the big bang theory is *just* a theory

[Tortington]

it was said on another thread that there is 'evidence'

I don't believe that god said 'let there be light' and all that malarky either.

but p[eople seem to spout that everything was created becuase of a big bang.

and i can't see ...if there was an exploson of this magnitude how there would be evidence to prove that it happened.

so, big bang theorists. without typing a thesis - or telling me to read a 'dawkins' book or some such - can you in lay mans terms explain where the evidence is for this theory.

i shall bump at lunch time when i have chance

oh no - you lost me

really - newton - wrong - whats that about?

I had a long conversation about this with my next door neighbour (who happens to be a vicar and a friend) although I do not go to church.

We talked a lot about Dawkins' view and also about Big Bang and Darwin and Creationism and so on. I am a research biochemst (scientist) by training and I have alway felt that it is perfectly compatible to believe in a 'higher being' or God and modern science. My strong feeling is that God determined the laws that govern the Universe and that those are immutable and no matter how long we try we will never understand or fully explaim them.

Big bang is a theory but there is supporting evidence for it as Reallytired says. It is not proved. In fact, what layman often do not understand about science is that the theory testing process involves rejection of the alternatives (null hypotheses) rather than positive testing or proof of the correctness of a given theory itself. When all alternative explanations have been rejected then the theory is strengthened but not absolutely proved. The process of proposing and testing new theories is continuous throughout science. The Big Bang theory may be replaced by another stronger theory and indeed the Big Bang theory itself may be 'rejected' completely in a formal sense at any time.

As I put it, the development of theories, testing and proving them is not really a search for God but a search for the immutable laws that God laid down. I doubt we ever will be able to prove or reject the theory that God or a 'higher being' exists. I guess that in the end that is why we have 'faith' or 'belief'.

It's dark matter I love - we know it exists because the Universe doesn't weigh enough for it to be moving the way it does. So we have things like WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) that do not interact with us at all - hold up your hand and WIMPs are theoretically passing through it constantly. Now that requires real belief and I believe!

so, abetadad, is all scientific erm...stuff - continuing theory - cos something better might come along - i think i am asking - are there absolutes or is pretty much everything our best guess?

custardo - there are theories that are 'accepted' and by that I mean they have not been disproved over a very long period of time. These theories have been so circmscribed by suporting directly observable measurable evidence which we call 'facts' and all credible alternative theories so soundly rejected that in practice almost all scientists feel they are never likely to be disproved and therefore are accepted as proven and true.

What happens in practice is that science moves along in fits and starts. Sometimes a theory is static and accepted for decades and then there is a burst of new theory making as new scientific facts and observations come along that undermine the old theory.

For example as we now have far more powerful telescopes, computing power and instrumentation to measure and observe deep space than even a decade ago we have a constant stream of new data available that helps us further test existing theories.

Sometimes those new facts and observations are so compelling and and so undermining to an existing theory that it sparks a fresh burst or vigorous new theory making to replace the old theory.

In a sense science (and all academic endeavour) is a competition between new and existing theories. It is deeply embedded in what is called the 'philosophy of science' which defines the higher calling of a search for truth.

There are absolutes in mathematics, custy - that's the only thing that can actually be "proved"; everything else is looking for what best fits the evidence, as ABetaDad said better than me!

very interesting ABetaDad.

Regardless of whether you accept the 'big bang' theory, God as a concept can't be the answer. To my mind, saying 'God made the world' is like answering 'it's magic' to the question 'where does snow come from'. It's not an answer, unless you happen to have faith, which is something that can't be argued or explained. Which is why intelligent design seems to me such a daft concept. Without faith, god makes no sense.

Not having an answer to a question shouldn't be a reason for saying 'God done it'.

I don't agree at all Ormirian. The more we discover about how the universe works, the more I feel we expose God. A creator is I think just as acceptable a theory as any other. It can go hand in hand with scientific discovery.

Yes it can go hand in hand. I've never understood why God (assuming he does exist, which I don't) can't have put in hand the Big Bang, or multiple universes, or string theory or whatever it might be. I agree that one doesn't preclude the other. But using the existence of God as a 'theory' to explain what we don't understand simply seems a big cop put to me. Even if God did cause the Big Bang there is still mileage in finding out what happened and how. Like saying 'just because' when a child asks a question that is too complicated to answer.

ruty - that is how I feel too.

I well remember the experience of learning about the fabulous structure of DNA and how it led directly to the complex interleaving of gene function and how evolution actually works at the molecular level to create those genes. It was a religious experience in all but name.

I just thought .... "Wow".

That mechanism and the rules that lie behind genes and evolution is an example of the glory and the power of God right there. No man could imagine how to create such a fabulous thing. Same goes for the creation of everything else in the Universe. We used to sing at school the hymn "All things bright and beautiful" and learned that God was in the flowers and the rain and pretty much as I trained to become a biochemist I realised that was actually true and I could see his work.

I eventually stopped being a scientist and became a commodity trader and I have to say that I feel very little of God in what I do now.

'No man could imagine how to create such a fabulous thing'

No man needs to, nor a god: natural selection does it all by its little own...

WilfSell - I agree ... but who invented the rules that make natural selection work? Its that part which puts me in complete awe.

surely the big bang theory and god are the same thing??

first there was nothing, then BANG there was something. but what or who made that bang happen?

You have to admit God is way cool!

We are all a happy accident.

You're all assuming it has to be intentional. It just feels that way because humans like to believe in purpose.

betadad - i'm loving the way you think!

PMDW - thank you.

Exactly willself - who says anyone 'made' it happen?

Can you create some THING from NO thing? Does the universe have Design and Purpose? Do religious creation myths mearly dress up the scientific creation myths in prettier words? St Thomas Aquinas had too mauch free time.

All wonderful topics to discuss but have any of you considered the Atomic Pixie theory here be pixie As valid/silly as any other.

A Hindu quantum physisist once told me that life was God poking through into the atoms of the universe.

Custardo - CHeck out this site

It will give you the evidence that exists to date to support the theory.

HM

from that site (thanks v. much btw
"In 2003, Physicist Robert Gentry proposed an attractive alternative to the standard theory, an alternative which also accounts for the evidences listed above.5 Dr. Gentry claims that the standard Big Bang model is founded upon a faulty paradigm (the Friedmann-lemaitre expanding-spacetime paradigm) which he claims is inconsistent with the empirical data. He chooses instead to base his model on Einstein's static-spacetime paradigm which he claims is the "genuine cosmic Rosetta." Gentry has published several papers outlining what he considers to be serious flaws in the standard Big Bang model.6 Other high-profile dissenters include Nobel laureate Dr. Hannes Alfvén, Professor Geoffrey Burbidge, Dr. Halton Arp, and the renowned British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, who is accredited with first coining the term "the Big Bang" during a BBC radio broadcast in 1950."

so what are these other theories then - in like thicko terms?

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