tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15803789129720652312024-03-14T01:14:31.492-05:00Dr Michael G StraussExperimental particle physicist Dr Michael G Strauss discusses the relationship between science, God, Christianity, and reason.Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-73219452752702053142021-03-21T15:42:00.000-05:002021-03-21T15:42:27.422-05:00Scientific Theories and Laws<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iEDFw7YgJTA/YDJ-ixse8aI/AAAAAAAAAuc/K_3-DevPHrcW4voZH0TUR-IVpjHL3_dHACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/ScienceMethod.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iEDFw7YgJTA/YDJ-ixse8aI/AAAAAAAAAuc/K_3-DevPHrcW4voZH0TUR-IVpjHL3_dHACLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h200/ScienceMethod.png" width="200" /></a></div>Some of my Christian brothers and sisters are skeptical of certain scientific theories that they believe somehow challenge the authority or veracity of the Bible. In my <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2021/02/the-strong-force-and-colossians-117.html" target="_blank">previous blog post</a>, I quoted one Christian writer who doubted the scientific theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory that describes the strong force that holds quarks together in neutrons and protons and ultimately holds the nucleus together. I stated that "QCD is a complex and tested mathematical theory that describes the strong nuclear force, or simply the strong force" and further remarked that my defense of QCD brings up an additional question of "What do scientists mean when they say that a theory is correct, or accurately describes a phenomena?" I will address questions of this type in this blog post.</div></div><div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>First, it is important to understand what is meant in modern scientific vernacular by the word "theory." In a high school science class you may have been taught that a scientific idea goes through different phases, something like this: "Scientists begin with a <i>hypothesis</i>, which is sort of a guess of what might happen. When the scientists investigate the hypothesis, they follow a line of reasoning and eventually formulate a <i>theory</i>. Once a theory has been tested thoroughly and is accepted, it becomes a <i>scientific law</i>."<sup>1</sup> This idea that a theory is not as well tested as a law is completely false in today's scientific language. Before the 20th century, the sentence above was, to some extent, approximately true. Scientific principles that seemed to describe nature in many circumstances were called laws, and thus we have Newton's laws, Ohm's law, and Hooke's law. But by the 20th century scientists realized that we could never say that something is an absolute unbreakable scientific law because if we were to find a single case that violated the principle it would not be universally true. Consequently, scientific ideas that have been developed since about the beginning of the 20th century are not called "laws" even if they have been meticulously tested and show no indication of having any violations whatsoever. They are still called theories.</div><div><br /></div><div>For instance, all of the above laws, Newton's, Ohm's, and Hooke's, are known to only work in some circumstances and even then, only approximately. Ohm's law and Hooke's law are actually crude approximations that have limited applicability. In contrast, Einstein's <i>Theory</i> of Special Relativity is a principle that seems to be applicable under all circumstances and shows no indication of any violations. But because it was developed in the 20th century we do not call it Einstein's Law of Special Relativity. It remains a "theory" though it seems to be universally true. So a theory, in modern scientific language, is not an idea that doesn't have enough evidence to be promoted to a law. It is often a well developed mathematical principle that has been thoroughly tested and shown to be true in every known circumstance, what scientists in the 19th century would have probably called a "law."</div><div><br /></div><div>(As an aside, let me caution my Christian friends who do not believe that the theory of evolution has enough scientific evidence to affirm its veracity, to never try to discredit evolution by saying something like, "It's only a theory." The person making such a statement is exposed as being scientifically illiterate and not understanding the modern usage of the word "theory." One can discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the current model of evolution, but one of its weaknesses is not that it's only a theory. Some of the most tested and proven ideas in modern science are only "theories.")</div><div><br /></div><div>In physics, for an idea to gain credibility as a valid model it must first be presented in a mathematical form. (Note that I'm using theory, model, and even law interchangeably as most scientists I know would.) Mathematics is the language of the universe and for an idea to be tested it must make quantitative and qualitative predictions based on the mathematical formulation of the model. The mathematics will usually have a well-defined physical meaning and, therefore, make well-defined predictions as to what we should see in our experiments. If the experimental results agree with the mathematical predictions, the model is confirmed to a point. If the results disagree, the model is either discarded or refined. (This is all a very simplistic picture of the very hard and precise work required to make and test mathematical models.) Ideally, the model will make more and more precise predictions that are tested more and more accurately, giving the model more and more credibility. There is an interplay between the experiments and the theory. Experimental results help revise the theory to make it more accurate, and theoretical predictions may drive the types of experiments done to test the model. Eventually, the model is so well tested that we incorporate the model into our picture of reality. QCD is such a well-tested model.</div><div><br /></div><div>The physical picture of reality is a little more complicated than the mathematical picture of reality as described in the previous paragraph. As an example, you will find that the Wikipedia entry on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_me" target="_blank">Quantum Mechanics</a> (the mathematical formulation) is not much longer than the Wikipedia entry on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics" target="_blank">Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics</a> (the physical reality implied by the mathematics). There are certain aspects of the mathematical theory that have a single physical reality interpretation, but there are other aspects of the mathematics that are more ambiguous in their interpretation, particularly those that cannot be directly measured or observed. </div><div><br /></div><div>Within the theory of QCD there are mathematical terms that must be interpreted as entities, or particles, that make up the proton and neutron (quarks) and other particles that bind the quarks together (gluons). The mathematics of QCD makes many precise predictions that have been rigorously tested in experiments for about 40 years now. The results of the experiments agree with the predictions of the theory. Given the literally hundreds and hundreds of experiments that have been done to test QCD, it is really sad that any person, much less a Christian who should be focused on promoting truth since we serve a God of truth, would ever make a statement like, "Science can’t explain the forces that hold an atomic nucleus together."<sup>2</sup> </div><div><br /></div><div><div>When we say that science has explained a phenomena we mean that the mathematical theory accurately predicts and describes the experimental data and observations within the limits of experimental and theoretical uncertainties. However, there is always a limit to our level of understanding. Just like a response to the child who continually asks, "Why?" the scientists eventually come to the point where we must say, "We don't know." Let's play the game. </div><div><br /></div><div>Child: "Why do positively charged protons stay together in the nucleus rather than fly apart since like charges repel?"</div><div>Scientist: "Because the strong attractive force is more powerful at short distances than the electromagnetic force."<br />Child: "Why?"</div><div>Scientist: "Because the electromagnetic force is carried by photons and the strong force is carried by gluons and the coupling strength, which is the strength of the reaction between two objects, is stronger between quarks and gluons than between quarks and photons.</div><div>Child: "Why?"</div><div>Scientist: "We don't know. Right now the coupling strength is an arbitrary parameter of the model."</div><div>(But here the scientist continues on with more speculative, but very cool, ideas.)</div><div>Scientist: "We think that maybe an underlying more fundamental theory, like string theory, might explain those coupling strengths."</div><div>Child: "Why?"</div><div>Scientist: "Because string theory holds a lot of promise including the possibility of reconciling General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics."</div><div>Child: "Why?"</div><div>Scientist (who wants to get back to his research): "Because I said so."</div><div><br /></div></div><div>Suppose the child were to ask something like, "Is it possible that there is another theory that also explains all of the observations and experiments that would give a different picture of our physical reality?" (This is a very bright, inquisitive, and thoughtful child.) The answer is always, "Yes." If another different mathematical model also explains all the observations and experiments, that model would also vie for the position of being an accurate description of our physical universe. Eventually, we would try to find some instance in which the two models make different predictions, then do an experiment to differentiate which model is correct. One of the great triumphs of the scientific method is that our experiments and observations of reality shape what we believe. Models can be falsified if they do not accurately describe the data. </div><div><br /></div><div>Albert Einstein said, "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility … The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle,"<sup>3</sup> which is sometimes paraphrased as “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” If philosophical naturalism is correct, that the natural world is all there is, then there should be no reason for any rationality in the natural world. Why should a random, purposeless, accidental universe be described by mathematical models that can be tested and understood by humans? Mathematical models that describe our universe seem to imply a designer behind the whole thing and minds that can comprehend the universe seem to imply some kind of mind behind it. After all, the atoms my brain is made of are incapable of abstract comprehension or assigning meaning to mathematics. Such an implication, that the extreme design in the universe and that our comprehension of it implies an intelligent transcendent designer and creator has been recognized by many scientists and philosophers, including one scientist who may have had even more of in impact on the development of modern science than Einstein. Isaac Newton said, "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."<sup>4</sup> It is very reasonable to conclude that a rational mind is responsible for a rational universe and for our minds that can comprehend it. It's very cool for me to be able to study and confirm this masterful design, including QCD, the force that scientists know holds the atomic nucleus together.</div><div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>1</sup>From https://my.nsta.org/resource/5560/science-101-how-does-a-scientific-theory-become-a-scientific-law as an example of a progression that is <i>not </i>actually true.</span></div></div></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><sup>2</sup>Heitzig, Skip, (2020, December) "Jesus the Eternal Son of God," Decision. </span><span>https://decisionmagazine.com/skip-heitzig-jesus-the-eternal-son-of-god/</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><sup>3</sup><i>Journal of the Franklin Institute</i> (1936).</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><sup>4</sup>Isaac Newton, <i>The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.</i></span></span></div>Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-41593981222901186152021-02-13T14:52:00.007-06:002021-03-30T07:34:19.255-05:00The Strong Force and Colossians 1:17<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EMhIYA7kMSY/YCgMMX2Oh7I/AAAAAAAAAts/DY3WjqODVH0j2y4h5jn9iL9K4PMAhbTTgCLcBGAsYHQ/s512/JesusHands.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="512" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EMhIYA7kMSY/YCgMMX2Oh7I/AAAAAAAAAts/DY3WjqODVH0j2y4h5jn9iL9K4PMAhbTTgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/JesusHands.png" width="320" /></a></div>When I was in elementary school I went to <a href="https://www.cedarlakecamp.org/" target="_blank">Cedar Lake Camp</a> in north-central Tennessee every summer. It was an awesome experience where I learned to handle a canoe, shoot rifles and bows, play tennis, do woodworking, and many more things. Maybe the best part was that I could buy chocolate soda for a dime. Cedar Lake was a Christian camp where Christian principles from the Bible were discussed. I vividly remember one lesson that was given by my camp counselor because it had to do with science and I was interested in science even as a kid. The counselor stated that the nucleus of an atom is made of neutrons and protons. He further explained that the protons all had a positive electric charge and that electric charges with the same sign repelled each other. He reasoned that because all the positive protons in the nucleus repelled each other the nucleus should be unstable, flying apart due to this strong repulsive force. But the nucleus doesn't do that. It doesn't fly apart. He claimed there was no explanation for this stable nucleus except the explanation given in the New Testament in Colossians 1:17 where the Apostle Paul writes, "He [Jesus] is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (NIV). The mystery of why the nucleus doesn't fly apart was solved: Jesus held it together. The counselor seemed to be implying that the laws of physics could not explain the stability of the nucleus but that Jesus supernaturally held the nucleus together.<p></p><p>This counselor is not the only one who has interpreted Colossians 1:17 in this manner. I get more emails and letters from people asking me about this verse in the Bible than any other verse. One reader recently quoted an article in an issue of <i>Decision</i> magazine that said, "Science can’t explain the forces that hold an atomic nucleus together—the protons and neutrons should repel each other but don’t. ...Physicists for years have toyed with the quantum chromodynamics theory, the notion that particles are bound with a sort of atomic glue. Jesus Christ is the real powder behind gravity, centrifugal and centripetal force."<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">1</span></sup> </p><p>It is ironic that I remember that incident from my childhood and now as an adult I have spent over 25 years studying the structure of the proton—what it is made of and what holds it together, including how protons are held together in the nucleus. Part of the irony is that I don't know of any conscious connection between what I heard at camp and the later decisions I made in life to become a particle physicist. The latter was simply a result of following my scientific interests.</p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>So let me affirm that physicists have not simply "toyed with the quantum chromodynamics theory." Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is a complex and tested mathematical theory that describes the strong nuclear force, or simply the strong force. This is the force that binds together the constituent particles that make up the proton, called quarks. Additionally, a "residual" QCD force is responsible for binding the protons and neutrons together in the nucleus. The attractive strong force is more powerful at short distances than the repulsive electromagnetic force and the nucleus is cohesively bound. This is not a theory that is simply postulated or toyed with. It is a theory that has been tested over and over again and has been shown to be the correct theory of nuclear and nucleon<sup>2</sup> binding.<span></span><p></p><p><span></span>When I affirm that QCD accurately describes how the neutrons and protons are bound together in the nucleus, that brings up at least two questions in my mind. The first is, "What do scientists mean when they say that a theory is correct, or accurately describes a phenomena?" and the second is, "What does Colossians mean when it states that Jesus holds all things together?" The first is a scientific, or at least a philosophy of science question, and the second is more of a theological question. I'll discuss the second question in the rest of this blog post and then discuss the first question in my next blog post.</p><p>How does Jesus hold all things together as Colossians says he does? Does he do it supernaturally apart from the laws of physics as my camp counselor and the writer in <i>Decision</i> magazine seem to imply? I don't know the definitive answer but I think there are two viable options which are not mutually exclusive, neither of which asserts that he holds the nucleus together supernaturally.</p><p>The first option is that this verse simply means that Jesus holds all things together at the atomic level in the same way he works in nature, in general. As I mentioned in one of the first blog posts I ever wrote, <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2017/03/looking-for-god-in-nature.html" target="_blank">which can be read here</a>, the Bible indicates that the usual way we see God in nature is through the fact that nature is so well designed and works so well. As an example of this consider one of the most famous verses in the Bible on the subject of seeing God's hand in nature. Psalm 19:1 says, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands" (NIV)." If the reader wants to know <i>how</i> the heavens declare God's glory and the skies show his work, the reasons are described further in the Psalm where verses 5 and 6 state, "In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heaven and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth" (NIV). God's glory is declared in the heavens, not through some supernatural occurrence or act, but through the everyday mundane motion of the sun and its life-giving effect on humans. This passage, and many many more, show how God is seen in nature. He is seen because the natural world works so beautifully, and because it works in a way that provides what is necessary for life. I believe this is the most likely meaning of Colossians 1:17, that Jesus holds things together in the same way he usually works in nature, through the amazingly designed and implemented principles within nature that provide what is needed for life to exist.</p><p>There is another option for the meaning of Colossians 1:17 that is more philosophical or theological. That is, in a metaphysical way Jesus holds everything together. He is the first and the last, the alpha and omega. He is before all things and created all things. He is the thread that binds the history of the universe together. Access to God the Father comes through him alone. Without Jesus there is no universe and there is no ultimate meaning and purpose in the universe. Without him nothing holds together; it all falls apart. This second option is, of course, completely compatible with the first and the two likely co-exist.</p><p>My understanding of Colossians 1:17 elicits a hypothetical question that I have asked a few theologians and Christian scientists alike, "If God were to remove his presence from this universe, would it continue to operate as it does or would it fall apart." In other words, "Is God's active presence required to sustain this physical universe?" The majority of those that I have asked believe that if God were to leave the universe it would cease to operate correctly or cease to exist altogether. They believe that God's active presence is required to sustain the universe. I believe the opposite. If God were to remove himself from this universe, (which is clearly hypothetical since God is omnipresent), I believe the physical universe would continue to operate just as it does. I don't have a compelling biblical reason for this belief, but it is based on my understanding of both God and of the universe. Any really good designer and builder of anything, whether it is an automobile, a computer program, or a building, should be able to walk away from their creation and if it is well designed and built, it should be able to continue operating just fine. In fact, a car that is constantly in the shop or a computer program that continually crashes is often an indication that the design or construction is quite flawed. I believe that God is the ultimate designer and builder, able to create something that has no flaws. I believe he created a physical universe that truly does declare his glory and power in that it works so well and is so well designed that if he were to leave the universe it would continue to operate like a finely crafted watch. </p>Such a view of God and his creation may invoke the idea of a deistic god who created the universe then has left it to run on its own. In no way do I believe the one true God has done that. As the Bible indicates, and as I have experienced in my own life, God is a personal being who is actively involved with the human creatures in this universe. He is the creator of all life and cares about each individual human. He wants to have a personal relationship with each one and chooses to reveal himself to us and to be involved in our lives. He provides ultimate purpose and meaning in life. He performs miracles and sovereignly guides history. He is also the one who created the strong force which holds the nucleus together. More on that in <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2021/03/scientific-theories-and-laws.html" target="_blank">my next blog pos</a>t. <p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>1</sup>Heitzig, Skip, (2020, December) "Jesus the Eternal Son of God," <i>Decision.</i> https://decisionmagazine.com/skip-heitzig-jesus-the-eternal-son-of-god/ <br />
<sup>2</sup>Nucleon is a word that means both protons and neutrons, the two particles that make up the nucleus of atoms.</span></p>Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-26640210009530621952021-01-16T15:04:00.005-06:002021-01-17T13:35:20.118-06:00The Gospels, Historians, and Presuppositions<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vcthqNJny6E/YANFRhba8OI/AAAAAAAAAsc/lStPcE2437EuS8pWe01UFMKqeMTwm-6rgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/Jerusalem.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="637" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vcthqNJny6E/YANFRhba8OI/AAAAAAAAAsc/lStPcE2437EuS8pWe01UFMKqeMTwm-6rgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Jerusalem.png" width="320" /></a></div>A number of times I have been asked if I would be willing to accept the consensus of the "majority of historians" when it comes to various conclusions about the biblical gospels, including the time of their writing and their claims about the miracles of Jesus. On the surface, this seems like a reasonable request. After all, aren't historians the experts when it comes to understanding history? Shouldn't we accept their conclusions?<p></p><p>When it comes to most subjects of science, I accept the consensus of the majority of scientists. As a scientist myself, I am well aware that the scientific method provides a reliable method for determining the truth about nature. For instance, it is clear from the evidence that the climate on the earth is changing and becoming overall warmer. There are disagreements about the extent to which this is occurring and the role that human activity has contributed to climate change, but the evidence that the climate is changing and warming is strong, accepted by the majority of climate scientists, and accepted by me as a scientist.</p><p>Both scientists and historians have ground rules on which the practice of their discipline is based. One of the ground rules that most historians hold to is that miracles cannot be affirmed as historical events. In the lecture series "The Historical Jesus," the historian Bart Ehrman states, "Because historians can only establish what probably happened, and a miracle of this nature is highly improbable, the historian cannot say it probably occurred."<sup>1</sup> In a debate with William Lane Craig in 2006, Ehrman said, "Historians cannot establish [a] miracle as the most probable occurrence because miracles, by their very nature are the least probable occurrence."<sup>2</sup> </p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>If a ground rule, or presupposition, of a discipline like history precludes a certain conclusion, then by definition, the majority of those practicing the discipline cannot come to that conclusion. This presents a real problem if a miracle did actually occur in history. For if a miracle occurred in the past, the majority of historians still would not decide that a miracle transpired because the ground rules of their discipline <b><i>require</i></b> that they cannot confirm a miracle.<p></p><p>Suppose in science, I had a ground rule that subatomic particles could not pass through an energy barrier higher than the energy of the particle. This ground rule makes sense in the macroscopic world that we live in. If I can throw a ball 20 feet up into the air, then it will never go over a wall that is 25 feet high. But in the world of particles that are the size of atoms or smaller, such an occurrence can happen. We have observed particles that can pass through barriers which have a higher energy threshold than the particle itself. It's as if the ball only went 20 feet high but is found on the other side of a 25 foot high wall. We call this "tunneling" because the particle seems to have tunneled through the barrier. Now, if my presupposition in science was that such a thing was always the least probable explanation, then regardless of how strong the evidence for that phenomena was, I would come to some other conclusion. The physical process of tunneling would have never been discovered simply because my presupposition precluded such a conclusion.</p><p>There are a number of problems with regarding miracles as the least probable explanation and, thus, eliminating them as a reasonable historical conclusion.</p><p>One problem is that the historian seems to be confusing a <i>prior</i> probability with a <i>posterior</i> probability. A prior probability is the probability assigned to something based on what is known beforehand, usually through past experience or lack or experience, before all of the data is collected. If I have a coin that I know nothing about, then the prior probability is that it will come up 50% heads and 50% tails when I flip it. If I flip the coin 1000 times and 600 or more of those flips are heads then the new data should revise my expectation about the coin. Since getting 600 or more heads out of 1000 coin flips has a probability of about 1 in 10 trillion, I could confidently predict that my next coin flip is more likely to be heads than tails. This posterior probability, based on more data, is a better informed conclusion than the prior probability, even though it is "less likely." The philosopher Alan Rhoda has a nice short blog post on the difference between prior and posterior probabilities and miracles that includes details using the Bayes theorem of probability<sup>3 </sup>and William Lane Craig gives a very detailed rebuttal of the probability argument that historians use in his debate with Bart Ehrman,<sup>2 </sup>which is based largely on the book <i>Hume's Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles,</i><sup>4</sup><i><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"> </span></i>by the agnostic John Earman. </p><p><i></i></p><p>David Hume's argument that miracles are always the least probable explanation, repeated by Bart Ehrman and other historians, has been debunked by many philosophers. The first page of Earman's book reads, </p><p>
</p><div style="margin-left: 8%; margin-right: 8%;">"So to be blunt, I contend that [Hume's] "Of Miracles" is an abject failure. It is not simply that Hume's essay does not achieve its goals, but that his
goals are ambiguous and confused. Most of Hume's considerations
are unoriginal, warmed over versions of arguments that are found in
the writings of predecessors and contemporaries. And the parts of
"Of Miracles" that set Hume apart do not stand up to scrutiny. Worse still, the essay reveals the weakness and the poverty of Hume's own account of induction and probabilistic reasoning. And to cap it all off, the essay represents the kind of overreaching
that gives philosophy a bad name."<sup>5</sup> </div>
<p>So not only do historians impose a presupposition that disallows the conclusion that a miracle occurred in the past, but also that presupposition is based on the easily refutable claim that, given all the evidence, a miracle is still the least probable explanation.</p><p>Let me give a concrete example of how this presuppositional bias influences the historians' conclusions. An important question to answer is when the gospel accounts of Jesus' life were written. There is a general assumption that the closer the accounts were written to the actual events that took place, the more accurate the accounts are likely to be. Most historians contend that the gospel of Mark was written just after 70 AD, though there is abundant internal and external evidence that it was written much earlier, sometime between 50 and 55 AD. There is really only one reason why most scholars date the writing of Mark to after 70 AD, because Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem as recorded in Mark 13:1-2,</p>
<div style="margin-left: 8%; margin-right: 8%;">"As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, 'Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!' 'Do you see all these great buildings?' replied Jesus. 'Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.'" </div><p>
The temple in Jerusalem was totally destroyed in 70 AD by the Roman general Titus, with every stone torn down. Of course, if Jesus actually predicted that the temple would be destroyed before it was, that would be a miracle since no one can predict the future. Because the historian has, a priori, ruled out any miracles, the historian can not conclude that Mark was written before 70 AD. So despite many other lines of evidence that Mark was written well before 70 AD, the "consensus" of historians is that it was not. This conclusion is not so much based on the preponderance of the evidence as it is the presupposition that miracles are the least probable explanation of the facts and are, therefore, dismissed as a viable possibility.</p><p>If you have followed this post up until now, then you have perhaps already perceived of another problem with regarding miracles as the least probable explanation and eliminating them as a reasonable historical conclusion, a priori: the conclusion of the historian is wrong if a miracle did actually occur. Thus, since the majority of historians dismiss miracles as a viable option outright, if a miracle did occur, the consensus of historians is wrong, and it is reasonable not to accept that consensus as the most likely explanation for the facts. If the truth is that a miracle did occur, then the consensus of historians is promoting a lie, not the truth.</p><p>As a thinking person who has the capability to investigate the evidence myself, I prefer to look at all the evidence and base my conclusions about what most likely happened in history on all the evidence without presuppositional bias: the posterior probability. Of course, I do respect the expertise and training of historians, and I don't flippantly dismiss their consensus. But in questions that involve miracles, I will put much more weight on the conclusions of good historians who are willing to accept the best explanation of <i>all</i> the evidence, even if that explanation is a miracle. If we look at only those historians, then we will likely find there is a different consensus about issues such as the date that the gospel of Mark was written and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.</p><p>If a person wants to determine the truth, whether in scientific or historical matters, then biases and presuppositions must be minimized, which cannot happen if a possible conclusion is eliminated even before any of the data is collected. If a consensus is based on an unfounded presupposition, one that can be demonstrated to be false using posterior probability theory, then such a consensus is not very reliable. </p>
<p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><sup style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">1</sup><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Bart Ehrman, "The Historical Jesus," (The Teaching Company, 2000), Part II, page 50.</span></span><br /><span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><sup style="background-color: transparent;">2</sup>accessed at <a href="https://www.physics.smu.edu/~pseudo/ScienceReligion/Ehrman-v-Craig.html">https://www.physics.smu.edu/~pseudo/ScienceReligion/Ehrman-v-Craig.html</a>. Debate held at College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts on March 28, 2006.</span></span><br /><sup style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">3</sup><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.alanrhoda.net/blog/2006/12/bart-ehrman-on-history-and-miracles.html">http://www.alanrhoda.net/blog/2006/12/bart-ehrman-on-history-and-miracles.html</a></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><span style="background-color: white;"><sup>4</sup>John Earman, </span></span><i>Hume's Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles, </i>(Oxford University Press, 2000).</span><br /><span face="-webkit-standard" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: transparent;"><span><sup>5</sup></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent;">Ibid, p.3. <br /> The opening figure shows the painting <i>The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem</i> by David Roberts (1850)</span></span></span></p>Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-22066982726795921992020-09-13T15:50:00.002-05:002021-02-14T07:13:48.063-06:00Minimizing Bias in Experimental Particle Physics<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yk8VaZra6Xc/X1ZmA02BLsI/AAAAAAAAAq8/C7XqVmLit8cmKxhgGAMzTSKkP8cT77A1wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1824/HWWSIgnal.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1824" data-original-width="1573" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yk8VaZra6Xc/X1ZmA02BLsI/AAAAAAAAAq8/C7XqVmLit8cmKxhgGAMzTSKkP8cT77A1wCLcBGAsYHQ/w345-h400/HWWSIgnal.png" width="345" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div>The experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN produce a total of about 90 petabytes of data per year. A relatively high-end desktop computer today may have a disk that can store about 1 terabyte of data, which means it takes the disk space of about 100,000 desktop computers to store the annual data collected by the CERN LHC experiments. The physics researchers who work at CERN use powerful computers to analyze this data. The goal of our analysis is always to learn more about the fundamental structure of the universe. We are particularly trying to probe aspects of nature that we do not yet fully understand and discover something that we do not yet know.</div><div> </div><div>In very general terms, the analysis of our data can be divided into two very broad categories. The first category could be labeled "measurements" where we try to more precisely measure the value of some property of nature that we have already observed and for which we have a mathematical model that predicts what the measurement should reveal. If the measurements differ from expectations, then we have indirectly discovered something about nature previously unknown. The second category could be labeled "searches" where we actually search directly for a new undiscovered particle or a new undiscovered phenomena. Often, we are searching for something predicted by some proposed model of physics developed by a theoretical physicist. </div><div><br /></div><div>When looking for new phenomena it is vital that we do not introduce presuppositional ideas or bias into our experiments. It is well documented that human bias can subconsciously skew the experimental analysis. In <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2020/02/the-nature-of-evidence.html" target="_blank">my last blog post</a> I mentioned that, "we go to great lengths to minimize any bias toward one conclusion or another, particularly when looking for some unknown phenomena or particle." A reader of my blog, Keith, asked a number of questions about how we minimize bias in our experiments. The lengths we go to and the methods we use are quite informative and can have applications to other arenas in life where we want to come to some objective conclusions.</div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>At the LHC, two different bunches of protons, each containing about 100,000,000,000 protons cross paths about 40 million times per second, resulting in about 50 protons colliding each time the bunches cross. If some process occurs frequently in nature and is quite common, then we have already studied it in depth and usually understand it. Consequently, the new phenomena we are looking for tend to be very rare. For instance, the Higgs Boson, which was discovered in 2012 at CERN, is produced only once for every ten billion proton collisions. It is difficult to find something new in the data that is very rare (a "signal") because the more common processes can produce similar effects in our detectors creating "background" events, which mimic the signal we are looking for. One of my colleagues says its harder than finding a needle in a haystack, and is more analogous to finding one particular piece of hay in the entire haystack. In order to find some new process in the data which is so rare, we develop criteria, or cuts, which tend to enhance the signal being searched for and minimize the background. As a very imperfect example, suppose you were trying to find a certain new type of exotic sports car among all the cars driving on a certain road. Keep in mind, you don't even know if such a sports car actually exists or not. You could make a "cut" like only looking for cars that can reach a speed of at least 200 miles per hour. But if you didn't see any such cars, you might introduce a bias by redefining that cut and, instead, look for cars that can reach a speed of 120 miles/hour. All of a sudden, with this different cut you are suddenly able to "find" a whole bunch of exotic sports cars. Your bias has manipulated your cuts until you found just what you wanted to find.</div><div><br /></div><div>To avoid this, we develop our cuts without actually looking at the pertinent data. To do this, we first investigate computer simulated data which contains all the information we know about how nature works and about what we might be looking for that is undiscovered in nature. We tune our cuts on this computer generated simulated data without looking at the real data. In our example above, its as if we write a computer simulation that defines what our new undiscovered exotic sports car might look like if it is driving on a road with all the other cars we already know about. Since we know there are many cars that can go 120 miles/hour that are not our new undiscovered exotic sports car, this simulation would keep us from lowering our speed cut to such a low value. Once we have developed our cuts on this simulation, we then look at a subset of the real data to confirm whether our simulation is valid. Still in order to avoid bias, we first look at the data only in a region where we don't expect to see the new phenomena, what we call a "control" region. In the sports car analogy, that would be kind of like looking at a different road where we know for sure that only known types of cars drive on (not the new unknown type of exotic sports car) and we compare our computer simulation of the cars on that road with the actual road. Once we have confirmed that our simulation works on that different road and we have tuned the cuts to search for this new type of exotic sports car in our computer simulation, it is only then that we can look at the road we are actually interested in to see if the new car exists, all without changing the selection cuts.</div><div><br /></div><div>As a real example, about two years ago I was involved in looking for the Higgs Boson when it decayed to two <i>W</i> particles —our "signal." However, another "background" process, the decay of two top quarks, can sometime look very much like our signal with one major difference — the top quark also produces what are called "<i>b</i> jets." So one of our selection criteria that is meant to find Higgs Bosons requires that there be no identified <i>b</i> jets in our events. (An "event" is the collision of two protons that produce particles in our detector). However, events that do have <i>b</i>-jets can be very useful as a control region to verify that our computer simulation is correct because they look almost exactly like the signal we want to find but we know they are not our signal since they contain a <i>b</i>-jet. Consequently, events with identified <i>b</i>-jets serve as a perfect control region to make sure we fully understand our data without biasing the subset of our data that may contain the actual signal we are searching for.</div><div><br /></div><div>To answer one of Keith's questions, all of this described above is usually done by the same group of analysis experts — usually 2 to 5 people or so within our collaboration of about 3500 physicists — but before permission is given to look at the subset of real data that might contain a new discovery (what we call "opening the box" or, in the above car analogy, looking at the road of interest), an independent group of experts within the collaboration examines all the work done, including the computer simulations and the comparison with the control regions, and only then gives permission for the analyzers to look at the real data in the region where the new phenomena may be seen. Bias is avoided because everything is developed and tested without looking at the actual data which might contain any new discovery. When all techniques and processes are developed independent from the relevant data in a way that doesn't presuppose that a real signal may or may not be found in the data, bias is averted.</div><div><br /></div><div>The point of this detailed description above is to emphasize that in my professional work I spend a great deal of effort developing techniques that allow me to try to analyze data without presupposed ideas or bias. </div><div><br /></div><div>Knowing that this blog is devoted to the intersection of science and Christianity, Keith asked pertinent questions about bias that may be introduced by historians when they try to interpret data surrounding the written accounts about the life of Jesus. He asks, "In historical document analysis do you believe the interpretation by many qualified scholars from both biblical and secular scholars from appropriate disciplines should be included in reaching a consensus opinion about the reliability of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection? Are these independent scholarly studies in some sense like independent scientific teams interpreting the results of a given experiments data set?" </div><div><br /></div><div>In <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2021/01/the-gospels-historians-and.html" target="_blank">the next blog post</a>, I will try to answer these questions and discuss how bias and preconceived notions may influence the conclusion of historians and others as they examine the historical evidence surrounding the life of Jesus of Nazareth.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YIWv4GCg1xA/X1ZnAbZIDVI/AAAAAAAAArQ/gBvb-aWMiAUTIJ9nkvI3mCM9Lb6mK1jkACLcBGAsYHQ/s1221/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-09-07%2Bat%2B11.56.51%2BAM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="902" data-original-width="1221" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YIWv4GCg1xA/X1ZnAbZIDVI/AAAAAAAAArQ/gBvb-aWMiAUTIJ9nkvI3mCM9Lb6mK1jkACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-09-07%2Bat%2B11.56.51%2BAM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span>Figures above are taken from "Measurements of gluon–gluon fusion and vector-boson fusion Higgs boson production cross-sections in the </span><em>H</em><span> -> </span><em>WW</em><sup>⁎</sup><span> -> </span><em>eνμν</em><span> decay channel in </span><em>pp</em><span> collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector," published in </span><i>Physics Letters</i><span> B, Volume 780, 10 February 2019, pages 508-529. The figure at the top shows the transverse mass distribution with the fitted Higgs Boson signal in red and the figure at the bottom shows the zero-jet top control region. For further details, see the referenced paper.</span></span></div>Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-88566015233615595502020-08-09T15:24:00.000-05:002020-08-09T15:24:20.860-05:00The Nature of Evidence<div class="separator"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0A-XXOS4Mtw/Xx3Izlk80II/AAAAAAAAAqA/PZeZEsJKGUcE2zkydC3P1rxXhMFcjjYiACLcBGAsYHQ/s842/Evidence.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="842" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0A-XXOS4Mtw/Xx3Izlk80II/AAAAAAAAAqA/PZeZEsJKGUcE2zkydC3P1rxXhMFcjjYiACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Evidence.png" width="320" /></a>In my daily professional life I am an experimental particle physicist. I currently analyze data taken with the ATLAS detector on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. I probe data that includes collisions of billions of protons to look for patterns that indicate the existence of some unknown phenomena or that measure the properties of a particular physical process. I am currently studying the Higgs Boson that was discovered in 2012 and measuring certain aspects of its character to try to understand if it exactly fits our expectations or whether there may be deviations from our standard model. </div><div><div><br /></div><div>In my personal life I have twice been a member of a jury in both criminal and civil cases. As a juror, I was asked to analyze data presented by witnesses and experts to determine the probability that an event in the past occurred in a certain way. Both my profession as a scientist and my civil duty as a juror required me to examine evidence and draw the most logical and reasonable conclusions based on the evidence. However, the type of evidence available in the different circumstances have very different natures. </div><div><br /></div><div>There are some people I talk with, primarily religious skeptics, who don't seem to understand the difference between scientific data and legal/historical evidence; the data from a scientific experiment that allows the investigator to draw reasonable conclusions, and the evidence presented in a courtroom that also leads to reasonable conclusions about what occurred in the past. These data are of a very different type but both lead to reasonably certain conclusions. Scientific data cannot directly tell us what occurred in the past, for direct scientific inquiry requires reproducible experimental results. Past events are not reproducible. Legal historical evidence that is used in a courtroom consists of direct evidence and circumstantial, or indirect, evidence. </div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>The primary type of direct evidence is eyewitness testimony. Indirect evidence is any evidence that relies on some inference to relate it to a particular event. Forensic evidence and other material evidence from a crime scene is all circumstantial evidence, for even if you have DNA evidence or fingerprints, an inference as to what events produced such evidence must be made. Although DNA evidence is often considered the most reliable evidence because it is "scientific," it is still circumstantial evidence since it must be interpreted. Historically, multiple eye-witness testimony has been considered as the most reliable method for determining the truth about what events actually occurred. </div><div><br /></div><div>Either direct, circumstantial, or some combination of both types of evidence is required to lead to a conclusion about a past event. In the United States, the conclusion must be "beyond reasonable doubt" in a criminal case, and must satisfy the "preponderance of the evidence" in a civil case. There is no such thing as a conclusion beyond any doubt in either scientific or in legal/historical inquiry. </div><div><br /></div><div>Although the types of evidence differ, a scientific approach can be applied to the question of whether or not a particular past event occurred. There are certain aspects of a scientific approach that are applicable to both scientific and historical evidence. For instance, all the evidence should be considered. The investigator cannot arbitrarily discard evidence that may not seem to fit with some preconceived notion. Any conclusion must be able to explain all of the evidence, not just a fraction of the evidence. Any hypothesis that does not adequately explain all the known evidence, whether direct or circumstantial must be discarded. </div><div><br /></div><div>When applying some of these principles to ancient events, all of the evidence is indirect evidence since we don't have direct eyewitness testimony. Even documents written by eyewitnesses are technically indirect evidence since the eyewitness himself cannot be interrogated. The historical indirect evidence then falls into two basic categories, either written testimony or archeological findings. The value of the written testimony can be determined by ascertaining the reliability of the writer, which in turn can be determined from the internal consistency of the writings and from the external confirmation of other writers and of various archeological findings. Some written testimony comes from previous oral traditions, which can also be tested as to its reliability using well defined criteria. </div><div><br /></div><div>In addition, bias, prejudice, and pre-conceived notions must be avoided in order to have reliable conclusions and results. In our physics experiments, we go to great lengths to minimize any bias toward one conclusion or another, particularly when looking for some unknown phenomena or particle. We do this by performing all of our data analysis on computer simulated data (often called Monte Carlo simulations) without ever looking at the real data. We keep the real data "blinded" until we are completely convinced that we have optimized our analysis methods with no bias toward what might actually be contained in the real data. Once the simulations have been checked and rechecked, an independent panel of physicists within the collaboration gives permission for the analyzers to "unblind" the data to see if any new phenomena is actually observable. It is truly an exciting moment when the data is finally unblinded and observed and we see if anything unexpected appears. Physicists have joked that we could raise money to do our experiments by selling tickets to the "unblinding" moment and offer betting odds and betting opportunities as to whether or not something previously undiscovered will be seen.</div><div><br /></div><div>The evidence for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus can be analyzed using the scientific approach applied to the historical evidence to determine whether or not the claims of Christianity can be validated. I will do that in my next posts. However, those who don't understand the difference between reproducible scientific data and legal/historical data may continue to claim that the historical evidence supporting the claims of Christianity is insufficient likely because they do not understand how to properly interpret various kinds of data correctly and without bias.</div></div>Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-8022046827502034662020-07-12T14:58:00.004-05:002020-07-15T05:54:24.820-05:00The Logic of Christianity and Grace<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j2oVI-bwEZ8/XwtlLg0q1VI/AAAAAAAAApY/Jngzh-DhbAoqeyeK0cJwuLZasJpCsy4jwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1024/Gavel.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j2oVI-bwEZ8/XwtlLg0q1VI/AAAAAAAAApY/Jngzh-DhbAoqeyeK0cJwuLZasJpCsy4jwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Gavel.png" width="320" /></a></div>As a professor of physics I will often work with undergraduate students and graduate students who are just learning the process of analyzing complex data from a high energy physics experiment. The students will show me graphs they have made and sometimes, with a relatively brief look at the graphs, I will know that the student has made a mistake somewhere in their analysis. There are a few ways that an obvious mistake may present itself. Some distributions should have a known shape and a major deviation from that expectation indicates a problem. If the results from different plots contradict each other then something must be wrong somewhere. Consistency across different data sets and different parameters is essential for a properly implemented analysis.</div><div><br /></div><div>As a Christian who wants to know the truth, I have also analyzed the message and worldview of Christianity to see if it is consistent. If Christian doctrine contained actual logical contradictions, that would be an indication that Christianity has problems and is likely not true. Although I sometimes encounter people who think that the message of Christianity is contradictory, I usually find that those people have an incorrect view of the what is actually believed by Christians who are grounded in biblical doctrine. </div><div><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div></div><div>In <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2020/06/sabbaticals-new-ideas-covid-and-good.html" target="_blank">my previous blog post</a> I discussed the television show <i>The Good Place</i> and its insufficient idea of heaven. I also conveyed the show's premise that a person's eternal destiny was determined by a points system that gave either positive or negative points for each action taken on earth. I stated that Christianity is the only world view that <i>does not </i>base one's eternal destiny on some kind of points system that weighs an individual's good actions versus their bad actions. In his book, <i>What's So Amazing About Grace</i>, Philip Yancey also affirms this distinctive feature of Christianity by describing an encounter between C.S. Lewis and other scholars at a religious conference.</div><div> </div><div><div style="margin-left: 9%; margin-right: 10%; text-align: justify;">
<span> <span> </span></span>During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death. The debate went on for some time until C.S. Lewis wandered into the room. "What's the rumpus about?" he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity's unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, "Oh, that's easy. It's grace." </div><div style="margin-left: 9%; margin-right: 10%; text-align: justify;"><span> <span> </span></span>After some discussion, the conferees had to agree. The notion of God's love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct of humanity. The Buddhist eight-fold path, the Hindu doctrine of <i>karma</i>, the Jewish covenant, and Muslim code of law—each of these offers a way to earn approval. Only Christianity dares to make God's love unconditional.<sup><font size="2">1</font></sup></div><div><br /></div><div>The idea that salvation comes by grace alone through faith alone is not only a unique feature of Christianity but, from a logical and reasoned point of view, it is the lynchpin that binds Christian doctrine into a consistent and cohesive picture, allowing all the data to fit together. In other words, the entire message of Christianity follows an internally consistent logical progression that requires salvation by grace alone:</div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>The character of God including his holiness, perfection, and justice requires that certain standards must be met by those who want to have a friendly relationship with God.</li><li>Human beings are not capable of meeting those standards.</li><li>God's justice requires that when those standards are violated the appropriate consequences must be enforced.</li><li>God's love and grace causes him to voluntarily suffer the required consequences, and to offer humans the gift of a complete pardon.</li><li>Humans can choose to accept or reject the pardon.</li></ol><div>Let's look at each point in a little more detail.</div></div><div><ol><li>The character of God including his holiness, perfection, and justice requires that certain standards must be met by those who want to have a friendly relationship with God.</li></ol></div><div>Christian beliefs are firmly grounded in the character of God as revealed in the Bible. God is completely loving, holy, just, and perfect. The characteristic most often attributed to God in the Bible is that he is holy. This comes from a word that means "separate." God is separate and different from humans in that there is not a trace of evil in his character. He is totally good and totally righteous. Everything he does is right. God wants to have a relationship with people, but people must satisfy God's standards in order to have such a relationship. Now some people think that either (a) God's standards are arbitrary, (b) God's standards are unfair because people can't meet them, or (c) God should just lower his standards to match what people are capable of doing. </div><div><br /></div><div>I have a friend who often tells a personal story to illustrate why none of the three options, (a), (b), or (c), are really valid. The friend explains that when he first wanted to date the woman who is now his wife, she initially refused to date him because he was not the kind of person that she wanted to have a relationship with. Perhaps she wanted someone who was kind, generous, and patient, who could be both strong and vulnerable, and my friend didn't have those characteristics. She wanted a person like that because of the kind of person she was and the traits she valued. Would you say to her the she should just lower her standards to date my friend, or that her standards were unreasonable or arbitrary? </div><div><br /></div><div>God's character is perfectly holy. The fact that such holiness and perfection is required of those who want to have a friendship with God is not arbitrary, capricious, or unfair. It is simply based on who he is.</div><div><ol start="2"><li>Human beings are not capable of meeting those standards.</li></ol></div><div>No matter how good or perfect a human being is, there is no way any individual is able to meet God's standard of perfection. The best human being and the worst human being all fall extremely short of the standard required by God's character. In fact, since God is an infinite being with infinite holiness, and humans are finite, human beings fall short by an infinite amount. </div><div><br /></div><div>There are many possible illustrations of this principle. For instance, suppose that God's standard required that a human being jump across the Grand Canyon. The worst jumper might jump a few inches and the best a few meters, but all would fall very short of the standard. In fact the difference in length jumped between the best and the worst is totally insignificant when compared with the standard. This is why any system of eternal judgement based on a points system as described, for instance, in <i>The Good Place</i> is totally rejected by those who understand Christian teaching. It doesn't matter if a human being gains lots of positive points or lots of negative points. The difference between any person's total points and God's infinite standard is still an infinite distance apart. Another illustration could be to place each person's "goodness" on the rung of a ladder with the best person on top, say 100 feet high, and the worst person on the bottom. But the standard we are trying to reach is to climb to the sun, 93 million miles away. Compared with that standard, all of the people on the ladder look to be just about the same place in their impossible journey. No amount of good "points" earned will ever be enough to reach God's perfectly holy standard. The gap between our "good" deeds and God's perfect character is even much greater than that across the grand canyon or to the sun. It is infinite since God's holiness is perfect. In addition, the criteria and standard which is so impossible to reach is not arbitrary. It is simply a consequence of God's character and who he is. </div><div><br /></div><div>There are other problems with any "points" system which are actually explored within the plot of <i>The Good Place</i>. Two of those problems are that (a) no person can really know all the consequences of any action they take so, with all the ramifications, it is quite difficult to even know if certain actions have a net positive or negative effect and (b) the motivations of a person should count in any point system, so even good actions with selfish motivations should carry a net negative point total.</div><ol start="3"><li>God's justice requires that when those standards are violated the appropriate consequences must be enforced.</li></ol><div>If someone violates a law, we want to see justice served. We do not want to see a murderer go free with no consequences or an embezzler walk away freely with stolen money. In the same way, God's character requires that those who violate his laws and standards must suffer the consequences. The message of Christianity is filled with legal terms. As such, those who have violated God's standards, based on his character, are declared guilty and God's perfect justice requires that there be consequences. Just as we would not consider it just if someone who has broken the law endured no repercussions, so it would be unjust for God to allow humans, as lawbreakers, to experience no consequences.</div><div><br /></div><div>If someone stole a million dollars, we would expect the consequence to at least be paying back the million dollars. Following the same logic, what should be the consequences of not reaching God's infinitely holy standard? There should be an infinite consequence: no friendly relationship with God for an infinite amount of time. Anything less than that would not be just or fair. Would it be fair for the thief who stole a million dollars be required to give only a one dollar payment as restitution? You might say it is unfair for God to hold humans to such a high standard. If so, then you should read point number one again. The expectations and standards are not arbitrary. They are based on the intrinsic character of God. To say that God should just lower his standards would be the same as telling someone that they should simply lower their standards regarding whom they are willing to date or marry.</div><div><br /></div><div>The consequences of violating God's standards, dictated by his character, is that an individual cannot have a friendly relationship with God. Each individual has consciously or unconsciously rebelled against God and has therefore chosen to be separated from God, now and forever: what is referred to as spiritual separation or death. For an individual to have a relationship with God, then, there must be a reconciliation between the two parties. Reconciliation between God and humans <b>cannot</b> be accomplished by human actions or "good" deeds or earned points, because no finite actions can ever pay an infinite debt.</div><div><ol start="4"><li>God's love and grace causes him to voluntarily suffer the required consequences, and to offer humans the gift of a complete pardon.</li></ol></div><div><div>Because each individual is guilty of violating God's standards, and because the consequences of that violation is an infinite debt that is way too great for any individual to pay, but also because God loves each person so greatly, God chooses to do something only he can do: pay each person's debt for them. Only God, who is an infinite being, has the resources to pay an infinite debt. Suppose someone commits a crime and the legal and just sentence is far beyond any resources the person has, say something like 1000 years in jail or a trillion trillion dollars, then that person is doomed. But, if someone else purely out of love pays the insurmountable debt, then the legal requirements have been met. The "legal" message of Christianity is that the death of Jesus of Nazareth, God himself in human form, paid the infinite legal debt that we owed to God, because Jesus was an infinite being and, therefore, had the resources needed to satisfy the legal debt that humans owed God. Finite human resources, by definition, are insufficient no matter how many good deeds a person does. Consequently, the only hope is that God with infinite resources pay the debt through an act of grace.</div></div><div><ol start="5"><li>Humans can choose to accept or reject the pardon.</li></ol></div><div><div>Once God has paid the debt owed by humans, he offers each of us a pardon. One does not earn or work toward a pardon. It is simply accepted or rejected. That is the gracious offer God makes each human: reconciliation between him and us, freedom from the consequences of our rebellion, and a complete pardon. All an individual must do is accept the free offer that God makes to each of us.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Of course a pardon is no good if the party to which it is offered rejects the pardon. This fact was made very clear in the 1833 Supreme Court decision of United States v. Wilson. In this case, George Wilson was convicted of robbing the U.S. mail and was sentenced to death. President Andrew Jackson pardoned Wilson, who subsequently rejected the pardon. The case of Wilson's fate went all the way to the Supreme Court that ruled, "A pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered; and if it is rejected, we have discovered no power in this court to force it upon him."<sup>2</sup> </div><div><br /></div><div>God graciously offers each individual a pardon since God, himself, has paid the legal debt. Each person then has the choice of accepting or rejecting that offer.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Summary:</b></div><div>In summary here is the logic of the Christian message. I have used the word "<b>require</b>" to show that within the framework of Christian theology, there are really no other logical options.</div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>God's standards and the consequences of violating those standards are not arbitrary but are <b>required</b> given the perfect and holy character of God.</li><li>The infinite gap between human good deeds and God's perfect holiness <b>requires</b> that no amount of finite good deeds can ever add up to paying an infinite debt.</li><li>Jesus of Nazareth is <b>required</b> to be the infinite God in order to have the resources to pay an infinite debt.</li><li>God's undeserved offer of a pardon based on his love and grace is <b>required</b> for humans to have a relationship with him because finite human works are always insufficient.</li><li>For the pardon to be implemented, each individual is <b>required</b> to accept God's offer.</li></ol><div>To make reasonable conclusions about the data, all of the data must be internally consistent and point to the same result. The Christian message of how a person can have a friendship with God and go to the "good place" is only internally consistent if the decision about one's eternal destiny is not based on the good or bad quality of their actions, but only on God's love and grace.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Postscript:</div>
Since I began this post with accounts of students who may have done something wrong with their data analysis, I should end this post by giving my current and former Ph.D. students their proper appreciation and accolades. As a student progresses in their education they often surpass me, their advisor and mentor, in their knowledge and expertise. As my graduate students get closer to completing their Ph.D. they become the experts and I often go to them for advise and direction on how to solve <i>my</i> problems. As such, I want to thank the excellent Ph.D. graduate students I have had the privilege of working with over the years. Mandy, Callie, Ben, David, and Nate: Thanks for your excellent work and the many things I have learned from you all.<div><br /></div><div><font size="2"><sup>1</sup>Philip Yancey, <i>What's So Amazing About Grace</i>, (</font><span style="font-size: small;">Grand Rapids, MI: </span><span style="font-size: small;">Zondervan, 1997) 45.</span></div></div></div><div><span><font size="2"><sup>2</sup>https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/32/150 accessed on July 12, 2020.</font></span></div>Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-14976659621687327222020-06-20T14:18:00.003-05:002021-01-16T19:39:54.008-06:00Sabbaticals, New Ideas, COVID, and The Good Place<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="440" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X3yZU53HMZc/Xu5dPIg5_EI/AAAAAAAAAoc/WcTJm3K0QCkkPcqIEcn4xUTDcEUlycjOwCK4BGAsYHg/s320/TheGoodPlace.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div>It has been almost six months since I have written and posted anything on my blog. Thanks to many of you, my readers, who have sent me inquiries as to the reason why my blog has been dormant, expressing your appreciation for the content, and asking if, and when, I will be writing posts again. I really appreciate all the kind remarks so many of you have sent me over the last few months. </div><div><br /></div><div>First, I should say that I don't really have any unusual or profound reason for the drought of blog posts. After writing at least two posts per month for three years, I simply have fewer new ideas for what to write about and, therefore, less motivation to write, since so many of my ideas that relate science, reason, and logic, to Christianity have already been addressed in previous blog posts. In addition, as with any activity that is done for a long period of time, I had simply become a little fatigued with writing new posts week after week. I am a university professor and, in academics, professors are allowed to apply for a sabbatical every seven years in which they take a semester or two off from teaching in order to focus on research and creative activity and to generate new ideas and revitalize their creative endeavors. From my perspective as a professor then, maybe I just needed a short sabbatical from my blog activities to gain a revitalized perspective. I still am not sure what new thoughts and ideas I have to add to the many blog posts I have written over the last few years, but I will at least try to get back into the pattern of writing on a regular basis. As such, I appreciate any thoughts my readers may have on topics that could be addressed in this blog. <div><br /></div><div>As with so many people in the world right now, I have spent the last three months or so fairly sequestered in my house. Because my research is based at CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, but I live in Oklahoma and teach at the University of Oklahoma, my daily routine even before the COVID-19 pandemic consisted of spending a lot of time in video meetings and looking at data from the Large Hadron Collider using my local computer. So, actually my professional life lately while working from home has been quite similar to my professional life when working from the university buildings: writing and running computer code to analyze data and meeting with people and groups by video.
However, my personal life has changed quite dramatically over the last few months. I have spent more time cooking at home and more time streaming video at home. </div><div><br /></div><div>My wife and I have watched more content from Netflix, Prime, Disney+ and other services than I ever thought I would in such a short time. And some of the content I have watched has even generated a few ideas for my blog.
We have just finished watching all four seasons of the NBC show, <i>The Good Place</i>, and some of the themes and ideas explored in that show are pertinent to both physics and Christian thought. If you haven't seen the show I should warn you now that the rest of this post is full of spoilers. So if you don't want spoilers for <i>The Good Place</i>, you probably should stop reading now.</div>
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The show is about four people who have died and find themselves in what they are initially told is "The Good Place," but actually ends up being "The Bad Place." The plot over four seasons takes many twists and turns as it explores different concepts about human nature, what it means to be good or bad, whether human beings really change and grow as people, and even the fairness of an eternal destiny based on what choices each person makes during his or her short lifetime.</div><div><br /></div><div>One topic that <i>The Good Place</i> addressed, but is not necessarily relevant to science and Christianity, is one of the most important principles in all of Christianity and I want to address it more fully in<a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2020/07/the-logic-of-christianity-and-grace.html"> a future blog post</a>. This concerns the criteria used to determine where one spends their eternal destiny which, in the television show, is based on a points system that evaluates a person's actions on earth. Every action gives either positive or negative points, and one's total points determines whether they spend eternity in "The Good Place" or "The Bad Place." As far as I know, Christianity is the only world view that <i>does not</i> base one's eternal destiny on a system that weighs an individual's good actions versus their bad actions. That is an important and profound distinctive of Christian doctrine.</div><div><br /></div><div>Another plot theme in the last season of <i>The Good Place</i> is the nature of a person's eternal existence. In the show even those who have been granted access into "heaven" eventually become bored and listless because, over the course of eternity, they eventually experience all they have ever wanted to do and have no new goals to accomplish or adventures left to experience. So even "heaven" becomes, in essence, a "hell." The solution to this problem in the final season of the show is to give everyone a chance to simply cease to exist once they feel satisfied with all they have done. </div><div><br /></div><div>I have often thought about the Christian idea of heaven and wondered myself about the concept of eternity and how anyone could remain engaged forever without becoming bored. A satisfactory answer requires much more creativity and imagination than that displayed by the writers and producers of <i>The Good Place</i>. I believe that The Bible anticipates this problem. The solution proposed is not cessation of individual existence, but cessation of the type of universe we now live in with its limited possibilities. When the apostle John gets a glimpse of a universe prepared for eternity he describes it as being totally different than the one we currently have. The new "Jerusalem" is a city in the shape of a cube about 1400 miles on each side. It seems this would require new laws of physics since it is unlikely any such structure could be built based on the physics principles of this universe. The future universe is a place where there will be no night, no tears, no pain, no mourning. Specifically, "the old order of things has passed away" (Revelation 21:4, NIV). </div><div><br /></div><div>An eternal finite universe like the one we live in now would eventually become boring as we maybe eventually explore all it has to offer. But the teachings of Christ indicate that this is not what the next universe will be like. The same God who is so imaginative that he created quantum mechanics, black holes, and even 95% of the energy density of the universe we don't yet understand in dark matter and dark energy, has a whole new unimaginable universe waiting for those who have trusted and followed him while on earth. If that universe were simply more of the same as depicted in <i>The Good Place</i>, then we would become unsatisfied and listless with it. But that is not the case. It is, in fact, going to be totally different. The apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthian 2:9 "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him." Apart from that totally different and new "physical" universe itself we are told that God himself will be there. Simply encountering him as an eternal being and worshipping him would likely occupy us with no boredom for eternity. </div><div><br /></div><div>As creative as the minds were that gave us<i> The Good Place</i>, there is no way they could begin to compete with the creativity and imagination of the God and creator of this universe. He tells us that we as humans can't even begin to imagine what the new universe will be like. It is, in fact, mind boggling to begin to even try to think about how amazing a new universe could be that comes from the same mind that designed and created this one. As remarkable as this one is, the next will be of an entirely different quality and type. I'm sure that it will be so vast, limitless, new, and unique that we will never get bored. Such a universe must have entirely different laws of physics than those that apply to our current universe. Our current universe requires an arrow of time and the second law of thermodynamics. I'm pretty sure the next won't have a law like the second law that leads to less usable energy and higher randomness. Who knows? Maybe there won't even be time as we know it in the next universe. As a physicist this all presents an exciting opportunity. The future new "heaven and earth" will give me new laws of physics to explore, discover, and study for a long time. I expect to have fun doing that with the promise of future full employment and full opportunity: a "good place" far different from simply more of the same.</div></div>Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-31667392177760725552019-12-30T09:26:00.002-06:002019-12-30T09:27:55.618-06:00A Look Back and Forward: Top Posts Written in 2019<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Three years ago, on December 30, 2016 I wrote my first blog entry that introduced this blog devoted to a discussion of science and biblical Christianity. I want to thank all of you who have been readers of my thoughts through these last three years.<br />
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The World Wide Web was actually invented in the same building as the office that I use when I am at CERN doing research. (The opening figure above shows the plaque posted in the basement hall commemorating the development of the World Wide Web.) Nevertheless, I am constantly amazed by the way that the Web has changed the world. Because of this remarkable invention, people from every corner of the globe can interact and share information. As a result I have readers from every continent on the earth and from a vast variety of countries with different political systems and religious backgrounds. I am grateful for all of you. If this blog has been beneficial to you I would ask that you continue to tell others about it and spread the word.<br />
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The front page of my blog has a section with the most viewed blog posts over the last year and over the life of the blog. I'd like to highlight the five top posts that were actually written during this last year. So here is a list of the most read blog posts that were written in 2019:
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<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/05/a-primer-on-various-views-about-origins.html" target="_blank">A Primer on Various Views About Origins</a>: A short introduction to different ideas about how God created the universe and humans held primarily by Christians who believe the biblical stories are true.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/01/why-is-there-something-rather-than.html" target="_blank">Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing?</a>: The first post in a two-part discussion of a paper by Sean Carroll in which he tries to answer the question of why the universe exists. <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/01/why-is-there-something-rather-than.html" target="_blank"> </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/06/god-and-nobel-prize.html" target="_blank">God and the Nobel Prize</a>: An account of the discovery of the cosmic background radiation that led to a Nobel Prize for Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson and gave overwhelming evidence that the universe had an actual beginning, thus requiring some transcendent cause, which gives support for the existence of an actual creator. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/01/why-universe-critiquing-sean-carroll.html" target="_blank">Why the Universe? Critiquing Sean Carroll</a>: The second post in the two-part series discussing Sean Carroll's paper and showing why his answer that the universe exists by "brute force" is far from satisfactory and ultimately is an acknowledgement that there must be an external creator.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/11/four-reasons-to-believe-in-god-from.html" target="_blank">Four Reasons to Believe in God From Science</a>: An overview of some of the most compelling things I see in my scientific studies that give evidence for God. This entry was posted just over a month ago but has already had enough readership to place it in the top five for the entire year.</li>
</ol>
I hope that you have found this blog helpful, insightful, and maybe even entertaining. If so, please tell others about it and encourage them to read it and pass it on. People often tell me that I am able to make complex topics easy to understand and I am sure that you know people who would be interested in the types of subjects I discuss when they can be explained in simple language.<br />
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In addition if you have topics you would like to see discussed, please feel free to contact me via the email link in the column to the right and I will try to address your questions and issues. I hope to continue offering thoughtful discussion of topics relating to God and science for a long time to come. <br />
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Again, let me express my gratitude to you who read this blog and thank you for you readership and your interaction with me through comments and emails. The invention of the Web has been remarkable in creating a true world-wide community. I am also so grateful for those who have expressed how some of my writings, my book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Creator-Revealed-Physicist-Examines-Bible/dp/1973629941/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+creator+revealed&qid=1577718907&sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Creator Revealed</a>, or my speaking engagements have actually affected your lives deeply and eternally. That is the most rewarding experience I could hope for. May you all be greatly blessed in the next year and beyond.<br />
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<br />Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-44424842688783111762019-12-23T12:44:00.002-06:002019-12-27T09:33:58.914-06:00A Simulated Universe: Missing the Obvious<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My children refer to many of my jokes as "dad jokes," a term that applies to the silly, kind of dumb humor common to us "older" dads. I do admit that my sense of humor was formed when I was a teenager in the 1970's and tends toward the kind of silly, ridiculous, sometimes witty gags typical of <a href="http://www.montypython.com/" target="_blank">Monty Python</a>, or maybe Peter Sellers in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pink_Panther" target="_blank">The Pink Panther movies</a>. It may be embarrassing to admit that there are far too many Monty Python skits or Pink Panther dialogues that I can recite from memory and that will cause me to laugh out loud just thinking about them. Simply mention "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz1JWzyvv8A" target="_blank">the cheese shop</a>" or "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDSM7AKfVJg" target="_blank">the staff interrogation</a>" and I may launch into a poor British or French accent as I recite some of the "hilarious" dialogue. Given that you can tell a lot about a person from their particular sense of humor, there may be some of you who have now completely lost all respect for me as a scientist or as a human being. (That last line was meant as a joke and reflects my "dad joke" capabilities.)<br />
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Now most of the previous paragraph has nothing to do with this blog post. But in order to introduce the topic of this post I was trying to think of a situation where somebody completely misses the most obvious thing right in front of them, while focusing on other less favorable options. My mind wandered to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6muq1smaVCQ" target="_blank">a scene in the movie "<i>The Return of the Pink Panther</i>"</a> where inspector Jacque Clouseau is reprimanding a "blind" beggar with an accordion and a "minkey" for a minor offense, while he is completely oblivious to a major bank robbery going on just behind him. Of course, I then had to watch the video clip of this movie scene on YouTube, which led me down a rabbit hole to a series of many other Pink Panther and Monty Python videos, (similar to the virtual reality rabbit hole I referred <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/12/do-we-live-in-simulated-universe.html" target="_blank">to in my last blog post</a>, which does actually bring us to the subject of this entry.)<br />
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Here I follow up on my previous discussion about the hypothesis that we may live in a virtual reality universe rather than a physical universe. Such a scenario was proposed by the philosopher Nick Bostrom in his 2003 paper "<a href="https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html" target="_blank">Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?"</a> More recently a <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Xsp4FRgas" target="_blank">video by "Inspiring Philosophy</a>" based on a 2007 paper by the informational computer scientist Brian Whitworth titled "<a href="https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0801/0801.0337.pdf" target="_blank">The Physical World as a Virtual Reality"</a> presents the same idea. Previously, I focused on some of the scientific ideas presented in that paper and showed that Whitworth doesn't seem to fully understand the science and that he selectively applies just those scientific principles that he thinks supports his hypothesis. But the biggest flaw in Whitworth's argument is that he doesn't even consider the possibility that there is a transcendent God who created the universe. Because he is oblivious to this obvious possibility, he completely misses the best option regarding the true nature of our universe.<br />
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Whitworth suggests two hypotheses about our reality:<br />
<ol>
<li>The objective reality (OR) hypothesis: That our physical reality is an objective reality that
exists in and of itself, and being self-contained needs nothing outside of itself to explain it. </li>
<li>The virtual reality (VR) hypothesis: That our physical reality is a virtual reality that depends
upon information processing to exist, which processing must occur outside of itself.</li>
</ol>
Any perceptive reader would immediately see that his definition of the objective reality hypothesis excludes any possibility of a creator, for his objective really is "self-contained [and] needs nothing outside of itself to explain it." Of course there is clearly a third possibility not even considered by Whitworth which I will insert and call "The God reality":<br />
<ol start="3">
<li>The God reality (GR) hypothesis: That our physical reality is an objective reality that requires a transcendent intelligent cause to fully explain it.</li>
</ol>
By not including this possibility he completely misses the conclusion that best explains all of the data. Like inspector Clouseau, he is so focused on his lesser options, that he completely misses the much more important and obvious solution.<br />
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For instance the abstract to the paper says, "If the universe were a virtual reality, its creation at the big bang would no longer be paradoxical, as every virtual system must be booted up." This statement shocked me for there is no paradox at all in the big bang origin of the universe if there is a transcendent creator. The fact that our universe had a beginning actually demands some transcendent cause. In essence, Whitworth's VR hypothesis also requires a transcendent booting up of the program, so it should be obvious to him, and to any reader, that the external cause could be God. But with an external cause, the universe doesn't have to be a VR universe, since any objective reality universe could have an external theistic transcendent cause and there is absolutely no "paradox" to it having a beginning. It is shocking, naive, and erroneous to make the beginning of the universe a paradox. It is only a paradox if the God reality hypothesis is not an option.<br />
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Whitworth restates his two hypotheses in the following manner. The OR hypothesis says, "There is nothing outside the universe" while the VR hypothesis says, "There is nothing in our universe that exists of or by itself." But the GR hypothesis would also agree with the last statement. It drives me crazy that Whitworth limits the last statement to the VR hypothesis, while it better fits the GR hypothesis, the solution that should be obviously right in front of him, but he doesn't even acknowledge as an option.<br />
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He goes on to propose three ways to approach VR theory:<br />
<ol>
<li><b>Calculable Universe Hypothesis</b>: That our physical reality can be simulated by information
processing that is calculable (halting). </li>
<li><b>Calculating Universe Hypothesis</b>: That our physical reality uses information processing in
its operation to some degree. </li>
<li><b>Calculated Universe Hypothesis</b>: That our physical reality is created by information
processing based outside the physical world we register.</li>
</ol>
Once again, his bias in not considering the God hypothesis taints all of his reasoning. Instead, one could follow his same thought process, but state the third view as "our physical reality is created by <b>a being</b> based outside the physical world we register." Why does it have to be a VR world if there is something outside it? It doesn't unless one's bias has already excluded that as a possibility, a priori.<br />
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Whitworth claims that a virtual world that behaves like ours should have no data input once it starts running. That is, there should be no external intervention that would look to us like a miracle. His statement is, "This VR simulation must run itself without miracles, i.e. without ongoing data input." Consequently, the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, with its abundant historical evidence, unambiguously disproves his VR hypothesis.<br />
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Toward the end of the article Whitworth asks a question that he thinks obliterates the objective reality hypothesis, "The big bang contradicts any theory that assumes the universe is objectively real and complete in itself. How can an objective reality, existing in and of itself, be created out of nothing?" Of course, the answer to this question gives abundant evidence for God, but not for a VR reality. A transcendent being is the best answer to the origin of an objective reality universe, for the universe does not exist in and of itself. It exists because it was created.<br />
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It is really quite sad and unfortunate that Whitworth's entire article is based on the faulty premise that the universe is a self existent objective reality or a virtual reality. With only those two options, there is no scenario that adequately fits the actual data. Whitworth has to carefully select which data to highlight in addition to misunderstanding basic tenants of quantum mechanics in order to support his case. In reality, the data naturally and without bias is better explained with the hypothesis that we live in an objective reality created by a transcendent being.<br />
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In the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Xsp4FRgas&app=desktop" target="_blank">original video</a> that prompted a reader of mine to ask me about the VR hypothesis, the maker of the video uses Whitworth's reasoning to actually give evidence for God. His point is that a VR reality requires information from a mind and, because there can't be an infinite regress of causes, that mind must be the mind of God. Though I disagree with the VR hypothesis, the data does clearly show that our universe is full of information, which most naturally comes from an external mind. The being who possesses that mind has the capability of creating an objective reality universe with all the characteristics of our universe including its beginning. Such a hypothesis, the GR hypothesis, best fits the data. If Whitworth wasn't so focused on his two lesser hypotheses, he might be able to see the more compelling and inclusive hypothesis right before his eyes.Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-70023161239592237632019-12-15T21:45:00.001-06:002021-02-14T21:46:24.665-06:00Do We Live in a Simulated Universe?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MiObMw9xENY/Xfbt0sX_i-I/AAAAAAAAAk0/Ji6-np9Kp8UdjMz80iUfphObL16cEAfswCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Matrix.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="578" data-original-width="900" height="205" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MiObMw9xENY/Xfbt0sX_i-I/AAAAAAAAAk0/Ji6-np9Kp8UdjMz80iUfphObL16cEAfswCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Matrix.png" width="320" /></a></div>
Some time ago a reader asked me to look at a <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Xsp4FRgas" target="_blank">video by "Inspiring Philosophy</a>" that discussed whether or not our universe might only be a simulation so that we might actually live in a virtual reality universe rather than a physical universe. That video was based on a 2007 paper by the informational computer scientist Brian Whitworth titled "<a href="https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0801/0801.0337.pdf" target="_blank">The Physical World as a Virtual Reality."</a> The reader's question, the video, and the paper sent me on a prolonged investigation as I read various papers on this provocative notion that we live not in an actual physical universe, but in some kind of computer simulation. The modern form of this argument was proposed by the philosopher Nick Bostrom in his 2003 paper "<a href="https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html" target="_blank">Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?"</a> It seems appropriate that I was sucked into the "rabbit hole" of the virtual reality hypothesis since one of the classic movies that proposed our world is just a computer simulation was the 1999 film <i>The Matrix</i>, which also referenced the Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole in the dialogue when Morpheus is about to reveal to Neo the truth about their simulated universe and he says, "You take the <em>blue</em> pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the <em>red</em> pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." This journey of mine investigating the rabbit hole of a simulated reality has taken some time and consequently, I have not written a blog entry in about a month.<br />
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In some sense I'm not sure that this post is warranted or relevant for my blog. The purpose of my blog is to discuss various aspects of the relationship between science, Christian faith, and objective thought. I don't believe that my investigation into this subject necessarily gives much insight or adds much to the many writings that discuss this idea. Most of the articles that I find persuasive actually debunk the idea that we are simply a simulated universe such as those by physicists <a href="http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2016/08/22/maybe-we-do-not-live-in-a-simulation-the-resolution-conundrum/" target="_blank">Sean Carroll</a> or <a href="http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2017/03/no-we-probably-dont-live-in-computer.html" target="_blank">Sabine Hossenfelder</a> or by informational scientist <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/class/symbsys205/BostromReview.html" target="_blank">Brian Eggleston</a>, and you can follow the links by clicking those authors' names above to find good reasons to disregard the simulation idea. It seems to me that those who take the idea seriously are not so much the educated scientists, but popular tech figures like Elon Musk who has promoted and popularized the simulation idea. I tend to side with the vast majority of expert scientists who believe there is much more evidence against the idea that we live in a simulation, rather than the few computer scientists and popular figures who have promoted the idea as probable.<br />
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But since I have spent far too much time deep in the rabbit's burrow on this subject, I probably should devote some space here to discuss a few ideas and see if there is any way I can relate the subject to the broader theme of this blog: that of science and the Christian faith. Rather than focus on the philosophical aspect of the simulation hypothesis (after all, the modern resurgence of this idea came from a philosopher not a scientist), I will focus on some of the scientific aspects of the original video (which was actually entitled "Digital Arguments for God's Existence") and the paper by Brian Whitworth on which it was based. In my next blog post I will discuss some of Whithworth's assumptions that are biased, presumptuous, and erroneous, and show that once those assumptions are reconsidered, then the idea that there is a transcendent intelligent creator God actually best explains his data.<br />
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The first thing to note is that the "science" that Whitworth presents to make a case that our universe is more likely a virtual reality rather than a physical reality shows a lack of clear understanding of what we actually know scientifically. After all, Whitworth has a Ph.D. degree in information systems, not in physics. But what I found most disturbing about the article is that Whitworth selectively skews aspects of science to support his hypothesis when they could just as easily refute his hypothesis. Let me provide an example of these two problems in tandem in the next paragraph, which will provide a fairly technical description, and so it may be challenging to understand if you don't like technical details. Suffice it to say that I will show that Whitworth doesn't totally understand the science and is selectively choosing effects that align with his proposal even though they could also be chosen to disprove his proposal.<br />
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Whitworth states that in a simulation all points on the "screen" are equal distance from the computer processor so there can be non-local effects like quantum entanglement. The wave function of two entangled objects can simultaneously be affected. But then he says that the finite processing speed of a computer would limit the maximum speed that a pixel could move across a screen, just as nothing in our universe can move faster than light. In fact, what we actually know is that entangled objects that are extremely far from each other do seem to be able to collapse their wave function simultaneously, but in doing so no information can be sent across the vast distances because information cannot be transported faster than the speed of light. Now if our universe were actually a computer simulation then information could be sent from one point in the screen to another point in the screen at the same rate the wave function is collapsed since all points of the screen are equal distance from the CPU. If that equidistance implies simultaneous collapse of the quantum wave function it must also imply that entangled objects should be able to send information instantaneously as their wave functions collapse, which definitely does not happen in our universe. It is inconsistent and illogical to use the fact that the screen is equidistance from the CPU to explain the simultaneity of entanglement, but then neglect that fact when trying to explain the finite speed of light because the speed of light is not just about how fast objects move, but also about how fast information can be sent from one place in the universe to another.<br />
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Whitworth also claims that all of the math of the universe should be simple because frequently used computer calculations must be simple. To show that the math of the universe is not so simple, I have put the math that describes the fundamental particles and forces of the universe, the so-called Standard Model, in the figure at the end of this article. Is this a "simple" algorithm that Whithworth requires to substantiate his hypothesis?<br />
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In order to support his idea, Whitworth makes assumptions about how the computer simulation might work that are not only arbitrary but seem unwarranted. He claims that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle could occur because the computer might use the same memory location for complementary object properties. But why would a computer large enough and powerful enough to simulate a whole universe with sentient beings try to conserve memory by putting complementary properties in the same memory location? Any computer with those capacities shouldn't have problems using a few extra bits, or maybe qubits, to provide sufficient memory to individually store information about complementary properties. Any programmer concerned with saving a few bits of memory is more likely programming on an old mainframe computer from the 1980's, not one that could simulate an entire universe.<br />
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At one point in the article Withworth says, "Science warns against selecting data to support a theory" but that is exactly what he has done in order to support his theory. He selectively chooses aspects of quantum theory that he thinks supports his theory, though he doesn't seem to understand quantum theory as most physicists do. He argues that all calculations must avoid infinities, yet our current understanding of Quantum Field Theory is full of infinities that we systematically and mathematically remove. To make his hypothesis work both space and time must be quantized (that is, have a minimal possible size) so he hypothesizes that they are, even though we have no supporting evidence and such quantization creates inconsistencies with Einstein's theory of special relativity (though these may be solvable.) He continually assumes that quantum theory is "strange" to objective reality but not to virtual reality, when actually it is only "strange" to a fully macroscopic understanding of objective reality. My critique of his science and his scientific and computational assumptions could go on for many more paragraphs, but my point has probably been made. His scientific understanding seems to be lacking and his choice of which science to use and how to apply it is highly selective. These reasons, among others, are why so few scientists accept the simulation hypothesis as having any real merit.<br />
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In the next blog post about this subject, I will discuss some of the erroneous and bias assumptions that must be made to support the virtual reality hypothesis. I will present an alternative idea: that the hypothesis of a transcendent intelligent creator God better fits the factual and relevant data presented by those who propose a simulated universe.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4nTZB0u14Qg/Xfb0nTHM1GI/AAAAAAAAAlM/D3ErNxeFZZElKT5haTS3nlo7LN8fYSq7ACEwYBhgL/s1600/SM2.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1266" data-original-width="1042" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4nTZB0u14Qg/Xfb0nTHM1GI/AAAAAAAAAlM/D3ErNxeFZZElKT5haTS3nlo7LN8fYSq7ACEwYBhgL/s640/SM2.png" width="526" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Standard Model Lagrangian that describes the fundamental particles and forces in the universe. According to Whithworth the algorithms that describe the universe should be simple math. Is this simple math?</td></tr>
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<br />Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-82030323141641743202019-11-17T08:46:00.001-06:002020-09-11T07:06:08.754-05:00Four Reasons To Believe in God From Science<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d2pTjQ9mmIM/Xcg7p-3TxaI/AAAAAAAAAkQ/9WHEF3XZKXIRGXfMxPiGb580aeOiImTfQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Equations.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="524" data-original-width="700" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d2pTjQ9mmIM/Xcg7p-3TxaI/AAAAAAAAAkQ/9WHEF3XZKXIRGXfMxPiGb580aeOiImTfQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Equations.png" width="320" /></a>As a scientist who studies the most fundamental particles and forces in the universe, I tend to only accept something as true if it is supported by abundant objective evidence. You might think that a person like me, who wants testable reasons for everything, could never be a Christian since Christianity is based on faith in God. However, real Christian faith as described in the Bible is always based on evidence and is more accurately defined as “trusting God based on the evidence that he is trustworthy.” Since I am an experimental particle physicist who needs facts to back up my beliefs, I have studied many of the objective reasons to believe and trust in God from history, science, philosophy, sociology, and other academic disciplines. Perhaps some of my findings will give you additional tangible reasons to believe in God.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<b>Here are Four Reasons to Believe in God from Science:</b><br />
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<b> 1. The Universe Had A Beginning.</b> Over the last 100 years scientists have discovered that the universe had a beginning about 14 billion years ago in which space, time, matter, and energy came into existence. Although this beginning is usually referred to as the “big bang” that name is misleading. The big bang was not an explosion from pre-existing material but the origin, or creation, of our universe. When the big bang was first proposed, scientists were reluctant to accept it as fact, primarily because of its philosophical and theological implications. If this universe had a beginning, then the cause of the universe must not be a part of the universe. The cause must be transcendent, which is one of the characteristics of God. But despite these objections, the observational evidence for the big bang, including the expansion of the universe and the cosmic microwave background radiation, is so convincing that scientists now affirm that the universe seems to have had an actual origin. One of the most obvious ways that a transcendent God could demonstrate his existence to us would be to make the origin of our universe knowable and to have the origin require a necessary transcendent cause. That is the case for the universe we live in. It’s really remarkable that we as humans have the ability to understand the very origin of our universe and to see objective evidence for God.<br />
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<b> 2. The Universe Appears Designed. </b>There are many characteristics of the universe that are finely-tuned to allow complex life to exist. If any of these were changed just slightly there would be either no universe or a universe that is inhospitable to life. For instance, if the strength of the strong nuclear force were increased by 2% there would be little or no hydrogen in the universe, resulting in no water (H<sub>2</sub>O) and no stars like our sun that use hydrogen as fuel. If the strength of the strong nuclear force were decreased by 5% there would only be hydrogen in the universe, making life impossible. Scientific journals are filled with articles that document hundreds of such parameters in the universe that are balanced on a razor’s edge to allow the existence of our universe and life. Scientists sometimes call this phenomenon the “Anthropic Principle” which comes from the Greek work “anthropos” meaning human. It’s as if the universe seems to be perfectly designed to allow humans to exist. Such design is objective evidence that points to the existence of a real intelligent designer who created the universe.
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<b>3. The Earth Seems To Be Special. </b>There are about one hundred billion trillion planets in the visible universe, but it is highly unlikely that there are any other planets quite like the earth that are capable of supporting complex life forms for billions of years. This “rare earth” hypothesis has been noted by scientists because of the many ingredients needed for a planet to support complex life. Some of those ingredients include the type of star the planet orbits, the size and density of the planet, the rate of rotation of the planet, the location of the planet in the galaxy, the size and number of moons the planet has, and the amount of water on the planet. When all of the factors are taken into account it seems that very few planets can support complex life. The more we learn about the uniqueness of our planet earth, the more it seems that we are not just an ordinary planet. It certainly appears that there is something special about the earth, which implies that there may be something special about humans. The Bible claims that humanity is special, that humans were created by God in his image and that God meticulously prepared our planet so we could have a cosmic home. Scientific findings seem to support that conclusion, and therefore give evidence for human significance and a human creator.
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<b>4. Mathematics Describes Nature. </b>When an engineer is designing something, say a building or an aircraft wing, the engineer will write mathematical equations that describe the object’s operation to be sure that it will perform adequately. When scientists study the universe, we find that there are a few fundamental mathematical equations that describe all of nature. Physicists develop and use these equations to understand the universe and predict its operation. In general, physicists will only claim they really understand something when they have a well-defined mathematical description of the phenomena. The equations are magnificent and elegant descriptions of the world we experience. How is it that math describes the universe just as an engineer uses math to design a building or an aircraft? In a paper titled “<i>The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences</i>” (1960) the theoretical physicist and mathematician Eugene Wigner writes, “The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.” The mathematical equations that describe the universe seem to indicate that the universe was designed and created by an intelligent agent.
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Faith in God, as described in the Bible, is not a belief based on the lack of evidence but rather trusting God based on the evidence that he is trustworthy. There are many objective reasons to believe in God based on the discoveries of modern science. Just as a painting reveals the soul of the painter, so God’s creation reveals his soul. Studying nature through scientific inquiry does not provide reasons to dismiss the existence of God but reveals God’s character and gives powerful evidence for belief in God.
Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-24841635786610963642019-11-10T10:09:00.000-06:002019-11-19T07:42:57.770-06:00So You're Telling Me There's A Chance<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vrcH23vQQ7A/XcbvziWfSHI/AAAAAAAAAkE/HFFo0daeTY4a1Gu7MVbX83PJalyM0I92ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Dumb.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="627" data-original-width="792" height="158" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vrcH23vQQ7A/XcbvziWfSHI/AAAAAAAAAkE/HFFo0daeTY4a1Gu7MVbX83PJalyM0I92ACLcBGAsYHQ/s200/Dumb.png" width="200" /></a></div>
In the movie <i>Dumb and Dumber</i>, Lloyd (played by Jim Carrey) asks Mary (played by Lauren Holly) what the chances are that a "guy" like her and a "girl" like him could end up together. When Mary gives him the unfortunate news that the chances are "one out of a million" he optimistically replies, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFTRwD85AQ4" target="_blank">So you're telling me there's a chance. Yea!</a>" What does it mean for there to be a chance? What does it mean for something to be possible? In a textbook I used as an undergraduate student, <i>Thermal Physics</i>, by Charles Kittel, one of the end-of-chapter problems asks what the probability is that 10<sup>10</sup> monkeys (more than the entire population of people on the earth) typing on typewriters for the entire age of the universe could type Shakespeare's play <i>Hamlet</i>?<sup>1</sup> The calculated odds turn out to be 1 in 10<sup>164,316</sup>. Perhaps the most profound part of the problem is its in-text title: <i>The meaning of "never."</i> I have talked with people whose understanding of probability aligns with that of Lloyd. They think that if the odds of something occurring are not identically zero, then there is a possibility that the event may occur. But from a scientific viewpoint, when the odds become small enough, that means "never." A commonly used cutoff in science for something that will "never" happen tends to be somewhere from about 10<sup>-50</sup> to 10<sup>-100</sup>. So I guess maybe Lloyd does have a chance.<br />
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This is the final blog post in a series in which I have applied some general principles that are helpful for determining the validity or truth of a scientific proposition to certain claims and ideas proposed by a Christian world view. Because these principles can be used to assist in determining the veracity of any idea, then if Christian claims are true, they should hold up under such an examination that uses reasonable criteria to determine their validity.<br />
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The eight questions I have posed that are helpful to answer when determining truth from the data are:<br />
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<li><a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/07/is-data-consistent.html#more" target="_blank">Is the data logically self-consistent?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/08/if-you-flip-coin-number-of-times-and-60.html" target="_blank">Is there enough evidence to support the hypothesis?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/08/explanatory-power-of-biblical-worldview.html" target="_blank">Is the hypothesis compatible with other known data?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/09/challenge-to-christianity-problem-of.html" target="_blank">Is contradictory evidence conclusive?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/09/is-something-essential-missing.html" target="_blank">Is something essential missing?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/10/external-confirmation-required.html" target="_blank">Is there external confirmation?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/10/is-it-falsifiable.html" target="_blank">Can the hypothesis be falsified or confirmed with other data?</a></li>
<li>Are there other possible explanations that are more feasible?</li>
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The eighth question, which will be discussed here, does not ask, "What are the possible explanations" because there are always many <i>possible</i> explanations for anything, but rather asks, "What is the most feasible explanation". Depending on your definition of possible, it may be possible that Lloyd and Mary will get together or that enough monkeys can type <i>Hamlet</i> given enough time. But all possibilities are not equally probable or likely. The best explanation is the one that can incorporate and explain all the data in a consistent way.<br />
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Over the previous seven blog posts, I have presented a lot of data; data that I think is best explained within the context of a Christian world view. Does the Christian world view provide the best explanation of this data, or are other explanations more feasible? Here is a review of what I have discussed as well as some other items for consideration.<br />
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<li>The events surrounding the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, including the empty tomb, the post resurrection appearances, and the founding of the early Christian church are difficult to explain without an actual resurrection. A frequent rebuttal is that any explanation that doesn't invoke a miracle is more probable, but the proposed alternatives do not satisfactorily account for all the data.</li>
<li>Human nature is confounding. People have the ability to do both wonderfully good things, and horrific acts. The biblical description of humanity that is both made in the image of God, yet fallen due to sin is perhaps the best explanation for this polar nature of humans. Evolutionary explanations should develop a human nature that most likely provides for human survival. How do horrific acts against other humans contribute to our survival?</li>
<li>An explanation for the problem of evil is challenging for any world view. The Christian worldview proclaims that evil is real, that God is deeply disturbed by evil, and that he ultimately has, and will, destroy evil. A naturalistic world view, without an external standard of good and evil, means that any definition of good or evil is equally valid and then there is logically no such thing as real evil.</li>
<li>The Bible is a reliable book when it discusses historical events, which gives credence to the reliability of its spiritual message as well. Critics of the historicity of the biblical record have often had to retract their criticism as archeological finds have confirmed aspects of many biblical narratives.</li>
<li>People have a sense of morality and innately understand that certain things are right and wrong. Where does that come from if humans are not made in the image of a moral God? The quarks and leptons I'm made of have no sense of morality. Other animals don't wrestle with moral questions. Does a lion ponder how to best kill an antelope in a humane way? If there is no God, why do we have a moral code?</li>
<li>People also have a desire for a purpose and destiny. As C.S. Lewis points out in his book <i>Mere Christianity</i>, there is a way to fulfill all human desires, like hunger and sex. There should be a way to fulfill our desire for real purpose and for a future destiny. A God who loves humans and has a purpose for us now and a future destiny allows this inner human desire to have ultimate fulfillment.</li>
<li>Despite increased education and prosperity, the world continues to have severe problems including genocide, hunger, human trafficking, and more. The Christian world view states that change comes not from external factors, but from internal, individual, heart change. If technological, educational, and monetary advancement is the solution to the world's problems we should be living in a utopia. If only internal personal change is the answer, then we would expect to see a world much like it is.</li>
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This is just a partial list of the data that must be explained. A naturalistic world view seems to have many problems explaining the data as briefly described in each of the points above. Is naturalism a possible explanation? Maybe, but it certainly seems less feasible. Other world religions don't have answers that are as satisfying for all of the points above. They don't explain the resurrection, or the conflicting nature of humanity, or the problem of evil, or the sense of purpose and destiny in a way that is as compelling or satisfactory as Christianity.<br />
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Occam's razor is a principle that can be useful for sorting through various possible explanatory options. It basically states that the simplest solution that explains all of the data is usually the best solution. Or as attributed to Friar William of Ockham, "Entities should not be multiplied without necessity." It is quite remarkable to me that a single explanation fits all the data above. The proposal that there is a moral, transcendent God who created humans in his image and cares for them, despite their rebellion and fall explains all the data in a straightforward way. It easily passes the Occam's razor test. Are there other possible explanations? Well, sure there are. But how feasible are they? I'd say that the odds of another explanation for all the data being more likely than Christianity being true are worse than the odds that Lloyd and Mary would get together.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><sup>1</sup> Kittel, Charles, <i>Thermal Physics</i> (New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1980), 53.
</span>Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-88970069684833614192019-10-20T10:55:00.001-05:002019-10-21T13:51:25.623-05:00Is it Falsifiable?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P1l90W3O3d4/XayCZvtPrzI/AAAAAAAAAjQ/IRm_M7mnMeM8YktMshaZQz3mnR-ZiZsyACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Check.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="321" data-original-width="578" height="110" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P1l90W3O3d4/XayCZvtPrzI/AAAAAAAAAjQ/IRm_M7mnMeM8YktMshaZQz3mnR-ZiZsyACLcBGAsYHQ/s200/Check.png" width="200" /></a></div>
What is science? This is a question that scientists, philosophers, and others have discussed with no definitive conclusion. Common definitions of science require that a scientific idea be testable, falsifiable, and predictive. Many of the definitions of science are developed in order to distinguish science from pseudoscience. Pseudoscientific ideas are those that may appear to be scientific but fail some of the basic requirements of a scientific theory. They may be unfalsifiable, their proponents may consider only data that supports the theory and none that contradicts it, others may not be able to reproduce any of the results that might confirm the idea, or other such problems.<br />
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Although the claims of Christianity are not scientific claims, per se, the same tests that are used to help confirm the truth of a scientific theory can be applied to religious claims. Over the last several blog posts I have shown that the claims of Christianity can be scrutinized using some of these same criteria used to test a scientific theory and can be shown to have validity. For instance, the claims of Christianity do have external confirmation, can deal with counter-arguments, and are logically self consistent. In this blog post we address the seventh of eight criteria used to assess the truth of any particular hypothesis: "Can the hypothesis be falsified or confirmed with other data?"<br />
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As the cosmologist Sean Carroll has pointed out, most scientific theories have aspects of them that are falsifiable and aspects that are not. Some aspects may not be falsifiable with current technology, though they can be falsified in principle. In general, though the criteria of falsifiability is useful in helping to distinguish between science and pseudoscience and to determine if an idea seems to have objective supporting evidence.<br />
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The criteria of falsifiability and confirmation can certainly be applied to Christian beliefs, which continues to support the claim that Christianity is an objective belief system. Much of the relevant information regarding falsifiability and confirmation has already been discussed in this series. In a <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/08/if-you-flip-coin-number-of-times-and-60.html" target="_blank">previous blog post I have discussed the importance of the resurrection of Jesus</a> in regards to the truth of Christianity. If Jesus did not rise from the dead then Christianity is false, Jesus is not God, and any trust in him is misguided.<br />
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Christianity is absolutely falsifiable. Simply show that Jesus did not physically rise from the dead. As stated in the previous blog post, however, many of those who have undertaken the challenge to disprove the resurrection and have honestly investigated the factual evidence, have eventually changed their mind and become Christians themselves. For anyone who considers the historical evidence with the mindset that they are willing to follow the evidence where it leads, including the possibility that there is more to reality than simply the natural world, I believe the evidence for the resurrection is compelling and overwhelming. That is why so many initial skeptics are now followers of Jesus. When the evidence for the resurrection is confronted and the skeptic realizes that it points to an actual physical resurrection, the only logical conclusion is to become a follower of Jesus for the claims of Jesus are then completely validated, including his claims of deity and his claim of being the only way to have a relationship with God.<br />
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Not only can Christianity be falsified, but as also stated in a <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/10/external-confirmation-required.html" target="_blank">previous blog post it can be substantially externally confirmed through archeological evidence</a>. Though not every detail can be substantiated, the overall trustworthiness of the historical accounts has been verified through the many archeological finds that validate people, places, and events described in the Bible.<br />
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Christian beliefs are not based on blind faith. They are grounded in the same kind of objective evidence required to scrutinize the validity of any truth claim. In the next blog post we will look at the final question asked in regards to testing the validity of a hypothesis: "Are there other possible explanations that are more feasible?"Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-8991203609052663382019-10-08T06:38:00.000-05:002019-10-08T06:40:04.394-05:00External Confirmation Required<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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At every laboratory where I've done research there have always been at least two major experiments designed to investigate similar scientific questions. At CERN, where I currently do research, I am a member of the ATLAS collaboration, one of the two "general purpose" experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) constructed to explore a broad range of scientific questions with LHC data. The CMS experiment, which sits at the opposite side of the 27 km (17 mile) circumference tunnel, is also a general purpose detector designed to look at a broad range of scientific topics. Despite the fact that having two somewhat redundant experiments costs twice as much to build and maintain, this arrangement is optimal so that each experiment can corroborate the results of the other. New discoveries and measurements require external confirmation to affirm their validity, and so complementary experiments are established in order to provide the necessary verification.<br />
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There have been a few times during my career in particle physics that one experiment seemed to have evidence for a discovery of something entirely new, but was eventually shown to be wrong, partially because other experiments were unable to provide external confirmation. Such cases involve the false "discoveries" that quarks have substructure, that particles can travel faster than the speed of light, and that weird particles called lepto-quarks actually exist. (These things may still turn out to be true but the past experiments that seemed to have found them have all been shown to be incorrect.)<br />
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External confirmation is not only one of the requirements for determining if a proposition is valid or not in any scientific endeavor, but also in other arenas where claims about objective truth are made. In a series of blog posts I have been applying some of the same principles used in my scientific research to the beliefs and world-view of Christianity to investigate whether or not they seem to have objective validation. I have already addressed the questions (1) "<a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/07/is-data-consistent.html" target="_blank">Is the data logically self-consistent?</a>", (2) "<a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/08/if-you-flip-coin-number-of-times-and-60.html" target="_blank">Is there enough evidence to support the hypothesis?</a>", (3) "<a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/08/explanatory-power-of-biblical-worldview.html" target="_blank">Is the hypothesis compatible with other known data?</a>", (4) "<a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/09/challenge-to-christianity-problem-of.html" target="_blank">Is contradictory evidence conclusive?</a>", and (5) "<a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/09/is-something-essential-missing.html" target="_blank">Is something essential missing?</a>". This blog post will address the sixth question, (6) "Is there External Confirmation?", while two future posts will discuss the final two questions, (7) "Can the hypothesis be falsified or confirmed with other data?", and (8) "Are there other possible explanations that are more feasible?".<br />
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The Bible tells stories that are grounded within historical and geographical contexts. It describes people, places, and events that are rooted in history. If the biblical record is accurate, then there should be external confirmation of some fraction of these data. The most likely place to search for any such confirmation would be in the archeological record. If the archeological record can substantiate much of the biblical record, then there is an increased probability that other aspects of the biblical texts are accurate even if they cannot be validated. If the Biblical stories are true, then archeology should be able to supply some reasonable level of external confirmation.<br />
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During much of the modern era a pattern has emerged in which critics of the Bible claim that the Bible must be inaccurate because there is no external evidence for a certain person, people, place, or event. Eventually new archeological evidence is uncovered that validates the biblical record and the critics move on to a different criticism based on a still unconfirmed biblical story. This has happened many times in the past, and continues to occur. By now I would claim that archeology has indeed provided the required external confirmation to support the validity of the biblical texts. There are more examples of how archeology has supported the biblical record than I can write about in a short article, but I'll describe a few. <br />
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In the late 19th century the only recognized mention of a Hittite civilization was in the Bible and critics claimed such a civilization did not exist. But in 1906 ancient tablets were uncovered that confirmed the existence of the Hittites. It is now known that the Hittites were a formidable and expansive empire between the 15th and 13th centuries BC.<br />
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Some scholars questioned the existence of Pontius Pilate as the Roman governor of Judea since he was only mentioned in the New Testament, by the Jewish historian Josephus (which seemed to be similar to the New Testament accounts) and by Philo of Alexandria. But in 1961 a stone from the 1st century was discovered in Caesarea Maritima which had a partial inscription saying "<i>To the Divine Augusti Tiberieum...Pontius Pilate...prefect of Judea...has dedicated</i>." Pilate's place in history as governor of Judea was solidified.<br />
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For much of the period that modern archeology has been practiced, King David was considered likely a fictional character since there was no evidence for his existence outside of the Bible. In 1993 a 9th century BC stone was discovered that mentioned the death of Jehoram, the son of Ahab, king of Israel and the king of the house of David. Though this inscription gives no detail about David's life, it validates that a kingdom existed in the 9th century BC that was accredited to the house of David, thus giving credence to a historical David.<br />
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Doubts were expressed concerning many of the details surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus. Critics claimed that ropes, not nails were primarily used by the Romans to crucify victims and that crucified criminals were thrown into a mass grave but would not be buried in a private tomb. But in 1968 the ankle bone of a crucified man was found with the nail still embedded in the bone. The ankle was found in an ossuary, a burial box in a private tomb, showing that the method of crucifixion described in the gospels was practiced by the Romans and that some crucified criminals were allowed burial in private tombs.<br />
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There are situations where the biblical story does seem to still have discrepancies with the archeological record. For instance, the book of Daniel mentions Darius the Mede as the conqueror of Babylon, yet archeological records indicate Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon. However, other aspects of the story that were once criticized have possible reconciliations. Daniel claims that Belshazzar was "king" of Babylon while ancient records indicate Nabonidus was the last king of Babylon. However, it is now known that Nabonidus waged a military campaign in Arabia leaving Belshazzar to reign in Babylon. Though Belshazzar's title was not officially the "king" it seems reasonable that he might be colloquially called king by those whom he ruled.<br />
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There are other biblical accounts that do not have any archeological confirmation yet, like the Israelite exodus from Egypt. Many historical events do not leave archeological evidence so we should not expect to have validation of every biblical story. Yet the past record shows that continued archeological excavations tend to confirm biblical accounts even for those events that critics claim did not occur.<br />
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It is important to have external confirmation to validate any scientific or historical proposition. In general, archeological findings have provided abundant external confirmation of the reliability of the biblical stories. Places in the Bible like Nazareth and the Pool of Siloam have been discovered. Coins mentioned in the Bible have been found. Accounts of King David and rulers of countries outside of Israel are written in many near eastern texts. In cases where archeology has not yet confirmed the biblical account, I would not bet against the Bible. In the past, that would most likely have been a losing bet.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Drawing of the ATLAS Detector</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-71121671265037531972019-09-21T11:23:00.001-05:002019-09-21T11:24:49.713-05:00Is Something Essential Missing?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In 1989 two chemists, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons held a press conference to announce that they had discovered a process in which nuclear fuel would fuse together to create heat and energy in a small tabletop experiment. Their supposed discovery of "cold fusion" held out the hope of a cheap and abundant supply of energy for the whole world. Yet there were some immediate problems with the experiment. For instance, other scientists were not able to replicate the results despite following the recipe given by Pons and Fleischmann. But perhaps the most obvious hint that something was just not right was the absence of neutrons. In every type of nuclear fusion or fission, excess neutrons should be released. Pons and Fleischmann had originally claimed that their experiment produced excess neutrons, but when other experimenters saw none it became clear that they had not produced any either. When nuclear reactions occur, neutrons must be present. If they are missing then nuclear reactions are not taking place.<br />
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Over four previous blog posts, I have been discussing questions that scientists sometimes ask to determine whether or not a particular claim is true, and then asking those questions about the truth claims of Christianity to evaluate its veracity. One of those important questions is, "Is something essential missing?" If a certain required element is missing from a proposed explanation, then the explanation is likely to be not true. When it comes to truth claims from many of the world's religions and various world-views, I believe that there is an essential element that is present within Christianity, but missing from many other philosophies; thus giving credence to the Christian world-view. The issue has to do with human nature and human actions.<br />
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Just about every religion has a concept of sin or of wrong actions. Within Christianity sin is not just an action but the nature of humans who have chosen, in general, to turn away from God. Within Buddhism or Hinduism sin is related to karma and wrong actions have consequences either in this life or in the next. Within most monotheistic religions God is holy and sinful actions violate God's character and his standards. Even those who don't believe in God acknowledge that they have an internal idea of what is right and what is wrong and that they don't personally always live up to their own standard of what is good or virtuous behavior. In general, people know that their actions are not always right. Such knowledge can bring feelings of guilt or even despair.<br />
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Although every world-view has a concept of sin, all philosophies other than Christianity seem to be missing something essential: a truly satisfactory answer to the problem of sin. If humans are capable of acting badly and there are consequences to those actions, how can we overcome those tendencies and actions? But even more problematic is the question or how any individual can ever know if their good actions and choices are sufficient to overcome their bad ones? Is the standard 50-50? If one does half good actions and have bad actions is that sufficient? What is a good action? Does my attitude matter? Jesus made the claim that we are not only responsible for our actions but for our thoughts as well. Am I culpable for hateful or lustful thoughts? How good is good enough? If there is a God and he is holy is the standard perfection?<br />
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I know of many people from many religions who have developed hopelessness, despair, and even desperation because they could never break free from the cycle of karma or from the nagging conviction that nothing they did was definitively sufficient to overcome their wrong actions. Within monotheism, in particular, a holy God is so blameless and perfect, that any wrong or sinful action is considered a violation of his reasonable standard that we are evaluated against. The reformer Martin Luther himself was despondent because of his failure to always do what was right and because even the smallest offense violated the character of a truly holy God. With no objective standard of what is good enough, and no assurance that ones good actions can satisfy a holy God, all other world-views are missing a satisfactory answer to the problem of human sin.<br />
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However Christianity is the only world-view that acknowledges these problems: that any wrong action or failing is offensive to a holy God and that a perfectly holy standard is impossible to meet. No human will ever be perfect in actions and thoughts. God's perfect standard means that every human falls short and that all humans are declared guilty of violating God's standard. There is not balance of 50% good actions and 50% bad actions. How many links of a chain must fail for the chain to be useless?<br />
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Jesus tells a parable of a servant who had acquired such a large debt that there was no way he could pay it. So the master paid the debt for him. That is the message and the solution to the problem of sin within Christian doctrine. All humans are guilty of sin and owe a debt they cannot pay. No good action or right deed is enough to meet the standards of a perfectly holy God. So God, out of love, justice, grace, and mercy, paid the debt for all individuals. The Christian answer to the problem of sin is that because every person's resources are insufficient to take care of the problem, the God with infinite resources took care of it for us.<br />
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I was once talking with a Muslim friend about his concept of heaven and the requirements for entry. He told me that he was adhering to the five pillars of Islam and hoping that his actions would be enough for him to enter heaven. But because he had no way of knowing what Allah's standard was he also had no way of knowing whether or not he would get into heaven. I told him that I knew I wasn't good enough to satisfy the standard of a holy God but because I was not relying on my "good" actions but on the payment Jesus made on the cross that I was sure I would go to heaven. My friend refused to believe that anyone could be assured of his or her eternal destiny. Within his world view the essential solution to the problem of sin is missing. But Christianity is not missing the solution. It is found in Jesus.Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-78705462395867613962019-09-02T13:58:00.000-05:002019-09-02T20:48:32.750-05:00Challenge to Christianity: The Problem of Evil<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Usually when scientists do multiple experiments to test a theory or model, there will be some experiments that seem to be just a little bit outside of the model predictions. There are almost always a few experiments that are in slight conflict or contradiction to the expectations, even when the model is otherwise well established as being accurate. In science these outlying experiments are often simply due to the nature of statistical analysis. For instance, one out of ten experiments is expected to be about three standard deviations from the average. Sometimes an outlier occurs because the measurement is not very accurate, so it appears to be far from the average but is still sensible given the uncertainty. Sometimes we don't have enough data to make definitive conclusions. In any case, it is important to evaluate if contradictory measurements have reasonable explanations or if they are a real problem for the model being tested.<br />
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This is the fourth blog post in which I am applying some of the same criteria that scientists use to test whether or not a theory is true to the claims of biblical Christianity in order to gain insight into whether or not Christianity has objective credibility. The first three questions that have been addressed were, (1) <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/07/is-data-consistent.html" target="_blank">Is the data logically self-consistent?</a>, (2) <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/08/if-you-flip-coin-number-of-times-and-60.html" target="_blank">Is there enough evidence to support the hypothesis?</a>, and (3) <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/08/explanatory-power-of-biblical-worldview.html" target="_blank">Is the hypothesis compatible with other known data?</a> In this post we ask the question (4) Is contradictory evidence conclusive? Nothing is known to 100% accuracy, and every theory or model has some evidence that may appear to contradict the theory, those outlying experiments. But an idea that is valid will have reasonable explanations for those deviations so that the model remains credible.<br />
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One of the major challenges to Christianity is the problem of evil and suffering: how could a good and omnipotent God allow evil and suffering? I believe this may be the hardest philosophical question to answer, not just from a Christian worldview, but from any worldview.<br />
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For instance, in an atheistic worldview there is no objective standard of what is good or evil, right or wrong, so there is a huge problem of evil because evil is subjective. For example, is morality determined by what the majority thinks is right or wrong? If so, then the Nazi holocaust or American slavery were not evil since the majority in that culture approved of those actions. Is morality determined by what is important for our species to survive and to have a civil society? Atheists will often claim that something like that is the basis for morality. But what makes us special and why is our survival or a civil society even important? The world and the universe could get along just fine without humans. We could have true survival of the fittest without a civil society. The only logical position is to conclude that if there is no outside objective moral standard then there is no good or evil. However, I think most people would contend that certain things are right and wrong. Raping children is wrong. Murder is wrong. Within an atheistic worldview, those things become only preferences. Atheism has a much bigger challenge with the problem of evil than does Christianity.<br />
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The Christian answer to the problem of evil and suffering is partly that God chose to give humans a meaningful will and the ability to make choices. This may have been because God is love and there is no such thing as forced love. Love requires the ability to make personal choices and to give others the same freedom. Much of the evil and suffering we experience is a result of human choices and human vices, such as greed and selfishness. Humans have chosen, in general, to reject God and their rejection and subsequent sin is arguably the source of most of the evil and suffering in the world. Even the devastation from many natural disasters is often more the result of human choices, rather than the disaster itself. Flooding from storm surges and damage from earthquakes could be significantly mitigated by making wise choices about where and how to build. Tectonic activity and tidal surges are actually necessary components of a planet that can support higher life forms. Consequently, some natural disasters like earthquakes are needed for our existence and the devastation from them is more a result of human choice than of the earthquake itself.<br />
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Still, we do know that the innocent suffer. Children contract cancer and die. Good people experience hardship and suffering that seems undeserved. These things often cause our hearts to break and to wonder if a good God exists, and if so, why doesn't he do something about this suffering. Again, the Christian worldview has an answer to these questions. Such suffering also causes God's heart to break and he has done something about it. Christian doctrine declares that the reason Jesus came to earth, died, and rose from the dead is to take care of the consequences of human rebellion and to ultimately take care of the problem of evil. Christian doctrine says that currently God is patient and loving, calling people to repent, to come to him, and to be adopted as children into his family. The Bible states that God will one day create a new heaven and earth in which there is no pain, suffering, or evil, and that the current delay in that coming is an act of kindness as God invites people into his family. The Christian worldview stands unique among the world's religions in its claim that God cares so much about evil and suffering that he has ultimately paid a high price to alleviate it and that one day it will truly be wiped away.<br />
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The Bible also says that we can't see the whole big picture, but that God does. At times, parents will make certain decisions that may seem incomprehensible to their children, but serve a larger purpose that the children don't understand. I believe that there is more to the story of pain and suffering from God's perspective that we cannot see, but will one day be revealed to us.<br />
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Does the Christian response to the problem of evil give a completely satisfactory explanation that answers all questions and assuages all emotion? For me, not totally. But I do think it answers the questions better than any other worldview. Evil and suffering are real and objective. God gave people the choice to love him and their fellow humans or not. Human choices and rebellion against God are responsible for much of the pain and suffering we endure. God cares deeply about pain and suffering and paid a great price to ultimately remove them completely. God's perspective is much different and broader than ours and one day some mysteries will be revealed to us. I think these answers provide a reasonable solution to the problem of evil. I think they provide a satisfactory explanation to one of the major criticisms and "contradictory evidence" about Christianity. They make the problem of evil a data point that is an outlier but is within the realm of viability, supporting the proposition that Christianity is true.<br />
<br />Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-59682739693840935052019-08-10T04:06:00.000-05:002019-08-10T12:02:19.572-05:00Explanatory Power of a Biblical Worldview<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As a professor of physics at a research university, I will often get unsolicited papers from non-scientists that propose an entirely different perspective on some known physical phenomena, maybe the electromagnetic force, or how atoms behave. In almost every case I can quickly glance at the paper and recognize that the proposal cannot be true. I may be accused of being arrogant or biased because I quickly dismiss these new ideas with apparently very little thought. But, in reality, most of these ideas can be readily discarded simply because they contradict known data and experiments.<br />
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For example, a student once came into my office with an idea that he had been working on since he was very young about how electricity might be described and modeled. It was apparent that, although his idea was clever and inventive, it did not coincide with some of the things we know about the electromagnetic force. Rather than squelch this student's idea outright I simply informed him that since he was a freshman physics major he would learn a lot about electricity during the next four years of college. I suggested that he compare what we know about how the electromagnetic force works with his model and see if his model was able to accurately describe what we know from experimental observation. If it didn't, he'd have to revise or reject his model. If it did, his model may be correct.<br />
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In any effort to determine if an idea is true or not, it is vital to compare the predictions of the idea with what is already known to be true. If an idea contradicts known truth, then the idea cannot itself be true. <br />
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This is the third installment in a series dealing with eight questions that should be asked when trying to determine if an idea is valid or true. These questions can apply to a scientific idea, or in the case of this blog, can be applied to the claims and tenants of Christianity to help ascertain their validity. In previous blog posts I have dealt with the first two questions which were (1) <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/07/is-data-consistent.html" target="_blank">Is the data logically self-consistent?</a> and (2) <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/08/if-you-flip-coin-number-of-times-and-60.html" target="_blank">Is there enough evidence to support the hypothesis?</a> In this blog post I will discuss the third question: "Is the hypothesis compatible with other known data?"<br />
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When comparing with known data, it is a good idea to remember that sometimes a new idea may initially seem to contradict what is already known, but further investigation reveals that there is actually a compatibility between the two ideas or that the older idea could be tested more thoroughly. Major revolutions in physics like quantum mechanics or special relativity may, at first, appear to contradict previously held ideas, but have been shown to be more accurate and comprehensive descriptions of reality that still encompass the other known conclusions within prescribed limits.<br />
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There are many known facets of the universe that could be compared with a biblical Christian worldview to determine whether or not Christianity could be true. I'll look at only two of those in this brief blog post: some known facts from science and some observations about the human condition.<br />
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Although the Bible is not technically a scientific journal, it does describe certain aspects of how God created the universe and interacts with the universe. As such, the Bible makes predictions about what we should observe in nature. Many of my blog posts have dealt with these topics including <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2017/01/should-big-bang-be-disdained.html" target="_blank">the origin of the universe</a> and the design in the universe, both of which follow from the biblical description of God and his relationship to the created universe. The Bible clearly indicates that our universe came into existence at one point in history. Within the last 100 years or so, all scientific observations and theories point to an actual beginning of our universe. The biblical record is compatible with what is known about the origin of the universe. (Or one could turn this statement around and say the discoveries of science about the origin of the universe are compatible with what the Bible claims.) The biblical record in Genesis 1 and scientific discoveries even agree about the details of the earth's history over the last 4.5 billion years as <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2018/10/genesis-and-science-reconciled.html" target="_blank">briefly outlined in this blog post</a>. The universe also appears to be <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2017/04/an-introduction-to-anthropic-principle.html" target="_blank">designed and finely-tuned</a> as if there were an intelligent designer behind it all. Here too, is a compatibility between what science has discovered and what the Bible declares. All in all, the scientific implications derived within the worldview of biblical Christianity agree with the scientific facts discovered by observing nature.<br />
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The Bible also makes many statements about the nature of humans and the societal impact of that nature. In general, the Bible says that humanity is in a "fallen" state, with each human individual having a nature prone to rebel against God rather than follow and obey God. As a result, humans will have an internal tendency toward selfishness and even evil. We see such a tendency in many aspect of society. For instance, there is enough food grown in the world to feed everyone adequately, but human greed and power struggles keep it from being distributed to those who need it. Corporate profit motives drive certain drug prices so high in the United States that people can't afford needed medicine like insulin. I believe that part of the gun-violence problem in the United States stems from this fallen nature of humans and the hopelessness or maybe hatred that sometimes accompanies that.<br />
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Some will argue that these societal problems can be solved with better education or monetary distribution, but we live in a time when people in the United States, for instance, are more educated than ever, yet vices like greed and racism still permeate our society. Although I believe in better education and caring for those in poverty, ultimately the biblical solution to these problems is not simply external change but internal change. People's hearts need to be changed. The apostle Paul addresses this heart change when he writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!" (New Living Translation).<br />
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An example of positive societal change that should come from a Christian worldview has to do with the issue of discrimination and racism. According to biblical ideas, the church should set an example of inclusiveness because all people have value and dignity and societal distinctions should not dictate how people are treated. Again, Paul discusses this in Galatians 3:28 when he writes, "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (New International Version). Paul is not saying that these distinctions don't exist, but rather that within these distinctions, all have equal value and are all part of one family.<span class="p"> The examples Paul uses were among the most biased and discriminatory distinctions of his day, but within Christianity there is no discrimination. </span><br />
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<span class="p">In my opinion, the biblical worldview is more compatible with the societal problems I observe than any other worldview. It seems to me that societal problems really do stem from something within human nature and that external cosmetic changes or enhanced education won't ever fix them. In our highly educated and even wealthy western society, we still have deep problems. I believe that the biblical worldview explains those problems and the ultimate solution better than any other hypothesis. </span><br />
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<span class="p">In the areas of scientific findings and societal ills, biblical Christianity is compatible with the known data. As such, it continues to pass objective criteria for being true.</span><br />
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<br />Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-55562617405519683782019-08-02T07:55:00.001-05:002019-09-21T09:28:48.786-05:00Evidence for Christianity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bwOmjnLYWVs/XUQyknXAcMI/AAAAAAAAAhE/wCs7DNK4XYE-LL-FTKtllfnKHMd2YjuKACLcBGAs/s1600/Tomb.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="428" height="179" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bwOmjnLYWVs/XUQyknXAcMI/AAAAAAAAAhE/wCs7DNK4XYE-LL-FTKtllfnKHMd2YjuKACLcBGAs/s320/Tomb.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1580378912972065231" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>If you flip a coin a number of times and 60% of the time the coin shows "heads" while 40% of the time the coin flip shows "tails" would you conclude that the coin is a fair coin that is properly and unbiasedly weighted? As the question is stated, there is not enough information to accurately answer it. For instance, if you flip the coin ten times, it is quite probable that the coin will be heads six times and tails four times. A six to four split should happen about 21% of the time, so such a pattern would not be unusual in 10 coin tosses. But suppose instead you flipped a coin 1000 times and it showed heads 600 times and tails 400 times. That is still a 6/4 ratio but the probability of this pattern appearing is 4.6×10<sup>-11</sup>. Clearly a coin showing 600 heads and 400 tails is not a properly balanced coin. In order to make a definitive statement about the coin there must be enough data, or evidence, to support the hypothesis. (In reality, it seems to be impossible to make a "weighted" coin by adding weight to one side, but a coin can be made to land on a preferred side by bending it.)
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This is the second installment in a series of blog posts dealing with some general questions that can be used to try to determine if a certain proposition is true or not. These principles can be applied to a scientific experiment or to the claims of Christianity to ascertain what conclusion is likely true. In a previous blog post I asked the question of whether or not the data was logically self-consistent. Regarding Christianity, I claimed that the Bible itself is a self-consistent book, and that the message of Christianity regarding the person of Jesus, the character of God, and the nature of humans is also self-consistent.
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The eight questions to ask for determining the validity or truth of an idea from the available data are:<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/07/is-data-consistent.html" target="_blank">Is the data logically self-consistent?</a></li>
<li>Is there enough evidence to support the hypothesis?</li>
<li><a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/08/explanatory-power-of-biblical-worldview.html" target="_blank">Is the hypothesis compatible with other known data?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/09/challenge-to-christianity-problem-of.html" target="_blank">Is contradictory evidence conclusive?</a></li>
<li>Is something essential missing?</li>
<li>Is there external confirmation?</li>
<li>Can the hypothesis be falsified or confirmed with other data?</li>
<li>Are there other possible explanations that are more feasible?</li>
</ol>
Having dealt with the first question <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/07/is-data-consistent.html" target="_blank">in the previous post</a>, let's move on to the second, "Is there enough evidence to support the hypothesis?" Ultimately, the hypothesis that Christianity is true is based on a singular event in history: the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. If there is enough evidence to support the historicity of that event, then the foundation of Christianity is established. If there was no resurrection, then Christianity is false and useless. The apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians,<br />
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"And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.... And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; ...we are of all people most to be pitied." (1 Corinthians 15:14-19).</div>
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In a short blog post I cannot go into great detail about the evidence for the resurrection and show all the intricacies about why I think an actual resurrection is the only hypothesis that explains all of the evidence. In general, there are four basic historical facts that any hypothesis must address.<br />
<ol>
<li>Jesus was flogged, crucified, and buried.</li>
<li>The tomb Jesus was buried in was empty a few days later.</li>
<li>The followers of Jesus had experiences they claimed were appearances of a risen Jesus.</li>
<li>The followers of Jesus boldly proclaimed his resurrection despite persecution.</li>
</ol>
The main argument against the resurrection is simply that miracles don't occur, so that any other explanation is more probable than an actual miracle. But the statement that miracles do not occur is simply a philosophical assertion which could be completely false. The better question to ask is which possible explanation best fits the facts. When I have examined the various possible alternative propositions about the facts surrounding the events of the first Easter Sunday only an actual resurrection adequately accounts for all of the facts. Occasionally in science a new idea, or even a new paradigm, must be constructed in order for the facts to be completely accounted for. Any hypothesis that cannot explain the facts must be discarded, no matter how probable or improbable it may initially seem. If an actual resurrection is the only explanation that adequately accounts for the known facts of history, then an actual resurrection becomes the most valid conclusion. Such is the case for the resurrection of Jesus. The evidence supports the hypothesis.<br />
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In my blog post dealing with the first of the eight questions above, I mentioned the psychological phenomena called "confirmation bias" in which people tend to ignore evidence that contradicts their currently held beliefs and emphasize evidence that supports their currently held belief. However, when it comes to the resurrection, the opposite happens quite frequently. That is, people who do not believe Jesus of Nazareth arose from the dead have investigated the resurrection with the goal of showing it was false, but have ultimately changed their mind and not only accepted the resurrection as historical fact, but also become Christians themselves. A short, non-comprehensive list of people who have studied the facts of the resurrection in an attempt to disprove it, but became Christians instead would include:<br />
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<ul>
<li><albert author="" henry="" i="" nbsp="" of="" ross="">Albert Henry Ross, author of <i>Who Moved the Stone</i> </albert>(using the pseudonym Frank Morison) </li>
<li>Josh McDowell, author of <i>More than a Carpenter</i> </li>
<li>J. Warner Wallace, author of <i>Cold Case Christianity</i> </li>
<li>Malcom Muggeridge, author of <i>Jesus Rediscovered</i></li>
<li>Lee Strobel,<i> </i>author of<i> <i>The Case for Christ</i></i></li>
<li>General Lew Wallace,<i> </i>author of<i> <i>Ben Hur.</i></i></li>
</ul>
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In order for a skeptic to change their mind, in fact change their whole world view, the <i>facts</i> must be quite compelling. In the case of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, that is the case. There is certainly enough evidence to support the claim that Jesus actually arose from the dead beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus the foundational truth of Christianity is on solid evidential footing.<br />
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Addendum added 10 days after the initial post: My friend Luke Nix writes a blog and in a recent post he gives a much more detailed description of the evidence for the resurrection. For more details I direct you to <a href="https://lukenixblog.blogspot.com/2019/04/did-historical-jesus-rise-from-dead.html?fbclid=IwAR1-_qaY-Onr8sj_5du9tz591N4CAMYjNFh9-95otDTncOlPbt5cx2v9I6A" target="_blank">his blog post here</a>.</div>
Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-45982736755596168702019-07-21T20:06:00.001-05:002019-07-22T11:54:25.277-05:00The Race to the Moon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Vm2mxn-PnXU/XTUAseco0iI/AAAAAAAAAgg/g1C7jxdh-Bg3s680DhbWlIRP8Lg-RDj-ACLcBGAs/s1600/Modules.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="459" data-original-width="720" height="255" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Vm2mxn-PnXU/XTUAseco0iI/AAAAAAAAAgg/g1C7jxdh-Bg3s680DhbWlIRP8Lg-RDj-ACLcBGAs/s400/Modules.png" width="400" /></a></div>
On this 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 flight to the moon, I would like to express some thoughts on the role the early days of manned space flight played in my life and my appreciation for the people who were instrumental in sending humans to the moon, which inspired a whole generation of current scientists. In contrast to many of my blog posts, this one will be autobiographical with little direct connection made between science and Christianity.<br />
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I spent eight and a half years of my childhood, from when I was five years old to when I was thirteen years old in Huntsville, Alabama, the city where the Saturn V rocket was designed and where the bottom stage of the Saturn V rocket was built and tested. During the 1960's and early 1970's, Huntsville was among the cities most involved with manned space flight, along with Houston where mission control existed and Cape Canaveral where flights were launched. I was fascinated and captivated by manned space flight. If you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew, up I would have probably answered that I wanted to be an astronaut. Some kids could name their favorite sports heroes, but I could name all of the astronauts. The remarkable achievement of humans going to the moon, pushing the boundaries of technology and adventure, inspired a whole generation of scientists. I know that my interest in science and technology, which eventually led me to becoming an experimental particle physicist, was spawned and nurtured because of the accomplishments made in the race to put humans on the moon.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tYX-TO3TeC0/XTUEtzk42uI/AAAAAAAAAgs/OWwP_qul5CstWIZTivuJSDdJ6B7dL7r3QCLcBGAs/s1600/SaturnV.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1019" data-original-width="520" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tYX-TO3TeC0/XTUEtzk42uI/AAAAAAAAAgs/OWwP_qul5CstWIZTivuJSDdJ6B7dL7r3QCLcBGAs/s320/SaturnV.png" width="163" /></a>As a child one of my hobbies was making plastic models, and most of the models I made were spaceships, helicopters, or airplanes. One of the most intricate and complicated plastic models I made was of the command module, the service module, and the lunar module, which could be taken apart to recreate the steps of the Apollo mission from earth orbit to the moon landing, and the return to earth. The plastic model had all the parts shown in the opening picture at the beginning of this blog post. That extravagant model was one of my favorite birthday presents of all time.<br />
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To test the first stage of the Saturn V rocket, with its five F-1 engines which produced a total of 7.5 million pounds of thrust, engineers would strap the rocket into a stationary pad and turn on the engines while the pad held the rocket in place. Can you imagine how strong the structure must have been that can hold the Saturn V rocket in place when the engines are firing full throttle? When the rocket engines were tested, the glass doors in our house in Huntsville would shake as the rocket engines fired many miles away. When I moved to southern California as a teenager, the first earthquake I experienced felt just like the rumbling of the ground when the Saturn V rocket engines were tested in Alabama. The Saturn V remains the most powerful and largest rocket ever built by humans and the F-1 engines remain the most powerful single chamber liquid-propellant combustion engine ever produced.<br />
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The space race had such an impact on me that the first words of my book <i>The Creator Revealed: A Physicist Examines the Big Bang and the Bible</i> reference my fascination with the moon landing. Here is an excerpt from the first two paragraphs of the book.<br />
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"I was mesmerized by the picture on my television screen that was being transmitted from about 240,000 miles away. The fuzzy black-and-white images of the two astronauts walking on the moon captivated me as I watched humans step onto a different world for the very first time. What an exciting and amazing moment for a ten-year-old boy! It seemed that through the miracle of scientific progress, humans could do almost anything. I was fascinated by the exploration of space and the advancements made by modern science.<br />
I was also the son of a pastor and was being taught in church that the Bible was the Word of God, that the stories written in the Bible were true, and that they were an accurate reflection of a God who is always truthful. These two arenas, science and faith, were in perfect harmony, at least to a boy who was only ten years old."</div>
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Exploring space is expensive. Sending humans to space is also inherently dangerous. But manned and unmanned missions to distant worlds have the ability to inspire humans and bring humanity together. They push the frontiers in many different scientific and technological areas. I believe that the cost of such projects is repaid many times over in the technological advancements made and in the human resources inspired and developed. I'm grateful for the hundreds of thousands of people who were directly involved in the manned space missions that eventually led to humans walking on the moon. It is because of them and their success that I am a scientist today. We should reflect on the tremendous long-term benefits that came about because humanity dreamed big and pushed the boundaries of exploration. Maybe there are still many adventures out there that can inspire the next generation of scientists. I think undertaking such adventures would be exciting and worthwhile.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">You can purchase <i>The Creator Revealed: A Physicist Examines the Big Bang and the Bible</i> from the publisher at <a href="https://www.westbowpress.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?Book=765527" target="_blank">Westbow Press</a>, or from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Creator-Revealed-Physicist-Examines-Bible/dp/1973629941/" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.</span>Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-52062138110588180562019-07-14T20:22:00.000-05:002019-07-14T20:22:05.505-05:00Is the Data Consistent?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FGdbt6Hp4SI/XSufcNAvAfI/AAAAAAAAAgM/lN2XkPzP8xQuN3iwjVoE7wr2wTTTP89GwCLcBGAs/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2019-07-14%2Bat%2B4.31.55%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="763" data-original-width="535" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FGdbt6Hp4SI/XSufcNAvAfI/AAAAAAAAAgM/lN2XkPzP8xQuN3iwjVoE7wr2wTTTP89GwCLcBGAs/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2019-07-14%2Bat%2B4.31.55%2BPM.png" width="280" /></a></div>
Psychological experiments have shown that people tend to embrace evidence that confirms their already-held beliefs while overlooking evidence that conflicts with their beliefs, a phenomena called "confirmation bias." As a scientist who consistently analyzes data, not only must I be careful to avoid confirmation bias, but I must also take precautions against the opposite effect, which would be to bias experimental data with the goal of finding something new rather than just confirming what is already known. Many of the great discoveries in science have been made when the data shows an unexpected result rather than a confirmation of an already known effect. In short, it is important to be able to sift through the data in an unbiased way to try to determine the truth of a proposition. To assist me in this endeavor, I have developed an informal list of questions to ask that serve as a guideline to follow for determining the truth of an idea while trying to minimize bias.<br />
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In this blog I have regularly claimed that Christian beliefs are evidentially based, and not just a product of blind conviction. As a thinking person, a scientist, and a Christian, I have a desire to determine what is true about spiritual ideas and to try to avoid simple confirmation bias when examining evidence for Christian truth claims. Consequently, it may serve as an interesting exercise to apply the general principles I have developed for determining the truth of a proposition to certain spiritual claims and ideas. If the claims of Christianity are objectively true, then they should hold up under an examination that uses reasonable criteria to determine their validity.<br />
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The eight questions that are helpful to ask when determining truth from the data are:<br />
<ol>
<li>Is the data logically self-consistent?</li>
<li>Is there enough evidence to support the hypothesis?</li>
<li>Is the hypothesis compatible with other known data?</li>
<li>Is contradictory evidence conclusive?</li>
<li>Is something essential missing?</li>
<li>Is there external confirmation?</li>
<li>Can the hypothesis be falsified or confirmed with other data?</li>
<li>Are there other possible explanations that are more feasible?</li>
</ol>
Let's start by looking at the first question in this blog post, and then we'll explore the other questions in future posts. We'll ask these questions about certain biblical and Christian ideas to explore some of the objective truth claims made.<br />
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1. Is the data self-consistent? <br />
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Something cannot be true if it contradicts itself; if it is not self-consistent. For example, many years ago some scientists claimed that they had discovered evidence that neutrinos had a mass of 17 keV. (Kilo-electron volts is a unit of energy. In particle physics the mass of particles is given in energy units since mass is just one form of energy as expressed in Einstein's famous equation <i>E</i> = <i>mc</i><sup>2</sup>.) As it turned out, there were two different techniques used to search for this massive neutrino. One technique used solid state detectors and one technique used detectors filled with gas. After some time it became clear that the solid state detectors seemed to be observing the 17 keV neutrino, but the gas detectors were not. Clearly there was an inconsistency in the data. Either a 17 keV neutrino existed or it didn't and, if it did, both types of detectors should be able to see it. This discrepancy was finally resolved when scientists realized there was an unaccounted systematic effect in the solid state detectors that made it appear there was a 17 keV neutrino although none actually existed. The inconsistency in the data led to a correct and consistent understanding of the data, but alas, no Nobel prize for the discovery of a 17 keV neutrino.<br />
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When it comes to spiritual claims from the world's religions it quickly becomes obvious that the various beliefs contradict each other. For instance, some religions teach that after death an individual is reincarnated, while others teach that each individual only lives once. Some religions believe that Jesus was simply a good moral teacher, while Christianity maintains that Jesus was God himself. These ideas contradict each other and cannot both be true. The only logical conclusion is that either all religions are false, or only one of them is true. If you were to try to reconcile these beliefs by choosing various aspects of the world's religions to develop a belief system that consists of ideas common to many religions, the result would be to create another "new" religion that still contradicts other world religions. Consequently, it is not bigoted or arrogant to claim that one religion is true and the others are false (or that all are false). It is the only possibility given that the data must be consistent.
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Critics of Christianity will claim that the Bible cannot be true because it has contradictions within it. I would argue that there are not actually logical contradictions within the Bible, although there are accounts that may, with a cursory reading, appear to present contradictions. Many of these apparent contradictions can be resolved by simply understanding that the same story can be told from different viewpoints or that similar stories may actually be different incidents. The theologian R.C. Sproul tells the story of a student who claimed that the Bible was full of contradictions. Sproul
asked the student to find as many of the contradictions as he could and the two of them would then look carefully to see if they were actually logical contradictions or not. Sproul writes,<br />
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"The next day he returned bleary-eyed with a list of 30 contradictions. He admitted that he had worked long into the night and could come up with only 30. But he presented me a list of the most blatant contradictions he could find. (He made use of critical books that listed such contradictions.) He went through his list, one at a time, applying the test of formal logic to each alleged contradiction. We used syllogisms, the laws of immediate inference, truth tables, and even Venn diagrams to test for logical inconsistency and contradictions. In every single incident we proved objectively, not only to my satisfaction, but to his, that not a single violation of the law of contradiction was made."<sup>1</sup></div>
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Sproul illustrates one example of reconciling apparent conflicts by discussing the number of angels that were present at Jesus' tomb on Easter Sunday. The gospels of Matthew and Mark mention one angel while Luke mentions two. Of course, Matthew and Mark don't say there was <i>only</i> one angel and they focus on what the angel said. If I were to attend a concert where a number of bands played and I described the music of only one band while my wife described the music of two bands, there is no contradiction. I simply chose to only mentioned one band while she mentioned more. There is no logical contradiction. The same event can be described from different perspectives with no logical contradiction. This occurs with some frequency in biblical records.<br />
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In reality the consistency of the Bible is quite remarkable. It was written over a period of 1500 years or so by about forty different people from all walks of life including shepherds, a doctor, fisherman, farmers, kings, and soldiers. It was written in three languages on three different continents, yet presents a self-consistent view of God and humanity. It consistently presents a portrait of humans who are separated from God because of their rebellion, and of God’s relentless pursuit to draw people to himself. <br />
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The message of the Bible is consistent in its logic regarding the consequences of that rebellion, starting with the declaration that God is infinite in his holiness and righteousness. Since the consequences of a violation of any law should be commensurate with the severity of the violation, an infraction against an infinite holy standard leads to an infinite debt. Such a debt can be paid either by a finite being for an infinite amount of time or by an infinite being in a finite amount of time. Thus, the logical message of Christianity is that Jesus had to be the infinite God himself to possess the resources to pay for the consequences of human rebellion against an infinite God. The idea that Jesus of Nazareth was the incarnation of the infinite God is a necessary requirement for a self-consistent Christian story of human redemption given the character of God's infinite holiness and human finiteness.<br />
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In a short blog post it is impossible to delve into the subject of the internal consistency of the Bible or of the biblical message in any depth. But my long-term study of the subject has convinced me that Christian beliefs about the biblical text and the person of Jesus present a logically-consistent picture, and therefore pass the first criteria necessary for determining the likelihood that an idea is true: the data is internally consistent.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">The opening figure is taken from A. Hime and N.A. Jelley, “</span><i style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">New evidence for the 17 keV neutrino</i><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">”, Phys. Lett. </span><b style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">B</b><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard;"> 257, 441 (1991), and shows the "evidence" for a 17 keV neutrino.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>1</sup><a href="https://www.monergism.com/%E2%80%9Ccan-we-trust-bible%E2%80%9D-bible-full-myths-and-contradictions-it%E2%80%99s-just-fairy-tale" target="_blank">https://www.monergism.com/%E2%80%9Ccan-we-trust-bible%E2%80%9D-bible-full-myths-and-contradictions-it%E2%80%99s-just-fairy-tale</a> (accessed on July 14, 2019)</span></span><br />
<br />Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-76843846451684603372019-06-23T04:47:00.000-05:002019-06-25T04:57:00.050-05:00Is There Life Out There? Another Step Toward Its Improbability<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It seems that much of the current research in astrophysics and space science is focused on the search for extraterrestrial life. Whether we are sending probes to Mars, searching for extra-solar planets, or looking for water on moons and planets in our solar system, a major goal of these efforts is discovering environments that are suitable for life, or even finding evidence of life itself. The question of whether or not other life exists is not only an important scientific question, but maybe even a philosophical, sociological, psychological, and theological question as well.<br />
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Much of the search for extraterrestrial life has centered on whether or not a planet or moon is in an orbit that permits its surface to retain liquid water. The presence of liquid water is certainly one of the most important requirements for complex life. If a planet's location is too close the star it orbits then it will be too hot and water will boil away, and if a planet is too far from the star, all the water will freeze. The habitable zone is the region in which the planet's orbit is just the right distance from the star to harbor liquid water on its surface.<br />
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Of course, life requires much more than simply liquid water; a fact that is often not acknowledged in the search for extraterrestrial life. When scientists claim that they might have found an "earth-like" planet they mean one of three things: either the planet (1) is in the habitable zone, (2) is about the same size as earth, or (3) is a rocky planet and not gaseous. A cursory glance at this list should alert any reader not to take too seriously the claim that scientists may have found another earth-like planet. After all, Mars is in the habitable zone, Venus is about the same size as earth, and Mercury is rocky, but none of those planets have the necessary characteristics for supporting complex life. The latter two are inhospitable to life of any kind.<br />
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So what are the necessary requirements for a planet to support complex life? There have been many attempts to try to catalogue the requirements for life. Perhaps the most famous attempt is the Drake equation, first written by Frank Drake in 1961, which tries to quantify the number of active civilizations capable of broadcasting communication signals.<sup>1,2</sup> The equation multiplies seven important factors together to get an estimate of the number of civilizations with detectable signals in our galaxy. Those factors are (1) the average rate of star formation in our galaxy, (2) the fraction of stars that have planets, (3) the average number of planets that could support life for each star with planets, (4) the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life, (5) the fraction of planets with life that eventually develop intelligent life and civilizations, (6) the fraction of civilizations that develop technology that gives detectable signs of their existence, and (7) the length of time for which such civilizations broadcast those signals into space. <br />
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Although the Drake equation may be a reasonable starting point for the discussion about the probability for finding extraterrestrial life, it has been widely criticized for neglecting some very important factors. In addition, many of the factors used have such a broad range of possibilities that any attempt to quantify the number of civilizations that satisfy the Drake criteria give estimates from as little as 10<sup>-11</sup> to as high as 10<sup>7</sup> such civilizations in our galaxy.<sup>2</sup> In 2000, Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee published the book <i>Rare Earth</i>, which addressed some of the deficiencies of the Drake equation by proposing additional terms that should be included, but they did not make an effort to calculate an accurate number using their additions.<sup>3</sup><br />
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When I give talks on complex life in the universe I will often quote a quantitative estimate of the probability of finding such life made by the astrophysicist Hugh Ross. In 2004, Ross compiled a list of 322 parameters that are necessary for a truly "earth-like" planet to exist,<sup>4</sup> and in 2009, he released another list of 676 parameters that are necessary to sustain uni-cellular life for 3 billion years on a planet.<sup>5</sup> These estimates are what scientists often call "back of the envelope" or "order of magnitude" calculations. They are not meant to be exact but to give a best approximation based on known quantities. In his calculation, Ross includes correlations and the expected number of planets in the visible universe. He determines that the probability for finding any planet in the visible universe that meets the requirements to be 1 in 10<sup>282</sup> for the first case and 1 in 10<sup>556</sup> in the latter case. With such low probabilities it is basically impossible that any other complex life exists in the visible universe. (It should be noted that as a theist I believe that since God created at least one planet with life he could have created many planets with life despite the odds. A discovery of another planet with life may actually increase the evidence for a creator if these low odds continue to hold up to more scrutiny.)<br />
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I am often criticized for taking Ross's estimation seriously. Critics argue that Ross is being too conservative in his estimation, and those who have looked at his calculation in detail claim that his numbers are not well documented. (As to the latter criticism, I agree that although Ross lists references for all of his numbers, it is nearly impossible to ascertain the individual probabilities from the references as presented in his table. It would be helpful for him to footnote each individual probability with its references.) Regarding the first criticism, I believe that Ross's calculation only <i><b>seems</b></i> to be conservative because other scientists have not taken the effort to compile a comprehensive list of the conditions necessary to support complex life, and because scientists too easily accept the rhetoric to "follow the water" expecting that life can thrive given only a few simple ingredients rather than a long list of necessary requirements.<br />
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However, a recent publication takes another step that narrows the probability for finding complex life and provides more validation for the low probability of finding life that Ross has calculated. In this recent paper, five scientists have examined the extent of the habitable zone around a star, considering not just the presence of liquid water, but also whether or not certain gases in the planet's atmosphere, such as CO and CO<sub>2</sub>, would be toxic for any life more complex than simple microbial life.<sup>6</sup> The new paper shrinks the habitable zone for simple life by a factor of two and for complex life like humans to one-third of the previous estimate.<br />
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The paper also seems to practically rule out any life around stars categorized as M dwarf stars. The authors write, "In addition to possible limits from toxic gas buildup, there are other habitability concerns with M dwarfs that may also apply to microbial life, such as potential atmospheric
erosion from flares and climatic impacts from tidal locking...all of which may render M dwarf planets poor candidates for the development of complex or intelligent life." This is an important development, for many of the known extra-solar planets that have been promoted as being suitable for life orbit M dwarf stars. Although the other factors listed by the authors have been known for a while, scientists have continued to laud the discovery of planets around M dwarfs as possibly having liquid water and so being habitable. Hopefully, these new calculations will somewhat diminish the hype every time a new planet is found around an M dwarf star.<br />
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The assertion that planets capable of supporting complex life are very rare in the universe continues to become stronger as we learn more about the necessary requirements for a such a planet to exist. If the earth is rare, or even unique, it challenges the Copernican principle that our planet is just an average planet in an average place in the universe. It strengthens the case that the earth seems to be special, and therefore that its occupants may also be special in the universe. As such, these scientific findings continue to add credence to the biblical idea that the earth and humans are not just accidents in the vast universe, but that they are specially created by God with intent and with a purpose. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>1</sup><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>2</sup><a href="http://www.astrobio.net/alien-life/the-drake-equation-revisited-part-i/">http://www.astrobio.net/alien-life/the-drake-equation-revisited-part-i/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>3</sup>Brownlee, Donald, and Peter D. Ward, <i>Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe</i>, (Copernicus Books: New York, NY), 2000.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>4</sup><a href="https://www.reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/read/tnrtb/2004/04/01/probability-for-life-on-earth">https://www.reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/read/tnrtb/2004/04/01/probability-for-life-on-earth</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>5</sup><a href="https://d4bge0zxg5qba.cloudfront.net/files/compendium/compendium_Part3_ver2.pdf" target="_blank">https://d4bge0zxg5qba.cloudfront.net/files/compendium/compendium_Part3_ver2.pdf </a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>6</sup><a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ab1d52/pdf" target="_blank">Schwieterman Edward, et.al., "A Limited Habitable Zone for Complex Life," <i>The Astrophysical Journal,</i> June 10 (2019)</a>.
</span></span></span></span>Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-50757709082980224962019-06-13T15:35:00.002-05:002019-06-13T15:35:55.296-05:00God and the Nobel Prize<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A religious skeptic recently told a friend of mine, "If someone were to find proof of the existence of God, that person would win a Nobel prize." It is certainly true that proof of God would be a monumental accomplishment worthy of great recognition, though I'm not sure which Nobel prize would be given for such a discovery: chemistry? peace? literature? After thinking about this for a while, it could be argued that there has already been a Nobel prize awarded for a scientific discovery that gave "proof" of God: the Nobel prize in physics in 1978.
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Of course, in a scientific context, nothing is ever really proven to be absolutely true. Our theories and hypotheses may be tested and verified to the point that we believe they are most likely universally valid, but we don't say they are absolutely proven because if we were to find any exception in any circumstance to any general law then that law would not be absolutely true. Nevertheless, we certainly have overwhelming evidence that certain ideas seem to be always correct and we can call that "proof" in the context of this discussion about proof of God. With such a definition, we could say that the theory of special relativity is proven or that the principle that energy is always conserved is proven.
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The story of the 1978 Nobel prize actually begins in 1927 when the Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre proposed that the universe had a beginning, something he called the "primeval atom" or "cosmic egg."<sup>1</sup> Lemaitre’s idea was not taken too seriously by most scientists because it was published in a fairly obscure journal and there was no evidence for such a beginning. But that changed in 1929 when the astrophysicist Edwin Hubble published a paper showing that galaxies were moving apart from each other; the universe was expanding.<sup>2</sup> The implications of this discovery were recognized by scientists, theologians, and philosophers. If the universe were expanding now it must have started to expand at one point; it likely had a beginning. For many reasons, some philosophical and theological, scientists were reluctant to accept that the universe had a beginning. Many alternatives were proposed and evidence for these alternatives was actively searched for, with no positive results.
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In 1949 this hypothetical beginning of the universe was first called the “big bang" by physicist Sir Fred Hoyle, who was not fond of the idea that the universe may have had an origin. By most accounts, he coined the term “big bang” because he thought it was such a ludicrous and silly name that no one would adopt the name, and possibly no one would adopt the theory either.
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Nevertheless, based on Hubble’s discovery and other data, theoretical physicists developed mathematical models that calculated the ramifications of a universe that had a beginning in a hot big bang; an origin in which the visible universe was once compressed into a very small, hot, dense region. In 1948 Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman calculated that if the universe was originally very hot and very dense that we should still be able to measure the residual heat from billions of years ago. They predicted that the temperature of the universe should be fairly uniform throughout its volume and should be something just above absolute zero, a temperature of about 5 K (–451 ℉)<sup>3</sup>. Alpher and Herman's paper was not widely known and there were no experiments designed to measure the overall temperature of the universe for 20 years.
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But in 1964, two physicists from Bell labs, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson began an experiment in an attempt to measure radio wave signals from the space between galaxies. The “telescope” they used to make their measurement looked like a large horn and had a large cavity open to the air. (See the telescope in the background of the above picture).
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Unfortunately, their experiment immediately ran into problems. Whenever they turned on their telescope they encountered an annoying electronic noise similar to the fuzzy hiss that could sometimes be seen on old analog television sets. They tried everything they could to get rid of the noise, including cleaning out pigeon droppings from inside the telescope. Unbeknownst to Penzias and Wilson, a team of three astrophysicists at Princeton, Robert Dicke, Jim Peebles, and David Wilkinson, were preparing to search for the residual radiation from the big bang as well. Bernard Burke, who was a friend of Penzias, had seen a preprint of a paper by Peebles and mentioned the paper to Penzias. Because of that chance encounter, Penzias and Wilson realized that the noise they were observing in their telescope had the exact characteristics of the heat left over from the big bang as predicted by Alpher and Herman. They had unknowingly stumbled upon one of the greatest discoveries of the 20<sup>th</sup>century, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation.<sup>4</sup> The temperature was measured to be just under 3 K, very close to what had been predicted. This was indisputable proof that the universe had a beginning.
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The theological implications of a beginning of the universe have been recognized since at least 1929 with Hubble’s discovery. If the universe had a beginning it must have had a transcendent cause, something that began it that is separate from the universe itself. This transcendent cause is identical to the characteristic of the biblical God. Penzias himself stated, "The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I had nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole."<sup>5</sup> His own discovery of the CMB was exactly what would be expected if the Bible were true in its statement about origins and if there were a God who created the universe.
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The importance of the discovery of the CMB was validated in 1978 when the Nobel committee awarded one-half of the Nobel prize to Penzias and Wilson for "their discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation."<sup>6</sup> The CMB gave confirming proof that the universe had a beginning and, it could be argued, is among the best possible evidences for the existence of a creator. How could a transcendent infinite being provide evidence of his existence to creatures limited to finite dimensions of space and time? There are a few possibilities, but one of the most obvious options would be to make the origin of their universe knowable to those creatures and to have the origin require a necessary transcendent cause. This is about as close to “proof” of the existence of God as can be imagined. So the discovery of the CMB, that indicates our universe had a beginning and thus gives “proof” for the existence of God, was awarded the Nobel prize in physics in 1978. Skeptics may want to take notice.
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>1</sup>Lemaitre, Georges, "A homogeneous universe of constant mass and growing radius accounting for the radial velocity of extragalactic nebulae,” <i>Annales de la Société Scientifique de Bruxelles, </i>(1927).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>2</sup>Hubble, Edwin, "A relation between distance and radial velocity among extra-galactic nebulae," Proc Natl Acad Sci USA15; 168–173, (1929).
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>3</sup>Alpher, Ralph and Herman, Robert, "On the Relative Abundance of the Elements," Phys. Rev. 74, 1737-1742, (1948).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>4</sup>Penzias, A.A. and Wilson, R. W., "A Measurement Of Excess Antenna Temperature At 4080 Mc/s". Astrophysical Journal Letters. <b>142</b>: 419–421, (1965).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>5</sup>Browne, Malcolm. "Clues to the Universe's Origin Expected." <i>New York Times</i>, Mar. 12, 1978, p. 1, col. 54.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>6</sup>https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1978/summary/</span>Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-86585551945928043132019-05-28T00:52:00.000-05:002019-05-28T00:52:06.216-05:00The Magnificent Moon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The earth is unique in our solar system, being the only planet that has one single large moon. Over the last few decades scientists have realized that our moon plays a significant role in order for the earth to support complex life forms. The gravitational pull of the moon on the earth is responsible for high and low ocean tides, which bring nutrients to tidal flood zones and allow for a diverse and thriving ecosystem near coastal regions. Tides also play a role in a global temperate climate because they affect ocean currents that move water around the globe.<br />
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Perhaps the most important feature of the earth-moon system is the relatively large gravitational pull of the moon, which stabilizes the tilt axis of the earth. The earth rotates around an axis that is tilted about twenty-three degrees from a line drawn perpendicular to the plane of its orbit. Because the earth's axis is tilted, we have various seasons: summer, spring, winter, and fall. When the earth’s orbit is on one side of the sun and it is tilted in such a way that the northern hemisphere gets direct sunlight, then it is summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern hemisphere. When the earth is on the other side of the sun so its tilt gives direct sunlight to the southern hemisphere the seasons are reversed.<br />
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As the earth rotates it wobbles a little, like a top spinning on a table. If we did not have a single large moon that wobble would be much greater and the tilt of the earth would fluctuate over many different angles rather than be relatively constant at about twenty-three degrees. The wobble would be so great that at times our current north and south poles might face straight toward the sun or away from the sun. This would mean that the north and south poles would not be consistently cold, causing ice to melt and leading to some of the same kind of catastrophic consequences proposed in the worst-case scenarios of global warming. In general, the climate on the earth would fluctuate wildly and would not ever reach a nice stable equilibrium. Without our single large moon, it is unlikely that any complex life would exist on the earth.<br />
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The story of how we got our single large moon is dramatic and fascinating. Our solar system began to form about 4.6 billion years ago when a dense cloud of gas and fine dust, attracted by gravity, coalesced to form our sun. Some of the dust and gas not captured by the sun began to form the various planets. Planets and other objects in the inner solar system, like the earth, were mostly dry while objects farther out had more carbonaceous elements (elements with carbon and other related elements necessary for life like water). The earth substantially formed as gravitational attraction brought many smaller rocks and asteroids together sometime about 11 million years after the solar system began to form. It seems that this early earth did not have enough water or other elements necessary for life to exist.<br />
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The circumstances that conspired in the very early history of the earth, which led to us having our current moon and the elements necessary for life, seem to be both opportune and unlikely. Late in the earth's formation period, sometime about 30 million to 110 million years after the solar system began to form, a large proto-planetary object about the size of Mars crashed into the earth in a violent collision. The collision had to occur in such a way that material from the earth and this planetary object, sometimes called Theia, intermixed and ultimately re-formed into two different objects, the moon and the earth, both containing material brought by Theia. There has been much discussion of whether Theia had originally formed in the inner solar system or in the outer solar system. However, a recent paper just published in the May edition of <i>Nature Astronomy</i> by scientists at the University of Münster concludes that Theia had originally formed in the outer solar system and when it collided with the earth it carried with it most of the water that is currently on the earth.<sup>1</sup><br />
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This adds another item to the list of those things of vital importance that the moon brings to the earth. It stabilizes the tilt of the earth, it brings replenishing tides to coastal regions, and now it seems that it is the source of the vast majority of the water on the earth.<br />
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As a Christian I use the Bible as the primary source for understanding what God is like. The Bible proclaims that God accomplishes his purposes through the normal laws of nature as well as through miracles, but also through non-miraculous, but unlikely circumstances (<a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2017/03/looking-for-god-in-nature.html" target="_blank">as I described in this blog post)</a>. For instance, the Bible describes an incident when Phillip, a disciple of Jesus, was led to a desert place where he just "happened" to encounter an Ethiopian official who "happened" to be reading about the Messiah from the book of Isaiah and wanted someone to explain what it meant, giving Phillip the opportunity to tell the Ethiopian about Jesus. An earthquake just happened to occur at the time Jesus was crucified indicating that his death was something consequential. The Apostle Paul experienced a series of unlikely events that ultimately led him to the capital city of Rome where he was able to present a case for Jesus before the Roman officials.<br />
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Until now the scientific evidence indicated that we have our magnificent moon only because a large planetary object with the just the right mass hit the earth at the right angle at the right speed at the right time in early in the earth's history. This newly published paper concludes that this unlikely collision also brought water to the ancient earth. Nearly 4.5 billion years ago, the providential hand of God was orchestrating events as he prepared a place that we could live, thrive, and ultimatley have a relationship with our Creator.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>1</sup>Gerrit Budde, Christoph Burkhardt, Thorsten Kleine. "Molybdenum isotopic evidence for the late accretion of outer Solar System material to Earth." <i>Nature Astronomy</i>, 2019.</span>
Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-12285876584577513542019-05-11T16:02:00.002-05:002019-05-11T20:37:50.454-05:00A Primer on Various Views About Origins<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Bible is very clear about the fact that God created the universe and that humans were created by God in his image, a distinction that separates humans from all the other animals. On the other hand, the Bible is not clear on when and how God created the universe and humans. Consequently, even among Christians who believe the Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God there is a difference of opinion about the methods God used to create the universe.<br />
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Sometimes it is valuable to review the very basic ideas about a topic. One of my readers asked me if I could very simply describe each of the major views held by Christians about how and when God created the universe and humans. I am answering that question with this basic primer about views on origins held by Christians and non-Christians. These can be broadly classified into four categories by answering three questions: (1) Did God create the universe and humans? (2) Did the big bang occur? and (3) Does macroscopic evolution occur?<br />
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The first question is straightforward. Is God the ultimate creator of the universe and human life? The second question has to do with the origin of the universe. Did this universe come into existence about 14 billion years ago and did the planet earth form about 4.5 billion years ago? The third question asks whether or not macroscopic evolution is the mechanism by which all species came into existence. Although most evolutionists do not distinguish between microscopic and macroscopic evolution, that distinction is necessary when discussing origins. Microscopic evolution allows small changes within species. It is the process of minor genetic change that allows things like bacteria to become resistant to certain antibiotics. When distinguished from macroscopic evolution, microscopic evolution does not produce new species or major new functionality. The process of microscopic evolution is accepted by people in all four categories. Macroscopic evolution is the claim that all life has developed from previous common ancestors through a natural process in which those small genetic changes compound and eventually form new species and new functionality.<br />
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The first view is usually called Young Earth Creationism (YEC) and claims that God did not use the big bang to create the universe or macroscopic evolution to create humans. Proponents of this view believe that the universe is about 6000 years old. This view is primarily founded on the belief that the genealogies in Genesis are basically complete, meaning the first humans lived about 6,000 years ago (with some flexibility on how complete the genealogies are which may push the date back to 10,000 years ago), and that the six days of creation described in Genesis 1 are each 24 hours. I don't think either of these premises are supported by the biblical text as explained in previous articles on the <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2017/06/the-six-days-of-creation.html" target="_blank">days of creation</a> and on <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2017/06/genealogies-and-creation-of-heaven-and.html" target="_blank">the biblical genealogies</a>.<br />
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The second view is often called Old Earth Creationism (OEC) or Progressive Creationism. Proponents of this view believe that God used the big bang to create our universe about 14 billion years ago and that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, but that God did not use macroscopic evolution to create the diversity of life we see. There is a common misconception that if one accepts the timeline of the big bang, then that automatically implies that evolution must have also happened, but that is not the case. Whether or not the big bang has occurred is an entirely separate issue from whether or not macroscopic evolution has occurred.<br />
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Old Earth Creationists affirm the usual timeline for the history of the earth but believe that, in general, each new species in the fossil record requires some direct creative intervention by God. Old Earth Creationists believe, for instance, that the dinosaurs lived from about 240 million years ago until about 66 million years ago when a large asteroid or comet likely hit the earth and destroyed a large fraction of the life on earth. Most Old Earth Creationists believe that each day of creation is meant to be interpreted as a long period of time, or an epoch. Within this view, Genesis 1:1 describes the big bang event and approximately 9 billion years of cosmic history, the time it took for the earth to form after the big bang: "God created the heavens and the earth." The subsequent six days of creation primarily describe the 4.5 billion year history of the earth in which God prepares the earth for his ultimate creation of humans. Old earth creationists affirm a historical Adam and Eve who lived in the garden and chose to rebel against God. Old Earth Creationists affirm the historicity of the first chapters of Genesis, simply placing that history more than six thousand years ago.<br />
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The third view, called Evolutionary Creationism or Theistic Evolution, is the belief that God created the universe and humans using the mechanisms of the big bang and macroscopic evolution to execute his creation. God is still <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2017/03/looking-for-god-in-nature.html" target="_blank">responsible and involved as he is in all of nature</a>, but rather than intercede to accomplish his goals, he empowers nature itself to accomplish his goals. Just as a good computer programmer instills all the necessary instructions into the computer code, so God instilled nature with all that was necessary to create humans. Most Evolutionary Creationists do not believe that Adam and Eve are the first and only two humans from which all of humanity descended, but it is possible within Evolutionary Creationism to retain a historic Adam and Eve, as described in my posts on <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2018/11/adam-and-eve-four-views.html" target="_blank">four views of Adam and Eve</a> and on <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2018/11/adam-and-eve-and-evolutionary-creation.html" target="_blank">Adam and Eve and Evolutionary Creationism</a>.<br />
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Notice how all of these first three views have the term "Creationism" in their title. Proponents of these three views believe God is the creator of the universe and of humans. All views have adherents who believe the Bible is the inspired word of God and completely true. Although there are some Christians who do not believe that macroscopic evolution is consistent with the biblical account of creation, I believe that a biblical case could be made for any one of these three views. My personal opinion is that the strongest case at this time, both biblically and scientifically, is Old Earth Creationism. From a purely biblical viewpoint, I believe that Young Earth Creationism has the weakest case when one takes the original language and culture into account, and that Evolutionary Creationism could present reasonable biblical arguments to support its conclusions.<br />
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Of course the most important question posed is the very first one, "Is God the Creator?" Those who adhere to Naturalistic Evolution deny that God played a role in creation and often deny the very existence of God. There is a huge distinction between a person who believes that God used the big bang and evolution to accomplish his purposes and a person who denies God and believes that the big bang and evolution are sufficient in and of themselves to describe the origin, structure, design, and information content of the universe.<br />
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I believe that the creation story in Genesis is written purposely by God in a way to accommodate different interpretations. It is a one page story of creation that must speak to all people, in all cultures, in all languages, in all times. It does just that. To the ancient Hebrew reader it stood apart from the creation myths of other cultures that had human-like gods and humans created as slaves of the gods. Instead, the God of this story is distinct from his creation and makes humans in his own image as the pinnacle of creation to have a relationship with him. It is a brilliant piece of literature for it is a short story of creation that was as relevant and true to the ancient Hebrew reader as it is to the modern scientific reader.<br />
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Christians hold diverse views on how and when God created the universe and humans, and at times that diversity leads to unkind and untrue words that are spoken about others. In doing so, Christians are elevating the issue of creation above a much more important issue of faith. As quoted in John 13:35, Jesus made it very clear that the mark of a Christian is not that we all believe the same thing regarding the how and when of creation, but rather by our love for each other: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." As we discuss these different views, let us do it in a way that is so loving, gentile, and kind, that others stand in astonishment to see that different beliefs and radical love are not mutually exclusive.<br />
<br />Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1580378912972065231.post-18139375384472899572019-04-27T19:44:00.003-05:002019-04-30T10:07:23.838-05:00Was the Big Bang Really the Beginning?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The headline declared "<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/09/21/the-big-bang-wasnt-the-beginning-after-all/#a035a3e55df6" target="_blank">The Big Bang Wasn't the Beginning, After All</a>" and in the accompanying article astrophysicist Ethan Siegel made the definitive statement that "the Big Bang is not the beginning of the Universe!" That seems to settle the question once and for all, and to put all of us theists in our place. That declaration should shut the mouths of theists who keep insisting that the big bang is the beginning of the universe and that the origin of the universe requires some kind of transcendent cause, a cause that looks a lot like the traditional view of God. It appears that the headline and the decisive pronouncement by Dr. Siegal has made the argument for God from the origin of the universe null and void. That is, unless you actually read and understand the article itself.<br />
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I recommend you do read the article. It is a very nice synopsis of the historical development of our current understanding about the origin of the universe. In the article, Dr. Siegal describes the observation that space itself is expanding and cooling, leading to the conclusion that the universe was once much more dense and hot in the past. He recounts the "breathtaking confirmation" of the big bang made in 1964 by Arno Penzias and Bob Wilson, who discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, the residual heat from the hot big bang. He steps us back through time as the universe becomes hotter and denser and we encounter three milestone events, a time when it was so hot that neutrons and protons could not form nuclei, a time when matter and antimatter could spontaneously form from energy, and a time when a quark-gluon plasma existed with no individual protons or neutrons. He affirms that all of these events have been confirmed to be true in that we've observed the physics that explains these events in the laboratory, and made observations that remarkably match theoretical predictions.<br />
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He also specifies a fourth event even farther back in time, a point where the density and temperature of the universe become infinite, a single point or singularity which is the moment of the origin of the universe. He initially calls this moment of creation "the Big Bang" and notes that this simple model has three problems, t<a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2019/03/some-problems-with-big-bang.html" target="_blank">he same three problems I described in this blog post that discussed The Horizon Problem, the Flatness Problem, and the Monopole Problem</a>. Dr. Siegel then explains how the proposed idea of cosmic inflation solves the three problems (which is the favorite solution of most scientists and also described in the blog post I wrote.) Inflation is a period of time when the universe experienced exponential growth, during which all the energy of the universe was bound into the fabric of space itself. Dr. Siegel then states, "when this phase of the Universe — this period of inflation — came to an end, that energy would get converted into matter-and-radiation, creating the hot, dense state synonymous with the Big Bang."<br />
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Dr. Siegel is an engaging writer and his brief article is an excellent summary of what we know about the origin of the universe. I actually agree with his entire article, except the headline. And that is because in the last sentence I quoted Dr. Siegel has engaged in a beautiful "bait and switch" tactic. Before describing the inflationary proposal, Dr. Siegel defined the big bang as the moment of the origin of the universe, the singularity. After he describes inflation, he changes his definition of "the Big Bang" to the moment right after inflation ends. For those of you who read my blog on a regular basis, you already know that scientists use the phrase "the big bang" in two different ways, usually without even defining what they mean. The can use it to mean (1) the moment of the origin of the universe, or (2) the moment when we have observational understanding of the physical laws that govern the universe, somewhere shortly after inflation ended, before a trillionth of a second after the "origin." <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2017/01/should-big-bang-be-disdained.html" target="_blank">In a previous blog post I wrote</a>:<br />
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"Some scientists refer to the Big Bang only from the moment of time that we actually have a good idea of what happened in the universe. That could be some time from about 10<sup>-35 </sup>to 10<sup>-12 </sup>seconds after the "origin" of the universe. With this definition, there is little controversy about the events surrounding the Big Bang. Other scientists, however, use the term to mean the actual moment the universe came into existence, what is sometimes referred to as a 'singularity.'"</div>
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The article by Dr. Siegel is the first article I can recall reading where the author actually changes his definition of the big bang halfway through the article from (1) to (2). With his new definition of the big bang, Dr. Siegel then proclaims, "The hot Big Bang definitely happened, but doesn't extend to go all the way back to an arbitrarily hot and dense state." So what happened before inflation? Was there an actual beginning? Dr. Siegel correctly states, "What happened prior to inflation — or whether inflation was eternal to the past — is still an open question, but one thing is for certain: the Big Bang is not the beginning of the Universe!" This is a tautology. By defining the big bang as some time after inflation then the big bang is certainly not the beginning of the universe. Thus, it is easy to proclaim in a provocative headline that "The Big Bang Wasn't the Beginning, After All" because by his definition the "big bang" was the time when the universe was very hot and dense, which we know occurred after inflation, and we don't know whether or not it also occurred before inflation. (It should be noted that inflation itself hasn't been proven and there are many models of inflation, but most scientists do think some form of inflation occurred since inflation seems to be the best solution to the three problems listed above.)<br />
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Although Dr. Siegel's definition of the big bang doesn't allow the "Big Bang" to be the origin of the universe, he readily admits that we do not know what happened before inflation. This is the same "atheism of the gaps" I have discussed in previous posts such as <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2017/03/a-universe-from-nothing.html" target="_blank">here</a>, appealing to unknown physics to try to avoid the plain conclusions from the data that appear to be theistic. All the observational data we have extrapolates to less than a trillionth of a second after our universe started to expand and indicates the universe seemed to have an an actual beginning. All theoretical calculations indicate the universe had a real beginning as discussed <a href="https://www.michaelgstrauss.com/2017/08/the-bgv-theorem-revisited.html" target="_blank">here</a> for instance. Everything measured, observed, and calculated that has been confirmed points to a definite beginning. You can call it the big bang or whatever you want, but the data leads to a beginning. Of course, we don't know beyond any doubt what happened at the beginning or what caused the beginning. We do know beyond any doubt that everything is consistent with the biblical record that proclaims this universe had a beginning and that all the scientific evidence is in accord with the predictions based on the Bible. As Arno Penzias, the Nobel prize winning physicist who actually discovered the Cosmic Background Radiation, stated, "“The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I had nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole."<sup>1 </sup>The data points to a real beginning. You can call it the big bang, or call it creation. It doesn't really matter. Science has discovered exactly what theologians have been proclaiming as truth for millennia: a beginning of our universe.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>1</sup>Browne, Malcolm. "Clues to the Universe's Origin Expected." <i>New York Times</i>, Mar. 12, 1978, p. 1, col. 54.</span><br />
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<br />Michael G Strausshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11580842374977938870noreply@blogger.com6