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Saturday, November 07, 2015

What does Stephen Meyer really think?

One of the most frustrating things about the current crop of Intelligent Design Creationists is that it's impossible to pin them down on what they really think happened in the history of life. We know that some of them are closet Young Earth Creationists so we can guess what they think. They may be arguing that bacterial flagella reveal the actions of a designer but they actually don't believe any of the data used to make that argument. They think that all species (or kinds) were created at once just a few thousand years ago.

Other Intelligent Design Creationists seem to believe in a different form of creation but who knows what it is? Take Stephen Mayer, for example, you can read his books from cover to cover and still not know what he thinks about the history of life. It's clear that the Cambrian Explosion is a big deal for him and it's clear that he thinks god is behind it all but he's remarkably noncommittal about what actually happened according to his interpretation of the evidence.

That's why I tried to provoke a response by guessing at what he means [Molecular evidence supports the evolution of the major animal phyla ]. I said,
Meyer thinks he has a much more reasonable explanation. He believes that a supernatural being visited the Earth about 540 million years ago and noticed that it was teeming with life—lots of plants, algae, fungi, protozoa, and bacteria. The god(s) thought there should be some bigger creatures called "animals" so he/she/it/they built a few and let them loose to reproduce and evolve.
Ann Gauger didn't like this so she decided to tell us exactly what Stephen Meyer really thinks about the origin of the major animal phyla [From Biochemist Larry Moran, More Gratuitous Misrepresentations]. This is so exciting ... finally we're going to get a detained model of how life came to be according to Stephen Meyer!

Take notes. Here's how Ann Gauger explains what happened 500 million years ago.
Meyer believes no such thing. He thinks that the appearance of most of the animal phyla over 10 million years represents a considerable increase in biological information. Ten million years is nothing on the geologic time scale, and information isn't had for free. New body plans and new ways of living require new cell types, new organs, new nervous systems -- at a minimum, new ways of using existing genes and the acquisition of new ones. This represents an incredible increase in biological information.

... I have already said Meyer does not think that all these animals poofed into existence over the span of days, weeks or years. He acknowledges the existence of the fossil record and the time span of ten million years over which animal life made its appearance.
Damn! We're no further ahead than we were before. Apparently the gods inserted all this new information into existing evolving species gradually over the course of 10 million years instead of just a few days, weeks or years. That's not very helpful in understanding what the Intelligent Design Creationists are proposing.

Perhaps Ann Gauger can expand on this a little more? Did the gods nudge some of the species toward being arthropods in the first million years but waited until the last few years to create the information required to make chordates and vertebrates? What kind of information did they insert? What did they insert it into? Do we have any evidence of new god-created genes that sprang into existence during this period of time? If so, which ones?

And how old are these gods, anyway? Did the same ones stick around for the entire 10 million years to see if their experiment worked or were there several generations of gods?

Why were the gods so active in the Cambrian? Why didn't they create all this new information 100 million years earlier or 100 million years later? Have they created any new information since then or did they front-load everything into genome during the Cambrian then turned their attention to some planets in other galaxies? These are all legitimate questions that deserve answers. They're just like the questions you ask of scientists when you demand detailed evolutionary explanations.
Meyer disagrees with the interpretation that is placed upon the Cambrian by Moran and other evolutionary biologists, primarily because they fail to account for the sudden appearance (10 million years) of so much biological information. They assume that a purely materialistic evolution is capable of accounting for all that biological information. The problem is, it does no good to push the origins of animal life further and further back in time, because the information problem hasn't been answered. Meyer states very clearly that the information to make animals, whether from prior organisms or not, came from an intelligent designer. Why? Because intelligence is the one source we know that is capable of generating that kind of information.
Not good enough. That's just anti-evolution, anti-materialism rhetoric. We all know that attacking evolution is just about all you've got for an argument but it's wearing thin after two decades. If you don't believe "materialistic evolution" then give us a better explanation than just "gods did it."

Come on, Ann, you can do better than that. Talk to Steve and report back next Monday. Ask him to pick just one of the species and explain how the intelligent designer created it. I like Marrella splendens (above) but he can pick another one if he likes.

Oh, and while you're at it, why not have him respond to my critique of his views on molecular evolution instead of hiding behind surrogates? He can post on ENV if he likes. That way he will be shielded from the crude IDiots that flock to Uncommon Descent. Why didn't he respond in the latest book Debating Darwin's Doubt?

It's time to fish or cut bait.


51 comments :

Georgi Marinov said...

Why were the gods so active in the Cambrian? Why didn't they create all this new information 100 million years earlier or 100 million years later?

Something I don't see much discussed about the Cambrian explosion is that it was an important event in the history of metazoans, but that's it. Of course, that had major impact on the biosphere as a whole, but the case for it being a really really special period would have been a lot stronger if it wasn't just metazoans that underwent a morphological explosion at the time..

However, for some reason known only to the deity, vascular plants only appeared 100-150 million years later and quite gradually. And accordingly I have never seen anyone write books about a Siluro-Devonian explosion.

The fungal fossil record isn't very good and I am not deeply familiar with it but as far as I know it does not seem to record a major explosion in the Cambrian either.

And then there is the even bigger issues, which it seems to be a prerequisite not to be a creationist to even be able to recognize -- if we are to call Animalia a "kingdom" as in the old days,then there are about a hundred known kingdoms, and probably many lot more awaiting discovery. In that context the Cambrian explosion does not look that impressive...

OgreMkV said...

One thing I never understood (well "one of the things") in Darwin's Doubt was that Meyer does mention that the Cambrian Explosion happens over 50 million years, then he calls it a "short time". He should know that 50 million years is a huge time in evolution and life cycles. We gone from almost no mammals and birds and flowers to those being dominant groups in 50 million years. Primates didn't exist 50 million years ago (IIRC).

Meyer specifically says (pg 12) "More significant changes to the form and anatomical structure of organisms would, by the logic of Darwin’s mechanism, require untold millions of years, precisely what seemed unavailable in the case of the Cambrian explosion."

Really?

Steve Watson said...

That's much what I thought when I read Behe's book ~15 years ago -- "Darwinism" can't do this and it can't do that, but I can't tell you what actually did it, or how, or when.

christine janis said...

"Primates didn't exist 50 million years ago (IIRC)."

Err -- yes they did. Euprimates date from ~ 55 mya. Plesadapiforms (the paraphyletic sister group to extant primates) date from slightly before the K-Pg extinctions.

OgreMkV said...

Fair enough. I didn't remember and was too lazy to look it up. Thanks!

Mikkel Rumraket Rasmussen said...

It's magic, I aint gotta explain shit.

Unknown said...

I have asked creationists similar questions many times. They will adopt an evasive straegy by simply saying that although we may not know the mind of the designer and his mode of action, we can still detect signs of his handiwork in nature.

Robert Byers said...

There is a good observation here. (You didn't hear from me).
ID (who are not YEC) do have a problem in how the God creator mechanism is involved in natural mechanisms on earth to bring new informatyion or rather new biological developments.
YES its a good point about the cambrian explosion, relative to accepted geo depositional concepts they all have, but indeed how did the creator nudge things along but not poof anything into existence. How does this work?
ID rightly sees the error of evolutions impossible claims but without a creator doing and finishing important developments its makes biology origins just as impossible.
They intellectually see what doesn't work but not what therefore must of happened.

By the way they are not closet YEC. They don't believe in genesis account or very few.
YEC says kinds were created but no species. Indeed there are no species in nature I say.
YEC must accept biological mechanisms beyond creation week. We must explain human differences, for example, which were not done by a creator.
Most of biology was not finished by GOD for many reasons.

William Spearshake said...

Joe/Virgil/Frankie: "get your house in order before you start complaining about others."

Could you link me to a single OP where Larry criticizes the proposed mechanisms used to go from "design" to structure according to ID. Take your time. I've got all day.

Marcoli said...

What do we have? We have the virtues of evidence and we have credibility. The evidence includes genetic data that groups existing animal taxons into nested hierarchies that also fits core attributes of their anatomies. We have molecular clock data that says that the phyla appeared over time, not all at once, and that quite a few of them got a good start before the Cambrian. Did we just make that up? No. It was revealed to us by data, and we come around to accepting it even if we don't like all of it. For example, I am a bit irked that insects came from within the crustacea, and that platyhelminthes are protostomes. But that is what the data says so I suck it up rather than spin smoke and mirrors trying to deny it. We also have facts that say that stuff that happens in the past also happens today, in real time. We see in real time today that genes will duplicate. and that new genes produce new features in biology. And whatdaya know, the genes that build bodies have all the hallmarks of being products of gene duplications. Your side is always gobsmacked about how new information can suddenly appear. It does. We see it. And it is not a big deal, really.
Our other virtue is that we have credibility b/c say that 'we don't know' stuff and we also say on occasion: 'Hey, this new data says that this or that hypothesis we had is wrong'. We actually do revise views based on new facts. Cases in point are the details about insects and platyhelminthes that I mentioned above. What do you have? Anything new over decades of 'research'? No. You have no data except models that say macroevolution is impossible. But we keep showing you that those models have bad math and untruths put into them, so they are GIGO. Your side also lacks the virtue of ever admitting that this or that new fact makes your views less tenable. To my knowledge your side never just sucks it up and admits that you are wrong about anything. To me that is the most glaring sign that there is no science going on among the ID/Creationist crowd.

Robert Byers said...

Marcoli
What do we have with your first point?
You say groups of creatures are grouped together from genetics and anatomy and so proof of common descent.
Yet all you prove ios like traits for different creatures.
if creatures had like anatomy they would have like genetics. Why not? Why do you have two points there for CD? At best you have one.
You don't have that either.
Why shouldn't a crerator make unrelated creatures have like traits for like needs. In other words a common blueprint in nature and unrelated kinds etc of creatures simply pick from it at needed at creation or later.
Your side is still insisting that having eyeballs ONLY has the OPTION of a CD eyeball original creature. Yet a creator easily would give every kind of creature eyeballs as a good common theme from a common blueprint for biology.
Eyeball likeness is not evidence for its origin bit only a line of reasoning. its bot biological scientific evidence for processes that are said to have given most creatures eyeballs.
The creator model works fine and makes CD not demonstrated just be genetic/anatomy claims of nests.
Why do evolutionists think it does?

The whole truth said...

Hey robert, what do you have with any of your points besides a pile of incoherent,, illiterate, ignorant, delusional, creationist gibberish?

The whole truth said...

Larry said:

"Damn! We're no further ahead than we were before."

Yep, and it will always be that way because Meyer, Gauger, and the rest of the IDiots will never produce anything other than what they and all other 'God' pushers have always produced, which is no credible evidence and no coherent explanation that supports the alleged existence and actions of their chosen, so called 'designer-creator-guider-God', and the IDiots will continue to play their evasive, dishonest, diversionary, distorting, equivocating, quote mining, ignorant, falsely accusatory, demonizing, self-aggrandizing, priggish, reality denying games because that's who they are, and being that way pays well for some of them.

OE creationism, YE creationism, and other differences between the IDiot-creationists have been mostly set aside so that they can focus on pushing their 'Big Tent' theocratic agenda of demonization and elimination of their common enemies, such as equality, democracy, critical thinking, free thinking, philosophical naturalism, methodological naturalism, skepticism, liberalism, atheism, so-called 'Darwinism' and 'Darwinists', evolutionary theory, any other aspect of science that doesn't fit with their religious beliefs, etc., although if the 'Big Tent' IDiots were to 'win' their 'war' against their common enemies they would then quickly turn against each other over the differences in their religious beliefs.

The whole truth said...

In case you guys and gals haven't already seen this, it's worth a look:

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1818/20151860

Joe Felsenstein said...

Thanks. Very interesting. Ultrastructure and all.

Larry Moran said...

That's just about the best summary of IDiot behavior that I've ever seen!

May I quote you in a separate blog post?

Joe G said...

And what, exactly, has evolutionism given us, ever? All evos are pathological liars, equivocators and losers. Not one could support the claims of their position if their lives depended on it.

You can rail against ID and IDists all you want. That is never going to provide support for your position.

Faizal Ali said...

Hi, Joe! So what does Meyers believe was the mechanism by which animals evolved in the Cambrian explosion?

Faizal Ali said...

Sorry, "Meyer".

Unknown said...

Meyer seems to think two things-
1) the current theory of evolution is inadequate to explain the evidence.
2) the evidence would be better explained by a theory of intelligent design.

Meyer, S.C. (2004) Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, vol. 117 (2): pp. 213-239.  (The technical biology journal of the Smithsonian Institution).
Here-
http://www.discovery.org/a/2177

“Analysis of the problem of the origin of biological information, therefore, exposes a deficiency in the causal powers of natural selection that corresponds precisely to powers that agents are uniquely known to possess. Intelligent agents have foresight. Such agents can select functional goals before they exist. They can devise or select material means to accomplish those ends from among an array of possibilities and then actualize those goals in accord with a preconceived design plan or set of functional requirements. Rational agents can constrain combinatorial space with distant outcomes in mind. The causal powers that natural selection lacks--almost by definition--are associated with the attributes of consciousness and rationality--with purposive intelligence. Thus, by invoking design to explain the origin of new biological information, contemporary design theorists are not positing an arbitrary explanatory element unmotivated by a consideration of the evidence. Instead, they are positing an entity possessing precisely the attributes and causal powers that the phenomenon in question requires as a condition of its production and explanation.”

So here he is making the case for both 1) and 2) above.

That article is from 2004, but as far as I can tell it still covers what he is believing about the situation.

Faizal Ali said...

That still doesn't tell us anything. If someone said the Cambrian explosion was explained by "evolution" without there ever having been an elaboration on the fact that "evolution" involves things like common ancestry, descent with modification, mutation, genetic drift, natural selection, etc. would that be a meaningful or satisfactory explanation? What are the equivalents of those specific factors in Intelligent Design?

John Harshman said...

He doesn't have to match your pathetic level of detail. So there.

The Other Jim said...

And what, exactly, has evolutionism given us, ever?

Just one (applied even!) example. Evolution provides a pretty neat explanation for antibiotic/insecticide/herbicide resistance in diseases/pests. Unless you have a constant tinkerer designer who somehow remains unobservable, and is really peeved at people, I fail to see any way ID can give a comprehensive explanation of this.

Your turn Joe G. Explain this by ID standards or prove your entire rant in the November 10, 2015 10:07:00 AM post be be hypocritical babbling.

Unknown said...

lutesuite
The claim is that your list doesn’t work.
A new theory would not need a list that was insufficient to the task.
I don't understand your question.

Faizal Ali said...

The claim is that your list doesn’t work.
A new theory would not need a list that was insufficient to the task.
I don't understand your question.


I'm not talking about Meyer's claim #1. I"m talking about claim #2. He cannot say that "intelligent design" is an explanation without specifying what "intelligent design" is, as a process. It would be no more meaningful if he were to say that evidence if better explained by "Garplegrommick" (which is a word I just made up).

The whole truth said...

Larry said:

"That's just about the best summary of IDiot behavior that I've ever seen!

May I quote you in a separate blog post?"

Larry, which/whose comment are you referring to?

The whole truth said...

You're welcome.

The whole truth said...

Larry, if it's my comment that you're referring to, feel free to quote it and/or any other comment of mine.

Unknown said...

lutesuite,
I just read the article I linked to, so this is new for me.
From the article linked to above (second to last paragraph above the conclusion)-
“What natural selection lacks, intelligent selection--purposive or goal-directed design--provides. Rational agents can arrange both matter and symbols with distant goals in mind. In using language, the human mind routinely finds or generates highly improbable linguistic sequences to convey an intended or preconceived idea. …
Indeed, in all functionally integrated complex systems where the cause is known by experience or observation, design engineers or other intelligent agents applied boundary constraints to limit possibilities in order to produce improbable forms, sequences or structures. Rational agents have repeatedly demonstrated the capacity to constrain the possible to actualize improbable but initially unrealized future functions. Repeated experience affirms that intelligent agents (minds) uniquely possess such causal powers.”

He’s talking about an observable process. With the proper constraints the process you discuss (Neo-darwinism plus drift) might fit the description.
It’s a bit like this maybe-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe

Dave Mullenix said...

"What natural selection lacks"

The problem is that Meyer doesn't understand how evolution works and thus has no idea what it is capable of. Same for the rest of the ID crowd. Look at Uncommon Descent with Barry thinking that evolution somehow predicted pseudo genes and their slow decay. Evolution had no idea they even existed until molecular biologists observed them and reported their existence.

ID: The "science" that doesn't know the difference between a prediction and an observation.

Faizal Ali said...

Right. So to exactly which "rational agents" is Meyer referring? Which "matter" and "symbols" the they arrange, and how did they arrange them, to cause the emergence of animals during the Cambrian explosion? Are you saying these agents did not actually intervene during the Cambrian, but somehow set conditions up, maybe at the time of the big bang, such that the evolution of giraffes 14 billion years later was inevitable? Exactly how did these "rational beings" do this? Or is Meyer saying something else entirely?

"Rational beings did it." is not an explanation.

Dazz said...

If a designer was assigned a goal, and it took him/her billions of years of trial and error with an almost constant 99% error (extinction) rate to complete his special design in such an inefficient way (a huge universe with a tiny habitable planet) he would've been fired on the spot. Repeated experience affirms it could only have been a politician

Unknown said...

The question was ‘what does Meyer think?’
The paper linked to seems to cover that question reasonably well.
I have no special knowledge beyond that.

Faizal Ali said...

The title of this article is "What does Stephen Meyer really think?", that's true. The body of the article itself spells out the specific questions regarding which Meyer's views are unclear. Thanks for finally admitting that you are as ignorant about that as everyone else seems to be.

Joe Felsenstein said...

Well, we didn't realize how this could be anything but a problem for creationists. But over at UD, News/O'Leary points to it as evidence that Complex skeletons form 550 mya ("earlier than realized").

It surprised evolutionists, so it must be a refutation of evolution.

I would have thought that seeing bryozoans popping up before the Cambrian would be a problem for Stephen Meyer. Denyse O'Leary makes it sound like support!

Piotr Gąsiorowski said...

News seems to reason more or less like this:

Those guys say Namacalathus is a bona fide lophotrochozoan. So let's agree there were lophotrochozoans before the Cambrian explosion. If life evolves, why are there still lophotrochozoans?

She doesn't see it's a problem for the "sudden creation of new body types", because she can't think of two things at the same time.

The whole truth said...

I just read o'leary's "Complex skeletons form 550 mya ("earlier than realized")" post at UD and her "Stasis: Life Goes On but Evolution Does Not Happen" post at ENV that she linked to. Letting her and paying her to be a mouthpiece for ID at UD and ENV is a great example of how deranged IDiot-creationists are.

The whole truth said...

“What natural selection lacks, intelligent selection--purposive or goal-directed design--provides. Rational agents can arrange both matter and symbols with distant goals in mind. In using language, the human mind routinely finds or generates highly improbable linguistic sequences to convey an intended or preconceived idea. …
Indeed, in all functionally integrated complex systems where the cause is known by experience or observation, design engineers or other intelligent agents applied boundary constraints to limit possibilities in order to produce improbable forms, sequences or structures. Rational agents have repeatedly demonstrated the capacity to constrain the possible to actualize improbable but initially unrealized future functions. Repeated experience affirms that intelligent agents (minds) uniquely possess such causal powers.”

It infuriates me to read dishonest crap like that. It's just 'my chosen God-did-it' dressed up in sciency sounding language. In their lame attempts to sound as though they are doing good science, meyer and the rest of the IDiot-creationist cultists are just trying to steal the credibility of good science and attach it to their heinous theocratic agenda, and there is nothing rational or intelligent about believing in, worshiping, and promoting a contradictory, malicious, petty, jealous, murderous, irrational, imaginary, impossible sky daddy.

Lino Di Ischia said...

Larry:

While you're "pontificating," answer this question: what is a species?

ItBeMw said...

Galaxies and clusters can't be billions of years old, according to empirical science.

The evolutionary timescale is based on fantasy.

Known since the 1930's; galaxies and clusters are flying apart; "missing mass problem."

http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Biviano2/Biviano4_2.html

"unless one is prepared to make wild hypotheses outside the realm of verification by direct observation ... the 'hidden-mass' hypothesis must be ruled out" (de Vaucouleurs)

A "fudge factor", dark matter, was added so that we can pretend that galaxies and clusters are in sustained orbits; "wild hypotheses outside the realm of verification by direct observation..." (de Vaucouleurs)

A "fudge factor" is something added to a theory to change observation to match the theory.

'The standard approach to this "missing mass problem" has been the postulate of "dark matter"...'; http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.5904 (Sascha Trippe)

However, fantasy dark matter has been falsified for solving the "missing mass problem."

"More importantly, astronomical observations obtained during the last decade indicate that dark matter cannot explain the kinematics of galaxies." http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.5904 (Sascha Trippe)

"dark matter ... offers no specific insight into the original galaxy rotation problem. In fact, the observed ratio of dark matter to visible matter in a typical rich galaxy cluster is much lower than predicted. This may indicate that the prevailing cosmological model is insufficient to describe the mass discrepancy on galaxy scales, or that its predictions about the shape of the universe are incorrect."; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster

How is it even possible to pretend to add a 80% to 90% fudge factor to all the mass in the universe? What time frame is the mass added? What happens to the kinematics after one adds this fictitious mass to objects countless light years apart? Are new galaxies and clusters always formed with the missing mass in tow?

The actual scientific observation is that galaxies and clusters are flying apart and can't be billions of years old.

Evolution's timescale is based on a falsified fudge factor.


Piotr Gąsiorowski said...

You've stirred in too much fudge into your thoughts. Truth to tell, the stuff is almost undiluted fudge.

Faizal Ali said...

Are people already auditioning to be Robert Byers' replacement? He hasn't even been banned yet.

Anonymous said...

At least Robert doesn't post the same comment twice in 61 minutes.

ItBeMw said...

I didn't post the second one.

Piotr Gąsiorowski said...

ItBeMw, please go away before you do something weirder.

ItBeMw said...

Is this a high school blog?

Warren Johnson said...

To ItBeMw. No, this is not a high school science blog, but a blog by a well-know biochemist, Prof. Larry Moran. Most of the regulars here are highly competent biologists, not astronomers.

The timescale for evolution on earth is not in doubt. It is determined from geology, chemistry, and physics, and could be summarized by saying the earth is 4.4 billion years old, single cell life started more than 3 billion years ago, and the extensive fossil record of multi-cellular life starts at the beginning of the Cambrian around 541 million years ago.

Your references refer (mostly) to old arguments about the age of the Universe, which used to mean arguments about the value of the Hubble constant. In the 1980's, de Vaucoulours argued passionately for a value of 100 km per sec per megaparsec, which leads to an age of the universe of 10 billion years, and Sandage argued equally passionately that the observational data favored an age of 20 billion years old. Whichever, there was never any reason to doubt the geological age of the earth. You can find references to this in the wikipedia article on "Hubble's law".

Lots of new evidence has appeared in recent years, and the current consensus is that age of the Universe is almost exactly half way between those old estimates (on a log scale).

You refer to Trippe, who is a commentator who still favors "MOND theory" as an alternative to "dark matter". Since it is an ad hoc theory, and dark matter is favored by a number of new observations (especially gravitational lensing), he is pretty much beating a dead horse. Somewhere on the web, astrophysicist Ethan Siegel has blogged the claim that MOND is completely ruled out now.

ItBeMw said...

Warren Johnson: The timescale for evolution on earth is not in doubt.

The timescale, contrary to empirical science, is based on a "fudge factor" theory, named after its fudge factors; officially called "Lambda-CDM model." Lambda = dark energy, CDM = cold dark matter.

"Cosmologists have another saying they like to cite: 'You get to invoke the tooth fairy only once,' meaning dark matter, 'but now we have to invoke the tooth fairy twice,' meaning dark energy." NY Times: (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/magazine/11dark.t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&)

The timescale is based on 96% fudge factors, 100% if we consider inflation.


Warren Johnson: It is determined from geology, chemistry, and physics...

It is determined by unfalsifiable theories that require the subject to be isolated from external influences not covered by the theory.

There's not a single atom on earth that isn't in a constant state of change.

The international prototype kilogram is 90% platinum and 10% iridium and is machined into a right-circular cylinder to minimize its surface area. Stored in locked vaults all over the world, everything possible is done to maintain the integrity if the prototype kilogram.

Yet, "masses of the entire worldwide ensemble of prototypes have been slowly but inexorably diverging from each other." (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilogram)


Warren Johnson: ...the earth is 4.4 billion years old...

Empirical science says galaxies and clusters aren't in sustained orbits, thus they can't be billions of years old.


Another NASA paper; "The problem of the missing mass ... It is an embarrassment, an obstacle to understanding such things as the structure of galaxies, the evolution of clusters of galaxies, and the ultimate fate of the universe." (http://history.nasa.gov/SP-466/ch22.htm)


Warren Johnson: ...age of the universe of 10 billion years... ...favored an age of 20 billion years old...

Irregardless of what age one wants to assume the age of the universe is, galaxies and clusters flying apart can't be billions of years old.

observation; "...Ambartsumian, ...they are disintegrating, and missing mass is not needed." (http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Biviano2/Biviano4_2.html)


Warren Johnson: Lots of new evidence has appeared in recent years...

Warren Johnson: ...Ethan Siegel has blogged...

Ethan Siegel's blog: "...whatever’s making up 98% of the mass of the Universe..."

So, the "missing mass problem" hasn't gone away. Observation still shows that galaxies and clusters are flying apart and can't be billions of years old.

(Falsification of Dark Matter)

What you may have missed in Ethan Siegel's blog, was the falsification if dark matter.

"But small-scales still posed a problem for dark matter; it still isn’t as good at explaining the rotation of individual galaxies..."

We have to remember that 'dark matter' is just a 'fudge factor' added to change observation to match the theory.

The observation dark matter was added to change was galaxies and clusters flying apart.

However, the invocation of 'gravitational lensing' to prove the existence of Dark Matter, put dark matter in the wrong place to solve the 'missing mass problem.'

The falsification of Dark Matter, falsifies the "Lambda-CDM (cold dark matter) model."

"This may indicate that the prevailing cosmological model is insufficient to describe the mass discrepancy on galaxy scales, or that its predictions about the shape of the universe are incorrect." (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster)

So, we're left without any theories to solve the "missing mass problem."

Now we're stuck with reality (empirical science without fudge factors), galaxies and clusters are flying apart and can't be billions of years old!

Piotr Gąsiorowski said...

Are you going to spam this blog with the same incoherent nonsense you've been posting elsewhere?

ItBeMw said...

Piotr Gąsiorowski: "incoherent nonsense"

If we remove the derogatory comments, we get a NULL_INPUT_ERROR.

Piotr Gąsiorowski said...

No, we are left with a link to one of the places where you have tried to peddle your stuff before. Anyone can visit it to see that discussion with you is pointless.