experts: human evolution theory is likely wrong – 02min

Listen to the audio…

AlbertMohler.com – The Briefing 12-12-13. Listen to full audio here.

science proves men & women are really different *and* need each other! go figure – 01min

The “connectome maps” reveal the differences between the male brain (seen in blue) and the female brain (orange)

Check out the audio for the 1-minute summary.

Men and women’s brains are ‘wired differently’
3 December 2013
Men and women’s brains are connected in different ways which may explain why the sexes excel at certain tasks, say researchers.

A US team at the University of Pennsylvania scanned the brains of nearly 1,000 men, women, boys and girls and found striking differences.

In females, the pathways criss-crossed between left and right.

These differences might explain why men, in general, tend to be better at learning and performing a single task, like cycling or navigating, whereas women are more equipped for multitasking, say the researchers in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The same volunteers were asked to perform a series of cognitive tests, and the results appeared to support this notion. In the study, women scored well on attention, word and face memory, and social cognition, while men performed better on spatial processing and sensori-motor speed.

Study author Dr Ruben Gur said: “It’s quite striking how complementary the brains of women and men really are. – Source

AlbertMohler.com – The Briefing 12-04-13. Listen to full audio here.

big bang theory expiry date!? how much does the “horizon problem” undermine “big bang cosmology”? – 04min

Preface: If you think this is fringe personal opinion only, skip to the Scientific American article on this exact topic quoted below.

Did you know the “Big Bang” has some scientifically recognized problems in terms of things that don’t fit observed phenomena & actual measurements? Enter the “Horizon Problem”. But wait! …the “Inflation Model” was supposed to rescue it all – then again, isn’t that just a theory? (an increasingly feeble one at that – see below) …almost like “scientific faith” or hope? But science deals with facts only. Ok, well, many scientific models are not proven yet. Guess they should then be ignored then in any practical sense? Does it work out that way in practice? Nope. Scientific politics is apparently a relatively new branch in the discipline, sadly. Imagine questioning the Big Bang in “respectable” conversation. Try asking the next person that you talk to on the big bang topic for his/her option on the Inflation Model – since it’s really a required part of the whole theory!

The audio outlines the topic in brief & also touches on the idea that the speed of light has changed – as some scientific models seemingly require that it should have – otherwise prediction numbers also don’t crunch as they ‘should’.

Scientific American Magazine – April 2011
The Inflation Debate – Is the theory at the heart of modern cosmology deeply flawed?
By Paul J. Steinhardt

DEFLATING COSMOLOGY?
Cosmologists are reconsidering whether the universe really went through an intense growth spurt (yellowish region) shortly after the big bang.

In Brief

– Cosmic inflation is so widely accepted that it is often taken as established fact.
– The idea is that the geometry and uniformity of the cosmos were established during an intense early growth spurt.
– But some of the theory’s creators, including the author, are having second thoughts. As the original theory has developed, cracks have appeared in its logical foundations.
– Highly improbable conditions are required to start inflation. Worse, inflation goes on eternally, producing infinitely many outcomes, so the theory makes no firm observational predictions.
– Scientists debate among (and within) themselves whether these troubles are teething pains or signs of a deeper rot. Various proposals are circulating for ways to fix inflation or replace it.

Thirty years ago Alan H. Guth, then a struggling physics postdoc at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, gave a series of seminars in which he introduced “inflation” into the lexicon of cosmology. The term refers to a brief burst of hyperaccelerated expansion that, he argued, may have occurred during the first instants after the big bang. One of these seminars took place at Harvard University, where I myself was a postdoc. I was immediately captivated by the idea, and I have been thinking about it almost every day since. Many of my colleagues working in astrophysics, gravitational physics and particle physics have been similarly engrossed. To this day the development and testing of the inflationary theory of the universe is one of the most active and successful areas of scientific investigation.

Its raison d’être is to fill a gap in the original big bang theory. The basic idea of the big bang is that the universe has been slowly expanding and cooling ever since it began some 13.7 billion years ago. This process of expansion and cooling explains many of the detailed features of the universe seen today, but with a catch: the universe had to start off with certain properties. For instance, it had to be extremely uniform, with only extremely tiny variations in the distribution of matter and energy. Also, the universe had to be geometrically flat, meaning that curves and warps in the fabric of space did not bend the paths of light rays and moving objects. Source: Scientific American

Wikipedia explains it as follows:

The horizon problem is a problem with the standard cosmological model of the Big Bang which was identified in the late 1960s, primarily by Charles Misner. It points out that different regions of the universe have not “contacted” each other because of the great distances between them, but nevertheless they have the same temperature and other physical properties. This should not be possible, given that the transfer of information (or energy, heat, etc.) can occur, at most, at the speed of light. The horizon problem may have been answered by inflationary theory, and is one of the reasons for that theory’s formation. Source: Wikipedia

The article continues…

…two galaxies in question cannot have shared any sort of information; they are not in “causal contact”. One would expect, then, that their physical properties would be different, and more generally, that the universe as a whole would have varying properties in different areas. Contrary to this expectation, the universe is in fact extremely isotropic, which also implies homogeneity. The cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), which fills the universe, is almost precisely the same temperature everywhere in the sky, about 2.728 +/- 0.004 K. The differences in temperature are so slight that it has only recently become possible to develop instruments capable of making the required measurements. This presents a serious problem; if the universe had started with even slightly different temperatures in different areas, then there would simply be no way it could have evened itself out to a common temperature by this point in time.

The magnitude of this problem is quite large. According to the Big Bang model, as the density of the universe dropped while it expanded, it eventually reached a point where photons in the “mix” of particles were no longer immediately impacting matter; they “decoupled” from the plasma and spread out into the universe as a burst of light. This is thought to have occurred about 300,000 years after the Big Bang. The volume of any possible information exchange at that time was 900,000 light years across, using the speed of light and the rate of expansion of space in the early universe. Instead, the entire sky has the same temperature, a volume 1088 times larger.

Line of Fire Radio – Dr. Brown Interviews Young Earth Creation Scholar Dr. Jonathan Sarfati. Listen to full audio here.

Big bang illustrations: (questionable)

family mealtime critically important, “scientifically proven” & overwhelmingly clear – 05min

So it’s confirmed, even by the Wall Street Journal – family mealtime is critically important. Many indicators show this & it is as clear as can be – and even has a cumulative benefit. Funny (or sad) how plain truths like this take so long to be “scientifically proven”. Listen to audio above for more details.

How many other plain truths are we holding back on for “scientific certification” before we’ll give it our full commitment? …if this plays a part at all. Maybe the “scientism culture” isn’t so much something that people would be allied behind if it actually presents an “inconvenient truth”?

AlbertMohler.com – The Briefing 09-24-13. Listen to full audio here.

intolerant bigoted anti-gay science?!

Popular culture, on average, is probably over the point where the demerits of the homosexual lifestyle will be heard, even if 100% true & scientifically proven. Well, the verdict (once again) is in. There is now “ample data testifying” to the factor 15 increased cancer risk in homosexual men.

Moral of the story should not be “vaccinate them all”, it should be “God has a better way“!

…o, but of course the villainous satanic scheme of “born that way” worked well for the masses. Don’t be fooled. People have changed – many do, every day. Research it.

Young gay men should be given a vaccine only used to cut cervical cancer among women because they are 15 times more likely than heterosexual men to suffer from genital cancers, British medical researchers have said. There is now ample data testifying the increased burden of HPV-related conditions and cancer in MSM [men who have sex with men]. – Source

are chimps people too? no. new notable law – 04min

New legislation to give chimps more ‘human-like’ protections … because, they say, there is “no hard & fast line that separates chimpanzees from people”. We then also get the argument in reverse to try draw that line that was just ‘erased’ a few sentences ago.

Does the materialistic worldview have any other logical conclusion?

AlbertMohler.com – The Briefing. Listen to full audio here.

harvesting humans & human eggs. change towards cloning “momentous” – 04min

Sound like “The Matrix” to you? Well, the “harvesting” of these humans, in the news, is not for electricity, as in the movie & they also don’t live as long, but harvesting it is & young women are in short supply to provide the eggs for “The Real Matrix”. It’s not ‘pretend’, except if you think human embryos ‘pretend’ to live before they are killed around the normal age when they would have been implanted for in vitro fertilization.

Listen below & add your thoughts if you have a comment.

AlbertMohler.com – The Briefing 05-29-13. Listen to full audio here.

what do you do with a 13min warning before a cat5 tornado?

16 minutes is as good as you’ll get before a tornado, so powerful it lifted tar off the roads. This is what that kind of storm does. If you’re not prepared, for this kind of event, where do you go? Up?

EF5 (T10+) damage represents the upper limit of tornado power, and destruction is almost always total. An EF5 tornado pulls well-built homes off their foundations and into the air before shredding them, flinging the wreckage for miles and sweeping the foundation clean. Very little recognizable structural debris is generated by EF5 damage, with most materials reduced to a coarse mix of small, granular particles and dispersed evenly across the tornado’s damage path. Large, multi-ton steel frame vehicles and farm equipment are often mangled beyond recognition and deposited miles away or reduced entirely to unrecognizable component parts. The official description of this damage highlights the extreme nature of the destruction, noting that “incredible phenomena will occur“; historically, this has included such awesome displays of power as twisting skyscrapers, levelling entire communities, and stripping asphalt from roadbeds. Despite their relative rarity, the damage caused by EF5 tornadoes represents a disproportionately extreme hazard to life and limb – Wikipedia

The movement of a tornado is determined by the motion of the generating thunderstorm. The average tornado moves at a speed of about 43 to 47 km per hour (27 to 29 miles per hour), but some have remained nearly stationary while others have traveled faster than 90 km per hour (55 miles per hour). In extreme cases, up to 120 km per hour. – Britannica

So, with the advanced science of 2013 that can even, apparently, tell you how creation happened up to the point of T = 0 (sic). See also this link if you clicked the previous one. It seems ironic that “the current average lead-time for tornado warnings is 13 minutes.” – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Unfair criticism of science? Well, science doesn’t have “feelings”. Maybe some that feel offended may lean too much towards scientism & that worldview won’t help you when you get your 13-minute alert.

Audio source: AlbertMohler.com – The Briefing.

atheist philosopher denies materialist darwinism in oxford press book – 05min

Can everything that exists, stars, planets, love, hope etc, be explained in terms of atoms & neurons in your brain?

Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False (Oxford, 2012)

This book, published by a respected atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel of New York University simply states that the evidence doesn’t add up. This perspective from a non-theist is obviously what makes it more interesting. He doesn’t try to guess at what the ultimate cause & explanation of everything might be, but rejects the “consensus view” as utterly feebly supported.

Quote:

I believe there are independent empirical reasons to be sceptical about the truth of reductionism in biology. Physico-chemical reductionism in biology is the orthodox view, and any resistance to it is regarded as not only scientifically but politically incorrect. But for a long time I have found the materialist account of how we and our fellow organisms came to exist hard to believe, including the standard version of how the evolutionary process works. The more details we learn about the chemical basis of life and the intricacy of the genetic code, the more unbelievable the standard historical account becomes. … It is prima facie highly implausible that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection. We are expected to abandon this naive response not in favour of a fully worked out physical/chemical explanation but in favour of an alternative that is really a schema for explanation, supported by some examples. (pp. 5-6)

My scepticism is not based on religious belief, or on a belief in any definite alternative. It is just a belief that the available scientific evidence, in spite of the consensus of scientific opinion, does not in this matter rationally require us to subordinate the incredulity of common sense. That is especially true with regard to the origin of life.  … I realize that such doubts will strike many people as outrageous, but that is because almost everyone in our secular culture has been browbeaten into regarding the reductive research program as sacrosanct, on the ground that anything else would not be science. (p. 7)

I have argued patiently against the prevailing form of naturalism, a reductive materialism that purports to capture life and mind through its neo-Darwinian extension. . . . I find this view antecedently unbelievable – a heroic triumph of ideological theory over common sense. . . . I would be willing to bet that the present right-thinking consensus will come to seem laughable in a generation or two. (p. 128)

 

plain creation irrelevance of the “god particle” i.e. “physics beyond the standard model” – 40min

How the media insists & thrives on hype vs. truth:

GENEVA — “We don’t call it the “God particle,” it’s just the media that do that,” a senior U.S. scientist politely told an interviewer on a major European radio station on Tuesday.

“Well, I am the from the media and I’m going to continue calling it that,” said the journalist — and continued to do so. – Source

You would see many articles like this one “How the Higgs Boson Posits a New Story of our Creation“, which has no substance in empirical science – it merely does some “naturalist world view cheer-leading”, and at best illustrates the euphoria in the physicist scientific community after decades of trying to prove this – and actually well deserved for those that did this work i.e. the authentic empirical science involved here & don’t try to make this discovery more than it really is – i.e. confirmation of the standard model, and not anything else.
Making the implications of this discovery plain :

1. The Higgs Boson or “god particle” is only applicable to the standard model of physics. Before the Higgs Boson particle was proven, the standard model of physics was not in doubt, it was trusted already and nobody tried to use it to “disprove religion” or endow this ‘potential particle’ with other massive significance.
2. It is well known that the standard module of physics does not apply to the time when the “big bang” occurred (hence the subject of this post). Two other physics models apply then, except that they do not exist yet – the early versions of these potential models are called the Grand Unified Theory & Quantum Gravity Theory (during the Planck era or phase). See also “Physics beyond the Standard Model” & listen to the audio in this post further explains where these models fit in.
3. Do you know why this particle even got the name “the god particle” in a book on this topic? You may be surprised to know (mentioned in audio).

Be sure to listen to the audio segments – you can download them here: segment one, and segment two or over at the Reasonable Faith site.

Also note that I’m not really dogmatic over young or old earth creation, even in the “old earth creation” model (i.e. a less literal reading of Genesis) can be very well supported through very detailed & authentic cosmological argumentation & reasoning – as in the book Reasonable Faith. See also the Kalam Cosmological Argument & responses to critiques thereof. I do lean towards literal interpretation, however.