The Shameful Exploitation of a Child by Christian Apologists.

[walterpthefirst]

Hello.

 

I recently came across this video on YouTube.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgzwmOXrfaU

It's a slightly edited excerpt from a much longer video, which can be seen in it's entirety here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFp_WaUIHCQ&t=60s

 

Young William Maillis is the son of priest and is also a genius.  Both he, his father, the interviewer and the sympathetic audience watching this presentation appear to hope that he will prove scientists, sceptics and atheists wrong about the origin of the universe.  And that he will also 'prove' that god created the universe.  These videos are four years old, so William will be about 16 by now.

 

Because I'm very interested in cosmology I've carefully listened to what was claimed and asserted by William in the shorter video and I can now present my findings.

 

 

 

At 1:30  William says that whatever’s outside the universe must be an absence of space-time.

 

He introduces Einstein's theory of general relativity, which explains that gravity is the curvature of space-time.  But, is he right about whatever's outside the universe?  Well, general relativity has something to say about that.  It allows for three options for the shape (geometry) of the universe. 

 

A Flat universe is infinite and so there is nothing outside of it.  An Open universe is infinite and so there is nothing outside of it.  Both Flat and Open universes have no boundary and therefore no ‘outside’ to them.  A Closed universe is finite and therefore has a boundary.  But nobody really knows for sure if our universe’s geometry is Flat, Open or Closed.  The diagrams on this Wiki page are helpful when it comes to visualizing Flat, Open and Closed universes.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_of_the_universe

 

Please note that the entirety of the Closed universe is shown as a sphere.  The entirety of the Flat and Open universes cannot be properly shown.  This is because they extend to infinity and are without any kind of border, limit or boundary.  They are simply shown with edges on this Wiki page because it is impossible to show their full extent.  Because nobody really knows if our universe is Flat, Open or Closed, William’s comments about what must lie outside the universe are speculation.  And speculation doesn’t make a coherent argument.

 

 

At 1:40  William says that 13.8 billion years ago the entire universe was reduced to a singularity.

 

This is false.  The 1970 Hawking-Penrose Singularity theory appeared to mathematically prove that the universe must have emerged from an initial singularity.  However, that theory required the universe to have a Cosmological Constant (a kind of energy inherent to the fabric of space-time) of a negative or zero value.  If the universe has a Cosmological Constant  with a positive value, then the theory does not apply.  In 1998 the universe was measured to have a positive value, thus falsifying it.  That theory cannot be used to prove that the universe began with a singularity.  Hawking and Penrose specifically mentioned this caveat in the abstract of their theory. 

 

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.1970.0021

 

The theorem applies if the following four physical assumptions are made:

(i) Einstein’s equations hold (with zero or negative cosmological constant),

(ii) the energy density is nowhere less than minus each principal pressure nor less than minus the sum of the three principal pressures (the ‘energy condition’),

(iii) there are no closed timelike curves,

(iv) every timelike or null geodesic enters a region where the curvature is not specially aligned with the geodesic.

 

In 1998 the Cosmological Constant of the universe was measured and shown to have a positive value.  This means that the first of Hawking and Penrose's assumptions is violated.  A proof cannot stand if any of the assumptions it was built upon are violated.  Therefore, the Hawking-Penrose Singularity theory does not prove that the universe began from an initial singularity.  William is wrong.

 

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Cosmological_constant

 

William also says that... "the singularity is a particle that is smaller than a quark."  This is also false.  The singularity is not a particle of any kind because particles like quarks exist in space-time. Whereas, the singularity is space-time itself, compressed down to a zero-dimensional point.  It looks as if William has been misinformed as to what the initial singularity is.

 

 

 

At 2: 20 William asserts that something must have created the singularity and that something we observe as God.

 

No, nobody observes this as god.  By definition neither the initial singularity nor anything that might have created it is observable by us.  Here William is making a statement of faith.  He believes by faith that the singularity was created by god.  And since William’s argument relies on the failed Hawking-Penrose singularity theory, he cannot logically argue that the cause of the singularity must be god.  Nor can he argue using what he believes by faith.  To disprove a scientific theory he needs to demonstrate his case using evidence - not faith.  

 

Furthermore, to a Muslim that same something which created the singularity is believed by faith to be Allah.  And the Sikhs believe by faith that it is their god.  And so do many others, all believing that their particular god and nobody else’s is the cause of the singularity.  Therefore William’s argument fails to identify Jesus as the cause of the initial singularity.  

 

 

 

At 2: 28  William says that in Hawking’s theory there should be no cause of the initial singularity because of gravity.

 

In 1983 Hawking tried to solve the problem of the initial singularity by formulating a new theory.  It is this new theory and not the older Singularity theory in which Hawking claims that there was no cause of the universe’s beginning because of gravity.  So, without mentioning it or explaining why, William has shifted from discussing one of Hawking's theories to another.  Here is a link to Hawking's 1983 theory.

 

https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.28.2960

 

But this new theory was also made irrelevant by the 1998 discovery of a positive Cosmological Constant.  Hawking’s original 1970 theory that seemed to prove that the universe emerged from a singularity has been falsified by that discovery.  Therefore, there is now no need for Hawking to replace his earlier theory with a better one.  The problem generated by his earlier, the initial singularity, has gone away.   It went away in 1998.

 

And consequently, there is no need for Christian apologists (or their sons) to try and disprove singularity theory.  After fifty years they are still attacking a problem that no longer exists in cosmology.  Sadly, Singularity theory was disproved before William was born.

 

 

I have no issue with William Maillis' faith and the purpose of this thread is not to attack the boy in any way.  Instead, my issue is with his father.  He is using his son's intellectual brilliance as a weapon to push back against atheism and scepticism, turning his own child into a pawn to be used by the church.  The poor lad is not only being taken advantage of and manipulated by his father but he is also being poorly served by him.  

 

In the longer video William says that he would like to become an astrophysicist.  Well, if he follows that career path he will discover that his father has filled his head with false, unscientific information and Christian propaganda about the origin of the universe.  Maillis Senior's grasp of cosmology owes more to the Reverend William Lane Craig's unfeasible pseudo-scientific cosmology rather than to bona fide cosmology.

 

I find this all very sad.

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

 

 

[walterpthefirst]

Pantheory,

 

Please take note.

 

This thread is specifically and only about cosmology in relation to Christian apologetics.  Christian apologists confine themselves exclusively to mainstream science and have no interest in alternative cosmological theories.  Neither your belief in alternative cosmologies nor your disbelief in mainstream cosmology are of any relevance to the purpose or function of this thread.  

 

There is no need whatsoever for you to make any kind of comparison between mainstream and alternative cosmologies in this thread.  There is no need whatsoever for you to introduce any content that refers to alternative cosmologies into this thread.  To do so would be to take this thread off-topic.  Nor is this a matter of personal interpretation on your part where you might feel that you can use this thread to 'argue your case' for anything to do with alternative cosmologies.  

 

The topic of this thread is how Christian apologists try and use mainstream cosmology to try and further their religious agenda.  Please respect that.

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.