Re: "timeline" (Re: Kansas Closing arguments)

Moorad:
I agree with George and Michael. The analogy bewteen cosmology/biology
and forensic science/archaelogy is not valid, because for the latter we
know the nature of the designer/articifer (human in this case), and
hence we can estimate the capability of, and guess the likely motivation
of, that agent.
Don

Michael Roberts wrote:,

> Moorad
> How many times do we have to say that no given scenario is assumed. I
> don't know where you get your ideas from but they are simply utterly
> wrong and mistaken.
>
> Michael
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alexanian, Moorad"
> <alexanian@uncw.edu>
> To: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>; "Michael Roberts"
> <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>; "Keith Miller" <kbmill@ksu.edu>;
> <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 5:44 PM
> Subject: RE: "timeline" (Re: Kansas Closing arguments)
>
>
> George,
>
>
>
> I do not want to belabor the point. Nevertheless, forensic science is
> just as much and no less historical science than cosmology,
> evolutionary theory, etc. There is no difference whatsoever. One
> always supposes/assumes a given scenario and goes about to prove it or
> to discard it.
>
>
>
> Moorad
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: George Murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
> Sent: Fri 5/20/2005 11:55 AM
> To: Alexanian, Moorad; Michael Roberts; Keith Miller; asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: "timeline" (Re: Kansas Closing arguments)
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
> To: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>; "Michael Roberts"
> <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>; "Keith Miller" <kbmill@ksu.edu>;
> <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 5:07 PM
> Subject: RE: Kansas Closing arguments
>
>
>> How should we then speak of the Big Bang? As assumed? Extrapolated from
>> present data? Believed? Supposed? Don't we assume/propose/suppose
>> theories in physics and deduce logically from them?
>
>
> Of course we assume things. We (or at least I) assume, e.g., that
> general
> relativity is true until we run into phenomena that suggest that it
> may not
> be. But that's a very different thing from an "assumed timeline." As I
> pointed out earlier, the timeline in relativistic cosmologies has
> varied by
> an order of magnitude over the last 70 years. In fact in the 20s &
> 30s the
> age of the universe was thought by many to be on the order of
> _trillions_ of
> years on the basis of Jeans' work on stellar motions.
> Cosmologists have no "assumed timeline" in the sense of an /a priori/
> timetable into which observational data is forced.
>
> Give it up Moorad. It just isn't there.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Donald A. Nield
Associate Professor, Department of Engineering Science
University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019
Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
ph  +64 9 3737599 x87908 
fax +64 9 3737468
d.nield@auckland.ac.nz
http://www.esc.auckland.ac.nz/People/Staff/Nield/