Intelligent Design vs. Casino Universe

What you do is point out the limits of science (many mistakenly, however), which are no big secret.

As if that were logical support for ID. Thus, the g0d-of-the-gaps fallacy.

That's all you have.

... http://www-donut.fnal.gov/web_pages/standardmodelpg/TheStandardModel.html

Quote:

The Standard Model
Introduction:

Human nature is to question. Just ask any pre-schooler what their favorite word is and you'll probably receive the response, "Why?" followed by "what", "how" and "when". Eventually these children move on from their post-toddler obsession with monosyllabic words and develop into adults, yet they always retain some of that curiosity that is so intrinsic to human nature. Physicists, on the other hand, can't stop asking those questions and are the people who never grew up. One puzzle that philosophers and physicists have pondered for centuries is the riddle, "What is matter?" The Greek philosopher Democritus was the first to propose that matter is comprised of tiny "indivisibles" which he called "atoms".

By convention there is color,
By convention sweetness,

By convention bitterness,

But in reality there are atoms and space"

-Democritus (circa 400 BCE)

Democritus was on the right path, and far ahead of his time. Today we know that atoms are not the smallest building blocks of matter; rather, there exists a whole world of particles more fundamental than atoms. Although less poetic than Democritus, we would say, "there are quarks, leptons, gluons and space". Physicists, through experimentation and theory, have created the Standard Model of particle physics, which outlines what they believe to be the most basic building blocks of matter.

History:

The history of physics is a long and involving tale, which will not be told here. This is simply a brief history of particle physics pertinent to the development of the standard model. For more information on the history of physics, please visit the American Physical Society's A Century of Physics timeline.

-Pre 1800 Up until 1800 not much work is done involving the theory of matter. The majority of the exploration falls under chemistry through the identification of elements

-1802 Dalton revives the study of matter with his Atomic theory, which states that atoms are the fundamental building blocks of nature and can only combine in whole number ratios

-1898 J. J. Thompson discovers that cathode rays are electrons, a fundamental particle

-1905 Einstein publishes his theory of the wave-particle duality of light. This forms a foundation for quantum mechanics

-1911 Rutherford discovers that the atom has a concentrated positive nucleus

-1913 Bohr furthers Rutherford's model of the atom to include electron orbits at discrete radii to account for distinct atomic spectra emission lines

-1919 The bending of starlight due to the curvature of space-time is observed, confirming Einstein's general relativity

-1923 Louis de Broglie proposes the wave-particle duality of matter

-1925 Heisenberg creates his uncertainty principle, which puts limits on the precision of experimentation

-1925-26 Schrodinger rescues the wave-particle duality of nature from confusion with the wave equation

-March 1926 Quantum mechanics is formulated

-1932 James Chadwick announces discovery of neutron

-1956-57 Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang propose parity non-conservation in certain sub-atomic processes, which is confirmed by experimentalist Chien-Shiung Wu

-1962 The first experimental observation of the muon neutrino occurs

-1967 Raymond Davis creates the first solar neutrino detector, finding only half of the predicted solar neutrino flux

-1967 Steven Weinberg, Sheldon Glashow (collaboration) and Abdus Salam (independent) create the electro-weak theory, unifying the electromagnetic and weak nuclear force (they win Nobel prizes in 1979)

-1964 Quarks are proposed by Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig

-1969 Jerome Friedman, Henry Kendall, and Richard Taylor find the first evidence of quarks

-1970-73 Standard model of particle physics is developed

-1974 The charmed quark is observed

-1975 Evidence of the tau lepton is found

-1977 Experimenters find proof of the bottom quark

-1983 Carlo Rubbia discovers the W and Z bosons, mediators of the weak-force

-1994 Planning for LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at CERN begins

-1995 Evidence for the top quark, the final undiscovered quark, is found at Fermilab

-2000 The tau neutrino, the last piece to the standard model, (with the exceptopm of the higgs particle) is observed at Fermilab



Components of the Standard Model:



The standard model is divided into three sections: quarks, leptons and force carriers. The quarks and leptons, which in turn are divided into three generations, are members of a family of particles called fermions (particles with half integer spins). Both the quarks and leptons come in pairs. For example, quarks are grouped up and down, charm and strange, and top and bottom (And yes, those are their real names). Experimental evidence for the top quark was recently found here at Fermilab in 1995. Scientists have proven that quarks combine in triplets to form baryons or quark-antiquark pairs to form mesons, both types of elementary particles.

Leptons, which belong to a class of particles called fermions, also come in pairs. The electron, muon and tau particles each have an associated low mass, charge-less neutrino. The electron, like the proton and the neutron, is a stable particle and is present in almost all matter. The muon and tau particles are unstable and are found primarily in decay processes.

The intermediate vector bosons, or force carriers, make up the third section of the standard model. They transmit three of the four fundamental forces through which matter interacts. The gluon, like its namesake, is responsible for the most powerful force, the strong force, which binds together quarks inside protons and neutrons, and holds together particles inside an atomic nucleus. The photon is the electromagnetic force carrier that governs electron orbits and chemical processes. Lastly, the W and Z bosons are attributed to the weak force, playing a role in radioactive decay. The weak force is very important in observing neutrino reactions, because the neutrinos are impervious to the electromagnetic force (due to their lack of charge) and unaffected by the strong (which governs nuclear interactions), leaving only the weak force to characterize the neutrino.

The standard model is not a complete theory; in fact it is far from being so. Detectors at Fermilab and eventually at the LHC at CERN are looking for the elusive Higgs particle, which, if found, will either explain the standard model or force us to readjust our conception of matter. Also the standard model does not have a place for gravity, the fourth force, which does not play a significant part in atomic and subatomic processes because it is so weak on those scales. Physicists are searching for a grand unified theory that would unite all four of the forces, currently only those included in the standard model are united. The next twenty years should prove very exciting for this field of physics.

To this:

Herald wrote:

... my personal are 45% God or some meta-intelligence (string theory or s.th.); 30% another ILF, sending the designs on the Earth even through some form of teleportation or another form of encoded communication (it might have extinct already by the time the information has came here), and perhaps 25% of the Big Bang and the theory that we are made out of star dust (whatever this might mean) and fused with the time by the Dark Energy and Dark Matter.
...

There's not one word in all that circumstantial rhetoric that provides the smallest hint of support that your "personal 45% god-of-the-gaps" actually exists.

You still have nothing.

If you want to show something, tell us what you know about this god of yours so that we can at least have something to stack up against the evidence.

Why are you so scared to talk about your hypothesized god?

FBM wrote:

There's not one word in all that circumstantial rhetoric that provides the smallest hint of support that your "personal 45% god-of-the-gaps" actually exists.

     If you can't see it, what am I supposed to do.

Believe it or not,

but there isn't any known stochastic

system that is able to create biosphere with intelligent self-regulation ... for over several billion years ... and without any normal distribution of some replica to it in the 'vicinity' (within the Galaxy, for example).

Index to Creationist Claims, edited by Mark Isaak, Copyright © 2007
Previous Claim: CB180 | List of Claims | Next Claim: CB200.1
Claim CB200:

Some biochemical systems are irreducibly complex, meaning that the removal of any one part of the system destroys the system's function. Irreducible complexity rules out the possibility of a system having evolved, so it must be designed.
Source:

Behe, Michael J. 1996. Darwin's Black Box, New York: The Free Press.
Response:

Irreducible complexity can evolve. It is defined as a system that loses its function if any one part is removed, so it only indicates that the system did not evolve by the addition of single parts with no change in function. That still leaves several evolutionary mechanisms:

deletion of parts
addition of multiple parts; for example, duplication of much or all of the system (Pennisi 2001)
change of function
addition of a second function to a part (Aharoni et al. 2004)
gradual modification of parts

All of these mechanisms have been observed in genetic mutations. In particular, deletions and gene duplications are fairly common (Dujon et al. 2004; Hooper and Berg 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000), and together they make irreducible complexity not only possible but expected. In fact, it was predicted by Nobel-prize-winning geneticist Hermann Muller almost a century ago (Muller 1918, 463-464). Muller referred to it as interlocking complexity (Muller 1939).

Evolutionary origins of some irreducibly complex systems have been described in some detail. For example, the evolution of the Krebs citric acid cycle has been well studied (Meléndez-Hevia et al. 1996), and the evolution of an "irreducible" system of a hormone-receptor system has been elucidated (Bridgham et al. 2006). Irreducibility is no obstacle to their formation.

Even if irreducible complexity did prohibit Darwinian evolution, the conclusion of design does not follow. Other processes might have produced it. Irreducible complexity is an example of a failed argument from incredulity.

Irreducible complexity is poorly defined. It is defined in terms of parts, but it is far from obvious what a "part" is. Logically, the parts should be individual atoms, because they are the level of organization that does not get subdivided further in biochemistry, and they are the smallest level that biochemists consider in their analysis. Behe, however, considered sets of molecules to be individual parts, and he gave no indication of how he made his determinations.

Systems that have been considered irreducibly complex might not be. For example:
The mousetrap that Behe used as an example of irreducible complexity can be simplified by bending the holding arm slightly and removing the latch.
The bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex because it can lose many parts and still function, either as a simpler flagellum or a secretion system. Many proteins of the eukaryotic flagellum (also called a cilium or undulipodium) are known to be dispensable, because functional swimming flagella that lack these proteins are known to exist.
In spite of the complexity of Behe's protein transport example, there are other proteins for which no transport is necessary (see Ussery 1999 for references).
The immune system example that Behe includes is not irreducibly complex because the antibodies that mark invading cells for destruction might themselves hinder the function of those cells, allowing the system to function (albeit not as well) without the destroyer molecules of the complement system.
Links:

TalkOrigins Archive. n.d. Irreducible complexity and Michael Behe. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html
References:

Aharoni, A., L. Gaidukov, O. Khersonsky, S. McQ. Gould, C. Roodveldt and D. S. Tawfik. 2004. The 'evolvability' of promiscuous protein functions. Nature Genetics [Epub Nov. 28 ahead of print]
Bridgham, Jamie T., Sean M. Carroll and Joseph W. Thornton. 2006. Evolution of hormone-receptor complexity by molecular exploitation. Science 312: 97-101. See also Adami, Christopher. 2006. Reducible complexity. Science 312: 61-63.
Dujon, B. et al. 2004. Genome evolution in yeasts. Nature 430: 35-44.
Hooper, S. D. and O. G. Berg. 2003. On the nature of gene innovation: Duplication patterns in microbial genomes. Molecular Biololgy and Evolution 20(6): 945-954.
Lynch, M. and J. S. Conery. 2000. The evolutionary fate and consequences of duplicate genes. Science 290: 1151-1155. See also Pennisi, E., 2000. Twinned genes live life in the fast lane. Science 290: 1065-1066.
Meléndez-Hevia, Enrique, Thomas G. Waddell and Marta Cascante. 1996. The puzzle of the Krebs citric acid cycle: Assembling the pieces of chemically feasible reactions, and opportunism in the design of metabolic pathways during evolution. Journal of Molecular Evolution 43(3): 293-303.
Muller, Hermann J. 1918. Genetic variability, twin hybrids and constant hybrids, in a case of balanced lethal factors. Genetics 3: 422-499. http://www.genetics.org/content/vol3/issue5/index.shtml
Muller, H. J. 1939. Reversibility in evolution considered from the standpoint of genetics. Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 14: 261-280.
Pennisi, Elizabeth. 2001. Genome duplications: The stuff of evolution? Science 294: 2458-2460.
Ussery, David. 1999. A biochemist's response to "The biochemical challenge to evolution". Bios 70: 40-45. http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/staff/dave/Behe.html

FBM wrote:

You still have nothing.

     I have had great teachers - like for example the people who are preaching the Big Bang 'theory' ... expanding into Nothing.

If you are curious to know Nothing is the only precondition of the Big Bang 'theory'.

     The evidence is that no one here down on the Earth is able to invent a system (like the religion) that will plaster the minds of so many people for millennia on end. It must have been something else.

     Because you are not interested in God ...

and in the Big Bang 'theory'. You are interested in the status quo only ... and how to derive personal benefits on the ground of the competitive advantage that the status quo has always had.

Well, in the rational world, when you propose a hypothesis, it's generally understood that you provide evidence to support it.

Quote:

Believe it or not,

Until you provide evidence, I'll stick with not, thank you.

You truly love that word, don't you?

You seem to think it makes you sound intelligent.

... my personal are 45% God or some meta-intelligence (string theory or s.th.); 30% another ILF, sending the designs on the Earth even through some form of teleportation or another form of encoded communication (it might have extinct already by the time the information has came here), and perhaps 25% of the Big Bang and the theory that we are made out of star dust (whatever this might mean) and fused with the time by the Dark Energy and Dark Matter.
...

So, again, I have to ask: Why would any rational person even briefly consider the above as remotely equivalent in explanatory power to the Standard Model?

IF...the Standard Model only explains 4% of the visible universe, that doesn't change the fact that your "personal 45% god-of-the-gaps" fallacy explains 0% of it.

As you don't know anything about whether the Universe has always existed or not, the odds for that assumption are 50:50,

Quote:

As you don't know anything about whether the Universe has always existed or not, the odds for that assumption are 50:50,

Boy, you really do love to throw out logical fallacies. Why are the odds 50:50? Just because there are 2 choices? 2 choices don't make any odds 50:50 unless you show the probability of both are the same. So let's see your work proving the odds are equal of the universe having always existed or not.

Boy, you really do love to throw out logical fallacies. Why are the odds 50:50? Just because there are 2 choices?

His claim is based on his ignorance of the space-time continuum. He seems to think that space suddenly appeared in an already-existing time, which is contrary to the BBT that he pretends to understand well enough to oppose.

A quick breakdown:

45% goes to either:
a) God
b) meta-intelligence
c) String Theory
d) s.th. (?)

[I recommend you choose one before pursuing this 45% any further.]


30% goes to:

"another ILF, sending the designs on the Earth even through some form of teleportation or another form of encoded communication (it might have extinct already by the time the information has came here)"

[How is this distinct from the "meta-intelligence" in the 45% answers? But, hey, as long as you're not proposing anything too far-fetched. Wink]


And "perhaps" 25% goes to:

"25% of the Big Bang and the theory that we are made out of star dust (whatever this might mean) and fused with the time by the Dark Energy and Dark Matter."

     I am not thinking that the Time has already existed. What I think is that you don't have the vaguest idea what could have existed (which is a process)

...before the Big Bang has launched the Time component, and how exactly the Big Bang (that could not have existed before the Time) has launched the Time component of the Universe.