• The Big Bang Theory: Half of Americans 'Doubtful' it Happened
    236 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Tetsmega;44609244]Actually it's true until it is disproved. For example, the laws of gravity are true, until someone figures out how anti-gravity works.[/QUOTE] Saying something is true until it's disproved is like saying someone is guilty until proven innocent. It's exact opposite way of doing things. If it's anti-gravity, it means it's going against gravity. It's not proving that gravity isn't true.
I don't know anyone who holds this belief
[QUOTE=Daniel Smith;44609197]Everyone knows the universe was created in 7 days by an old giant white dude who lives on top of clouds[/QUOTE] no, thats wrong, the universe was created when a singularity made from absolutely nothing decided to start expanding randomly and out came the entirety of our universe
[QUOTE=LMFAO;44621007]no, thats wrong, the universe was created when a singularity made from absolutely nothing decided to start expanding randomly and out came the entirety of our universe[/QUOTE] You are applying concepts like "nothing" and "random" to events and circumstances in which everything that you would consider "common sense" becomes obsolete. What does "created" mean when there is no time? What does "random" mean when there is no causality? Making fun of the big bang by calling it random is like making fun of quantum mechanics by calling it illogical. It only appears illogical to you because your grasp of logic is outdated and primitive. I can see why you'd be hesitant to buy into things that must seem ridiculous. But if science's understanding of logic is the flawed one and your's is correct, why are scientists the ones creating quantum computers? If science's understanding of the world is so random and dumb, why are we advancing so goddamn quickly?
How dumb are they? It's on TV like every night.
[QUOTE=Paul McCartney;44609172]Doesn't matter what you think, science is true. That's what's great about it.[/QUOTE] Change the word 'science' to like every possible religion ever and you get the idea. For fundamentalists there's no denying that their point of religious view is absolutely und unmistakably true. As for most of us who are believing in natural science ... reality is constructed, we just build models and theories in order to TRY to unterstand it. But how can you really know what's real if you didn't experience it YOUR way?
[QUOTE=TedStriker;44621570]Change the word 'science' to like every possible religion ever and you get the idea. For fundamentalists there's no denying that their point of religious view is absolutely und unmistakably true. As for most of us who are believing in natural science ... reality is constructed, we just build models and theories in order to TRY to unterstand it. But how can you really know what's real if you didn't experience it YOUR way?[/QUOTE] EXPERIMENT EXPERIMENT EXPERIMENT
zimbabwe
[QUOTE=Falubii;44619832]I don't really know what silly point you're trying to make, but I'll just leave [URL="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof"]thi[/URL][URL="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof"]s[/URL] here.[/QUOTE] The silly point I'm trying to make is that "things are true until disproved" is a silly point what has burden of proof got to do with anything
[QUOTE=RobbL;44624126]The silly point I'm trying to make is that "things are true until disproved" is a silly point what has burden of proof got to do with anything[/QUOTE] Umm what? We're talking about the validity of a claim and who is supposed to prove it and you don't understand how burden of proof is relevant? You can choose to believe in Cthulhu if you want, butt if its existence has no testable effects than what difference does it make? If it does have testable effects and those tests come back negative, then your hypothesis was wrong.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;44613411]Eternal inflation is not really accepted as standard yet.[/QUOTE] Actually I'm going to risk disagreeing with a physics grad to say that even in plain old non-eternal inflation the energy for the extremely dense particle soup we associate with the Big Bang comes from the inflationary medium decaying, so inflation is (as far as we know) what provided the thing that banged in the Big Bang.
[QUOTE=Ziks;44624611]Actually I'm going to risk disagreeing with a physics grad to say that even in plain old non-eternal inflation the energy for the extremely dense particle soup we associate with the Big Bang comes from the inflationary medium decaying, so inflation is (as far as we know) what provided the thing that banged in the Big Bang.[/QUOTE] The inflaton field decayed about 10^-36 seconds after the big bang: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflationary_epoch[/url] I've always seen what caused the big bang be explained as ~quantum fluctuations~ but I've never really seen anything going much deeper into it. We need a full theory of quantum gravity to understand what the universe looked like before the Plank time, so I don't think there's any real consensus on what caused the big bang to begin with.
[QUOTE=Falubii;44624193]Umm what? We're talking about the validity of a claim and who is supposed to prove it and you don't understand how burden of proof is relevant? You can choose to believe in Cthulhu if you want, butt if its existence has no testable effects than what difference does it make? If it does have testable effects and those tests come back negative, then your hypothesis was wrong.[/QUOTE] Then he should have said "things supported by an overwhelming burden of truth should be accepted as fact until disproven" he didn't though
[QUOTE=RobbL;44625074]Then he should have said "things supported by an overwhelming burden of truth should be accepted as fact until disproven" he didn't though[/QUOTE] He probably shouldn't have said that because it's really long-winded and I don't even know what you just said.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;44624900]The inflaton field decayed about 10^-36 seconds after the big bang: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflationary_epoch[/url] I've always seen what caused the big bang be explained as ~quantum fluctuations~ but I've never really seen anything going much deeper into it. We need a full theory of quantum gravity to understand what the universe looked like before the Plank time, so I don't think there's any real consensus on what caused the big bang to begin with.[/QUOTE] I'm not disagreeing that inflation happened after time began, but what I call the Big Bang (and what I'm sure quite a few people intuitively think the Big Bang was) is the rapid expansion and cooling of an incredibly hot and dense particle soup. Inflation is what supplied the particle soup and its immense energy, without which I assume our region of space would have just been a boring vacuum with occasional virtual particles etc. Before we knew about inflation the question of "What caused the Big Bang?" was synonymous with "Why was space hugely hot and dense 13.7 billion years ago?". Inflation answers the latter formulation of the question.
[QUOTE=Ziks;44625456]I'm not disagreeing that inflation happened after time began, but what I call the Big Bang (and what I'm sure quite a few people intuitively think the Big Bang was) is the rapid expansion and cooling of an incredibly hot and dense particle soup. Inflation is what supplied the particle soup and its immense energy, without which I assume our region of space would have just been a boring vacuum with occasional virtual particles etc. Before we knew about inflation the question of "What caused the Big Bang?" was synonymous with "Why was space hugely hot and dense 13.7 billion years ago?". Inflation answers the latter formulation of the question.[/QUOTE] I'm not a smart man, but I'm pretty sure the hugely dense part answers the incredibly hot part. Are you saying that the inflation field is the source of all known mass . . .?
[QUOTE=Ziks;44625456]I'm not disagreeing that inflation happened after time began, but what I call the Big Bang (and what I'm sure quite a few people intuitively think the Big Bang was) is the rapid expansion and cooling of an incredibly hot and dense particle soup. Inflation is what supplied the particle soup and its immense energy, without which I assume our region of space would have just been a boring vacuum with occasional virtual particles etc. Before we knew about inflation the question of "What caused the Big Bang?" was synonymous with "Why was space hugely hot and dense 13.7 billion years ago?". Inflation answers the latter formulation of the question.[/QUOTE] Fair enough, but I'm pretty certain your terminology is non-standard. See for example: "The inflationary epoch lasted from 10^−36 seconds after the Big Bang to sometime between 10^−33 and 10^−32 seconds." The big bang generally refers to the time after the initial singularity, when the universe first began to expand. Space was still hugely hot and dense before inflation.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;44625822]Fair enough, but I'm pretty certain your terminology is non-standard. See for example: "The inflationary epoch lasted from 10^−36 seconds after the Big Bang to sometime between 10^−33 and 10^−32 seconds." The big bang generally refers to the time after the initial singularity, when the universe first began to expand.[/QUOTE] I'll admit my semantics were incorrect, yes. Although do we believe there actually was a singularity in the sense of an infinitely dense region? I guess the more general definition of singularity, as a threshold past which our current understanding of physics is incomplete, certainly holds anyway.
[QUOTE=Ziks;44625879]I'll admit my semantics were incorrect, yes. Although do we believe there actually was a singularity in the sense of an infinitely dense region? I guess the more general definition of singularity, as a threshold past which our current understanding of physics is incomplete, certainly holds anyway.[/QUOTE] Classically (i.e. from the point of view of general relativity), a singularity is guaranteed, but a full quantum theory of gravity is likely to change that. It should still be that the initial "singularity" and the time shortly after are very hot and dense, though.
[QUOTE=Falubii;44625107]He probably shouldn't have said that because it's really long-winded and I don't even know what you just said.[/QUOTE] Then he shouldn't have said anything at all and then you must be dumb
[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;44625673]I'm not a smart man, but I'm pretty sure the hugely dense part answers the incredibly hot part. Are you saying that the inflation field is the source of all known mass . . .?[/QUOTE] Not all, just most of it. [QUOTE=Wikipedia]However, the huge potential energy of the inflation field was released at the end of the inflationary epoch, repopulating the universe with a dense, hot mixture of quarks, anti-quarks and gluons as it entered the electroweak epoch.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=RobbL;44626156]Then he shouldn't have said anything at all and then you must be dumb[/QUOTE] lol straight for the personal attack. Mind explaining what a "burden of truth" is? I'm assuming you meant burden of proof but then I might be dumb so help me out.
[QUOTE=RobbL;44626156]Then he shouldn't have said anything at all and then you must be dumb[/QUOTE] You've gotta be shitposting purposefully to post something this dumb. Surely.
-double post silly iPhone-
[QUOTE=Falubii;44626362]lol straight for the personal attack. Mind explaining what a "burden of truth" is? I'm assuming you meant burden of proof but then I might be dumb so help me out.[/QUOTE] *Burden of proof had a brain fart there [editline]23rd April 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=hexpunK;44626385]You've gotta be shitposting purposefully to post something this dumb. Surely.[/QUOTE] Mind pointing out the dumb for me?
[QUOTE=RobbL;44626638]*Burden of proof had a brain fart there [editline]23rd April 2014[/editline] Mind pointing out the dumb for me?[/QUOTE] How is something supported by a burden of proof? What does that even mean?
[QUOTE=Falubii;44627142]How is something supported by a burden of proof? What does that even mean?[/QUOTE] The last time I read about burden of proof was 8 years ago and time has warped my definition of it into something else entirely What I meant by "burden of proof" is "sufficient evidence" sorry but I still don't know how that supports "things are true until unproven"
[QUOTE=RobbL;44627295]The last time I read about burden of proof was 8 years ago and time has warped my definition of it into something else entirely What I meant by "burden of proof" is "sufficient evidence" sorry but I still don't know how that supports "things are true are unproven"[/QUOTE] Scientific theory is only falsifiable. What he was trying to say is that nothing in science is proven and we take theories to be true when their predictions are not proven to be wrong, though its a distinction I don't care to stick to in casual conversation. I would say, for example, that special relativity is proven to be true. Technically though, special relativity predicts certain phenomenon, and we test to see if those phenomenon [I]don't[/I] happen. Technically. The main reason for this distinction is that once you declare something to be "true," you set yourself up to be bitten in the ass when a new, more accurate theory comes along. So nothing in science is "true," it's only not false. That said, people misunderstand and abuse this all the time. "Science could all be wrong tomorrow, the Big Bang is just going to be replaced in 100 years!!!" etc. Once we have a good groundwork in a certain field, like classical mechanics, we are only going to modify existing theories or introduce new theories that deviate from the earlier theory on much more extreme scales (be it energy, size, mass, velocity, etc.) Did the universe start from a singularity? Who knows? Is it 6000 years old? lolno
people just generally misunderstand the scientific use of theory vs the layman's use of theory. theory in science refers to a model that predicts and models behaviors in the physical world, partical theory predicts the classes of particles and everything, relativity predicts space-warping, we find the predicted particles or byproduct of the theory and that proves it until another theory comes along that can both predict the already known and can explain the gaps in existing theories in a provable way. with the general definition of theory however, its just a guess which implies that you don't know what you are talking about and thats where people like ken ham at the creation museum use as evidence in their claims, as they claim creationism is also a theory the same as evolution, which it is not because it doesn't predict or model anything
To be entirely fair (and sorry if this was posted earlier, I really don't wanna go through 6 pages to double check), but the concept of just all sorts of shit being made out of no-where is pretty nutso to think about. I don't blame anyone who doesn't totally believe. I mean it's silly to totally ignore the idea, but it's definitely not something that a lot of people should cave in to because 'science said so'. You need to remember that the sciences are ever changing, and nothing is constant. Maybe tomorrow it's 'proven' that the Big Bang never happened, who knows. I just don't like how the thread was made with the idea of "lmfao look at these uneducated american pigs xD" when it really is something to think about.
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