The future of the big bang

I'd rather be shopping for shoes!

I think The original poster has some problems understanding this article.. it doesnt "prove" that the big bang never happened. Certainly the conclusions call the current cosmology into question, but all it proves is that certain predicted phenomena dont exist in all cases. (specifically shadows in microwave background).

One study like this doesnt yet disprove the big bang cosmology. It does show us how little we really know about the larger universe however, and current cosmology is likely to be very incomplete.

For myself I'm not big suporter of a single universal "Big Bang". The extent of the universe may be much more vast than such a theory predicts. it seems at least concievable that there have been many big bangs in many regions of the universe, each creating galactic super-clusters or even larger structures we know nothing about.

Whether or not the amount of matter in the universe is actually infinite I dont know; certainly there is an amount vast enough that it cant be easily understood. The universe may not be exactly infinite, but it may be indefinite.

The interesting thing about cosmology is that it is a wide-open field, and we can expect many more discoveries and controversies for a long time to come, as methods of seeing farther and with more precision are developed.

In case you haven't understood that article, here's a brief explanation.

The microwave background was radiated when the universe became transparent 400,000 years after the big bang. The radiation had a temperature of 3000 K back then, but meanwhile cooled off to around 3 K.

The background radiation reaches us from all directions. However when a galaxy is in the way, it absorbs a small percentage of the radiation. Therefore there's a "shadow" in the background radiation at that position.

Because galaxies mostly consist of empty space, the shadow effect is too weak for direct observation. However when a galaxy moves perpendicular to us, the shadow "lags behind" the image of the galaxy. In this case it can theoretically be observed.

Unfortunately the radiation absorption by a galaxy is very small, like 0.0001 percent, while the background radiation can only be measured with much less precision - like 0.1 percent. Therefore the shadow is still unobservable, however with a lot of tricks and statistical methods some scientist groups have claimed to have observed those shadows in the past years using data from the COBE satellite.

The group mentioned in the article tried to measure the shadows of some galaxies with data from the WMAP satellite, which has a 3 times better precision than COBE. They didn't find shadows. So we have now observations from the COBE and from the WMAP groups that contradict each other.

Unfortunately science has no infallible pope. Thus further observations are necessary to find out which group was right. After 2007 we'll probably know the answer. The PLANCK satellite is then launched, which is 3 times more precise than WMAP.

Contradicting measurements are very common in science, and are always explained sooner or later. Thus I'm afraid the creationist hopes of abandonment of science will be once more disappointed .

Yes it is! IN the dictionary it says for science defintion:
Science= Big Bang (and fish-to-man theory)

This in jerry fallwell dictionary for utter moron.

A part from this article , as far as I know the theory of big bang is widly accepted by the scientific comunity
Same situation as evolutionism and creationism.
Scientists can argue on some details but just a minority does not beleive in big bang and in evolutionism

Lol, is it just me, or are you talking as if you think that democracy isn't fair...? Hehehe

Scientists are well aware of the possibilty they may be wrong, being totally wrong or just wrong in some aspects of their theory. However, when a theory get's widely accepted amongst the vast majority of scientists, then usually there are good reasons for it.

I seriously doubt the credibility of any "scientist" not believing the evolution theory. It's not that it's mandatory to believe it in order to be a true scientist or anything, but how could a scientist not believe in it? Okey, mainly because I agree with the evidence in favor of it, but still I don't think a (true) scientist could deny it's the most logical way of things considered all the evidence.

Cheers

Maybe, if there were a method by which it could happen (mutations are out....the best they do is horizontal change).

Maybe if the fossils supported it.

Maybe if the DNA comparisons supported it. Then if/when I get into the science field I might accept it.

Who knows, maybe they'll find some evidence that overturns the past 150 years of not finding evidence. Anything's possible.

Phemox

Well, people like the hero fighting alone against a multitude of stupid enemies
Science is not an exception
Here in Italy all students have been told the story of Marconi
He invented the radio but the authorities were so stupid to let him go.
Actually it was not like that
Mr Righi immediatly understood the importance of Marconi's discovery from an accademic point of view but he did not see a pratical application
Because of the curvature of the earth a radio signal can travel a few hundreds meters only
That's why he suggested marconi to migrate to uk , which was the richest country .
They could afford to finance even useless stuff
At the time nobody could even suspect the existence of the ionosphere

In conclusion I beleive in democracy both in politics and in science with a few exceptions of course

Post deleted by Doug

Actually, Matt. There was apparently an experiment done a few years ago where some evolutionary biologists combined mutations to see what affects they would have (in other words finally putting neo-darwinism to the test), and apparently it failed miserably. But before I would go more in depth on that one I want to read the experiment a bit more. Its rather lengthy.

Okey, yeah, I think I see what you mean. It's not by pure chance alone that things evolve, there are some controlling factors too, like environmental selections, that on more that one occasion were the same and probably had similar effects on a species' evolution. I also think that certain things quite a lot of species have in common also have very similar if not the same DNA code. Take liquids like blood for example or skin tissue, even a heart or other organs and basic body cells resemble those of the animal kingdom quite a lot and thus also appear in the DNA as a familiar string of codes perhaps? If we are all related in one way or another, and from one time on, life began as one cell, it's not that strange to discover familiar DNA parts amongst a lot of species. If DNA is the information about how to grow/build and thus evolve, it's not that weird. Infact if a God placed all animals on this earth, then why did he gave them similar DNA?

Cheers

Yes, but just because something can be explained both ways, doesn't mean one of them is not wrong or unlikely. However I guess it's up to further argumentation and different evidences to see which explanation holds.

As for the DNA argument, yes, a lot of animals have skin, which looks the same, hence the information to grow that skin will be about the same too, that's what we can derive from our world.

Can we really turn it around and say someone actually designed it and simply re-used already made things over and over again? It could be possible, but there's a problem with that. Simple put chickens lay eggs, eggs hatch, and there come more chickens. Now you'll have to agree with me there is no visible divine interference in this all, eventhough young chickens have something magical off course. Anyways, the way I see it, divine design could only have been way way back at the beginning of the single cell that all life evolved from. But that off course contradicts the biblical explanation ... and there are other problems with ID,

Cheers

Well, it depends on whether or not you believe that given enough time, the chicken will eventually hatch something other than a chicken.

There is nothing divine in a chicken laying a chicken, things are just working the way they do. God really doesn't have to maintain the universe beyond creation, but it all depends on whether 'creation' includes animals evolving, or just giving birth to similar animals.