Big Bang Theory is WRONG - 33 Top Scientists Object
- Thread starter MarkCGreer
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No, you are still correct.
The Internet allows those over-confident in their assessment of their own understanding to post as much as the educated and frequently the educated are more fully employed. So a fair portion of the Internet posts are from people who know nothing and think they have deep philosophical understanding of phenomena in the universe.
I see people citing fake scientific papers in sham scientific journals where the standards are so low the papers plagiarize editorial copy on book jackets. I see people without working knowledge of physics criticize physical theories in which they can perform no calculations with, like General Relativity, Special Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and Maxwell's Equations. Empirical facts like Anthropogenic Global Warming and Common Descent with Modification are attacked as contrary to the business interests of soulless corporations and religious leaders who want to keep the public ignorant.
The standard in scientific discourse is not to complain about a physical model, but to propose a new one and explain why the new model matches all observations of phenomena better. These 33 people do not advocate a single model, but have different ideas -- perhaps as many as 33 different ideas. So if they can't convince each other that their own ideas are best, why should we listen to their complaint that the big bang model doesn't agree with their intuition?
This site has been around since 2004 and has a few hundred signers, but it is not measurably advancing human knowledge of the universe. http://CosmologyStatement.org/
They have a section for "Scientists and Engineers" -- Engineers? Where does cosmology and engineering connect? Playing God?
So I see this as a blatant attempt to apply political pressure on working cosmologists and educators to not label crackpottery as such. Eric Lerner, for example, links to the web page for his 1991 book that contains errors that destroy its central argument.
The Internet allows those over-confident in their assessment of their own understanding to post as much as the educated and frequently the educated are more fully employed. So a fair portion of the Internet posts are from people who know nothing and think they have deep philosophical understanding of phenomena in the universe.
I see people citing fake scientific papers in sham scientific journals where the standards are so low the papers plagiarize editorial copy on book jackets. I see people without working knowledge of physics criticize physical theories in which they can perform no calculations with, like General Relativity, Special Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and Maxwell's Equations. Empirical facts like Anthropogenic Global Warming and Common Descent with Modification are attacked as contrary to the business interests of soulless corporations and religious leaders who want to keep the public ignorant.
The standard in scientific discourse is not to complain about a physical model, but to propose a new one and explain why the new model matches all observations of phenomena better. These 33 people do not advocate a single model, but have different ideas -- perhaps as many as 33 different ideas. So if they can't convince each other that their own ideas are best, why should we listen to their complaint that the big bang model doesn't agree with their intuition?
This site has been around since 2004 and has a few hundred signers, but it is not measurably advancing human knowledge of the universe. http://CosmologyStatement.org/
They have a section for "Scientists and Engineers" -- Engineers? Where does cosmology and engineering connect? Playing God?
So I see this as a blatant attempt to apply political pressure on working cosmologists and educators to not label crackpottery as such. Eric Lerner, for example, links to the web page for his 1991 book that contains errors that destroy its central argument.
The main benefit of the methodology of science is that science is progressive -- it gets better over time as more things are added. It's the part of the human civilization that is learning.
So when I evaluate claims that "The Big Bang is Wrong" or "Global Warming is Wrong" or "Evolution is Wrong" or "Time does not Exist" or "Maxwell's Equations are Wrong" or "Special Relativity is Wrong" or "I am not a plagiarist" I want to look at some items.
It means nothing to me that a bunch of crackpots and science outsiders are willing to stand under a common umbrella to rally against the prevailing view. Their ideas must stand or fall on their own. And when they hold contrary positions it is clear that they cannot convince their fellow outsiders of their views, let alone the science-educated mainstream.
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2012/04/the_power_of_admitting_im_wron.phpEthan Siegel said:
So when I evaluate claims that "The Big Bang is Wrong" or "Global Warming is Wrong" or "Evolution is Wrong" or "Time does not Exist" or "Maxwell's Equations are Wrong" or "Special Relativity is Wrong" or "I am not a plagiarist" I want to look at some items.
- Does the person show evidence that he fully understands the topic or are they arguing against some sort of straw-man?
- Does the person show evidence that they are making a fair evidence-based argument, or are they just promoting their gut feeling over evidence provided by observation of phenomena?
- Is the viewpoint objective and communicable or does it rely on ephemeral philosophical or semantic distinctions?
- Does the viewpoint lead to a predictive understanding of phenomena or is it just some outlier data that stands outside the collection of the best and most reliable observations?
It means nothing to me that a bunch of crackpots and science outsiders are willing to stand under a common umbrella to rally against the prevailing view. Their ideas must stand or fall on their own. And when they hold contrary positions it is clear that they cannot convince their fellow outsiders of their views, let alone the science-educated mainstream.
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rpenner
That was very well said. I always appreciate it when someone says something I feel and believe in much better than I could ever say it myself.
I would add that I never have a problem with observation and evidence, but I sometimes don't agree with the interpretations and conclusions that people claim the evidence supports.
That was very well said. I always appreciate it when someone says something I feel and believe in much better than I could ever say it myself.
I would add that I never have a problem with observation and evidence, but I sometimes don't agree with the interpretations and conclusions that people claim the evidence supports.
The same can be asked: Do you have the proof that you exist behind your computer...
Things like the big bang is impossible to prove/disprove directly, we only have circumstancial evidences and observation from telescopes, but we can't see everything with telescopes, we make conclusions on what we can see and detect and measure, but that consclusion by no means is the word of God like religious people would say.
Personally I don't have anything against big bang theory, because so far it works, at least for the visible/observable part of the universe.
Cheers.
If there is no scientific consensus about this why would anyone take it as holy grail, because there are scientists who don't think that big bang theory is correct...
Cheers.
But there is consensus on the Big Bang. The overwhelming majority of scientist believe the big bang is a good model of the formation of the universe.
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Who in the hell takes this as the holy grail? It is a theory, a good theory for sure, but that is all any reasonable scientist would say about it.
There are scientists (at least one) that thinks crop circles are formed from plasma vortexes.
That is why consensus is important and NOT 100% agreement.
But there is consensus on the Big Bang. The overwhelming majority of scientist believe the big bang is a good model of the formation of the universe.
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Who in the hell takes this as the holy grail? It is a theory, a good theory for sure, but that is all any reasonable scientist would say about it.
There are scientists (at least one) that thinks crop circles are formed from plasma vortexes.
That is why consensus is important and NOT 100% agreement.
I really don't think it's consensus, there are astrophysicists that based on evidences so far big bang did not occur despite evidences seem to show this, but the fact remains, our observations, detections and measurements are actually very limited, despite this theory sounds really nice. And why should we drop these 33 scientists and their opinions? When you're dealing with something you really don't know how it actually works, or how big it is (we only have circumstancial evidences/proofs for the big bang theory), alternative hypotheses and theories simply cannot be excluded.
Cheers.
The problem is that you apparently do not know the definition of consensus.
Consensus
From the definition:
1. majority of opinion: The consensus of the group was that they should meet twice a month.
2. general agreement or concord; harmony.
See, I don't really care about the 33 scientists with alternatives, I am more convinced by the 100,000 scientist that agree with the basic tenets of the Big Bang. There is a consensus among scientist on the Big Bang.
True, but these 100 000 scientists can be wrong as well.
You should not consider their statements and opinions as the final word, none should, you never know when this might change.
The true revolutions in science were because of the scientists who had guts to go against scientific dogma (at any time) and change the the way all other scientists describe if and how the universe started in the first place.
Cheers.
True and everthing you ever learned in school may be wrong. The consensus is based on data that is logical, supports observation and experimentation.
I don't. I actually looked at the evidence, some of it is over my head but the majority is not and it makes sense and is consistent. Edited to add but it is ok for you to blindly accept a online letter signed by 33 people?
Spoken like a true science neophyte. There is no dogma (that is the realm of religion) concerning scientific theories.
Definition of dogma.
When one of those major theories are overturned the scientific community isn't upset, in fact it rewards that researcher.
AlexG, referenced the disclaimer attached to the article in the second post. He quoted only a small part. Read the whole thing and then take another look at the credentials, as in area of expertise, of the names on the list... Then as has also been mentioned earlier, consider that some of those whose names were listed, were not consulted and did not endorse the article.
You cannot even tell from the article if some of those named are not dentists! Or perhaps entomologists.
You cannot even tell from the article if some of those named are not dentists! Or perhaps entomologists.
Like I said, right or wrong, the big bang theory is the best we have so far, but the research if this theory is true or not, is far from over.
However scientific dogma does exist, because any other opinion is wrong, how can they know if big bang theory is wrong or right? They can't.
Cheers.
it is not about "right" or "wrong". the current model best fits the evidence from observation of the universe and from experiments in particle accelerators. if a scientist comes up with a new model, or part thereof, then they have to show that it fits the data better than the current. scientist will argue about this with each side putting up their version with supporting evidence. read about the "Hubble wars" between Sandage and others. there was no quarter given or expected.
Science as a high-dimensional optimization problem
Since Newton, its been about "good" and "better" with respect to fundamental physics theories. The judge of what is better is the whole of the universe as revealed via observation, often very careful observation.
When 3 out of the 33 are known to me to be inferior to "good" understanding in quantifiable ways, it places a very high burden on the remaining 30 to say something specifically "better" which they did not do. They instead claimed "just as good" which is clearly false with respect to the positions I can articulate -- positions that as I pointed out myself are not in agreement.
Science is progressive moving from "good" to "better" and not only do these 33 disagree on which way is allegedly better (they would lead us marching in different directions) but those directions we can identity are neither "good" nor "better".
Since Newton, its been about "good" and "better" with respect to fundamental physics theories. The judge of what is better is the whole of the universe as revealed via observation, often very careful observation.
When 3 out of the 33 are known to me to be inferior to "good" understanding in quantifiable ways, it places a very high burden on the remaining 30 to say something specifically "better" which they did not do. They instead claimed "just as good" which is clearly false with respect to the positions I can articulate -- positions that as I pointed out myself are not in agreement.
Science is progressive moving from "good" to "better" and not only do these 33 disagree on which way is allegedly better (they would lead us marching in different directions) but those directions we can identity are neither "good" nor "better".
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
You misuse the word dogma. Dogma is the pursuit of a theory in spite of compelling evidence to the contrary.
There is a preponderance of evidence of the Big Bang. There is no evidence to the contrary.
There are no competitive theories. Sure, there are hypotheses, but they must go through the same procedure, explaining our observances at least as well as BB does.
I realized my mistake, so scientific dogma would mean if you make scientific hypotheses without any evidences/proofs?
Cheers.