(1) Oops - not dark matter; (2) Required initial singularity implies creation of the universe by a causative power

Hey all - 2 quick ones.

(1) Nope. Not dark matter after all.

See: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20071020/fob5.asp
Science News, October 20, 2007, reports that the "maybe axion" sighting of last year appears likely to merely be a relic of equipment malfunction. The axion is a hypothetical subatomic particle that's been mentioned as a possible constituent of cosmic dark matter. Note your fearless blogger's earlier post mentioning that "dark matter" is not seen but only inferred by a supposed gravitational effect, and that in fact that the supposed gravitational effect may in fact be instead a property of space-time consistent with a creation-apologetic cosmology. See:
http://darwin-is-dead.blogspot.com/2007/10/creation-cosmology-god-did-it-is-lookin.html
Does this mean no dark matter exists? No, but it does mean that men of vision do not use tunnel vision. If your personal cosmology is limited only to the BB unbounded/no-center universe (axiomatic) boundary conditions, maybe you have tunnel vision.


(2) Singularity in inflationary model universes implies creation.

I just received an announcement from a friend about an event in Seattle tonight (October 30, 2007). This goes back to DU's recent posting about boundary conditions for cosmological models. I am passing it on to you without further comment but this:

ALL PRAISE TO THE CREATOR - GOD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH - WHOSE EVEN GREATER WORK IS THE SALVATION OF MANKIND HOPELESSLY LOST IN OUR OWN WILLFUL SIN AND PRIDEFUL REBELLION AGAINST JEHOVAH, THE ALMIGHTY KING OF THE UNIVERSE.

Here is the announcement:

Tuesday, October 30, 2007, 07:30 PM Seattle Pacific University in Falcon
Chesterton Society with Rober Spitzer on "The Virtual Inevitability Of a Singularity in Inflationary Model Universes: Implications for the Creation of the Universe"

Location: Lounge on the top floor of Royal Brougham Pavilion at the corner of W. Nickerson & 3rd Ave, Seattle. For links to a campus map and directions, please see the Events Calendar at:
www.seattlechesterton.org

Spitzer is the president of Gonzaga University and a trained physicist. He will speak about recent developments in cosmology.

Classical Big Bang theory was altered significantly by the prospect of universal inflation and a “pre-big-bang quantum cosmological or string condition.” Recent work by Borde, Vilenkin, and Guth shows that mathematical modeling of such universes requires an initial singularity, which in turn implies a creation of the universe by a causative power transcending space-time asymmetry. Fr. Spitzer will discuss the history of this remarkable development and its theological implications.

Fr. Spitzer has been involved in teaching about the intersection of physics, metaphysics, and faith for many years. He is co-founder and director of the Institute for Christian Philosophy and the Natural Sciences at Gonzaga University, and co-organizes an annual lecture series entitled Physics and the God of Abraham. Fr. Spitzer is also founder of the Philosophical Foundations of Physics institute at Georgetown university: a group of physicists, chemists, ongoing discussion of underlying conditions of space, time and energy from physical and philosophical perspectives.


Respectfully passed on to friends of Jehovah God, praying that we all may be friends of God through our last breath and beyond.

D.U.

P.S. Doubters of God - read the Bible, Revelation chapter 20. You will find out that in the end, God wins, satan loses. Do you want to go with the winner or the loser? No mulligans and no excuses later (Romans chapter 1, also in the Bible).

"For the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name" (newspapers and cartoonists included?)

Again, no Darwin today. Today we will deal with a higher order of things. Instead of questions of the deluded dead deluder, we address questions of

The Living God!

In what method and manner do we speak of God?

If "god" is just like a friendly old grandfather, maybe it is OK what we call him as long as we call him for dinner. But if "God" is Creator-Sustainer-Savior-FinalJudge, then maybe protocol would suggest a tad more reverence. It takes about 15 minutes of reading most anywhere in the Old Testament to remove any wisps of uncertainty about the issue.

In particular, the Ten Commandments, still posted in a few places in these United States, have Article Four as follows: "You shall not misuse the name of Jehovah your God, for Jehovah will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name." (Exodus 20:7, "Jehovah" from YHWH)

For all you faithful Darwin-is-Dead blog-followers out there, you may recall the discussion about the publication in The Oregonian of a cartoon which uses the name of God in a non-reverent way:

http://darwin-is-dead.blogspot.com/2007/05/thou-shalt-not-take-name-of-lord-thy.html

That was round two. Here is round 3.a.

10/16/07 12:58 PM.

To : Editor, Oregonian

Your cartoon ZITS has done it again - using the offensive expression "O My Gawd" in a comic strip. This continues to be a violation of the fourth of the ten commandments. I have written to you twice before about this matter, and the person you assigned to reply to me last time seems to think it is a casual matter of common vernacular.

It is not merely a matter of casual common vernacular.

Please ask your ZITS writers to cease and desist, or please cease their (very clever) cartoon. It is time for the Oregonian to show some social responsibility. And would you please pass on the concern to the strip's very clever and entertaining writers. From your silence, I think the Oregonian declined to do so last time.

And here is Round 3.b, the Oregonian reply:

10/16/07, Peter Bhatia <pbhatia@news.oregonian.com> wrote:
Thanks for your e-mail. I will forward it to the comics syndicate that manages "Zits." With all respect, and this is just my personal view, that phrase has become very commonplace. I don't think most people would find it offensive. Regards, Peter Bhatia, Executive Editor

So, there you have it. Anyone else care to weigh in on this?

And by the way, anyone interested in etymology of words may also ponder etymology of phrases. In particular, the phrase "with all respect" likely began with substance but now appears trite - or even disdainful.

Respectfully submitted,

D.U.

Creation Cosmology - "God did it" is lookin' good!

INTRODUCTION:

Today's blurb is motivated by two recent conversations.



In one, a bright PhD Intel engineer who has become a Christian told me he thought creationists resort to a "God of the gaps" theology. That is, whenever something is not understood, creationists merely say "Well, God did it so we don't have to look for a reason or a mechanism." I did not reply to him since I did not have time to engage and was not sure if he wished to engage in any discussion. He seemed pretty sure. But I hope for a chance one day to tell him that exactly the opposite is true. The overwhelming majority of the founders of modern science were believers in God who were motivated in their work to "think God's thoughts after Him" to the glory of God. Someday I hope for that conversation, since he seems to me to be a really good guy.



The second conversation was a few weeks ago with a young woman beginning her graduate study in physics in a US university. On a group hike to the Cascade mountains just after school began, she told me she had studied astronomy and cosmology in her home country. I asked her if she understood the boundary conditions used in the Big Bang theory and she did not quite seem to understand that the BB BC's are axiomatic, that is, unprovable. When I asked her what she learned in her study, she mentioned a few things including "dark matter." When I asked her if she was sure dark matter existed, she looked at me like I had just fallen off a turnip truck. She was absolutely sure dark matter existed because "even though you can not see it, you can see its gravitational effect."

SOME BACKGROUND

Now on to the creationist cosmology.

I had the great privilege to attend the 3rd International Conference on Creationism in Pittsburgh, PA, in 1994. I was quite stunned by two papers given by Dr. Russ Humphreys providing a creationist cosmology. The first paper was a thorough look at scripture (the Bible) to see what the Bible's creation account may suggest for cosmology. I think you can find that stuff in his book "Starlight and Time." His conclusion? Scripture seems to strongly suggest that the universe is bounded, and it is likely the earth is at the approximate center of the universe (note - this is NOT a geocentric solar system notion). This is exactly contrary to the commonly used (axiomatic) boundary conditiions of "Big Bang" cosmologies, which assume the universe is unbounded and that there is no special place in the universe, hence no center. Humphrey's second paper detailed a cosmology solving the General Relativity equations using his Biblically-derived boundary conditions, and came up with a cosmlogy which can perhaps reconcile Bible time scales (thousands of years) with astronomical observations (which suggest millions and billions of years under the "Big Bang" hypothesis). The key? A phenomenon called "gravitational time dilation." In General Relativity, large nearby mass will cause clocks to run at different rates due to the effect of gravitation. The Big Bang assumptions (no special place in space => relative homogeneity of matter distributed in space) provide no such major effect for clocks.


Oh, and one more thing. Humphreys pointed out that there are many (I think he said 16, I have found about that many but not tried to count them) scriptures that say that God "stretched out the heavens." Thus, scripture has been saying for at least 2700 years that the universe is expanding or has expanded. Modern physics and astronomy have come to this concludion only in the last 100 years.

Here is one Bible quote among many. And the great thing about it is that God is speaking about the coming of Christ 700 years later. In doing so, He first identifies Himself by the might of His creative acts (an introductory curriculum vitae so to speak), not only in the stretching of the heavens, but in the spreading of the earth (plate tectonics) as well:

"This is what God Jehovah says - He who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it: 'I, Jehovah, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. I am Jehovah; that is My name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.' " Isaiah 42:5-9.

Is that cool or what? God first identified his past work (creation and stretching of the heavens plus spreading of the continents) in order to validate the new covenant that will come later in Jesus to free both Jews and non-Jews from spiritual darkness and bondage.

God has identified Himself clearly. Wise men will take heed.



STUFF WE SEE NOW: "God did it" is looking better all the time.


Here are some links with some excerpts. Enjoy.


(1) Anomalies in the Pioneer spacecraft trajectory are explained by creationist cosmology but not by Big Bang:


http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/5181/

"A broad class of creationist cosmologies offer an explanation for the ‘Pioneer effect’, an apparent small Sunward anomalous acceleration of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft. …Thus the Pioneer effect supports the essentials of several creationist cosmologies: a centre of mass, expansion of space and recent time dilation. Big bang theorists, whose cosmology does not have a centre of mass, cannot use this explanation. As yet, they have no alternative theory upon which they agree."


(2) Quantized redshifts are strong evidence that the earth is indeed somewhere near the center of the universe (yes, we have a center and we are there):


http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1570

"Over the last few decades, new evidence has surfaced that restores man to a central place in God’s universe. Astronomers have confirmed that numerical values of galaxy redshifts are ‘quantized’, tending to fall into distinct groups. According to Hubble’s law, redshifts are proportional to the distances of the galaxies from us. Then it would be the distances themselves that fall into groups. That would mean the galaxies tend to be grouped into (conceptual) spherical shells concentric around our home galaxy, the Milky Way. The shells turn out to be on the order of a million light years apart. The groups of redshifts would be distinct from each other only if our viewing location is less than a million light years from the centre. The odds for the Earth having such a unique position in the cosmos by accident are less than one in a trillion. Since big bang theorists presuppose the cosmos has naturalistic origins and cannot have a unique centre, they have sought other explanations, without notable success so far. Thus, redshift quantization is evidence (1) against the big bang theory, and (2) for a galactocentric cosmology, such as one by Robert Gentry or the one in my book, Starlight and Time."


(3) A geocentric cosmology (supported by item 2 above) may suggest no need for dark matter:


http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4625

"Using the centro-symmetric cosmology of Moshe Carmeli, it is shown that there is no need to assume the existence of dark matter to explain dynamics of galaxies in the cosmos. Further, it is shown that in this cosmology the cosmological constant or dark energy is a property of space-time. This can be interpreted in a creationist cosmology as the power of the Lord giving a boost to the expansion of the fabric of space as He stretched it out. He is the unseen force in the universe. By the correct choice of field equations, the motions of the galaxies are described without the need to resort to exotic particles. This description fits a finite galactocentric universe, and is consistent with a creationist cosmology."

So, does all this stuff mean that all the questions are answered? No, far from it. But when folks dream up unobserved stuff like "dark matter" and the Oort Cloud (supposed source of comets), they might hit it right every now and then, but it is really skating on thin ice.

From what I know of the unquestioned integrity of the Bible, the creationist scientists have a great shot at getting it right by starting at the right place: the historical report of creation provided by God Himself in Genesis in the Bible.


Respectfully submitted,


D.U.

For the esteemed Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly: What part of observable, repeatable, and falsifiable do you not understand?

Got to make this one quick - as usual I am just trying to sneak this in between crises.

Seems like the shrill cries of the factophobic and ardent evolutionists have become so loud that now out here on the west coast USA we can hear hear the cries and groans emanating even from ... EUROPE?

Just got email from a friend in NW USA alerting to a new document moving its way through the Council of Europe. Seems like they fear the sky is falling as the poison of American creationism spreads to the shores of the motherland.

Here is the link to the document:

http://assembly.coe.int/main.asp?Link=/documents/workingdocs/doc07/edoc11375.htm

Here is the beginning text of the document:

Summary
Creationism in any of its forms, such as “intelligent design”, is not based on facts, does not use any scientific reasoning and its contents are definitely inappropriate for science classes.
However, some people call for creationist theories to be taught in European schools alongside or even in place of the theory of evolution. From a scientific view point, there is absolutely no doubt that evolution is a central theory for our understanding of life on Earth.
The Assembly calls on education authorities in member states to promote scientific knowledge and the teaching of evolution and to oppose firmly any attempts at teaching creationism as a scientific discipline.
A. Draft resolution
1. For some people the Creation, as a matter of religious belief, gives a meaning to life. Nevertheless, the Parliamentary Assembly is worried about the possible ill-effects of the spread of creationist ideas within our education systems and about the consequences for our democracies. If we are not careful, creationism could become a threat to human rights which are a key concern of the Council of Europe.
2. Creationism, born of the denial of the evolution of species through natural selection, was for a long time an almost exclusively American phenomenon. Today creationist ideas are tending to find their way into Europe and their spread is affecting quite a few Council of Europe member states.

... and on it goes.

The document has many claims of the superiority of evolution and the inability of creation to scientifically explain natural phenomena. In my view, however, these are all more than adequately covered in extant creationist literature and resources ... like the links offered at the opening page of this blog.

So I am not going to repeat all the stuff. No need. It is all done. Many have been there, done that. To the objective and fair observer, creation is a done deal, no question, even though many wonderful questions of detail remain.

So your job, dear reader, is now to look at the information yourself. First, empty your heart of self-serving pride. Then pray to the God of all creation that He will grant you wisdom to understand His world. Then go for it with a sense of wonder and awe.

For the God we must all eventually meet is wonderful - a God of awe.

Respectfully submitted,

D.U.