Big Bang Theory no longer a theory?

[zorkuus]

What? You are claiming that building an impossible machine to do the impossible proves something that wouldn't even be related to said machine in the first place? How does that work exactly?

You shouldn't throw around the word impossible lightly in science. While I agree that the machine I described would be 110% impossible with the knowledge we have today but never say never (even if it's still very very very unlikely).

[spinner981]

To try to connect creationism as a theory to the theory of evolution would be equivocation.

Right, so 2 kinds of theories exist: the kind that you personally accept, and the kind that you don't personally accept. Am I missing anything here? Or does this not just have to solely do with amount of interpreted evidence? Is there like a list of theories on the internet that have the 'most' evidence for then? Is #1 more plausible because it has a greater quantity?

Also... I thought this thread was about the big bang? Not just trying to impose evolution as a surrogate for the 'it's just a theory' claims, right? Why bring up evolution in the first place? How many times have people told me that the big bang and evolution are two completely separate things?

[Osmeric]

BTW, the Big Bang theory was well-established long before the most recent results. The only way to get a thermal cosmic microwave background is by the BBT; no other alternative has ever been proposed that could make something so extremely close to a perfect blackbody spectrum.

[zorkuus]

How many times have people told me that the big bang and evolution are two completely separate things?

Yet they are still both scientific theories.

[Bigbamboozal]

Accepted fact can still be a theory. Something must be repeatedly proven in all possible scenarios to pass from theory to law. For instance: Einstein's Theories of Relativity have been repeatedly proven, but there are still postulates that have not been proven. It is still a theory, not a law.

Well, that might be a good thing when you stop and think about it because as we know, he who breaks the law, goes back to the house of pain!

Sorry, couldn't resist, and, I feel where humanity is at right about now, we could use it.

[usiris]

Right, so 2 kinds of theories exist: the kind that you personally accept, and the kind that you don't personally accept.

Stopping here cause I would be wasting my time.

No, one type exists. People dont understand how it works.

[spinner981]

You shouldn't throw around the word impossible lightly in science. While I agree that the machine I described would be 110% impossible with the knowledge we have today but never say never (even if it's still very very very unlikely).

The claim that someday it might be possible is empty. You can't just make 'maybe someday' claims like that and use it as ammunition to claim something could possibly be true. I know you weren't really saying such a thing, but that doesn't make it any less a fallacy.

Creationism isn't a theory because it isn't a working model, does not make predictions, and most importantly, is not falsifiable.

It's just an inaccurate story people try to insert as the explanation of everything, without actually having any explanatory power.

How is the big bang falsifiable? Or evolution for that matter. They both rely on vagueness and anything observed in science is just reshaped to either fit into evolution or allow evolution to exist. I find some claims so silly; to say that something must be falsifiable, but then to make other theories unfalsifiable by basing their entire theory on nothing but assumptions, interpretations and theory crafting. For all intents and purposes, evolution and the big bang have been made unfalsifiable. This isn't to say that they have been proven, but that they can simply not be disproved. Anything found that contradicts evolution is just worked into the theory of evolution.

[Wells]

Well we could build a machine that allows us to observe the big bang outside space and time as it took place. While extremely unlikely we could ever build such a thing... but if we could we could say it's a fact. I only made the comment because I think he was trying to say facts are somehow higher in the scientific pecking order than theories.

Even then all you'd have is the observation of the explosion or whatever. Explaining what you're seeing still requires a theory.

[spinner981]

It's a reflex I've developed from reading way too many people try to equate creationism as a theory with evolution. Regardless, it would still be equivocation because the Big Bang uses theory in the same sense as evolution, while the "theory" of creationism uses it in the weaker sense a layperson would to simply mean conjecture.

What would the difference be? That one theory is completely man made and the other has prior beliefs presented to those theorizing about it? Mind spelling it out for me; why exactly certain theories used to explain a certain topic of science are not theories while others are? Evidence doesn't seem to be the variable.

[Gheld]

Holy fuck. Gravitational waves have been detected.

[usiris]

How is the big bang falsifiable? Or evolution for that matter.

I'll let someone else handle big bang.

If it could be shown that mutations do not occur.
If it could be shown that, although mutations do occur, they are not passed down through the generations.
If it could be shown that, although mutations are passed down, no mutation could produce the sort of phenotypic changes that drive natural selection.
If it could be shown that selection or environmental pressures do not favor the reproductive success of better adapted individuals.
If it could be shown that even though selection or environmental pressures favor the reproductive success of better adapted individuals, "better adapted individuals" (at any one time) are not shown to change into other species.

What would the difference be? That one theory is completely man made and the other has prior beliefs presented to those theorizing about it? Mind spelling it out for me; why exactly certain theories used to explain a certain topic of science are not theories while others are? Evidence doesn't seem to be the variable.

Because one is used in the scientific method while the other is used by an idiot on the street.

You completely ignore how actual science is done and insert how you, as a laymen(assumeing), interpret things

[zorkuus]

How is the big bang falsifiable? Or evolution for that matter.

Find a rabbit in the cambrian layer, you have just falsified evolution.

Anything found that contradicts evolution is just worked into the theory of evolution.

Show me a contradiction.

[Mormolyce]

Creationism is a theory too you know. But that's different, right?

You're absolutely correct, creationism is a theory as well (of course this is a gross oversimplification as their are thousands if not millions of creation myths so there's not just one "creationism" - let's assume you mean specifically the Christian one).

Specifically, creationism is a theory that has long since been proven wrong, the big bang has not as yet. The difference being that when a theory is disproven a scientist goes looking for a better one, whereas a religious institution jams its fingers in its ears and says "LALALA I'M NOT LISTENING!".

At least, dogmatic religions are like that.

[Gheld]

I don't think people realize how amazing it is, to confirm the propagation of gravity in the form of a wave. It solidifies general relativity, while hinting at new implications for quantum mechanics. It's fucking scientific excitement 2014.

[Garnier Fructis]

Murphy's Law.

This is the only thing in science which will remain true no matter how much our understanding of the universe changes.

[Eroginous]

How is the big bang falsifiable? Or evolution for that matter. They both rely on vagueness and anything observed in science is just reshaped to either fit into evolution or allow evolution to exist. I find some claims so silly; to say that something must be falsifiable, but then to make other theories unfalsifiable by basing their entire theory on nothing but assumptions, interpretations and theory crafting. For all intents and purposes, evolution and the big bang have been made unfalsifiable. This isn't to say that they have been proven, but that they can simply not be disproved. Anything found that contradicts evolution is just worked into the theory of evolution.

'Falsifiable' doesn't mean what you think it means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

Creationism isn't falsifiable because it's claims directly rely on a book that's been pieced together over thousands of years by hundreds of different authors and translated into hundreds of different languages. Everything about creationism is deliberately vague, providing both inadequate data and insufficient evidence to even be testable.

Because it's not testable, it's not falsifiable.

Right, so 2 kinds of theories exist: the kind that you personally accept, and the kind that you don't personally accept. Am I missing anything here? Or does this not just have to solely do with amount of interpreted evidence? Is there like a list of theories on the internet that have the 'most' evidence for then? Is #1 more plausible because it has a greater quantity?

Also... I thought this thread was about the big bang? Not just trying to impose evolution as a surrogate for the 'it's just a theory' claims, right? Why bring up evolution in the first place? How many times have people told me that the big bang and evolution are two completely separate things?

Many words have multiple uses, thus are defined in multiple ways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_...ambiguation%29

The theories regarding the Big Bang provide data and evidence to support them. Moreover, the theory can be used to predict outcomes based on the currently accepted model. People didn't just sit down and guess there was a big bang. They've spent over a hundred years discussing the Big Bang theory and several models potentially associated with it, running experiments and gathering data to try and prove the theory wrong.

The bolded part is what's most important. Science doesn't set out to prove things right, they set out to do the opposite. Theories are accepted into science when they've been peer reviewed and all attempts at proving them wrong have failed.

This is the fundamental difference between the Bible and science. The Bible just exists as a book written by people with ideas, none of which were tested supported by evidence. It's much like JK Rowling writing a Harry Potter novel and asserting it as a factual account of a boy wizard and his friends. This is why Creationism is not a theory.

[spinner981]

I'll let someone else handle big bang.

If it could be shown that mutations do not occur.
If it could be shown that, although mutations do occur, they are not passed down through the generations.
If it could be shown that, although mutations are passed down, no mutation could produce the sort of phenotypic changes that drive natural selection.
If it could be shown that selection or environmental pressures do not favor the reproductive success of better adapted individuals.
If it could be shown that even though selection or environmental pressures favor the reproductive success of better adapted individuals, "better adapted individuals" (at any one time) are not shown to change into other species.

Some of these things have already been proven and observed (ie: micro-evolution and natural selection), except the last which can't be proven in many lifetimes and could never disprove a biological history. Macro-evolution is a mere explanation of our biological history; no biological future could be used to disprove a biological past. Macro-evolution is the theory we are talking about here, not micro-evolution or natural selection (which the first 4 lines deal with). Macro-evolution only deals with the last line; which once again can't be falsified.

[Garnier Fructis]

Is there like a list of theories on the internet that have the 'most' evidence for then?

I know this isn't the point of your post, but if anyone is interested I think the theory with the most evidence for it is Quantum Electrodynamics. If there was ever a bulletproof theory in science, that would probably be it.

[zorkuus]

Some of these things have already been proven and observed (ie: micro-evolution and natural selection), except the last which can't be proven in many lifetimes and could never disprove a biological history. Macro-evolution is a mere explanation of our biological history; no biological future could be used to disprove a biological past. Macro-evolution is the theory we are talking about here, not micro-evolution or natural selection (which the first 4 lines deal with). Macro-evolution only deals with the last line; which once again can't be falsified.

There is no such thing as micro and macro-evolution. It's just evolution.

[spinner981]

Scientific theory

Even a cursory glance should make it obvious creationism, whether any individual supports it or not, does not now and probably cannot ever meet that criteria.

But the big bang theory hasn't been observed nor repeated nor experimented on. We have only observed evidence for it, which the same could be said for a creationism model.