Re: Evidence for "Big Bang Theory"
Gil Hardwick (gil@landmark.iinet.net.au)
Tue, 02 May 1995 03:09:57 GMT
In article <D7w6x9.AFM@rp.CSIRO.AU>, David Abbott (dabbott@atnf.CSIRO.AU) writes:
>
> Until a theory exists how do you determine what facts must be sought to
>disprove it ? Science is the explaination not the collation of facts.
Now is that so, David? On what then can the scientific explanation be
founded to start with? And why as scientists would you be concerned
to _disprove_ an explanation?
The most you would be wanting to do is TEST it, surely, by reference
to what further facts come to light. If on the other hand it fails to
stand up to any preliminary common sense whatsoever, wouldn't you just
ignore it?
I mean, the cake is still observed by even the most poorly educated
housewife to have risen in the oven without her understanding at all
the chemical reaction taking place within it, isn't that so? All the
scientist does then is confirm the fact with a more detailed study of
the phenomenon.
On the other hand, the biscuit has not risen in the oven at all, and
cannot ever be said by anybody to have risen; housewife, scientist,
high priest, religious fundamentalist, or Stone Age Indigene for that
matter, however much you want to alter the language and invoke the
statistics on dough chemistry.
Just when in the recent history of science did this shift take place
from an impartial, disciplined and methodical observation of nature to
this bizarre adversarial logic currently doing the rounds? During the
Reagan/Bush administration perhaps? Or since Labor came to power in
Canberra, do you suggest?
No surprise at all that with every change in administration we find
the baby thrown out with the bathwater, while after the purging all
the newly appointed bureaucrats set about feverishly and at great
expense to reinvent the wheel all over again.
While we out here stand by helplessly watching the whole going right
down the gurgler . . .
Or are you agreeing with me even only to some small extent that what
we are observing throughout this thread is expression of the religious
beliefs of astrophysicists? No doubt in line with whatever the Correct
version of reality is currently fashionable.
> Then again investing personal emotions in a theory is pretty pointless.
Not when it gets religious. Quite to the contrary, such investment of
emotion serves to bring the flock together so it can be herded onto
new pasture, now that this one has become exhausted.
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