Whodathunk? A Religious Claim, Supported By Science!
Posted in Cosmology, JT Eberhard, Science on | 2 minutes | 3 Comments →
From Yahoo News: Subatomic Calculations Indicate Finite Lifespan for Universe. This ties in perfectly with yesterday’s criticism of JT Eberhard’s “Redefining Truth” schtick.
From the article:
“If you use all the physics that we know now and you do what you think is a straightforward calculation, it’s bad news… A little bubble of what you might think of as an ‘alternative’ universe will appear somewhere and then it will expand out and destroy us,” Lykken said, adding that the event will unfold at the speed of light.
IOW, the universe is doomed. IOW, science seems to support, ahem, a religious claim… more specifically, a Christian claim: that this universe will not last forever, that it will be destroyed in a catastrophic event involving heat and light, and that it will be replaced by another. And yet, JT is out there pretending that science never confirms any religious claims! Sad, isn’t it? Again, especially considering that JT so actively targets the youth.
Think for yourselves, people! Question things! Please don’t make the potentially mortal mistake of conflating true critical thinking with atheism. If you listen to propagandistic claims from people like JT Eberhard—or Fred Phelps or anybody else—and you swallow them without due examination, you have nobody to blame but yourself.
Fabio García
says...You missed the point entirely. It’s not that science can’t or won’t confirm religious claims. It’s that religious explanations for events are always superseded by scientific explanations. Indeed, these news seem to be an example of this (a scientific explanation for the ultimate fate of the universe).
In any case, I’m not sure whether JT has ever asserted “that science never confirms any religious claims”. Instead it seems to me that religious claims, right or wrong, are nothing but guesses. The only way to tell is to do the science.
cl
says...Fabio,
I was definitely a little imprecise (forgive me for posting at Twitter speed), but I didn’t miss the point. You say,
To me, that’s what this news challenges. The religious explanation for the fate of the universe is NOT being superceded by a scientific one. Rather, science seems to affirm the religious explanation. They’re in general agreement. That’s not supercession.
IOW, JT is guilty of false dichotomies, and it bothers me that their is really no nuance in his thinking. Heck, we’ve had a deeper, more philosophical discussion of the matter in 3 blog comments than he gave it all!
Fabio García
says...Are you saying that one religious explanation for the end of the universe is that it will be consumed by a spontaneously arisen alternate universe at the speed of light?