So it is your hypothesis that answers are not to be found in books or publications? Then I ask you, what SHOULD I use as reference?





What other books should I read about science if NOT science books? This is oxymoronic.



By itself it is not. This is an important point for you to understand. By themselves, everyone of these facts is devoid of meaning and substance. There is CMB radiation... okay... do you know the history of CMB? Do you know it was discovered years before it was attributed to the Big Bang? It was only when this piece of information fit many others -- like hubble expansion, large scale galactic structure (such as "the great wall"), the values of fundamental parameters, measurements of the current matter to antimatter ratios, measures of matter (and by inference, dark matter) in our current universe -- ALL OF THESE are needed for the big bang. y themselves, each of these is useless... which is why when people like yourselves argue against a theory, they will pick on one aspect of the theory, one piece of data, and harp incessently on how it doesn't prove anything... when in fact they are right, ONE PIECE OF DATA PROVES NOTHING. Don't you see, why_do? If anyone of these facts, ANY ONE, fails to fit the theory, IT'S GONE. IT'S CANCER. WE ELIMINATE IT IMMEDIATELY. And anything that was based on it is modified appropriately. This is the canon of our faith; this is the core of our belief: nothing is absolute; everything is mutable, including our facts and theories... hell expecially those! LOL



Please let me restate what I said above: before you judge a theory or science, make sure you have at least EXPOSED yourself to a majority. Here you are lambasting the Big Bang and yet you are ignorant of some of the most compeling and recent evidence for it! You must be informed if you are going to make such gradiose assertions, you simply must.

Here, if you can trust such a lothesome publication, please reference this for what COBE was about and what is on the horizon for CMB exploration and it's consequences for physics. Granted, it's no LIGO (ah, LIGO... ), but it's still cool! The pictures alone just fire up the imagination!!!

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9902027



What is the difference between "we understand it" and "we don't know what it is"?



You are correct: science doesn't know who or what created the universe.
In fact, science is, IMO, the closest to the truth by adamantly admitting, with all it's scientific rigor, shouting from the top of our ivory towers, that on the topic of "who": we don't know!
So what of it?
We don't need to know as I'll demostrate!

Does it make a difference to a falling apple whether it has fallen because of the exchange of gravitons between teh masses of the Earth and the apple... or because god is pushing it down?
Won't the times to fall be the same under both scenerios?
Won't the final outcome be the same under both scenerios?

Will the electron reactions that govern your computer, predictably, understandably, will they behaive somehow different if there is a "why" and not just a "how"?

You must get this duality clear in your head:

THERE IS NO "WHY" IN SCIENCE, ONLY IN EMOTIONS.
THERE IS NO "HOW" IN EMOTIONS, ONLY IN SCIENCE.

Do not confuse science with emotions ultimate aggragate, religion. They are both trying to answer the same questions but in different camps.
Since they will be, what difference does it matter if we do or do not know who or what is behind the scenes.



You have the wrong idea of what science is about. I would gladly share with you why the above is wrong, but only if you ask. This is such a fundamental misunderstanding of what science is, that if you truly believe this, nothing I can say can convince of how we scientist TRULY operate (and I'll tell you right now, it's not in the 100% range...)



First off, nothing is made of elements only atoms. Since you are invoking Aristotlean physics (circa 300BC), thought I'd bring you up to date.

Secondly, sorry chump but you can't have it both ways: either atoms and the big bang are both "facts" or they both aren't since they are both intangible objects which we have indirectly inferred to exist. Or in other words the concept of Atoms and the concept of the Big Bang both share teh same mother, the scientific method, and same stepdad, occam's razor.

Secondly, it has been proven in exactly the same way as the big bang. To whit, no one has ever touched an atom... ever. The only way we know they exist is by doing experiments which we interpret as atoms. And using that interpretation asa foundation has lead to greater adn greater success. It is at this point that we think of atoms as "fact".... when their success ratio is 100% for so long, that its hard to imagine how it could be otherwise. Newton's laws were such a theory... they were at 100% for a long time. Then Einstein noted, there was a 2% difference from his theory and Newtons, a 2% difference in the orbit of mercury I believe, and thus Einstein was proven. And thus now Newton was at 98% and falling but it was that two percent difference in what we thought was absolute (newton's laws) that lead us to a greater understanding of that law and our universe. And now, using this new 2% theory, Relativity, as a foundation has brought us a brave new world!!!!

Now how in the heck is that ANY different that collecting the electromagnetic radiation from the heavens and inferring a big bang, just like we inferred an atom? It is the same: in both cases, we haven't touched the object we refer too, in both cases we infer that object exists though observation, and in both cases if a better theory comes along, these are in the dump right away!