Cosmology

That’s Dennis Jones’s challenge to those who insist, “You can’t talk about design unless you say who the designer is”:

1. ID Theory has nothing to do with creationism or a designer. There is no philosophical contemplation as to a designer any more than the Big Bang theory has anything to say about a banger.

It is impossible to complain about the “designer” of Intelligent Design Theory without resolving the “banger” inferred by the Big Bang Theory. One cannot deny there is a “banger” if they insist there is a designer, and vice versa. Read More ›

Here, philosopher Ed Feser offers a flyswatter for weak cosmological arguments against the existence of God:

Most people who comment on the cosmological argument demonstrably do not know what they are talking about. This includes all the prominent New Atheist writers. It very definitely includes most of the people who hang out in Jerry Coyne’s comboxes. It also includes most scientists. And it even includes many theologians and philosophers, or at least those who have not devoted much study to the issue. This may sound arrogant, but it is not. You might think I am saying “I, Edward Feser, have special knowledge about this subject that has somehow eluded everyone else.” But that is NOT what I am saying. The point has nothing to do with me. What I am saying is pretty much common knowledge among professional philosophers of religion (including atheist philosophers of religion), who – naturally, given the subject matter of their particular philosophical sub-discipline – are the people who know more about the cosmological argument than anyone else does.

Presumably, he is talking about people like Victor Stenger’s young new atheists. Here’s a sample claim and a suggested response: Read More ›

Here, in “Computational and Biological Analogies for Understanding Fine-Tuned Parameters In Physics” (2010) Clement Vidal of the Evolution, Complexity and Cognition research group in Brussels proposes a simulated Darwinverse, to get around the fact of our universe’s fine-tuning for life on Earth, glorying in his concoction’s utterly speculative nature:

A consequence of this speculative theory is that intelligent life, unravelling the universe through scientific understanding, generates a “cosmic blueprint” (a term used by Paul Davies (1989)). The cosmic blueprint can be seen as the set of physical constants; or just initial conditions of a cosmological model, if our previous reasoning holds. One can now throw a new light on the fact that cosmic evolution gave rise to scientific activity. In this view, the increasing modelling abilities of intelligent beings is not an accident, but an indispensable feature of our universe, to produce a new offspring universe. I have argued that fine-tuning of this cosmic blueprint would take place in “virtual universes”, that is in simulated universes (Vidal 2008). Read More ›

In “The origin and early evolution of eukaryotes in the light of phylogenomics” (Genome Biology 2010, 11:209 ) Eugene V Koonin argues for endosymbiosis (organisms ingest other organisms, but the latter remain alive and provide a new function for the whole) to explain eukaryotes (complex cells, not bacteria):

Phylogenomics of eukaryote supergroups suggest a highly complex last common ancestor of eukaryotes and a key role of mitochondrial endosymbiosis in the origin of eukaryotes.

Sure but he’s also argued for the multiverse to explain that too. Read More ›

At Not Even Wrong, (July 8, 2011), the blog for his book of the name, Columbia computer scientist Peter Woit goes after the defects of cosmic string theory and other bizarre cosmologies Here he notes a new book by Helge Kragh, Higher Speculations: Grand Theories and Failed Revolutions in Physics and Cosmology :

I’ve always wondered what historians of science would make of the increasing dominance of research in fundamental physics by unsuccessful highly speculative research programs, and have also often wondered if there are any relevant historical parallels to this situation. This book does a great job of addressing those questions, and it’s pretty much unique in doing so. Read More ›

In a thoughtful column on the end of NASA, Cal Thomas offers some reflections worth considering:

Former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin believes the space agency has “lost its way.” In an article for Air & Space magazine in 2007, Griffin set out the philosophical argument for “The Real Reason We Explore Space”: Read More ›

The gradual shutdown of accomplishment is described here. Our physicist author, Rob Sheldon, offers UD News a guide, speaking only for himself, in the hope it may help you interpret rapidly spun news stories. Since you asked what it means, let me try my best analysis, though I speak only for myself and perhaps some of my less politically correct NASA engineer friends. Exploring the cosmos hostage to local politics? Republicans have generally put US Space Policy or Foreign policy above politics, and have funded unpopular endeavors even when begun by previous Democratic presidents, recognizing that it takes 10 years to see a NASA program from start-to-finish, which is longer than the usual presidential double-term. Democrats, however, believe that there Read More ›