Watchmaker Theory

[ImmortalFlame]

Absolutely correct. I don't think the original poster was confusing issues, I think he was using the term to express the idea of geologic progression. Nevertheless, we all should be careful to use terms that are appropriate and least confusing

Agreed, but this does occasionally rely on clarification of terminology in order to avoid equivocation. Problems arise from equivocation on these forums constantly.

 

[shmogie]

Again, I feel you're making a lot of assumptions that are unfounded. Firstly, a vacuum is not "nothing". In fact, there is currently no reason to assume that such a thing as "nothing" even exists. Secondly, the big bang didn't exist "in" anything, as far as we know. The big bang was comprised of all the matter and space that we know currently exists, so it didn't exist "in" any space - it WAS space. If it helps, don't picture the big bang as small dot in the middle of an empty room that suddenly expands. Instead, imagine being on the inside of an inflated balloon, and that balloon expands outwards in all directions. It literally is comprised of all the space that there is. Thirdly, your conflation that "there was nothing, so the only thing that could influence anything was blind chance" is bunk. As said before, we don't know that there ever was or ever could be "nothing", and the singularity at the time of planck epoch was effected by the quantum effects of gravity. Before the epoch (if such a thing as "before" the epoch is even viable) is where all known laws break down, but that does not mean that "nothing" or "no laws" existed prior to this time. I am unsure of the current scientific consensus, but I feel your assumptions still go far beyond what can reasonably be concluded from the evidence we have at this time.

Again, I am not a physicist, nor any kind of scientist, so I eagerly expect and await a lot of correction and clarification from better-versed members of the forum than myself, so really the best thing you can do is go and read up on the facts yourself and come to your own conclusions based on the best available evidence.

I didn't say the singularity existed in a vacuum, I said it existed in the absence of everything contained in the universe, everything we know that can exist. Actually we cannot know that the singularity existed, since in retrogression the planck epoch is where all laws of physics break down, Since nothing of the universe existed before the universe existed there could be no universal forces to influence whatever occurred. So, how could this singularity be explained except as a random happening ? You may speculate all you want on what is not known, but the singularity either randomly popped into existence, or there was a cause for it to exist. I don't think any other option is available

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

the point is, they randomly hit the typewriter keys by playing around with the typewriter keys. So, lets look at it differently, how long does it take for a universe to create itself by random processes. Hint, it is roughly equivalent to a million dice being rolled at the same time with all coming up as 4, only the odds of the universe creating itself are much, much higher

I never said the universe created itself.

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

No, because no matter what is said, you have already made up your mind. You are only looking to argue. I have better things to do.

Please tell me what I want mister sockpuppet man!

I honestly think that you have no proof and are trying to backpedal out of the situation.

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

Umm .. evolve means that something develops gradually, not necessarily biologically..

Fair enough.

I think the universe is eternal to answer the question.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I didn't say the singularity existed in a vacuum, I said it existed in the absence of everything contained in the universe, everything we know that can exist.

Ah, I see that now, thank you for clarifying.

Actually we cannot know that the singularity existed, since in retrogression the planck epoch is where all laws of physics break down,

This is all theoretical, we can't "know" anything, but the models we have that best explain the available evidence indicate that the Planck epoch included the singularity.

Since nothing of the universe existed before the universe existed there could be no universal forces to influence whatever occurred.

Again, these are unfounded assumptions. You cannot assert that "nothing" or "no universal forces" existed, or even that such a thing as "before the universe existed" is viable.

So, how could this singularity be explained except as a random happening ?

By slowly researching and coming to grips with quantum mechanics. I've already explained that is little more than an argument from ignorance.

You may speculate all you want on what is not known, but the singularity either randomly popped into existence, or there was a cause for it to exist. I don't think any other option is available

Again, this is also an argument from ignorance.

 

[muhammad_isa]

You may speculate all you want on what is not known, but the singularity either randomly popped into existence, or there was a cause for it to exist. I don't think any other option is available

Again, this is also an argument from ignorance.

Perhaps you'd like to suggest another option..

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Perhaps you'd like to suggest another option..

Withholding assumptions about an event which has no necessary relation to temporal reality until we know more about the facts and conditions under which the event occurred.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Didn't Hoyle also say...
"The reason why scientists like the "big bang" is because they are overshadowed by the Book of Genesis. It is deep within the psyche of most scientists to believe in the first page of Genesis"

Exactly, that's more to the point is it not? that atheists 'scientists' framed the debate in ideological terms, rather than scientific ones, and preferred static/ eternal/ steady state explicitly because it would have appeared to have refuted Genesis. (and still do today)

In stark contrast

Lemaitre himself went out of his way to disassociate his theory with the theistic implications that atheists complained of- he even wrote to the Pope to tell him to knock it off with the gloating.

i.e. it was his skepticism of atheism that allowed science to progress, not his own belief. He was able to separate his faith from his work, because he could. And that is a key problem with atheist beliefs, a person cannot objectively separate a belief they do not acknowledge having.

This is not the only example of the struggle between science and atheism, but it's a pretty significant example, arguably the greatest scientific question and discovery of all time.

 

[Shad]

I said nothing about language, please read more carefully. The English language is infinitely well suited foe describing things that can be known,. things that can be described, unfortunately, no verbal gymnastics can be used to describe what is unknowable

No you just did not understand what you said properly.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/worldly

"Once again we are trying to use worldly, universal logic to pin down a being that is neither of this world or this universe."

Worldly is merely another term for experiences within the material world rather than another world type. Language, logic, etc are worldly not spiritual. We need language for logic as it is representative. So if said worldly systems are inadequate for the "unknowable" then everything people say about God becomes an axiom as it no longer properly represents normal language usage. Axioms can be accepted or rejected. The fact that you acknowledge the ambiguity and vagueness when it comes to the "unkown" does nothing to help your case as per the comment you replied to.

 

[Neo Deist]

Please tell me what I want mister sockpuppet man!

I honestly think that you have no proof and are trying to backpedal out of the situation.

I don't care what you as an anonymous, random, internet poster thinks.

 

[shmogie]

No you just did not understand what you said properly.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/worldly

"Once again we are trying to use worldly, universal logic to pin down a being that is neither of this world or this universe."

Worldly is merely another term for experiences within the material world rather than another world type. Language, logic, etc are worldly not spiritual. We need language for logic as it is representative. So if said worldly systems are inadequate for the "unknowable" then everything people say about God becomes an axiom as it no longer properly represents normal language usage. Axioms can be accepted or rejected. The fact that you acknowledge the ambiguity and vagueness when it comes to the "unkown" does nothing to help your case as per the comment you replied to.

I never said I was discussing anything " spiritual" whatever that means to you. Unknowable equally applies to any possible explanation. So then if I was to say that a Divine being was responsible for the "first cause" of the universe, that explanation is just as valid as any other. A Divine being can be a Force operating and creating outside the universe as well as an unknown force operating outside the Universe. If unknown, is not known, then unknown could be any possibility, especially when there are no physical laws, no observation, no measurement to apply to the Unknown.

 

[McBell]

So then, the whole process breaks down, in law, this is caused jury nullification. The failure of those who claim to judge not, to do so.In your case, it appears the prejudice I spoke of, or, if you will, your beliefs constrain you from even acknowledging a possibility you find repugnant. Verifying the point I have been making all along, material science and it's acolytes, for all their boasts of "finding the truth", simply have no desire to even consider an alternate view because of prejudice and a condescending attitude.. The jury is dismissed, the judge has been censured, Counsel gathers his case, recognizing that he cannot get a fair consideration of anything he may present, only obfuscation, and he departs for another venue. The only thing proven is that judges and juries in this jurisdiction cannot be objective, not an unexpected outcome. Adieu

what a load of crap.
The fact is you are the one whining about making assumptions about what others think and believe then create a strawman based upon you making assumptions of what others think and believe.
then, instead of owning up to your hypocrisy, you go off on a self serving martyr type whine fest.

Please feel free to try again once you have gotten yourself over the posting maturity of a five year old.

 

[McBell]

I wonder if you put say 100 000 watches in a cement mixer, (sans cement) then turned it on
how long it would take before it happened that due to random collisions,
the watches evolved into self-reproducing conscious devices?

Devices that would be able to construct spaceships and launch themselves into orbit?
If the time is more than the age of the universe, then how many cement mixers would it take?

If the number of cement mixers took up an entire planet, then how many planets?
If that was more than the number of planets in the universe, then how many universes?

Are you honestly that proud of your ignorance?
Do you believe your deity condones such ignorance?
Of course, I am giving you the benefit of the doubt here.
I mean, you could just simply be that dishonest.

 

[shmogie]

what a load of crap.
The fact is you are the one whining about making assumptions about what others think and believe then create a strawman based upon you making assumptions of what others think and believe.
then, instead of owning up to your hypocrisy, you go off on a self serving martyr type whine fest.

Please feel free to try again once you have gotten yourself over the posting maturity of a five year old.

what a load of crap.
The fact is you are the one whining about making assumptions about what others think and believe then create a strawman based upon you making assumptions of what others think and believe.
then, instead of owning up to your hypocrisy, you go off on a self serving martyr type whine fest.

Please feel free to try again once you have gotten yourself over the posting maturity of a five year old.

Goodness, I thought that because I wasn't compassionate, and wouldn't defer to your 50 years in science, you were no longer going to communicate with me. That lasted a short time, didn't it ? Obviously, the old adage that if you can't attack the message, attack the messenger is perfectly illustrated with you. Whining, no, not hardly it is called identifying the obvious.Sometimes spades don't like to be identified as spades, especially when they have perpetuated an illusion, constructed so well, they begin to believe it themselves. You sir, are that spade, pompously pimping the :"scientific method" as a "search for truth", when in fact it is a method for searching for the "right" and "approved" truth. Your ad hominem name calling is a sign of weakness in your position, sir, so much bluster from someone who is helpless to do anything else. You sir have proven unworthy of my time, and it is said " do not cast your pearls before swine", you will receive no pearls from me, just give it up

 

[shmogie]

Ah, I see that now, thank you for clarifying.


This is all theoretical, we can't "know" anything, but the models we have that best explain the available evidence indicate that the Planck epoch included the singularity.


Again, these are unfounded assumptions. You cannot assert that "nothing" or "no universal forces" existed, or even that such a thing as "before the universe existed" is viable.


By slowly researching and coming to grips with quantum mechanics. I've already explained that is little more than an argument from ignorance.


Again, this is also an argument from ignorance.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

I have been having a discussion with a local 'leader' of a religion, not about their religion but about the concept thereof. They brought up the watchmaker theory, that is to say, "If you found a watch on the floor eventually you would have to accept that it had a maker or maker(s), would you not?". Now my argument to this is the age old "but where did the maker come from by the logic that all things do indeed have a maker/creator?".

What are the opinions out there on the beginning of the universe and the Earth and that if they surely must have had an intelligent creator then how did the intelligent creator come about?

It has been proven, that all matter has had an originating point, as with the Big Bang. That's not to include the energy, from which it came. (Since matter and energy are two sides of the coin.) The intelligence behind turning energy into designed matter, comes from a Being who has unlimited, self-sustaining, "dynamic energy." (Isaiah 40:26)

 

[shmogie]

these models of which you speak are certainly different from the cosmology books and articles I have read. The planck epoch, as I understand it, is a state reached in time as a result of the rapid expansion (big bang) of the singularity so I am somewhat puzzled as to how a result of an "explosion" can include the object that exploded. Well, universal forces can only exist within the universe, since the universe did not exist, forces present within it, it would seem to me, probably didn't exist. Hmmmm, if the big bang created everything within the universe, as well as the universe itself there must be a before, unless you assert that the universe existed, before it existed. You are correct in stating that it is unreasonable to state that "nothing " existed before the BB. The singularity existed, nothing else, or certainly nothing else identified in the theory. As to ignorance, I think it is a judgemental term used by someone who believes he has some form of superiority within the discussion that allows him to judge. So far, based upon what I have read from you, you are ignorant regarding your judgement

 

[Guy Threepwood]

the point is, they randomly hit the typewriter keys by playing around with the typewriter keys. So, lets look at it differently, how long does it take for a universe to create itself by random processes. Hint, it is roughly equivalent to a million dice being rolled at the same time with all coming up as 4, only the odds of the universe creating itself are much, much higher

It is curious that most atheists would take the simplest numerical pattern, drifting across space, as strong evidence of alien intelligence (supporting the insignificance of Earth and humanity..) until proven otherwise.

While the long list of excruciatingly precise mathematical constants, equations, algorithms that permeate the universe and determine our existence on Earth, can be safely assumed to have spontaneously blundered into existence for no particular reason, as the default explanation.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I see, and science isn't a religion, based on faith. Consider this, life exists that is measurable, quantifiable and, observable. science tells us that this life came about by rocks, being inundated by rain, creating a primordial sea, in which non living matter runoff from the rocks is somehow exposed to something that caused this primordial stew to combine these inorganic molecules into life, not only life, but life capable of reproduction. This process, taught as fact, has never been observed, has never been recreated in a lab, has never been measured, and the process is completely unknown. Nevertheless, by faith, science tells us this is fact, based on no evidence. Belief, the result of faith in an unprovable concept. The definition of religion that many hold

No, science is not a religion. They don't just sit around making things like this up and declare everybody must believe them. Rather, it's based on working with amino acids and proteins and carrying out experiments in labs and sequencing genetic codes and actual scientific things like that. They don't propose that invisible deities are doing things that are beyond our comprehension, they don't rely on holy books written centuries before humans knew much about science at all and scientific ideas are always open to growth and modification in line with whatever evidence may be discovered. That doesn't sound like religion to me, where it is claimed that all the answers are already known and written down in an ancient book by an all-knowing deity.

Look up the Miller-Urey experiments or the work done by Joan Oro, K.A. Wilde or Jeffrey Bada, if you think nothing has ever been observed or measured or recreated in a lab setting.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-structure-arose-in-the-primordial-soup/
http://www.livescience.com/18565-life-building-blocks-chemical-evolution.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130404122234.htm

Also, what you are talking about here is abiogenesis, rather than evolution.