Impossibility: the limits of science - audio lecture by John D. Barrow (online at Gresham college)

Quotes and comments;

1. Barrow claims progress is a modern idea...

- Has he never read Daniel or Isaiah? Postmillenialism is as old as Christianity; though it's rarely been the prevalent eschatalogical view.

2. H he mentions the statement by the founder of IBM that he couldn't imagine a market for computers of more than six!

- remember this when you hear 'experts' making predictions :=)
- the fact is we have no idea what is possible or impossible. In the bible we're told that with God all things are possible... and we have no way to deny this.

3. 'Progress used to be thought of as being able to manipulate bigger and bigger things; even planets and stars and galaxies... but now the idea is to manipulate smaller and smaller things.'

4. Like all English blokes he just accepts Darwinism (the greatest idiot idea in history) as if it were as obvious as 2+2 (I find this incomprehensible; I guess they just hide from all critiques.)

- If it's possible the universe came from nothing, and that life came from non-life, and intelligence from non-intelligence, and consciousness from the not-conscious, and persons from matter, I don't know how ANYthing can be impossible :=)

5. he talks about it being difficult to think in any other way than what we do; eg. all causes are local. (There is no way to prove any theory of causation in my opinion; the fact we tend to see causation in a 'newtonian' way doesn't mean this corresponds to reality.)

6. he speaks of 'uncomputible' problems (in math) even with computers...

- if the smartest people we have (and super computers) can't figure out how 'nature' does something... then I see this as powerful evidence of Intelligent design (that designer x is at least far superior in intelligence to the crew at MIT) The idea this can happen by 'chance' is an idea I find absurd. (Only because college grads of m. colleges are conditioned to have knee jerk reactions against ID are people in denial about this. If they'd been taught ID they'd have no problem with this.) The idea the super complex happens by chemical reaction is the idiot idea of all history.

7. he says one of Godel's theorems is 'one can never prove a sequence (of numbers?) is random.'

- This sounds to me like you can never disprove God.)

- was it William Rusher who said we should call evolution, accidentalism; but maybe impossibilism would be better. (And maybe not :=)

Notes;
1. Date/Time: 26/01/2006
- not bad; 3.5/5

Uniformitarianism Smashed; or, how to grow a mountain in your backyard

The obsolete theory of Uniformitarianism has in recent years been utterly falsified. (Will someone please tell seminary professors.) Here's a photo that for me symbolizes the idiot idea of Uniformitarianism. (It was never a scientific theory; only a philosophical conceit.) Mt. St. Helen's

- One popular criticism of young earth creationism concerns the ideas of mountains - how the high mountains we see around us could never have been covered by water. But in the opinion of many young earth creationists, the mountains we see around us are young... and 'grew' up in the centuries after the Flood.

- Uniformitarianism was simply a way to rescue Materialism; it was in no way a scientific theory.

Notes;
1. 'A new rock slab is growing at more than one meter a day on the Mt. St. Helens volcano in Washington, USA. The rock slab, growing since last November, now extends about 100 meters out from one of the volcano's craters.'
2. Venus vs. Uniformitarianism - by David F. Coppedge
3. Recent Rapid Uplift of Today's Mountains - by John Baumgardner, Ph.D.
4. “Ideas without precedent are generally looked upon with disfavor and men are shocked if their conceptions of an orderly world are challenged.”
—J. Harlen Bretz, 1924, quoted on a plaque at the Dry Falls Visitor Center in Washington. His theory that a catastrophic flood formed the Channeled Scablands was ridiculed by the scientific establishment for 50 years. The plaque (dated 1994) says, “Dedicated to J. Harlen Bretz, who patiently taught us that catastrophic floods may sometimes play a role in nature’s unfolding drama.” Bretz was 94 years old when he finally received recognition. [Seen at Creation/Evolution Headlines]
5. Psa 90:2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou [art] God
6. Psa 114:4 The mountains skipped like rams, [and] the little hills like lambs.