Big Bang vs Creationism

[CycloWizard]

I'll pose a question here that all of you know the answer to, but I'll pose it just to make you think about it a little.

Consider the following two hypotheses:
1. The universe was formed from the Big Bang billions of years ago. Life formed spontaneously and evolved to what we know today.

2. The universe was formed 6,000 years ago. Every bit of matter was positioned just so such that it matched the position and velocity of the Big Bang model (i.e. its initial condition exactly matches that predicted by Big Bang theory). Life was formed and microevolution occurred.

Can anyone suggest a scientific method to disprove either hypothesis?

 

[sandorski]

#1) Not sure how to disprove it
#2 is easy, there's plenty of Older than 6000 years objects.

 

[Moonbeam]

Time is wave quanta and the universe alternates between here and gone, here and gone, so it was created 6000 years ago just as you said and is created and disappears a whole lot every second, no?

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: sandorski
#1) Not sure how to disprove it
#2 is easy, there's plenty of Older than 6000 years objects.

Maybe 6000 years ago the first human appeared who could and did become a God. God woke up here on earth for the first time.

 

[imported_hscorpio]

No, but I think Occam's razor favors number 1.

 

[gentobu]

Edit: ^^ yeah, the Occam's Razor thing too.

I'm not sure how you would disprove either hypothesis. The first is the standard big bang theory, but the second is basically saying that the big bang didn't happen, but that everything in the universe was somehow set up to exactly match a 'big bang' created universe, so just about any argument against it would be met with "The universe is really 6000 years old, it just looks older because thats the way it was designed."

 

[sandorski]

After more thought: I suppose #1 could be disproved if it was found that there was equivalent Mass moving in an odd direction, perhaps opposite, to what we currently understand all Mass moving. That may still not disprove it, but I'd think it would certainly raise considerable doubt to the Big Bang Theory as we currently know it.

 

[spittledip]

I feel that Occam's favors Creationism as it is much more simple. B/C we have no understanding of how things could have happened at all, it is almost necessary to believe that something outside of time/matter brought time/matter into existence. The Big Bang doesn't actually account for the beginning of time/matter, it assumes it was already there. It is hard to compare the 2 anyway b/c one is a religious belief, the other is just a means of attempting to explain how things came to be, although unable to account for the real beginning, just the beginning of our universe.. but in a sense they don't really contradict each other. I am not sure if the intention for the big Bang is to explain the beginning of time/matter anyway. So, in that sense, again, it is difficult to compare them.

As far as a hypothesis to disprove either.. i am not sure it is possible b/c one is outside what science can measure and the other is purely historical. It is not like you can find written texts that offer evidence to disprove the Big Bang. I suppose if one knew enough about the universe and various laws of physics it could be possible.. but not really sure. Hard to disprove something that was supposed to have happened so long ago.

 

[Siddhartha]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
I'll pose a question here that all of you know the answer to, but I'll pose it just to make you think about it a little.

Consider the following two hypotheses:
1. The universe was formed from the Big Bang billions of years ago. Life formed spontaneously and evolved to what we know today.

2. The universe was formed 6,000 years ago. Every bit of matter was positioned just so such that it matched the position and velocity of the Big Bang model (i.e. its initial condition exactly matches that predicted by Big Bang theory). Life was formed and microevolution occurred.

Can anyone suggest a scientific method to disprove either hypothesis?

You can not disprove Creationsim because it is faith based dogma or doctrine. Either you believe it or you do not.

 

[Lemon law]

Even if a scientific proof could be found, there are too many people of blind faith who would
refuse to accept it.

But on one hand we have a pretty fairy tale on the creationist side of the table that cannot square with modern science.

On the other side we have a projected backward age of the earth at about 4.5 billion years and can date some existing rocks as far back as about 2.7 billion years. Of course the big if
there is in assuming the rate of decay of radioactive substances remains constant. then we have a huge body of geological strata almost perfectly supporting an immense age theory.
With creationists stubbornly cherry picking a few anomalies and saying your theory is not perfect so therefore ours is.

And we can also look at the larger universe and project an age of some 15 billion years since the big bang. And before that, both theories are mute. Because we have no idea what created the big bang and no idea what created God.

But if you ask me to have faith in God, I somehow cannot believe in a God that wants man to wallow in ignorance. And maybe the mission in life God created us for is to expose hucksters of religion for the frauds that they are. And a ever humorous God created the earth some 6114 years ago with a compelling case for an older creation date. As God ever sits back laughing at us as we struggle to unravel the jig saw puzzle God herself gave us.

 

[StageLeft]

I actually find big bang a bit stupid. Creationism generally coincides with religions that don't base everything on reason or evidence, so the suspension of reason and adherence to faith is part of the thing. Big bang claims to be scientific but really isn't because it never answers what happened BEFORE the big bang. Where did this mass come from? Science understands nothing at all besides cause and effect. What caused the big bang? What triggered it? Where did the mass come from? Simply, the human mind has no concept in the context of science to comprehend something that simply came out of nothing, which is why in this way it makes more sense to believe that something simply "always has been", and from that creationism is perfectly reasonable. The big bang is really just science's answer to God and creationism without realizing that it's doing the same thing--putting faith ahead of reason. Except religiou makes no apologies for such a thing and science pretends to eschew that.

 

[Capitalizt]

Wow...Do people really believe the universe is only 6000 years old?

Wow.

 

[maluckey]

If you believe that the Earth is 6000 years old, then you might as well say that it's ten minutes old, complete with war, strife and pain to test your faith. You can use the All powerful entity argument to shout down the nay-sayers!

It is philisophically (and Mathematically) inconsistent to think that the Earth was created 6000 years ago. Whether the Big Bang Theory will withstand scrutiny? We'll see.

 

[Siddhartha]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
I actually find big bang a bit stupid. Creationism generally coincides with religions that don't base everything on reason or evidence, so the suspension of reason and adherence to faith is part of the thing. Big bang claims to be scientific but really isn't because it never answers what happened BEFORE the big bang. Where did this mass come from? Science understands nothing at all besides cause and effect. What caused the big bang? What triggered it? Where did the mass come from? Simply, the human mind has no concept in the context of science to comprehend something that simply came out of nothing, which is why in this way it makes more sense to believe that something simply "always has been", and from that creationism is perfectly reasonable. The big bang is really just science's answer to God and creationism without realizing that it's doing the same thing--putting faith ahead of reason. Except religiou makes no apologies for such a thing and science pretends to eschew that.

Big Bang says that a long time ago everything was in a relatively small volume that had a very high energy state. This high energy state something exploded or expanded and everything we see around us comes from that event. There is evidence to support this. And scientists are working to reproduce this event.

Lets not forget that science is the search for the best solution to explain observed phenomena.

What existed before the expansion is another question. I would like to hear solutions to this question and insist that these solutions describe observed phenomena and predict associated questions and answers.

 

[beyoku]

what kind of people think that the earth is only 6000 years old? Which religious people in particular?
I truly don't know.

OTOH, what if carbon dating is not that correct?

 

[Genx87]

See first quote in my sig

 

[Jhhnn]

Creationism, and the so-called "science" supporting it is mere ontology.

The conclusion is reached prior to supporting "evidence" being found to bolster it...

Not to mention that it basically represents God as a fraudster, the reality we perceive as a deliberate illusion...

 

[palehorse]

Originally posted by: Siddhartha

Originally posted by: Skoorb
I actually find big bang a bit stupid. Creationism generally coincides with religions that don't base everything on reason or evidence, so the suspension of reason and adherence to faith is part of the thing. Big bang claims to be scientific but really isn't because it never answers what happened BEFORE the big bang. Where did this mass come from? Science understands nothing at all besides cause and effect. What caused the big bang? What triggered it? Where did the mass come from? Simply, the human mind has no concept in the context of science to comprehend something that simply came out of nothing, which is why in this way it makes more sense to believe that something simply "always has been", and from that creationism is perfectly reasonable. The big bang is really just science's answer to God and creationism without realizing that it's doing the same thing--putting faith ahead of reason. Except religiou makes no apologies for such a thing and science pretends to eschew that.

Big Bang says that a long time ago everything was in a relatively small volume that had a very high energy state. This high energy state something exploded or expanded and everything we see around us comes from that event. There is evidence to support this. And scientists are working to reproduce this event.

Lets not forget that science is the search for the best solution to explain observed phenomena.

What existed before the expansion is another question. I would like to hear solutions to this question and insist that these solutions describe observed phenomena and predict associated questions and answers.

...maybe it happened when another intelligent society reproduced their own big bang event?

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: spittledip
I feel that Occam's favors Creationism as it is much more simple. B/C we have no understanding of how things could have happened at all, it is almost necessary to believe that something outside of time/matter brought time/matter into existence. The Big Bang doesn't actually account for the beginning of time/matter, it assumes it was already there. It is hard to compare the 2 anyway b/c one is a religious belief, the other is just a means of attempting to explain how things came to be, although unable to account for the real beginning, just the beginning of our universe.. but in a sense they don't really contradict each other. I am not sure if the intention for the big Bang is to explain the beginning of time/matter anyway. So, in that sense, again, it is difficult to compare them.

As far as a hypothesis to disprove either.. i am not sure it is possible b/c one is outside what science can measure and the other is purely historical. It is not like you can find written texts that offer evidence to disprove the Big Bang. I suppose if one knew enough about the universe and various laws of physics it could be possible.. but not really sure. Hard to disprove something that was supposed to have happened so long ago.

Except that Creationism requires somehow the existence of an infinitely complex creator.
Scenario 1: Infinitely complex creator + finitely complex Universe
Scenario 2: No creator + finitely complex Universe.

Scenario 2 is less complex, by 8. Quite a difference.


Concerning the OP's two scenarios, then I guess the issue would be, if this creator made the Universe so as to apparently disguise his own existence, why does it matter if he's there or not? If it was deliberately made so that there is a lot of evidence of the Big Bang, well, why do that? A "test?" A bad sense of humor?

Originally posted by: Skoorb
I actually find big bang a bit stupid. Creationism generally coincides with religions that don't base everything on reason or evidence, so the suspension of reason and adherence to faith is part of the thing. Big bang claims to be scientific but really isn't because it never answers what happened BEFORE the big bang. Where did this mass come from? Science understands nothing at all besides cause and effect. What caused the big bang? What triggered it? Where did the mass come from? Simply, the human mind has no concept in the context of science to comprehend something that simply came out of nothing, which is why in this way it makes more sense to believe that something simply "always has been", and from that creationism is perfectly reasonable. The big bang is really just science's answer to God and creationism without realizing that it's doing the same thing--putting faith ahead of reason. Except religiou makes no apologies for such a thing and science pretends to eschew that.

Stephen Hawking put the question of "before" the Big Bang in the sense of, what happens if you go to the South Pole and try to go south? There is nothing south, just as there was no "before" the Big Bang. Space, energy, and time all came from that point source. Causality as we know it didn't exist. Space as we describe it didn't exist. Then again, as Hawking says, because of this, nothing that happened "before" the Big Bang could possibly have any effect on the inside of the singularity and then expanding Universe, and thus wouldn't really matter anyway.

 

[jackschmittusa]

Well, the earliest forms of writing that we know of date back to the times of Noah (as figured in the 6k model). Since he would have been the greatest hero on the planet, whose singular efforts saved all of mankind, I find it odd that these early records make no mention of him. Assuming he and his clan were the sole survivors of the flood, all of the people of the Earth would be direct descendants of his and likely to know his story. Everyone would also know his god and understand the power of this god, but there was no mention of this god or any great monuments built to either Noah or his god.

Again, according to the 6k model, Moses came along a little more than 500 years after Noah had died. And yet, the Earth had already been repopulated by then. I am not going to try doing the math, but I am sure it would prove that it was impossible to have the size and number of populations in various places described in the Bible alone. If you also factor in populations that we also know existed at the time, even though not mentioned on the Bible, I am sure there is no possibility of any rational explanation how so many came from Noah's family in so short a period of time. Would actually doing the numbers be proof?

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
I'll pose a question here that all of you know the answer to, but I'll pose it just to make you think about it a little.

Consider the following two hypotheses:
1. The universe was formed from the Big Bang billions of years ago. Life formed spontaneously and evolved to what we know today.

2. The universe was formed 6,000 years ago. Every bit of matter was positioned just so such that it matched the position and velocity of the Big Bang model (i.e. its initial condition exactly matches that predicted by Big Bang theory). Life was formed and microevolution occurred.

Can anyone suggest a scientific method to disprove either hypothesis?

you can't disprove the non falsifiable. so in asking for a scientific method to disprove that there is some supreme being who set up the universe to make it appear in every measurable way to be billions of years old, you're committing a logical fallacy.

the scientific methods of disproving religious origin theories such as, 'we can take pictures of cosmic background radiation caused by the big bang' or 'we know from carbon dating and ice core samples that the earth is older than 6000 years' etc. are all overcome by a simple explanation that satan (or maybe god) is playing tricks on us.

further, it's hard to argue with someone who doesn't understand the basic terminology involved. evolution is evolution. there is no such thing, scientifically, as microevolution. we can observe evolution. it is merely the change over time of the rate of physical traits in a population of organisms.

and you've confused the origins of the universe with the origins of life and with diversity of species.

 

[brandonb]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
I'll pose a question here that all of you know the answer to, but I'll pose it just to make you think about it a little.

Consider the following two hypotheses:
1. The universe was formed from the Big Bang billions of years ago. Life formed spontaneously and evolved to what we know today.

2. The universe was formed 6,000 years ago. Every bit of matter was positioned just so such that it matched the position and velocity of the Big Bang model (i.e. its initial condition exactly matches that predicted by Big Bang theory). Life was formed and microevolution occurred.

Can anyone suggest a scientific method to disprove either hypothesis?

This is my opinion.

Science is based on observation, mathmatics, absolutes. Carbon dating is judging this planet to be 4 billion years old. But using science, this is impossible to prove the age of the earth. What scientists use to indicate such a measure, is see the rate of decay with carbon over a certain time period (a month for example), and say it decayed n%. Then they apply that to other objects found on the planet and calculate the age based on their decay % found in that sample.

That assumes that over time, carbon decays at exactly the same rate as it does in the month study. Scientists ASSUME the decay rate is linear. However, when I use my method of obesrvation, such as a rusting car. I notice that the car's usually last about 15 years, then out of the blue, they turn into rust buckets and decay quicker. Using my method of observation (again not scientific) it seems the scale is not linear. That makes me not believe carbon dating is accurate.

I also don't see how such certain things can evolve. What is a loving caring nature, charity for example? How did that benefit the world or the animal kingdom? How did that concept be created, were all animals created with a loving caring nature, or did that evolve over time into later lifeforms? What purpose did it serve?

How did eyeballs form? How did 1 cell become into being to detect a certain ray of light (radio wave between a certain hz range)? How did it multiply, create a ball of cells, then be smart enough to form nerves back to a brain to create a mental picture. It just doesnt make sense. How did the cells know to do that? What scientific explaination can be used for that?

 

[jonks]

I love these threads because you get to see who's posts you can safely ignore in the future.

 

[jman19]

Originally posted by: Genx87
See first quote in my sig

Yeah, except science offers a better reason than "because we said so," even if it isn't perfect.

 

[ayabe]

Wow, this is great, I just read an interview with John Haught who argues that science and religion are not at odds.

Salon

It's a long read, he's basically the anti Dawkins but thinks Intelligent Design is a joke. He makes some compelling arguments though I don't agree with a lot of what he says, especially this at the end:
**********************************************
Q - What do you make of the miracles in the Bible -- most importantly, the Resurrection? Do you think that happened in the literal sense?

A - I don't think theology is being responsible if it ever takes anything with completely literal understanding. What we have in the New Testament is a story that's trying to awaken us to trust that our lives make sense, that in the end, everything works out for the best. In a pre-scientific age, this is done in a way in which unlettered and scientifically illiterate people can be challenged by this Resurrection. But if you ask me whether a scientific experiment could verify the Resurrection, I would say such an event is entirely too important to be subjected to a method which is devoid of all religious meaning.

Q - So if a camera was at the Resurrection, it would have recorded nothing?

A - If you had a camera in the upper room when the disciples came together after the death and Resurrection of Jesus, we would not see it. I'm not the only one to say this. Even conservative Catholic theologians say that. Faith means taking the risk of being vulnerable and opening your heart to that which is most important. We trivialize the whole meaning of the Resurrection when we start asking, Is it scientifically verifiable? Science is simply not equipped to deal with the dimensions of purposefulness, love, compassion, forgiveness -- all the feelings and experiences that accompanied the early community's belief that Jesus is still alive. Science is simply not equipped to deal with that. We have to learn to read the universe at different levels. That means we have to overcome literalism not just in the Christian or Jewish or Islamic interpretations of scripture but also in the scientific exploration of the universe. There are levels of depth in the cosmos that science simply cannot reach by itself.

*********************************************************************

This is a total cop-out and IMHO a weak answer with zero courage whatsoever.