No, its useful to assume the universe is a closed system when you are making calculations. No one knows is the fact, and your pomp and certainty is what illustrates your lack of formal training on this matter.

This makes me question why you even engage in these conversations.

The statement was that energy started to exist, basically that god created energy.

The rebuttal was, how do you know that energy has not always existed?

The answer was the second law of thermodynamics, which is a descriptive law (as is ALL of science). What does all of thermodynamics describe? Energy transfer within the universe.

THAT is why it is nonsense when discussing the origin of energy, or the universe. Because the context of the law is within the universe, not before, not outside, not dealing in causes of the universe. The answer is we do not know how energy transfer would or could interact outside of time and space. The answer is we do not know if the universe is eternal and infinite, or cyclical, or one of an infinite universes. All kinds of theories exist about this and none have been shown to be necessarily true.

Even in a heat death scenario energy still exists, it may not be usable, but it exists. You have made this error before in the exact same conversation, been schooled then and still did not understand.

Ohhh please. Go back a few posts, your answer awaits you.

Explain why this must be true? If you can you will win a Nobel.

This is a typical error you make over and over again.

We are talking about more than our universe when we are talking about what caused our universe.

Regardless of if you think a membrane slamming into a bubble universe in a foam of infinite universal creation caused our pocket universe or if you think an eternal being existed prior to the universe and willed it into existence you are still talking about a universe that is NOT a closed system. Outside influences adding energy in both cases.

This is really a waste of time. It happens over and over again, laymen think they understand the topic without any formal education and make statements with such conviction without regard to the bigger picture and without regard to context. They apply a law which states specific contextual principles and then ignore the context.

. . and you guys wonder why I disappear from this forum periodically.

Again, if you can prove that the membrane hypothesis cannot be true, or that any other cause of the universe cannot have occurred, then what you are really arguing is that the universe always was in one form or another or you are arguing it came from nothing. Which do you prefer?

It seems to me it doesn't really matter which you prefer becuase neither require a god, and it doesn't prove anything, but if you could rule out any of the possibilities you would be a very well respected member of the cosmology community . . . which you are not.

Metal smacking down the straw man in very simple terms.

Nothing happens without energy. It really is simple. We may not understand it, but it is without rebuttal. No one can fashion an argument that is internally consistent about cosmology without energy being available.

They are misapplying the laws. This entire line of reasoning is a straw man.

Not even. He is not even wrong. He is taking a descriptive law. (please look up what it means for something to be descriptive vs proscriptive) that applies to closed systems, and applying it without regard to context to the whole of existence.
Why would the law detail what kind of system if it did not matter?

It does matter. We have you guys playing at physicist and you have no clue how these laws came into being.

All of science is descriptive, we learn based on what we find, we do not find a creator, we find nothing which requires a creator, and thus make no assumptions about creators in creating models of reality.

Why?

This is just hand waving. All cosmological models start with energy, what state of entropy varies on the model.

This is an assertion without any facts to support it.

If energy can become matter (and we know it can empirically) and energy has always existed, then just like water turns into ice needs no creator to make it happen, energy turning into matter needs no creator.

Your argument is an argument from ignorance, you are really saying that you cannot understand how it could be otherwise, thus it cannot be otherwise.

Science makes no such assumptions.

Science, even the laws, are descriptive, not proscriptive.

A visual representation of this conversation.

Not true, the two groups could integrate if not for religion. Wherever you find long standing battles over land you find religion keeping two groups from integrating.

What is this assertion based on?

Why does matter need to be created? (hint: is someone creating ice when water turns into ice?)

That page is off topic. It serve no better purpose than to call into question modern medicine to support the business model of supplements and "natural" products.

Extolling mistakes and failures of science is a lot like extolling failures of the industrial revolution and then trying to say you shouldn't view it in its totality as a success.

The success stories outweigh the failures by an order of magnitude, and again its off topic. You have an agenda here, to make anyone supporting the establishment out in a negative light, but how does that have anything to do with Gerson therapy, or modern cancer treatments? (hint: it doesn't, its ad hom garbage.) If anyone is arguing from ridicule it is you. Modern medical research is tested and statistically shown to have a beneficial effect. Where is the research that supports Gerson therapy? OR the Rife device?


. . and how does that relate to cancer? How does this support the idea that his ray device cures cancer?

Yea I agree, it says far more about the person who uses such tactics IMHO. Well said Leigh.

Cant stand her views, loved her response.

You know I know a family who lived in Palestine. In fact its really three families. They pooled there resources together and moved to America. There are positive ways to interact with a problem, and negative ways. Throwing rocks at a person with superior firepower is not a positive way to do anything but get killed.

I dont make claims to know what is the right thing for everyone to do, nor to claim that I know who is responsible for event X, or Y, or really anything, but arguing that throwing rocks at a man with a rifle is a good thing is a loosing argument.

Says it all. You do not care, you are just trying to play gotcha. Straw is all you have. Your a waste of time and effort.

Your right, it does serve a purpose, to show that you are disconnected from any real argument and are just flinging poo around in an attempt to troll.

Me too, but I wouldn't expect anything less of Tufts. Quality uni. Evolution really is an amazing field, and to see real experts talk about it is very humbling.

This is the real point. If a competing theory cannot do the same, then it has no merit.

How does this support his device that was claimed to cure cancer?

. . . and you accuse me of moving goal posts. You have failed to make an intelligible argument.

Man let me tell you, if someone wanted to pay me to research cancer and present my findings online id eat it up.

Now if someone tried to pay me to present something I did not actually believe was true, id have nothing to do with it.

How valuable do you really think anything I say really is to anyone with money who would want to spend it on advertising something?

Id say, not at all. My impact on the discourse, and most especially the avenue (mingle) that is being used is negligible.

In fact to think that anything said on this forum by anyone has any impact is egoism at its finest.

This to me more than anything illustrates the irrationality of volants comment.

Delusions of grandeur tend to have that element, and you often see this in folks who hold onto conspiracies as the most likely outcome when given any kind of perceived controversy or disagreement.

Deal in facts, not accusations. That way we can all have an interesting conversation where objective discourse is the theme, not silly accusations without merit.

I might, but I would loose brain cells from the burning stupid just reading natural news, so I might need to fortify myself. Give me some time . . . lol.

Evolution has made predictions, and they have come true.