quantum mechanics and evolution
Harvey
I have posted a couple of times before on this group for info and
found you to be very useful and helpful.
I am in a debate with a Biblical creationist, his position is that
quantum mechanics undermines the whole of science and evolution:-his
view is "Current scientifc assumptions (including those underpinning
the evolutionist viewpoint) are increasingly being undermined by
quantum science."
I have asked for evidence to back this up, have got no peer-reviewed
papers only snippets from the Encyclopaedia Britannica like "Some
insist that genuine understanding demands explanations of the causes
of the laws, but it is in the realm of causation that there is the
greatest disagreement. Modern quantum mechanics, for example, has
given up the quest for causation and today rests only on mathematical
description." and from this he gets... "That would sort of make the
Lemon test in the Dover trial rather redundant, wouldnt it?"
He also asks "How can your metaphysical naturalistic faith be
sustained in a quantum mechanical world?"
I am a layman in terms of science and I am up on most creationist
fallacies and feel confident enough to discuss biology, paleontology
etc but quantum mechanics is bit beyond me from the little I can get
the length scales in quantum theory and evolution are so far apart
that it makes as much sense as measuring the distance between the
earth and the sun with a 10 inch ruler..but trying to explain that is
another matter.
I do recognise that these are fallacies and I was wondering if any of
the contributors here could point me in the right direction for
answers.
Any help in this matter would be appreciated.
Harvey
Ernest Major
<har...@hotmail.com> writes
What he is thinking is hard to discern, but pre-quantum physics was
deterministic (in the sense that if we know the initial state with
arbitrary precision we can predict future states) but not universally
predictable (because we can never know the initial state exactly).
In quantum physics we may lose (some of) that determinism (I subscribe
to the pragmatic interpretation of QM - shut up and calculate - but what
exactly measurement means in QM is a difficult question). This may be
what he's getting at, but how he relates this to an undermining of
science, including evolution, escapes me, especially as it's usually
their perceived randomness of evolution that horrifies creationists.
Anyway, it's not accurate to say baldly that modern quantum mechanics
has "given up the quest for causation" - causality isn't as strong in
QM, but it hasn't vanished in a puff of smoke either. For example, the
timing and channel of an unstable atom may be only statistically
predictable, but the fact that it will decay does have a cause. QM does
not mean that anything goes.
What he is probably referring to here is Bell's Theorem and it's
implications
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_Inequality
which means that your have to give up either locality or complete
predictability (unless you adopt a "no collapse" interpretation of QM).
By the time you've got to evolution it hardly matters whether the
stochastic elements of the theory originate in quantum randomness, or
from incomplete knowledge of the system.
--
alias Ernest Major
tgde...@earthlink.net
> Hi everyone,
>
> I have posted a couple of times before on this group for info and
> found you to be very useful and helpful.
>
> I am in a debate with a Biblical creationist, his position is that
> quantum mechanics undermines the whole of science and evolution:-his
> view is "Current scientifc assumptions (including those underpinning
> the evolutionist viewpoint) are increasingly being undermined by
> quantum science."
>
> I have asked for evidence to back this up, have got no peer-reviewed
> papers only snippets from the Encyclopaedia Britannica like "Some
> insist that genuine understanding demands explanations of the causes
> of the laws, but it is in the realm of causation that there is the
> greatest disagreement. Modern quantum mechanics, for example, has
> given up the quest for causation and today rests only on mathematical
> description." and from this he gets... "That would sort of make the
> Lemon test in the Dover trial rather redundant, wouldnt it?"
>
> He also asks "How can your metaphysical naturalistic faith be
> sustained in a quantum mechanical world?"
>
Have you asked him how his deterministic theism can be sustained in a
quantum mechanical world?
QM does far more to refute biblical thinking than to refute
'classical' science.
-tg
Friar Broccoli
I don't think there is any point in or need to learn anything
about quantum mechanics (QM) in order to handle this argument.
It just seems like a variation on the standard "Science cannot
explain X therefore science is false".
From what you've said your friend's argument appears to go
something like this:
1) Science is about making predictions (including effects and
results to use some Lemon test wording).
2) There is a class of cause/effects that science cannot make
predictions about even in principle.
Therefore science can make no predictions about anything at all
and it thus follows that all science is false and my
interpretation of scripture is true.
Or alternatively no naturalistic cause is "known"
therefore a supernatural cause must apply.
There is absolutely no point in arguing about #2. It's really
not at all clear what much of this QM stuff means in real world
terms and in any case, there are almost certainly some things
that will forever remain beyond the reach of science. Instead
you need to focus on the leaps in logic. You should be able to
just grant everything he says about QM, without worrying about
whether any of it is true or not.
Once he has finished he will be left with an argument of the
general form:
- We DON'T know X therefore Y must be true
- We CAN'T predict P with certainty therefore Q must occur
So just force him to justify the connection to the conclusion
he wants to reach and his case will fall apart all by itself.
If he just wants to attack science just ask if vaccines,
computers and suspension bridges usually work as predicted.
I hope you found the above intelligible.
Good Luck;
Friar Broccoli
Robert Keith Elias, Quebec, Canada Email: EliasRK (of) gmail * com
Best programmer's & all purpose text editor: http://www.semware.com
--------- I consider ALL arguments in support of my views ---------
NITRO
> Hi everyone,
>
> I have posted a couple of times before on this group for info and
> found you to be very useful and helpful.
>
> I am in a debate with a Biblical creationist, his position is that
> quantum mechanics undermines the whole of science and evolution:-his
> view is "Current scientifc assumptions (including those underpinning
> the evolutionist viewpoint) are increasingly being undermined by
> quantum science."
Well I am a Biblical creationist yet I am not sure what he is talking
about. Try asking him what specific scientific assumptions which
underpin evolution are being undermined by quantum mechanics.
richardal...@googlemail.com
<snipped>
> He also asks "How can your metaphysical naturalistic faith be
> sustained in a quantum mechanical world?"
>
Simple: there is no such things as "naturalistic faith".
Science operates on the principle of naturalism.
We accept the findings of science for the purely pragmatic reason that
science produces results. This includes quantum mechanics, by the way.
If science did not produce results, we would abandon it as a tool of
enquiry.
As science continues to produce results, why should we abandon it,
especially as the demand is that we abandon it in favour of a failed
paradigm?
RF
J. J. Lodder
> Hi everyone,
>
> I have posted a couple of times before on this group for info and
> found you to be very useful and helpful.
>
> I am in a debate with a Biblical creationist, his position is that
> quantum mechanics undermines the whole of science and evolution:-his
> view is "Current scientifc assumptions (including those underpinning
> the evolutionist viewpoint) are increasingly being undermined by
> quantum science."
Excepting gravity, quantum mechanics -is- the whole of science.
There are only a few minor details that remain te be filled in,
Jan
Harvey
harvey
Friar Broccoli
> Well I am a Biblical creationist yet I am not sure what he is talking
> about. Try asking him what specific scientific assumptions which
> underpin evolution are being undermined by quantum mechanics.
At the beginning of this month I showed you a series of
skeletons/skulls of what appear to be human ancestors in this
thread:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_frm/thread/744eff9a1b9969ee
My last reply to you was in this message:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/7f3e95975c3197d2
which included this comment by you followed by my reply:
N>> So what would this evidence mean in the light of creationism? It
would
N>> mean that God would have created at least 10 different humanlike
N>> species which do not exist today. Its possible, because anything
is
N>> possible when your dealing with the idea of God.
FB> True, but assuming God intended to make man, this looks like
FB> God is practicing, or alternatively intentionally creating
FB> smaller brained forms first in order to create the appearance
FB> that we got here by an evolutionary process. In the first
FB> case, wouldn't God be able to figure out that a 700cc brain
FB> wasn't big enough for His purposes? In the second, if God
FB> was willing to intentionally leave false information in the
FB> fossil record, how can we be sure that He has not left other
FB> false information in scripture?
FB> And these problems only get worse when we look back over the
FB> entire fossil record. Why for example would God have created
FB> and then allowed to die-out at least 15,000 species of
FB> trilobites, only to completely give up on the project 250
FB> million years ago? And then there's that 2 billion period
FB> when nothing but single celled creatures lived. What was
FB> that all about?
So, I'd like to know how your creationist views can be fitted
with a roughly 3 1/2 billion year long fossil record that shows
contentious change, and to which humans (and indeed all mammals)
are relatively recent additions?
Cordially;
jcon
> Hi everyone,
>
> I have posted a couple of times before on this group for info and
> found you to be very useful and helpful.
>
> I am in a debate with a Biblical creationist, his position is that
> quantum mechanics undermines the whole of science and evolution:-his
> view is "Current scientifc assumptions (including those underpinning
> the evolutionist viewpoint) are increasingly being undermined by
> quantum science."
>
This is so far from being correct that I can't even tell what the
person is trying to say.
> I have asked for evidence to back this up, have got no peer-reviewed
> papers only snippets from the Encyclopaedia Britannica like "Some
> insist that genuine understanding demands explanations of the causes
> of the laws, but it is in the realm of causation that there is the
> greatest disagreement. Modern quantum mechanics, for example, has
> given up the quest for causation and today rests only on mathematical
> description."
It sounds like he practiced that one in front of the mirror to get it
right, but it's really a meaningless sentence. Physics has
ultimately "rested only mathematical description" since
Newton. Quantum mechanics doesn't change that one way or
the other.
> and from this he gets... "That would sort of make the
> Lemon test in the Dover trial rather redundant, wouldnt it?"
>
> He also asks "How can your metaphysical naturalistic faith be
> sustained in a quantum mechanical world?"
>
You'll have to get him to define "metaphysical naturalistic faith"
before you can even begin to craft an answer to that one.
-jc
Bobby Bryant
Harvey <har...@hotmail.com> writes:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I have posted a couple of times before on this group for info and
> found you to be very useful and helpful.
>
> I am in a debate with a Biblical creationist, his position is that
> quantum mechanics undermines the whole of science and evolution:-his
> view is "Current scientifc assumptions (including those underpinning
> the evolutionist viewpoint) are increasingly being undermined by
> quantum science."
I hope you saw fit to laugh.
> I have asked for evidence to back this up, have got no peer-reviewed
> papers only snippets from the Encyclopaedia Britannica like "Some
> insist that genuine understanding demands explanations of the causes
> of the laws, but it is in the realm of causation that there is the
> greatest disagreement. Modern quantum mechanics, for example, has
> given up the quest for causation and today rests only on
> mathematical description." and from this he gets... "That would sort
> of make the Lemon test in the Dover trial rather redundant, wouldnt
> it?"
He's just invoking something that he doesn't understand in order to
rationalize the general creationist retreat into solipsism.
> He also asks "How can your metaphysical naturalistic faith be
> sustained in a quantum mechanical world?"
I would start by asking him to tell me what he things my metaphysical
naturalistic faith is.
> I am a layman in terms of science and I am up on most creationist
> fallacies and feel confident enough to discuss biology, paleontology
> etc but quantum mechanics is bit beyond me from the little I can get
> the length scales in quantum theory and evolution are so far apart
> that it makes as much sense as measuring the distance between the
> earth and the sun with a 10 inch ruler..but trying to explain that
> is another matter.
QM is a favorite deus ex machina for kooks and cranks of all stripes,
precisely because so few people acutually understand it.
--
Bobby Bryant
Reno, Nevada
Remove your hat to reply by e-mail.
Al
>> I have asked for evidence to back this up, have got no peer-reviewed
>> papers only snippets from the Encyclopaedia Britannica like "Some
>> insist that genuine understanding demands explanations of the causes
>> of the laws, but it is in the realm of causation that there is the
>> greatest disagreement. Modern quantum mechanics, for example, has
>> given up the quest for causation and today rests only on mathematical
>> description." and from this he gets... "That would sort of make the
>> Lemon test in the Dover trial rather redundant, wouldnt it?"
>>
>
> There are only a few minor details that remain te be filled in,
>
> Jan
Yes, except that in the field of gravity, quantum mechanics IS looking
for the cause, while classical (eg Newtonian) science didn't.
J. J. Lodder
the heekster
wrote:
Quantum mechanics deals with the very small. Gravity is under
relativity, General Relativity. There are some people working on
trying to figure out quantum gravity, but so far, they haven't found
the handle on it. Last I heard, the graviton detectors had squat.
Quantization of space-time is one approach, string theory is another.
All the versions of quantum gravity are a long ways from being fully
developed . They have problems. Not to say they are unsolvable, but
we just haven't reached that point yet. What will likely happen, is
someone will grasp the reality intuitively (or maybe
counter-intuitively), and all the physicists will slap their foreheads
at the same time, wondering why they didn't think of it sooner.
Al
> >>> Modern quantum mechanics, for example, has
>
> >> Excepting gravity, quantum mechanics -is- the whole of science.
>
> >for the cause, while classical (eg Newtonian) science didn't.
>
> Quantum mechanics deals with the very small. Gravity is under
> relativity, General Relativity. There are some people working on
> trying to figure out quantum gravity, but so far, they haven't found
> the handle on it. Last I heard, the graviton detectors had squat.
The point was to show up how dicky the idea of looking for causation
is. Not to argue how far QM has come to finding gravitons. So far,
the best description of gravity is via relativity. QM is searching
for a cause, but can't find it. Which highlights (IMHO) that science
fields other than QM don't overly concern themselves with cause
anyway. For every discovered theory/law/whatever, there's always
another "why".
J. J. Lodder
> On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:28:12 -0000, Al <alw...@optusnet.com.au>
> wrote:
>
> >On Oct 31, 12:53 am, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) wrote:
> >>> I have asked for evidence to back this up, have got no peer-reviewed
> >>> papers only snippets from the Encyclopaedia Britannica like "Some
> >>> insist that genuine understanding demands explanations of the causes
> >>> of the laws, but it is in the realm of causation that there is the
> >>> greatest disagreement. Modern quantum mechanics, for example, has
> >>> given up the quest for causation and today rests only on mathematical
> >>> description." and from this he gets... "That would sort of make the
> >>> Lemon test in the Dover trial rather redundant, wouldnt it?"
> >>>
> >> Excepting gravity, quantum mechanics -is- the whole of science.
> >>
> >> There are only a few minor details that remain te be filled in,
> >>
> >> Jan
> >
> >Yes, except that in the field of gravity, quantum mechanics IS looking
> >for the cause, while classical (eg Newtonian) science didn't.
>
> Quantum mechanics deals with the very small. Gravity is under
> relativity, General Relativity. There are some people working on
> trying to figure out quantum gravity, but so far, they haven't found
> the handle on it. Last I heard, the graviton detectors had squat.
There never will be a graviton detector.
One may hope to detect gravity -waves- though.
> Quantization of space-time is one approach, string theory is another.
> All the versions of quantum gravity are a long ways from being fully
> developed . They have problems. Not to say they are unsolvable, but
> we just haven't reached that point yet. What will likely happen, is
> someone will grasp the reality intuitively (or maybe
> counter-intuitively), and all the physicists will slap their foreheads
> at the same time, wondering why they didn't think of it sooner.
Second-hand Wheeler,
Jan
--
"Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, so beautiful, that when
we grasp it - in a decade, a century, or a millennium - we will all
say to each other, how could it have been otherwise? How could we
have been so stupid for so long?" (John Archibald Wheeler)
Ymir
Harvey <har...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I do recognise that these are fallacies and I was wondering if any of
> the contributors here could point me in the right direction for
> answers.
The relevant fallacy here is the 'argumentum de Torquemada', which is
the assumption that facts which run contrary to your conclusion will, if
twisted sufficiently, stretched on the rack, broken on the wheel, and
threatened with pots of boiling oil, eventually come around to support
your position.
André
--
use rot thirteen to email
ntv...@tznvy.pbz
the heekster
Lodder) wrote:
>the heekster <heek...@iwxt.net> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:28:12 -0000, Al <alw...@optusnet.com.au>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >On Oct 31, 12:53 am, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) wrote:
>> >>> I have asked for evidence to back this up, have got no peer-reviewed
>> >>> papers only snippets from the Encyclopaedia Britannica like "Some
>> >>> insist that genuine understanding demands explanations of the causes
>> >>> of the laws, but it is in the realm of causation that there is the
>> >>> greatest disagreement. Modern quantum mechanics, for example, has
>> >>> given up the quest for causation and today rests only on mathematical
>> >>> description." and from this he gets... "That would sort of make the
>> >>> Lemon test in the Dover trial rather redundant, wouldnt it?"
>> >>>
>> >> Excepting gravity, quantum mechanics -is- the whole of science.
>> >>
>> >> There are only a few minor details that remain te be filled in,
>> >>
>> >> Jan
>> >
>> >Yes, except that in the field of gravity, quantum mechanics IS looking
>> >for the cause, while classical (eg Newtonian) science didn't.
>>
>> Quantum mechanics deals with the very small. Gravity is under
>> relativity, General Relativity. There are some people working on
>> trying to figure out quantum gravity, but so far, they haven't found
>> the handle on it. Last I heard, the graviton detectors had squat.
>
>There never will be a graviton detector.
>One may hope to detect gravity -waves- though.
>
It depends on the nature of gravity. EM has the photon force
particle, the Strong force has gluons, and the Weak force has heavy
bosons, W and Z types. In the symmetrical argument, gravity should
have a graviton.
The graviton would have mass ~0, and spin 2 h-bar, and be the force
carrier for gravitation. In order to be detected, it would have to
"interact" with some sort of detector.
The gravitational wave, OTOH, theoretically occurs when there is a
change in the mass distribution; the example in my general relativity
text from 1976, was that of an apple, falling to earth. Such a
disturbance in a gravitational field would propagate outward at c, as
a gravitational wave.
>> Quantization of space-time is one approach, string theory is another.
>> All the versions of quantum gravity are a long ways from being fully
>> developed . They have problems. Not to say they are unsolvable, but
>> we just haven't reached that point yet. What will likely happen, is
>> someone will grasp the reality intuitively (or maybe
>> counter-intuitively), and all the physicists will slap their foreheads
>> at the same time, wondering why they didn't think of it sooner.
>
>Second-hand Wheeler,
>
I guess. I got the gist of it while having a discussion with an
extremely animated gentleman, named Feynman.
This was of course, a few decades ago, so my memory may not be quite
as rigorous as it once was.
Cj
etc.
No logical relationship between QM and ToE. Go back to bed.
Cj
J. J. Lodder
You've never heard about the Austin interpretation of quantum mechanics?
(due to the already mentioned Wheeler)
Wake up,
Jan
J. J. Lodder
No. Gravity waves may be detected (perhaps),
individual gravitons never will be.
> EM has the photon force
> particle, the Strong force has gluons, and the Weak force has heavy
> bosons, W and Z types. In the symmetrical argument, gravity should
> have a graviton.
The graviton is the quantum of -linearized- general relativity.
What a full quantum theory of gravity will be like is anybodies guess.
> The graviton would have mass ~0, and spin 2 h-bar, and be the force
> carrier for gravitation. In order to be detected, it would have to
> "interact" with some sort of detector.
That's it. You really must differentiate
between gravity wave detectors (which exist)
and graviton detectors. (which don't, and probably never will)
> The gravitational wave, OTOH, theoretically occurs when there is a
> change in the mass distribution; the example in my general relativity
> text from 1976, was that of an apple, falling to earth. Such a
> disturbance in a gravitational field would propagate outward at c, as
> a gravitational wave.
Not really, it takes a changing quadropole moment.
> >> Quantization of space-time is one approach, string theory is another.
> >> All the versions of quantum gravity are a long ways from being fully
> >> developed . They have problems. Not to say they are unsolvable, but
> >> we just haven't reached that point yet. What will likely happen, is
> >> someone will grasp the reality intuitively (or maybe
> >> counter-intuitively), and all the physicists will slap their foreheads
> >> at the same time, wondering why they didn't think of it sooner.
> >
> >Second-hand Wheeler,
> >
> I guess. I got the gist of it while having a discussion with an
> extremely animated gentleman, named Feynman.
>
> This was of course, a few decades ago, so my memory may not be quite
> as rigorous as it once was.
Since Wheeler was Feynman's PhD advisor, more decades ago,
'second hand Wheeler' may well be appropriate.
Wheeler probably got it from a gentleman named A. Einstein.
Jan
--
"What I would want to know most is whether god had any freedom at all
in constructing the world." (A. Einstein)
Cj
> You've never heard about the Austin interpretation of quantum mechanics?
> (due to the already mentioned Wheeler)
>
> Wake up,
>
> Jan
Can't say I have, what's your point?
the heekster
Lodder) wrote:
Oh, yes really. A vibrating or rotating quadrupole is but one example
of a *system* that can generate gravitational waves.
You haven't debunked my example, you merely provided another one.
J. J. Lodder
A 'change in mass distribution' won't do
to generate gravitational waves, in general,
Jan