Physics, Penrose, Universe, God and such...?

Question

Someone gave a quote of Roger Penrose endorsing a creator...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AiyTZLmH3s4gwdwHTNlb8cTsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20100217014755AAzUBrI&show=7#profile-info-g5pLCOm3aa

As you can see, many people asked for evidence, or said there was nothing scientific about it. Very true.

Here is something scientific from Roger Penrose in regards to a creator.

http://www.creationofuniverse.com/html/equilibrium03.html

The man used probability to determine that the universe being conductive to life by chance alone is impossible. He used known scientific facts in his probability, like elements of physics, cosmology, biochemistry, biology, etc.

If his probability is wrong, it's because the science he used was wrong. So, that would make much of what we know about science today wrong, like elements of physics, the universe, evolution, etc.

Don't shoot the messenger. Take it up with Penrose.

And before you attack the man's credentials, at least read up on him. Someone else said he must have been educated at a Christian University (nice ad hominem, I might add). He's actually one of the most accomplished cosmologists of our time, but w/e.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose

Peace.

Answer 1

You seem a little hostile.



Penrose's calculations are based on presupposition, not based on what actually happened or could have happened. Given that we don't know for certain exactly how life first first formed (though we have some good ideas) or whether life might arise under different conditions and what those conditions are, Penrose did not have the most fundamental information on which to make his claims, let alone data on the order of that required for such an all-encompassing probability calculation.



Further, there's really no reason to take Penrose seriously. Consider a roll of a hundred billion six-sided dice. The odds of obtaining any single combination of values are statistically impossible, yet you will get one such "impossible" combination on every roll.



>> "Don't shoot the messenger." <<



I've never shot anyone for being wishful or ignorant.

Answer 2

So Roger Penrose believes that the chances of the Universe being able to support life are extremely small. Or so that web site would have you believe. Given the long known propensity for creationists to deliberately and persistently misquote scientists from Isaac Newton through to Richard Dawkins, I'll reserve judgement on whether he did say that and whether he might have gone on to say something else which has been carefully edited out. Selective misquotation is par for the course with creationists.



Take a pack of cards and remove the blank and the joker. Shuffle, cut, shuffle, cut etc, then deal five cards. Whatever they are the chances of those five being dealt are one in 311,880,000. Yet there they are. The chances any ten will be dealt are one in 57,408.59 billion. Yet there they are. Deal fifteen and the odds are 102 million times smaller.



While it might be reasonable to suppose that some creative intelligence selected the parameters of the Universe as we see it, it is not strictly rational. It remains a possibility that Universes much outside those parameters could not exist for more than trillionths of a second, seconds, or a few years. It's easy to see that a prospective Universe in which gravity was much stronger would collapse pretty quickly. This could mean that only a few different types of Universes, some of them perhaps very like our own could exist for any length of time.



The reason that I can say this is that cosmologists do not know what went on before a certain time, generally taken to be the Planck time. It's possible that time as we know it did not exist. It's possible that it did in some way and any number of things might have happened. It may be that in that period our Universe, which then existed in another form ran through many different iterations, all of which fell apart instantly then finally chanced on one that worked. We don't know because we don't know. But it's a principle lifted from Darwin and may well be valid. It certainly is in biology.



Now even if you admit the possibility of a creative intelligence, and there are rational objections to do with the origin of the intelligence, there is no reason to suspect that the creative intelligence is anything like that written about in any "holy" book, whether from Jewish, Islamic, Hindu or any other tradition. Such an intelligence is particularly unlikely to be that recorded in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy etc.



As an aside, I fail to see anything to do with biology, biochemistry or evolution in the remarks on that page. Biological evolution has nothing to do with the origins of the Universe, or the Earth or of life. It is about the diversity of existing organisms.

Answer 3

Penrose is only as good as his equation. He's been spot on with his mathematics in the past but this is likely part of his recreational mathematics being taken by the religious to mean something scientific (Some of his recreational maths equations are at best... perculiar)

I can tell you now we don't know enough about the functional apparatus of the universe to make such grand gestures without monolithic factors for error. You said it yourself, only as good as the science - and the science is far from complete. Penrose knows this just as well.



Has his hypothesis been peer reviewed and accepted by the scientific community? No scientist anywhere on any subject is taken on face value that they have solved something or created something. It must first face the baptism of fire that is being scrutinised by their peers to see if there are any errors.

On this I doubt it because he will have published it as a curio of probability - not of hard science.



Until a unifying theory is unearthed, then I doubt any such gesture could hold any useful meaning. Besides your "proof" did not contain an equation or link to an equation we can assess. You could just as well be making it up (although I know you're not as I'm aware of it's existence) Like Drake's equation it's lack of current information is it's undoing.

Answer 4

Our understanding of science changes, and humans are fallible.



"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." - Lord Kelvin,

president, Royal Society, 1895.



"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains

is more and more precise measurement" - Lord Kelvin.



"Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant,

if not utterly impossible." - Simon Newcomb, 1902.



"Space travel is bunk" -Sir Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal of

Britain, 1957, two weeks before the launch of Sputnik



"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." - Pierre

Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.



"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the

intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon." - Sir John Eric Ericksen,

British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria

1873.



"Such startling announcements as these should be deprecated as being

unworthy of science and mischievious to to its true progress" - Sir

William Siemens, 1880, on Edison's announcement of a sucessful light bulb.



"Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody

will use it, ever." - Thomas Edison, 1889



"It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two

or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying

machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere."

- Thomas Edison, 1895



"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." - Marechal

Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.



"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be

obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at

will." -- Albert Einstein, 1932.



"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." - Popular

Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949.



"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked

with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a

fad that won't last out the year." - The editor in charge of business

books for Prentice Hall, 1957.



"There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be

used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio

service inside the Unided States." -T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, 1961.



"But what... is it good for?" - Engineer at the Advanced Computing

Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.



"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken

Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp.,

1977.



"640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981.

Answer 5

This sort of calculating the odds of life occurring is subject to the same sorts of inaccuracy and speculation that the Drake equation used to calculate odds of life on other planets is. The issues are no one knows the exact mechanisms or variables involved in life getting started or what different life forms might require or what conditions might be able to lead to life other then our own. There are scientists who calculate the odds of life on other planets might be quite high and people like Penrose who seem to calculate the odds of life arising are so slim that it could only be via the interaction of a divine being putting everything just so. This shows the inherent speculation in these calculations. It also ignores that in a universe so immense there is a chance for almost every scenario including earth's to pop up somewhere and so here we are.



We don't know that earth or earth like conditions are the only ones that life can arise in nor that other places in the vast universe don't also by chance have similar circumstances. He is trying calculate odds on things that no one knows the real variables for and that impacts his calculation just like it does the Drake calculation.

Answer 6

I think he's been misinterpreted, the book cited is The Emperors New Mind (great book by the way) and I don't remember this point being made nor any discussion of the creation of the universe (the book is a refutation of the computational theory of mind, and not a book about the creation of the universe). I'm not at home at the moment, so can't check the actual reference, but I'll check this evening

Answer 7

Oh, his probability is wrong... but not the science he used to develop it. Maybe YOU should read up on probability. See, the proability that unicorns exist is 100%... they have been written about, drawn, described, depicted in several different types of media, tapestries and paintings, all manner of artwork, sculptures, pictures magiazine tv shows movies and innumerable counteless other electronic media. Thus, speaking in terms of "proability" they HAVE to exist... they MUST... it is one hundred percent guaranteed absolute certainty that unicorns exist... there can be NO DOUBT, according to probability.



And its wrong. They dont.



Let me illustrate this graphiclly for those of you who are slow... Penrose, Hawking and Einstein are out deer hunting one weekend... Penrose takes a shot and misses the deer by three feet, to the right... Hawking quickly fires and misses the deer by three feet to the left... and Einstein just loses his mind, jumping up and down shouting with glee "We got it, we got it, we got it......"

Answer 8

"

Someone gave a quote of Roger Penrose endorsing a creator...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;…

"



I think that's a gross mischaracterization of the quote in question. It says nothing of a creator. On the contrary it very conspicuously does not.

Answer 9

Intelligent Design has already been debunked intelligently (pun intended) so many times on Youtube that addressing this as proof of God's existence is almost meaningless.

Answer 10

He's a human being, and sufficed to say, he does not possess knowledge that you or I do not.

Answer 11

more proof for ignorant evolushionists.



~ 6000 years people, its not that hard

Answer 12

"The fool, in his heart, has said there is no God!"