VincentRJ

You are quite right to disbelieve that something can be created from nothing. 'Nothing', using a literal definition, cannot possibly exist. The singularity of the Big Bang is not described as 'nothing'. It's an infinitely dense and hot quantity of matter compressed into a very tiny area. In ordinary language, we tend to use words sloppily, from the scientific perspective. We walk into a room and declare 'it's empty'. From the scientific perspective, it's definitely not empty. It's full of trillions and gazillions of air molecules and photons of various wave lengths. We tend to think that a 'vacuum' might be an example of empty space, because we've removed all the air molecules. But that's not true. A vacuum is bustling with many sorts of particles and waves that science is continuing to discover. The following article migh provide some insights for you. https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2012/12/20/what-keeps-space-empty/#:~:text=Space is not empty.,and neutrinos from nuclear reactions. "Space is not empty. A point in outer space is filled with gas, dust, a wind of charged particles from the stars, light from stars, cosmic rays, radiation left over from the Big Bang, gravity, electric and magnetic fields, and neutrinos from nuclear reactions. Even a "perfect" vacuum would still hold vacuum energy, the Higgs field, and spacetime curvature. Space seems empty to humans because we can't see most of the stuff there, and because there is much less air than we are used to."

I think a major problem with modern society is that most people live in cities, or concrete jungles, isolated from nature. This is not a natural situation. I live in a rural (or semi-rural) area), and whenever I have to drive into the nearest city and experience the sudden increase in traffic congestion and noise, I feel awful. What the heck am I doing here?? Living in natural surroundings, and engaging directly with nature, feels so much better for me.

Thanks for the link to the article by William A. Wilson. That's an interesting read. He highlights some very significant issues and problems within the various organizations of scientific inquiry. However, it would be a mistake to smear and cast doubt on the true and ideal 'methodology' of science just because of certain human failings which don't measure up to those ideal standards of the Methodology of Science. To quote from the article: "The best scientists know that they must practice a sort of mortification of the ego and cultivate a dispassion that allows them to report their findings, even when those findings might mean the dashing of hopes, the drying up of financial resources, and the loss of professional prestige." People, including scientists, have careers, families to support, mortgages to pay off, and most people have a lust for some degree of power and fame to satisfy their ego and vanity. This is the problem. Attacking 'science' is not addressing the problem. Whilst it might be shocking to read in the article that as many as 65% of published studies in Psychology showed positive results which could not later be replicated, it was the application of the 'methodology of science' which revealed that those 65% of published studies were at least questionable, if not false. Also, research in the 'soft sciences', such as psychology, sociology, medical research, and 'climate change', is very challenging, and sometimes impossible to verify because of the numerous interacting forces which cannot always be identified and controlled during experimentation. Ideally, this lack of certainty should always be revealed, and it often is in the scientific papers, but revealing such uncertainty to the public can sometimes have undesirable effects, such as reducing the 'placebo' effect which is important during medical treatment. The 'cult' of science is another important issue, that should not be confused with 'true' science. To quote from the article: "The Cult is related to the phenomenon described as “scientism”; both have a tendency to treat the body of scientific knowledge as a holy book or an a-religious revelation that offers simple and decisive resolutions to deep questions. The greatest friends of the Cult of Science are the worst enemies of science’s actual practice." In my opinion, the 'Climate Change' issue is an excellent example of this 'cult', where a 97% consensus is concocted, for political purposes, and a simple solution offered to make the climate benign and reduce the occurrence of extreme weather events. Stop burning fossil fuels and reduce our CO2 emissions. What could be simpler? ???? In summary, the discovery and development of the 'Methodology of Science' has been the greatest boon to humanity since the beginning of civilization. Whilst there are many places in the world where people are suffering from disasters, conflicts, famines, diseases, extreme poverty, and so on, these problems are mainly due to the lack of the application of science, as well as the corruption and incompetence of those in power. Those who are in denial about the over-all benefits of science like to give examples of the devastation cause by modern wars using sophisticated weapons based upon scientific discoveries, such as the atomic bombs that ended the war in Japan in September 1945. However, wars have always occurred throughout human history, and in terms of the percentages of the world population that have been killed during such wars, the percentages were much greater in the past. For example, it is estimated that the Mongol conquests in the 13th century resulted in the deaths of about 11% of the world population, and as high as 60 million people in Eurasia. The Hundred Years' Wars between England and France resulted in the killing of half the population of France and also resulted in a pandemic which killed up to an estimated 200 million. WWI by comparison, when the world population was much higher, has an estimated 20 million deaths of soldiers and civilians, followed by another 50 million deaths caused by the 'Spanish Flu' which began and was spreading during the war. Thanks to science, the current number of Covid-19 deaths, world-wide, is only 6,487,445. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries I hope I have demolished this silly idea that Science is not the greatest boon to humanity. ????

I'll advise you how you can respond. Use your imagination and give me some examples of concepts that you think I might believe in, that can't be validated by science. I can't think of any, but maybe I'm missing something. Maybe you can enlighten me by providing an example of a belief I hold, that I missed. ????

This is an excellent example of the imprecision in the use of common words. I'm sure you've heard the expression, 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'. This is especially true for the perception of colour, which is always in the eye of the beholder. All objects absorb and reflect certain 'wave/particles' of the Electromagnetic Spectrum, of which light is a part. Each clolour is associated with a specific wave length, ranging from the human experience of 'red', which is associated with a comparatively long wave, to violet, which is associated with a comparatively short wave, within the visible spectrum. Most people would agree that a leaf is green. However, in reality the leaf has no colour. The leaf simply reflects a particular wave length of light which produces a sensation in the human mind that we describe as 'green'. The sky appears blue during the day when the sun is higher in the sky because the shorter wavelenths of light get scattered the most by the air molecules. However, when the sun is low on the horizon, the light takes a longer path through the atmosphere to the observer, and much of the shorter waves are scattered out of sight, resulting in the longer waves, which we experience as red and orange, becoming more prominent. Got it? ????

I can't think of anything I believe that is true that cannot be confirmed by science., which is why I am an Atheist. However, there are certain basic issues that don't require scientific confirmation. For example, humans have understood for ages, before the scientific method evolved, that sticking one's hand in a fire would cause extreme pain and damage. There are many other examples, such as jumping off a tall cliff onto the hard ground below, as opposed to jumping onto an ocean or lake. "My point is that everyone harbours as-yet-unproven-by-science beliefs about most everything; with many of those beliefs personally accepted as being true." Not everyone. "Would you agree that there are things you say you believe you know for sure?" I'm not sure 'believe' is the best word. I'd say there are things that I accept are true, with a high level of confidence. For example, if I were to drink a whole 750 ml bottle of whisky, I'm very confident I would get drunk. However, I wouldn't be totally, 100% sure, because there's a remote possibility that the bottle of whisky could be a fake with a very low alcohol content. ????

The concepts of 'reason' and 'purpose' are human constructs and thought processes. We use our capacity for 'reason' to determine what was the cause of an accident, for example, or the causes of 'changes in climate'. 'Purpose' is a quality that is fundamental to all life, even plants and trees.. The inanimate asteroid that hit the Earth about 65 million years ago and destroyed the dinosaurs, according to the application of science and reason, did not have a purpose. An asteroid is not a living organism. Regarding your example of the car sliding on an icy road into another car. The application of reason determines that the cause of the accident was a patch of ice on the road which prevented the brakes from being effective.. Perhaps the car in front had stopped at traffic lights and the car behind was going too fast for the conditions and wasn't able to stop quickly enough because of the ice. However, accidents have a cause, but not a purpose. If you want to attribute a purpose to the accident then you would have to describe it as an 'apparent' accident that was done intentionally. Perhaps the driver of the car behind was following the car in front and intended to smash into the car, using the icy road as an excuse.

Of course it's difficult. The fundamental principle is that every effect has a cause, but it's never just one cause that's involved. There's a continuous flow of interacting causes and effects, and the further back in time you go, to analyse the cause of a particular event, the more related causes you discover. Consider a simple example of a car accident. An inquiry concludes that the driver fell asleep at the wheel. That's the cause of the accident. But why did the driver fall asleep? An inquiry concludes that he went to bed late the previous night, did not sleep well, and had to get up early. But why did he go to bed late, and have to get up early, and why did he not sleep well? An inquiry concludes that he'd had a late-night party, with quite a lot of drinking, which affected his sleeping, and he had to get up early to attend a work project he had signed up to. But why did he have a late-night party, and why did he sgn up to a work project that began so early in the day? An inquiry concludes that he was celebrating the day he got married to his wife, and the contract he signed up to was a well-paid job and he needed the money. But why did he marry the lady who is now his wife? Do you get the drift? If we keep going back in time to discover all the causes, we'll get to the point of asking why the driver, who fell asleep at the wheel, was born. An inquiry might reveal that he was born 'accidentally' because his father was wearing an inadequate condom that didn't do its job. If the condom had not been faulty, the driver would not have been born and the accident would not have occurred. If we go back further, we could then ask, 'What were the causes of the faulty condom?' Perhaps a factory worker had not done his job properly and a batch of leaking condoms was sent to the market. But why did the factory worker not do hid job properly, and why were the defects in the condom not discovered? And so on, and so on. Is it not plausible that the origins of life could have first appeared in a very complex and changing environment, sometimes called a soupy sea, with trillions of various molecules and chemicals bumping into each other during a period of millions of years?

Where do you get the assumption that some people think that everything is random? As I've tried to explain before, randomness, chance, and accidents do occur. They are a part of human reality. It would be foolish to deny that. However, if everything were to happen randomly it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to survive. Our civilzations progress and develop through a process of reducing randomness by understanding, predicting, and/or controlling the forces involved in any outcome. However, many processes are so complex, involving so many interacting forces, it's impossible to have complete control or make an accurate prediction, and the best we can do is calculate a 'percentage chance' of a particular event occurring. An example would be the weather forecast. Another example would be the tossing of a coin and predicting whether is would land heads-up, or tails-up. We can calculate the chance of heads or tails is 50% either way because we understand there are only two possible outcomes. If we were to create a situation where we could control every force that is applied to the coin, from its initial flipping to the turbulence of the air as the coin smashes through billions of molecules, then we could predict with certainty whether the coin would land heads-up or tails-up, with each flip. As regards 'purpose', I can appreciate that some individuals might 'feel' there is no purpose in life, because they are depressed, and suffering, and think they have insurmountable problems. However, human activity in general is full of a multitude of purposes at various levels. If one is referring to the fundamental purpose of all life, then the obvious answer is 'reproduction'. The quality of 'reproduction' is what distinguishes life from inanimate matter. 'Moral behaviour' is an attempt to reduce the suffering and conflict which results from the competitive actions which are instincively involved in the general purpose of reproduction. Got it? ????

"Ask yourself how much you think you know to be true but it "just ain't so." How convinced are you that everything you think you know is indeed true? " As I've tried to explain, I believe in the 'Methodology of Science' which begins with a Hypothesis and can gradually develop into a Theory, if and when calculations and sound experiments, which must also allow a falsification process, eventually support the Hypothesis. Both Hypotheses and Theories can be shown to be wrong as new evidence and data become available, so it's quite possible I might be wrong about many issues. However, I tend not to change my mind until I become aware of new evidence that meets my own standards, based on my own interpretation of the 'Methodology of Science'. Regarding 'how much I know', I accept that I know very, very, very little, compared to the whole of human knowledge, and the whole of human knowledge is very, very little compared to what remains to be known. Okay? ????

Of course I believe that accidents and unpredictable events occur. I also believe in rationality, common sense, logic, the process of cause and effect, good behaviour, compassion, and so on and on. Whatever you believe in has to be clearly defined in order to have a rational discussion. I've just searched for some dictionary definitions of 'chance', on the internet. The following 4 definitions are the most common. I've highlighted the crucial words in each definition that supports my understanding of the concept of 'chance'. (1) a possibility of something happening. (2) the occurrence of events in the absence of any obvious intention or cause. (3) something that happens unpredictably without discernible human intention or observable cause (4) the fortuitous or incalculable element in existence In summary, I use the word chance to describe any event when the causes are unpredictable, unobservable, indiscernable and/or incalculable. If we had the ability to continuously monitor all activities in our environment, at the atomic, molecular and photonic level, (which is impossible) then probably nothing would occur by chance. I say 'probably', because in Quantum Mechanics even the act of observation itself might cause some unpredictable behaviour of photons.

That statement is only a half truth. If Mark Twain had my wisdom ???? he would have said: "What get's us into trouble is not only what we don't know. It's also what we know for sure that just ain't so." An example of what we don't know that could get us into trouble, would be the approval of a new housing estate in a beautiful, remote area near a river. The people who authorize the construction do not do any research on past weather events in the area, and the buyers of the homes assume that the area is safe, otherwise the authorities would not have approved the housing constructions. Unfortunately, the historical evidence shows that the area has been subjected to extreme flooding every 20 or 30 years, on average. 10 years after the houses have been sold, and the occupants have settled down and filled their rooms with expensive furniture, computers, TVs, family photos, and so on, the next major flood arrives and destroys everything, as well as taking a few lives. ????

Well, if you love good science, please explain what your alternative theory is, based upon good science. An Intelligent Designer, perhaps, or some sort of God who came out from nowhere? ????

Really?? You think that the explanations from thousands of scientists who have spent decades studying these issues, are no more credible than a 'Fairy Tale'? Crikey! You must have a terrible grudge against science. What I suggest you do is give up your current life-style, which is dependent upon past scientific research and discoveries, and go and live for a few years in a remote forest without any modern products and appliances. Sleep on the forest floor, and eat berries and fruit from the surrounding trees. Then get back to us, and tell us how wonderful it was. ????

So I take it you don't belief that Black Holes exist either. Black Holes are huge amounts of matter, the equivalent of several suns, which are packed into a very small area about the size of a city. The gravitational field is so strong that nothing can escape. From Wikipedia: "Gravitational singularities are mainly considered in the context of general relativity, where density apparently becomes infinite at the center of a black hole, and within astrophysics and cosmology as the earliest state of the universe during the Big Bang/White Hole. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_singularity However, there are obviously different interpretations of the available data and different hypotheses favoured by different scientists. This is not 'settled science' like Anthropogenic Climate Change. ????

Okay! I'll address the point I've highlighted in your above comment. I also care whether or not any claim makes sense. The whole of scientific enquiry is based upon 'making sense of things'. However, scientists are also humans with flaws and biases and sometimes assume a degree of certainty about a theory which doesn't warrant such certainty without the true methodology of science having been applied. Many issues remain uncertain, which places them in the category of 'hypothesis', because it's often not possible to apply the full 'methodology of science', due to the long time scales involved for results to be observed, and also due to the complexity of the situation with so many interacting forces, many of which might be unknown. When discussing such issues which have a degree of uncertainty, there is also the problem of the exaggerated and distorted reporting of the science by journalists. For example, I've seen it repeated many times in this thread that The Big Bang 'hypothesis/theory' is nonsense because something cannot be created from nothing. Therefore, there must be something, such as a Creator God, or Intelligent Designer. However, the Big Bang hypothesis/theory does not state that the universe was created from nothing. I'll quote again from the Phys.org news article I linked to earlier. "The Big Bang hypothesis states that all of the current and past matter in the Universe came into existence at the same time, roughly 13.8 billion years ago. At this time, all matter was compacted into a very small ball with infinite density and intense heat called a Singularity." Infinite density and intense heat is not nothing. It might be difficult for some people to imagine how the entire universe could be compressed into such a small particle as a singularity, but a good analogy would be to hold a large block of polystyrene foam in one hand, and compare the weight with a very small block of lead held in the other hand, then imagine if those difference in 'weight per volume' were extrapolated trillions upon trillions upon trillions of times. "As far as the search for the answer to the origins of life my contention, which I cannot overemphasise, is this: that in their search science is necessarily relying on many assumptions to be true; and which I deem to be false. Perhaps foremost is the assumption that physical reality is the one and only reality in all of existence. Your cherished scientific method is wholly dependent on a reality which is physical in nature. If it is true that other realities exist and that not all are physical then in those realms which are not physically based the scientific method would be quite meaningless. This should be quite logical." Addressing another of your points that I've highlighted above, 'what do you mean by a physical reality'? Do you agree with the following definition of a physical property? "A physical property is any property that is measurable, whose value describes a state of a physical system." Isn't it obvious that no-one can be aware of anything that cannot be measured in some manner or to some degree, whether they are a scientist or not? Science not only specialises in a great precision of measurement, but also the measurement of 'things' that are invisible and undetectable to anyone without the appropriate scientific instrument. Do you believe that a Guru, whilst sitting down meditating on a universal consciousness, is aware of the multitude of radio waves, and other electro-magnetic waves of various frequencies, that are passing through his body? I've not seen any research that shows any human can feel or detect Radio Waves, X-rays, or Gamma Rays that are passing through his body and head, yet we are expected to believe that certain Gurus can detect a universal consciousness beyond the capabilities of current science. ???? Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not against anyone hypothesising that there might exist some sort of universal consciousness, as a result of personal feelings experienced whilst meditating, or even as a result of intellectual speculation. However, such claims can be no more than a hypothesis, or a belief, or a Quale, until they are verified using the 'methodology of science'. For the sake of clarity, I'll also point out that Science is of the general opinion that the photons that make up the electromagnetic spectrum, have no mass and no weight. They are therefore not 'matter'. But those non-material photons are essential for all life as we know it. Even if some creatures appear to thrive in total darkness, the food they eat needs photons to grow. This process is called 'photosynthesis'. In other words, life is dependent on non-material sources. ????

A major problem in discussing such complex issues as the 'origins of life' and the 'origins of the universe', is the precise definition of the common words we use to discuss the issues. For example, in science there is a distinction between the meaning of 'theory' and 'hypothesis', but the distiction is not clear-cut. It's not an 'either/or' distinction. The words or often used interchangeably. Here's a quote from a Physics journal describing the Big Bang, where the two words are used as though they have the same meaning. "The basics of the theory are fairly simple. In short, the Big Bang hypothesis states that all of the current and past matter in the Universe came into existence at the same time, roughly 13.8 billion years ago. At this time, all matter was compacted into a very small ball with infinite density and intense heat called a Singularity. Suddenly, the Singularity began expanding, and the universe as we know it began." https://phys.org/news/2015-12-big-theory.html As I've mentioned before, there's a wide range of degrees of certainty in science, ranging from, say, 0.1% to 99.9%. It is not reasonable to state what the 'percentage point of certainty' is, when a hypothesis changes to a theory, because the calculation of certainty can itself be uncertain. Your comment that "the methodologies of science have naught to do with uncovering the mystery of life" seems absurd to me. There's been a huge amount of research in many scientific disciplines attempting to understand how the first forms of life evolved. Since this event is estimated to have occurred around 3.5 to 4 billion years ago (on planet Earth), it's not surprising that the issue is not settled, and great uncertainty still prevails, with many competing hypotheses. The following scientific article provides a good overview of the problems. "Understanding the origin of life (OoL) is one of the major unsolved scientific problems of the century. It starts with the lack of a commonly accepted definition of the phenomenon of life itself, but difficulties go far beyond merely that obstacle. OoL research involves a large number of diffuse concepts cornering several natural sciences and philosophy, such as entropy, information and complexity. Despite evidence that untangling this knot will require a concerted and collaborative effort between different disciplines, technologies, individuals and groups, division in OoL research is still marked, concerning both theories (e.g., RNA world vs. metabolism-first) and approaches (e.g., bottom-up vs. top-down). What causes these on-going divisions, and how can heated debates be moderated?" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7151616/

Okay! I'll try to explain it to you. The words 'chance' and 'accident' are human constructs which describe events that have causes that are too complicated for humans to precisely understand and control. When we say 'something happened by chance', it means 'we don't understand in sufficient detail all the causes of the event and therefore cannot control the outcome', as in the example of tossing a coin and predicting the outcome of 'heads' or 'tails'. Science is based upon a general understanding that every effect has a cause, and scientists do their best to understand those causes. Engineers and technologists use that understanding to create the products that contribute to our safety and prosperity, and during the past couple of hundred years or so, they've done a remarkable job, wouldn't you agree? However, whether it's a confirmed scientific theory, or a new technological project, scientists understand that nothing is 100% certain. Everything lies within a range of probabilities, and accurately assessing those probabilities is sometimes very challenging and often impossible. The problem is that most of the population don't seem to understand the 'methodology of science', which requires repeated testing under controlled conditions in order to reach a high level of confidence that a particular outcome can be predicted as a result of a sufficient understanding of the causes involved. The degree of certainty about many issues are therefore exaggerated for political, personal, and economic purposes, and some scientists go along with that exaggeration for various personal reasons, probably associated with career opportunities, wealth and fame. Attributing a cause to 'God' is probably the most extreme exaggeration. However, some people probably benefit from the 'placebo effect', which is very prevalent throughout society. When people are prescribed pharmaceutical drugs by their doctor, part of the efficacy of those drugs is due to the placebo effect, that is, a belief in the doctor and the medical industry. The placebo effect is estimated to be around 30 to 35%, according to many studies. Got it? ????

Don't you know that nothing occurs by chance or accident? ????

The early ancestors of humans were slow to develop and had to hide during the time of the Dinosaurs. God was not pleased, so he sent to the Earth a huge asteroid, between 10 and 15 km wide, in order to destroy all of those huge, vicious creatures. ???? This allowed our early ancestors, such as purgalicious primatoids, which were small furry animals like rats, to gradually evolve into apes, monkeys and humans. "The diversity of mammals on Earth exploded straight after the dinosaur extinction event, according to UCL researchers. New analysis of the fossil record shows that placental mammals, the group that today includes nearly 5000 species including humans, became more varied in anatomy during the Paleocene epoch - the 10 million years immediately following the event." https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2015/dec/mammal-diversity-exploded-immediately-after-dinosaur-extinction