Pressure on Gov. Jindal to support/deny academic freedom

Of Interest: Scientists: Nothing to fear from atom-smasher http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080628/ap_on_re_eu/doomsday_collider excerpt: The collider basically consists of a ring of supercooled magnets 17 miles in circumference attached to huge barrel-shaped detectors. The ring, which straddles the French and Swiss border, is buried 330 feet underground. The machine, which has been called the largest scientific experiment in history, isn't expected to begin test runs until August, and ramping up to full power could take months. But once it is working, it is expected to produce some startling findings. Scientists plan to hunt for signs of the invisible "dark matter" and "dark energy" that make up more than 96 percent of the universe, and hope to glimpse the elusive Higgs boson, a so-far undiscovered particle thought to give matter its mass. The collider could find evidence of extra dimensions, a boon for superstring theory, which holds that quarks, the particles that make up atoms, are infinitesimal vibrating strings. -- Anyone care to predict what they will find? As for myself; I predict they will find no evidence for "material particles" of Dark Energy/Matter as the materialistic philosophy has presupposed for the basis of unexplained gravity and for the unexplained cosmological constant. (I believe the answer for these will be found in referencing the transcendent realm of "information") As for the Higgs boson, I'm haven't examined the evidence and am undecided, but my money is riding that it will not be found by the "atom smasher"just because it seems to be a unnecessary materialistic conjecture at first glance. As far as validating super-string theories "extra-dimensions (note; this is not the transcendent dimension of Theistic philosophy), my initial reaction is that they have vastly overreached themselves in hypothesizing past what evidence is available and have developed a highly conflated and complex mod^el that will be found to be full of nothing but hot air. i.e. I believe that the materialistic philosophy forced them into complex contortions they would not have had to take if they would have started from a pure Theistic framework. For a more devastating critique of sting theory: Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?isbn=0465092756 bornagain77

Akiane Child artist/poet prodigy: http://www.artakiane.com/akiane_art.htm# http://www.inwestmoreland.com/GreatPlaces/08-03/Akiane.htm excerpt: Her originals are sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and many are valued at millions, making Akiane the most successful living visual art child prodigy in the world. Many of the world’s leaders, ministers, priests, royalty, scientists, media, CEOs, entrepreneurs, celebrities, and government officials have become acquainted with her art or collecting it. What also made Akiane so unique and famous is that she is able to portray the invisible and visible realms with such emotion and realism. Collaborating with quantum physicists she is now trying to find mathematical formulas for her concepts. Akiane believes that people in the future will be able to study her originals with special microscopes revealing quantum relationships of the deepest colors and stories in her works. The fearless artist is not afraid to jump into the most enigmatic and thought provoking visual and literary debates comforting those that will to explore uncharted territories. People from all faiths and backgrounds seem to respond to her vision of love and unity like to no one else’s. Akiane feels that with God we participate in co-creating new experiences, and that as spiritual beings we chose this human experience. “Our future is our present. If we take care of it, we take care of tomorrow. The start and finish line is love. I know I am just one person, but I wish that with each brushstroke and with each verse I could bring hope to those who have lost it.” “In order to comprehend the truth- we need to see the road it travels. In order to trust the truth we need to remove from its road - the speed limit.” Akiane, age 9 Of her painting "Quantum World" she writes: Quantum World This is only a microscopic part of the quantum world - inside and outside of time. The gateway to billions of dimensions is the deepest secret of life that can be penetrated only with an accurate eternal perspective. Each symbol, code, and shape here relates to this mysterious world. *** Perfection agrees to temporal imperfection… We journal energy while its smallest parts split into their own romance. For the bottom weighs the most… Here we are opening ourselves to parallel universes. And mirroring ourselves we walk from dimension to dimension observing all levels. They know us. And only a rare fool would not reach the other side. Anyone who is not thrilled by quantum waves does not understand them. But everyone still interprets what is incomprehensible. Each invisible particle is communication – the magnet of information anatomy. Overcoming the world by its own capabilities we split other beginnings. Constant light of a narrow path is a sequence of secret combinations. When we cannot look around and explain anything we are the quantum world. Reflections for “Quantum World” We cannot complain to the possibility. Chromosomes and quarks stare at me while I am not looking at them. To have a future we have to live and leave the present. Just as you commit to this life when it commits to leaving you. No supernatural can exist for the mankind that does not want to believe it. Wisdom chooses the unknown to be its reason. Hallucination is a raw climb to a end. An illusion can never go faster than the speed limit of reality. We chase gravity of the micro world, but after leaving its world we try to perfect the laws here that do not exist there. We hear inconceivable, but cannot see the intangible. Secret to time is beyond our reason. Many imitate limits, not unlimited potentials. I broke down all conclusions into illusions and confusions. How much does the universe weigh, when it fasts for infinity? The results came in, but I still do not know if I am in the real or fiction world. Behind each door we shake is a reality. A fermented mind – according to nothing, we are something. I always knew I was a dust. But I never knew I was also a universe. Miracle is a misunderstood reality. Everyone has a watched life. Everyone is both the observer and the observed. Past is deaf. Future is mute. Present is blind. --- Truly a very Gifted Child of God. bornagain77

stands un-impeached so far. bornagain77

Paul, If you believe that: “I actually believe that information has precedence over matter. I suspect that with careful enough technique entangled particles can transmit as close to 100% of the information of other particles as one wishes” and you also believe: "Belief in that (first) law has been fruitful for science, and there is a lot of evidence corroborating it and no definitive evidence disputing it for most of the history of the universe. yet in spite of your stated beliefs you also state: Thus I think the theoretical framework you are proposing, while interesting, is not completely compelling. Then your objection to the my inference to the truthfulness and validity of the law of conservation of information has no basis in logic and you are objecting because of some personal preconceived bias that has nothing to do with reality, logic, or science. As a side note and somewhat related, I realized this morning that quantum non-locality actually, at first glance, gives support for the "omnipresent" universal constants being based on "imposed transcendent information" instead of any problematic presupposed material basis of materialism (Dark Energy/Matter). As far as discussing this any more with me that is up to you, I just thought you might have had a valid objection since you seem to know this topic so well, but alas I find no consistency in your logic and conclude that my argument to the validity of the law of conservation of information stands impeached so far. bornagain77

bornagain77, We appear to be going around in circles, with you not understanding what I am saying. You seem to think that the sticking point, or at least a sticking point, is that I "deny that information has dom^in^ance in these [teleportation] experiments". whereas what started out saying was that "I actually believe that information has precedence over matter. I suspect that with careful enough technique entangled particles can transmit as close to 100% of the information of other particles as one wishes". When comments 37 and 38 make this mistake, and comment 39 starts out by saying, "as well", apparently indicating that you still thought I was disputing the point and you were just answering a subsidiary caution ("objection" is too strong here), it is apparent that you are not comprehending what I had to say. Unless you can understand what I am saying, the conversation is pointless, and therefore I do not plan to continue this particular conversation. If and when I see evidence that you actually understood what I wrote and are answering it specifically or agreeing with it, I will be happy to resume the conversation. Paul Giem

Paul, as well, you state your objections to my argument as follows. But in order (to) make your syllogism work, one must believe that A. one property that makes a realm great is the inability of the members of that realm to be created or destroyed, and B. the law of conservation of energy is absolute. As you yourself admitted , as far as this material universe is concerned the first law holds with no violations; i.e. energy cannot be created or destroyed as far as material processes are concerned. But then again we have the Big Bang; the seeming "creation" or "transference" of energy from something or somewhere else. And here with Quantum Teleportation (QT), we have a elegant and coherent "baby" solution to the paradox of the big bang of "energy" (the seeming creation of energy) with the demonstrated nce of energy by "transcendent" information in QT experiments. As for the alternative; energy came from nothing, I find the mystery of QT to hold a lot more promise and coherence of logic, thus I don't see where objection has any merit. In your objection B."the law of conservation of energy is absolute." As somewhat illustrated above, if the domi^na^nce of information is indeed complete over energy, this will suspend the first law as far transcendent information is concerned. i.e. energy would only have to be conserved as far as the "material/energy realm is concerned but would yield its authority to what we could label the "proper" dom^in^ate transcendent information. Follow? Thus as far as your objections I can see no merit to concern my argument. bornagain77

Paul, Do you deny this statement of Dr. Zeilingers? http://www.signandsight.com/features/614.html What are you doing? Transferring the properties of light particles over certain distances onto other light particles, with no time delay. The procedure is based on phenomena which exist only in the quantum world, and is known as "quantum teleportation." bornagain77

Paul you state, Thus I think the theoretical framework you are proposing, while interesting, is not completely compelling. You must deny that transcendent information is telling energy exactly what to "be/do" in teleportation experiments to deny the validity of my argument to the law of conservation of information. Do you deny that information has dom^in^ance in these experiments? If you don't deny it then you have a flaw in your foundational logic. If you do deny it please explain your proposed mechanism for what is happening. bornagain77

bornagain77, Just to clear up a few things: I actually believe that information has precedence over matter. I suspect that with careful enough technique entangled particles can transmit as close to 100% of the information of other particles as one wishes, although the practical problems will preclude the teleportation of people, or even bacteria, by humans for the foreseeable future. If you want to see my take on quantum mechanics, go here (or here [PDF]), especially pp. 38-53. But in order make your syllogism work, one must believe that A. one property that makes a realm great is the inability of the members of that realm to be created or destroyed, and B. the law of conservation of energy is absolute. There is some doubt about A, and more importantly considerable doubt about B. Before you step back in horror at my advocacy that the law of conservation of energy has been violated, let me explain. I believe that ordinarily the law of conservation of energy is strictly followed. Belief in that law has been fruitful for science, and there is a lot of evidence corroborating it and no definitive evidence disputing it for most of the history of the universe. But there are exceptions. When the universe started, there was a massive injection of energy. When Jesus fed the 5,000 bread and fish appeared out of apparently nowhere. Bread and fish have matter which has mass, which requires energy to form. It is possible that they were made out of thin air, but that implies a wind blowing into where they were being made, with no evidence for such a wind in the text. It is at least possible that when God decides to act, the law of conservation of energy becomes invalid. If that is the case, it is possible that information, even though being dominant over matter, might share this property of matter; when God does not specially act, energy, and information, are conserved. However, when God acts, energy, and information, may appear or disappear. That would leave me affirming the conservation of energy, information, and most of the time matter, whenever God does not act specifically to change these laws (supersede may be a better term than violate, just as magnetic force may supersede gravity without actually violating the law of gravity, or more properly, general relativity). Thus I think the theoretical framework you are proposing, while interesting, is not completely compelling. The complete truth may be beyond the reach of uneducated cavemen. ;) Paul Giem

Paul, I appreciate your constructive criticism: Yet again, as with your YEC conjectures, I respectfully agree to disagree with you. The validity of my arguments for conservation of information is in fact based on repeatable empirics and concrete logic and is not based on popular opinions of what my crude mannerisms of presentation might appear to be to others. IF you accept quantum teleportation as true (which I presume you don't completely accept it, but for the sake of argument IF), then the demonstrated dom^in^ance of "information" over energy in the experiment necessitates that information, at the very least, have qualities that are equal to energy's qualities. Thus the currently accepted empirics of quantum teleportation establishes that Conservation of Information must be true of logical necessity. It is simple logic Paul (It must be simple if I can understand it - LOL), simple logic derived from the experiment itself and from the first law. i.e. since energy cannot be created or destroyed (by any known "material means") anything displaying complete 100% dom^in^ance of energy (telling energy exactly what to "be/do" in a successful QT experiment) must of logical necessity possess equal or greater qualities. Thus information cannot be created by any known purely material means also. It is so simple a caveman could do it Paul - LOL I've been thinking over possible objections to this and the only ones I can think of would only refine this starting position of Conservation Of Information to some unknown entropic constraint (maybe it is some anomaly that I overlooked and you pointed out), or the objection would actually be a blatant violation of logic (such as information can te energy even though energy must create information (chicken and egg logic so to say)). you also stated: "Again, I do not wish you to quit posting." I am sure one of these days you will wish so. LOL bornagain77

bornagain77, Since you are coming close to dismissing my point of view as a "preconceived philosophical bias" supported by quibbles about "anoomalies and error rates", (33) not just in areas where we disagree such as dating techniques, but in areas where we fundamentally agree, there may not be much more to be said. But I will give it one more try. As I hoped I had made clear by my last post (31--"Does information remain constant in the mind of God? The answer to that question is happily conceded to be Yes."), philosophically I have no disagreement with the theory that information can be neither created nor destroyed. As stated this way, though, it is a theological rather than a scientific theory. It has zero argumentative value for those who do not share the premise that theological argumentation is of value. As such, it is (and from their viewpoint should be) waved off as a minor irritation, and you lose credibility. I would prefer, and hope that you would prefer, that your arguments be taken seriously by those with a different viewpoint. I am trying to point out where your argument is going to fall on deaf ears unless you rephrase it. That, and not some reflex negativity, is the reason why I am disagreeing with your presentation. When you say that information cannot be created or destroyed, that is not empirically verifiable, and so will not be taken as a law by your opponents. They will thus be unable to follow your logic when it leads to intelligent design, or further to God. You lose them, not because they refuse to follow the logic (although for some of them that is true also), but because they never assented to your starting point. That means that either you must convince them of the law of conservation of information, or you must find a different line of argumentation. From a scientific point of view, several repeatable experiments were done to test the law of conservation of energy. Repeatable experiments were also done to establish the "law" of the conservation of matter, which still holds true except for certain small but important (nuclear energy) exceptions. The law of the conservation of information, while it may be true, is not nearly as demonstrable or widely accepted. You simply cannot expect to use it as a starting point in a discussion of anything, unless your discussant agrees with you. All I intend to do is to point this out, and to caution you as to your argumentative style. As I clearly stated, I do not disagree with you on the fundamental point. My suggestion in this regard would be that rather than simply announcing that information can be neither created nor destroyed, you postulate that some have suggested that this is true on the quantum level. Then you suggest where this might lead. You concede the point that on a macroscopic level (useful information) this is not true, but you state as a testable hypothesis that on a practical level information cannot be created except by intelligence, and simply attribute what minor beneficial mutations happen to the information inherent in the interaction of the organism with its environment. Your assertion of the universality of genetic entropy will not be accepted as a law, but is wonderful as a testable hypothesis. Then just wait a few years, and smile as the experimental results come in. That's the way to convince the skeptics, at least the fair ones. Basically, what I am advocating is that you make less of theory and more of experimental backup. Speak softly and carry a big stick, as TR would say. Your use of "100%" is similarly defective. It would be far better to say "information transfer with experimental fidelity approaching 100%" than the "100% information transfer" that you actually used. People who are skeptical but fair will appreciate the accuracy and avoidance of overstatement, and are more likely to at least tentatively give you the point and see where you go from there. I value many of your contributions. I want them to continue. I am just asking that you be more careful about the way you say them. It also helps if you get the details right. As an example, you wrote,

But, If you are saying quantum teleportation has not been demonstrated satisfactorily, and is possibly false because of the violation of Bell’s inequality, they use to demonstrate a non-local phenomena has occurred, is not great enough, that is fine.

Here you misunderstood Bell's inequality. Bell's inequality sets a limit to the correlation that can be expected if classical mechanics is true. The fact that Bell's inequality is violated proves that some process other than classical mechanics is operative. Quantum mechanics is one such process. Thus while the experiment doesn't prove quantum mechanics, it is consistent with QM, and not with classical mechanics. If you had read my comment carefully and with comprehension, you would have seen that this was precisely what I said: ". . . a highly statistically significant violation of Bell’s theorem, meaning that classical mechanics could not reasonably explain the results." Finally, (and least importantly), it helps if you spell my last name correctly when you use it. Again, I do not wish you to quit posting. I just hope that you can improve the persuasive power of your posts. Paul Giem

Paul , I've been wondering why you would choose to debate against my position, since it is in fact a Theistic position, and plus since all you have to work with is anomalies and the error rate of the teleportation experimentation. Then I realized, you are a Young Earth Creationists, so you probably from repeated habit, find solace in the anomalies and error rates for experimentation of dating techniques in order, to hold on to your preconceived philosophical bias of a young earth. That is no way to practice science Paul looking for anomalies and error rates in which to make your case! bornagain77

Paul Geim you state, "Perhaps you need a law of informational entropy that will tell you that useful information in our universe will decrease with time unless added to by supernatural agencies (one kind of whom is humans)." Entropy and Genetic Entropy are the terms for the mechanisms, for information loss, that I use. Or, in the words of G. N. Lewis writing about entropy in 1930, "Gain in entropy always means loss of information, and nothing more". As well Paul, to me it seems you are misunderstanding that all properties (100% of characteristics) are being transfered (teleported) between photons/atoms by non-local means when the experiment is successful. But, If you are saying quantum teleportation has not been demonstrated satisfactorily, and is possibly false because of the violation of Bell's inequality, they use to demonstrate a non-local phenomena has occurred, is not great enough, that is fine. I strongly disagree with you but that is fine for your part. Yet the fact is, in spite of your hang up with the percentile violation of Bell's inequality, that 100% of properties are transfered between photons when the "teleportation" takes place and is successfully measured. Just because they can't do the teleportation 100% of the time, because of the extreme sensitivity of the experiment to outside disturbances and any other mitigating factors, this does not detract from the fact that 100% of properties of the photons that can possibly be measured are transfered when the teleportation is successful. If you want to argue that 100% of the properties are not being transfered , I will defend against that for I feel I can rather easily defend myself on that count, but I will not defend against your unrealistic insistence that the extremely sensitive teleportation experiment work 100% of the time. As well, I would like to point out that only under extremely tight circumstances can the first law even be tested and verified, and even in those experiments absolute 100% fidelity is an unrealistic expectation. In fact I remember reading sometime back that no experiment is absolutely 100%. There is always a margin for error built is. So should we throw out all experimental work since there is no such thing as 100% fidelity? bornagain77

bornagain77, Thank you for your references. You still appear not to have understood them. in (29), reference 2, the prediction of maximum value assuming no noise for a particular inequality was 2.0 for classical physics and 2.8284... (2 times the square root of 2) for quantum mechanics. The actual value obtained was 2.42. This was over 4 standard deviations above 2, leading to a highly statistically significant violation of Bell's theorem, meaning that classical mechanics could not reasonably explain the results. However, this is nowhere near 100% fidelity. Thus your statement that "I disagree. 100% information transfer, that tells a photon or atom exactly what to “be”, completely establishes primacy of information over matter/energy . . ." is a non-sequitur. At present it is not experimentally demonstrable to be 100%. Now if you wish to hypothesize that in the ideal state it is 100%, and even that God can make it 100%, and even that God can teleport us with 100% fidelity without violating any of the laws of physics, I could agree. But let's not confuse that with empirical demonstration. Let's keep our faith-statements separate from what we can demonstrate experimentally. I still haven't read the Nature article, but if the series of slides summarizes the article, then there shouldn't be any surprises. If not, I will update my comments. Quoting Zellinger authoritatively about the implications of quantum mechanics is risky. Zellinger states, according to your quote, "Exactly. The only important thing are my properties, and they are based on the order of the atoms – that what makes me who I am." That would seem to leave no room for something beyond the material in humanity. I somehow doubt that you would agree with this position, and therefore advise caution in your use of Zellinger as an authority. If you don't believe everything you quote from him, let alone everything he says, why should anyone else be obligated to? Part of what is happening is that you are having difficulty hearing what others are saying. I have agreed with you that information has priority over matter. Please re-read my last paragraph in (27):

Your explanation of the conservation of information makes it theoretically true, for information in the mind of God is always total at all times, but it seems to remove it from the realm we inhabit. We, as opposed to God, forget things. Information encoded by us in our environments can be lost. The conservation of information, using your explanation, is nowhere near as well-demonstrated as the conservation of energy, or the increase in total entropy in an isolated system.

The question is not, Does information remain constant in the mind of God? The answer to that question is happily conceded to be Yes. The question I asked is, is information in our universe always demonstrably constant in the same way that energy in the universe is demonstrably constant? You thus need to deal seriously with the examples I gave. Claiming that it is only in the mind of God may be true, but is not scientifically testable. Perhaps you need a law of informational entropy that will tell you that useful information in our universe will decrease with time unless added to by supernatural agencies (one kind of whom is humans). Paul Giem

Paul you stated: The conservation of information, using your explanation, is nowhere near as well-demonstrated as the conservation of energy, or the increase in total entropy in an isolated system. -- I disagree. 100% information transfer, that tells a photon or atom exactly what to "be", completely establishes primacy of information over matter/energy and as such establishes that information can not be emergent from matter/energy as materialism presupposes but must be foundational to matter/energy as Theism presupposes . It is a tricky concept for people who are use to thinking in materialistic terms to grasp (such as special relativity's timelessness is), but keep mulling the evidence over , you will see that it is true. Information must be conserved for quantum teleportation experiments to be true.i.e. if energy cannot be created or destroyed then information which has do^min^ion over it cannot be created or destroyed. i.e. all things that can be known are already known by the infinite mind of God. bornagain77

re: Paul's comment, "The only experimental evidence I have seen cited gives a 60% transfer of information, which is better than chance or conventional information transport, but still not 100%." Beyond reality - Watching information at play in the quantum world is throwing physicists into a flat spin http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/quantum-world/mg15721254.900 excerpt: WHAT does a financial index have in common with Shakespeare's Richard III, a drawing of a cat and this sentence? Easy. No matter how important any one of them may be to you, they can all be reduced to the ubiquitous digital bits of the information age. And, as such, they can pass from a mind to a machine, flow down telephone lines and spill out unchanged onto a page halfway across the world. Information is nothing but patterns of 0s and 1s. Or so everyone has believed. But now a growing band of physicists is putting forth a more alarming notion. They believe that information is a superweird new substance, more ethereal than matter or energy, but every bit as real and perhaps even more fundamental. For them, information is a kind of subtle substance that lies behind and beneath physical stuff. "Information is deeper than reality," says Anton Zeilinger, a physicist at the University of Innsbruck. As for the experiment: In Bennett's scheme, the working channel for teleporting a photon is an entangled pair of subsidiary photons: A at the sending station and B at the receiving station. The "message" photon to be teleported, C, is also located at the sending station (see Diagram). The goal is to copy the quantum state of photon C into that of photon B, effectively moving photon C across the gap and into B's spot, even though C never really moves physically. You can't just measure the state of C and send that information across. For as soon as you measure a quantum state, any superposition collapses. The information locked in a quantum state is unwieldy, and in trying to measure it, you cannot help losing a portion and ending up with only a fragment of that needed to describe the original state of the particle. Bennett's idea is to use entanglement to recapture the disappearing portion of the quantum information. "It is resource for communication," he says. For the entangled pair A and B can be used as a tool to move C's information across to B. In their experiment, Zeilinger and his colleagues first measure a combined property of photons A and C. This yields a piece of information about C, with some information about A mixed in. However, the quantum information about C does not vanish when the measurement causes the superposition to collapse. Remember that A and B are entangled, so measuring A affects the state of B. The result, and this is the clever part, is that measuring A and C together directs the missing quantum information about C to slip down the entanglement line to B. The punchline? Transport the piece of incomplete information that you hold about C down to where B is, and you can construct a particle that's identical to the original C. This is the trick that Zeilinger's team pulled off late last year and reported in Nature (vol 390, p 575). as well: Experimental Nonlocality Proof of Quantum Teleportation and Entanglement Swapping http://www.quantum.univie.ac.at/research/photonentangle/entanglementswapping.pdf here's a interview of Dr. Zeilinger: http://www.signandsight.com/features/614.html excerpt: You said that you only transfer properties, not particles. Would "copying" not be a more accurate expression than "teleportation"? No. Firstly it differs from simple copying in that the original loses all its properties. That is something so crazy that it could only exist in the quantum world. You can actually remove all the properties of a particle and give them to another particle. But both particles remain where they are. Yes, but the question is: how do I recognise an original? I maintain: solely through its properties. Matter itself is completely irrelevant. If swap all my carbon atoms for other carbon atoms, I am still Anton Zeilinger. This happens over the course of our lives. We are continually changing our cells. Exactly. The only important thing are my properties, and they are based on the order of the atoms – that what makes me who I am. The atoms are unimportant in themselves. So when we transfer characteristics during teleportation, in this sense we are actually transferring the originals. -- Paul I hope this helps: bornagain77

bornagain77, You say,

The information transfer is complete in quantum teleportation experiments. i.e. 100% identity is accomplished in receptive photon. The principle stands and is true!

That's a wonderful statement. Where is the reference or references so that the experimental evidence can be shown to a skeptical but fair person? The only experimental evidence I have seen cited gives a 60% transfer of information, which is better than chance or conventional information transport, but still not 100%. Your explanation of the conservation of information makes it theoretically true, for information in the mind of God is always total at all times, but it seems to remove it from the realm we inhabit. We, as opposed to God, forget things. Information encoded by us in our environments can be lost. The conservation of information, using your explanation, is nowhere near as well-demonstrated as the conservation of energy, or the increase in total entropy in an isolated system. Paul Giem

Paul, The information transfer is complete in quantum teleportation experiments. i.e. 100% identity is accomplished in receptive photon. The principle stands and is true! As well, you are thinking in materialistic terms with your book burning example. In Theistic terms it is already known that the "infinite mind of God" is infinite and perfect in knowledge. Thus all information that can, or ever will, possibly exist already does exist in the infinite mind of God. This "teleportation" experiment in fact validates this theistic postulation and nullifies the materialistic postulation of "natural" information generation by material processes. When you say the information is in the book you have not looked clearly at the truth. The book consists of ink and paper and only finds meaning within the spirit realm of our minds. Thus the information never really existed in physical form. You may object by saying that surely computer programs contain information, but with the establishment of the conservation of information, I can assuredly say that information, in its pure transcendent form, does not exist in the 1's and 0's of the computer program, but is merely a physical representation of a "transcendent" foundational entity of information. You may even try to argue that information is surely stored in the brain , yet I could quote the work of Lommel and others, in NDE studies, in which they reach the conclusion that the brain is merely the transmitter and receiver of information to our "true spiritual selves" (many different lines of evidence back up this claim). There are many paradoxes, with conservation of information, that the "materialistic" mind will be blown away with, Yet that does not detract from the fact that the law of conservation of information is established by this work of Dr. Zeilinger's in Quantum Teleportation. I suggest you look carefully at his work with your materialistic blinders removed. And in fact, I believe in further refinement, the law will be applied woodenly, as you say, In fact I would go so far as to say it corroborates Dr. Dembski's and Dr. Behe's work fully in the most desirable way possible. As far as your example, antibiotic resistance can "mutate back" to a more pristine state that is closer to the optimal genome that God originally created for the bacteria and thus create information. This is faulty thinking on your part for again the system is "front-loaded" by God with the information to conduct this search in the first place. i.e. the bacteria is on automatic pilot correcting for disturbance of "wind" to its intended trajectory. you may try to argue this negates the conservation of information law but it does not. For all intents and purposes, and for whatever reasons God has, God's direct input of information into this universe is what we would call a miraculous occurrence and For the majority of time of life on this earth, God has chosen, for whatever reasons He may have, to let entropic processes do^mi^nate. No sir, Paul, the more I think about it the more i realize the law of "Conservation of information is true with no violations whatsoever until God chooses otherwise. bornagain77

BTW, bornagain77, what's with the chevrons, as in "dom^in^ance" or "de^ath"? Paul Giem

bornagain77, (22) I have seen that link several times. Each time I see it I miss the references to experimental data to back it up. I'm sympathetic to the view, but it would help if the actual experiments were referenced rather than a physicist's opinion. (Just a word about style. Your post seems to fit a pattern where you cite a reference and then quote at length from it. That's a typical way of arguing from Scripture. But Dr. Zellinger does not have that kind of authority, nor does anyone else in science. There are only two authorities; experiments [or observations], and logical inferences from those experiments. Authority will only work in science if it is trusted that there are experiments and logical inferences behind the authority, and not completely trusted at that. Even Einstein made mistakes.) I also tend to agree with the conservation of information, or at least the inability to add to information without intelligence. However, it does seem like if one takes a unique manuscript, burns it, and crumples the ashes, one can make the recovery of the information in the manuscript for practical purposes impossible to recover, and so in an important way one can permanently lose that information. In addition, one can add information, perhaps about antibiotic resistance, that comes from mutations plus information in the environment. If one does not count that as added information, one can then reverse the process by allowing the mutated bacteria to grow in the wild and mutate back to the original, which would be a gain in information for the mutated bacteria. The gain is marginal, and could be conceived as coming from the environment rather than the bacteria or the mutation process, but it would be a gain. This means that we cannot apply our conservation of information law too woodenly. Paul Giem

Paul & Scordova< Put more simply; In looking at Dr. Zeilinger's "quantum teleportation" experiments, The law of Conservation of Energy establishes the, primacy, integrity, and validity of the law of Conservation of Information. bornagain77

de^ath is swallowed up in victory. bornagain77

re: Paul & Scordova; Quantum teleportation; Quantum Teleportation and the Nature of Reality; Zeilinger http://www.btgjapan.org/catalysts/anton.html excerpt: When quantum teleportation succeeds, the new system then becomes completely identical with the original and the original by necessity has to disappear. This latter feature is a consequence of the quantum no-cloning theorem which states that it is not possible at all that a quantum system can perfectly be cloned. The no-cloning theorem is closely related to the fact that no information can travel faster than light which is a central tenet of modern physics following Albert Einstein. -- Thus this "completely identical" in every feature means 100% information transfer by a transcendent means of communication that is completely free of any known underlying material constants. i.e. not limited by time or space in any fashion. The thing that verifies that information is foundational to our "material" reality, by this experiment, is the First Law of thermodynamics. in which its father, James Joule, wrote; It is manifestly absurd to suppose that the powers with which God has endowed matter can be destroyed any more than that they can be created by man's agency. i.e. energy can not be created or destroyed. Thus if information is telling energy exactly what to do, in these teleportation experiments, completely free of any underlying "material" constraints, constraints that energy itself is subject to, then by all rights we may say that, at the very least, information is dom^in^ate of energy, if not in fact, what I highly suspect is, the very origin and basis of energy. Thus, since information is shown to be telling energy exactly what to "be" in this experiment (do^min^ate of energy), free of any known underlying "material" constraint, then, we may say, in all fairness, that it must, of logical necessity, possess qualities that surpass those of energy in order to have this demonstrated dom^in^ance of energy. Thus it is fair to say that, in the very least, information can not be created or destroyed also. Thus since it is impossible for transient physical entities to contain all information that exists, this, by necessity, dictates that all information that can possibly exist must exist as a tangible reality completely separate from any "material" basis. This is almost a direct inference to "The Word" of John 1:1; (save for demonstrating intent and purpose of the foundational information) For intent and purpose, I want to point out that finely tuned universal constants are shown, by experiment, to also be transcendent of any material basis: (Dark energy/matter notwithstanding:) Thus they possess underlying characteristic that tie them more directly to this suspected information basis of reality than to any hypothesized material basis. # Stability of Coulomb Systems in a Magnetic Field # Charles Fefferman http://www.jstor.org/pss/2367659 Abstract I study N electrons and M protons in a magnetic field. It is shown that the total energy per particle is bounded below by a constant independent of M and N As far as teleporting anyone Paul, Dr. Zeilinger the massive amount of information to be manipulated in justone human body would preclude this from happening anytime soon. (But hey, I believe God can do it without breaking a sweat) 15:52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 15:53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 15:54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, is swallowed up in victory. bornagain77

it would seem like “quantum teleportation” was a misnomer.

Agreed. We briefly covered the experiment when I was in James Trefil's class on intro QM. scordova

bornagain77, As I read the article you cited in (18), it appeared like it was a summary with few details. Nevertheless, it would seem like "quantum teleportation" was a misnomer. Atoms were not moved from one place to another. Rather, information about those atoms was transmitted with more or less fidelity (60% according to the article, better than 50% expected by classical means and 0% expected by random chance but still not 100%). Quantum mechanics does some strange things. The combination of quantum mechanics and special relativity argues for the constant working of some power that understands quantum mechanics, can communicate at speeds faster than light, and is immune to distractions. It also gives evidence for the primacy of mathematics over mechanics. I think that you may be right about information having primacy over matter, and that quantum mechanics gives some of this evidence. I am, however, not holding my breath about us getting beamed up any time soon, at least without supernatural intervention. Paul Giem

Follow up; Quantum information: 2008-01-24 Quantum Teleportation between Flying (Photonic) and Stationary (Atomic) Qubit. http://www.tuwien.ac.at/aktuelles/news_detail/article/4610/ In the recent article published on 20th January in the journal Nature Physics (Advanced-Online-Publication) scientists from the University Heidelberg, University of Science and Technology of China and the TU Vienna experimentally demonstrated how an unknown state of a photonic qubit can be transferred into a quantum memory by quantum teleportation, stored in the atomic states of the quantum memory for up to 8 micro-second and then read out and transferred on to photonic state. Such an interface to map quantum states of photons to these quantum states of matter and to retrieve them without destroying the quantum character of the stored information is an essential part of a future quantum technology. --- Thus it seems quantum state information has no barrier from matter to energy. bornagain77

Off topic: First quantum teleportation between light and matter: http://www.physorg.com/news79265847.html Excerpt: A team of scientist headed by Prof. Ignacio Cirac at MPQ and by Prof. Eugene Polzik at Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen has now shown that the quantum states of a light pulse can also be transferred to a macroscopic object, an ensemble of 10 to the power of 12 atoms (Nature, 4 October 2006). This is the first case of successful teleportation between objects of a different nature - the ones representing a "flying" medium (light), the other a "stationary" medium (atoms). -- Thus, information transfer is now proved to be transferable from the primary transcendent realm of information to the energy realm of photons and from the energy realm of photons to the matter realm of atoms. If the transfer of quantum state information is further proved to be non-transferable from matter to energy this is another piece of evidence that completely isolates matter from generating "information, and thus beneficial to the foundation of ID and completely antagonistic to evolutionary theory.. bornagain77

Junkyyard, Since you ask: "You did not respond to my other remark about the video, that Ross talks at length about the universal expansion having to be at a very precise rate, and then claims that this somehow “demonstrates” that the creating entity had to be a “personal being”. Do you dispute that he said that? Can you explain it?" Are you disputing the fine-tuning of the universe or are you disputing the fact that they hypothesized the materialistic conjecture of Dark matter/energy? If you dispute their labeling of the Dark matter/energy, I don't care. If you disputing the fine tuning of the universe, you are wrong and I do care. It seems you are just stumbling in the dark trying to find something, anything, to object to. Why is that is God repugnant to you? The main point of Dr. Ross, was to point to the fine-tuning of the universe. A fine-tuning that overturns any materialistic presumptions of "chance causes" and materialistic bases and validates the Theistic postulation of a stable "unchanging" foundation, for the universe/earth, laid by a transcendent Creator. Job 38 38:1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, 38:2 Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? 38:3 Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. 38:4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. 38:5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? 38:6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; 38:7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? 38:8 Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? 38:9 When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it, 38:10 And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, 38:11 And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed? bornagain77

JunkyardTornado: "I am not an expert on cosmology, but my impression has been that dark energy is merely a definitional concept, something indirectly inferred and arising out of imperfections inherent in the Big Bang Model itself." Not exactly. While nobody really knows what "dark energy" could be, it's rather easy to say why the concept of dark energy was recently created: it is a way of trying to explain a completely unexpected observational fact, that is the "sudden" acceleration of the universe expansion after a few billion years from the Big Bang. That acceleration is entirely deducted from observational data (the red-shift of different types of quasars, I believe), and it was a totally unexpected observation made for the first time about ten-fifteen years ago, if I am not wrong, and confirmed many times by different observations, so that today practically nobody doubts of the data in themselves. It seems that the simplest way to explain that kind of acceleration is to postulate some completely new "force", absolutely non understood at present. Dark energy is just the word assigned to that mysterious force. From other calculations, it seems that such force would represent about 85% (again, if I am not wrong) of everything which exists. Naturally, not all agree that the mysterious "dark energy" is the only possible explanation of what is observed (although it remains the more generally accepted). Another possibility seems to be to introduce specific values of something which is known as "cosmological constant" (don't ask me what it is!). Anyway, I just wanted to remark that the concept of "dark energy" (I would not even call it a theory, because at present there is no specific mathemathical theory of it) is not a theorical assumptions from a model, but an attempt to explain some unexpected and important observational data. It is true, however, that the common model of Big Bang and of the expansion of the universe has to be assumed, for all the above reasoning to make sense. gpuccio

Two words Junk, Quantum Teleportation. bornagain77

ba77: (Note: I inadvertantly wrote "dark matter" a couple of times above, instead of "dark energy".) There seems to me to be something inherently wrong about Dr Ross basing the validity of the Bible on what wikipedia identifies as a hypothetical concept - dark energy - an artifact of a man-made model. (http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=c8dee4b444001050766c) I am not an expert on cosmology, but my impression has been that dark energy is merely a definitional concept, something indirectly inferred and arising out of imperfections inherent in the Big Bang Model itself. It seems that cosmologists are quite aware of the tenuousness of the concept and that there has always been a lot of hedging in their discussion of it. In the sight you linked to in your response to DaveScot above, the author says, "It turns out that the value of the cosmological constant exactly makes up for the lack of matter in the universe" What he doesn't seem to understand is that the cosmologicial constant is defined to make up for that lack of matter. So in essence, Dark Energy is a naturalistic version of a god-of-the-gaps. The above is my sense of it, and I am not portraying myself as an expert in case anyone feels like they can correct me. I've started to go through the list of nine items that Ross says establishes dark energy to be "irrefutable". 1. galaxy cluster x-rays A search on "dark matter" and "cluster x-rays" returns the following as the first article: "Galaxy cluster X-rays confirm dark energy", New Scientist There is a lot of assurance reflected in the article title, as well as the opening sentence: New space telescope observations have confirmed once and for all that the Universe is dominated by dark energy. But read into the article, and you immediately start encountering hedge words in both the details and in the actual quotes from the researchers:

A team of astrophysicists used NASA's orbiting Chandra telescope to measure X-rays coming from 26 galaxy clusters. The observations imply that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating. For that to happen, ordinary gravity must be overpowered by some kind of repulsive gravity - labelled dark energy by cosmologists. ... This acceleration was first spotted in the 1990s by looking at distant supernova explosions. It was later backed up by decoding the detailed pattern of spots in the cosmic microwave background, the afterglow of the Big Bang.But both of those methods rely on uncertain physics. ... The proportion of gas is thought to be almost the same for all clusters, so making that one assumption enabled the team to work out the distance to each cluster. ... This agrees with the supernova and microwave measurements. All three methods imply that about 75 per cent of the energy in the Universe is in this repulsive form. "It gives us much more confidence that dark energy is real," says Allen ... But what actually is dark energy? The new measurements are consistent with a kind of dark energy that is not changing very much with time. That could be an energy inherent to empty space, Einstein's "cosmological constant". But the constraints are not tight, leaving numerous alternatives. ... It may even be something yet more exotic. Allen's team are now applying to use Chandra to observe more clusters, which they hope will narrow down the range of possibilities.

------ And this was the very first item on the list that Ross said established that "Dark Energy" was "irrefutable". And so this theoretical construct, dark energy, this indirect tentative artifact of a man-made model, is according to Ross, one of the "two most spectacular evidences from physics and astronomy for the supernatural and superintelligent design of the universe." OK let's go to the next item form Ross's list: 2. WMAP of Cosmic Background The first item I found was the following:

"WMAP gives thumbs-up to cosmological model" It’s easy to forget that until recently cosmology was largely a theoretical science. Thanks in particular to the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which was launched by NASA in 2001 to study the cosmic microwave background, researchers are now able to talk about the first instants of the universe with the kind of certainty normally associated with a bench-top experiment.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/33318 So, this was the somewhat tongue-in-cheek endorsement in the title and opening paragraph of the article. However, consider the following:

Recent measurements of the anisotropy of the CBR by the WMAP spacecraft have been claimed to be a major confirmation of the Big Bang theory. Yet on examination these claims of an excellent fit of theory and observation are dubious. First of all, the curve that was fitted to the data had seven adjustable parameters, the majority of which could not be checked by other observations[40]. Fitting a body of data with an arbitrarily large number of free parameters is not difficult and can be done independently of the validity of any underlying theory. Indeed, even with seven free parameters, the fit was not statistically good, with the probability that the curve actually fits the data being under 5%, a rejection at the 2 s level. Significantly ,even with seven freely adjustable parameters, the model greatly overestimated the anisotropy on the largest angular scales. In addition, the Big Bang model's prediction for the angular correlation function did not at all resemble the WMAP data. It is therefore difficult to view this new data set as a confirmation of the Big Bang theory of the CBR. ... The [Big Bang] theory is now cluttered with a multiplying collection of ad-hoc hypotheses, such as the existence of dark, or non-baryonic matter and dark energy, for which there is no empirical evidence... Where all else fails, new arbitrary concepts and parameters are introduced, such as dark matter and dark energy. Consistently new observations have led to new parameters, so that the number of adjustable parameters in cosmological theories has increased exponentially with time, approximately doubling each decade.

Two World Systems Revisited: A Comparison of Plasma Cosmology and the Big Bang Eric J. Lerner I don't know that much about the Plasma Model, and am merely quoting sources that can be readily found on the internet. So make your own judgments. However I want to focus on the latter comment from the above, regarding the continual profusion of new parameters and concepts in the establishment cosmological model. Ross unquestioningly accepts all of these as received truth. The reason is that their gargantuan complexity are what directly enable his probability arguments for the existence of a supernatural entity able to make it all work. In another thread, scordova (I believe it was) talked about the Precopernican, Ptolemaic models of the planetary motion, and remarked on how absurdly complicated they were, due to the fundamental ignorance of the time. Scordova (maybe it was BarryA) also remarked that ironically these models actually worked - to a point. But it took people like Newton and Copernicus to demystify the universe by developing a simpler and more straightforward and more reliable model. Well, we know for a fact that if Ross were alive in that day, he would have absolutely embraced the Ptolemaic model, because its gargantuan complexity would have fueled his probability arguments in the same way the Big Bang does for him today. ------------------- You did not respond to my other remark about the video, that Ross talks at length about the universal expansion having to be at a very precise rate, and then claims that this somehow "demonstrates" that the creating entity had to be a "personal being". Do you dispute that he said that? Can you explain it? The only rationale I can see in retrospect is that he remarked that the creator would have had 10^97 more precision in his efforts than MIT scientists were capable of. So, maybe his thinking was MIT scientists are personal, so if something can achieve more precision than they can, that thing must be "personal" too. Tell me I'm wrong if that isn't what his argument was. The overriding goal in all of Ross's work is to prove that our creation was "supernatural", that nothing out there in the Universe can account for us. So in the other video you provided yesterday (http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=f3d6399f561e1263c949), Ross describes for example, how scientists have searched for decades trying to find physical processes in the universe that would account for the left and right handed orientation of amino-acids which scientists have concluded cannot be accounted for by processes taking place on earth itself. So they have identified physical processes around neutron stars and black holes, and then in interstellar gasses that explain part but not all of what they're seeing in amino acids on earth (w/ apologies for the imprecise description here - you've seen the tape). You can almost here Ross saying, "Foolish mortals. Your search is futile. Nothing out there will ever explain it." Ross says on that video that the surface of earth was molten lava 3.85 billion years ago. He says that it took .05 billion years for all that lava to cool down and water to appear, and then life appeared INSTANTANEOUSLY in ZERO TIME with NO PRECURSORS WHATSOEVER and SUPERNATURALLY exactly 3.8 billion years ago. Strangely, at one point he says "a cosmological instant" (or maybe it was "geological instant") when in fact he means a literal instant, because he says, "zero time". Variants of cosmological fine-tuning espoused by Ross I believe, the authors of Privileged Planet and others, would say that earth possesses an extremely improbable situation in the universe allowing its occupants to observe the universe accurately and this (among other things) points to the hand of God. Well, why on earth would God set it up for us to observe the universe? Nothing out there is of any real relevance to us, according to Ross. You might as well just use the stars for astrology. Doctors will study years and years to understand that mechanism that is the human being - the determinstic method by which it functions and so forth. But according to Ross, as far as the process that created us, there is nothing to even study. He implies as much, that all that studying of the universe by bio-cosmologists trying to find mechanisms that would illuminate the origin of life on this planet are utterly pointless because the "process" according to Ross is supernatural and took zero time. And I can absolutely attest that a person can be a Christian and reject all this. Maybe my thinking isn't current on all this. Maybe science is getting religion now and saying the origin of life is magic, I don't know. I am a layman in regards to to a lot of this - I never denied that. JunkyardTornado

Junkyard, You deny the empirical evidence for Dark Energy (Finely tuned Cosmological Constant arising from undetectable source) and Dark Matter (Gravity arising from undetectable source)? Do you have a another "material" candidate besides the "material" candidates of Dark Energy/'Matter? Even, what I believe is, your "plasma" conjecture would fall within materialism's domain. Thus, the problem for you is not to find some unknown material entity, The problem for you, from a materialistic perspective, is to explain the exquisite fine-tuning that is above and beyond (transcends) any hypothesized material basis. Yet you blatantly ignore this "transcendent intelligent design" fact and sidetrack discussions with your obfuscating materialistic fluff. As far as Dr. Ross disagreeing with ID, His beef is that ID only makes an inference to design and does not go far enough into trying to identify the Designer. More Than Intelligent Design http://www.reasons.org/resources/fff/2002issue10/index.shtml#more_than_id excerpt: "Scholars involved in what has come to be known as “the Intelligent Design movement” deserve respect. They swim against the powerful tide of naturalism, and I applaud their efforts and integrity. At the same time, however, I sense a need to clarify a subtle but significant distinction between their goals and those of the organization I represent, Reasons To Believe. Intelligent Design (ID) proponents refrain from making a specific identification of the Designer, and they have their reasons." -- Though Dr. Ross works in Astro-physics and feels the evidence is overwhelming enough to infer the transcendent God of the Bible, and feels ID proponents are "holding back", this is simply misunderstanding the field that ID is in. ID is primarily based Molecular biology at the present moment and thus it is extremely more difficult to derive a inference to a transcendent creator than in astro-physics. In the future a clear concise path for the inference for ID may be made in molecular biology and I feel that breakthroughs in "quantum teleportation" and "optimal genomes" will pave the way. But as far as demanding a direct inference to a transcendent Creator, right now, molecular biology does not have all the advantages of evidence that astro-physics has accumulated for the past century- plus years, and thus the direct inference will have to wait. Indeed it is not like we can point directly to the anthropic principle or the "timelessness" observed at the speed of light. bornagain77

ba77: I have my own specfic constructive ideas concerning cosmology, creation etc. that I have elaborated on several times on this site. However, they don't really seem to resonate with anyone. No matter. But the point is, I'm loyal to my own ideas, and detracting from others seems to be a natural human impulse. Go to Ross's site and read what he has to say about I.D. JunkyardTornado

DaveScot, Looks like he deduced it from mass density calculations of the Big Bang, thus it seems to be independent of presently "observable mass" in the universe: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/designun.html#ref1 excerpt: mass density of the universe if larger: overabundance of deuterium from big bang would cause stars to burn rapidly, too rapidly for life to form if smaller: insufficient helium from big bang would result in a shortage of heavy elements Junkyard: I'm all for investigation of facts but I've come to the conclusion that Almighty God could probably make a tree pop into existance right before your eyes and you still would not believe in a transcendent creator! In fact I believe your sole (reincarnated) purpose on this site is to disrupt and sidetrack discussions and truly feel that you are a hinderance to honest inquiry. bornagain77

Re a dimes worth of Matter: Maybe the total number of stars in the observable universe isn't relevant to Ross's argument (in which case my simplistic observation concerning that wasn't either). But if that number isn't relevant, why did Ross devote so much time to it, except merely to impress a lay audience. Re: Dark matter proving the existence of God. I said Ross gave 10 reasons why dark matter is irrefutable; actually he gave a list of ten items, without elaboration, and said that the explanation is provided on his Website reasons.org. JunkyardTornado

Hugh Ross "if you were to add or subtract a dime’s worth of mass from the universe, no life would exist!” And you tested that hypothesis how, exactly? DaveScot

ba77: "Dr. Hugh Ross http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=c8dee4b444001050766c Dr. Ross talks of the fine-tuning of Dark Energy, and then he talks of the fine-tuning of the mass in the universe. He then pulls a dime out and says if you were to add or subtract a dime’s worth of mass from the universe, no life would exist!" Actually, he makes a point about it being the observable universe he's talking about. He says (at around the 7:00 minute mark of the video) that there are 200 billion galaxies in the "observable" universe, and specifically mentions some galaxies possibly outside that range. Then he says there are on average 200 billion stars in a galaxy. Then the total number of star he gets from this is 50 billion trillion stars in the "observable" universe (Do the arithmetic yourself and see if you can figure out how). And he says if you add a dime's worth of mass to these "50 billion trillion stars" life could not exist. So what happens if they discover another galaxy? Wouldn't that add more than a dime's worth of mass to the observable universe? If there are answers to this rather simple observation, Ross does not provide them in this 10 minute clip.

...many credible theories, such as cosmic inflation require a universe much larger than the observable universe. No evidence exists to suggest that the boundary of the observable universe corresponds precisely to the physical boundary of the universe (if such a boundary exists); this is exceedingly unlikely in that it would imply that Earth is exactly at the center of the universe... It is likely that the galaxies within our visible universe represent only a minuscule fraction of the galaxies in the universe.

wikipedia Here were Ross's other points from the video: He start off the video by saying that the expansion rate after the Big Bang had to be at a very precise rate, otherwise life would not exist. He says that the degree of error possible was only 10^-120 which would mean that the transcendent creator of the universe had 10^93 more precision in his efforts than MIT scientists (or maybe it was Berkeley) could achieve. At around the 3:00 minute mark he says, "What we have demonstrated here, is that not only must the being [responsible for the Big Bang] be a transcendent being, but that he must also be personal..." Anyone who cares to, watch this video and see if he "demonstrates" anything of the kind. He doesn't even define what he means by personal much less demonstrate it. He just says the expansion has to be at a certain rate, and then flatly asserts, "..what we have demonstrated is that the being responsible has to be personal..." Then with no further comment, he moves on to his next topic which is the following: His point in this next section is that Dark Energy is an irrefutable fact, and this proves the existence of a Divine Creator. He quotes whom he identifies as "three athiest astrophysicists":

"Arranging the universe as we think it is arranged would have acquired a miracle..." "An external agent [would had to have] intervened in Cosmic history for reason of its own."

-Dyson Klebold and Susskind I think this is a legitimate example of quote-mining, here. In the first quote it says "Arranging the universe as we think it is arranged would have acquired a miracle" Clearly the quoters mean "we" in the sense of referring to the existing establisment consensus regarding dark energy. They by no means mean that they (the quoters) believe in Dark Energy, or that the universe requires a miracle, and this is clearly evidenced from the last quote (which Ross does also provide):

"Only reasonable conclusion is that we do not live in a world with [dark energy]"

Their point about it requring a miracle means that it would be outside of the ability of science to scrutinize or potentially explain. Dark energy is widely perceived as a gigantic fudge factor thrown into Big Bang Cosmology to make it work with observed data:

dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy that permeates all of space and tends to increase the rate of expansion of the universe .[1] Assuming the existence of dark energy is the most popular way to explain recent observations that the universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate .

wikipedia

Plasma cosmology does NOT rely on abstract mathematical modelling or an increasing array of exotic hypotheticals like Dark Matter and Dark Energy!

-http://www.plasmacosmology.net/ And yet, Ross considers Dark matter to be an irrefutable FACT and presents 10 reasons for that conclusion, then throws the quote of the 3 athiest astrophysicists back in their face, "See! You said it yourself! Only a divine miracle can explain dark energy!" [paraphrased]. [emphases added in quotes] JunkyardTornado

Sent my letter, Off topic: Dr. Hugh Ross http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=c8dee4b444001050766c Dr. Ross talks of the fine-tuning of Dark Energy, and then he talks of the fine-tuning of the mass in the universe. He then pulls a dime out and says if you were to add or subtract a dime's worth of mass from the universe, no life would exist! That is extreme fine tuning!!! bornagain77

Aren't the majorities in the Louisiana legislature -- 94-3 in the House and 36-0 in the Senate -- "veto-proof"? I cannot imagine the laws of any state not allowing a governor's veto to be overridden. Larry Fafarman

HERE'S MY EMAIL: Please support the recent academic freedom legislation allowing evidence for and AGAINST evolution to be taught. No scientific theory is so good that it only has strengths, nor does it help students to be given the impression that evolution is a slam-dunk when the theory has lots and lots of holes. The materialism that supports evolution is as ideological as any religious dogma that resists it. --WmAD William Dembski

Dear Gov. Jindal, I have read with interest the issue of academic freedom in the LA science curriculum. I just want to send a note of support to you in this time of overheated rhetoric. I applaud the LA legislation and the principled folks who passed it. There can never be a downside to free inquiry, as long as it is approached honestly and transparently. The only lurking bogeymen in this issue is the iron hand of doctrine and censorship. Neo-Darwinists are much like climate alarmists in that they often think that those who shout loudest and longest win. I trust you will let common sense carry the day. Science is never settled when done properly, and teaching "The Controversy" will at minimum help students to become more effective critical thinkers. Thank you for your time. ~ name & address ~ (PS - I could never hope to see such bravery here in the Northeast, unfortunately) rhodeymark

Any chance someone in comments can post the Governer's email address (if that's legal...?). Can't access any of those links. :( Avonwatches

My note to Jindal: In support of the academic freedom bill. Do not allow those who push their religious materialistic theory of life's origin and development as the ONLY allowable "science" to fool the public and rob our children of the ability and tools needed for freedom of information by creating a false "opposition to science" via an alleged "religious" motivation; especially as they are equally "religiously" motivated. Is this America or is the theory of evolution going to be the official state sanctioned religion? It is the states responsibility to allow the citizen the right to know and let the evidence lead to each one to his or her own assessment. I say we are in SERIOUS trouble if freedom of information is shut down by special interest and intrenched dogmatism. Yours truly, alan pomper B.A. Science Education-Major: Biology alan

Thanks for this post, Bill. I sent the governor a message. Granville Sewell