Catholic Church admits Bible is BS

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

Did you see the bit I posted about my Father who is a physicist who said we know the laws of physics on this planet but we know didly know about the rest of the universe. Wink at me as much as you want makes no difference

The laws of physics work on the rest of the observable universe. That's how we can land equipment on Mars, measure the light of distant stars and detect planets by the gravitational pull on that light.

[Jaymoss]

Originally Posted by Damien

The laws of physics work on the rest of the observable universe. That's how we can land equipment on Mars, measure the light of distant stars and detect planets by the gravitational pull on that light.

Mars is like just up the road and everything else is thoery.

Got the whole universal expansion thing wrong didn't they ? invented Dark Matter and Dark Energy to make it fit

This is like reading a NTHellworld religion thread from about 2005. Except back then it was me posting the anti-science stuff.

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Chris

This is like reading a NTHellworld religion thread from about 2005. Except back then it was me posting the anti-science stuff.

Fiziks has changed since then

[Russ]

Originally Posted by Chris

This is like reading a NTHellworld religion thread from about 2005. Except back then it was me posting the anti-science stuff.

I miss Graham.

You’re wrong.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by papa smurf

Fiziks has changed since then

I won't hear a word against the clairvoyants

Originally Posted by Russ

I miss Graham.

You’re wrong.

What do you miss most, the leather fetish?

[Russ]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

What do you miss most, the leather fetish?

Ahem, the affordable leather actually.

And you’re wrong.

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

Mars is like just up the road and everything else is thoery.

Got the whole universal expansion thing wrong didn't they ? invented Dark Matter and Dark Energy to make it fit

There isn't any reason physics would work differently on Earth and Mars than it does in the next galaxy over. We can measure light from those galaxies so we know they're there and we've done enough tests on light to be confident in how it works.

Dark Matter wasn't 'invented'. It was hypothesised it had to be there because we can observe its effects on what's around it. Scientists do not know what it is, only that's it's there.

That science cannot explain everything isn't a flaw.

I miss Graham. I don’t miss him hosting a Friday afternoon quiz on the same server as his online leather bondage shop.

But no, what’s changed for me is that I’m looking at my faith down the other end of the telescope. I’m meant to be a disciple of Jesus, who happens to be a member of a discussion forum, not somebody who lives for a good argument with strangers on the internet and who also happens to be a Christian.

Jesus didn’t spend his time debating cosmology. He taught his disciples to do to others what they would have done to themselves, to honour their promises, to care for the weak, to stand up against oppression and to do all of the above from a posture of mercy and humility. He offered the strength of God himself to those who would live this way and the forgiveness of God to all those whose lives have fallen short of his holiness. His disciples came fairly quickly to understand that Jesus is only able to call people to live this way and to offer forgiveness to those who mess up because he is himself God incarnate. Thus following Jesus isn’t like following the Buddha, some other guru or a secular life-coach, because he’s not just another man, or even a rare and special man. it’s a life-changing faith in which one is in spiritual relationship with, and worship of, the one we follow.

The age of the universe and the laws of physics are fun and interesting topics but they don’t drive or motivate my faith. I’m sorry there was ever a time I allowed even the appearance that that was the case. Following Jesus isn’t about arguing over gravity or dark matter. It’s about citizenship in his divine kingdom and living in a way that shows personal and community transformation, forgiveness and a fresh start is possible.

[Jaymoss]

Originally Posted by Damien

There isn't any reason physics would work differently on Earth and Mars than it does in the next galaxy over. We can measure light from those galaxies so we know they're there and we've done enough tests on light to be confident in how it works.

Dark Matter wasn't 'invented'. It was hypothesised it had to be there because we can observe its effects on what's around it. Scientists do not know what it is, only that's it's there.

That science cannot explain everything isn't a flaw.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...%20after%20all.

https://www.newscientist.com/article...-the-universe/

https://www.thefirstnews.com/article...ts-finds-12416

As I say my Father is a physicist I think I will go with what he says over a guy on a forum

They do not know it is there. They need it to be to make other theories work

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...%20after%20all.

https://www.newscientist.com/article...-the-universe/

https://www.thefirstnews.com/article...ts-finds-12416

As I say my Father is a physicist I think I will go with what he says over a guy on a forum

They do not know it is there. They need it to be to make other theories work

In the same way you need god to be there

[Jaymoss]

Originally Posted by papa smurf

In the same way you need god to be there

Not denying that I am just pointing out whichever way you go it is still all faith

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

Not denying that I am just pointing out whichever way you go it is still all faith

I’m not sure I like your definition of faith though.

You prefer to characterise it as uncertainty, unreliability and plain old human invention. Scientists don’t arrive at the laws of physics in such a cavalier way and I certainly didn’t arrive at my faith in God like that.

My faith in God began with a decision to trust that what is reported of Jesus in the Bible is true. I became his disciple and day by day I find his teaching to be trustworthy. Through this process faith grows and sustains my belief in those aspects of his teaching I cannot yet see with my own eyes. He has always been faithful to me, even when I have acted faithlessly towards him. So I receive forgiveness and renewed trust and expanded faith. And so the discipleship journey continues.

There is a certain, limited sense in which scientists are doing something similar (except without the forgiveness and relationship!), in that they have sound experimental reasons to trust the laws of physics they work with as they explore the universe. But as I said, this process is not as you have characterised it, and if it was so chaotic and borderline deceptive, then attempting to equate scientific enquiry with the growth of Christian faith would be a very poor line of argument indeed.

[Jaymoss]

Originally Posted by Chris

Big Snip.

I know you are prejudiced towards me because I am a Jehovah's Witness and that is fine we expect that

It is not my definition of faith it is the definition of faith

"complete trust or confidence in someone or something."

I have faith there is a God and his name is Jehovah and he sent his first angel to Earth to pay a ransom sacrifice for Adams sin

Those who follow Science have faith that the things they cannot possibly know but trust that there was a big bang and everything has evolved

All just faith

Incidentally scientists think everything we believe is invention but hey lets just single out the Jehovahs

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...%20after%20all.

https://www.newscientist.com/article...-the-universe/

https://www.thefirstnews.com/article...ts-finds-12416

As I say my Father is a physicist I think I will go with what he says over a guy on a forum

They do not know it is there. They need it to be to make other theories work

With scientific papers (especially reports on early pre-peer reviewed papers), it’s always best check the updated source material - for instance, the pre-release paper quoted in the first two articles never went to publication because they couldn’t duplicate the results (the basis of Science being that things are observable, measurable, and repeatable).

https://arxiv.org/abs/1008.3907# (updated paper a year after the initial paper).

We previously reported Keck telescope observations suggesting a smaller value of the fine structure constant, alpha, at high redshift. New Very Large Telescope (VLT) data, probing a different direction in the universe, shows an inverse evolution; alpha increases at high redshift. Although the pattern could be due to as yet undetected systematic effects, with the systematics as presently understood the combined dataset fits a spatial dipole, significant at the 4.2-sigma level, in the direction right ascension 17.5 +/- 0.9 hours, declination -58 +/- 9 degrees. The independent VLT and Keck samples give consistent dipole directions and amplitudes, as do high and low redshift samples. A search for systematics, using observations duplicated at both telescopes, reveals none so far which emulate this result.

The third link was referring to this paper from last year

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aay9672

The scientist quoted said "may have been smaller", not "were smaller’

“We found that a certain physical constant – so-called fine-structure constant (alpha) – may have been smaller in that period than it is now,”

The joy of Science is that if it finds something that doesn’t fit with previous findings, it’s announced, investigated, and peer-reviewed - the first two examples you provided couldn’t be validated, and the third has found a single source anomaly which is being investigated further; the third paper doesn’t say "the laws of physics can vary", it states "we find a spatial variation is preferred over a no-variation model at the 3.9σ level.."

Here’s the layman’s version of that third paper.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020...stant-in-time/

Frustratingly constant constants

The result? The fine structure constant has not changed in time. The researchers then combined their results with all the previous studies. The resulting 320 measurements, spanning from a billion years in the past to around 12 billion years in the past—a good chunk of the life of the Universe—showed that the fine structure constant is constant.

They then looked at how their results fit with more recent findings: that the fine structure constant varies with direction. Earlier results have shown that the fine structure is slightly different along a specific axis of the Universe, called a dipole. Now, the latest result is from a single light source along a specific direction, so it's not definitive on its own. Yet the result fits with the previous data. (I guess, given the paucity of data, it is better to say that it doesn’t contradict the previous measurements.)

Here, I think we should be cautious. The paper that found spatial variation is from the same research group (this doesn’t make it bad). As far as I can tell, there have been a few followup studies, but these studies also appear to involve overlapping authors. In principle, this is OK, but the danger is that any inadvertent analysis bias will be replicated rather than eliminated.

I get the feeling that many of the scientists who are interested in this topic are pinning their hopes on new instrumentation. The echelle spectrograph for rocky exoplanets and stable spectroscopic observations (ESPRESSO) is an excellent tool to make these observations. However, it only came online in 2019, so we will have to be patient.

tl:dr - something that differed from previous findings has occurred, more investigations needed.

btw, you keep bringing up the fact that your father is a physicist - may I ask which branch of physics he specialises in, as Physics is an enormous field (for example, my God-son has a Degree and a Masters in Astrophysics, but I wouldn’t expect him to be an expert or to keep up to date with advances in Nuclear Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Fluid Mechanics, Geophysics, or any of the other complex areas of Physics).