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On another note, does anybody know the name of that mathematician (was very famous, oh and it wasn't Fibonnaci) who once described the probability of life on earth forming the way it has, as about as much chance of going into your garage, throwing the tools around and a car appearing?
WayneL said:Just a thought though, belief in "black holes" and "dark matter" requires belief in something nobody can see. Their existence is hypothesized, based on behaviour of other heavenly bodies.
you might be thinking of the Drake Equation
its just the gaps in our knowledge thing. the strength of science is that it needs to be challenged, tested, proved or disproved
it's a really exciting time at the moment and you can see the level of our technological development has gone parabolic (along with population, resource depletion, pollution, extinction etc).
That's a bit skewed and not really the point.its just the gaps in our knowledge thing. the strength of science is that it needs to be challenged, tested, proved or disproved, that is a far more robust intellectual model than "listen to the guy in the white pointy hat because his 2000 year old book says so". science doesn't require "belief", it requires "proof". hypothesis is only a stepping stone to fact.
it's a really exciting time at the moment and you can see the level of our technological development has gone parabolic (along with population, resource depletion, pollution, extinction etc).
In his 1983 book The Intelligent Universe, astronomer Fred Hoyle wrote the following infamous passage:
"A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe." (p.19)
Though Hoyle actually intended this as an argument against abiogenesis, the creationists have since assimilated it and used it against evolution
In creationist literature, this argument has mutated into a diversity of forms: setting off an explosion in a print shop to produce a dictionary, disassembling a watch and shaking up the pieces in a box to reassemble it, and so on, building a bicycle by applying a blowtorch to a pile of bicycle parts, and so on. No matter what form the analogy takes, however, creationists have promoted it as a common-sense proof of the impossibility of evolution producing complex, highly ordered forms. There is even a creationist book titled Tornado in a Junkyard.
This essay will show that this analogy is not an accurate representation of how evolution (or, for that matter, abiogenesis) works. In fact, it is a straw man, a ridiculous caricature that bears no resemblance to what the theory actually says... etc
a) It operates purely according to random chance.
b) It is an example of single-step, rather than cumulative, selection.
c) It is a saltationary jump - an end product entirely unlike the beginning product.
d) It has a target specified ahead of time. ....
a) The first point is the most important. The tornado in the junkyard is an example of an intricate, complex and highly organized form being produced by nothing more than random chance. But evolution is not chance... Rather, it operates according to a fixed law - the law of natural selection - which favors some assemblages over others; it preferentially selects for those adaptations which improve fitness and selects against those that do not. The tornado, by contrast, slams parts together and tears them apart with no preference whatsoever, thus completely failing to represent natural selection, the central force which drives evolution. To more accurately represent evolution, one would have to grant the tornado some power to recognize assemblages of parts which could serve as part of a 747 and prevent it from tearing them apart.
b) Second, the tornado analogy is an example of single-step selection - in one step, it goes from a random pile of parts to a fully assembled airliner. This is completely unlike evolution, which operates according to a process of cumulative selection - complex results that are built up gradually, in a repetitive process guided at each step by selective forces. To more accurately represent evolution, the tornado could be sent through the junkyard not once, but thousands or millions of times, at each step preserving chance assemblages of parts that could make up a jumbo jet.
c) Third, in relation to the point above, the tornado in the junkyard is an example of saltation - a sudden leap in which the end product is completely different from the beginning product. Evolution does not work this way; birds do not hatch out of dinosaur eggs and monkeys do not give birth to humans. Rather, species grow different over time through a process of slow change in which each new creature is only slightly different from its ancestor. Evolution forms a gradually shading continuum ....
.d) Finally, the tornado analogy fails to represent evolution in one more significant way: it has a target specified ahead of time. Evolution does not. Natural selection is not a forward-looking process; it cannot select for what may become useful in the future, only what is immediately useful in the present. To more accurately represent evolution, we might add the additional stipulation that the tornado be allowed to assemble, not just a jumbo jet, but any functional piece of machinery
what about life?
under very general cosmic conditions, the molecules of life are readily made…they spontaneously self-assemble
It is conceivable that there might be some impediment – like some difficulty in the origin of the generic code say
although I think that’s very unlikely, given the billions of years of evolution,
On the Earth, life arose very fast after the planet was formed. etc
Let’s say 50% of these planets will develop life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
The Drake equation states that:
where:
N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
and
R* is the average rate of star formation in our galaxy
fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne is the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc is the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
Considerable disagreement on the values of most of these parameters exists, but the values used by Drake and his colleagues in 1961 were:
• R* = 10/year (10 stars formed per year, on the average over the life of the galaxy)
• fp = 0.5 (half of all stars formed will have planets)
• ne = 2 (stars with planets will have 2 planets capable of supporting life) = 2
• fl = 1 (100% of these planets will develop life) =
• fi = 0.01 (1% of which will be intelligent life)
• fc = 0.01 (1% of which will be able to communicate)
• L = 10,000 years (which will last 10,000 years)
Drake's values give N = 10 × 0.5 × 2 × 1 × 0.01 × 0.01 × 10,000 = 10. civilisations out there ready to communicate with us
Sagan arrives at the same answer , albeit with different assumptions …..…
• N* = the number of stars in the galaxy now = 400E9= 400 billion in the milky way
• fp = 0.25 (a quarter of all stars formed will have planets)
• ne = 2 (stars with planets will have 2 planets capable of supporting life)
o 200 billion suitable for life
• fl = 0.5 (50% of these planets will develop life) =
o 100 billion inhabited worlds
• fi = 0.1 (10% of which will be intelligent life)
• fc = 0.1 (10% of which will be able to communicate)
o 1 billion planets planets had had a technical civilisation
• fL = a few decades divided by a few billion years
o 1/100,000,000 years
giving (again) 10 civilizations in the galaxy capable of communication, today, now.
The reason for human existance is to learn how life first came about.Once this is discovered then the game is over.The puzzle solved.The charlatans laid to rest.The imposters exposed.A mystery that taunts and teases mankind, causing wars, insanity, cruelty and destruction has an answer to be known.And so it shall be.
Wysiwyg 3:35-42
.
It's a human trait to fervently and militantly align themselves with some belief or cause, whether or not based on actual fact.
The response has been to add mysterious, unseeable and unprovable "forces" to make it work.
That appears the case with 'dark matter', not to mention 'worm holes'.
However, aren't black holes actually seen? Matter circling around, being sucked into them? Not to mention light............
That appears the case with 'dark matter', not to mention 'worm holes'.
............
This particle (or combination) emerges naturally out of supersymmetry
Specifically, what parts ot the big bang theory do not work?* Some science is not about gaps in knowledge to be proved or disproved. Astronomical science being a great case in point. Some parts of the big bang theory have been added specifically because the theory doesn't work. It has effectively been disproven. The response has been to add mysterious, unseeable and unprovable "forces" to make it work.
That's OK, providing it's status remains as hypothesis, rather than theory. But in fact, it is taught more as fact.
Much science can take on aspects of religious belief. Climate science is another one that come to mind. Dissenters are regarded by the high priests of the IPCC and their disciples as heretical. Trying to discuss the matter with AGW adherent is exactly like trying to discuss the origins of the universe with an evangelical Christian.
Electric Universe hypothesis on the other hand, is almost totally based on faith.
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