Wednesday 10 March 2010

is everything we believe about the universe wrong?

I watched two BBC programmes yesterday. One, The Wonders of the Solar System, was a slick portrayal of the way 'we now understand the whole universe' with the presenter declaring that science is different to all religions because it does not require faith. It used exotic locations to describe the wonders of the big bang and how it was all provable by the mathematics.

The second was an ‘Horizon’ programme entitled “is everything we know about the universe wrong”? In the second programme a parade of university professors discussed dark matter, dark energy and dark flow with the recurring chorus ‘we don’t know’. They showed how the math does not quite work and how we have to invent ‘dark matter’ which is unobservable by anything made of ordinary matter. Apparently even ‘dark matter’ is not sufficient to explain the observations made by cosmologists so ‘dark energy’ was proposed. One professor described it as an unwanted, unexpected and unwelcome new kid on the block! But even ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ can’t make the numbers fit so we now have ‘dark flow’ as well. ‘dark matter’, ‘dark energy’ and ‘dark flow’ are, according to one cosmologist just ways of saying ‘we don’t know’. Apparently there is five times as much ‘dark matter’ as visible matter in the universe and dark matter can pass through visible matter without any impact of any kind. The cosmologists have now suggested that the ’nothing’ between all the visible bits of the universe is not ‘empty nothing’.

I was taken with the humility of these top flight academics. Further down the tree there are no doubts and everything is settled but up in the higher realms there are people who are saying ‘we don’t know’. There is an old saying from a Russian cosmologist who declared ‘cosmologists are often in error but never in doubt’. Apparently they are some who are now doubting.

I know there are dangers of making God the ‘God of the gaps’ but everytime they came to an impasse I found myself thinking ‘that sounds like God’. If you are in the UK and can access the BBC's iPlayer I strongly recommend you giving this programme an airing.

5 comments:

Fred said...

Scientists like Richard Dawkins have championed and popularized among the general public the notion that it is just not rational to believe in a creative intelligence behind the universe. Therefore many have pushed God to the realms of mythology. Little do they realize that a believe in the 'big bang' as the origin of everything is far less realistic. It is hard for some to accept the biblical concept that God has been forever and has no beginning and no end. Yet it is apparantly sound scientific thinking to say that everything came out of nothing! If you really think it through, then a universe without God must logically also have existed forever and have no beginning or end! Now, that is really not rational!

As you mentioned Ron, the university professors discussed dark matter, and dark flow with the recurring chorus 'we don't know'. And that's the crux of the 'matter' for they are really believing in things not seen, but sadly leaving God out of the equation. Hebrews 11:3 would serve as a reminder of the truth. But, what do you do when you observe that the universe simply doesn't behave in a way that can be explained by things that are seen. apparantly there just isn't enough matter around to provide the gravitational pull to keep it all together. So, if God is out of the question then you have to opt for something else. And amasingly that 'something' is given qualities that are almost godlike. The invisible forces that in the beginning caused the big bang to erupt and eventually forming the present universe. And the dark matter and energy to hold everything together and functioning.

A far cry from in the beginning was the word,(logos). What a relief that all things are upheld by the word of HIS power, (Hebrews 1:3). I am trully comforted that everything started and was formed through the most rational reasoning that has ever been and will be. Our future is safe with HIM who has planned and will work out our salvation to the minutest detail.

As you said, some of the academics at the top seem to be humble souls. I saw a program once about a scientist who for sixteen years had spend a lot of time hundreds of meters below ground in a mine. Apparantly the best place to register evidence of dark matter. he admittd though that he had never been able in all that time to detect any, despite the use of advanced technological equipment. It is the same story accross the board of similar investigations the world over. Nevertheless it was almost touching, but also inspiring, to see his determination, dedication and resilience in seeking a solution to the problem of the mising 90% of the universe. I think there must be scientists who might hopefully one day admit to themselves and the world " There must be a god."

As you said, there are some who are now doubting.

Ron Bailey said...

thanks Fred
you scientist in a hole was featured in the programme. He is still looking as far as I recall.

bestofall said...

15 years ago, a Christian astronomer told me he didn't think we were in an expanding universe at all, but a shrinking one, and that it's an optical illusion. We think it's
expanding because we are closest to
a giant black hole in the center of
the universe thus moving faster towards it than the outermost stars, which we are leaving behind. The increasing gap "appears" to indicate an expanding universe. He took his clue from the bible verse which says God opened the heavens like a tent i.e. it one time did expand, but then God rolls up the heavens like a scroll. In fact we see an elongated universe, no longer circular, a distortion caused by the giant black hole which scientists only recently detected.
I've been telling people the dark stuff theories were nothing more than math inventions to compensate for a true theory, just as astronomers before Copernicus had to invent formulas to account for the erratic movement of planets. If any physicist or astronomer reads this and wants similar biblical enlightenment about Quantum physics nonsense, I'll be happy to provide that too. The new Theory of Elementary Waves is on the right track but not completely, not until someone realizes that the "waves" behave like words, (with harmonics penetrating higher dimensions). God is still talking.

bestofall said...

15 years ago, a Christian astronomer told me he didn't think we were in an expanding universe at all, but a shrinking one, and that it's an optical illusion. We think it's
expanding because we are closest to
a giant black hole in the center of
the universe thus moving faster towards it than the outermost stars, which we are leaving behind. The increasing gap "appears" to indicate an expanding universe. He took his clue from the bible verse which says God opened the heavens like a tent i.e. it one time did expand, but then God rolls up the heavens like a scroll. In fact we see an elongated universe, no longer circular, a distortion caused by the giant black hole which scientists only recently detected.
I've been telling people the dark stuff theories were nothing more than math inventions to compensate for a true theory, just as astronomers before Copernicus had to invent formulas to account for the erratic movement of planets. If any physicist or astronomer reads this and wants similar biblical enlightenment about Quantum physics nonsense, I'll be happy to provide that too. The new Theory of Elementary Waves is on the right track but not completely, not until someone realizes that the "waves" behave like words, (with harmonics penetrating higher dimensions). God is still talking.

bestofall said...

15 years ago, a Christian astronomer told me he didn't think we were in an expanding universe at all, but a shrinking one, and that it's an optical illusion. We think it's
expanding because we are closest to
a giant black hole in the center of
the universe thus moving faster towards it than the outermost stars, which we are leaving behind. The increasing gap "appears" to indicate an expanding universe. He took his clue from the bible verse which says God opened the heavens like a tent i.e. it one time did expand, but then God rolls up the heavens like a scroll. In fact we see an elongated universe, no longer circular, a distortion caused by the giant black hole which scientists only recently detected.
I've been telling people the dark stuff theories were nothing more than math inventions to compensate for a true theory, just as astronomers before Copernicus had to invent formulas to account for the erratic movement of planets. If any physicist or astronomer reads this and wants similar biblical enlightenment about Quantum physics nonsense, I'll be happy to provide that too. The new Theory of Elementary Waves is on the right track but not completely, not until someone realizes that the "waves" behave like words, (with harmonics penetrating higher dimensions). God is still talking.