ID/Creationism challenge

[Halfcentaur]

You mean Radiometric dating right? The dating that's based on the perfectly observable and completely accurate half-lives of the radioactive elements involved? The one that has nothing to do with the Theory of Evolution and is instead part of nuclear physics, a well researched and incredibly useful branch of science?

Those dating methods?

He seems to not distinguish between radiometric carbon dating, which is for fairly recent estimations, and the elements used for older more ancient dating.
As I understand it, the issues raised with the accuracy of carbon dating are not an issue in the others, such as argon. Am I correct in that?

 

[randman]

I'm not sure what that even means.

The thing you have to remember is that there is absolutely no empirical difference between Copenhagen and Many Worlds, or any other sound interpretation. There is only one set of equations, no matter which interpretation you wrap around them.

This is wrong in a lot of ways. Just one example, one reason for many experiments by Zeilinger and others is to rule out the concept of hidden variables.

As far as MWI, it asserts decoherence occurs but no real wave function collapse. There seems to be a lot of variation on exactly when the splitting occurs and how to express it.

My point on MWI, to you and others, is that it is an attempt to preserve some physical "laws" if they are even laws. That's fine. But keep in mind proponents do this because the alternative is what I am saying; that these things are violated.

So either the MWI did it, or we're not just dealing with the material world but an informational substrate that is more fundamental. Particles exist as informational probabilities even they don't exist as physical form, for example.

 

[Halfcentaur]

If a tree falls in the woods, God did it.

 

[randman]

here are quite a few other folks here who could explain MWI to you as well.

First, though, you'll need to stop thinking you already know it all.

So you admit all this time you've really just been preaching MWI, not actually addressing what we see if we do not invoke a myriad of alternative universes to try to explain things?

The bottom line is you are spouting bs. Yea, I will admit that I may not understand the MWI as well as I should. Never said I did. I said absent invoking alternative universes, this is what the data says, etc,.....One reason I left out some other alternative theories is that Copenhagen is the dominant one; hidden variables seems to be going by the way-side due to experiments; consciousness collapse systems would bother you even more and is still consistent with what I am saying; waves backwards in time has issues related to entanglement and violates causality thought of as a linear process in time and can still be consistent with what I am saying, etc,....

Of course, you seem to understand MWI less than I. MWI also has a lot of variations. Your idea stated above is different than say Sol's because you are thinking of MWI where the alternate universes don't have to be real. That's actually a very different theory. You don't seem to realize that.

 

[randman]

WD, one point just to settle this. You cite Sol here as an expert. Sol and any educated person understands that Copenhagen does not preserve locality and realism. Your claim that it does is just wrong.

Now, you want to talk about MWI and insist that's better? Fine, but apologize for suggesting I have misrepresented the dominant view of quantum mechanics or was as of a few years ago according to one poll. I have not.

 

[randman]

Look at the Elitzur-Vaidman quantum bomb tester. You can use it to detect, with 100% accuracy, which of a batch of explosives are good and which are bad.

The basic design identifies all the good bombs but detonates two thirds of them in the process; with refinements you can approach 100% intact while still having 100% identified.

This is not a thought experiment. The device has been built and tested, and it really works.

In effect, the bomb tester works by blowing up the bombs in another universe, leaving us with intact bombs and the information identifying them.

You can describe it using the Copenhagen interpretation if you like. It's every bit as valid but conceptually more complicated.

Either way, it's just how the Universe works.

So you are agreeing with me? You either accept QM violates classical laws of physics such as local realism, or you invoke a myriad of alternative universes to explain it.

 

[randman]

He seems to not distinguish between radiometric carbon dating, which is for fairly recent estimations, and the elements used for older more ancient dating.
As I understand it, the issues raised with the accuracy of carbon dating are not an issue in the others, such as argon. Am I correct in that?

All dating methods are based on assumptions which may or may not be correct. But soft tissue and hemoglobin cannot exist 65 million years inside a bone according to what biochemistry says.

Put it this way. If you took this to a coroner and team of scientists and asked them how long ago the creature died, without considering it was a dinosaur, what do you think they would say?

 

[Philosaur]

WD, one point just to settle this. You cite Sol here as an expert. Sol and any educated person understands that Copenhagen does not preserve locality and realism. Your claim that it does is just wrong.

Either quote where WD claims this, or prove to us that you don't eat babies.

(Hey, if you can insist WD defend something he didn't assert, then I can insist the same of you.)

Now, you want to talk about MWI and insist that's better? Fine, but apologize for suggesting I have misrepresented the dominant view of quantum mechanics or was as of a few years ago according to one poll. I have not.

Also: You are STILL missing the point. No one is claiming MWI is better than anything else. Everyone is trying to drive point the (apparently massively complicated) point that each interpretation is valid. But, because you put CI on a pedestal, when we try to level the field, as it were, you see it as an attack on CI--and by extension--your whole "theory".

 

[Halfcentaur]

All dating methods are based on assumptions which may or may not be correct. But soft tissue and hemoglobin cannot exist 65 million years inside a bone according to what biochemistry says.

Put it this way. If you took this to a coroner and team of scientists and asked them how long ago the creature died, without considering it was a dinosaur, what do you think they would say?

The way you speak of this find seems to portray the incident as being more than trace materials that were found after dissolving tiny fossilized fragments in acid.

You also portray this case as if this is common and not one isolated incident. You also seem to ignore many different possibilities, favoring one that supports your assertion of a young Earth.

As was pointed out by another poster, seizing on one incident or fact to falsify is how you demonstrate a dogmatic system is false, not a system like science. What governs your sense of probability here? Why not suppose that if in your belief the fossil is merely tens of thousands of years old, that there were populations of these creatures that have lived for hundreds of millions of years and only recently died out? Why not ask the question that perhaps we've found a way of retrieving million year old traces of soft tissue by means of a novel procedure utilizing acid to break down fossil fragments? It doesn't seem like you've considered this carefully at all.

It seems like you portray someone considering such a novel find and it's implications carefully as an assertion that they are an evo resisting an evident truth rather than being careful about a localized incident.


If you know of other cases beyond Schweitzer's t-rex, I'd be interested in knowing more.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur.html

 

[W.D.Clinger]

So you admit all this time you've really just been preaching MWI, not actually addressing what we see if we do not invoke a myriad of alternative universes to try to explain things?

No. I have not been preaching MWI. You're the one who's been using the sort of rhetorical tactics that have given preachers the negative connotations you sought to exploit by using the word "preaching" above.

The bottom line is you are spouting bs.

One reason I left out some other alternative theories is that Copenhagen is the dominant one; hidden variables seems to be going by the way-side due to experiments; consciousness collapse systems would bother you even more and is still consistent with what I am saying; waves backwards in time has issues related to entanglement and violates causality thought of as a linear process in time and can still be consistent with what I am saying, etc,....

The Copenhagen interpretation's historical dominance is attributable to historical factors; it is falling out of favor because it violates locality and EPR's concept of realism. Consciousness collapse is one of the sillier variations of Copenhagen. The words you wrote after "waves backwards in time" read like near-gibberish to me: "causality thought of as a linear process in time" would seem to require some privileged reference frame inconsistent with relativity, and "can still be consistent with what I am saying" would be even worse.

Of course, you seem to understand MWI less than I.

That would take some doing.

MWI also has a lot of variations. Your idea stated above is different than say Sol's because you are thinking of MWI where the alternate universes don't have to be real. That's actually a very different theory. You don't seem to realize that.

Yes, MWI has many variations. Not that it matters, but I tend to favor modal interpretations in which there is no ontological commitment to all accessible worlds. sol invictus and I don't agree on everything, but neither of us cares overmuch about metaphysical disagreements acknowledged as such.

WD, one point just to settle this. You cite Sol here as an expert. Sol and any educated person understands that Copenhagen does not preserve locality and realism. Your claim that it does is just wrong.

Although this is at least the second time you've accused me of claiming that Copenhagen interpretations preserve locality and realism, I very much doubt whether I have ever made such a claim. I suspect that's just another example of your dishonesty, but it could be your misrepresentation is a consequence of your confusion including (but not limited to) your insistence upon identifying objective reality with EPR's concept of realism.

Now, you want to talk about MWI and insist that's better? Fine, but apologize for suggesting I have misrepresented the dominant view of quantum mechanics or was as of a few years ago according to one poll. I have not.

You have definitely misrepresented the Copenhagen interpretation. I agree, however, that the various Copenhagen interpretations you have misrepresented, when taken together, were the most popular interpretations of quantum mechanics for many decades and may remain so.

By the way, you have not yet provided any scientific evidence for Intelligent Design or Creationism.

 

[randman]

Either quote where WD claims this, or prove to us that you don't eat babies.

(Hey, if you can insist WD defend something he didn't assert, then I can insist the same of you.)



Also: You are STILL missing the point. No one is claiming MWI is better than anything else. Everyone is trying to drive point the (apparently massively complicated) point that each interpretation is valid. But, because you put CI on a pedestal, when we try to level the field, as it were, you see it as an attack on CI--and by extension--your whole "theory".

Wrong. I flat out said you could use MWI as an alternative, but WD derided Copenhagen as metaphysics and said a bunch of other bs.

For example, I stated:

When 2 particles are entangled and you can see this principle elsewhere but entanglement is perhaps most clear, they will act as one system regardless of distance (space) and so that also means regardless of time as well. Locality is thus violated.

That is standard quantum mechanics. I admit you can try to get around it via MWI.

WD responds with total bs.

That's your personal interpretation, your personal metaphysics. You are asserting your personal metaphysics as objective fact, but it isn't.

He obviously has no idea whatsoever if he is going to say this my "personal metaphysics." That's why I quoted scientists like Zeilinger who shows repeatedly a violation of locality, local realism, etc,...... That's why the term "non-local" is used. His suggestion I made this up is asinine and wrong.

He then says this:

Virtually all physicists accept the reality of objective reality

That's completely wrong again. Quantum physicists like Zeilinger of the dominant Copenhagen school of thought and maybe many in MWI do not accept the concept of objective reality.

He then blathers on and on about a "general sense of objective reality" which shows he never understood the term in context in the first place. No one is saying the universe does not exist when they say objective reality is incorrect.

 

[brainmeat]

Several of my points were already covered by some nice posts above (MWI and Copenhagen Interpretation are interpretations, not theories and the need for some more Logos rigor if it is going to be discussed technically...where is the math?).

The Logos Interpretation appears to boil down to
1) identical to other interpretations in every observation, except that
2) it introduces another parameter that predicts nothing extra

So it is a sort of identity operator. I am guessing the Logos observable has an operator counterpart that looks suspiciously like multiplication by 1/1. It takes your result, claims an influence by Logos, and publishes a paper.

Predicition: The Logos operator will be posited to have an imaginary part so they can talk about the effect of Logos on the "i" and take the woo to another level.

 

[randman]

As was pointed out by another poster, seizing on one incident or fact to falsify is how you demonstrate a dogmatic system is false,

It's not just one incident and one way science progresses is to look for anomalies that are not easily explained, study them, and seek to learn why they occur.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

He seems to not distinguish between radiometric carbon dating, which is for fairly recent estimations, and the elements used for older more ancient dating.
As I understand it, the issues raised with the accuracy of carbon dating are not an issue in the others, such as argon. Am I correct in that?

To the best of my knowledge, there isn't a problem with the accuracy of carbon-13 dating either, it's just that beyond a certain point it becomes pretty much impossible to detect to any useful degree, so it has a limit as to how effective it is at dating really ancient stuff.

None of this matters of course, because it isn't used to date fossils.

 

[randman]

The Logos operator will be posited to have an imaginary part

No, you are thinking of MWI based on imagining myriads of alternate universes.....

 

[Philosaur]

Here is a summary of what I understand randman's Logos theory to consist of:

1. There is an "informational superposition" called the Logos which exists outside of space and time.

2. The Logos is a superposition of all possible quantum states of the universe.

3. The Logos therefore contains all the possible genetic information that could ever be encoded.

4. The Logos is "intelligent" (at least enough so that the label Intelligent Design applies to this theory).

5. The Logos "designs" all life (at least enough so that the label Intelligent Design applies to this theory).

6. ??

At this point I am lost. randman, can you pick up the story from here, or provide some exegesis or correction to what I've summarized here? Particularly, can you tell us how a thing which exists outside of spacetime can affect things within spacetime? Can you provide some explanation for how the Logos is "intelligent", and how it "designs" life?

 

[MarkCorrigan]

All dating methods are based on assumptions which may or may not be correct.

So the fundamental laws of radioactivity "may or may not be correct"?

You really want to go down that road?

 

[Halfcentaur]

It's not just one incident and one way science progresses is to look for anomalies that are not easily explained, study them, and seek to learn why they occur.

I'd be very interested in learning of any incidents outside of the one I've discussed. The only other case I'm familiar with is a National Geographic special I saw a few years ago with a duck billed dinosaur that seemed to have it's scale pattern vividly preserved.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

I'd be very interested in learning of any incidents outside of the one I've discussed. The only other case I'm familiar with is a National Geographic special I saw a few years ago with a duck billed dinosaur that seemed to have it's scale pattern vividly preserved.

Which in and of itself isn't close to being the same thing.

Patterning of scales and feathers is a perfectly understandable and documented, but very rare occurrence.

Trace particulate of cells inside a fossil does not equal them finding blood.

 

[Halfcentaur]

To the best of my knowledge, there isn't a problem with the accuracy of carbon-13 dating either, it's just that beyond a certain point it becomes pretty much impossible to detect to any useful degree, so it has a limit as to how effective it is at dating really ancient stuff.

None of this matters of course, because it isn't used to date fossils.

Indeed, which is something I often see creationists misrepresent. Often they specifically attack carbon dating in regard to aging the Earth and in aging fossils, but carbon dating is used for relatively recent dating, as in archaeology.
What I'd like to see explained sometime by a young earth creationist is why so many different dating methods all correlate with the same figures we'd expect to see. That would take an extensive address however.