Michio Kaku Archives – Page 2 of 2

Science and the Paradox of the Unbelievable

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Duane Caldwell

Artist’s depiction of Earth curving space according to Einstein’s theory of General Relativity while satellite GPB orbits

Christians are often accused of believing the unbelievable. But are they the only ones?

Christians are often accused of believing the unbelievable. One of those “unbelievables” is the claim that the universe was created in 6 days. But is that really unbelievable? Even if it were, are Christians the only ones who believe something that’s unbelievable? Consider this: physicists also believe something once considered unbelievable. If that is true, perhaps the belief of Christians is not as wild and crazy as some think.

Physics and the Unbelievable

Consider the well known phenomenon of gravity. Since Newton published his theory of gravity in the seventeenth century, people have believed in the pull exerted by the force of gravity. Newton is widely credited with being the founder of modern science based on his law of gravity and laws of motion. Newton’s understanding of gravity seems intuitive – of course things are pulled by the force of gravity. Yet scientists today don’t believe his model of gravity. They say that force is not real; it’s something Newton just made up. There is no pull of gravity.

Which leaves those of us who were taught Newton’s theory of gravity as an unchanging “law” of science in a bit of a quandary. We are now told not to believe in a foundational theory of science given to us by the father of modern science. Saying Newton was wrong was once considered unthinkable, much less believable. Yet that is precisely what scientists today are asking us to do. Do you believe them? If you do, you too believe a number of things once considered nonsense by modern scientists as demonstrated below. And if you don’t you’re at odds with modern science. Continue Reading

The multiverse and other fairy tales

Posted on August 10, 2015 by Duane Caldwell

A picture supposedly of a fairies dancing before a young girl is examined for authenticity in a scene from “FairyTale: A True Story“

Cosmologists faced with the difficult problems of the fine tuning of the universe and the origin of the singularity have resorted to the fairy tale of a “multiverse” to save a materialistic worldview.

In 1917 in Cottingley, England, 16 and 9 year old cousins Elsie Write and Frances Griffiths believed in fairies and wanted others to believe too. As evidence they produced pictures (viewable here) of what they purported to be real live fairies. By today’s photoshop and CGI standards, the fairies in the pictures appear to be simplistic two dimensional hand colored drawings. But a photo expert of the day declared the negatives had not been tampered with, and the pictures caught the eye of writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of famed fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Less widely known is Doyle was a believer in the paranormal¹, and his beliefs included the existence of fairies. Doyle took the photographs as authentic.

Years later, the girls, now women, confessed the photos had been faked. The question is why had so many, including one so obviously intelligent as the creator of Sherlock Holmes been so quick to believe a fanciful story with little or no evidence? Frances, nailed it on the head in a 1985 interview when she said, “I never even thought of it as being a fraud – it was just Elsie and I having a bit of fun and I can’t understand to this day why they were taken in – they wanted to be taken in.”²

“They wanted to be taken in.” In other words, they wanted to believe. I don’t fault them or anyone for that. Humans are designed to live by faith, and thus it’s natural to want to believe in something. (This includes atheists, evolutionists and scientists who claim to have no faith.³) The problem comes when you believe based on flimsy or no evidence. That’s always the problem with a fairytale – there is little or no evidence. This also distinguishes the Christian faith – for which there is a plethora of evidences from a variety of fields of study – from fairytales. Furthermore, there are a number of sites dedicated to documenting the evidence.⁴

Segue to the 1980’s. The field of cosmology is in crisis. Scientists realize there are a number of problems with the Big Bang theory. (For a few details see my previous article here.) Einstein had died in 1955 without completing what he had hoped would be his magnus opus: a completed Theory of Everything (TOE) – a single, elegant, unified theory that explained everything about the universe, including the current holy grail in cosmology: the unexplainable (in scientific terms) origin of the universe. The current explanation – the singularity that is itself the big bang – has been recognized as totally inadequate, contradicting the laws of physics. As physicist Michio Kaku put it:

“The fundamental problem of cosmology, is that the laws of physics as we know them break down at the instant of the big bang. Well people say what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with having the laws of physics collapse? Well for physicists this is a disaster. All our lives we’ve dedicated to the proposition that the universe obeys knowable laws. Laws that can be written down in the language of mathematics. And here we have the centerpiece of the universe itself, a missing piece beyond physical law.” ⁵

To make matters worse, science had discovered that the universe is finely tuned. In an article for the Discovery Center Institute for science and culture, distinguished follow and author Jay Richards explains what fine tuning is:

“Fine-tuning” refers to various features of the universe that are necessary conditions for the existence of complex life. Such features include the initial conditions and “brute facts” of the universe as a whole, the laws of nature or the numerical constants present in those laws (such as the gravitational force constant), and local features of habitable planets (such as a planet’s distance from its host star).

The basic idea is that these features must fall within a very narrow range of possible values for chemical-based life to be possible.”⁶

In that article Richards, who prefers to take a conservative approach to fine tuning parameters, lists 21 features of the cosmos that are fine tuned. (As opposed to 200 as the number of parameters that Metaxas cites as finely tuned in his popular article.⁷) Richard’s conclusion: the universe is fine tuned and thus designed.

On the other hand, British cosmologist and astronomer royal Martin Rees examines in depth 6 of those finely tuned parameters in his book “Just Six Numbers.” Though the evidence for fine tuning that results in a world like ours is quite apparent, he refuses to believe that means it points to a designer who fine tuned it. Instead he chooses to believe in an solution as fanciful as fairies, and having the same amount of evidence (none): the multiverse: Continue Reading

Which theory has the fatal flaw – Big Bang or Creation?

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Duane Caldwell

	Both the big bang theory and the creation model of origins have what appear to be fatal flaws. Both issues relate to the speed of light. Are they both fatal? Or is one an actual flaw and the other just an apparent one?
A map from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) shows temperatures in the universe vary on average by less than 1/50,000 of a degree

Nobody likes double standards. There have been long, sometimes bloody, and in some cases – ongoing – battles to make the same rules apply to everyone. This is true in the work place – most want equal pay for equal work. This is true in race relations – no one in this day and age will abide Jim Crow laws or making African Americans sit at the back of the bus. It’s true in sports – no one like cheaters – however they choose to break the rules thus applying a double standard. Why then does it not apply to the sciences of cosmology and evolution? Since the focus of this article is on distant starlight, I will focus in on the double standards used in cosmology, but understand the same points apply equally to evolutionary “scientists” who give explanations which are no more than smoke and mirrors.¹

Naturalistic Cosmologists regularly breaks the laws of physics

Why is it that naturalist cosmologists can break the laws of physics at will and with impunity; and still have it be called “science” (not pseudo-science), but creationist scientists, following the laws of physics are not scientists, and are told they’re not practicing science? No such thing happens you say? Let’s dismiss the notion that creation scientists are treated fairly, and with respect. If they were, there would be no need for the recent article by Creation Ministries titled: Fallacy: creationists can’t be scientists;² or Ben Stein’s recent movie on the censure faced by scientists who don’t toe the evolutionary line and instead support intelligent design.³

The fact that creation scientists are not given the respect they deserve is already well documented. What is not as well documented is the ability for materialist scientists to play fast and loose with the laws of physics and still be considered “scientists” contributing “valid” theories. Consider the following conversation:

Big Bang Theorist: The universe began 13.7 billion years ago when a singularity which consisted of all the energy that will ever exist, which did not exist previously, suddenly exploded into existence out of nowhere (and nowhen⁴) creating time and space in an event commonly known as the big bang. The universe has been rapidly expanding ever since.

Creationist: No, the universe began about 6,000 years by an act of God as recorded in Genesis 1.1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

Big Bang Theorist: If the universe is only 6,000 years old, how do you explain distant stars whose light has taken million of years to reach earth?

Creationist: There are a number of theories that explain that. How do you explain the big bang’s Horizon problem?

Big Bang Theorist: That’s easy: Inflation.

Creationist: Inflation is not the answer – many scientists don’t believe it, and simply put: the whole theory is impossible. As for distant starlight, there are theories on how to resolve that apparent problem.

For those defending a young earth, creationist world view, this conversation is likely a familiar one. But before I point to some of the answers regarding how distant star light can be seen in a young creation, let’s first look at the many problems for big bang cosmology. Let me start with an overview of the big big as provided by Morgan Freeman from his series, Through the Wormhole

“With the addition of inflation, the big bang became a cohesive three act play.

Act one – a singularity pops into existence out of nowhere and nowhen and containing in one single dot all the energy that will ever be in our universe.

Act two – Inflation suddenly takes hold. An unimaginably rapid expansion of space smooths the spreading out of that energy bringing order to the universe. It’s now a massive soup of evenly expanding plasma.

Act three – the universe cools. Matter begins to clump together under the force of gravity.
Eventually forming stars, galaxies and planets.⁵

Inflation has been mentioned a couple of times now. If you think it has something to do with your money, the economy or the amount of air in your car’s tire, you clearly need this overview.

The Big Bang theory: Playing fast and loose with the laws of physics

You don’t have to get deep into the big bang theory before scientists have to start playing fast and loose with the recognized laws of physics.

Problem 1: The Singularity

The first one – in act one – is a familiar one. “A singularity pops into existence out of nowhere and nowhen.” Stop. This is impossible. Nothing exists. From nothing comes nothing. How can a “singularity” which consists of “all the energy that will ever exist” be created? It defies the law of conservation of energy which states in a closed system, energy can be neither created nor destroyed.

Problem 2: “Popping into Existence”

Just as importantly how can it “pop into existence” when nothing exists? What is there to pop into? Neither space nor time exists at this point. As our narrator Morgan Freeman points out, there is no “where” for it to pop into, and there is no “when” to pop into since time does not yet exist. Thus there is no “existence” for it to pop into. This breaks the law of causality which states in the cause-effect chain of events – effects follow causes (not the other way around) and those causes are separate from the effects. This is essentially the argument made by the Kalam Cosmological argument for the existence of God. Yet big bang cosmologists essentially want you to believe that the singularity is self caused – because again there is nothing in existence, according to the big bang theorists, so nothing could have caused it but itself.

So here were are in the “first act” of the big bang, we haven’t even gotten to the difficult problems, and already 2 fundamental laws of physics have been broken.

Paul Steinhardt, the Albert Einstein professor of physics at Princeton University explains how physicists allow themselves to get away with this nonsense:

“This is normally referred to as the cosmic singularity, some sort of breakdown in the laws of physics, which in the standard big bang theory you simply ignore.”⁶

They simply ignore it. Pretend it isn’t a problem or it doesn’t matter. And they call that science, and themselves scientists?

Problem 3: The Horizon problem

The Horizon problem is yet another show stopping issue for the big bang. Big bang theorists will tell you it has been “resolved” by sleight of hand tricks involving the laws of physics with the aforementioned theory of inflation. But before delving into the problems with inflation, you need to understand the problem⁷ that inflation “solves” for the big bang. Continue Reading

Scientific creeds reveal hidden scientific faith

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Duane Caldwell

Artist’s depiction of the invisible Higgs field which fills the entire universe according to the standard model of particle physics

Scientists claim to base theories only on science but the fact is they are as faith driven as any fundamental Christian

There have been many famous creeds offered about science by scientists. And I use creed in the normal sense, which as Google defines it is:

“a system of Christian or other religious belief; a faith.”

So to be precise I’m using it in the sense of the faith of scientists. While they don’t like to admit it, materialists scientists do indeed have faith in a belief that underlies all their theories – the physical world is all there is. This faith is typically encapsulated and expressed in what often becomes a well-known adage. Here’s a couple:

“The COSMOS is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”¹

Carl Sagan starts “Cosmos” – both his book and TV Series – with this statement of faith. Here’s another from evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky:

“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”²

In case you didn’t notice, both of these are statements of faith. How can we tell? Easy. These are not testable hypotheses based on specific evidence(s). They are general statements which support a specific worldview (a materialist one) clearly intended to discredit other approaches to science. Another dead give away – when other scientists point out serious problems with the associated theory, instead of re-examining the theory, they get angry with the questioner for daring to question them.

Consider the Cosmos statement. Most materialist scientists are firmly in the big bang camp. Yet such scientists can not say the cosmos always was because according to the big bang, there was a time when the cosmos wasn’t. (For Christian apologists, this leads naturally to the Kalam cosmological argument which I discuss in Enraging the Dragon.) Thus for Sagan, since neither he nor anyone else has any evidence the Cosmos always “was”, (in fact the evidence is to the contrary) that is a statement of faith. As for Dobzhansky, who tries to at once both affirm evolution and discredit creationism, the faith based nature of his statement has become apparent as many biologists, and other scientists have reached the conclusion that evolutionary theory is quite unnecessary for true science to progress.³

Man, being a creature of faith, can’t help but espouse some type of faith, so I don’t begrudge scientists their faith. No, the issue I have is with the various pretenses they don as a masquerade, in efforts to mislead the public. In disguising their faith they also disguise the motivations of the resulting behaviors – such as what to research. What pretenses are donned, you ask? Glad you asked: Continue Reading