On Fri, 16 Jan 1998 00:29:43 -0500, Scott Rauch wrote:
SR>I like Kevin Koenig have been "eavesdropping in on this discussion." I have
>included a short Bio. on who I am at the end of this post.
[...]
>SJ>Here is yet another study which concluded that the Universe will
>>expand forever. This means that as far as the empirical evidence
>>goes, this is the only Universe that has ever existed.
SR>I don't see the article saying that there could have been only one big
>bang, just that this is the last one. I think it would be in keeping with
>conservation of mass and energy (if even that is required) in postulating a
>universe that repeatedly banged until "it got it right", that is the
>balance between energy and mass was just right. This would not be the
>egregious multiple concurrent universes (whatever meaning concurrence has
>between universes). Is this a valid argument that could be used?
On a point of strict logic you are quite correct. That this is the last
expansion of the universe does not logically mean there cannot have been
earlier cycles of expansion and contraction. But if this universe is not
going to oscillate between cycles of expansion and oscillation, then
there is no reason to think that hypothetical earlier universes did. As
Hugh Ross has pointed out, the oscillating universe model would at
best produce a series of expansion-contractions in which each
expansion was *less* than the previous ones:
"In the oscillating universe model, the universe is presumed to have
sufficient mass that the gravity within it eventually puts the brakes on
its expansion. And not only does the expansion halt, but it reverses,
bringing about a total collapse. However, rather than crunching itself
into a singularity, the imploding universe somehow bounces back and
expands again, and so the cycle repeats, according to this model. An
infinite number of such cycles is thought to "relieve us of the
necessity of understanding the origin of matter at any finite time in
the past" (Dicke R.H., et. al. "Cosmic Black-Body Radiation,"
Astrophysical Journal, Letters 142, 1965, p415). Our existence, then,
could be attributed to that one lucky bounce (out of an infinite
number) that just happened to convert particles into human beings
through random, natural processes.
Since 1965, when the oscillation model first received serious
consideration, astronomers have engaged in a tireless effort to
find sufficient mass in the universe to halt the expansion. Yet all
the evidence, both observational and theoretical, still points in the
opposite direction. In 1983 and 1984, Marc Sher, Alan Guth and
Sidney Bludman demonstrated that even if the universe did
contain enough mass to halt its current expansion, the collapse
would yield not a bounce but a thud. (Guth A.H. & Sher M.,,
"The Impossibility of a Bouncing Universe," Nature, 302, 1983,
pp505-507; Bludman S.A., "Thermodynamics and the End of a
Closed Universe," Nature, 308, 1984, pp319-322). Because of
the huge entropy of the universe, any ultimate collapse would
lack, by many orders of magnitude, the mechanical energy needed
to bring about a bounce. This huge entropy was the justification
for the title of the paper by Sher and Guth, "The Impossibility of
a Bouncing Universe." In other words, the universe would much
more closely resemble a wet lump of clay falling on a thick rug
than it does a basketball striking a hardwood floor. Apparently
the universe either expands continuously or goes through just one
cycle of expansion and contraction."
(Ross H., in Moreland J.P. ed., "The Creation Hypothesis", 1994,
pp148-149)
SR>Bio Section:
>I include the following not only because I want everyone to know where I am
>coming from, and want help dealing with my recent paradigm shift...
>Ok. First of all, I am a hydraulic engineer, working for a company where we
>design and manufacture hydroturbines. About a year and a half ago, I was a
>firm special creationist. I am now a believer in evolution; not even sure
>if God is required. In 1995, Glenn Morton wrote to Stephen Jones about
>Stephen's provisional acceptance of common descent (as quoted by SJ Sunday,
>January 11, 1998 5:16 PM), "I know exactly how difficult a paradigm shift
>like that is." Well, let me tell you, the shift is absolutely devastating.
>I'm still struggling with all this. I still hold some anger because I
>believe the evangelical Christian community did not properly prepare me for
>the creation/evolution debate. They gave me a gun loaded with blanks, and
>sent me out. I was creamed.
Thanks for this, and I genuinely empathise with you. But in your
"anger" maybe you have thrown out the baby with the bathwater? Even
if the version of creation taught by the ICR is false, that does not
mean that the other extreme of fully naturalistic "evolution" is true.
That the evangelical Christian community did not properly
prepare you for the creation/evolution debate, is not totally its fault.
Darwin and his atheistic/agnostic followers like Haeckel and Huxley,
(and Dawkins and Gould today), deliberately slanted their
interpretation of evolution to try to rule out the Christian concept of
creation. Darwin actually admitted that his *number one* goal was not
scientific but anti-religious:
"...in the earlier editions of my 'Origin of Species' I perhaps attributed
too much to the action of natural selection or the survival of the
fittest...I may be permitted to say, as some excuse, that I had two
distinct objects in view; FIRSTLY, TO SHEW THAT SPECIES
HAD NOT BEEN SEPARATELY CREATED, and secondly, that
natural selection had been the chief agent of change, though largely
aided by the inherited effects of habit, and slightly by the direct action
of the surrounding conditions... Some of those who admit the
principle of evolution, but reject natural selection, seem to forget,
when criticising my book, that I had the above two objects in view;
hence if I have erred in giving to natural selection great power, which
I am very far from admitting, or in having exaggerated its power,
which is in itself probable, I have at least as I hope, done good service
in aiding to overthrow the dogma of dogma of separate creations."
(Darwin C., "The Descent of Man", 1871, Modern Library, pp441-
442. My emphasis)
The Christian church has been struggling with this for over a century,
and is only now coming to grips with it. It has not been helped by
many of its best and brightest Christian scientists aligning themselves
with evolution over against creation. This has had the effect of
abandoning ordinary Christians to the ICR. However, there is now
what Christian philosopher Del Ratzsch calls an emerging "upper tier"
of creationists who are mounting an increasingly effective campaign
against Darwinism:
"But there is barely beginning to emerge a new generation of
creationists with legitimate and relevant credentials who are
undertaking to actually do some of the painstaking, detailed drudgery
that underlies any genuinely live scientific program. This emergence
has begun to produce a separation in the creationist movement-an
upper and lower tier, so to speak. I think that what ultimately
separates the two tiers is different levels of respect for accuracy and
completeness of detail, and different levels of awareness that a
theory's looking good in vague and general form is an enormously
unreliable predictor of whether in the long run the theory will be
disemboweled by recalcitrant technical details." (Ratzsch D.L., "The
Battle of Beginnings, 1996, p82)
Scott, no matter how bad we may feel at times we have been treated by
the Church, it is still *our* responsibility to be part of the solution,
not part of the problem. Darwinism is on the ropes, with many evolutionists
becoming skeptical about it and two its leading proponents Gould and
Dennett fighting openly in public. (See Gould S.J., "Darwinian
Fundamentalism", New York Review of Books, June 12, 1997.
http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWfeatdisplay.cgi?1997061234F).
If you join it now, you may be boarding a sinking ship!
Better to be critical of *both* sides, than uncritically accept
one side. Remember what the Apostle Paul said, "Test *everything*..."
(1Th 5:21. my emphasis), and this "everything" includes evolution.
God bless,
Steve
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Stephen E (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ sejones@ibm.net
3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au
Warwick 6024 ->*_,--\_/ Phone +61 8 9448 7439
Perth, West Australia v "Test everything." (1Thess 5:21)
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