Plus or Minus a Dime's Mass

Hugh Ross is an Creationist astrophysicist Phd. He says in this lecture that the universe is so exquisitely fined tuned for the existence of life, that if one dime's worth of mass was added or substracted to the total mass of the universe - life could not exist.

Is the premise accepted by astrophysicists ?

(not interested in blanket poo hoos or hoot downs of Creation science.)

Is it possible that subtracting or adding one DIME's worth of MASS to the cosmos would have rendered the existence of biological life impossible anywhere ??

This is a science question ? So I did not post this over on Spirituality.

YouTube&NR=1

Originally posted by jaywill
Hugh Ross is an Creationist astrophysicist Phd. He says in this lecture that the universe is so exquisitely fined tuned for the existence of life, that if one dime's worth of mass was added or substracted to the total mass of the universe - life could not exist.

Is the premise accepted by astrophysicists ?

(not interested in blanket poo hoos or ...[text shortened]... post this over on [b] Spirituality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K9QhtlF3SU&NR=1[/b]

Do you think we know the mass of the universe to the precision of a dime?

Originally posted by Palynka
Do you think we know the mass of the universe to the precision of a dime?

The fact that we do not know the exact mass of the universe is what renders his opinion moot. It's an example of just making an unsupportable statement that makes the idea non-scientific.

Originally posted by sonhouse
The fact that we do not know the exact mass of the universe is what renders his opinion moot. It's an example of just making an unsupportable statement that makes the idea non-scientific.

Thankyou for your input.


In this follow up, some non-creationist, non-theistic scientist seem to agree with a fine tuning of the cosmos for life:

YouTube&NR=1

Originally posted by jaywill
Thankyou for your input.


In this follow up, some non-creationist, non-theistic scientist seem to agree with a fine tuning of the cosmos for [b]life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMgMCBSYn6Q&NR=1[/b]

Not sure how you call 'towards creation' a non creationist science essay. It is clear he is promoting creationism. Citing Paul Daves and other dudes saying it seems to prove a supreme being. How can you label that as non creationist? Your bias is showing.

Originally posted by jaywill
Hugh Ross is an Creationist astrophysicist Phd. He says in this lecture that the universe is so exquisitely fined tuned for the existence of life, that if one dime's worth of mass was added or substracted to the total mass of the universe - life could not exist.

Is the premise accepted by astrophysicists ?

(not interested in blanket poo hoos or post this over on [b] Spirituality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K9QhtlF3SU&NR=1[/b]

So what this guy is essentially saying is that at any given time in the universe it has a definite mass, and the probability that it has this mass is 0, thus there must be a creator, but I think it was said in another thread that you cant talk about the probability of an event occurring after its already occurred( ie we cant talk about how rare it is for a universe to have a specific mass, once it already has that specific mass). So in short, in case what iv'e said makes little to no sense(which is probable) my "opinion" ( since that is what you are obviously looking for based on the absurd argument)is that this theory is worthless in proving the existence of god.

Started watching the video, got to the part about the accurracy of the dark matter, and how that implies that the designer of the universe is 10^97 times more demanding(or has he put it more intellegent), well i must sat that 10^97, is infintesimal when compared with the intellect of a "god",since the only true "god" I would presume would be of infinite intellect, who is the your god? Is it the creator of you, or the creator of your creator...because that guy clearly said in those phrases that god was not omnipitent, but just a scant 10^97 times more intellectual than ourselves.

Originally posted by jaywill
Is it possible that subtracting or adding one DIME's worth of MASS to the cosmos would have rendered the existence of biological life impossible anywhere ??

It is a fact that the universe, its size and the laws of physics are fine tuned to allow the universe to be as it is now. I rather doubt that a small change to the mass of the universe would really make a whole lot of difference (after all its mass changes daily, it is total energy that is probably constant and I am not even sure about that).
However, if the laws of physics were even slightly different, it would have far reaching consequences and the universe would look very different.
Would life as we know it exist? Of course not.
Would life in some form exist? Now thats another question altogether that I doubt it is possible to answer, and I am absolutely sure that Hugh Ross is unable to answer it at this time.

When I was younger and still learning to program, I made a program for Conways Game of Life:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life

Its easy to think that Conway hit upon a magical rule set by luck. You may note that if a small change is made to the rules, many of the life forms in that game will no longer be able to function. But I did discover that by tweaking the rules, you may instead find far more interesting life forms.

I think the same applies to the universe. It is quite possible that with a slight change to one of the laws of physics, the whole universe would have been teeming with life.

As mentioned by another poster, any probability argument is weak or outright wrong if made after the fact. Was a winning lottery ticket 'fine tuned' to win?

Originally posted by twhitehead
As mentioned by another poster, any probability argument is weak or outright wrong if made after the fact. Was a winning lottery ticket 'fine tuned' to win?

I guess in general we can talk about ex-ante probability after the fact. Even though the toin coss came up tails, I can still say that the probability of that happening before I threw it was one half. However, in this case we only have one sample point, so statements about these values being "unlikely" are coming purely from prior beliefs.

In the case of the coin, we have a prior for the distribution. 1/2 heads, 1/2 tails. In the case of these constants, we simply have no idea about the distribution or even the support! (apart from the fact that the values we observe are included)

And this is not even considering that it might not make sense to talk about ex-ante in his case as we're talking about before the universe itself.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Not sure how you call 'towards creation' a non creationist science essay. It is clear he is promoting creationism. Citing Paul Daves and other dudes saying it seems to prove a supreme being. How can you label that as non creationist? Your bias is showing.

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Not sure how you call 'towards creation' a non creationist science essay.
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I didn't say it was "a non-creationist science essay."

I did not say "Here is a non creationist science essay". It is obvious that it is a creationist science essay.

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It is clear he is promoting creationism. Citing Paul Daves and other dudes saying it seems to prove a supreme being. How can you label that as non creationist? Your bias is showing.
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Would you please quote me where I wrote something like "I have here a non-creationist science essay" ?

I think what you are really saying is that as soon as you put "creationist" in front of science, it is not science.

Anyway, you had a good point that we do not know the mass of the universe. I will take that point and try to see how it helps me evaluate Dr. Ross's contention.

Originally posted by twhitehead
It is a fact that the universe, its size and the laws of physics are fine tuned to allow the universe to be as it is now. I rather doubt that a small change to the mass of the universe would really make a whole lot of difference (after all its mass changes daily, it is total energy that is probably constant and I am not even sure about that).
However, if k or outright wrong if made after the fact. Was a winning lottery ticket 'fine tuned' to win?

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It is a fact that the universe, its size and the laws of physics are fine tuned to allow the universe to be as it is now. I rather doubt that a small change to the mass of the universe would really make a whole lot of difference (after all its mass changes daily, it is total energy that is probably constant and I am not even sure about that).
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I think I understand Ross to be saying the things which would preclude the existence of stars and planets. And without stars and planets - no life.

Approximately half way thorugh the video Ross refers and quotes a publication called "Disturbing Implications of Dark Energy" by three astrophysicist (non-creationist, non-theist). Two were from Stanford, one from MIT - Dyson, Kleban and Susskind.

What did you think of the statement he quoted from this publication by those three non-creationist astrophysicists ?

Do you think that these astrophyscists are following the evidence to what they call a "disturbing" implication ? Thier own words were "disturbing implication".

I think the lecturer gave new meaning to the phrase "living on the dime".

Originally posted by jaywill
[b]================================
It is a fact that the universe, its size and the laws of physics are fine tuned to allow the universe to be as it is now. I rather doubt that a small change to the mass of the universe would really make a whole lot of difference (after all its mass changes daily, it is total energy that is probably constant and I am ...[text shortened]... hat they call a "disturbing" implication ? Thier own words were "disturbing implication".

But you cannot deny the fact these dudes are not promoting science, just covering up a blatant attempt to kill science and get people to go back where we belong, namely under the thumb of those who profess to know 'god'. That is the bottom line here. They pay lip service to science in order to promote the idea, the man made idea, that some god will magically make everything better, if only you believe (and coincidently
make me richer and you under my thumb)

Originally posted by jaywill
Approximately half way thorugh the video Ross refers and quotes a publication called [b]"Disturbing Implications of Dark Energy" by three astrophysicist (non-creationist, non-theist).[/b]

I can't find this publication. What I find is this one:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1126-6708/2002/10/011/pdf/jhep102002011.pdf
"Disturbing implications of a cosmological constant"

It concludes that the only reasonable conclusion is that we do not live in a world with a true cosmological constant. Which reminded me of this:
http://www.economist.com/node/16930866/

You seem to be grasping at straws. It would be nice if you explained what your point is instead of going from quote to quote.

Originally posted by sonhouse
But you cannot deny the fact these dudes are not promoting science, just covering up a blatant attempt to kill science and get people to go back where we belong, namely under the thumb of those who profess to know 'god'. That is the bottom line here. They pay lip service to science in order to promote the idea, the man made idea, that some god will magicall ...[text shortened]... rything better, if only you believe (and coincidently
make me richer and you under my thumb)

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But you cannot deny the fact these dudes are not promoting science,
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So he went off and earned a Phd. in astrophysics play acting at science ?

You are just too biased for anything but a kneejerk reactionary dismissal.

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just covering up a blatant attempt to kill science and get people to go back where we belong, namely under the thumb of those who profess to know 'god'.
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You're attacking motives. This is genetic fallacy.

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That is the bottom line here.
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Kneejerk reactionary. You always insist the evidence has to point away from the the fine tuning which implies intelligence.

Whose trying to kill what here ? Maybe you're the killer here.

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They pay lip service to science in order to promote the idea, the man made idea, that some god will magically make everything better, if only you believe (and coincidently
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Maybe you're the one paying feeble lip service by refusing to consider where evidence may indicate purposeful fine tuning of the cosmos for life.

I don't see any pristine "objectivity" coming from you sonhouse.

When Ross begins to pass the hat and ask for a hymn to be song, then come back and maybe I'll consider your rather bias reactionary complaint.

Originally posted by jaywill
[b]==============================
But you cannot deny the fact these dudes are not promoting science,
===================================

So he went off and earned a Phd. in astrophysics play acting at science ?

You are just too biased for anything but a kneejerk reactionary dismissal.

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just ...[text shortened]... be song, then come back and maybe I'll consider your rather bias reactionary complaint.

He is selling a book, does that count as "passing around the hat"?