George Ellis is a Distinguished Professor of Complex Systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He co-authored The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time with University of Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking, published in 1973, and is considered one of the world's leading theorists in cosmology. And he said the following in his paper "Cosmology and Verifiability":
"A modern cosmologist who was also a theologian with strict fundamentalist views could construct a universe model which began 6000 years ago in time and whose edge was at a distance of 6000 light years from the solar system. A benevolent God could easily arrange the creation of the universe ... so that suitable radiation was travelling toward us from the edge of the universe to give the illusion of a vastly older and larger expanding universe. It would be impossible for any other scientist on the Earth to refute this world picture experimentally or observationally; all that he could do would be to disagree with the author's cosmological premises." [p. 246]
Why does Ellis say this? He explains:
"we are unable to obtain a model of the universe without some specifically cosmological assumptions which are completely unverifiable. Because we wish to talk about regions we cannot directly influence or experiment on, our theory is at the mercy of the assumptions we make." [p. 246]
Yes. Evolution is still a "theory" and a sorry one at that.
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kingneb writes:
George Ellis is a Distinguished Professor of Complex Systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He co-authored The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time with University of Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking, published in 1973, and is considered one of the world's leading theorists in cosmology. And he said the following in his paper "Cosmology and Verifiability":
"A modern cosmologist who was also a theologian with strict fundamentalist views could construct a universe model which began 6000 years ago in time and whose edge was at a distance of 6000 light years from the solar system. A benevolent God could easily arrange the creation of the universe ... so that suitable radiation was travelling toward us from the edge of the universe to give the illusion of a vastly older and larger expanding universe. It would be impossible for any other scientist on the Earth to refute this world picture experimentally or observationally; all that he could do would be to disagree with the author's cosmological premises." [p. 246]
Why does Ellis say this? He explains:
"we are unable to obtain a model of the universe without some specifically cosmological assumptions which are completely unverifiable. Because we wish to talk about regions we cannot directly influence or experiment on, our theory is at the mercy of the assumptions we make." [p. 246]
Yes. Evolution is still a "theory" and a sorry one at that.
Share your thoughts
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.