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Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164, 712]

Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

Sorry, I was speaking to those of us with at least a basic understanding of evolution. If you believe that evolution is simply natural selection, I invite you to find and read a few general overviews that will explain it to you much better than I have time to do.

You are still unable to explain to us what scientists have missed that you haven't.
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

You are still unable to explain to us what scientists have missed that you haven't.

To which scientists are you referring? Don't tell me that you actually believe that those two "fundamental laws of biology" are well known and generally accepted among biologists?
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

You're playing semantics and dodging as usual. And you're not a science nerd, at least admit that.


To which scientists are you referring? Don't tell me that you actually believe that those two "fundamental laws of biology" are well known and generally accepted among biologists?
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

You're playing semantics and dodging as usual. And you're not a science nerd, at least admit that.
If science nerds are the sort of people that read an absurd quote on a debate forum concerning a subject they pretend to know a lot about and assume that because it matches their naive view that it must be accepted by the scientific community as a whole or (worse) accepted as a scientific law - a prospect that would even amuse the author... then I fully admit to not being a science nerd.

[BTW, it comes from a short book in which a scientist attempts to convince a fictional priest that science and religion can and should work together to preserve the biodiversity of our planet - ahh, if only it were that easy to define fundamental laws of science]
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

We are talking about ALL scientists, Taylor. Remember we are discussing your compliant that nobody seems to understand that evolution involves more than just natural selection?

So what have ALL scientists, living and dead, missed about evolution and biology?



To which scientists are you referring? Don't tell me that you actually believe that those two "fundamental laws of biology" are well known and generally accepted among biologists?
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

The attitude you have for people who appreciate science has always seemed disparaging and judgmental. I have always seen you as a creationist, and I don't understand why you are timid to represent it. I would have more respect if you did rather than playing dodge ball, strawman, and semantics.

We already think you're complaining about people ignoring the role of God in evolution. Why not just say it?

You won't get bashed by every science nerd in here for believing in God. Christian bashers are assholes.


If science nerds are the sort of people that read an absurd quote on a debate forum concerning a subject they pretend to know a lot about and assume that because it matches their naive view that it must be accepted by the scientific community as a whole or (worse) accepted as a scientific law - a prospect that would even amuse the author... then I fully admit to not being a science nerd.

[BTW, it comes from a short book in which a scientist attempts to convince a fictional priest that science and religion can and should work together to preserve the biodiversity of our planet - ahh, if only it were that easy to define fundamental laws of science]
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

Why does gravity act the way it is and not in other ways? Uncertainty and vacuum fluctuations certainly have been theorized to be the cause of the Big Bang, but it's just a theory at this point.
Indeed, and that's all we have at this point of our scientific knowledge and understanding.

Vacuum energy does arise from various dynamics, not all well understood. But that doesn't mean that the absence of particles from a volume (which is what a vacuum would be) would innately have that energy.
As long as the unc. principle is true, in our Universe it does. (so far we haven't seen any other Universes/examples)

Vacuum energy is the background energy of the universe essentially. It's not born of vacuum, but permeates it all. And if there were multiple universes, and those universes had different fundamental constants then it is quite conceivable that they would measure a different vacuum energy since the physical processes that contribute to the vacuum energy could also be slightly different.

Vacuum energy is a property of the vacuum that is "caused" by the unc. principle which is as far as we understand is universally true (in our Universe), hence all my previous points stand;
a. The vacuum isn't "nothing" as you defined it previously.
b. Unfortunately, the mechanism to why exactly it has energy can not be simply answered with "Because of the unc. principle and it always has" - mostly because we do not fully understand this mechanism till this day.
c. The following creationist questions would be "Where it came from? (i.e the unc. principle) and "Why it acts the way it is and not in other ways?"

...and indeed, other Universes may have other unc. principles, other vacuum properties (some time ago, I read somewhere that there is even a theoretical possibility of a solid vacuum), other constants, etc.
However, in our Universe vacuum is what it is, and it isn't "nothing".

The Gods Themselves by Asimov sort of addresses that. Well perhaps not vacuum energy, but a multiverse where within each universe the fundamental constants were slightly different.

Sorry, didn't read it.

Cheers,
Fallen.
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

Why did you demand proof of evolution if you never had any intention of accepting it from the very start?

I never demanded proof. I simple said that Ham should do so in thus debate and that no theory which cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt should be allowed to be taught as facts.
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

I never demanded proof. I simple said that Ham should do so in thus debate and that no theory which cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt should be allowed to be taught as facts.

Fallacy.

Argument from ignorance
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

I never demanded proof. I simple said that Ham should do so in thus debate and that no theory which cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt should be allowed to be taught as facts.

Then he would appear as ignorant in the debate as many do here. Also, that's a pretty blatantly obvious and clumsy attempt to tie up Bill Nye so he (Ham) won't have to defend his own position at all. We've all seen that type of debate millions of times already.
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

Can't be helped. As of present there are no scientific theories that pose as alternatives to evolution.

Unfortunately science loses much of my respect by suggesting that everything must be able to be proven by science.

In the summer of 1991 my family gad an unusual experience while on vacation in PA. For more than a decade we all agreed on what we saw, then my youngest brother became a scientist and decided that he couldn't have seen what he saw because science doesn't believe in ghosts.
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

Then he would appear as ignorant in the debate as many do here. Also, that's a pretty blatantly obvious and clumsy attempt to tie up Bill Nye so he (Ham) won't have to defend his own position at all. We've all seen that type of debate millions of times already.

Faith is belief without proof. That's where so many maje a midtake..... Trying to prove something that us based on Faith.
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

Faith is belief without proof. That's where so many maje a midtake..... Trying to prove something that us based on Faith.

What's the purpose of faith if its conclusions cannot be proven, deciphered, explained?

Science gives us a tool to understand the world conclusively, and at the same time improve our quality of life and give some meaning to our life on this little rocky planet among billions of little rocky planets.
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

Unfortunately science loses much of my respect by suggesting that everything must be able to be proven by science.

Yeah, well that's sort of how science works. If you want to do science, you have to play by science rules. And you have to admit that the scientific method really hasn't been half bad at doing what it does. Following that strict regimen has resulted in all those advances you find convenient, from combustion to modern medicine to the computer you're typing on right now. Science just allowed me to travel from Europe to my home in 24 hours. It would have 15 hours, but United Air is a piece of crap company that couldn't organize an orgy in a crowd of nymphomaniacs, but I digress.

As for the rest of your post, a lot of us have seen or experienced some strange things, but there really isn't much point in talking about them in any concrete sense, in my opinion, as there's no real world context to apply them to. So I don't deny that I saw what I saw, but I just sort of quietly accept them and sit on them. Anyway, if what we call paranormal is in fact real, scientific methods will evolve to the point that they can study it. You can't blame science for not being as advanced as you would like it to be. It can only move as as quickly as people can learn.
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

Faith is belief without proof. That's where so many maje a midtake..... Trying to prove something that us based on Faith.

Now you're going in circles. I answered this already.
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

Evolution HAS been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Dilemma solved.

This is an absolute lie! Only an unreasonable person would believe that matter created itself.
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

This is an absolute lie! Only an unreasonable person would believe that matter created itself.

I'm pretty sure no one said that it did.
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

I'm pretty sure no one said that it did.

The lie I was referring to was the statement that evolution has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. If this were true, there wouldn't be nearly as much discussion about this topic throughout the Internet and the world.
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

The lie I was referring to was the statement that evolution has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. If this were true, there wouldn't be nearly as much discussion about this topic throughout the Internet and the world.

Are you saying that a large number of people doubting evolution means that evolution itself is less valid?
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

The lie I was referring to was the statement that evolution has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. If this were true, there wouldn't be nearly as much discussion about this topic throughout the Internet and the world.

This statement makes only marginally more sense.

People talk about lots of stupid stuff on the Internet.

Do you think the existence of Disney cartoons means there is a reasonable doubt that dogs can't talk?
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

Indeed, and that's all we have at this point of our scientific knowledge and understanding.

As long as the unc. principle is true, in our Universe it does. (so far we haven't seen any other Universes/examples)



Vacuum energy is a property of the vacuum that is "caused" by the unc. principle which is as far as we understand is universally true (in our Universe), hence all my previous points stand;
a. The vacuum isn't "nothing" as you defined it previously.
b. Unfortunately, the mechanism to why exactly it has energy can not be simply answered with "Because of the unc. principle and it always has" - mostly because we do not fully understand this mechanism till this day.
c. The following creationist questions would be "Where it came from? (i.e the unc. principle) and "Why it acts the way it is and not in other ways?"

...and indeed, other Universes may have other unc. principles, other vacuum properties (some time ago, I read somewhere that there is even a theoretical possibility of a solid vacuum), other constants, etc.
However, in our Universe vacuum is what it is, and it isn't "nothing".



Sorry, didn't read it.

Cheers,
Fallen.

Again, vacuum is defined by a density of particles in a volume. A perfect vacuum would be totally devoid of particles within a defined volume. Vacuum energy is the background energy of the universe which permeates all space. It's not caused by a vacuum, but exists throughout it. Vacuum being defined the absence of particles in a volume does not cause vacuum energy, it merely contains it. What contributes to the vacuum energy isn't entirely known. Certainly random vacuum fluctuations can contribute, the curvature of spacetime, gravity, etc.

So again, vacuum is defined by the number of particles in a volume and when people talk of vacuum, it is to that property to which they are referring.
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

The lie I was referring to was the statement that evolution has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. If this were true, there wouldn't be nearly as much discussion about this topic throughout the Internet and the world.

then why did you tack on a statement that has nothing to do with evolution???

Only an unreasonable person would believe that matter created itself.

The above statement refers to the big bang or abiogenesis, neither of which is evolution.

Evolution is both fact and theory. It is fact that changes to living things do happen. They have observed speciation as well. Speciation is when two groups can only produce sterile offspring. Think donkeys and horses creating sterile mules. Or tiger and lion creating ligers that are sterile. The theory part is the ability of evolution to account for the observed variety of lifeforms since the beginning of life on earth.
 
Re: Bill Nye the Science Guy to debate Creation museum founder Ken Ham[W:164]

Again, vacuum is defined by a density of particles in a volume. A perfect vacuum would be totally devoid of particles within a defined volume.
Partially agree, as there is no such thing as a true "perfect vacuum" - thought there is a scientific definition of number of particles per volume that would be considered as "perfect".

Vacuum energy is the background energy of the universe which permeates all space. It's not caused by a vacuum, but exists throughout it.
Vacuum energy isn't the "background energy" of the Universe - I don't really know what you exactly mean by that.
But an inherent property of vacuum in our Universe as caused by the existence of the unc. principle.

Vacuum being defined the absence of particles in a volume does not cause vacuum energy, it merely contains it. What contributes to the vacuum energy isn't entirely known. Certainly random vacuum fluctuations can contribute, the curvature of spacetime, gravity, etc.

Vacuum is the absence of "normal" matter particles, but it is filled with virtual particles that pop into existence and disappear according to the unc. principle which in turn among other things attribute energy to the vacuum.

So again, vacuum is defined by the number of particles in a volume and when people talk of vacuum, it is to that property to which they are referring.

When people talk about vacuum they are normally not aware of things like Heisenberg's unc. principle, vacuum energy, etc. so yes to a degree they would be correct to say that there is no "regular" matter in a theoretic perfect vacuum.
However, this doesn't mean that vacuum is "nothing", as matter isn't the only "something", there are also various forms of energy, fields, etc. including vacuum energy.

Fallen.
 
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