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Physics

Scientific American’s blog Basic Space on the possible faster-than-light neutrinos …

Kelly Oakes here (September 23, 2011): While scepticism is necessary in situations like this — I’m sure we’re all aware of the famous Carl Sagan quote, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” — progress is not made by shouting down anything that does not fit within the current status quo. You never know, perhaps this result will be the one that topples relativity. (They probably didn’t, but there’s a chance, however slim, that those neutrinos did travel faster than light — and that’s a very interesting prospect indeed). Actually, in some areas of science today, it is not necessary to make either extraordinary claims or fail to provide massive evidence to get shouted down. For example, all the evidence for evolution Read More ›

BREAKING: Possible Neutrinos moving at superluminal speeds at CERN!

When I was a kid and was bored in Chem classes I would occasionally daydream of a messenger arriving at the classroom door to tell the late, great, Fr Farrell of a scientific breakthrough. Of course, in later years, I always assumed that it would be years before a breakthrough would filter down to High School Chem. But, today, may be a possible day like that. According to a BBC report from CERN (HT, WUWT): Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early. The result – which threatens to upend a century of physics – will be put online for scrutiny by other Read More ›

Infinite Probabilistic Resources Makes ID Detection Easier (Part 2)

Previously [1], I argued that not only may a universe with infinite probabilistic resources undermine ID, it will definitely undermines science. Science operates by fitting models to data using statistical hypothesis testing with an assumption of regularity between the past, present, and future. However, given the possible permutations of physical histories, the majority are mostly random. Thus, a priori, the most rational position is that all detection of order cannot imply anything beyond the bare detection, and most certainly implies nothing about continued order in the future or that order existed in the past.

Furthermore, since such detections of order encompass any observations we may make, we have no other means of determining a posteriori whether science’s assumption of regularity is valid to any degree whatsoever. And, as the probabilistic resources increase the problem only gets worse. This is the mathematical basis for Hume’s problem of induction. Fortunately, ID provides a way out of this conundrum. Read More ›

The Effect of Infinite Probabilistic Resources on ID and Science (Part 1)

If the infinite universe critique holds, then not only does it undermine ID, but every huckster, conman, and scam artist will have a field day. Read More ›

Bending, not breaking, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle produces double-slit measurements

Or so they say. At CBC News (June 2, 2011), Emily Chung reports, “‘Impossible’ physics feat traces path of light”:

Canadian researchers have traced the average path of single light particles through two slits, probing the limits of a famous physics principle that seemed to suggest doing so wasn’t possible. Read More ›

In the science news: “Dark energy is real.”

In “Dark energy does speed up universe’s expansion” (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, May 19, 2011), we learn: Dark energy is real and it is causing spacetime and the universe to expand at an increasing speed, a new study says.The paper to be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, provides the first independent confirmation of both the existence of dark energy and its rate of expansion. It has been put together by a team of 26 scientists including Chris Blake from Melbourne’s Swinburne University. It turns out that this is only “further confirmation” of a “mystery”: “Although the exact physics required to explain dark energy still remains a mystery, confirming it exists is a significant step in understanding Read More ›

Cosmology: And now, the minimalist … the unparticle!

Last May, the Tevatron particle accelerator in Batavia, Illinois showed a 1 per cent preference for B mesons, 40 times the predicted standard model amount. (Kate McAlpine, “Weird ‘unparticle’ boosted by Tevatron signal” (New Scientist, 19 May 2011) Proposed explanation here. Two separate groups now suggest an explanation for this larger asymmetry lies in the unparticle, a hypothetical entity conjured up in 2007 by theorist Howard Georgi of Harvard University. Georgi suggested that a property known as scale invariance – seen in fractal-like patterns that remain unchanged even when you zoom in and out to different scales, like the branching of redwood trees and the jagged edges of coastlines – could apply to individual particles too. The charge and spin of Read More ›

Physicist Sheldon offers a note about Murphy vs. the evil adulterous generation that seeks evidence …

From Rob Sheldon,

I think Stephen Barr’s “Modern Physics and Ancient Faith” (one of those Thomists who doesn’t like ID), addresses this issue. It works something like this – an ID person notices that the Big Bang is highly contingent, if one grain of sand were added to or removed from the Big Bang, we wouldn’t exist. So the ID guy says “Look at this fine-tuning. Why, this is evidence of design and a creator!” Then along comes the high energy physicist, and says, “No, this is exactly what you would expect if the Big Bang was followed a nano-nano-second later by an inflaton that expanded precisely 72 times. You, poor slob, were believing in a God-of-the-gaps, postulating God to fill that contingency when all along it was your ignorance of the inflaton that made you a believer. Now that we know about the inflaton, your assumption of an intervening intelligence is removed, and in such a manner all religion belief is and will be removed by increasing knowledge.”

So the sheepish George Murphy says, Read More ›

Mysterious new elementary particle?

Kerry Sheridan advises that a “US atom smasher may have found new force of nature” (YahooNews, April 7 08:07 am)

Data from a major US atom smasher lab may have revealed a new elementary particle, or potentially a new force of nature that could expand our knowledge of the properties of matter, physicists say.[ … ]

While much remains a mystery, researchers agree that this is not the “God Particle,” or the Higgs-boson, a hypothetical elementary particle that has long eluded physicists who believe it could explain why objects have mass. Read More ›

Martin Rees wins Templeton Prize

A fine tuning and multiverse advocate, Martin J. Rees, today won the 2011 Templeton Prize. The astrophysicist with no religion won the Prize originally “for Progress in Religion.”
The 2011 Templeton Prize was announced today.

LONDON, APRIL 6 – Martin J. Rees, a theoretical astrophysicist whose profound insights on the cosmos have provoked vital questions that speak to humanity’s highest hopes and worst fears, has won the 2011 Templeton Prize.
Rees, Master of Trinity College, one of Cambridge University’s top academic posts, and former president of the Royal Society, the highest leadership position within British science, has spent decades investigating the implications of the big bang, the nature of black holes, events during the so-called ‘dark age’ of the early universe, and the mysterious explosions from galaxy centers known as gamma ray bursters. Read More ›

The Nature of Nature — sticky

THE NATURE OF NATURE is now finally out and widely available. If you haven’t bought it yet, let me suggest Amazon.com, which is selling it for $17.94, which is an incredible deal for a 7″x10″ 1000-page book with, for most of us, no tax and no shipping charge (it costs over $10 to ship this monster priority mail). This is a must-have book if you are interested at all in the ID debate. To get it from Amazon.com, click here. Below is the table of contents and some introductory matter.

(Other news coverage continues below)

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Seven years in the making, at 500,000 words, with three Nobel laureate contributors, this is the most thorough examination of naturalism to date.

<<<<<>>>>>

Nature of NatureThe Nature of Nature: Examining the Role of Naturalism in Science

Edited by Bruce L. Gordon

and William A. Dembski

ISI Books

Intercollegiate Studies Institute

Wilmington, DE 19807

Back Cover:


Read More ›