DBU (Oud vs. Bouzouki)

[nickgreyden]

my original comment posted

Dan, if you took a vid for .012 secs of your Rubik's cube in flight and you leaned back at the same time. Physics and time would suggest that the cube was inside your body at one point and it exploded from your chest. Over simplifcation but comments are short. We assume a big bang and I actually agree, but also we are only looking at a short vid of the known universe in mid flight. Maybe everything was close and a super super nova blew everything apart. We have threories only and no proof of age

to go further than the youtube comments state....

Yes I do believe in a big bang as to me it makes sense, just as I believe most if not the entire universe will slowly reach a point where it stops expanding and starts retracting, but I digress.

More to my point. We are seeing the briefest of brief snap shots of the universe as it is known to us. To follow this thinking in such a manner, if you experience life for the first time and you enter in fall, the tempurture gets colder and colder and colder. The trend will be that it will freeze and you and everyone else will die. You might also notice the days getting shorter and shorter and think that the day will come when the sun will not rise any longer. We have been around long enough and know enough about how things interact with other things to know this is not the case. However, we have not been around 1 billion years to even have a glimpse at what the cosmos holds, we are only experiencing a brief moment and trying to make sense of it.

Ok, now lets take our person whom is experiencing life for the first time and rewind to what they didn't know before. If it is cold and continuing to get colder, then it was warmer previously. If it was warmer then it was even warmer before, and before that, etc. So at one point if you could experience this for the first time and be some kind of math savant as well, you could deduce that about 2 or 3 years ago, life couldn't have existed because it was 9 billion degrees or something to that effect.

The point. We know that the universe is expanding. From where it expanded from or how much matter and mass was there before expansion occured, we can only guess. Current trend would suggest that the universe will expand forever. (I disagree but that is for another time). Current trend would state that at one point it was all one teeny tiny bundle waiting to blow. However, just because what we see might lead us to believe that, does not make that the case, nor even probable as I'm pretty sure any medical person can tell you the likelyhood of Dan's Rubiks cube blasting out of his chest in such a manner is not very likely. (to clear up, I think it is probable that the big bang happened much like is written, but we cannot follow blindly and submit that as fact.)

So Dan, I have this to say to you. If you can say that the universe definitely came from the big bang and that it definitely around 15 billion years old because that is what has been taught to you by media and popular science and have not sat back and thought about things in a different light, then I can say your Rubiks cube exploded from your chest... and we can both not be idiots together.

However, if you are willing to say that it might have happened differently than that, if you are truly open minded to see the other possibilities that exist that are damn near infinite due to our very very very young exploration of our science and understanding in space and really not judge before thinking very closely about other people's ideas, then, sir, I will say that you are on your way to not being an idiot.

A final tip stolen from the lips of Dan Brown himself that I mean with all the love and respect in the world to both Dan and to all the members of our great tribe. Don't let education get in the way of your education. By that I mean just because someone you respect and is intelligent taught you things one way, doesn't mean that they aren't waaaaaaaaayyyyyy wrong.

[swan]

Well said!

[Linus]

Well, first of all, I think Dan is kind of contradicting himself in some aspects of his contributions to discussions such as this.

He says that he wants to keep an open mind, but still he discards any other explanation than that the universe was created through the Big Bang, as stupidity and wrong. In my book, that is a move of closemindedness. For Dan to be able to call himself open minded, he has to accept that the world may have been created according to the Bible's creation myth, however unlikely it seems.

He's basically saying "I'm not saying that you're wrong... but you're wrong!".

Also, as a comment on this whole "what was before the Big Bang"-thing;

In science, there are occurences known as singularities. As you say, Nick, it could be plausible that the universe will once stop expanding and start retracting, and it is commonly thought that the universe started from a singularity.

A gravitational singularity suggests that there is a point where matter will reach zero volume and infinite density.

Now, imagine the time of the Big Bang. Everything is constricted into one single point. Since nothing can have zero volume nor infinite density, it suggests that a singularity is not possible in nature. So, imagine that this would create a force, larger than one could imagine, that creates a massive explosion, which leads to the creation of our universe. Then, one may ask: what was before this? What matter may have been within the singularity, must have existed before it too. Then it could be reasonable to assume that, what was before our own universe... was another universe. And what will come after our own universe... is a new universe.

More or less, this suggests that there have been a series of universes; singularity, expanding, retracting, reaching singularity, exploding, expanding, retracting etc., like a series of bottlenecks in industrial production.

[Ryan]

I will agree that in Dan's latest video regarding the creation of the universe, he makes several points that are indeed wrong. I will address these to him tomorrow in a video but in the mean time I'd like to address the points made here, as I feel I could possibly shed some light on them.

Niek
You have the right idea, though your model does not demonstrate it exceptionally well. If you were to break down the data that could be collected during the .012 second video where the rubik's cube moves forward and dan leans back, then you would find not that the rubik's cube exploded from his chest, but there was in fact an impulse that must have affected the cube at some time. Even if the .012 seconds were not of the point where dan was providing said impulse, scientists could interpolate back to the point where the impulse must have occurred, and say: "some force was exerted here for some period of time."

This is what scientists have done in regards to the creation of the universe. They have interpolated the data that we have of the universe and brought it all the way back to a rough estimate of where an explosion had to occur to expand the universe to it's current state.

One thing you should realize is that, we have a much larger interpolation window than .012 seconds. When you look into the night sky and see stars, you do not see them in their present state but rather a snapshot of their history. The further away the star, the further back the history goes. We have data from the past 13.5 million years as far as the universe is concerned, which is nearly (if not more than) twice the amount of time you suggest we look at in your model. Surely with twice as much time, we can create a model that is twice as accurate.

I'll agree that it is still inaccurate, but discounting it entirely on the basis of the fact that interpolation is bogus, is a fallacy.

@linus
I, like you, have noticed that Dan does tend to say - You're not wrong...but you're wrong. It is something that we all do from time to time, especially if our roots are so ingrained in a set of beliefs. It takes a lot of evidence to the contrary that someone else is not wrong, especially when you have so much to support your own theories. However, we should not fault Dan for being this way, he has the right idea he just has not correctly implemented it yet. Though through his daily blog channel he has shown improvement, so in any case he is moving in the right direction.

You are right about the gravitational singularity, that is however not the only type that exists. The singularity that created the universe is thought to be (as those at the LHC call it) the God particle - a theoretical point of near-infinite mass and near-zero volume. This singularity is(/was) a perfectly stable singularity, and something caused it to explode into what we call the universe, in the manner we call the big bang. This singularity is not caused by gravity (of which is the cause for the creation of gravitational singularities).

One might ask: "what came before this?" that does not mean that there is an answer. There might have been a universe, there might have been just a single super-massive super-small particle, there may have been 2. It is these questions that science will NEVER be able to answer, and these questions where we should put faith.

We are only relatively young, but our reach exceeds our grasp. If one person were to do a task, it would take them a certain amount of time. In that same amount of time, thousands of people can do far more work. Surely the thousands of minds that have studied and put work forward in this field have put forth enough that we can say that the quality of the work does not reflect its age, but is much greater than to be expected.

[nickgreyden]

Like I said, an over-simplifacation but the idea behind it is what is important.

Also, I don't know if the numbers you came up with are ballpark or close to accurate but going by the information provided by you (13.5 million years) and Dan (15 billion years) that is a shot of .09% of total time of the existence of the universe. To put it in perspective, if Dan's cube took 1 sec to hit the bed, then the video would have to capture .001 secs of motion. For a larger example, it would be like trying to predict the entire orbit of the earth with just 2 1/2 days worth of data. Stack on to that we really don't even know what is in space to cause variables and the problem grows all that more complicated!

I'm just saying there is a heck of a lot more we don't know than what we do know. We can't even view planets from another solar system yet only guess at there existence due to gravitational forces. With the amount that we don't know that could play HEAVILY on what we do know, I think it is more than a tad pretentious to say what is and what isn't. Instead we should state what we think could have happened while expressing our extremely limited understanding.

[Ryan]

The furthest galaxy we have observed is 13.5 million light years away, which means our furthest glimpse back in universal history is 13.5 million years. The big bang proposes that the universe is roughly between 13.5 and 13.7 billion years old. This fraction of time represents roughly .04 seconds of the rubik's cube falling in DB's video.

Also, while the big bang is the most commonly accepted theory regarding the creation of the universe, it is indeed just a theory which means it is far from being proven and could be proven wrong at any point. Evolution is also a theory with approximately equal validation as the big bang, and is far more accepted. Why if we accept evolution, should we not accept the big bang?

Also - admin's if you're paying attention - I think this might be worth moving to debate...as it is highly worth debating?

[Linus]

Mar 28, 2010 23:31:31 GMT -5 Ryan said:

@linus
I, like you, have noticed that Dan does tend to say - You're not wrong...but you're wrong. It is something that we all do from time to time, especially if our roots are so ingrained in a set of beliefs. It takes a lot of evidence to the contrary that someone else is not wrong, especially when you have so much to support your own theories. However, we should not fault Dan for being this way, he has the right idea he just has not correctly implemented it yet. Though through his daily blog channel he has shown improvement, so in any case he is moving in the right direction.

Dan might have the right idea, however he mustn't discard explanations if he at the same time wants to "keep an open mind". He should have approached the thing in a different way; "I believe X and Z, but you think otherwise, and that's okay, but I need proof." rather than just discarding it as rubbish. Those kinds of statements are the ones who creates hostility, and then the discussion is in the risk zone of polarizing even more, and it moves away from reaching a conclusion. That also creates prejudice.

Mar 28, 2010 23:31:31 GMT -5 Ryan said:

You are right about the gravitational singularity, that is however not the only type that exists. The singularity that created the universe is thought to be (as those at the LHC call it) the God particle - a theoretical point of near-infinite mass and near-zero volume. This singularity is(/was) a perfectly stable singularity, and something caused it to explode into what we call the universe, in the manner we call the big bang. This singularity is not caused by gravity (of which is the cause for the creation of gravitational singularities).

But something made it explode, right? Then it couldn't have been stable. I'd guess though that it was some sort of massive fusion reaction that slung everything into what we call the universe.

Mar 28, 2010 23:31:31 GMT -5 Ryan said:

One might ask: "what came before this?" that does not mean that there is an answer. There might have been a universe, there might have been just a single super-massive super-small particle, there may have been 2. It is these questions that science will NEVER be able to answer, and these questions where we should put faith.

Agreed. I just thought I'd put the theory out there, since it is an interesting one.

[Linus]

Mar 29, 2010 9:23:37 GMT -5 Ryan said:

The furthest galaxy we have observed is 13.5 million light years away, which means our furthest glimpse back in universal history is 13.5 million years. The big bang proposes that the universe is roughly between 13.5 and 13.7 billion years old. This fraction of time represents roughly .04 seconds of the rubik's cube falling in DB's video.

Also, while the big bang is the most commonly accepted theory regarding the creation of the universe, it is indeed just a theory which means it is far from being proven and could be proven wrong at any point. Evolution is also a theory with approximately equal validation as the big bang, and is far more accepted. Why if we accept evolution, should we not accept the big bang?

It would be interesting to see what conclusions could be made if we moved beyond the red shift... even though it's virtually impossible with today's science level. I don't know, that's just a reflection on that matter.

Now, The Big Bang Theory is much more hard to accept because of it's massive scale. It is in the human nature to find purpose with everything, and The Big Bang Theory suggests that the creation of the universe didn't have a purpose... it just happened. Our human minds are also frankly too feeble to grasp the totality of it. I mean, even the ones who have put their lives into this aren't sure what really happened, if it even ever happened. I guess it's rooted in some sort of search for truth as much as any religious tale of creation. It is even religious in itself. If you're i.e. christian, you most certainly believe that God created the world, so the conclusion that God also created the universe is close at hand.

The evolution theory on the other hand is much easier to accept because we have solid, matter evidence (bones, remains, Darwin's finches, hands-down research of populations' changes and adaptations over time, etc.), that people can look on and draw conclusions from, themselves.

The research on Big Bang on the other hand I think is much more easily discarded as "that scientific stuff", and it is plausible to think that only people scientifically schooled can get a hint of the theories behind it. The creation myths is in this case much more easily grasped, and humans in general, through history, has always looked for a simple explanation.

Then there are the pioneers (like Galileo Galilei, who went against the geocentric picture of the solar system in the 17th century), who are always looked down upon at first, mainly because people thought it was madness (a.k.a, it was more difficult to understand than the religious view of the Earth as the solar system's centre), if you catch my drift.

[Nakor]

Mar 29, 2010 9:23:37 GMT -5 Ryan said:

The furthest galaxy we have observed is 13.5 million light years away, which means our furthest glimpse back in universal history is 13.5 million years. The big bang proposes that the universe is roughly between 13.5 and 13.7 billion years old. This fraction of time represents roughly .04 seconds of the rubik's cube falling in DB's video.

Also, while the big bang is the most commonly accepted theory regarding the creation of the universe, it is indeed just a theory which means it is far from being proven and could be proven wrong at any point. Evolution is also a theory with approximately equal validation as the big bang, and is far more accepted. Why if we accept evolution, should we not accept the big bang?

Also - admin's if you're paying attention - I think this might be worth moving to debate...as it is highly worth debating?

Very simply, because you are totally misinterpreting the word 'theory'. The word 'theory' in science does not mean that a thing is unproven. Whether it is proven or not depends on the weight of the evidence. The weight of the evidence toward the big bang shows it to be very, very likely (or maybe it's proven by now, honestly I'm not sure). The weight of evidence toward evolution having happened shows it to be certain fact. Not "just a theory"; evolution happened (and continues to happen). However, science doesn't stop calling it the 'Theory of Evolution' because, basically, that's the name it's had all along.

You must be very careful about terminology such as 'theory'. Science uses it differently than most people do colloquially. Science tends to use 'law' and 'theory' and 'rule' somewhat interchangeably.

Moreover, it's not about merely arguing against the big bang; it's about arguing against the big bang with no evidence to back up your claim. Of course it would be reasonable to argue that it didn't happen if you had evidence showing that either it may not have happened, or that something else is similarly possible. But with no evidence to back up your claim, just spouting a random idea doesn't really fly against the large amount of evidence gathered for the big bang theory. You at least need something to go on, even if your evidence is small compared to the existing evidence against it. You need a valid starting point for your theory.

You see, in a sense it's the difference between debating opinion and fact. Whether or not the big bang happened is a point of fact. This means that either it is true, or it is false; it's a binary concept. We may not know which on any given point of fact, but it is certain that either it is true or false. Unlike morals and ethics, where new, unfounded stances can apply, and there's lots of grey area and so forth, the big bang either happened or it didn't. (Now, there may be more fine details we don't know, but for now I'm just discussing the point of whether it happened at all.) In a debate over fact, a new point of view is welcome; however if it cannot be substantiated, then it's quickly discarded. This is because opinion really does not play into the matter at all; we are only interested in facts. "What if" questions are okay, but if upon review there's no reason (evidence) to consider them further, then they are rightfully discarded. This is called the "burden of proof."

This would not be true if we were discussing points of opinion. For example, "Is it okay to kill animals for food?" This is not a point of fact. It's not a binary true or false question. There's no universal law of physics that answers this for us. We have to work out our own answer. Moreover, a new completely untested and unfounded opinion is welcome, at least at first, because unlike with points of fact, there's no way to prove an opinion in advance; the only way to test an opinion is to see what others say about it, and the only way to do that is to share it. So opinion, more than being welcome, is actually necessary for the debate of that topic to flourish. This is just not true with debating points of fact. Evidence is everything with points of fact. If you have an opinion, fine, but you must try to substantiate (or disprove) it with evidence before it's at all reasonable for you to expect anyone to take it seriously.

Oh, and that's the other thing. With points of fact the goal should never, ever be to 'prove your position right' as so often we see people try. It should be to prove whether or not your position is right. Nobody should be offended or disappointed if their guess or hypothesis is wrong, because even then they've managed to edge one step closer to the truth. Debates of fact are not there to be won, they are there to find out what is really the truth.

In the words of XKCD author Randall Munroe: "You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right."

So if you want to debate points of fact, like evolution and the big bang, then be willing to be proven wrong, and try to accept that theories with no basis in evidence whatsoever and for which no evidence can be found will be discarded by anyone in the scientific community, especially when there is an opposing theory that has evidence in favour of it.

[Ryan]

Nakor, I used "theory" correctly in my previous post. In science a theory is an unproven statement, where a theorem is a proven statement.
Law is a defining fact of the universe
I am unaware of scientific rule - it eludes me as to what this even means as I have not encountered it in any of the journals I have read on the subject, perhaps it pertains to different areas? (If you could provide an example for me to research that would be greatly appreciated)

The point I was trying to make is that given equal amounts of evidence many people will accept evolution as it is, while remaining unmoved on their stance regarding the big bang. As they are theories and cannot be proven into theorems or laws, we must stand by the evidence that supports their claims, and like I said in my previous post, there is approximately the same amount of evidence in support of both theories. Linus did point out a very valid point regarding this difference in acceptance, in the fact that we can clearly observe evolution in action in the modern day, where we can only formulate and theorize about the distant past in regards to the big bang. In a million years we will have very little more evidence to support the big bang theory, but we will have a million years more of evidence to support the theory of evolution.

[Nakor]

The point I was trying to make is that given equal amounts of evidence many people will accept evolution as it is, while remaining unmoved on their stance regarding the big bang.

Well, on this much we agree, but...

Mar 29, 2010 16:30:28 GMT -5 Ryan said:

As they are theories and cannot be proven into theorems or laws...

But that's wrong. Evolution has been proven by at least a dozen different fields of study. We have all the evidence we need to be certain that evolution happened. We've even observed it happening in the present. What more is necessary to say it needs to be proven? What gap are you saying is preventing it from being so?

In science a theory is an unproven statement, where a theorem is a proven statement.

I was under the impression that a theorem was a deduction based on other, theories/theorems. I've only ever seen the word theorem used in pure math.

Mainly however I was referring to the naming of things. Science has been segregating "theories" and "laws" a bit lately, which theories being hypotheses that have evidence sufficient to prove them, so long as no evidence remains against. Laws tend to refer to observations for which no exceptions have been seen. By one standard neither one can be "proven" because the exception or evidence against could always be found (if it exists), but both are equally accepted as the truth. The difference between the two is not in accuracy, but rather in the type of information they convey.

Or perhaps that's where the discrepancy is. After all, in pure mathematics, things can be proven, which is perhaps why theorem is used there. But in studies of the natural world -- pretty much any science other than pure math -- certain proof is never truly possible. Still, at some point at least for semantic purposes, it's necessary to say a point is proven, by which one would mean proven beyond any rational doubt. So, the moon having existed yesterday (even though I wasn't out to see it) is a theory, but it's still absurd to consider that theory not to be proven (beyond rational doubt).

And if that's where we differ -- math's perfect "proven" versus science's imperfect "proven beyond rational doubt" -- then we're not really differing at all except in semantics lol.

In a million years we will have very little more evidence to support the big bang theory

I dunno, advances in science could drastically change how we're able to study the distant, distant past in that time.

[swan]

Mar 29, 2010 18:22:55 GMT -5 Nakor said:

I was under the impression that a theorem was a deduction based on other, theories/theorems. I've only ever seen the word theorem used in pure math.

Mainly however I was referring to the naming of things. Science has been segregating "theories" and "laws" a bit lately, which theories being hypotheses that have evidence sufficient to prove them, so long as no evidence remains against. Laws tend to refer to observations for which no exceptions have been seen. By one standard neither one can be "proven" because the exception or evidence against could always be found (if it exists), but both are equally accepted as the truth. The difference between the two is not in accuracy, but rather in the type of information they convey.

Or perhaps that's where the discrepancy is. After all, in pure mathematics, things can be proven, which is perhaps why theorem is used there. But in studies of the natural world -- pretty much any science other than pure math -- certain proof is never truly possible. Still, at some point at least for semantic purposes, it's necessary to say a point is proven, by which one would mean proven beyond any rational doubt. So, the moon having existed yesterday (even though I wasn't out to see it) is a theory, but it's still absurd to consider that theory not to be proven (beyond rational doubt).

And if that's where we differ -- math's perfect "proven" versus science's imperfect "proven beyond rational doubt" -- then we're not really differing at all except in semantics lol.

I agree completely. I think the difference of certainty between mathematics and science is largely because of the different methods that are used, with Math being deductive while Science is generally inductive. And from a purely technical standpoint deduction is logical and induction is more illogical (but not completely illogical just less logical then deduction). However from a practical standpoint I have no problem regarding scientific theories like the big bang as truth and fact until/if evidence that suggests otherwise is found

[Ryan]

I think we may be differing in reference to semantics. While I have spent years studying cosmology, I am a mathematician. To me, something is not proven unless proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, meaning that there is no possible other explanation.

As far as theories/laws are concerned in science: I think that if a theory is 'proven' then it becomes a law. Ex. Atomic theory is that all mass in the universe is made up of tiny particles. This was proven and is now Atomic Law, every bit of matter is made up of at least 1 sub-atomic particle. These aren't the smallest particles in the universe, but the law holds. Gravity is another law, discovered by Newton, it was original called his theory of gravity: two bodies exert a force on each other. This was later proven by Newton in his book Principia where he showed that the force was proportional to the amount of matter in each body which showed that gravity was a property of matter, thus being proven for all cases.

[Nakor]

The Theory of Gravity is still far more often referred to as the Theory of Gravity than as the Law of Gravity. Although that may be due to the fact that the theory of gravity is still shaky as to exactly what the cause of gravity is. *shrug*

I think there may be a need for different language between scientists than there is from science to ordinary joes. If you tell an ordinary joe that evolution is an unproven theory, they're going to take it as meaning "we don't know if it really happened" when that's not the case. The dictionary definition of "proven" doesn't require utterly undeniable proof, it just means that the theory has been tested and found to be true, so I don't think it's so wrong to refer to evolution as a "proven theory." This would make it much clearer to people not familiar with the exact definitions used in science. (Honestly, you can't blame someone for misinterpreting 'unproven theory' if they're not in the science field.)

And keep in mind that we could hypothetically find an object not made of subatomic particles, or one that was not affected by gravity. It's absurd to actually expect this to happen, but given that hypothetical chance, perfect proof is impossible. Exactly like it's absurd to believe that evolution didn't happen, but perfect proof is impossible. The evidence for both is conclusive. Why can we call one proven and not the other?

[nickgreyden]

For the purpose of this thread alone we can say
Law = Proven beyond a reasonable doubt
Theory = Hypothesis with evidence to back it up
Hypothesis = ... I think we all agree on this one.

Big Bang is a Theory. A good one, one I agree with, but still a theory. My Hypothesis is just that. I have not collected data on it, however, using the base of the Big Bang, does it not sound like a viable theory? After all, other than everything moving away from each other and how far away they are etc what proof do we have that everything was all bundled up together at one point before it popped? Could it not have just as likely been in very close proximity of everything else?

That is the point. If you use the Big Bang to date everything and it turns out the Big Bang never happened just "A Huge Bang with stuff really close" then the dating could be off by a billion years... even 1.5 billion years which would reduce Dan's current age by 10%... that's a huge gap!

What do you think?

[Ryan]

I like the fixation of semantics.

and you are correct in the fact that we don't know if it was just one point that everything was bundled up in. Scientists have isolated the region of space down to something roughly the size of a large star though (I don't remember the article title or author, but I do remember reading this in Physics Journal B). So it may not be just one point, and it may be several, or even several hundred, or even a much larger body. But all the evidence points to the fact that whatever exploded, be it from one or many points, is not something that exists in our universe (so it's not a star, galaxy, black hole, quasar, super nova, nebula, etc.) and whatever it was was hotter than anything ever observed. And from the data that is collected, the explosion that set our universe in motion occurred in this region roughly 13.75 billion years ago. It is quite possible, that this explosion was caused by a previous explosion that occurred billions of years before it, which may have been caused by a different explosion...so on and so forth: the details of what happened before we may never know.

But there is enough evidence - if you take the time to pour through the hundreds (if not thousands) of journal articles, and plenty of data, that supports the fact that the last explosion (possibly the first) that set the whole thing in motion, happened roughly 13.75 billion years ago.

[Nakor]

Mar 30, 2010 0:28:47 GMT -5 nickgreyden said:

For the purpose of this thread alone we can say
Law = Proven beyond a reasonable doubt
Theory = Hypothesis with evidence to back it up
Hypothesis = ... I think we all agree on this one.

"Law of Evolution" somehow sounds silly though. Or rather, the word 'law' just doesn't seem to fit well with historical events. Evolution and the big bang aren't really laws of how the universe work, they're historical events. (Well, evolution still happens, so maybe it is a law. And maybe I'm just being picky now. Feel free to throw books at me.)

Niek: Your argument is interesting, but it also suggests there was a start to time, which is a whole new can of worms. (If there were no 'start' to time, then as time went back it's safe to say all the nearby matter would continue to shrink to that one point as you go back in time, invalidating your thought.) Actually the possibility is there anyway, so perhaps your argument just makes it more obvious. Did our universe always exist (and for a long time it was scrunched up in what became the big bang), or did it at one point suddenly begin (thanks to some event happening beyond the scope of the universe as we know it?). Is time truly without start or end, or did it 'start' at some point? I doubt time didn't exist at some point, but it's also hard to believe that the universe was stuck in that ball that eventually went boom for eternity (infinity minus 13.5 billion just doesn't work for me lol), so did something super-universal cause it?

The religious would of course at this point suggest a god, but I personally prefer the answer "we don't know yet" because odds are we'll one day advance science enough to find out more. I'd sure be interested in finding out.

[Linus]

Mar 30, 2010 1:37:07 GMT -5 Nakor said:

Mar 30, 2010 0:28:47 GMT -5 nickgreyden said:

For the purpose of this thread alone we can say
Law = Proven beyond a reasonable doubt
Theory = Hypothesis with evidence to back it up
Hypothesis = ... I think we all agree on this one.

"Law of Evolution" somehow sounds silly though. Or rather, the word 'law' just doesn't seem to fit well with historical events. Evolution and the big bang aren't really laws of how the universe work, they're historical events. (Well, evolution still happens, so maybe it is a law. And maybe I'm just being picky now. Feel free to throw books at me.)

Niek: Your argument is interesting, but it also suggests there was a start to time, which is a whole new can of worms. (If there were no 'start' to time, then as time went back it's safe to say all the nearby matter would continue to shrink to that one point as you go back in time, invalidating your thought.) Actually the possibility is there anyway, so perhaps your argument just makes it more obvious. Did our universe always exist (and for a long time it was scrunched up in what became the big bang), or did it at one point suddenly begin (thanks to some event happening beyond the scope of the universe as we know it?). Is time truly without start or end, or did it 'start' at some point? I doubt time didn't exist at some point, but it's also hard to believe that the universe was stuck in that ball that eventually went boom for eternity (infinity minus 13.5 billion just doesn't work for me lol), so did something super-universal cause it?

Evolution isn't a law, but it is a plausible course of events. And when it comes to nature, we should be careful to talk about "laws" anyway. That suggests that there's a predetermined purpose, and there isn't. Or well, for a purpose, it is for species to evolve and adjust.

But because of the general flexibility the evolution has shown us (it is as much random as adjustable), evolution can't really be said to follow a set of rules, even though it seems to follow a pattern. Also, was it a law, species wouldn't be able to avoid it. Like, there is a theory that, when a species reaches a highest population mark, it decreases, and if it isn't adjusted to its environment, it will die. In this way, humans have in many way tricked evolution. If evolution was a law, humans wouldn't be allowed to be as evolved as they are.

Oh, and, from your post it seems as though you suggest that evolution doesn't happen anymore ("they're historical events"), but if you choose to believe in evolution you should be aware that it happens as we speak.

Big Bang cannot be considered a law anyway, since it, as you say, is a historical event. Whereas evolution may in its peak be considered a strong theory with evidence beyond reasonable doubt, the Big Bang theory may on its peak be a theorem, which meaning you guys already have discussed (if it can ever be fully proven).

And as a comment on your response to Nick: Time isn't continous. The theory of relativity suggests that time is flexible, and the fact that the furthest galaxy we can observe sent red light that reached us 13.5 billion years later doesn't really prove that it was near the start of the universe. This mainly because it is based on our own perception of how light works (which are theories based on observations on Earth), and it is also based on our basic perception of time. There is no universal law that says that time is continous.

Oh and, if we start talking about stuff like "super-universal", I think we all risk to lose our trains of thought. The matter of what came before the start of the universe has already been somewhat covered, and I quote:

Mar 28, 2010 23:31:31 GMT -5 Ryan said:

One might ask: "what came before this?" that does not mean that there is an answer. There might have been a universe, there might have been just a single super-massive super-small particle, there may have been 2. It is these questions that science will NEVER be able to answer, and these questions where we should put faith.

[Nakor]

Oh, and, from your post it seems as though you suggest that evolution doesn't happen anymore ("they're historical events"), but if you choose to believe in evolution you should be aware that it happens as we speak.

Immediately after I call it a historical event, I said "(Well, evolution still happens...)". Anyway, my point is pretty much the same as yours: it doesn't make sense to refer to evolution and the big bang as laws, which is why we continue to call them theories despite the overwhelming proof in favour of them. Thus, in an earlier post, my suggestion of the term "proven theory" for them.

As for anything that started the universe being something that science will never answer, and that therefore faith needs to step in, I disagree. That is hardly a certainty. In fact, it has been theorized (without any real substantiation yet) that the collision of two universes may in fact be what caused ours. When I have more time I'll see if I can hunt down that article. My point is, though, that what happened outside our universe is not necessarily beyond human capability to determine (if in fact anything did). I will always prefer to answer "we don't know yet" than to make up an answer of my own or to trust the answer invented by some faith in the past.

[nickgreyden]

@ everyone

I love science nerds :-D

continue thread