the placebo effect

[_Scottie]

I didn't pray about those other Prophets. I've been told that there is one person who holds the keys to revelation for the world and God has confirmed this doctrine and who that man is. I don't laugh at claims to represent God. I think they're very serious. I don't think Joseph was horrible. I think he was doing the best he could with a difficult situation. Your claim to be better morally than a man you've never met in circumstances that you have never been in is a huge leap to me. I have no idea how I rate compared to Joseph Smith. I think I would be a better person if I didn't care at all about how I compare to anyone.

I was told the same thing. I believed it too. That is, until I found the courage to look outside of my religious beliefs and saw the great prophet as nothing more than a man that did some VERY questionable activities under the banner of God.

I place him in the same camp as all the other swindlers that do questionable activities under the banner of God. He was a man that figured out that religion can be exploited to allow him to do anything he wanted without consequence. Which went pretty well for him, until he was murdered, that is...

Can you not see a pattern? His claims got bolder and bolder. He kept pushing the envelope to see just how far his power could go. I think that if he would have left well enough alone, and not started making armies, and making claims that he was going to be king and all that, he probably would have lived to a ripe old age. But his abuse of power finally caught up with him.

[_Scottie]

I'm not a physicist, but from my understanding, the Big Bang is still just a theory.

So is the Theory of Relativity. So is Quantum 'theory'. So is the 'Theory' of evolution.
The word 'Theory' doesn't mean 'were not that sure about it yet'. It is a technical word for a scientific proposition.

The Big Bang is very well evidenced, and has survived as a theory for decades. I see no reason at all why it cannot be declared 'scientific truth'.

There is still a relatively large portion of the scientific community that has it's doubts about TBB.

Relatively large? I'm interested in what kind of numbers you're thinking of here.
And what do you mean 'has it's doubts'? I do know of the kinds of disagreements Jersey Girl has referenced in regards to whether the Big Bang has a cause or not - and if so, what that cause is. But that kind of question is BEYOND the borders of the Big Bang theory itself... Those kinds of disagreements are not disagreements about the Big Bang theory itself, but rather where the Big Bang theory leads...

Well, you know FAR more about this than I do. In my mind, a "scientific truth" is something more like gravity, or Newton's Laws. Things that have remarkably accurate tests that can demonstrate time and time again that they work. But that's just me. I'll take your word for it.

[_Ren]

Things that have remarkably accurate tests that can demonstrate time and time again that they work.

The Big Bang does have remarkably accurate tests that can demonstrate time and time again that it is the 'truth'.

Every single celestial object (and we keep encountering NEW ones that could falsify the theory all the time) that is outside our gravitational range displays a doppler shift indicating that it is traveling away from us.
That must mean that all matter is moving away from all other matter on a celestial scale.

There are only two real assumptions required:

1. We do not have some 'special' place in the universe where everything just happens to be moving away from us, and not everything else.
2. The past resembles the future.

...two basic scientific assumptions...

Taking these two assumptions as a given - then play back the history of the universe and all matter is moving towards all other matter - to then finally meet at one 'point'.

The Big Bang has also been confirmed by the gamma radiation that was prediced by the theory to exist as a remnant of the 'explosion' that was required to get all the energy / matter moving away from the central 'point', and that was detected as predicted.

The Big Bang theory as about a solid a theory as you can get.


And before you go thinking that something like 'gravity' gets to be 'scientific truth' because it's so 'obvious', bear in mind that Newtonian gravity was considered 'obvious' and taken to be very simply 'truth' until it was overturned by General Relativity.
...in my opinion there isn't really such a thing as a 'simple' truth, that is 'de facto' true just because it's so obvious it is... That's often a dangerous trap to fall into...

[Dr. Sunstoned]

So is the Theory of Relativity. So is Quantum 'theory'. So is the 'Theory' of evolution.
The word 'Theory' doesn't mean 'were not that sure about it yet'. It is a technical word for a scientific proposition.

The Big Bang is very well evidenced, and has survived as a theory for decades. I see no reason at all why it cannot be declared 'scientific truth'.

This is a misunderstanding of science. A theory is a model, a template and a framework. At a certain level of relative certainty, we begin calling things "laws" or scientific "truths", but these must be understood as relative concepts. A good theory gives us the best explanation we have for a phenomena at that point in the development of scientific knowledge, but new data may always be just around the corner. As Popper said, a scientific theory is "tentative forever"; in can never be fully certain or confirmed because a theory can never be more than, well, a theory.

The Big Bang still has its critics. It has evidence to support it yes, but its got some fundamental difficulties too (the singularity, for one), and while we speak of it as if it were a fact, we really don't have any idea of its exact nature. Its an intellectual construct, as is Darwinian theory, and humans should never lose sight of that reality.

Theory does, indeed, mean "were not sure about it". No theory, if it is still a theory, can ever involve certainty of the kind you apparently mean. Individually, various scientists have and always will make claims for certainty that lie well beyond a theory's boundaries, but if such certainty were actually achieved, the theory would no longer be a theory, but factual knowledge which no longer required any kind of modeling. Inductive reasoning can get us good degrees of probability, but not certainty.

[_Scottie]

Things that have remarkably accurate tests that can demonstrate time and time again that they work.

The Big Bang does have remarkably accurate tests that can demonstrate time and time again that it is the 'truth'.

Every single celestial object (and we keep encountering NEW ones that could falsify the theory all the time) that is outside our gravitational range displays a doppler shift indicating that it is traveling away from us.
That must mean that all matter is moving away from all other matter on a celestial scale.

There are only two real assumptions required:

1. We do not have some 'special' place in the universe where everything just happens to be moving away from us, and not everything else.
2. The past resembles the future.

...two basic scientific assumptions...

Taking these two assumptions as a given - then play back the history of the universe and all matter is moving towards all other matter - to then finally meet at one 'point'.

The Big Bang has also been confirmed by the gamma radiation that was prediced by the theory to exist as a remnant of the 'explosion' that was required to get all the energy / matter moving away from the central 'point', and that was detected as predicted.

The Big Bang theory as about a solid a theory as you can get.


And before you go thinking that something like 'gravity' gets to be 'scientific truth' because it's so 'obvious', bear in mind that Newtonian gravity was considered 'obvious' and taken to be very simply 'truth' until it was overturned by General Relativity.
...in my opinion there isn't really such a thing as a 'simple' truth, that is 'de facto' true just because it's so obvious it is... That's often a dangerous trap to fall into...

Just trying to educate myself a little more here, but the whole concept of "all the energy in the universe was in a space no larger than the head of a pin" is part of the big bang, right? Is that still a viable theory/scientific truth? Do they know what set off the big bang? Or are those concepts outside of the big bang?

[_The Nehor]

I didn't pray about those other Prophets. I've been told that there is one person who holds the keys to revelation for the world and God has confirmed this doctrine and who that man is. I don't laugh at claims to represent God. I think they're very serious. I don't think Joseph was horrible. I think he was doing the best he could with a difficult situation. Your claim to be better morally than a man you've never met in circumstances that you have never been in is a huge leap to me. I have no idea how I rate compared to Joseph Smith. I think I would be a better person if I didn't care at all about how I compare to anyone.

I was told the same thing. I believed it too. That is, until I found the courage to look outside of my religious beliefs and saw the great prophet as nothing more than a man that did some VERY questionable activities under the banner of God.

I place him in the same camp as all the other swindlers that do questionable activities under the banner of God. He was a man that figured out that religion can be exploited to allow him to do anything he wanted without consequence. Which went pretty well for him, until he was murdered, that is...

Can you not see a pattern? His claims got bolder and bolder. He kept pushing the envelope to see just how far his power could go. I think that if he would have left well enough alone, and not started making armies, and making claims that he was going to be king and all that, he probably would have lived to a ripe old age. But his abuse of power finally caught up with him.

I don't see that.

[_Moniker]

Skepticism is a method, not a belief system. Some skeptics may be confused on this point, but the foundation tries to make this point clear in the front section of every issue of Skeptic magazine.

Behold the wonder of the internet:

http://www.skeptic.com/about_us/manifesto.html

[_Ren]

A theory is a model, a template and a framework.

I didn't say otherwise.

At a certain level of relative certainty, we begin calling things "laws" or scientific "truths"

No. A scientific theory doesn't suddenly become a law when we decide we have 'so' much confidence in it.

A law is something that can be simply described (An equation for example), and don't require 'complex' proofs.
A theory is a more complex explanation that requires more complex proofs. It does not get 'upgraded' to a law once people generally decide it's 'true'. It is always a 'theory', but theories reach a point where they are generally accepted as 'true' as far as science is concerned.

Further reading for you coggins:
http://wilstar.com/theories.htm

A good theory gives us the best explanation we have for a phenomena at that point in the development of scientific knowledge, but new data may always be just around the corner.

Of course. I didn't say otherwise.

As Popper said, a scientific theory is "tentative forever"; in can never be fully certain or confirmed because a theory can never be more than, well, a theory.

Thanks for that, but again - I didn't say otherwise.

The Big Bang still has its critics.

Of course. All scientific theories do.

but its got some fundamental difficulties too (the singularity, for one)

Please explain why the singularity is a difficulty for the Big Bang theory.

and while we speak of it as if it were a fact, we really don't have any idea of its exact nature.

We don't need to know how the Big Bang 'happened' to know that all matter started of in one place, and moved apart from there.

Its an intellectual construct, as is Darwinian theory, and humans should never lose sight of that reality.

Of course not. That's why I called it 'scientific' truth, and not 'truth'.

[Guest]

Theory does, indeed, mean "were not sure about it".

Not in the sense that Scottie implied. On a technical basis, science is not sure of anything. But we don't use that kind of 'sure' in a practical sense, or we'd never get anything done.

No theory, if it is still a theory, can ever involve certainty of the kind you apparently mean.

The problem is you don't know what I mean. You're not reading me clearly, and jumping to conclusions.

Individually, various scientists have and always will make claims for certainty that lie well beyond a theory's boundaries, but if such certainty were actually achieved, the theory would no longer be a theory, but factual knowledge which no longer required any kind of modeling.

The truth we declare as true is ALWAYS a model.

Inductive reasoning can get us good degrees of probability, but not certainty.

I have no reason to believe otherwise at this point.

[_Moniker]

My favorite theory is gravity. Not too sure if it's a "truth" or not (since I just confused the hell out of myself by reading a few things that questioned that) yet, every time I stumble (more often than I'd like to admit) it's pretty real to me.