[JerryLove]

What's a FAQ It's a list of "Frequently Asked Questions" and their responses.

I don't agree with some of the stuff in this FAQ That's understandable. The first section (this one) is about me; so you should not disagree with it. Some of the remainder is about "what something says" and so should be correct, at least for my POV (whether some other person with a belief by the same name believes different things, I cannot do anything about); other parts are controversial on this BBS (old Earth for example) but come up over and over, and I just want to pre-address a few of the common ones.

What should I do if I don't agree with one? Generally don't post it here. Rather look to see if there is an on-going thread already on that subject. If it exists, post there; if not, start one.

Jerry, are you Christian? No, I'm atheistic Daoist.

What's a Daoist? Daoism is a Chinese philosophy / religion (commonly anglicized Taoist). I'm eclectic, though you will find I am generally in-line with "The Tao of Pooh" by Benjamen Hoff. It's cheap, it's short, it's a fun read regardless of religion... and I need to tell him to share the royalties with how much I recommend it.

If you are not a Christian, why are you here? The short answer is that I was invited here by one of the moderators; it seems there was no "opposing viewpoint" being represented on several of the threads. I am here because I like discussion. I'll discuss both religious and areligious topics.

What kind of Daoist / Evolutionist / Theist / whatever are you? My own kind, though I'm sure there are many people I tend to agree with, I like to form my own opinions.

Are you as sexy in person as you seem on the BBS? Darn-tootin Yes!!

[JerryLove]

What does evolution claim? Evolution claims that over time, new species of creatures have arisen from old ones. That's it.

That's a little vague. Well, evolution also claims how it happens. Evolution claims that DNA is the building block of life (as we know it), that mutations occur in DNA; that these mutations can change the creature; that positive changes are likely to be passed on to offspring (the creature is more likely to have offspring) and negative changes are less likely (the creature is less likely to have offspring). Throw in a little Mendel (laws of inheritance) and you have all of the criteria.

Well, what about the first life-form? Evolution makes no claim about how life initially appeared, just what life has done since. The appearence of first life is called "abiogenesis" and there is only speculation on how that actually occurred.

What's the difference between macroevolution and microevolution? As far as I am concerned, nothing. Microevolution is used on this BBS to refer to mutations that do not result in speciation; macroevolution to refer to mutations that do. The problem is that people seem to think of species as "real".

What do you mean "real"? What is a species? A species is a group of morphologically similar organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring.

What's wrong with that definition? Let me offer a perfectly viable scenerio: You have creature A; who can have fertile offspring with creature B, so A and B are the same species Similarly, B and C are also capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring, so they are the same species... But A and C cannot interbreed, so they are not the same species. A=B and B=C, but A!=C. There are several examples in the plant world, though I am not aware of one in the animal kingdom offhand.

Does evolution disallow God? While evolution would be in conflict with a literal interpretation of Genesis (making that mutually exclusive with evolution); evolution makes no claim as to the presence or lack of a God. There are, in fact, many Christians who are evolutionists. The name for this belief is "theistic evolution".

[JerryLove]

I'm not going to go into the supporting math for these assertions so as to save space. If I have it up here, I have probably had to support it on this BBS. Further, most any search on Google will offer support on any of these.

How can radiometric dating be trusted? There are some underpinning laws of physics which do not allow for variation (under realistic circumstances) in decay rates. Further, the decay rates have never been observed to change, nor have the other forces which rely on the same physics. Also, most of the dating systems are cross-referenced with other dating mechanisms.

I heard that the speed of light has been getting slower and slower as we measure it. The speed of light was first measured in 1670 by Ole Roemer, his conclusion was 186,000 miles per second. (his initially published number was a little off because he used a wrong distance for 1AU, but with the adjusted AU measure, he was within 1% of the modern number).

What about the dust on the moon? The amount of dust on the moon is what it should be based on its age and predicted accumulation rates. The amount found supports old-Earth.

What about the moon receding? Physical evidence proves that the rate at which the moon recedes from the Earth is far higher at present than it was in the past. This evidence further proves old-Earth theories.

What about the sun shrinking? The math says the sun should survive as a hydrogen-consuming star for 10,000,000,000 years; losing 0.07% of its mass in the process. This is consistent with actual measurements.

But my information says it's shrinking at several feet per hour! Your information is inspecific, the sun oscillates in 76-year cycles, shrinking and expanding. The net effect change in size is negligible.

[JerryLove]

What is Thermodynamics? Thermodynamics is a field of science interested in studying the movement (dynamic) of heat (thermos).

Why do I hear so much about it? Thermodynamics is important because it describes the movement of energy.

What does Thermodynamics say? Thermodynamics says a lot, but most discussions here focus on the first two "laws of thermodynamics".

1. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed.
2. In a closed system, you can have no process from which the sole result is the movement of heat from an area of low concentration to an area of high concentration.

These are commonly referred to as "the law of conservation" and "the law of entropy".

I keep hearing about entropy and evolution and disorder, what is that about? When thermodynamics's second law started being applied to more forms of energy than heat, a convention came into use. This convention used the term "entropy" to describe the distribution of energy within a system. Functionally the more entropy a system has, the more evenly distributed the energy within the system is.

I don't understand, what does that have to do with order? Pretty much nothing. The problem is that the word "entropy" occurs in English with other, similar uses. One synonym (though not correct in the context of thermodynamics) for entropy is "chaos", and a synonym for that is "disorder". In a feat of equivocation, certain groups have been arguing that the second law prohibits any order from forming because A. they falsely equate entropy with disorder; and B. they forget that local entropy can decrease as long as overall entropy increases.

Local? Overall? Huh? Basic concept of entropy: if I have a hot rock in a cold room, the heat will bleed off the box until they are the same temperature... This is an increase in entropy (dispersion of energy). What cannot happen is the rock bleeding off energy until it becomes colder than the room it's in; that would be a reduction in entropy. But, this only works within a "closed system". It is perfectly possible (for example) for the box to be a refrigerator and for it to cool itself off (internally) (decreasing entropy within the fridge). The payoff is that to do so requires the use of energy and that creates waste (law 3) in the form of heat... were this heat forced to remain with the fridge, it would result in the increase in the overall temperature of the fridge (an increase in entropy)... But what a refrigerator does is bleed that heat out into the room. The room and fridge together have more entropy now (more heat has been added to the room than was removed in the fridge), but the fridge itself has reduced entropy.

OK, that was a little confusing... Are these laws always true? It was thought so, but modern information is showing options we had not considered, it appears that these laws may be violated under certain circumstances.

[JerryLove]

Where did the universe come from? Our knowledge of the universe can only reasonably extend back to just after an event called "the Big Bang" (about 20,000,000,000 years ago at last estimation). The cause of the Big Bang can only be speculated at and the nature of the universe prior to it is entirely unknown.

How did the first life-form appear? Restricting specifically to life on Earth... I don't know. I find the speculation that it formed through natural chemical processes likely, but that is educated speculation.

Where did time come from / what's time like / what happens if you [snip question requiring temporal mechanics]? I don't know; I can speak with some reasonable sanity on some of the various temporal theories, but I don't adhere to one of them.

What is the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything? 42.

[JerryLove]

This is somewhat covered on the Discussion 101 thread; but repeated here with greater verbosity. (PS ripped verbatem from http://www.wilstar.net/theories.htm)

Lay people often misinterpret the language used by scientists. And for that reason, they sometimes draw the wrong conclusions as to what the scientific terms mean.

Three such terms that are often used interchangeably are "scientific law," "hypothesis," and "theory."

In layman’s terms, if something is said to be “just a theory,” it usually means that it is a mere guess, or is unproved. It might even lack credibility. But in scientific terms, a theory implies that something has been proven and is generally accepted as being true.

Here is what each of these terms means to a scientist:

Scientific Law: This is a statement of fact meant to explain, in concise terms, an action or set of actions. It is generally accepted to be true and univseral, and can sometimes be expressed in terms of a single mathematical equation. Scientific laws are similar to mathematical postulates. They don’t really need any complex external proofs; they are accepted at face value based upon the fact that they have always been observed to be true.

Some scientific laws, or laws of nature, include the law of gravity, the law of thermodynamics, and Hook’s law of elasticity.

Hypothesis: This is an educated guess based upon observation. It is a rational explanation of a single event or phenomenon based upon what is observed, but which has not been proved. Most hypotheses can be supported or refuted by experimentation or continued observation.

Theory: A theory is more like a scientific law than a hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis.

In general, both a scientific theory and a scientific law are accepted to be true by the scientific community as a whole. Both are used to make predictions of events. Both are used to advance technology.

The biggest difference between a law and a theory is that a theory is much more complex and dynamic. A law governs a single action, whereas a theory explains a whole series of related phenomena.

An analogy can be made using a slingshot and an automobile.

A scientific law is like a slingshot. A slingshot has but one moving part--the rubber band. If you put a rock in it and draw it back, the rock will fly out at a predictable speed, depending upon the distance the band is drawn back.

An automobile has many moving parts, all working in unison to perform the chore of transporting someone from one point to another point. An automobile is a complex piece of machinery. Sometimes, improvements are made to one or more component parts. A new set of spark plugs that are composed of a better alloy that can withstand heat better, for example, might replace the existing set. But the function of the automobile as a whole remains unchanged.

A theory is like the automobile. Components of it can be changed or improved upon, without changing the overall truth of the theory as a whole.

Some scientific theories include the theory of evolution, the theory of relativity, and the quantum theory. All of these theories are well documented and proved beyond reasonable doubt. Yet scientists continue to tinker with the component hypotheses of each theory in an attempt to make them more elegant and concise, or to make them more all-encompassing. Theories can be tweaked, but they are seldom, if ever, entirely replaced.

[JerryLove]

Has evolution ever been observed to occur? Specifically, are there observed cases of specation?

Yes. Some examples of new species which have arisin within recorded history:

Seedless grapes (pretty self-explanitory)

Salmon (http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/arc...1900salmon.html)

Goatsbeard ("Three species of wildflowers called goatsbeards were introduced to the United States from Europe shortly after the turn of the century. Within a few decades their populations expanded and began to encounter one another in the American West. Whenever mixed populations occurred, the specied interbred (hybridizing) producing sterile hybrid offspring. Suddenly, in the late forties two new species of goatsbeard appeared near Pullman, Washington. Although the new species were similar in appearance to the hybrids, they produced fertile offspring. The evolutionary process had created a separate species that could reproduce but not mate with the goatsbeard plants from which it had evolved.")

and Mosquitos (having a little trouble trakcing down that one, it was on ABC news's site recently (2-3 months ago) in an article on the effects of global warming. Let me offer some more to make up for it.

Two strains of Drosophila paulistorum developed hybrid sterility of male offspring between 1958 and 1963. Artificial selection induced strong intra-strain mating preferences. (Test for speciation: sterile offspring and lack of interbreeding affinity.) Dobzhansky, Th., and O. Pavlovsky, 1971. "An experimentally created incipient species of Drosophila", Nature 23:289-292

Rapid speciation of the Faeroe Island house mouse, which occurred in less than 250 years after man brought the creature to the island. (Test for speciation in this case is based on morphology. It is unlikely that forced breeding experiments have been performed with the parent stock.) Stanley, S., 1979. Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, San Francisco, W.H. Freeman and Company. p. 41

Formation of five new species of cichlid fishes which formed since they were isolated less than 4000 years ago from the parent stock, Lake Nagubago. (Test for speciation in this case is by morphology and lack of natural interbreeding. These fish have complex mating rituals and different coloration. While it might be possible that different species are inter-fertile, they cannot be convinced to mate.) Mayr, E., 1970. Populations, Species, and Evolution, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. p. 348

page 22 of the February, 1989 issue of Scientific American. It's called "A Breed Apart." It tells about studies conducted on a fruit fly, Rhagoletis pomonella, that is a parasite of the hawthorn tree and its fruit, which is commonly called the thorn apple. About 150 years ago, some of these flies began infesting apple trees, as well. The flies feed an breed on either apples or thorn apples, but not both. There's enough evidence to convince the scientific investigators that they're witnessing speciation in action. Note that some of the investigators set out to prove that speciation was not happening; the evidence convinced them otherwise.

[JerryLove]

On Entropy, Energy, Disorder, and Information.

The actual formal definition for Entropy is based on a mathematical path integral of calculus. This definition actually addresses the notion of potential energy. All closed systems can only act in a way to lose potential energy. That's it. Period amen. This is all that entropy is saying, and it only refers to closed systems as a whole.

This highly mathematical definition is hard to grasp for non-mathematicians so physicists also explain entropy in terms of molecular structures of order versus disorder. This latter definition has many applications but is not the fundamental definition of entropy. There are situations where the order versus disorder don't apply. Most textbooks on thermodynamics will be careful to point this out.

Finally, it is the order versus disorder which is then interpreted in terms of information to make the concept of entropy even more available to laypersons. However, this information model of entropy is often misunderstood and misquoted as being the foundation of entropy which it is not.

As a perfect example, a piece of paper with a story written on it contains more information than a piece of paper with just random letters printed on it. If we take entropy to be based purely on the information model then physics would be saying that the piece of paper with the story written on it has more potential energy than the one with random letters. But the original potential energy definition of entropy will clearly show that this is not the case. Both pieces of paper have precisely the same potential energy. The universe as a whole does not recognize the story as being "information".

So the whole idea that the concept of entropy can be reduced to a concept of information or order versus disorder is simply incorrect. That aspect of entropy only has validity in chemistry where the order or disorder of certain molecules result in different higher or lower potential energies. This notion doesn't even apply to all cases in molecular chemistry! If you want to be precise you need to pay attention to potential energies, and not any notion of order or disorder.

Entropy also applies only to closed systems. Biological systems are not closed. They can obtain energy from their immediate environment. So entropy doesn't even apply to evolution in any case.

On the topic of Mathematics

Just for the record, mathematics is not science. Mathematical formalism is not based on the scientific method and therefore is not science. Science simply uses mathematics to convey ideas about the behavior of the quantitative properties of the universe. I personally believe that there are some major flaws at the very foundation of mathematics, particularly set theory which is the foundation of all of mathematics.

I feel that set theory should have been developed using the scientific method to model the idea of quantity. This would make mathematics a science because it would then be using the scientific method. Instead, mathematics is based on classification theory rather than on quantitative theory. For this reason, mathematics does not properly model the property of the universe that we call quantity. Fortunately for most of science we can ignore these problems by using applied mathematics only. Where applied mathematics simply means that we are going to pay close attention to the quantitative nature of quantities and basically toss out any classification theory that obviously clashes with what we observe to occur in reality.

Unfortunately when science gets into the more abstract areas of research such as quantum mechanics, gravity, and string theory, the classification theory of mathematics tends to creep in and science becomes more mathematical and less scientific. Because mathematics is not based on the scientific method, and is therefore not science. It's actually based on a logical contradiction in classification theory to boot. It will eventually be repaired, but the time just isn't ripe right now, although it may not be that far down the road.

[JerryLove]

Think Like a Scientist: An Induction Fable
Copyright (c) 1996 by Kenny Felder (reprinted with permission)
http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/k.../scientist.html

The following is a story which illustrates which I think the scientific method is really all about. As with any fable, I'm going to tell the story first, and give the moral of the story afterward.

Once upon a time, there was a caveman named Fred. (I refuse to name him "Oog" or something, just on principle.) Fred was a very bright guy, but he had absolutely no knowledge of the laws of nature. Please don't ask how poor Fred managed to grow up this way: it's a sad sort of story, and not terribly relevant to my moral.

Where was I? Oh, yes…one day, Fred was walking through the woods, incredibly hungry as cavemen often were, and he picked up a rock. He looked at it, maybe took an experimental bite or two, and decided that it was not particularly edible. Anyway, he'd had rocks for breakfast that morning. So, he let the rock go, content to move along his way. Bam! Down came the rock, right on his foot. This is the critical part of the story, so pay close attention: he let go of the rock, and it fell on his foot.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
Has the science part started yet? No: actually, all Fred has right now is a hurt foot. This is because all Fred has so far is one incident, which by definition is not related to anything else. In science, it's pretty fair to say that if you only know one thing, you don't know anything. (In math, that statement would probably raise a few eyebrows. But this is science, not math. You there in the back, sit down.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fred kept walking. Still hungry. He picked up another rock, let it go. Bam! It missed his foot this time, but other than that, it went pretty much the same way the first rock did: straight down. His mind racing, Fred began to suspect a pattern. If he were scientifically minded, he might have expressed it something like this:

Theory 1: When I let go of a rock, it falls down.

Being a bright guy (remember?), Fred realized he had to test his theory. So he picked up another rock, and said aloud in cavemanese: "When I let go of this next rock, it will fall down." He gave it a try, and sure enough! This is the point where Fred really started feeling good about himself. Because the ability to make a prediction, and have it come true, is the key indicator that you are really on to something.

So, Fred kept going, dropping rocks in his wake with childish glee. But he was still hungry. He picked up a pine cone, gave it a cautious sniff, and decided to let it go. Imagine his surprise when the pine cone clattered to his feet, in almost exactly the same way that the rock had! Now, you might think that Fred would conclude "When I let go of a pine cone, it falls down." But Fred was smarter than that. He started picking up leaves, sticks, helpless cats, whatever he could get his hands on. Fred was on to a much more general theory! As before, he began to make predictions based on his new theory; and when his predictions came true, he decided confidently that:

Theory 2: When I let go of anything, it falls down.

Note that Fred did not have two theories at this point, he only had one: because theory 1, although still true, was no longer necessary! Theory 1 was now a special case of theory 2. Nothing made a cave scientist happier than finding one theory that explained a lot of different results. This is because cave scientists had to carve their theories on stone tablets, and quite frankly, the fewer the better.

Fred was excitedly testing his theory on one of his own teeth when he happened to see a red balloon tied to a tree. Fred untied the balloon and let it go, fully ready for yet another vindication of his wonderful theory. The balloon drifted away. Up. It fell up!

Now, at this point, Fred was faced with his first serious scientific crisis. His predictions had been right hundreds of times: but now, one had gone wrong. So like any good scientist, Fred decided that it was a fluke, it hadn't really happened, and his original theory was right all along. Unfortunately, the next balloon went up too. And the next. The darn things were getting harder and harder to ignore, not to mention he couldn't figure out where all these balloons had come from and who had tied them to the trees.

Fred had two choices. He could tweak his theory, or he could throw it out and start over. Now, one thing a cave scientist always hated to do was throw out a theory and start over (remember the stone tablets?), so Fred started diligently keeping track of what things fell down, and what things fell up. Skipping ahead by a very long time, we find one of Fred's descendants carving the following:

Theory 3: Things that are lighter than air, fall up. Things that are heavier than air, fall down.

Note that we still have only one theory that explains everything! Both 1 and 2 are now special cases of this latest-and-greatest.

…I could go on with this story. The next step is to discover that pine cones fall up, not down, if you happen to be under water. And so you replace "air" in the above theory with "whatever you're in." And you keep generalizing, until you reach Newton's law of gravity, and then you throw that out in favor of Einstein's general theory of relativity, and I can't even imagine where you go from there. But this is a fable, not a James Burke lecture. So I think it's time for a few morals.

Moral 1: Science consists of two processes, deduction and induction.

Deduction goes from the general to the specific: making predictions based on theories. Induction goes from the specific to the general: pulling observations together to create a new theory. The nice thing about deduction is, if you do it right, the conclusion is always right (at least as right as the theory it starts with!). Induction, no matter how well you do it, is always suspect, and frequently wrong.

Nonetheless, real science consists primary of induction! (This is also why I chose to write this as a fable, story-first moral-second, instead of giving some general points and then saying "here is a story that illustrates them." If I've done my job, my general morals are obvious from my specific story. You got them by induction!)


Moral 2: Everyone likes to have theories that are right. Scientists spend a lot of time making predictions, and hoping they will come true. But they actually don't learn much when they do! The real learning happens when the predictions don't come true. In many cases, the scientists themselves refuse to believe the key results that lead to the new theories. (Moral 2': scientists are people too. They like to be right as much as anybody.)

Moral 3: Wrong theories are still useful. Every one of Fred's theories was eventually proven wrong, or at the very least, to be a specific case of a more general principle. Einstein is probably wrong too. But each theory is a building block to the next, bigger theory: and each one is also useful, as long as you work within the domain in which it is true. Almost everything we build today is based on 19th century Physics, which has been known to be very fundamentally wrong for almost a hundred years. But it's still useful for making cars and bridges and rockets and anything else that isn't too fast or too big or too small.

Moral 4: Sometimes you get so caught up in the excitement of science, you forget to eat. Which about wraps it up for Fred, I'm afraid.

[JerryLove]

A pseudoscience is an established body of knowledge which masquerades as science in an attempt to claim a legitimacy which it would not otherwise be able to achieve on its own terms; it is often known as fringe- or alternative science. The most important of its defects is usually the lack of the carefully controlled and thoughtfully interpreted experiments which provide the foundation of the natural sciences and which contribute to their advancement.

The term "established body of knowlege" is important here, because the pursuit of scientific knowledge usually involves elements of intuition and guesswork; experiments do not always test a theory adequately, and experimental results can be incorrectly interpreted or even wrong. In legitimate science, however, these problems tend to be self-correcting, if not by the original researchers themselves, then through the critical scrutiny of the greater scientific community.

Since we seem to run into people fitting this description here, I thought I'd put a primer on how to identify pseudoscientific sources. Pseudoscientific sources tend meet the following criteria:

1- Rely on apologetics

2- Talk about facts and ignore the hypothetico-deductive method

3- Rely on popular literature; avoid professional scientific literature

4- Emphasize sources with artificial credentials and ignore quality scientists (e.g. National Academy)

5- Rely on scientists who share their opinion rather than the general scientific community

6- Confuse retrodiction with prediction

7- Have problems distinguishing well established scientific principles from speculation

8- Use pseudoscientific vocabulary, not professional scientific vocabulary

9- Appeal to popular opinion rather than the scientific community

10- Emphasize a belief system rather than intellectual insight

11- Usually have descriptive understanding, but not analytical understanding

12- Are rarely aware that they are pseudoscientific

science	pseudoscience	comment
The primary goal of science is to achieve a more complete and more unified understanding of the physical world.	Pseudosciences are more likely to be driven by ideological, cultural, or commercial goals.	Some examples: astrology (from ancient Babylonian culture,) UFO-ology (popular culture and mistrust of government), Creation Science (attempt to justify Biblical interpretation), "structure-altered" waters (commercial quackery.)
Most scientific fields are the subjects of intense research which result in the continual expansion of knowledge in the discipline.	The field has evolved very little since it was first established. The small amount of research and experimentation that is carried out is generally done more to justify the belief than to extend it.	The search for new knowledge is the driving force behind the evolution of any scientific field. Nearly every new finding raises new questions that beg exploration. There is little evidence of this in the pseudosciences.
Workers in the field commonly seek out counterexamples or findings that appear to be inconsistent with accepted theories.	In the pseudosciences, a challenge to accepted dogma is often considered a hostile act if not heresy, and leads to bitter disputes or even schisms.	Sciences advance by accommodating themselves to change as new information is obtained. In science, the person who shows that a generally accepted belief is wrong or incomplete is more likely to be considered a hero than a heretic.
Observations or data that are not consistent with current scientific understanding, once shown to be credible, generate intense interest among scientists and stimulate additional studies.	Observations or data that are not consistent with established beliefs tend to be ignored or actively suppressed.	Have you noticed how self-styled psychics always seem eager to announce their predictions for the new year, but never like to talk about how many of last years' predictions were correct?
Science is a process in which each principle must be tested in the crucible of experience and remains subject to being questioned or rejected at any time.	The major tenets and principles of the field are often not falsifiable, and are unlikely ever to be altered or shown to be wrong.	Enthusiasts incorrectly take the logical impossibility of disproving a pseudoscientific priniciple as evidence of its validity.
Scientific ideas and concepts must stand or fall on their own merits, based on existing knowledge and on evidence.	Pseudoscientific concepts tend to be shaped by individual egos and personalities, almost always by individuals who are not in contact with mainstream science. They often invoke authority (a famous name, for example) for support.	Have you ever noticed how proponents of pseudoscientific ideas are more likely to list all of the degrees they have?
Scientific explanations must be stated in clear, unambigous terms.	Pseudoscientific explanations tend to be vague and ambiguous, often invoking scientific terms in dubious contexts.	Phrases such as "energy vibrations" or "subtle energy fields" may sound impressive, but they are essentially meaningless.