> Big crunch idea on universe exploded
>
> WASHINGTON
>
> Research by US astronomers has debunked the "collapsing universe"
> theory in favour of the belief that the universe will continue
> expanding forever
>
> THE "big bang" will not be followed by the "big crunch". That's the
> conclusion of five teams of astronomers who used different
> techniques to study the future of the universe.
>
<snip>
Incidentally, this was the top story on CNN a couple of days ago.
John Rylander replied:
> Just as background, probably the preferred way to avoid the issue of
design
> now is adopt the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, in
which
> (as I understand it, though there are probably variations) every
quantum
> possibility is actualized in individual spatio-temporally disconnected
> universes. So every femtosecond, an unimaginably large quantity of
> universes is coming into being, said quantity increasing exponentially
with
> each passing femtosecond.
>
> This lets theoreticians avoid, e.g., the quantum measurement problem,
and
> some other aspects of quantum weirdness.
>
> Of course, it does pay a rather enormous price for this. Most
physicists
> find this to be truly egregious, a simple theory with an
extraordinarily
> bloated ontology (talk about needlessly multiplying hypothetical
entities!),
> but it's one way to avoid design, in theory at least.
Remember, the design answer is automatically excluded from
consideration. Consequently, only naturalistic answers to ultimate
origin questions nead apply. As the situation becomes more desperate
for the materialist, more and more bizarre proposals will be trotted
out. Materialists will never concede the need for a designer even if
all the evidence comes out for it. If we ever do reach that point, the
cosmologists will drop the origin of the univese question the same way
evolutionary biologists tend to ignore the question of the first origin
of life. Then we will all go on our merry way pretending that although
none of the theories ultimately work, we know we got here naturally.
Or, maybe they will simply declare that an infinite number of universes
probably exist and leave it at that. This will solve their problem and
Darwin's at the same time.
Perhaps the answer is to split origin issues off from the basic
sciences. Maybe they should fall entirely into the domain of
philosophy. One thing is certain, however, the way evolution is taught
in schools ought to change. I don't mean that they should start
teaching creation paradigms beside the natural one. I mean they should
quit teaching children the certainty of naturalistic materialism as the
one and only obvious explanation that satisfies all the evidence. They
should teach the difference between the Special and General Theories of
Evolution and explain that the General Theory falls beyond the domain of
pure science.
I live in the great American state of Alabama where there is an ongoing
effort to introduce intellectual honesty concerning evolution and the
origin of life into classroom curriculum. Don't believe the media which
has been lying about the intentions of the government here in
Montgomery. They are not trying to introduce Creationism as an
alternate scientific theory; they are simply trying to correct the
errors of the existing science programs.
Public school science textbooks, however, are the sacred ground of the
materialist and cannot be changed no matter what evidence stacks up. I
have found that as the evidence mounts, the depth of information
provided in textbooks supporting evolutionary claims diminishes.
Eventually we will get to the point--if we are not already there--where
they will simply teach that everything came about naturally without
offering the necessary evidence to support the claim.
The first multiple universes theory was Stephen Hawking's proposal that
an infinite number of possibilities were tested before 1x10^-42 seconds
(0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds) after the Big
Bang and finally resulted in the one that contained life. This is no
better than before because according to this theory, only one actual
universe formed. This means that only one roll of the dice rally hit
the table--so to speak--and actually resulted in a bonifide chance for
life. No matter how long of a hesitation occurred before Planck Time,
only one universe formed and only one opportunity for Darwin to work his
magic. The other theory--the one described by John above--is even more
audacious. In it, we actually have an infinite number of universes
forming--more all the time--and we cannot even be sure where in the
sequence ours popped up. I think we should just declare the puzzle
solved and go home ;-).
Russ
Russell T. Cannon
rcannon@usa.net