Where did the Universe come from?
Part 1: Einstein’s Big Blunder
100 years ago, Albert Einstein published three papers that rocked the world. These papers proved the existence of the atom, introduced the theory of relativity, and described quantum mechanics.
Pretty good debut for a 26 year old scientist, huh?
His equations for relativity indicated that the universe was expanding. This bothered him, because if it was expanding, it must have had a beginning and a beginner.
Since neither of these appealed to him, Einstein introduced a ‘fudge factor’ that ensured a ‘steady state’ universe, one that had no beginning or end.
But in 1929, Edwin Hubble showed that the furthest galaxies were fleeing away from each other, just as the Big Bang model predicted. So in 1931, Einstein embraced what would later be known as the Big Bang theory, saying, “This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened.” He referred to the ‘fudge factor’ to achieve a steady-state universe as the biggest blunder of his career.
As I’ll explain during the next couple of days, Einstein’s theories have been thoroughly proved and verified by experiments and measurements. But there’s an even more important implication of Einstein’s discovery. Not only does the universe have a beginning, but time itself, our own dimension of cause and effect, began with the Big Bang.
That’s right — time itself does not exist before then. The very line of time begins with that creation event. Matter, energy, time and space were created in an instant by an intelligence outside of space and time.
About this intelligence, Albert Einstein wrote in his book “The World As I See It” that the harmony of natural law “Reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”*
He went on to write, “Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe–a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.”*
Pretty significant statement, wouldn’t you say?
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment: “Bird Droppings on my Telescope.”
Respectfully Submitted,
Perry Marshall
*Einstein quotes are from “Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology” by Max Jammer
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what is the relationship between science and religiion?
can science prove the existence of god?
Q: Have you actually PROVEN that DNA is designed?
A: No, because science cannot formally prove anything. However I have shown 100% scientific INFERENCE to design.
Most scientific laws (gravity, thermodynamics, conservation of matter and energy, relativity) cannot be proven, they are only inferred through the consistency of observations.
There is no known exception to the laws of gravity, so we infer a law of gravitation.
Heat flows from hot objects to cool objects 100% of the time, so we infer the laws of thermodynamics.
In science, if an observation is supported by 100% inference, it is eventually considered to be a law.
I submit to readers of this website that information systems are designed by conscious minds 100% of the time, no exceptions. Thus we can propose a law of information, that coded information is always directly or indirectly caused by a conscious agent.
This observation is just as reliable as the laws of thermodynamics and gravity. There are no known exceptions.
So to the extent that science can prove anything – which is 100% inference – we can conclude that DNA is designed. Therefore God exists.
See Is the big bang the beginning of time?
http://evo2.org/faq/#time
and
Why I embrace Christianity as opposed to other views:
http://evo2.org/faq/#christian
where did the big bang happen? was everything before big bang was just contracted to a single point?
Einstein’s Spacetime theorems combine space and time into a single continuum. The expansion of space corresponds to the forward movement of time. At the moment of the Big Bang, the universe occupies an infinitely small space. Extrapolation of the expansion of the universe backwards in time using general relativity yields an infinite density and temperature at a finite time in the past.
As we move from the present to the moment of the Big Bang, general relativity breaks down prior to t=10^-43 seconds (“Planck time.”). Between t=0 and Planck time we are unable to investigate the exact progress of the Big Bang.
Prior to t=0 there is no such thing as time. Time itself begins literally at the point of the Big Bang.
There may be other dimensions of time and other universes but we have no access to them or knowledge of them.
In 1931, astronomer Georges Lemaître suggested that the evident expansion in forward time required that the universe contracted backwards in time, and would continue to do so until it could contract no further, bringing all the mass of the universe into a single point, a “primeval atom”, at a point in time before which time and space did not exist. As such, at this point, the fabric of time and space had not yet come into existence.
It is not logical to conclude that matter and energy existed before that since there is no “before.”
This has an interesting correspondence to Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning [of time] God created [out of nothing] the heavens and the earth [everything].”
do you believe in one supreme god?it is he who is the spirit you were talking about???????????only he has power over evrything????
http://evo2.org/audio/newevidence.htm
Dear Parry
Might you clarify to me the the meaning of “come from” in “Where Did The Universe Come From”,
thanks
We deduce from your research that there must be a creator of some kind to “design” all things because design requires intelligence, it must follow that the designer (God) is a tangible entity, able to perform tasks (like designing DNA) which being a physical thing could not have been implemented by something or someone that is not physical. Now, as Einstein has put in his work, there was nothing before the Big Bang (no time, matter, energy, etc), so it must again follow that if God made designed these codes, WHO DESIGNED GOD????
Who made God? http://evo2.org/infotheoryqa.htm
Here’s how a famous XBox hacker views DNA (Slashdot reported on his musings about the H1N1 virus) :
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=353
For those not familiar with molecular biology, DNA is information-equivalent to RNA on a 1 to 1 mapping; DNA is like a program stored on disk, and RNA is like a program loaded into RAM. Upon loading DNA, a transcription occurs where “T” bases are replaced with “U” bases. Remember, each base pair specifies one of four possible symbols (A [T/U] G C), so a single base pair corresponds to 2 bits of information.
Proteins are the output of running an RNA program. Proteins are synthesized according to the instructions in RNA on a 3 to 1 mapping. You can think of proteins a bit like pixels in a frame buffer. A complete protein is like an image on the screen; each amino acid on a protein is like a pixel; each pixel has a depth of 6 bits (3 to 1 mapping of a medium that stores 2 bits per base pair); and each pixel has to go through a color palette (the codon translation table) to transform the raw data into a final rendered color. Unlike a computer frame buffer, different biological proteins vary in amino acid count (pixel count).
To ground this in a specific example, six bits stored as “ATG” on your hard drive (DNA) is loaded into RAM (RNA) as “AUG” (remember the T->U transcription). When the RNA program in RAM is executed, “AUG” is translated to a pixel (amino acid) of color “M”, or methionine (which is incidentally the biological “start” codon, the first instruction in every valid RNA program). As a short-hand, since DNA and RNA are 1:1 equivalent, bioinformaticists represent gene sequences in DNA format, even if the biological mechanism is in RNA format (as is the case for Influenza–more on the significance of that later!).
Thanks for bringing some intelligent input to this discussion!
Dear Perry
I have been a designer of algorithms for fifteen years now. I’m familiar with Genetic/Evolutionary Algorithms and how they have been exploited by some aggressive atheists as some sort of mathematical proof for their theories. I heard your response to a question about genetic algorithm that how it actually proves there was a designer involved. I am wondering, if we can extend your argument and formalize it (possibly mathematically).. For instance, we can ask these basic questions:
1. if evolution is an algorithm, did it ‘evolve’ with life itself or it existed prior to it?
2. If the evolution-algorithm evolve, what was it’s own ‘fitness criteria’ like? and has the evolution-algorithm kept ‘evolving’ or stopped its search after reaching its goal/optimal solution.
3. If we argue that the evolution-algorithm didn’t really evolve, but existed prior to life in nature itself, where’s the evidence?
4. In the end, we are faced with a bit of recursion: If an algorithm X ‘evolves’, and evolution itself is an algorithm, it means there’s gotta be an algorithm Y that is the ‘parent’ algorithm of X..and so on..
do you see where I am going with this? hopefully I’m not making redundant arguments, you be the judge..
Jafry,
I like where you are going with this and you might find my articles starting at http://evo2.org/testable-hypothesis-id-1/ quite interesting.
Perry
dear sir,
can you please explain the ‘fudge factor’ more clearly.
We perceive time flowing as it does because of the limitations of our perceptual apparatus. We can envision “yesterday”, “five minutes ago”, “last year” etc., and to go back to the big bang, we simply multiply our mental “way back machine” however many trillions of years the universe seems to be, then imagine the “creation moment”, and naturally, everyone asks the natural question: What was going on the moment before that moment?
Well, if Einstein was right, and time was” invented “at that moment, the question makes no sense. Imagine you are a child who’d never seen a fire, and you suddenly come across a pot of water on a stove, slowly boiling away. Now, as that child, turn back the clock of your mind, watching all the steam recondense into hot water. At one point in your imagination, all the steam will have re-condensed. Nothing but water. “Where’s the steam?” you might ask. Where was the steam before the Big Boil?
Well, it wasn’t steam yet, it was still water. it’s not hard for me to believe that the fundamental building blocks of our universe might be constructed in other ways. Many things in our lives can exist in multiple possible states of relative equilibrium. No structure is permanent, though some seems so, because of our prejudices. The earth can live as a verdant, human-friendly sphere. It can also exist as an ice ball or a fiery glob of molten minerals. No doubt, it has been these things and will be again. Perhaps there was indeed something quite real and mammoth before the Big Bang. it merely phase changed into a new species of universe. Perhaps our universe is pingponging between multiple steady states, and we are in the 108th version. Perhaps once it has gone through its 108 versions, that’s it–it’ll just keep cycling through those steady states.
And to go back to this idea that DNA, being a language–this is only a metaphor. Language is a symbol system devised by sentient creatures to convey ideas. To take the “DNA as language” metaphor literally would indeed presuppose a “speaker”. But this argument is tautological. If I said that DNA is like a computer program, you could ask, Who is the programmer? If I said DNA is like electromagnetism, you could ask, where is the magnet?
But let’s look at the metaphor itself: What is the word-like “meaning” of a given string of genes? Is it the phenotypical expression of that string, like, say, a cat? This is not how language works. A word’s meaning must be interpreted by a listener. In this metaphor, the “listener” is the entire environment that is necessary to go from that gene to an eventual actual cat. In other words: a healthy cat’s vagina, with an available ovum, continued life support for said cat through gestation. Given that “listener”, God’s “word” for “cat” can then be expressed as an actual feline. Obviously, this is a rather clumsy metaphor. And anyway, words don’t result in actual objects–they are forever abstract, having reality only in our minds. DNA is chemicals, not words. Nobody really mistakes the map for the territory–unless they’re insane.
But the central question of “information” is a tricky one. What constitutes “information”.? Take an avalanche of rocks. As they fall, they will keep moving until they reach a resting place, based on the laws of physics, their own shape, and the shape of the ground they fall upon. There is lots of movement here, lots of order, but no sentience, even though the eventual placement of rocks on ground will bear a perfectly logical pattern. This kind of “dumb” self ordering, we can probably all agree, is what happens on the subatomic and chemical level as well. Still, no sentience required–just the laws of physics and a variety of shapes.
Now, it’s not hard to envision a hydrogen molecule. They’re all the same, right? And they follow a certain pattern. Do we need a creator to permit this order? Or can we allow it may have revealed itself, unguided, over the gigantic stretches of time since the Big Bang? If we need no creator for this, I don’t think we ever need one. What makes life special to us is the fact that we have feedback mechanisms that allow us to take stock of our environments to some degree, and respond in kind. But what was the first instance of this? Before clear-cut life, I mean? I mean, in a way, merely following the laws of physics gets us pretty close to a life-like responsiveness. The mere pile up of weight in our avalanche eventually causes the rock pile to compress, perhaps starting a new sub-avalanche. Seen in this way, the additional rocks are like new information, which eventually has “meaning” for the rock pile, which responds with a new rock slide. Isn’t DNA merely a more complicated version of these avalanches?
Basic definitions of information theory: http://evo2.org/information-theory-made-simple/
did the temperature existed at the time of bigbang? if it existed then similar to death of stars the material got concentrated which resulted into extreme pressure and temperature which resulted big bang and related items? Can this theory be possible?
All evidence if weighed in perspective, lead to one thing, that there had been a beginning of the universe and that there’s a creator who designed it carefully. My question is why do scientists find it as their weakness to admit of this fact. Science is rather after proving the non-existence of a creator. Why none of the scientists ever went in the direction of proving that there’s a creator which science seem to suggest . Do they fear of being labeled as non progressive?
respectfully ahmed
can you please explain briefly about ALBERT Einstien’s ‘fudge factor’?
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/01/science/big-bang-s-defenders-weigh-fudge-factor-blunder-einstein-s-fix-for-new-crisis.html
Hello Perry, I found your part-1 video extremely interesting the theory about DNA and mutation not being a result of random errors was truly an eye opener… I had one question, perhaps it’s silly but here it is.
You say that all things such as Music, Chinese, Computer Programs, DNA have code by design and don’t occur naturally in nature… How about a song from a Song Bird does that not qualify as having a specific code and as a naturally occurring incident in nature. ?
Manfred,
A bird song to some degree is a derivative of DNA, so it doesn’t help at all in in determining the origin of DNA.
One might say that then neither does consciousness, but notice the extremely limited creativity that birds exhibit with their calls, vs. the vast creativity we see with conscious willful humans creating all manner of computers, communication systems, etc. Point is: All communication systems and languages created from scratch are willfully designed.
Perry
I’m not a scientist, no degrees, and have just been exposed to Marshall & Ross. I mean just yesterday. I’ve read a lot in the mean time and previously read the Bible cover to cover and am struggling to read it again, and have read Wiki version of several religions (Islam, Scientology, Jehovah Witness) to name a few of the more prominent.
A fundamental problem right off is how do you ever expect to convince or obtain a consensus with the vast majority of people on this earth who don’t understand what 2×2 is? (Exaggerating the situation to illustrate my point) include me in. So I naturally have a tendency to revert to a feeling, let’s call it a gut feeling(GF) for the sake of this discussion, and my GF tells me that there is something to this, (DNA is a code similar to codes used in computer programs) which I’m obligated to investigate further. Needless to say I have already found plenty of counter arguments, dozens of other theories, etc. The different arguments are like the so called chemical soup that life supposedly evolved from. My other question is at which point does scientific fact turn into religion? And how is that any difference than secular religions of the past and present?
Guruplanet,
I think you will find if you continue to look at this that the arguments about the chemical soup are PURE SPECULATION. There are no successful origin of life experiments.
Materialism is secular religion not scientific fact, just as you have intuited.
I think you will also find if you re-listen to Dr. Ross etc. that the Biblical description of the universe which was written 3000 years ago has turned out to be correct to a degree that could not even be fully recognized prior to the last 20 years.
And I again submit to you my thesis that information systems are ALWAYS designed, no exceptions. So the “leap of faith” that life is designed is the SMALLEST leap that a person can make with respect to this question. Faith in God is a small step. Any other conclusion requires a HUGE leap. DNA by accident, somehow from the soup??? In reality – that is a leap across a vast chasm. One can attempt to disguise the apparent size of that leap but it’s a monstrous leap of FAITH nonetheless.
Perry
does the world ends in 2012. . .
I highly doubt it.
i really dont understand why there is at all a debate about religion vs science. What i think is that both are very much needed for everyone of us. Let me tell you all something, in “hindi” language relegion is called “dharma” & dharma means nothing but “swabhava” i.e. the basic nature of every living being, & which I think has nothing to do with the science(more or less), in fact, I think, the religion is even pushing us to follow are basic nature of ours that is to progress.
What i feel about this big issue of faith vs reality is that the faith or the religion are the things that we as individuals do not choose but inherit from our parents since they teach us from the very first day the whole concept of GOD & that is why in our own ways from the very beginning of our lives we formalize a notion about GOD but the science comes later on when we hit schools & each one of us take our own time to formulate a notion about science thus giving religion an edge of lets say 4-5 years over science & that has been happening for years to everyone of us & that is why when Galileo pictured the reality everyone was stunned, it was like telling an individual that the guy he/she has been living with for years is not his/her dad but someone else is. Now you people imagine how arduous it is to swallow that kind of a fact for anyone & i think this is what happening with us in this case too. Though some minds have been able to free themselves from the idea of GOD easily & went on to find the truth because they got trained or they managed to look beyond the shell, but a big chunk is still doodling around with the idea of GOD & they find it comforting because of few wrong interpretations which is for sure is inappropriate but then it is quite individualistic.
I think we have to be little mature about this whole issue because faith is like a friend which gives you comfort in distress & science is like a method or a series of methods which helps in mending your ways & get going.
Most of the people know that there are 3 space dimensions and one time dimension.
But I want to know that if there are more than these 4 dimensions.
If they exist, in which form they effect our life and universe itself ?
If these extra dimensions really exist before before big bang?
String theory posits 11 dimensions.
I am curious to know about “Did Einstein perform any experiment to prove his theory”
There is no reason to even attempt to comment here as the management is perfectly intolerant to any deviation from its preconceived position., It is one of the worst weblogs I have ever encountered.
John,
You make it sound as though digital information is somehow subjective or that there is something debatable about the definitions of communication theory. It is just as black and white as the 1’s and 0’s that it describes. (This is in stark contrast to most of the things people argue about in the origins / evolution debate, which are anecdotal, subjective and not testable.) The atheist position has thus far not demonstrated any ability to account for the nature or origin of information.
If you expect me to accept your statements you will be required to address specific technical issues in my presentation.
Perry S. Marshall
Perry Marshall
I am a scientist. I do not come to blogs to debate. I come to enlighten. Furthermore, you have made no points that require a response from me. We have both questioned the Darwinian model. I have offered an alternative hypothesis to the Darwinian hoax. If others choose to ignore it there is nothing that I can or will do about it. Debate with marc, whoever that is.
“Everything is determined…by forces over which we have no control.”
Albert Einstein
John, I like your posts and your articles, and during a less busy week would like to investigate your findings further.
Perry
Perry Marshal
I have little more to offer here. My position is well known and has been for a long time. I have given up trying to persuade others of my convictions as it is a waste of time. Furthermore, it typically evokes insult, personal attack and denigration of myself and my sources. I have no respect for anonymous authors which renders me a difficult participant on the typical internet forum. I feel that a person who will not sign his messages should not be allowed to speak on internet forums anymore than he is allowed to publish in the more traditional venues. Imagine a scientific literature with anonymous authors! Anonymity all too often has proven to be license for vitriol and therapy for unfulfilled malcontents. I discourage it on my weblog with favorable results.
I will respond to any query presented in civil fashion, here or anywhere else, presented by someone who will disclose his identity. Others will be wasting their time unless they enjoy being berated for their intellectual cowardice.
jadavison.wordpress.com
John,
I certainly know what you mean. BTW “Marc” is Marc Draco and if you click on his name it links to his site. His site features a book about how Jesus never existed, so that gives you a bit of an idea of his level of intellectual rigor.
Guys like that show up here argue for awhile, and I persistently ask them questions they don’t have any answers for. They avoid the questions as long as they can and sooner or later they retreat to their anonymous world of rage and vitriol. Certainly Marc may come back and he is welcome to. But I won’t let him off the hook re: my question – please prove that “Jumbled words are nonsense, jumbled DNA is not.”
The Darwinists are initially intimidating with their bluster but once you’ve called their bluff, it’s all over. In time you realize it’s just another form of brittle fundamentalism. PZ Myers refuses to engage me and the smartest guys at Infidels all vanished from that debate about 3 years ago and since then refuse to say a word. They sound confident but the truth is, they’re friggin’ scared.
When Marc says “Darwinism is the most proven theory in the history of science” it’s because Darwinism is the most endangered theory in the history of science. Chanting atheistic jingoisms is no substitute for scientific evidence which you so well know is absent.
There’s a group here in Chicago called “The Chicago Northshore Darwin’s Bulldogs” and I’ve always joked that Darwin’s the only scientist who needs bulldogs. The rest of ’em stand just fine on their own.
Perry Marshall
I am one of the proud charter inmates of P.Z. Myers’ Dungeon, what he calls his “kill file.” In his description of me there he accuses me of “wanking” which I discovered is a synonym for masturbation. This from a man who introduces Pharyngula with “random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal.”
I thought all ejaculations were biological, but random too? What a mess!
It is hard to believe isn’t it?
I love it so!
As for the existence of Jesus, let me quote Einstein, one of my most valued intellectual sources –
“No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.”
Got that lower case marc? Write that down!
Darwnism is most certainly not a theory. Theories are verified hypotheses and the Darwinian fairy tale doesn’t qualify. It isn’t even a bone fide hypothesis because hypotheses make testable predictions. Lamarckism was a testable hypothesis and it has failed to be verified which is why it is now defunct. Darwin was a Lamarckian through and through and even dreamed up the purely Lamarckian “Pangenesis theory” which August Weismann promptly disposed of by cutting the tails off new born rats.
Someone once said that Darwin was more Lamarckian than Lamarck and Weismann was more Darwinian than Darwin. Of course they were all dead wrong.
Yes John, I have and right beneath it I have noted the venerable man – who was also prone to err:
“The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.” Albert Einstein from a letter to Eric Gutkind.
I’m not intimidated by anything here and have accepted that I may have erred in my impatience. Me being wrong, however, does not automatically made Perry correct. In fact, his allusion to the weight of a hard disc drive is comparing apples to oranges.
He says (as I recall) the information has no weight – but that meaningless. In fact the “information” is present at all times – writing to the hard drive merely changes the arrangement from a jumbled mess to organised whole. The first law of thermodynamics remains in effect and that information must degrade over time.
I am also, distrustful of a moderation system where EVERY comment is pre-moderated. Plus while studying some (not all) of Perry’s responses on the Infidel’s forum and found them not dissimilar to the ones I received here as evasive particularly when faced with a direct response alluding to his use of logical fallacy such as “begging the question”.
I’ll happily register for your forum John but I fear you”ll have to elucidate somewhat on your primary paper as it is outside of my sphere of learning.
The real question this raises is this: some of us are clearly not just mistaken, but actually deluded – but which of us?
Marc, whoever that is.
Since you are anonymous (without a name), as far as I am concerned you do not exist. Since my writings are beyond your compehension, why, oh why, are you making a fool of yourself by challenging me? Have you no pride? Of course you haven’t. If you had any we would all know who you are.
jadavison.wordpress.com
the jump from proving that God exists…. to God is the God of Judeo-Christian Bible seem to be bridged only by the mention that only the God of the Judeo-Christian Bible is claiming that he existed outside of time. What if some other bible starts claiming the same?
The apparent limitation of the Judaeo-Christian Bible on knowledge about the universe… stuff like galaxies, black holes….is self evident that it is pertaining to a very limited God. If God or the holy spirit inspired the writers of the bible, then it seems that the bible is depicting a holy spirit that has very limited knowledge or is is witholding a lot of knowledge from humans.
In the old testament God was a very angry God… in the new, a very loving one…. he changed … change is either from bad to worse or worse to bad…. or good to better… did God just admit that in the old testament he was a fearful God and that he needed to change his approach…. to a loving God? A change of tactics means an acknowledgement of a need to correct to something that could have a better result…. was he then wrong the first time?
Vic,
Regarding why I connect the God of the Bible to modern science, scroll to the bottom of http://evo2.org/faq. As to the difference between God as depicted in the Old Testament vs. New this is a complex theological subject. If you are really interested in this, post your question at http://www.coffeehousetheology.com and in time I will answer it.
Perry