Physics

Mailbag: Time dilation in Schroeder’s biblical cosmology

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LH asked for clarification on the biblical cosmology of Gerald Schroeder. There was some question of the nature of the redshift and how to relate that to cosmological time dilation. 

Physicist Gerald Schroeder has written four books on the relation of biblical wisdom to modern science. His book, The Science of God, explains his biblical cosmology in detail. I’ve created an illustrated slideshow here (see also the “Six Days” tab at the top) that covers the basics of his model. The gist is that Schroeder is able to convincingly reconcile a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 –six 24-hour days of creation –with a universe that is billions of years old by invoking the phenomenon known as time dilation. That’s the slowing down of time in one reference frame as observed from another reference frame. It’s a scientifically sound model, but it’s also a bit difficult for the average scientific layperson to understand, because it involves one of the trickiest concepts in science — the nature of time.

Even scientifically-literate people get tripped up by the effect of time dilation, because the effect can occur for different reasons. So, it’s no surprise that one of the most commonly misunderstood aspects of Schroeder’s biblical cosmology is the nature of the time dilation effect that gives us six 24-hour days in one frame of reference and 14 billion years in another. It is not due to gravitational effects or comparing two different physical reference frames within the universe. Rather it arises from the following:

  1. God’s reference frame existing beyond space and time, which regards the universe as a whole
  2. the expansion of the universe
  3. comparison of the flow of time between different moments in cosmological history

Schroeder assumes Genesis 1 is told from God’s perspective. God’s reference frame is not any one place within the universe, but from outside the universe, regarding the universe in its entirety. So, to find something to form the basis of the Genesis clock, Schroeder looked for something that takes into account the three points above. He chose the cosmic background radiation (CBR), because it permeates the entire universe, it has existed virtually since the beginning of the universe, and encoded in its properties are the history of the expansion of the universe.

The time dilation for Genesis 1 is based on the expansion of the universe. This is neither special relativity nor a gravitational effect; it is merely a consequence of the stretching of the CBR light waves as the universe expands. This is a well-established effect in cosmology, and one I have to take into account in my own research on distant quasars. For simplicity, if you think of the CBR light waves as a sine wave, then the frequency of the sine wave represents the beat of the Genesis clock. The higher the frequency, the faster the clock ticks off time. If you think of drawing this sine wave on a piece of stretchable fabric representing the fabric of the universe and then stretching this fabric, the length between the peaks on the sine wave gets longer, and hence the ticks of the clock get longer (i.e. slower). So, what’s happening is that as the universe ages and expands, the frequency of the CBR light decreases, and the ticks of the Genesis clock for each moment in time get slower compared with previous moments in time.

That’s how we can measure, from our earthly perspective looking backward in time, 14 billion years, while God measures, from his perspective regarding the universe as a whole looking forward in time, six 24-hour days.

How the Christian view of time led to modern science

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People in the modern West take for granted that events proceed in a line stretching from the past through the present and into the future. They also believe that each point in time is unique—two events can be very similar, but no event or chain of events is ever exactly repeated. This view of time is called linear time, and it is so deeply ingrained in Westerners from birth that it is difficult for them to imagine any other view of time. However, the overwhelming majority of people who have ever lived have had a very different view of this fundamental aspect of existence.

Cyclical Time

Non-linear time

The alternative to linear time is a belief that time endlessly repeats cycles. I have great difficulty convincing my astronomy students that, from an observational point of view, cyclical time makes much more sense than linear time. I ask them to place themselves in the ancient world with no clocks or telescopes or computers, but only their senses to guide them and imagine what they would be capable of understanding about time. The days would be marked by the daily motions of the Sun and other celestial objects rising and setting in the sky, the months would be marked by repeated phases of the Moon, and the years would be marked by the reappearance of certain constellations in the sky. Other cycles in nature, such as the seasons, tides, menstrual cycles, birth-life-death, and the rise and fall of dynasties and civilizations, would dominate ancient life.

It should therefore be no surprise that the religion and worldview of many cultures were based on a belief in cyclical time. Among them were the Babylonians, ancient Chinese Buddhists, ancient Greeks and Romans, Native Americans, Aztecs, Mayans, and the Old Norse. These societies practiced an ancient astronomy called astrology which had as its chief function the charting of the motions of heavenly objects to predict where people were in some current cycle. It was a complicated process, because there are multiple cycles occurring in the heavens at any time, and ancient beliefs were based on the idea that human fate was determined by cycles working within other cycles. As a result, ancient calendars, such as the Hindu and Mayan, were very elaborate with a sophistication that surpasses those of the modern West. The idea of cyclical time continues in the present day with Hindu tradition and native European tradition such as that of the Sami people of northern Scandinavia.

Mayan Calendar

Mayan calendar

Not only does cyclical time make sense in terms of what people observe in nature, but it also satisfies a deep emotional need for predictability and some degree of control over events that the idea of linear time can’t. If time flows inexorably in one direction, then people are helplessly pulled along, as though by a powerful river current, toward unpredictable events and inevitable death. Cyclical time gives the promise of eternal rebirth and renewal, just as spring always follows winter. These pagan beliefs were so powerful that they continue to influence all of us today; for example, the celebration of the belief in the constant process of renewal is the basis for the New Year holiday.

Obviously, all people have thought in terms of linear time on a daily level, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to function. But on the larger scale of months, years, and lifetimes, the notion of linear time was viewed as vulgar and irreverent. A cyclical view of time was a way for people to elevate themselves above the common and vulgar and become connected to that which appeared heavenly, eternal, and sacred. This view also offered a form of salvation in the hope that no matter how bad things are in the world at the moment, the world will inevitably return to some mythical ideal time and offer an escape from the terror of linear time. You and I would consider this ideal time to be in the past, but in cyclical cultures, the past, the present, and the future are one.

Primitive cultures, like the Australian aborigines, had no word for time in the abstract sense—that is, a concept of time that exists apart from people and the world. For them, time was concretely linked to events in their lives—the past, the present, and the future formed an indistinguishable whole as the great cycles determined everything. The ancient Hebrews also had no word for and therefore no concept of abstract time, yet their concept of time was a linear one in which events occurred sequentially. These events formed the basis for their concrete notion of time. Except for the first six days of creation, time as described in the Old Testament was completely tied to earthly events like seasons, harvest, and, most importantly, God’s interaction with the world.

The ancient Greeks also believed the universe was cyclical in nature, but unlike other ancient cultures they also believed in an abstract notion of time that exists separately from events. They had two words for time—chronos and kairos—representing quantitative/sequential time and qualitative/non-sequential time respectively. From chronos we derive familiar time-related words such as chronological, chronic, and anachronism. In order to appreciate the Greek concept of time, one has to understand that to the Greeks time was motion. It’s not difficult to envision since the length of a day is measured by tracing the path of the sun and stars across the sky. When Plato spoke of time, he described an “image of eternity … moving according to number.” His student, Aristotle, said that time is “the number of motion in respect of before and after.”

Plato and Aristotle

Plato and Aristotle from the fresco “The School of Athens” by Raffaello (1510)

The Judeo-Christian beliefs about time that emerged during the time from Moses to that of Jesus mark a profound break with the thinking of the ancient past. Events of the Bible clearly indicate a unidirectional, sequential, notion of time that is utterly counter-intuitive to what the senses observe in nature. Time is not discussed directly in the Old Testament, but we can gain an understanding of the ancient Hebrew notion of time from the language. The ancient Hebrew root words for time were related to distance and direction: the root word for “past” and “east” (qedem, the direction of the rising Sun) is the same; the root word for the very far distant in time (olam), past or future, is also used for very far distant in space.

Perhaps the ancient Hebrews anticipated the early 20th century mathematician Hermann Minkowski, who postulated that space and time are two aspects of a single entity called spacetime.  In any case, the Hebrew practice of viewing time from a perspective that looked backward was eventually adopted by modern astrophysics. The Judeo-Christian concept of linear time developed into our modern view of time and became one of the great foundations of modern science.

Something very powerful was required to overcome the ancient perceptions of and feelings about time.  Though the concept of linear time started with Judaism, it took hold and was spread throughout the Western world by the rise of Christianity. In the fifth century, Augustine noted that the Bible is full of one-time events that do not recur, beginning with the creation of the universe, culminating with the Crucifixion and Resurrection, and ending with the Second Coming and Judgment Day. He realized that Christian time is therefore linear rather than cyclical. The desire for some sense of control and the hope for eternal renewal became better satisfied by a belief in a loving Creator and the resurrection of his Son who was sacrificed on the cross. (It is interesting to note, however, that cyclicality does have some place in Christianity—we are born when we leave the womb and we are reborn when we go to heaven.)

Nearly a thousand years after Augustine made his pronouncement, the era of clock time emerged. Clock time is measured by mechanical apparatuses rather than by natural events, and marks the final triumph of abstract linear time over concrete, cyclical, event-driven time. Mechanical clocks were invented in Europe in the 14th century, followed by spring-driven clocks in the 15th century. Refinements to spring-driven clocks in the 16th century enabled Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe to make his famously accurate celestial observations, which were used by Johannes Kepler to formulate the laws of planetary motion.

Tycho Brahe and his quadrant

Tycho Brahe and his quadrant

However, the motivation for increasing precision in time-keeping was not motivated by pure science, but rather by the application of science in the quest for accurate navigation. Sea-faring navigators required precise measurements of time so that they could use the positions of star-patterns to determine longitude. With these highly precise clocks, it was possible to keep excellent time. It is interesting to note in the phrase “keeping time” the abstract notion, meaning we keep up with the external flow time rather than events defining the concrete notion of time.

It is not a coincidence that the era of modern science began after the invention of high-precision time-keeping devices. Modern science began with the Scientific Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries, starting with the Copernican Revolution, but it progressed slowly because of a lack of necessary technology. Galileo, for instance, was forced to time some of his experiments by using his own heartbeat. By the late 17th century, Newton had formulated the branch of mathematics now referred to as calculus and published his laws of gravity and motion. His work was based on his belief in a flow of time that was both linear and absolute. Absolute time means that it always takes place at a rate that never changes.

Remember that the ancient Greeks viewed time and motion as one. This is important because the scientific study of motion based on the principle of cause and effect requires linear time. Newton’s laws and his view of time as absolute held sway for almost two hundred years. But Newton suffered from limited perspective just as the ancients had—humans perceive time on Earth as always taking place at the same rate, but that isn’t true. Newton is still considered the greatest scientist who ever lived, but we know now that he did not have the full picture.

Isaac Newton performing an experiment

It was Albert Einstein and his theory of relativity that gave humankind the strange truth about time. By the early 20th century Einstein had succeeded in demolishing Newton’s notion of absolute time, showing instead that time is flexible, it goes by at a rate that is different in different places in the universe, and it is really dependent on the location and movement of the observer of time. It is interesting that the Bible anticipated this in Psalms 90:4, “For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.”

The current scientific view of time is a combination of the ancient Greek abstract notion of time, the Judeo-Christian notion of linear time, and Einstein’s relative time. Cosmology, the branch of physics that deals with the overall structure and evolution of the universe, works with two times: local time, governed by the principles of relativity, and cosmic time, governed by the expansion of the universe. In local time, events occur in the medium of spacetime as opposed to being the cause of time. Time is motion, motion is time, and objects may freely move in any direction in space.

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

But the next big scientific question is, can objects also move in any direction in time? Physicists have determined that the arrow of time points in one direction. But how can we determine that direction? Biblically, we understand that time flows from the creation to Judgment Day. Scientifically, it has been less clear.

Ultimately, physicists determined that the arrow of time points in the direction of increasing disorder. A branch of physics known as thermodynamics, the study of how energy is converted into different forms, quantifies disorder using a concept called entropy. The second law of thermodynamics states that in a closed system, entropy (the amount of disorder) never decreases. This means the universe will never spontaneously move back in the direction of increasing order. It is the progression of the universe from order to disorder that provides the direction for the arrow of time.

The linearity and direction of time determined by thermodynamics seemed clear until physicist and mathematician Henri Poincaré showed mathematically that the second law of thermodynamics is not completely true. The Poincaré recurrence theorem proved that entropy could theoretically decrease spontaneously (the universe could go back in the direction of increased order). But, the timescale necessary to give this spontaneous decrease any significant chance of happening is so inconceivably long, much longer than the current age of the universe, there is little probability that it will happen before the universe could reach maximum entropy.

Nevertheless, some Western thinkers mistakenly took Poincaré’s theorem to mean that reality is cyclical in a way that does not provide the ancient escape from the profane to the sacred. This led these thinkers to despair about the possibility that human existence is nothing more than the pointless repetition of all events for all of eternity. Nineteenth century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was one who took the Poincaré recurrence theorem to the hasty and illogical conclusion that there was no purpose or meaning to existence. On the other hand, there is little comfort to be gained from contemplating an endlessly expanding universe in which everything becomes hopelessly separated from everything else. One may well wonder if there is no escape from time.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche — contemplating the Poincaré recurrence theorem?

Christians need not despair. The Bible tells us that the universe in its present form will cease to exist on Judgment Day, which will presumably occur long before there is any significant probability of a Poincaré recurrence, and will certainly make the notion of an endless expansion moot. If that is true, we inhabit a universe that is for all purposes linear and finite in time, and we have a much happier fate than being condemned to a never-ending repetition of meaningless events or a universe that expands forever and ever.

While it is important that Christians understand that modern science confirms the biblical view of time, it is also important that Christians understand the role of biblical belief in shaping modern science. Modern science developed only after the biblical concept of linear time spread through the World as a result of Christianity. True science, which at its root is the study of cause and effect, absolutely requires linear time.

The Bible

Fertile ground for modern science

The foundation of 21st century astronomy and physics is the big bang theory—the “orthodoxy of cosmology” as physicist Paul Davies describes it—which relies on linear time with a definite beginning. The false cyclical view was perpetuated by two human limitations: limited perspective and misleading emotions. It took faith in the Word of God enshrined in the Bible and trust in the scientific method to overcome these limitations so that humankind could understand the true nature of time.

Physicists must defend the integrity of science

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** Written by “Surak” **

German climate scientist, Lennart Bengtsson, is speaking out about the overwhelming pressure he experienced after joining a group skeptical of climate change:

News that Lennart Bengtsson, the respected former director of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, had joined the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), sent shockwaves through the climate research community. GWPF is most notable for its skepticism about climate change and its efforts to undermine the position of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The tremors his decision sent through the scientific community shocked Bengtsson.

The scientist said colleagues placed so much pressure on him after joining GWPF that he withdrew from the group out of fear for his own health. Bengtsson added that his treatment had been reminiscent of the persecution of suspected Communists in the United States during the era of McCarthyism in the 1950s.

It is time for physicists around the world to wake up to what is happening to science. They cannot sit back and do nothing as their colleagues in climate science are being harassed, having their jobs threatened, and being denied the opportunity to publish their works for political reasons. Physicists have to feel and express outrage whenever politicians make nakedly self-serving pronouncements that the scientific debate on climate change is over. Physicists know better than anyone else that’s not how science works. How often during the centuries from Aristarchus to Copernicus to Lemaître have physicists witnessed the lone individual prevail in the search for truth over the mistakes and objections of the multitude?

The threat to science is not confined to the study of climate change. Consider the field of biology, which, since the time of Thomas Huxley, has been dominated by the flawed theory of Darwin. What true scientist could accept the near deification of another scientist or the effective canonization of his works? Physicists certainly venerate the pioneers of astronomy and physics, but they do so even as they attempt to fulfill their scientific responsibility to do everything they can to prove those great scientists wrong. Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton did much for humankind, but physicists don’t try to shield them from criticism. They fully accept and honestly proclaim that these great luminaries were often wrong. By contrast, try getting any biologist to publicly admit the truth that Darwin was seriously wrong about evolution. They don’t dare.

And then there are the behavioral and social sciences—the benighted drudges of left-wing political ideology for so many generations. Take a few moments to investigate the latest pronouncements from the professional associations that represent the mainstream of psychology, anthropology, sociology and all the other behavioral disciplines; you will quickly understand the anti-science they truly represent. Psychologist, William James, was correct when he wrote about the study of human behavior over one hundred years ago, “This is no science … ,” but he was tragically wrong when he continued, “… it is only the hope of a science.”

There is no hope of science in these fields, because in them there is none of the overriding desire for or genuine commitment to truth that can defeat the human failings that physics took two millennia to overcome. That is why the social and behavioral studies have failed to accomplish the paradigm shift, the empirical conversion, and the discovery of natural laws which are the necessary steps to true science. Instead of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and the light of truth, these fields have give humankind nothing more than scientific abominations such as Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.

Physicists must understand the terrible and dangerous imbalance in human knowledge their lack of leadership is allowing to occur. Physics and the other physical sciences have given humankind an incredible power over the forces of nature. We can harness nuclear energy, create a multitude of new chemicals, manipulate the building blocks of matter, reshape the surface of the Earth, and change the atmosphere. But, because we do not understand or have any power over the inner forces that cause human behavior, we are like little children handling loaded weapons.

It took 1800 years before Copernicus realized the truth of what Aristarchus said about the structure of our solar system and took the first step toward true science. We can’t wait another 1800 years to develop a true science of human behavior. We won’t last that long. All sciences have to be put back on the path to truth. That’s why physicists must find the courage and determination to act as the keepers of the scientific flame and light the way for the others.

Physicists must shine a scientific light on all of the pretenses, the dishonesty, and the abuses that pass for science in other disciplines. Physicists must turn their love of science into a rage against all efforts to bend science away from the search for truth. Physicists must react with intellectual fury against all attempts to subvert science into the service of greed (yes, I’m talking about you, Al Gore) and the lust for political power (yes, I’m talking about you, IPCC).

Physics is the father and mother of all science. Physicists must act like the loving but determined parents of a hoard of unruly children who, instead of working hard to become real scientists, spend their time playing at and pretending to be scientists in the fields of biology, climate change, and human behavior. Physicists must guide and instruct those who are willing to learn from the magnificent successes of the physical sciences. They must relentlessly call out, scold, and discipline those who aren’t. If physicists lack the foresight or are simply too wimpy to take charge and lead the way, science will fail. Only God can help humanity if that happens, because we won’t be able to help ourselves.

The scientific method and ‘real science’

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The following is a comment left by a reader at Vox Popoli about a year ago, in response to another reader who was concerned about the current state of science. I had written the following response with the intention of posting it here, and then forgot about it. Surak is about to offer some commentary on a disturbing development in science that bears on this, so I figured now was a good time to dig it up and post it.

To answer your question as to what ever happened to the scientific method, here’s the shocking truth: Science does not operate according to the scientific method unless there’s a crisis. Never did.

Science, just like every other avenue of human endeavor (why should it be different, honestly?) operates under the thrall of a power structure. Always has.

The scientific method only applies when challenges come up against prevailing paradigms. Then, it is utilized, and don’t be a fool understand that every effort is made, always, to doom the challenger and to favor the prevailing paradigm.

The great merit of the scientific method is that under these rare conditions reason and proof hold sway. But please do not be so foolish as to assume that science is governed by the scientific method on a basis, because it is not.

Science is governed by egos. And nothing more.

It is true in a grand Kuhnian sense that crisis precedes advancement. It is also true that egos are a factor in science. But so what? Science is the triumph of the human mind over ego and a multitude of other human failings—limited perspective, misleading emotions, dominant philosophies that act as closed boxes, and the corrupting effects of the universal desire for fame, fortune, and/or political power. The scientific method is the means by which these frailties are remedied. Since these obstacles to advancements in knowledge will always be with us, there will always be a turbulent interplay between human nature and the pursuit of science.

The key element of the scientific method that keeps it from flying off in the direction of wild, unsubstantiated speculation is the peer-review process. If you want to know if the scientific method is alive and well in any branch of science, simply observe how rigorously the peer-review process is being used. I go through the peer-review process on several levels every time I submit a research paper for publication.

The first hoop I have to jump through is the judgment of the referee assigned by the journal in which I hope to have my paper published. The most important thing the referee does is check how well I have accomplished the observe –> hypothesize –> predict –> test –> theorize part of the process. If the judgment is that my work is scientifically sound, the paper is published. Then the whole body of my profession passes judgment on my work by deciding whether or not to cite my work. At the next level of the peer-review process, decisions are made about which scientists are deserving of funding, tenure, and promotions. At the final level, judgments are made about which work is deserving of awards. The end result of this in physics is a steady advance in knowledge where occasional detours from truth are corrected and dead ends are usually recognized and reversed.

I accept that there are some areas of science in which the scientific method does not currently function as it should. So-called “climate change science” is the most obvious example of science being corrupted by politics, money, and dogma. Surak will have something to say about this soon with regard to a disturbing development in this field. Meanwhile, there is a simple test one can apply in this regard: any time the name Al Gore or the terms “scientific consensus” and “the debate has been settled” are used in regard to any branch of science, it has undoubtedly strayed from the scientific method.

Biology certainly suffers from an ego problem to the extent that it is nearly impossible to get a mainstream biologist to utter the words, “Darwin was wrong about some important things.” He was wrong about some important things, and a paradigm shift is long overdue in the field of evolution. But, it must be acknowledged that a multitude of biologists are doing very good work that is firmly based on the scientific method.

The real test of any field’s application of the method is whether that field petrifies into dogma or if it routinely accepts change. I must speak in defense of my field of physics/astrophysics. It has a long history that includes the initial establishment of the scientific method as well as continuous successful applications of its process. After the Copernican revolution and the invention of precision clocks, experimental methods were sufficiently advanced that it didn’t take all that long to accumulate enough evidence to overthrow old ideas and adopt new paradigms. To name but a very few examples: Newton’s uniting the heavens and the earth under one set of laws, Maxwell’s unification of electricity and magnetism, Poincaré’s relativity of time and space, Planck’s quantum, Hubble’s confirmation of other galaxies and the expanding universe, Einstein’s new view of gravity, Lemaître’s big bang theory, Zwicky’s dark matter, and the supernova teams’ accelerating universe.

You say this is rare, but how often do you think this is supposed to happen? How often can it happen on such a large scale? The Hubble/Lemaître paradigm is an especially important example of the scientific method working as well as it possibly can. Most physicists did not like the idea of a universe with a beginning, but the scientific method is so firmly established in physics that the vast majority of them accepted it once there was sufficient evidence to overcome all reasonable objections. Those who clung to the notion of the eternal universe for reasons of ego and non-scientific concerns were discredited for straying from the scientific path.

The application of the scientific method does not have to be perfect to be functional. My own everyday experience in the field of astrophysics has been that the method sometimes proceeds as the classic observe -> hypothesize -> predict -> test -> theory. But quite often it is something very different: observe -> huh? -> observe -> what the … ?! -> hypothesize -> predict -> test -> getting close to a theory! -> test again -> wait, what? -> OH! -> hypothesize -> test, and so on. As long as it is evidence- and prediction-driven throughout the confusion, that’s good enough.

As for the system being set up to doom the challenger, how else would you have it? That’s the way it should be, as long as this resistance is not rooted in ideology (e.g. “climate change science”). It’s not unlike a court of law, where the presumption should be the innocence of the accused and the burden of proof lies with the accuser.

Egos, admittedly, often get in the way of true science, but on the other hand I doubt science could proceed without them. Scientists will always be fully human and infinitely closer in nature to Captain Kirk than to Mr. Spock. The vast majority of people I work with are truly driven by a desire for truth, but also the competitive hope for recognition and reward (which is why science has always been a traditionally masculine endeavor). And yes, they also have an understandable instinct to protect the fruits of their labor.

The point of all this, do not confuse the inevitable imperfect application of the scientific method for its absence.

Physicists getting close to turning light into matter

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We’re one step closer to having replicators in our homes. Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration, but physicists are on the verge of transforming light into matter. The process involves high-powered laser beams, a slab of gold, super high-speed electrons, and eventually a stream of photons. The whole apparatus can be thought of as a photon collider. Photons are essentially tiny “packets” of light, and it is hoped that a collision of two of these packets of light will produce a pair of subatomic particles — an electron and its anti-matter counterpart, the positron — particles that are far too tiny to be visible to the naked eye.

Physicists already know that the reverse process — a negatively-charged electron colliding with its positively-charged counterpart, the positron — causes the particles to wipe each other out and produce a burst of light, so the opposite reaction should, in principle, work. The process is governed by Einstein’s famous equation, E = mc2, from his Special Theory of Relativity, which says that energy (light) and matter are essentially the same thing. In fact, during the very, very early history of our universe — the first few fractions of a second — the universe was so hot and dense that energy was converting to matter and back again to energy very rapidly, until the universe cooled down enough for energy to finally “freeze out” into matter. The physics governing this is very simple, but it turns out to be rather difficult to create the conditions in a laboratory for this to happen. Thus, the excitement over this latest experiment to create matter from light.

It’s pretty exciting to think I may see Star Trek-like replicators in my lifetime. First thing I’m ordering when I get one? Tea, Earl Grey, hot.

Replay: Heroes sometimes fail: Why Stephen Hawking is wrong

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Traffic’s up after the announcement of the publication of our Astronomy and Astrophysics curriculum, so we’re replaying some of our more important posts from the archives for our new readers.

** Written by “Surak” **

As a human being who often struggles with relatively trivial difficulties in life, I have long felt admiration for Stephen Hawking’s courage and determination to continue working in spite of a highly-debilitating disease. As a physics enthusiast, I have the greatest respect for his accomplishments. But now, as a result of an article published in The Guardian two weeks ago [May 2011], I also feel embarrassment for, and disappointment in, Hawking. The article reported his views on religion and metaphysics — they were unoriginal, ill-informed, biased, insensitive, and even arrogant.

The article was entitled, “Stephen Hawking: ‘There is no heaven; it’s a fairy story’.” I don’t believe Hawking is capable of such an inane statement, so I attribute this bit of silliness to the reporter’s desire for an attention grabbing headline. It’s just another example of why no one can trust reporters. Unfortunately the rest of the silliness that follows is undoubtedly Hawking’s.

For example, Hawking believes the human brain is like a computer that will stop working when its components fail. This is an old and discredited view of the human mind. The brain is not like any known computer. For one thing, computers process serially, while the brain has the wonderful ability to process things in parallel. Hawking simply has the metaphor backwards, as any computer engineer struggling to make computers more like the human brain can tell you.

This simplistic view of humans can also be faulted for his apparent ignorance of the related problems of consciousness and mind/body dualism. Consciousness is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the universe, and there are no conscious computers except in movies. Since Hawking doesn’t say anything new about consciousness, his statements about the human condition are pretentious.

The dualist/monist debate about whether or not the mind and brain are the same thing has been raging for about 2,500 years. The best philosophers in the world have failed to resolve the question, something of which Hawking seems unaware, since he takes the monist side and simply dismisses the dualist view without argument. When it comes to philosophical arguments, scientists — even great scientists — need to understand that they have no special privileges.

Hawking was also reported to have said, “There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” From an uninspired and misleading analogy he leaps into metaphysics with an arrogant disregard for the limitations of science. Science is the study of our material universe, and as such it can have nothing to say about heaven or the afterlife. It is destructive of science for one its best to loudly proclaim scientifically unsupportable and irresponsible conclusions.

Hawking certainly has as much right as any other person to speculate on the great questions of human existence. But, honest inquiry and open communication do not appear to be his intent. Hawking does not acknowledge his lack of expertise in these matters nor does he invite the rest of us to discuss heaven or the after-life as his equals. Instead he engages in a condescending and mean-spirited condemnation of deeply-held religious beliefs. There is no empathy for those who fear the darkness of an existence devoid of genuine love, objective moral truths, and the hope of eternal purpose. His message seems to be ‘here is the way smart people think, and if you think differently, you’re a pathetic dimwit.’

Hawking is blind to the wrong he is doing science. He reportedly told Diane Sawyer that “there is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win, because it works.” There are three parts to this statement, all of which are wrong:

  1. There are at least three relevant definitions of the word ‘authority.’ Hawking is using the word in the following sense:

    The power or right to control, judge, or prohibit the actions of others.This would be a generally accepted definition of religious authority. Hawking certainly has in mind the atheist myth that Christian leaders have over the centuries prohibited scientists in significant ways. The false allegation of Galileo’s persecution by the Catholic Church is a notable example1. The undeniable historic truth is that Christian faith and beliefs were the necessary foundation of modern science.Hawking should keep in mind two other important definitions of authority:An expert in a particular field.The ability to influence or control others.Hawking, as a renowned expert in physics, has significant influence over others — he is a scientific authority. When he uses this sort of authority to make pronouncements that go far beyond the scope of legitimate science, Hawking is the one abusing authority.
  2. I wholeheartedly agree with Hawking that science is largely based on observation and reason. So, what has Hawking observed to lead him to the conclusion there is no afterlife or heaven? Has he teleported to the far reaches of the universe? Has he managed to visit the other seven dimensions that string theory posits to exist? Has he somehow escaped the confines of our universe to see what is outside? Has he at least had a near-death experience? If his beliefs are not based on direct observation, then what exactly does Hawking’s reason tell him that has eluded so many other great thinkers before him?
  3. In what way does science work better than religion? Science gives knowledge of one kind, but it cannot give humankind a viable ethics to live by2or explain the meaning or purpose of life. The Bible does these important things for billions of people. Even for non-Christians, the dominant moral system in the world today has its roots in Christianity, which is the major reason the world has never been safer or more prosperous than it is now.Furthermore, the Bible is arguably superior to science as a source of truth about our universe. Is Hawking aware that the Bible states that the universe had a beginning3, that it was created out of nothing4, and that time in our universe is relative5? Scientists didn’t figure any of this out until the 20th century. Genesis 1 alone makes at least 26 scientifically testable statements about the creation of the universe and the origins of life. All 26 are consistent with current scientific understanding and in the correct order. The inconvenient truth for atheists is that the Bible somehow beat science to important truths by about 3,000 years.

    Science works in an important but very narrow sense — it assists humankind in understanding and controlling much of the natural world. But it also gives people tremendous destructive power. Without religion to give people direction in the choices they make about using that power, humankind could end up destroying itself.Finally, if you compare societies around the world in regard to which works best, science or religion, one fact of supreme importance will jump out at you. Generally speaking, non-religious peoples are not reproducing themselves while religious ones are. This single aspect of a society overrules all others; if a nation doesn’t reproduce itself, it is irrelevant how many other wonderful qualities it may have because they won’t be projected into the future. In the long run, atheist or secular humanist societies, no matter how scientific, don’t work because they lack the power to continue.

Hawking goes on to say that the concept of religion is in constant conflict with his life’s work — science, and understanding the most basic ways in which the universe works — and it’s almost impossible to reconcile the two. The first part of this statement is an old atheist lie: there is no inherent conflict between Christianity and science. Hawking either ignores or is ignorant of the historical fact that the Christian faith and beliefs made science possible in the first place. If you doubt this, take a look at when and where modern science developed and flourished, along with the religious beliefs of the great scientists who laid the foundations of science.

This is not to say that there hasn’t been conflict between science and religion, but it’s not the fault of Christianity. From at least the time of Darwin, secular humanists such as Thomas Huxley have misused science and misrepresented Christian beliefs in an effort to undermine the influence of Christian faith. The truth is that some scientists are in constant conflict with religion because of their atheist beliefs, and they betray science as a result.

The report reminds the public of Hawking’s position that it is “not necessary to invoke God … to get the universe going.” He has maintained this position since very early in his career, telling German news-magazine Der Speigel in 1988 that “what I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began.”

He’s not saying that he knows the cause of the Big Bang. He is saying that he has constructed a mathematical model of a possible explanation. To say something is possible is meaningless and useless. It’s possible that somewhere in the universe, blue gooses lay gold coins with Hawking’s likeness on them. Like Hawking’s statement, it’s not scientific, because no one can prove it’s not true. The other weakness of his argument against the necessity of God is that it requires the laws of nature to be eternal. They would have had to ‘predate’ the universe in some manner that can never be scientifically proved, such as the emerging atheist myth of the multiverse.

Hawking continues, “This doesn’t prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary.” Hawking is at least aware that science cannot be used to prove that God does not exist. Instead, he engages in the weasel argument that there is effectively no God since anything that is not necessary can be ignored or discarded. It’s like a child denying the necessity of parents. Child to parent: “I’m not saying you don’t exist, you just aren’t necessary. I can live without you, so just give me the keys to the house and the car along with your credit card, and go away and leave me alone.”

Scientists such as Hawking and Richard Dawkins start from a bias against God and then play in a child-like way with concepts to justify their prejudice. Just as a child cobbles together some rough approximation of an airplane out of Lego, Hawking imagines that he has constructed a viable worldview that doesn’t rest on the notion of God. But he has explained nothing and ignored almost everything of significance. He has his mathematical model of a godless universe; don’t bother him with the mysteries of what came before the Big Bang, the origins of life, the sudden Cambrian explosion of animal life, the nearly universal human need for spiritual beliefs, or the greatest mystery of all, the origin and meaning of human consciousness. He has his toy and wants to show it off.

Then Hawking says something that gives an important insight into the workings of the atheist mind. The report continues, “And it’s his work that keeps him going — even if there isn’t a heaven.” “I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.” This statement illustrates the most telling and annoying aspect of atheism: atheists seem incapable of taking any of their beliefs and reasoning to necessary and obvious conclusions. They dismiss God and the afterlife, argue that the material world is all that exists, assert that man is the measure of all things, and conclude that people can free themselves of religious restrictions and do whatever they want. If you ask them to continue with this train of thought, they usually make some kind of vague statement about a life in the service of humankind and the possibility of a kind of immortality in the sense that society will remember a person’s good deeds ‘forever.’

The problem, of course, is that it is delusional nonsense. What any good scientist should know is that our material universe is very likely heading toward what is called heat death, a state in which energy no longer exists in a form that can support life. But even before this occurs, the human species will have become extinct anyway. What is the point of doing anything in this life when you will be annihilated in the blink of a cosmic eye followed in short order by the rest of humankind? If atheists really believed this, they would either commit suicide or become Buddhist monks. But the vast majority of them continue to act as if human existence has some kind of meaning greater than that of their material state. If Hawking is right about God and the afterlife, every trace of humanity will be destroyed, all of Hawking’s work will be lost, and every effort he makes will be futile.

What he is really means when he says he is in no hurry to die is that he values his existence and he wants to keep on existing. He feels he has purpose, but he does not wonder where that purpose could possibly come from. He’s not thinking his own position to its logical end, which is that without God his existence is pathetically finite and ultimately meaningless. He says there is no God, but acts as if there is.

Interestingly, Hawking has also made headlines in recent years over his views about the existence of aliens, and what interactions between our races would be like. “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans,” he said.

Here we detect the pessimism that will always be a result of atheism (as well as a lack of imagination based on what little he thinks he knows about the past). Without God and the hope for the redemption of humankind, he has no reason for optimism, no belief that things will work out better in the future than in the past. Christians believe this because they believe that good is stronger than evil, that by following God’s direction people can always triumph over evil, and that good therefore must be the future of humankind. That’s why, for instance, evangelical Christians, not atheists, put an end to the worldwide slave trade; that’s why Christians, not atheists, marched into horrendous Civil War battles singing, “He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,” and ended slavery in America.

In spite of all this, I still believe Stephen Hawking is a hero. He has persevered with a debilitating disease and done tremendous work in theoretical physics. But what do you do when a hero lets you down? There’s a line from the Gordon Lightfoot song, “If You Could Read My Mind,” that goes “The hero would be me. But heroes often fail …” That’s what I think about Stephen Hawking. When it comes to religion and metaphysics, he has failed, but he is still a hero in a way that does not diminish the meaning of the word.

I came to believe in God because of what I learned about the universe. I had the good fortune not to go to Oxford and be saturated with humanist bias against the “God hypothesis.” When I look at the structure of the universe and life on Earth, I see evidence of a great mind at work. I am sorry for Hawking that he can’t.

—–

[1] Dinesh D’Souza provides a succinct reopening of “the Galileo Case” in Chapter 10 of What’s So Great About Christianity.

[2] Not that atheists haven’t tried. See Vox Day’s review of The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris.

[3] Genesis 1:1.

[4] Genesis 1:1. See Gerald Schroeder’s explanation of the significance of the word “create” in The Science of God (pp 143-144).

[5] Psalms 90:4.

Colliding neutron stars

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NASA has released a stirring animation depicting the theoretical merger of two neutron stars. Once the stars merge, they form a black hole.

Neutron stars are super-dense remnants of dead high-mass stars. As the name suggests, they are comprised entirely of neutrons, which formed from the merging of protons and electrons during the gravitational collapse of a dying star’s core. Neutron stars have a theoretical upper limit to their mass, beyond which the rules of quantum physics dictate that the stars collapse into black holes. A merger is one way to have a neutron star exceed its theoretical mass limit.

Such mergers would release an enormous amount of energy, which could explain the origin of gamma ray bursts—mysterious flares of ultra-high energy that emanate from deep space.

Zombie science

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There’s a simple reason for the corruption of biology and the social sciences: these studies are not based on Christian beliefs and faith the way science originally was and must always be. Modern science developed in only one place—Christian Europe. If you look up the great pioneers of physics and astronomy, you will find that they were almost all devout Christians, from Copernicus to Galileo to Newton to Maxwell to Planck to Lemaître.

The one glaring exception was Einstein, but even he famously said, “I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.” Even though Einstein was not Christian, he was the product of the Christian European culture that gave birth to science, and he was a willing participant in a process based on Christian principles:

But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. (Albert Einstein, 1941)

The prime motivation of Einstein and so many other great figures in science was to uncover divine truth and know the mind of God. People who feel they are doing God’s work are far less likely to succumb to human frailties and engage in activities that corrupt the search for truth. That tradition remains strong in physics, the original science. That is why the field of astrophysics was able to resist the degenerative effects of an increasingly atheist society. When the devout Lemaître conceived of the primeval atom (aka big bang theory) and demonstrated that the Genesis account of a universe with a beginning was scientifically sound, the stubborn resistance of scientists with a hatred for the idea of God was quickly overcome by the evidence.

The other branches of science have not fared as well. Atheists stole science from Christians in the mid and late 19th century with the false social science of Marx and behavioral science of Freud as well as the misuse of Darwin’s theory of evolution and the gross misrepresentation of Christian scripture. Over the last century and a half, secular humanists have successfully alienated Christians from the scientific method the faithful created and taken over most of its areas of study. Physics still has a substantial minority of Christians (and people with a general belief in God), and much good work is still being done. The social and behavior studies, on the other hand, are the tools of secular humanism and the zombies of the scientific world—active but not alive. Biology was bitten long ago and is gradually succumbing to the humanist infection. There is an easy way to tell a zombie biologist from a true biological scientist; ask him to say the following words, “Darwin was seriously wrong about some important things.” If he can’t bring himself to say this, you are speaking with one of the walking dead. Climate change ‘scientists’ are just garden-variety corrupt hacks who have sold out for money, prestige, and political favors. Bundle up for the coming ice age or thank the polluters for preventing it.

The lesson here is that the further any area of study is from the Christian foundations of true science, the more corrupt it is. The United States has been the source of a great deal of the productive science done in the 20th and early 21st centuries. It is also the most Christian of all developed countries. If atheists succeed in turning the United States into anything similar to what the formerly Christian European nations now are, science will die and humankind will experience a dark age.

Twisted history

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Alex Berezow and James Hannam systematically dismantle a post by atheist evolutionary biologist, Jerry Coyne, who manages to get nearly every one of his claims about science and religion wrong. Example:

Coyne:

If you think of science as rational and empirical investigation of the natural world, it originated not with Christianity but with the ancient Greeks, and was also promulgated for a while by Islam.

Berezow and Hannam:

This is only half-true. Science is a lot more than just reason and observation. You need experiments too. For example, the Greeks, following Aristotle, thought that heavy objects must fall faster than light ones. It takes two seconds to disprove that by an experiment that involves dropping a pebble and a rock. But for a thousand years, no one did. There didn’t seem to be much point in testing a theory they already thought to be true. That’s probably why the Greeks were so good at geometry, as Dr. Coyne notes, because progress in mathematics is largely based on reason alone.

I’ll further point out that Aristotle — hero of humanism and champion of reason — was wrong about just about everything in terms of science, and the acceptance of his model of an eternal geocentric universe in particular held back progress in science for nearly two thousand years. Until it was revolutionized by a bunch of Christians.

Read the whole rebuttal.

The authors have not addressed all of Coyne’s claims, as, they have pointed out, there is “an impressive amount of error and misunderstanding [in] a very small space.” He certainly manages to cram a lot of error into the following unaddressed point:

If religion promulgated the search for knowledge, it also gave rise to erroneous, revelation-based “scientific” conclusions that surely impeded progress. Those include creation ex nihilo, the Great Flood, a geocentric universe, and so on.

By all appearances, the universe was created ex nihilo. Physicists have struggled to explain the origin of the universe in a way that avoids an ex nihilo creation event, without success. As this Reasons to Believe article points out, the Bible mentions a worldwide flood, not a global flood. A Great Flood, as described in Genesis, that wiped out all of human and animal life in the Mesopotamian region — the entire known world at the time — is scientifically plausible. And, geocentric theory began with the ancient Greeks. I suppose you could say that since the Greeks were religious, religion is therefore responsible for geocentric theory, but that would be a gross oversimplification. And, anyway, as Coyne is lumping this in with other biblical conclusions, one can reasonably assume he’s pinning this one specifically on Christianity. But, as we all know, Aristotle was responsible for promulgating the idea, which was later elaborated upon by Ptolemy. Yet, the erroneous notion persists that Christians were to blame for this faulty cosmology. As with the Galileo and Bruno affairs, this is the result of atheist myth-making.

The more commentary I read from atheists, the more I’m convinced that these self-styled champions of fact and reason are anything but.

New superheavy element announced

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A new, superheavy element will likely be added to the pantheon of known elements. Created in a lab, and weighing in at 40% heavier than lead, element 117 is highly unstable and has a half-life of less than a second. Nevertheless, its fleeting existence in a lab will likely earn it a permanent place on the periodic table.

The periodic table contains both primordial (elements that have existed on Earth since the planet formed) and synthetic (manmade) elements. Element 117, also temporarily known as ununseptium, is a synthetic element. Despite its lesser atomic number, the announcement of element 117 follows that of element 118 (ununoctium), which was announced years before (and has a bit of a checkered past). Once these elements become approved members of the periodic table, they will be given proper elementy names by their discoverers.

Now, despite using the word “created” above, elements are not created, they are made, whether by nature or by man. We tend to use the term “created” rather loosely, but in terms of the biblical, the distinction between created and made is rather important. Created refers to the instantaneous act of bringing something into existence that did not exist before. Made refers to the process of fashioning something from pre-existing raw material, which takes time. Even the simplest element — primordial hydrogen, with just one proton and one electron — was fashioned over a period of time from pre-existing material. And elements 117 and 118, which took careful planning and execution in a lab, were effectively fashioned the same way.