Assumptions and Science

Evidence and knowledge are not the same thing. It takes knowledge to interpret evidence. Knowledge reinforces itself by interpreting the evidence with assumptions that we already “knew.” They are treated as self-evident. Analyzing evidence with logic, mathematics and experiments is itself based on assumptions. A scientist would argue, “Science is not a religious faith. Every idea in science is repeatedly tested for mathematical correctness and agreement with the evidence.” Scientists, however, do not question the elementary idea essential for scientific reasoning itself. If this assumption is false, mathematics, logic and experiments could not decode the universe.

If habits of mind govern how we interpret evidence, how did these ideas begin? Some of the debates of the early Greek philosophers have survived. The theories of the early philosophers seem very strange to us because they had not yet “learned” to think scientifically. Basic assumptions are not easy to come by, so the debates lasted for about three hundred years. The philosophers were intellectual revolutionaries arguing against the way of thinking of that age. Their ancestors assumed that everything, even substance itself, changes. If matter decays, what “is” eventually changes into something that presently “is not.” This is why the debates revolved around the problem of change. How could philosophers decode the cosmos if everything is changing?

A primary assumption is so basic that it controls the way you think. In a mature system, people do not discuss or even think about their assumption. Ancient people believed that the earth, the climate, the oceans, the length of life and even the way children matured had all changed. They believed that their lives were insignificantly short compared to those of their ancestors. The Babylonians re-enacted, in stories and rituals, how Marduk (Jupiter) smashed a great planet and then altered the orbits of all the planets. According to the pagans, each battle among the planet gods pushed formerly prominent planets, such as Saturn, back into the dimness. Science cannot exist in a world where everyone thinks that way.

Aristotle admitted that, if everything in every respect is changing, philosophers could not make any true statements. Aristotle finally “solved” the problem of change. He wrote that we must just assume that there is something whose nature is changeless. He assumed that all matter is made of permanent building blocks. Even though substance can be destroyed, he imagined that the attributes of matter were unchanging. Aristotle was not an atomist. He did use physical things to label what does not change. It is no accident that Aristotle invented logic. Logic has no basis if substance itself changes. Aristotle’s ideas were not easy to swallow in antiquity, since it contradicted the way ancient people thought - both pagans and Jews. Fifteen hundred years passed before his little assumption became the first principle of Western science. From time to time, organized science experiences important revolutions in thinking. This little assumption, however, has remained the first principle of Western science for eight hundred years. It is the essential dogma used by all scientists. A dogma is an inflexible principle that is unquestioned and accepted with authority.

A scientist would argue that matter cannot change since they measure constants everywhere. They claim that a cesium clock measures unchanging time. Yet no atom in distant galaxies beats with the same rhythm as local cesium. Time is an idea in our head, not just a measurement. It is impossible to compare a present second with one from the past. It is also impossible to prove that time is a separate thing independent of the other characteristics of matter. Mass, charge, energy and gravity are not just measurements but ideas invented by people. It is impossible to prove that they are independent, unchanging entities apart from faith in the dogma of science. Imagine that we weighed a nugget of gold on a scale and then did it again 40 years later. If matter changed as a relationship, the scale, the standard weight and the nugget would all change in the same way and remain in balance.

Quantum evidence (the workings of atoms) cries out that matter is not made of separate building blocks, but a dynamic relationship. If matter is a relationship, mathematical constants are not proof that matter does not change. Mathematical constants are found in things that change together, as long as the constants are defined in terms of the whole relationship. For example, the constant π is a constant because it is defined in terms of the essential nature of circles. If the radius changes, all measurements on a sphere change-together, so the ratio π remains constant. Most physical constants are defined in terms of the whole relationship, so their ratios could remain constant, while the underlying reality changes as a relation. You see, even the interpretation of mathematical constants requires one to dogmatically accept the assumption that matter is unchanging.

Why should the reader abandon the elementary assumption that supports science itself?

• The Bible clearly warns of the elementary assumptions of the philosophers, and even predicts the first principle of the last days. This principle is the very same historical idea that became the dogma of science. The Bible also predicts the triumph of faith over the wisdom of the world. Read my testimony on this web page for the biblical evidence that supports this statement.

• Our ancestors, the immediate descendants of the earliest people, all rejected this little assumption. All the pagans longed to experience the great primordial past when life was long and so much better in every way. They thought like Jacob who believed that the very days of his years were inferior to the days of the years of his fathers. They believed that everything in the world continuously changes for the worse. Ancient accounts are radically different from modern histories because they were about change everywhere, so that life itself was degenerating.

• The accounts of the ancients support their assumption, not ours. They mention visibly seeing the disks and horns of the planets. This implies a smaller solar system. Their measurements of planetary periods agree with ours, but their eclipses generally do not fit our computerized programs. If everything changes together, time-periods alone would seem to have stability, since if a day were to shorten its length, we would still call it a day.

• The ancients recalled and anticipated “great years,” periods of intense chaos in the solar system. They told stories of close encounters with the planets and battles in the sky. The Bible also mentions a great battle in the sky, an extra long day and the stars fighting from their courses. If matter changes, the orbits of all bodies would necessarily change. When we look back in time at the most-distant galaxies, we see that they are compact, dense objects with arms only beginning to form. This suggests that Adam saw the same things in our Milky Way. In the primordial past, when the galaxy was more compact, close encounters would be more likely.

• If one rejects the dogma of science, we arrive at a completely different world-view, one that supports the whole Bible, even the portions we tend to ignore. For example, modern Christians tend to ignore the statements in the Hebrew Bible that God continuously stretches out the Earth. This is because an Earth that increases in size violates the principles of science and makes no sense to modern Christians. It does make a great deal of sense if the elementary principles of science are false. We can even believe the statements of the Bible that the Earth and stars are very old. We can also believe that only a few generations separate us from Adam and Eve, who were created on the sixth period of darkness and light. These are not contradictory if the dogma of science is false. We can even believe what the Hebrew Bible repeatedly says about the continuous stretching out of the heavens. This biblical stretching is real and visible, unlike unverifiable space-time expansion. The most-distant parts of the universe shows primordial matter being ejected from dense, miniature galaxies. Replacing the elementary ideas of the pagans with biblical principles lets you see the evidence from an entirely different perspective, one that agrees with the evidence and results in a triumphant world-view.

Scientists assume that atoms are perpetual motion machines. They mock people who believe in perpetual motion, yet they never question it in atoms. They say that the quantum states have not changed since atoms formed. An atom, however, will not allow us to isolate its parts and precisely measure them separately. All atomic measurements involve the assumption that matter does not change. Imagine that a scientist wants to measure the mass of an electron. Since an electron sometimes exhibits characteristics of “waves” and at other times “particles” this is not easy. Mathematically the “particle” seemingly can “jump” across space without passing through that space. If however, you imagine that it is a wave, it seems to be continuous and be extended in space. Even if we assume that it really is a particle, if you measure its position with certainty, its momentum is almost completely unknown. In order to measure atomic “particles,” scientists must use various mathematical techniques that use assumptions to substitute for actual measurements. This is because if you increase the probability of measuring some feature of an atom, another essential characteristic becomes essentially unknowable. This would seem to be the characteristic of a dynamic relationship, not something made of fixed building blocks. “Our math complements our measurements and the system works,” says the scientist. Circular systems of reasoning often work, since they authenticate their conclusions with their assumptions.

When scientists try to force an atom to fit Aristotle’s Assumption, it responds with quantum weirdness. What if we accepted that an atom is a relationship with light whose “parts” are not independent? In the beginning, God made a relationship with light that gave shape to substance. The beginning implies that time is related to physical things and had a beginning. Evidence exists that the charge and motion of electrons are dependent on virtual photons that seem to flit around inside the atom. In Job 39. God Himself refers to the “house of light.” It is a place where darkness dwells and where the paths of light are mysterious and unknowable. This is the most amazing description of atoms I have ever read. When an atom is split, a great deal of light shines out, as in atomic bombs. The evidence suggests that atoms are not made of things that can stand alone as separate entities. These things include time, mass, energy, dimension, charge and gravity. They are all part of the relationship God made when he gave form to matter by His command, “Let there be light.” And God saw that the light was good.

Science uses an untested elementary idea to interpret the evidence from long-ago and faraway. The evidence can be interpreted differently if one uses biblical principles. For example, the redshifted light from distant atoms is not evidence for changelessness. It is really evidence that atoms are a relationship that shifts together. The quantum states were lower. The dithering internal clocks ran slower. Mass and gravity were also lower. Yet all the ratios and mathematical constants remain unchanged. When one encounters constants, while everything changes together, that is evidence for shifting equilibria, not the stretching out of empty space. In equilibria, constants remain the same while every active part changes together.

Notice that when one questions the dogma of science, we no longer need complex mathematics to understand the outline of the past. The interpretation of ancient evidence can even be understood by ordinary people unskilled in mathematics. Scientists assume that all change is differential. Differential means involving a difference. Things that change together are not measurable with experiments. Such things cannot be analyzed with differential equations, because they change together, without exhibiting differences. There is no question that many short term events exhibit differential change. In the short term, science works. The application of their laws to the distant and long-ago evidence produces absurd things like dark matter and cosmological redshift - things no one has ever directly observed or reproduced.

Someone might argue that it takes energy to change an atom, a planet, an orbit or a galaxy. Scientists treat energy as though it had a separate existence. This is merely an extension of Aristotle’s primary assumption. Energy cannot be isolated from matter and light. Energy is only separable in the mathematical equations that human minds have invented. If everything decays together, energy is part of a relationship. Changes in energy are directly related to the whole relationship, the atom itself. If atoms decay, one does not need to imagine “dark energy” that even violates their own laws of conservation. The biblical statements that everything decays can account for the visible evidence without complex mathematical systems that rely on untested assumptions.

What about measurements? How could we verify the decay of atoms with measurements? Look at Ptolemy’s measurements. He made his astronomical measurements near Alexandria between 127 and 141 AD. His planets are too big, yet he gives the dimensions and construction details of his instrument for measuring planet diameters. His angular diameter of the moon is too large, even though he measured it at both minimum and maximum distances. His maximum elongation of Mercury and Venus are too large. (That means that these planets are too high in the sky, before sunrise or after sunset, suggesting a smaller solar system). Elongations are complex and not always the same. Ptolemy was aware that the elongations of these planets vary, and even states in which constellation the maximums and minimums occur. His mechanical cranks for Mercury’s orbit are complex enough to account for the perplexing variations in Mercury’s position. His star positions have “errors,” when compared to ours, that vary with galactic latitude. (Ptolemy’s star positions imply that the Milky Way was smaller in his day). His mathematical system for predicting solar eclipses could only have worked in a smaller solar system. Ptolemy recorded positions of the planets are in error when compared with our computerized models. Yet all the supposed “errors” in his measurements somehow cancel each other and result in a mathematical system that worked for a thousand years. Ptolemy could not have invented all his “incorrect” measurements, since the “errors” cancel to give approximately the right answers. Ptolemy’s measurements make more sense if the dogma of science is false. If matter changes as a relationship, the solar system and the galaxy would continuously change. Such changes are unlikely to be detected with radar, since experiments are dependent on the assumption that matter (including space and time) are unchanging. Angles are the one measurement that should not change if the solar system is static, yet Ptolemy’s angles are mostly “wrong.” The Mayans also recorded an eclipse that they could not have seen, unless our assumptions are wrong. This is reason enough to suspect our assumptions.

Everyone uses assumptions when examining evidence. If the dogma of science is false, experiments and mathematics could only attempt to analyzing “here” and “now.” The laws of science, when applied to the far-away and the long-ago, would result in absurdities like invisible matter and the vacuum of empty space stretching the light passing through it.

Think about it.

Victor McAllister

Last modified November 1, 2005
Return to Main Page