Thread: God and science

Originally Posted by Jimbo

I think I get what you mean - the evolution construct is deterministic

Try this video which explains the point I'm trying to make: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4Mbb8pQNik

Originally Posted by xman

I think I know where this conversation is going. I'll get my cat, you make the box and somebody call Schroedinger for instructions.

I think that if we were able to introduce Schroedinger's cat to Occam's razor, we might finally have the definitive answer.

42...

Cheers,
Ed

Originally Posted by trewornan

Try this video which explains the point I'm trying to make: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4Mbb8pQNik

Ok, since we're not happy with 42 and I like precision and science I'd clarify a bit more:

Originally Posted by Jimbo

I guess my issue boils down to definition - the argument involving the analogy with radioactive decay, for example. Half-life is based on an exponential decay approximation

I don't think this is very precise either. Radioactive decay is truly stochastic process. The exponential law and the life-time are just the result of the randomness of the process. It's just that it all boils down to each nucleus being the same as any other, i.e. having the same constant probability of decay. The rest (exponent and the relation of that decay probability to the half-life) is just putting the math to it.

And how do we know that it's stochastic - well all statistical predictions are just as what we measure. Of course it may be a little 'maxwell type of daemon' that's splitting the nuclei, but a random process does not involve any personification and describes it in the simplest possible way. If you are really unhappy with that description you can go further and either look into who created the daemon splitting the nuclei, or invest insane amount of money in accelerators and try to find out what are the more basic laws that hold together the nucleons in a nuclei. If what you find describes properly the radioactive decay then they've got some chance that it may be good enough to be put to more tests... And so on and son forth, scientists just keep trying to simplify things more and more.

James, is that law of large numbers something that I've learned as 'central limit theorem', i.e. everything large is gaussian?

And I personally like 42

Originally Posted by gugi

...
James, is that law of large numbers something that I've learned as 'central limit theorem', i.e. everything large is gaussian?

And I personally like 42

Gugi,

No they are not the same thing, but they can seem similar. The Law of Large Numbers (LLN) deals with what happens to the sample mean of a sequence of independent and identically distributed (iid) random variables, as the size of that sequence (n) approaches infinity. Specifically, as long as the r.v.s have a finite mean mu, the LLN states that the sample mean either converges in probability (weak LLN) or "almost surely" (strong LLN) to mu [strong version implies the weak version]. In other words, sample means settle down around a constant value if the sample size becomes "large enough". The LLN does not require the sequence of iid r.v.s to have finite variance.

There's more than one Central Limit Theorem (CLT), but the one taught in undergrad (and most non-stats/maths graduate) stats is usually about the sum of a sequence of iid r.v.s converging "in distribution" to the Gaussian as the size of that sequence approaches infinity. The CLT requires the sequence of iid r.v.s to have finite mean mu and variance sigma.

The most commonly occurring form of this CLT is the one involving the sample mean, which says that as the sample size, n, approaches infinity, the distribution of the sample mean approaches that of a Normal with mean mu and variance sigma/n, regardless of the distribution of the original r.v.s. In other words, if the sample is large enough, the sample mean will have a Normal distribution with known mean and variance.

But the trick in practice, of course, is to decide how big "large" needs to be before any of these laws kick in.

Anyway, I bet you're glad you asked me that question

James.

PS 42 is fine, but recent studies have shown it's actually more like 41.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999. ....

Cool, I like to brush up on old stuff. Indeed, I understood all that you said, so perhaps I should feel ashamed for being such a dork

But yeah, I guess judging by the last posts the science is winning . We've gotta have some good theological arguments to balance. Like whether the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Son as well as from the Father (sorry, I'm mostly familiar with Christianity). I mean if it was worth putting as the official reason for the schism between the East (Orthodox) and the West (Roman) churches it's a fairly important doctrine.

Originally Posted by JMS

Cant we all just get along?

What is it that prevents the truth seekers from coming together?
Science in its truest sense seeks the truth! religion also also seeks the truth! so what gives?
We all know that both science and religion have, in the past and present, seriously gone off course for political or monetary gain, or other reasons not as apparent, but at their heart they both seek the same thing...Truth!
I realize that the unthinking rigidity in both disciplines get in the way, but, if both are honestly seeking the truth, what should prevent them from walking hand in hand to the same goal? Is it ego, stubborn pride...what??
Am I the only one who thinks that these diciplines are compatible?

Lets here what you think!

When God shows up and says, "Here I am!" that's when science and faith will get along.
How can Faith claim it knows Truth? The religious might answer that question by saying, "Because God says so." That, however, doesn't prove anything.
And there's your very simple answer, that's why they will never get along.
Who claims to have the truth? What would you say if you were born in India, Saudi Arabia, or Africa? Your version might be very different from your current one.
The wonderful arguments presented on this thread like Occams Razor, Pascal's Wager, Intelligent Design, etc..., have proven nothing. And that's my point.
Science, when not a theory but a fact, offers proof with no argument possible. Falsifiability makes it so.
Until the "Unseen" become seen, there can be no coexistance, unless, of course, you believe it possible.