Sunday, October 17, 2010

A "perfectly accurate" Biblical "Science"? Dream on!


Bible bangers are indefatigable in the tiresome defense of their antiquated, anachronistic book – mostly purblind to its monumental defects (such as thousands of contradictions, and mistranslations, deliberate additions) while over-exaggerating its claimed (or imagined) accomplishments. Many of the primary defects I already described here:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/09/why-king-james-bible-cannot-be-trusted.html


Of course, at the top of their pseudo-list is always the “good Book’s” popularity, the fact it has “sold more than any other book” etc. But why be surprised here? We know, as spiritual scholar John Phillips accurately pointed out in a prior blog:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/05/conversation-about-spirituality-with.html

The KING James was intended to be the simplest of all the bibles, because it was designed to be written with no more than 8,000 different words in total. (Obviously, it has more than a million words, but only 8,000 words are used repetitively to make up the one million- no more). Thereby, it became the simplest medium available to serve the largest population possible.”

John went on to add:

But as we know, being popular doesn't make it correct, or possess absolute truth. As a matter of fact, with such low verbal density or use it would be comical to even suggest the King James bible (or any other) comes remotely close to truth. What it does, for the masses, is present a cartoon version of reality.”

And, of course, it is this elemental simplicity which fuels its sales! Most Americans are not readers at heart, certainly of anything that taxes their gray matter or vocabulary. If they were to read anything for more than ten minutes at a time, and especially make purchases- it would be a book with a much reduced vocabulary and one also conferrrd with some “spiritual benefit”. Enter the Bible!

Coupled with this is that book publishers have known for over one hundred years it has been the top seller, so have always churned out more copies than any other work of fiction – including the illustrious Harry Potter series.

So, the fact the Bible is a #1 “best seller” isn’t anything to crow about, it is rather an indictment of American insularity and parochialism of thought. It is the embodiment of all that Europeans, for example, criticize in terms of Americans’ lack of genuine intellectual insight and curiosity.

But this sort of common exaggeration pales beside the claim the Bible is any kind of science text, or harbors scientific truths, or discoveries. As I’ve already shown extensively in a couple of previous blogs this amounts to total fulsome codswallop:

More Bible-Based Scientific Idiocy’
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-bible-based-scientific-idiocy.html

And:

'The Ten Million Errors of the Bible'

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/10/ten-million-errors-of-bible.html

As noted, the Bible cannot state any “perfectly accurate” scientific statement because with a maximum vocabulary of 8,000 words – most archaic- there is no way it could have embodied any particular scientific concept or principle with any precision. Note here, a principle or concept is quite different from an ambiguous generic reference. A concept includes within it a scientific understanding of a process.

For example, take the 2nd law of thermodynamics which entails the concept of entropy. No “perfectly accurate” statement for it exists anywhere in the bible. Let’s take a look at an example of how bible bangers exaggerate a passage to confer scientific meaning where none exists:

"And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment" ( Hebrews 1:10-11 ) .

Some have imputed a connection to the 2nd law of thermodynamics and entropy from this merely because of the writer's (common sense) observation is that “nothing lasts”. Or in common parlance, “everything wears out”. Fine as an elementary observation, dear Watson, but this doesn’t make the grade as a scientific concept statement about the specific nature of entropy. It's merely a generic observation that everyone with two eyes and a working brain can make for himself. That things “wear out” has been noted and observed since the year dot. That doesn’t allow any deep insight into entropy, or extending its purview to the realm of mechanical products, or predictions!

A specific scientific working concept which IS perfectly accurate is the Kelvin-Clausius statement of the 2nd law:

It is impossible to construct a heat engine operating in a cycle, which produces no other effect than absorption of thermal energy from a hot reservoir – and the performance of an equal amount of work.”

This is elegant and exact, unlike the “Hebrews” passage, which allows us no wider perspective or to carry out further experiments. The Kelvin-Clausius statement does since it is the basis for developing a heat pump operating in reverse – otherwise known as the refrigerator.

Thus we see that the “perfectly accurate” label cannot be appended to anything which is vague or too general to develop further. It simply can’t apply to a generic reference, like something “wearing out”. This is useless.


Another “perfectly accurate” claim that’s made the rounds in some fundie blogs is that only three time zones will emerge at the end of days: “daylight, evening and night.”( Matthew 24:40-41, Luke 17:34-36) )This confuses the meaning of a time zone, with an interval fraction of the day referenced to quality of sunlight.

Thus, “daylight, evening and night” don’t refer to time zones but to differing intensities of light referenced to fractions of the revolution period of Earth -which show marked contrasts in light quality – measured in lumens. Thus, “evening” is defined to have about twice the available lumens as “night” (assuming no moonlight) while day is many thousands more times magnified.

A “time zone” is defined by taking the 360 degrees through which Earth rotates in one day, and dividing it by 24, since it requires 24 hours to make one revolution. Thus, one standard time zone would be generated via (360 deg/ 24 hr) = 15 deg/h or 15 degrees of longitude per hour - so be 15 degrees of longitude in expanse.

Thus, time zones (calibrated per HOUR) are marked out by LONGITUDE differences, not illumination differences!Time zones don’t mean anything until referenced or calibrated to a fixed position-location, and that is the Greenwich Meridian, defined as 0 degrees longitude. All longitudes west of Greenwich mark time earlier – and all longitudes east of Greenwich mark times later.

Thus, Berlin will always have a time later than London, and London will have a time later than New Orleans. The time difference is referenced to longitude difference for the central meridians. For example, if London is at 0 degrees longitude, and New Orleans is at 90 degrees west longitude, then New Orleans is earlier than London by (90 deg/ 15 deg/h) = 6 hours.

If the time in London is noon local mean time, then it is 6 a.m. in New OrleansIn order to solve the problem of different local mean times, Greenwich Mean Time or GMT was developed, so people can compare the same clock times around the world GMT is based on a 24 hour clock defined at the Greenwich Meridian. So, for example, if one is listening to the BBC from New Orleans and the time given is 13h 30 m GMT, then that means it’s 1.30 p.m. in London. Since New Orleans is 6 hours earlier, than that means it’s 7.30 a.m. local mean time in New Orleans. Thus, knowing GMT, one can always work out the time at one’s location if one knows the longitude difference relative to Greenwich. (Note for the purposes here, I am taking London as having the same longitude as Greenwich. It's actually off by a few thousand feet but negligible in terms of computations.)

Let’s take on another “perfectly accurate” Bible-based scientific myth, the claim that if Jesus returns “everyone on Earth will see him”. This is impossible, since- if and when he returns (likely not, since it’s a myth) - he has to pick one longitude of location to return to! He can’t return to ALL longitudes of the Earth at the same time! They are spread out across some 25,000 miles!

Even if he arrived – say at Greenwich meridian- at noon tomorrow, he could not be seen instantly everywhere! Even if he moved at the speed of light (186,000 miles/ sec) it would require 0.134 seconds (134 milliseconds) to whirl east around the world from London- appear at all longitudes- and return. (And it’s doubtful people would see any more than a blip of light) Thus, the claim is more nonsense.In the end, only a science text will provide one with the principles of science – whether of physics or biology or chemistry.

As an illustration, I defy any bible banger to pass a BASIC physics test (such as the earlier one taken by Caleb Shay):

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/10/basic-physics-test.html

And use his or her bible alone to work out the problems. It cannot be done, since no “perfectly accurate” physics statements or passages exist which would allow one to use them to even do half of what Caleb did.

The truth is that, like their belief that Jonah was swallowed by a whale and lived for three days in its hydrochloric acid, the fundies' belief that their archaic book is "perfectly accurate" in science, discloses they can believe many more than six impossible things before breakfast. More like about 6 thousand!

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