not entail it’s own meaning. To live. To grow. To propagate.
It also presupposes by implication that objective meaning is a necessary precondition for the universe to exist.
Hugh is using this conclusion of the previous flawed logic to show “the awful alternative” to God-of-the-Bible.
Hugh is misleading on the scope of morality and religion. He wants the readers to believe that they are universally important. Morality is a human social contract. We create them to live amongst one another. Organized religions are a multifunctional institutions: they acts as the keeper of ethics, morality (but they are not the sole keepers of such); they answer tough metaphysical questions of why we’re here, where did we come from, where do we go, what is the essence of the existence; they are often politically active and exercise their influence upon their following; they are the keepers of their theology and its adaptation and development.
In the big picture of the universe: the universe is incapable of caring about morality. It is incapable about caring about religion.
The conclusion does not hinge on the predicate. Several possible alternative hypotheses: the universe is self-creating. The universe is infinitely eternal and cyclical. The universe is infinitely eternal and open; new universes pop into existence by Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle after an indeterminable amount of time in the remnants of the previous universe.
Hugh is speculating. This conclusion does not follow from the premises; it has no basis in Hugh’s illogical apology. And, it’s also an untenable conjecture.
So Hugh would have people proclaim “E = mc2” as incorrect, and have it be “E = mc2 by the grace of God-of-the-Bible”.
Natural philosophy (the sciences) deals with data, facts, and hypotheses based on the data and facts. And followed by empirically substantiating those hypotheses with experiment.
That means that the sciences assume as a provisional axiom that the universe has dependable, uniform laws. Knowledge is always subject to revision. Including the provisional axiom of a dependable universe with uniform laws. Falsifiability is the key criteria to determine if something is a valid theory (even if that theory is incorrect), or if it is an article of blind faith. And that untenable conjectures (and intractable ones as well) that cannot be substantiated are falsehoods, and therefore without merit.
Note: an untenable conjecture cannot be substantiated or disproven. An intractable conjecture is theoretically substantiable or disprovable, but is not practically substantiable or disprovable. Also, just in case you missed logic class, you cannot prove an existential negative: you cannot prove that God-of-the-Bible does not exist, you cannot prove that Santa Claus does not exist, you cannot prove that Invisible Pink Unicorns do not exist. That’s why the burden of proof is on the claimant, not on the disbeliever. If someone proves that, say, Dennis Hopper exists; then-and-only-then do the doubters need to produce a counter-argument.
Untenable conjectures such as: Hugh’s baseless “proof” of the God-of-the-Bible’s existence. And that just burns Hugh’s britches.
Hugh falls squarely in the second bucket. He doesn’t see himself as that kind of researcher. He chooses to read the universe through his God-of-the-Bible glasses.
Hugh does not qualify as one of these objective researchers. He starts with the postulate that God-of-the-Bible exists, therefore let’s see how science is affected by that postulate. And with such a postulate, we can determine where science is wrong, i.e., where science neglects to incorporate the God-of-the-Bible, or where it implies that there is not God-of-the-Bible. Hugh forgot to mention “...or lack of an Originator.”
Chapter Two — My Skeptical Inquiry
Hugh presupposes the conclusion he’s trying to prove. A beginning does not necessitate God-of-the-Bible.
Maybe the beginning was caused by God-of-the-Bible. Maybe by the Deists’ God. Maybe it is by some natural phenomenon that we just don’t have enough information about it. To claim “God-of-the-Bible” is premature, and amounts to a “God-of-the-Gaps” stance.
So Hugh’s entire book rests on his personal credulity of the existence of God. Originally he had blind faith in a distant God, but later on in the God-of-the-Bible.
Surprisingly, for a scientist, Hugh seems to have no grasp of what data, facts, proof and the scientific method are.
I’ve found much of the same in many of the Renaissance philosophers’ works. They were a product of their times, and philosophy, like science, is emendable. However, there is nothing but circular arguments, inconsistencies, and evasions in the Christian Apologists tracts. Including Hugh’s The Creator and the Cosmos.
Again, Hugh is presupposing his conclusion. Hugh completely neglects the possibilities that: there is no Creator Supreme Being, that this supposed Creator cares a whit about human beings, that this supposed Creator is benevolent to human beings.
Yet Hugh found the Bible to be straight forward, testable, falsifiable, clear, easy reading, logical, and sound? Give me some of that hookah, man!
Similarly with me. Except I was appalled at the comingling of myth with history, and the erroneous non-scientific hypotheses that was at odds with the details. Understandable, since that was long before the scientific method had been established.
What? Amazed? Apparently Hugh skipped around because the ordering of Genesis is wrong, and was quite forgiving in its blatant egregious errors. It has giant important gaps, the seven day timeline is off by twelve orders of magnitude, and quite a few “details” are way off-base. Even from the viewpoint of a unlearned mythmakers, had they known anything about the origins of the the universe, the solar system, the planet, life, and the human race. Trivial details that Hugh glossed over in his ecstatic religious zeal.
With such a magnanimous amount latitude, I can “substantiate” the accuracy of the creation myths of the Norse Vikings. Or the Hindu cosmology. Or the Greco-Roman theogeny.
I have a list of hundreds of provable errors and internal Biblical contradictions. Books are available that point them out. Maybe he should re-read the Bible with this addition information formerly unbeknownst to him.
But I suspect that Hugh is bitten by the bug of blind faith. He is beyond doubt or questioning. Which is often a poor trait in a scientist.
Hugh is entitled to his opinion, and his convictions. But he has not proven the validity of his opinion to his reader. He hasn’t even tried to prove. He just tells us his anecdotal story how he failed to find a single provable error or contradiction in the Bible, after eighteen months.
Because of his personal credulity, from this point on in The Creator and the Cosmos, Hugh feigns that he’s proven his God-of-the-Bible premise.
Hugh goes on to claim that the predictions of the Bible have been fulfilled, at the improbable odds of one chance in 10138. He doesn’t tell us which predictions. And I, for one, doubt many Biblical predictions: have they been fully and accurately fulfilled? Was the “prediction” made after-the-fact?
I have also found statistical improbability arguments used to defend the Bible to use mathematical sophistry. Hugh doesn’t give the details, but I have found “statistical affirmation” to be nothing more than stupid math tricks.
For example: let’s presume there are 600,000 alphabetic characters in the Gideons Bible. The odds of them being arranged in just that order is one out of 26600000. That’s amazing! It’s too mind boggling improbable to be the work of madmen and fools, it must be the work of God-of-the-Bible through divine inspiriation!
The math doesn’t substantiate the conclusion.
Hugh has only proven that he “found religion”, and has made his personal testament. I contend that his objectivity is about zero, and his critical thinking has been turned off. Hugh looks at the world through his own personal pair of “God-is-whoever-or-whatever-I-choose” glasses.
Not me, just the opposite. All the scientific and historical evidences I had collected deeply rooted my confidence in the mendacity of the Bible. And has convinced me that human beings sincere and heartfelt in their religious convictions had expressed their untenable blind faiths in the books of the Bible, as collated and organized by the Nicene council. Along with some history and myth, theocratic law, wishful thinking, predictions-in-arrears, miracle fables, adages, proverbs, wisdom, hearsay, rumors, and Judaic identity (Old Testament) and Christian identity (New Testament).
Hugh is really pulling the rug out now! This particular quote reference is way out of context, and entirely misleading. Typical of Hugh’s writing style. Bend, vacillate, distort, misrepresent, and mislead is standard operating procedure in this book.
The “face of God” referenced is not God-of-the-Bible. It’s a Sagan-esque God, that is, nature, reality, totality, the cosmos in toto kind of God. A mundane god, not a transcendental god.
Chapter Three — The Discovery of the Century
Hugh uses this to imply God-of-the-Bible. Smoot was comparing the COBE results on par with that of religious awe. He was not implying that it confirms, substantiates or corroborates a transcendental god. Nor God-of-the-Bible in particular. Typical Hugh style to mislead and misdirect, almost as good as a stage magician.
According to science historian Frederic B. Burnham, the community of scientists was prepared to consider the idea that God created the universe “a more respectable hypothesis today than at any time in the last hundred years”
More respectable? From 0.0000000000000000001% to 0.0000000000000000002%?
There are a few other choices that Hugh conveniently ignores. Many astronomers are pantheists or theological naturalists. I suspect that the number of non-transcendental pantheist astronomers far exceed all other classifications combines. Both theist and deist entail transcendentalism, which is one of the doctrinal items Hugh is assuming in his presupposition of the existence of God-of-the-Bible.
How much less is “near infinite” from “infinite”?
Is 10100 (a google) near infinite? No, 10100 is a long ways away from infinite.
How about 10google near infinite? Nope, 10google is a drop in the bucket compared to infinite.
Good to see that Hugh’s math skills are on par with his logic skills.
Another example of Hugh’s math skills. For the mathematically challenged, 15 to 20 billion years ago is somewhat longer than 7 days.
This contains some invalid reasoning. The metaphysics of why the specific entropy and other universal constants are what they are has yet to be established.
Hugh is implying that it’s from intelligent design. Yet another God-of-the-Gaps, which Hugh uses to support his God-of-the-Bible presupposition.
But there are other plausible theories. Such as Information Theory (qv [I is the Law]), which (if true) has a no-Creator-needed explanation for the universal constants being what they are.
Just a f.y.i.. exotic matter, also known as negative energy, when combined with ordinary matter or with anti-matter results in obliteration (no energy at all). Matter combined with antimatter results in annihilation (the release of free, unbound energy). Like matter, antimatter is one of the possible states of positive energy.
Most of Chapter 3 is full interesting discoveries and research. But the question that it fails to answer: in what way does this corroborate Genesis?
Chapter Four — The Matter Mystery
Hugh lists “exotic” matter candidates. None of them are exotic matter in the sense of negative energy, they’re all conjectured kinds of positive energy. Hugh isn’t misrepresenting here, in astrophysicist circles the term exotic matter is used to account for missing mass. This matter is “exotic” because we haven’t figured out what accounts for the missing mass, yet.
It isn’t “exotic” in the sense that it’s rare. Likely, it’s more common than the matter we know about. It’s just uncommon here on Earth, or with our instruments to detect it.
To note, on his list low mass neutrinos have since been detected. (Yahoo!) The only other likely candidates to exist are supersymmetric strings, or primordial black holes.
I am surprised that Hugh doesn’t use this as yet another God-of-the-Gaps therefore God-of-the-Bible “proofs”.
Chapter 4 is full of some of the interesting conjectures in science and astrophysics.
Chapter Five — The Beautiful Fit
Taken together, the eight discoveries provide overwhelming evidence that astronomers and astrophysicists are on the right track in determining that a hot big band model best describes how the universe came to be...
All right! Yeah! Kick-ass!
I do not concur. Hugh’s logic is very flawed. It’s based on Hugh’s initial presupposition that the God-of-the-Bible exists. Hugh is presupposing his conclusion.
Warning! “Proven” means it fits known data and facts, and has a high level of certainty. If a theory has a certainty level of 99.9%, most scientists* in other fields will assume that the theory explains the data and facts with absolute confidence (100% confidence).
* Scientists who are attempt to disprove generally accepted theories, or disproving working hypotheses or working theories (theory that’s a work-in-progress), go about things differently. Here they try to come up with some experiement which, if successful, will disprove the theory in question. They disprove the theory by producing data (facts) that differ from the predictions of the theory. This can have a radical effect in the scientific community, as Einstein did when he proved that Newtonian mechanics are not just in error (such that they need to be fixed), but that they are fundamentally completely wrong and incorrectable. Until Einstein, all mainstream scientists had the utmost confidence in Newtonian mechanics; but Newtonian mechanics still weren’t 100% certain, and Einstein showed how Newton’s underlying assumptions were insurmountably in error.
Confidence is not the same as certainty. In physics, nothing is absolutely certain. Certainty isn’t some fuzzy concept, it’s measurable. You can say that we are 99.99999% certain that photon’s have exactly zero rest mass. Which can lead you to be 100% confident that they have exactly zero rest mass. Unless you are a researcher trying either to increase our certainty level of a photon having exactly zero rest mass; or if you are a researcher trying to disprove the theory that photons have exactly zero rest mass.
When Hugh says “many”, how many is many? Is that 1% of the astronomer community? 10%? 51%? 99%? Or is “many” just one, Hugh?
Is this the God-of-the-Bible? A naturalists, non-transcendental pantheist god (i.e., the universe itself (nature), as is, is god)? A Deist’s God? Allah? Brahma? Ennead? Amen-Ra? Zeus? Odin?
Also, notice that Hugh interjects “hot big bang creation event”. A coloring of the event to imply “a creator”. And a disregard that the “creation” event could have been caused by other mechanisms.
Another God-of-the-Gaps “proof”. One which Hugh uses to suggests “proves” a Creator-God, from the logical fallacy of an appeal to the masses (in this case, theistic astronomers). Later on, he’ll claim that this Creator-God has to be the God-of-the-Bible.
Other than this concluding paragraph, Chapter 5 is a really sound enjoyable chapter.
Chapter Six — Einstein’s Challenge
Note: Kant wasn’t always right.
Darwinism sprang from the clergyman Darwin, based on observation. The facts and data lead Darwin to formulate the hypothesis of evolution, which is a very simple idea: organisms adapt to their environment.
It has also shown that original Darwinian evolution was incorrect. Darwin didn’t know about mutation, genetics, natural selection, molecular biology, and many other biological phenomena. But the fundamental assumptions of the theory are still intact: organisms change over time, they adapt. And the theory has been modified, corrected and (dare I pun?) evolved to where it is today. And it continues to do so.
Hugh pulls some major league shenanigans in this chapter. He foists upon the “atheists scientists” the position of a steady-state, infinite universe. And claims that the “theist Creator” position is that of the big bang.
Einstein was a big proponent of a steady-state universe, with his cosmological constant ... an embarassing blunder he recanted later.
Very disingenuous.
To a point! Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity (a theory of gravity) did much better.
The orbit of Mercury indicated that there was something amiss in Newtonian mechanics. One astronomical conjecture was of another planet orbiting the sun inside the sun, named Vulcan, to explain the aberrant orbit of Mercury.
When Einstein formulated his Theory of General Relativity, and applied it the “Mercury problem”, he was delighted and awe-inspired to find that his equations accounted for Mercury’s non-Newtonian orbit.
However, as mentioned in the book a few places, Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity doesn’t jibe with the equally corroborated Theory of Quantum Mechanics. So we know that we don’t have the final answers, yet.
Hugh forgets that the “law” of cause and effect has been disproven. It was taken for granted in Newtonian deterministic physics. But under modern quantum mechanics, it has been shown to be in utter error. As erroneous as Newtonian mechanics are erroneous...unsalvagably, incorrectably wrong.
Physic’s cause-and-effect can only be understood in conjunction with statistics and probability. At the quantum scale, particles are spontaneously (that is, without cause, using the term cause in the physics sense) popping into and out of existence. Uncaused-effects (no “pin puller” required) are a natural part of the cosmos; it’s the uncertainty, the indeterminism in modern physics.
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle give a solid explanation how the universe could have come to be without a “Beginner” (I assume to mean “God-of-the-Bible”). Hugh must have skipped classes that day, in his freshman physics course.
The second Einstein quote is out-of-context, and misleading as Hugh used here. Typical Hugh style, it’s akin to picking and choosing words in the Bible to form your own sentences, and then claiming the Bible supports whatever. Ala Jack Van Impe.
Einstein is in no way suggesting a Beginner-Creator-God.
Once again, Hugh is misquoting and pulling things in out-of-context. I cannot speak for what Einstein’s religious convictions were, there are plenty of books that investigate that subject in depth.
But, from what I’ve gathered, Einstein believed in an impersonal God, like that of Spinoza. An impersonal God, meaning one that is devoid of personality. One that is not conscious or intelligent. One that is not a divine personage.
I suspect that Einstein is not one to say God is this or that. Rather, I see Einstein as one to say let’s investigate and learn what God is, without any unsubstantiated premises or untenable authoritarian dogma. Throw out the Torah, the Bible, the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Eddas, the Theogeny, the Koran. Let’s not buy into preconceived, concocted, premature, untested notions and rigid doctrine; let’s find out the truth. I’m betting that Einstein views God as “x + y + z = God; let’s figure out what x, y, and z are, and then we’ll know what God is.”
The Bible followers approach, including Hugh’s, is “God = a + b + c; a, b, and c are given, and you’re not allowed to test, disbelieve, or refute a, b, and c.”
Hugh continues to use Einstein as a poster-child for the “atheist scientists” and their necessary-to-not-have-God-of-the-Bible steady-state, infinite universe.
Einstein recanted his cosmological constant and repulsive force in the face of counter-proof. Something that Hugh is unable to do regarding his own fanatical dogma.
Bullshit, Einstein quite clearly explained his religious opinions many times.
Einstein’s “Creator” being defined by only what is known and provable!
Hugh says “scientific”. Scientific in what way? Personal proclamation, opinion, conviction, and personal anecdotal testimony is not “scientific”. Wanting it to be so, having blind faith, is not “scientific”. Relinquishing critical thinking, logic and reason to find the Bible to be true is not “scientific”.
Experiment is only scientific test to substantiate or disprove a theory. There is never any absolute proof of a theory, only a mathematical certainty, and thus a level of confidence.
Chapter Seven — Closing Loopholes: round one
Hugh, once again, is trying to pigeonhole all “atheist scientists” into the infinite, steady-state group. And all the God-of-the-Bible scientists into the big bang group.
Hmmm, do you think that Hugh is going to go for the coup de grace by saying, “Aha, the big bang is a demonstrable fact! Those infinite, steady-state scientists are wrong, wrong, wrong! Therefore, those poor, beleagured God-of-the-Bible loving scientists have conclusively proven God-of-the-Bible!” Oh no, did I spoil the surprise?
Oh gag me with a spoon! Hugh is confused. Evolutionism is not the “belief” that inorganic material evolves into simple cells. Evolutionism has nothing to do with how life began on Earth. That’s a whole different field of research trying to figure that one out. Even Behe doesn’t confuse evolution with Earth’s “biogenesis event”.
Evolutionism, as it stands today, is the theory that mutation, adaptation, and natural selection account for all the living organism today. And continues to have an influence on the development of the Earth’s ecology.
An evolutionist is someone who believes in evolutionism. Hugh doesn’t comprehend the difference between a doctrine or theory and the belief in that doctrine or theory. That’s okay, lots of folks miss that distinction.
Having a beginning (big bang) is orthogonal to evolutionism. Seems that Hugh has a problem with evolution and Darwinism as well.
Now Hugh is setting up strawmen and tilting at windmills. Hugh’s “obvious implications” is not necessitated.
Hugh puts a few defenders of steady-state, proclaims that position as the alternative to the big bang as solely pro-offered by the God-of-the-Bible scientists, and (you guessed it) proceeds to shred the steady-state position.
The steady-state lost it’s following soon after Hubble’s discovery. So Hugh regales us with a lengthy setting up of the two incompatible factions, and then delights in the downfall of the “atheist” scientists steady-state bastion. Oh boy. *yawn*
Hugh’s equating the Bible’s Genesis and the big bang event doesn’t have enough substance for a first grader to make the correlation.
Hugh is still showing how confused he is. A literal reading of the Bible is not an interpretation. It’s a literal reading. That’s the whole point to a literal reading of the Bible–that you aren’t interpreting it.
Hmm, so the non-literal, figurative, metaphorical Bible-interpreting Christians are championed by Hugh. But those literal Bible Christians are in error...unless they don’t read the Bible literally (like interpreting the six days of creation as six geological epochs), then they’re all right.
What a schmuck.
And they have subsequently been disproven, and no one pursues this theory.
Yet, Hugh has set up another strawman. Oh joy.
At some level, thought, Bondi-Gold-Hoyle’s “continuous creation” has a modicum of sustenance to it. Quantum Mechanics supports it at the sub-Planck scale.
A big bang universe doesn’t invalidate Hoyle’s assertion.
Corollary, his theory doesn’t make the big bang theory the province of Christianity or God-of-the-Bible scientists. Even though his steady-state, continuous creation theory was disproven. That’s the nature of scientific theories: imagine, posit, test, substantiate or disprove, ponder, fix, repeat.
Unless that theology’s authoritarian dogma mandates the creation of man versus the evolution of man.
This statement slams together an invalid statement, invalid premise, and a non-sequitur conclusion.
The invalid premise: that there were an infinite number of throws, via a steady-state infinite time. Which has been conclusively, scientifically disproven as far as our universe is concerned.
The other invalid premise: that our existence requires an infinite number of throws.
Our existence can be attributed to the natural realm’s lucky throw of the dice. Instead of an infinite number of throws of the dice, with an infinite improbability, you have a finite number of throws of the dice with a great-but-not-too-great improbability. Serendipity and statistics.
Hugh, oh Hugh, I pity you.
Gaaaah! This is so wrong in several semantical ways.
If “God of the Bible” is functionally equivalent to “the cause of the universe”, based on what?
What if “the cause of the universe” is determined by quantum mechanics and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Does that mean that “God of the Bible” is just a statistical probability and indeterminism? That doesn’t sound like God-of-the-Bible as described in the Judaic Torah and the Christian New Testament.
No, you’re claiming that it’s the God-of-the-Bible. Based on...? Personal opinion? Preference? Wishful thinking? Pretend? Make-believe? Desire? Untenable conviction? Blind faith?
And you’re claiming that it substantiates this speculative transcendental God-of-the-Bible?
It’s non-sequitur. Your conclusion does not follow from your premises and logic.
My counter is: we don’t have enough facts to determine the mechanism behind the big bang event. We have plenty of good, astrophysicists cosmological theories. All of them are plausible given our lack of knowledge. None of them entail the God-of-the-Bible.
Proclaiming God-of-the-Bible is yet another God-of-the-Gaps Christian apologies.
John doesn’t understand. If the universe spontaneously came into existence, there was no “before”.
If the universe is cyclical, then the “before” was the previous universe’s big crunch.
If the universe is open ended, then maybe the “before” was the remnants of the previous universe where all energy had cooled to sub-Planck temperatures. And, via Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, after an indeterminable amount of time, an unlikely energetic boson was spontaneously created, giving rise to our universe that we’ve come to know.
Expanding from a singularity is not a beginning in this scenario. It’s an epochal event, but it is not a beginning.
It’s not a beginning any more than any particular day-of-the-week is the beginning of the week, it’s just a convention. In our hypothetical cyclical-universe, the big bang is just a point on the timeline continuum.
Also note: if string-theory proves itself, then a cyclical universe is highly certain. (I’m not a string-theory proponent. Well, not yet. Sorry Dr. Greene.)
Chapter Eight — Closing Loopholes: round two
Ahh, Master-of-Logic-Fallacy Hugh, you keep stating the universe’s beginning implies a Beginner (such as, say, the God-of-the-Bible). No matter how many times you state and restate that assertion, repetition does not make it true.
And it may be true, too. The jury is still out: we don’t have enough information yet to substantiate or disprove the wide variety of big bang theories.
Not only is it premature to declare any of the big bang theories the winner or one-of-the-many losers, it’s premature for Hugh to proclaim his own inclination a big bang theory as being “proven”. Furthermore, Hugh’s pet big bang theory still doesn’t necessitate his Beginner (God-of-the-Bible).
For information on one possible explanation of an infinitely oscillating universe model, read Greene’s Elegant Universe for interesting details.
Poor Hugh, he must have skipped the day his physics classes talked about conservation of energy and perfectly elastic collisions. There would be no loss of energy due to entropy, because all of space-time as well as all energy (and mass) would bounce elastically, in most of the cyclical universe models.
That’s part of the whole point to the cyclical universe models: that either entropy does not necessarily increase with time, or perhaps during the era of the “big crunch”, time itself flows backwards, or perhaps the “big crunch” acts as a universal “reset” event. Each scenario is, at the moment, hypothetical.
In any case, the bounce will not lose any energy, because the universe is a closed system. Does Hugh understand what a “closed system” is? I didn’t think so. There’s no where for the energy to go.
Bzzzzzz, Hugh fails again! Time for some remedial physics.
Umm, Hugh, maybe you should read other astrophysicists essays other than just your own.
The jury is still out on this issue.
For an “open universe” scenario, another possibility is that through Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, there exists a highly improbable chance that a spontaneously created boson of enormous magnitude may (just may) initiate a new big bang event. Over the course of indeterminable amount of time. Long after our own universe has suffered total heat death, a googleplex-and-then-some years from now. That gets back to some sort of “steady-state” universe (or rather, an “unsteady-state” universe...tee-hee). Transitory periods of above-Planck energy levels for a few paltry trillions of years, and then back into the murmur of sub-Planck energy levels for indeterminable amount of time, over infinite space, and infinite time.
Just a thought.
I repeat: there is no energy lost in a closed system. The cyclical universe models all assume a closed universe. This is first year basic physics.
Hugh and company are misapplying the mechanics of friction and entropy to spatio-temporal mechanics. If the universe is closed, it would collapse in on itself with as much force as when it expanded.
That doesn’t mean that the universe is cyclical. The “big crunch” might be the universe’s swan song. Or it might establish a cyclical universe. In either case: the jury is still out, we don’t have enough concrete evidence to know which of the many plausible theories is on the right track.
Hugh cannot say, “I don’t know. They don’t know. Nobody, yet, knows.” Instead, he arbitrarily, without compelling empirical evidence, chooses the theory that he finds most compatible with his own personal, liberal interpretation of the Bible’s Genesis account.
The unification of General Relativity (GR) and Quantum Mechanics (QM) is one of the hot frontiers of physics. Because we currently do not have a good GR+QM model (aka Quantum Gravity (QG)) doesn’t mean that one doesn’t exist. It just highlights our ignorance.
Two front runners for QG are supersymmetry and string theory. Both are purely theoretical for the nonce, since substantiating either of them will require some better technology and bigger scientific tools built with mega-engineering techniques.
But that doesn’t make sypersymmetry or string theory inconsistent. Just unsubstantiated.
Crushed? That’s making a mountain out of a molehill. How can Linde make this determination, since science does not know how Quantum Gravity works? We have theories. One of which may be correct. Or more likely, one of which may be on the right track, but probably doesn’t have all the subtles correct. Yet.
This conclusion is based on General Relativity and Thermodynamics. It doesn’t take into account Quantum Mechanics, let alone Quantum Gravity. Bzzzzzzzz! Hugh lose again! Misleading and misrepresentative, like usual.
Now only if Hugh applied the same rigorous standard to the Bible without twisted, flawed logic, irrational justification, unreasonable rationalization, and liberal, forgiving metaphorical interpretation.
Hugh shows off his ignorance of other religions. “Cosmic reincarnation” is not an oscillating universe.
Hinduism is an ancient religion. Much like the multitudes of Christian denominations, there are a wide variety of Hindu sects. Hugh’s blanket statement about Hindu is misleading. He makes it sound like this is a core doctrinal tenet. It isn’t. And he misrepresents cosmic reincarnation, twisting it to mean something other than what it means in Hinduism.
Some Hindu sects of describe a universal rebirth, which when not looked at too closely seems a bit like oscillating universe models. But then again, Christianity describes a genesis event, which when not looked at too closely seems a bit like the big bang event.
Hindu theology does not necessarily correspond to history, truth, verity, reality. Exactly like how the Christian theology has no bearing on history, truth, verity, or reality. It’s theology.
Now Hugh is dismissing the excellent (and thick reading!) scientific tome of Gravitation, by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler. Because they included a passage from Hindu scripture, in all of its 1279 pages. The Gravitation book, and its many conjectures as to what preceeded the big bang, and what could follow a “big crunch&8221; was trying to illustrate the different possibilities. Hugh appears to be upset that they did not say God-of-the-Bible. There is no bias or prefernce as to which model the authors preferred. They repeatedly state that there is not enough information to draw a conclusion. Hugh is a shallow man, to dismiss the book Gravitation based on his personal untenable blind faith.
For the record, the Gravitation book listed the cosmological beliefs from Hindu (the offending passage, one paragraph), Plato, Aristotle, Eratosthenes, Avicenna, Brothers of Sincerity, al-Biruni, Tempier, Bacon, Cusanus, Copernicus, Digges, Bruno, Kepler, Galilei, Newton, Huygens, Halley, Wright, Kant, Lambert, Comte. Hugh only took issue with the inclusion of the Hindu cosmology, and dismisses the entire work (a tour de force) as a Hindu or Buddhist mockery.
The Hindu theological 4.32 billion years is short by more than one order of magnitude. Maybe by as much as one hundred orders of magnitude. But it does not matter.
Why is Hindu scripture of no import? It’s not science. It’s theology. And contrary to Hugh’s assertion, Misner, Thorne and Wheeler are not promoting Hinduism nor Buddhism in their collaborative book.
Why is the astrophysicists oscillating universe model interesting but not especially noteworthy? Because the jury is still out. It’s premature to endorse or discredit the cyclical universe models. Just as it’s premature to endorse the God-of-the-Bible created this one-and-only-one universe model.
Hugh’s assertion is unsubstantiated, the jury is still out. This question won’t be answered by abstract debate of what “must” be based on theological dogma. It will be answered only by research, data, facts, and testing the resulting hypotheses against new data and new facts. The scientific method.
Hugh would have us circumnavigate science by relying on untenable, blind faith. His blind faith in particular.
Chapter Nine — Science Discovers Time Before Time
[To do.]
Chapter Ten — A God Outside of Time, But Knowable
[To do.]
Chapter Eleven — A Brief Look at A Brief History of Time
[To do.]
Chapter Twelve — A Modern-Day Goliath
[To do.]
[I stopped reading here, so far. In my opinion... This book is a complete waste of time. A sad loss of trees to print these unabashed falsehoods. The spread of lies (even though heartfelt & sincere), through repetition to one’s self, and propagated to others such as associates and offspring, oft by reiteration and recitation by groups, is mendacity. Hugh is self-deluded. He proliferates his untenable blind faith. I think he wrote this book in part to himself. To mollify whatever remainder of critical thinking and inquisitive skepticism he has left.]
Chapter Thirteen — The Divine Watchmaker
Chapter Fourteen — A “Just Right” Universe
Chapter Fifteen — Earth: The Place for Life
Chapter Sixteen — Building Life
Chapter Seventeen — Extra-Dimensional Power
Chapter Eighteen — The Point