|
Author
|
Topic: Is ID theory falsifiable?
|
John A. Davison
Member
Member # 1425
|
posted 15. January 2006 11:00
As for my thoughts on the probability of chance having a role in either development or evolution, I long ago joined with Leo Berg:
"Neither in the one nor in the other is there room for chance."
Nomogenesis, page 134
and with Albert Einstein:
"Everything is determined... by forces over which we have no control."
If is everything IS determined, then most certainly everything WAS determined which is the essence of the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis.
I hope that makes my position clear.
IP: Logged
|
|
stipeck
Member
Member # 1860
|
posted 17. January 2006 02:07
I'm sorry John im not 100% clear on your position. Are you saying that you do not beleive that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Priciple is true? You can not determine the future without knowing the position and momentum of every particle in existence. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Priciple states that this is impossible. It is easy to just dismiss this priciple offhand but how then do you explain wave-particle duality? Light exists in two forms simultaneously, the first is a wave form which is clearly true by the double slit experiment. The other is a particle form, known as a photon, which is the only viable explanation for the photoelectric effect. Because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle no physical thing can be thought of as a classical particle or as a wave but as both at the same time.
If you do not beleive in this priciple then what is your explanation for wave-particle duality
And getting back to the main question of this forum is ID theory falsifiable? I think we should not get ahead of ourselves here. ID is not a theory. These are the steps of the scientific method:
1. Observation of a phenomenon
2. Formulation of hypothesis to describe phenomena
3. Use hypothesis to predict some other phenomenon
4. Performance of multiple experiments by multiple people to test the prediction of the hypothesis
If and only if the experiments support the prediction of the hypothesis can the hypothesis become a theory, and maybe even a law. Unfortunantly for ID it is perpetually stuck in step two of the scientific method. A phenomenon has been observed (life) and a hypothesis has been made (can't be all natural, some designer must have helped). Unfortunantly due to the nature of this hypothesis there is no moving on from this point. Maybe you can predict other phenomenon but you have absolutely no way of testing it. ID ultimately points to some form of religeon with a creator. Religeon is based completely on faith and therefore it can never enter the realm of science because science is inherently faith-less. Everything must be proven again and again before it can be accepted as a theory or law.
ID is a great idea and it always stimulating to have discusions about, but i beleive it is wrong for ID to be described as a theory, or any other scientific idea. It is entirely religious in nature and falsifying it should not be discussed, because that is like discusing how faith can be falsified, it can't, its not up for discusion, its faith.
I do not mean to offend anyone with this post, and if i did i apoligize. Please post your ideas if you dissagree with anything i have written.
-Stipeck
IP: Logged
|
|
Christopher D. Beling
Member
Member # 723
|
posted 17. January 2006 03:15
Hi Stipeck,
Most interesting post and certainly no offense. I am interested in John's response which I am sure he will give. Mine is as follows:
1) With regard to the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle - it is in my view just an operational principle and reflects accurately the limitation imposed by simultaneous measurement of a particle's position and momentum. The underlying particle (say quark or lepton)- which must have extremely small dimensions (~10^-27m if current string theories are close to true) could well be undergoing a kind of chaotic motion "underneath" the spatially extensive wavefunction that prescribes the particles probability density. Perhaps this is not a view that the majority of physicists share, but as far as I know it has not been disproved and is shared by quite a few. There could thus be hidden information. Of course Einstein believed this till the day he died.
2) ID theory predicts that bio-information (CSI) should either remain constant or decrease with time . This is known as either the law of information conservation - or the 4th law of thermodynamics. In contrast neo-Darwinian (ND) theory predicts a steady increase with time of bio-information via natural selection and other processes. The ID hypothesis and the ND hypothesis are thus not just competing hypotheses, but are hypotheses that give rise to opposite predictions that can be subject to empirical testing.
The empirical test of whether bio-information has been (and perhaps still is) decreasing or increasing is not an easy one. However, with the ever increasing availability of genomic data and with codes such as BLAST for mapping different genes back into the past - it should not be long before one theory can be weighed against the other.
I would also note that Professor Davison's proscribed evolution hypothesis (PEH) (other thread) is quite in agreement with the 4th law - namely that the same bio-information has existed right back to the genesis of the evolution process, and is just de-repressing itself in phylogeny (most likely through programmed chromosomal rearrangements). Moreover within the PEH there is also the semi-meiotic hypothesis (SMH) that gives a proposal for the mechanism of de-repression of information - and according to Professor Davison this is subject to bench top testing if biologists would care to undertake the necessary experiments.
Of course in addition to (2) above there are the CSC (Complexity Specication Criterion) and the IC (Irreducible Complexity) criterion but since these are based on analogical reasoning that you may not buy (although such reasoning is used routinely in other areas of science) it may be good to stick with discussing (2). - Chris
[ 17. January 2006, 03:31: Message edited by: Christopher D. Beling ]
IP: Logged
|
|
Melvin H. Fox
Member
Member # 1684
|
posted 17. January 2006 11:15
Stipeck,
The designer existence hypothesis is problematic. A designer may imply the universe is not an isolated system. The outside force [designer] acting in the universe may or may not be measurable; directly observable. This very force may play a role in the perplexing behavior in the double slit experiment. This perplexing behavior forces the observer to make a choice:
i) Give up – it is impossible to know; no point in further study,
ii) Chance is the cause – since we have not found a certain way to predict, it must be the case that no way to predict with certainty is physically possible and therefore the cause of the behavior is no cause. That’s it! No cause is the cause. We proved it because all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not find a cause. So, there is none and no cause is the cause of the behavior. In fact, no cause is the root cause of everything. This is due the fundamental role of subatomic particles/waves in the universe.
iii) Investigate new methods [Information Theory for example] of discovery – since what we are trying to discover could be totally foreign [external force] to our physical existence and the old ways have been fruitless, why not examine new methods of discovery.
By the way, is the chance hypothesis verifiable?
-Mel
IP: Logged
|
|
John A. Davison
Member
Member # 1425
|
posted 17. January 2006 18:40
Stipeck
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle applies only to subatomic events snd has no application to macroscopic phenomena which are completely visible, determined and unmistakable. I must stand with both Leo Berg and Einstein when I reject any role for chance in either ontogeny or phylogeny. To question Intelligent Design is for me unthinkable. It requires no proof as it is self-evident. For the IDists to have introduced it as subject to debate makes no sense to me whatsoever. I regard it as the mandatory starting point for the understanding of anything in either ontogeny or phylogeny.
"Neither in the one nor in the other is there any room for chance."
Leo Berg, Nomogenesis, page 134
"Everything is determined... by forces over which we have no control."
Albert Einstein
IP: Logged
|
|
stipeck
Member
Member # 1860
|
posted 18. January 2006 21:21
Chris
It is completely true that for some particles the particle size is much less than that of the wave size. The larger the particle becomes the smaller the wave function. You can even calculate the wave function for a golf ball if you really wanted but it would be so incredibly small it is not important. The relative size of the particle and the wave is not the issue though. The mere fact that there is a particle and a wave is enough to strongly support the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Now regarding specific complexity and the idea of information conservation. I’m rather new to these two ideas but specific complexity was explained to me using the following analogy. A letter in the alphabet is specific, and a string of a bunch of meaningless letters in complex. But sonnet of Shakespeare is specific and complex. The analogy is that DNA is like a work of Shakespeare; the alphabet is composed of the specific parts A, G, T, and C. Dembski asserts that there is no possible way that nature could create the specifically complex story that is life. Thomas Huxley asserts "If an infinite number of monkeys are given typewriters for an infinite amount of time, they will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare". Have we had enough monkeys with enough typewriters working for a long enough period of time to produce life, or is Dembski right in assuming that this is impossible? As of right now we cannot be sure one way or the other.
The idea that biological information must only decrease has no basis in any observations, in fact it goes against a few. For example, we use many antibacterial medicines when we have infections. But the number of antibacterial medicines that work is swiftly dwindling, because the bacteria are becoming resistant. This is due to a change in the bacteria's biological information. This is change is increase in biological information. A mutation causes a certain bacteria to survive better in the presence of the antibacteria and so now there is more information, the mutation, to add to the database of biological information. Even a single mutation in a single individual is like the formulation of a new word to add to Shakespeare's arsenal.
In fact a loss of biological information should lead to de-evolution. Words would begin to disappear from the pages of Shakespeare; animals would lose a protein every once in a while.
Mel
I’m not really sure what you are talking about with all of your causes, but it seems to me that just assuming that we can find no physical explanation for the double slit experiment, and throwing up our hands saying "the cause must come from some other realm, from some higher power" is really giving up. Currently there is a very well known and very widely accepted theory to explain the double slit experiment. The pattern produced is the result of simple math and points undoubtedly to light being a wave.
John
I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree with you here. The consensus is, that to know the future one would have to know the position and momentum of every particle. This began with the French mathematician Laplace, who said "if we were to know with precision the positions and speeds of all the particles in the universe then we could predict the future with certainty". It is not enough to know only macroscopic positions and velocities because minor changes in a microscopic particle could have widespread macroscopic ramifications. Only with knowledge of every position and momentum can you be certain of what the future holds. That is why Einstein, who you so liberally quote, was so opposed to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. He knew that if it were true, it would prove that predetermination was impossible.
IP: Logged
|
|
David L. Hagen
Member
Member # 323
|
posted 18. January 2006 22:21
quote:
Stipeck . . .
These are the steps of the scientific method:
1. Observation of a phenomenon
2. Formulation of hypothesis to describe phenomena
3. Use hypothesis to predict some other phenomenon
4. Performance of multiple experiments by multiple people to test the prediction of the hypothesis
Oh that it were so simple. 4 might work for current experimentation but cannot hold for testing origin theories for historic events. When you apply these criteria to origin theories, you have very conveniently shown that evolution is equally "not a scientific theory." Nice try.
For a detailed evaluation of why, see:
Stephen Meyer, The Scientific Status of Intelligent Design The Methodological Equivalence of Naturalistic and Non-Naturalistic Origins Theories
Please review: Reverse Engineering Assumptions for an Open Science Intelligent Design Theory
On information, you will find a huge difference between design information that is conserved and viral mutations. You will find that design or function is preserved - otherwise you would not be reading this. You will find that viral mutations function to destroy more "design information" or "function" than they supposedly "create". Design Information or Function is very different from "shannon information" which only covers the envelope, not the contents.
I and others are developing 2 and 3. Data such as the "Cambrian explosion" fit ID predictions much better than evolution. Stay tuned.
IP: Logged
|
|
stipeck
Member
Member # 1860
|
posted 19. January 2006 01:27
David
Thanks for your post David. If you disagree with me that these are the four steps of the scientific method here are some websites that have very similar lists:
http://phyun5.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node6.html#SECTION02121000000000000000 (this one has got a nice picture)
http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/AppendixE/AppendixE.html
http://koning.ecsu.ctstateu.edu/Plants_Human/scimeth.html
http://www2.selu.edu/Academics/Education/EDF600/Mod3/sld001.htm
http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/t_sci_me.htm
http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=45&l=&c3=
Now that that's out of the way, I am not claiming that these four steps are simple in the least; in all groundbreaking sciences they are incredibly hard. I am afraid I left out observation in step four. Observation can be used in some cases, like historical events.
Now, regarding Darwin's theory of evolution. He had two main ideas and they must be separated and analyzed individually. His first idea was that current creatures had evolved from earlier ancestors. This is supported by extensive fossil, as well as biological evidence. First off, we can trace fossils of animals through evolutionary changes. We have observed whale fossils that have miniscule legs, which would be too small to serve as walking tools. This observation should lead us to predict that other examples of vestigial body parts should exist in most animals. And of course they do. Modern whales have residual bones left over inside their bodies from useless legs, and humans have a far share as well, appendix, male nipples, etc.
His second main idea was that this evolution was caused by natural selection. When an environment gets difficult to live in the individuals who are better suited to their environment have a better chance of reproducing and therefore passing on their genes. Nicely enough we have a great example of this: bacteria becoming resistant to antibacterial drugs. Bacteria are exposed to an environment where life is difficult because of antibacterial drugs, and eventually only the ones with a mutation that makes them immune to the antibacterial drug survive.
Now I understand that these bacteria are not necessarily new species. Like you say, this mutation that makes a few individuals resistant does not change the underlying information that makes the bacteria a bacteria. I also agree that the great majority of mutations would be detrimental to the bacteria's functioning. All the bacteria with a detrimental mutation will probably die and therefore not affect the population's gene pool. But that one in a million case where the mutation helps, where the antibacterial drug does not have an effect, that lucky bacteria will reproduce much more than others. Eventually every bacterium in that population will have that mutation and it will no longer be some random mutation but an integral part of what makes those bacteria, bacteria. If two groups of the same species of bacteria are separated for long enough and are subject to different environments, different mutations will occur and eventual they will be so different they can no longer be considered the same species.
Most observations of history seem to go against ID. Why would a designer give males nipples, or whales tiny useless legs? I'm not going to build a car with a wheel protruding from the roof.
The fact is that as of right now there is more observational evidence pointing to evolution and natural selection then to ID and evolution does not require an un-natural un-observable entity to work. Evolution was built from observations, up into a theory; ID started with the conclusion that a designer created life and is scrambling through history to find an observation to support it. Science doesn’t work that way.
I would love to hear your "Data such as the 'Cambrian explosion'" and how it fits ID better than evolution.
I'm tuned in, enlighten me.
IP: Logged
|
|
John A. Davison
Member
Member # 1425
|
posted 19. January 2006 02:21
It is considered bad form to ask WHY. All that matters is HOW. The primary role for males is to stop evolution as it has yet to be demonstrated that any creature, plant or animal, is able to become a new KIND of creature employing sexual reproduction as its sole reproductive means. Natural Selection also is purely conservative and always was as far as I have been able to tell, a conclusion reached long ago by both Reginald C. Punnett and Leo S. Berg.
The entire Darwinian scheme is an illusion based on the unwarranted primary assumption that evolution had an exogenous identifiable cause. Such a cause has never been identified and in my carefully considered opinion never existed. Like ontogeny, evolution proceeded (past tense) independent of the environment. That is the central thesis of the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis.
"It is not advisable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for believing it to be true."
Bertrand Russell
Yet that is exactly what the Darwinians have done.
IP: Logged
|
|
stipeck
Member
Member # 1860
|
posted 19. January 2006 04:42
John
I am afraid we disagree again John.
First off, I think it is best to start with your quote. You are arguing from a religious standpoint; claiming there is some form of intelligence starting life, and you quote, "It is not advisable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for believing it to be true." You are making this too easy for me to retort. The entire belief in a creator is completely groundless. Religion is all about faith and your quote is a call to abandon faith for proof. I'm not really sure where you're going with that...
But on to the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis. I saw this written in capital letters and you referring to it as THE prescribed evolutionary hypothesis, and thought that it must be a very well known hypothesis so I searched around the internet a bit and quickly discovered that, lo’ and behold, it was written by you. I then searched around more to see if I could find a site where other scientists would explain this hypothesis. No luck. As I quickly discovered, every site I looked at was you promoting your paper in a blog, or forum. Nowhere was there other people citing it or referring to it (in a good way, there was plenty of negative feedback). I’m not sure we should discuss this hypothesis in depth too much, seeing as it currently very obscure.
Regarding you idea about "the primary role for males is to stop evolution". How do you explain the fossils that show whales with tiny legs, and how, as the fossils get younger, the whales' vestigial legs get smaller and smaller until they resemble those of whales today? Certainly the whales with the tiny legs where male and female and had sexual reproduction. But it definitely appears they still underwent this change from legs to no legs.
P.S. About your quotes. I have searched a few sites for other posts you have made, and it seems that in almost everyone where you try and make a point you add in two or three quotes of famous people at the end. I pale at the thought of how much time you must spend finding all these quotes and I regret to inform you it adds absolutely no validity to your arguments. In fact it makes it seem like you are not confident in your own argument, and hope to win people over by shocking them with names like Einstein and Berg. Please do everyone and yourself a favor, keep the quotes to a minimum.
-Stipeck
IP: Logged
|
|
Melvin H. Fox
Member
Member # 1684
|
posted 19. January 2006 08:05
Stipeck
I apologize if my statements were unclear. I will take some time to examine them and reformulate them in a forthcoming post.
Stipeck wrote
quote:
Currently there is a very well known and very widely accepted theory to explain the double slit experiment. The pattern produced is the result of simple math and points undoubtedly to light being a wave.
With my apologies, the double slit experiment I was referring to was with electrons described here:
http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/reality/RealityFrame1.html
I like math. If the explanation for the double slit experiment with electrons is that simple and not a probability distribution, would you care to explain it to me? I have nothing against probability. However, probability is not an explanation of how something works. It is a method we use to predict the unpredictable [outcomes for which the cause is unknown].
Stipeck wrote
quote:
The fact is that as of right now there is more observational evidence pointing to evolution and natural selection then to ID and evolution does not require an un-natural un-observable entity to work. Evolution was built from observations, up into a theory; ID started with the conclusion that a designer created life and is scrambling through history to find an observation to support it. Science doesn’t work that way.
It is my understanding that in Darwin’s chronological journal he first notes the enormous struggle for life he observers during his voyage on the Beagle. He then confesses his doubts that God could exist as creator and allow such suffering in his creation. It is possible this conclusion came first: There is no God. Remember Lyle had a strong influence on Darwin and Lyle certainly came to this conclusion first.
I do congratulate you for your lucid explanation of how evolution is supposed to work by chance. It is a fine sounding argument. I concede there is observational evidence that does not contradict this idea. In fact you have convinced a jury of your peers. I maintain that chance is innocent of this charge against it: Chance is responsible for all that is. Chance is not a particle, nor a wave, nor is it a force of any kind. Chance is nothing but pure imagination. It lives in the virtual, theoretical realm and can’t enter the physical to cause or to do anything. Not only are you appealing to an un-natural source as an agent of change but you are appealing to one with no power to effect that change. Good luck with that.
-Mel
IP: Logged
|
|
Atom
Member
Member # 1840
|
posted 19. January 2006 11:23
Dear Stipeck,
In regards to your posts. Firstly, you chide John for having a "religious" argument (which he doesn't...as far as I can tell, he is fairly materialistic in his Mechanism of PEH), yet you argue based on a religious argument. You proceed to ask "Why would a designer..." which is the start of the Argument from Aesthetics. Arguing from this point is not scientific, but is based on religious presuppositions about how a designer would or would not act. You sit in judgement of what is "Good Design" whithout knowing the Designer, His/Her Motives, nor the contraints placed on the system. (Most design involves constrained optimization, where multiple constraints must be satisfied simultaneously). How can you prove that the design exhibited is poor design? Simply put, you cannot. Furthermore, even if a designer was a really dumb, really sloppy, really malicious being, this would not detract from his/her role as designer.
To see that argument dealt with in length, please read Cornelius G. Hunter's chapter in "Uncommon Dissent" or see "The Gods Must be Tidy!" located here: http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2136
Further, the examples you have posted of "vestigial" organs are not without function. For example it has been noted that the "small" legs in Basilosaurus were most likely used to aid in copulation, and the "pelvic" bones of modern whales may serve as anchor points for genital muscles. And anyone who has ever been kissed on the nipples knows what function those highly packed nerve centers serve in males.
It is nearly impossible to make an argument that a given organ is without current function in an organism, since it is always an argument based on our current scientific ignorance. At one time 86 human organs were classified as "vestigial" by biologists, including the thyroid glands. Today, almost all have been found to have function.
To conclude, "Why would a designer..." is a philosophical/religious question which we may or may not be able to answer. It is not, however, scientific evidence against design. Why would a designer place a wheel on the roof of a car? For a spare tire. It is very difficult to rule out function.
Darwinism does make two main claims: common descent and modification via natural selection and mutation. All people accept some degree of common descent, but the difference in degree is what separates the differing theories of descent, in addition to differences concerning mechanisms of modification. The fossil record has shown the gradualistic pattern predicted by Darwin to be largely false, hence Punctuated models of descent. What is of interest, in the words of Berlinski, are the gaps. Why do some organisms appear fully formed in the fossil record without any apparent evolutionary ancestor, persist unchanged for millenia, then disappear? ID scientists are trying to answer these questions from a fresh perspective.
Atom
Sorry if I poked my nose into this thread.
[ 19. January 2006, 12:48: Message edited by: Atom ]
IP: Logged
|
|
John A. Davison
Member
Member # 1425
|
posted 19. January 2006 11:41
Stipeck. I am sorry you find my hypothesis so unacceptable. I hope you realize it is little more than a logical extension of the conclusions of some of the finest biological minds of two centuries, men like
St George Jackson Mivart who saw through Darwinian mysticism and exposed it within a dozen years of its inception.
Henry Fairfield Osborn, head of the American Museum of Natural History who denied any role for Natural Selection in any evolutionary sequence and explained why.
Reginald C. Punnett, inventor of the Punnett Square who correctly identified the only role of Natural Selection as that of maintaining the status quo.
Leo Berg, admittedly the greatest Russian biologist of his generation, who did the same and also presented powerful evidence for internal forces driving the evolutionary process, a process like ontogeny for which there is no role for chance.
William Bateson, the father of moderngenetics, who realized before he died that Mendelism had absolutely nothing to do with creative evolution.
Pierre Grasse, the French counterpart to Leo Berg who correctly concluded that evolution was finished and that allelic mutation and accordingly Natural Selection had played no part in it.
Richard B. Goldschmidt, the preeminent experimental geneticist of his day who independently reached the same conclusion and demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that subspecies were not incipient species but only blind alleys.
Otto Schindewolf, probably the greatest paleontologis of all time who on completely independent grounds reached exactly the same conclusions.
These are the primary sources which you are criticising with your arbitrary judgements. a veritable honor roll of the finest minds in biological science, not a Darwinian in the lot.
IP: Logged
|
|
John A. Davison
Member
Member # 1425
|
posted 19. January 2006 16:12
If there was ever a nono for the scientist, it is to ask the question why. Only how is permitted.
IP: Logged
|
|
Christopher D. Beling
Member
Member # 723
|
posted 20. January 2006 09:39
Hi Stipeck
Thanks for your comments. I hope no offense if I dig into this issue of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle a little more. You say quote:
The relative size of the particle and the wave is not the issue though.
I think on the contrary this is a very important issue and to show what I mean I have made this diagram:
It shows an electron (red) scattering off a crystalline surface made up of a regular array of atoms. This is pretty much the equivalent to an electron going through a double slit - but unlike the double-slit experiment this particular experiment can be done with electrons. Indeed this is how Davison and Germer in 1927 first showed the wave-like properties of the electron.
The diagram shows the electron to be very small in size. It is actually VERY VERY much smaller than shown - it would be essentially a point (and far too small to be seen) on the scale shown. Just how small is the size of the electron - well we dont really know for sure, but we are not totally ignorant. Experiments involving very high energy electron scattering and also the measurements of the electrons magnetic moment have shown both the electon (and its heavy brother the muon) to have a radius of less than 10^-20m (that is 100,000 times smaller than a proton). On the otherhand we can be fairly sure that it is not as small as 10^-51m because that is the Schwarzschild radius and the electron would behave as a black hole if it were that small. So these two bits of information tell us that the radius lies somewhere between 10^-20m and 10^-51m. If string theories are getting close to the truth then one might expect the electron (and its heavy brothers the muon and that tauon) to be close in dimension to the Planck length 10^-35m [with probably 6 other hidden spatial dimensions wrapped up inside this vibrating "string" of energy (mass)]. Well one thing we do know then is that the electron is REALLY small!
The de-Broglie wavelength which refer to is not the same thing as the electron radius (size). It is given by Planck's constant divided by the particle momentum - h/mv. That is it depends on both the mass and the velocity. Even a golf ball going really slowly could have a long de-Broglie wavelength - but such small velocity would be entirely impossible on practical grounds because of the golf ball mass. For an electron, however, because of its small mass - reasonably long de-Broglie wavelengths can be sustained. For example for an electron that has been accelerated through 10,000 volts (fairly practical) the wave-length is 0.12Angstrom (1.2x10^-11m). Such a wavelength is indeed comparable to the interatomic distance of a crystal which is typically a few angstroms (10^-10m). Thus the de-Broglie wavelength is much larger than the electron size and moreover is variable. But there is more excitement - the ultra small electrons motion after scattering is determined by the outgoing wave - this outgoing wave is produced by the scattered wavelets from very many atoms. Thus the electron which is so small is in a sense able to "feel" the many atoms of the crystal because of the large spatial extension of its associated wave. In my view this is because the electron is actually associated with the 3D structure of space (ligh gray grid). It is this space structure itself that is vibrating and causing what we refer to as the de-Broglie wave. If you like - the electron is on a kind of space-mesh which is all the time vibrating.
Please understand that I have no disagreement with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. It is a fine principle that has been shown true in many experiments. It represents mathematically the practical limitation on what we can know (as experimenters) about the space-momentum coordinates of the electron and derives from the fact that any wave can be broken down into harmonic components. However just because we are not able to measure space and momentum simulaneously does not imply that such do not exist. On the above model - the electron certainly has a position - although it is totally unkown to us (since in the above example the momentum is precise). I hope these comments are helpful to you. Let me know whether you can buy all this.
I hope to respond to your other points soon (although I have posted something on the CSI information decrease on the PEH thread). Regards - Chris
[ 20. January 2006, 09:41: Message edited by: Christopher D. Beling ]
IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic