Last post dealt with the universe and solar system. To continue the breakdown of Chapter One of this faith=science book I’ll focus on these three bits:
What is an Atom?
What is a Molecule?
Bacteria Invisible but Important
Atoms first:
These days scientists have a better sense of how an atom hangs onto its bits:
there are basically two things that hold it together. Two forces, that is. The first of these has to do with electric charge, something I mentioned on the previous page. Electric charge comes in two varieties: positive and negative. The main carriers of positive charge are protons, while the main carriers of negative charge are electrons. (Within protons and neutrons, the quarks themselves carry charge, but this is only important to us in that the net charge of a proton or neutron is equal to the sum of the charges of all its quarks: zero for a neutron, and a small positive amount for a proton.) Every proton carries exactly the same amount of positive charge, and every electron carries a negative charge exactly opposite that of a proton. There are other particles with electric charge, but they tend to live only a very short time before they decay, and so they’re mostly unimportant for atoms.
So protons and electrons attract each other and the effect strengthens based on how close those are to each other, same as two protons will repel or two electron will repel. There’s the magnet similarity.
since the electric force is constantly trying to drive the protons apart, the force that holds them all in must be stronger than the electric force. And keep in mind, the electric force gets stronger as charged particles get closer together, and the protons in a nucleus are very close together. As a result, the force that holds protons and neutrons together must be very strong. Well, in a brilliant stroke of imagination, physicists have named this force “the strong force.”
Onto molecules:
“…honest scientist must admit…”?!?
Evolution is wrong? That’s wrong. Lots of evidence of molecular evolution listed at Science Direct. A few even available via Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research, but you’ll note I don’t link to either of those sites on account of them being religious like this book is, rather than focused on science for scientific evidence.
Lastly, bacteria.
If you needed verification, yes, this book cherry picks from the King James Bible for their evidence of “truth” but nobody was writing this verse to reference bacteria at the time.
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
That’s from the New International Version. Clears things up a little.
This book likens bad bacteria to Satan “who does great harm to us when we are careless about our manner of life.” In other words, brush your teeth or Satan is going to dance in your cavities that are as black as his heart. The rest of the bacteria belongs to God, though, if it’s the good stuff like the stuff aiding digestion. “Isn’t it wonderful how God has created such a tiny form of life to do such a big job?”
This leads me oddly to hip hop bacteria from November 2017.
David Kong and his team are making music. But instead of sampling beats, they’re sampling bacteria.
“Music is one of the great universal languages of our human society. We thought this would be a really, really wonderful way to engage the broader public and get them excited about science through music,” said Kong, director of a new community biotechnology initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founder of EMW Bookstore, a community space Cambridge, Mass.
Their project is called Biota Beats, an artistic endeavor in which they translate bacterial data into hip-hop melodies.
The video on the site explains better, so go listen to/watch that. Different parts of the music were created by using bacteria from different parts of bodies. “Could you hear disease? .. these could be interesting research questions…” Their project didn’t win the competition, but it’s still cool.
One Minion's Opinion 