RE: How Did Gentry Get Published in PSCF?

   
The question of energy in general relativity is still a problem. See http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/0403/0403107.pdf
 
Moorad

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From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of Mccarrick Alan D CRPH
Sent: Wed 12/8/2004 10:44 AM
To: 'asa@calvin.edu'
Cc: 'Dick Fischer'
Subject: RE: How Did Gentry Get Published in PSCF?

Dick Fischer wrote:
>I got only a few paragraphs into Gentry's article on "Collapse of Big Bang Cosmology" in this month's issue of "Perspectives" when it hit me, this guy is an idiot, and a >YEC to boot! What happened to peer review? Are Gish and Morris on the peer review panel for ASA? What gives? Who's next, Ken Ham?

Dick,
I had mixed feelings when I saw Gentry's article in the context of a debate in PSCF. I have not finished reading through his article nor the surrounding articles so I must reserve my specific questions, but I was curious about his major complaint that there is an overall violation of conservation of energy in the universe's expansion. That is a question I had never heard before and it deserves some thought. I wonder whether overall gravitational potential energy or something more subtle like vacuum energy is the solution. Perhaps the question is not valid due to some misunderstanding of the processes.
My more general reaction involves these points:
1. I regret the general inability of YECs and OECs, TEs to talk civilly. (We had a civil discussion last year at our Eastern PA ASA meeting at Eastern University.) I have felt this conflict personally. This leads to hardening views and loss of fellowship which leads nowhere. A first step in healing these divisions may be to take to first civil steps ourselves.
2. I regret the complete separation of YECs from the ASA somewhere in the 60's-70's. I've read a little of the history and there seems to have been the same lack of civility at that time on both sides. It may indeed be impossible for Christians with these strongly differing views to be members of one group. Certainly the ID world has chosen to try to court the YECs while excluding the TEs. It seems that they get along only by closing their eyes to real differences (like Behe's acceptance of the age of the world and "common descent")
3. I appreciate seeing some of the issues discussed (again and again perhaps) because newer members have not gone through them before. Of course we shouldn't go through totally reinventing the wheel every generation. Since I am a teacher, I am more accustomed to starting over again each year.
4. There seem to be certain patterns to YEC writing: "I have made this great discovery," "everyone else is blinded by their denial of the Bible," "my findings cannot be disproved," and "modern science will now collapse." I'm generalizing, but I've seen it before.
5. Leaders of most movements tend to become insulated from beneficial criticism and begin to see the world in black and white with simple answers (their own ones of course).

Alan McCarrick
Received on Wed Dec 8 16:49:04 2004