No Big Bang--Just gentle whisper

Oh, yes, quite correct, it's not irrelevant to the issue of whether the Big Bang happened. I meant that the fact that we can't answer that question right now is irrelevant to considering whether our confidence in an affirmative answer to the question, "Did the Big Bang really happen?" is justified.--Percy

Perhaps true, and if so then I can understand why you would prefer Cavediver's yardstick to mine.To me your skepticism is rooted in one of the primary fallacies used by creationists, namely that you just don't find the evidence sufficiently persuasive to accept the provided explanation. If you're correct that your skepticism is of a different nature than this might best emerge from an examination of the evidence for the Big Bang with Cavediver.--Percy

Hi Nwr,In my original response to this post I didn't address any the issues you raised in the hope that they might be addressed in discussion with Cavediver. But since you've indicated (in the Admin forum) that you see the differences in viewpoint insufficiently significant to be worth discussing, I'll address a couple points you made now to hopefully make more clear why I disagree. This is dead wrong, as Son Goku has also noted. The reason your position on the Big Bang seems so similar to the creationist stance on evolution is because it seems based more on ignorance than knowledge. It isn't a case of, "I've looked into this very deeply and have concluded the evidence is insufficient to justify the conclusions." It's more like, "I don't know much about it, and I'm not interested in discussing it further, but I'm sticking with my conclusions anyway, and I'll continue popping up occasionally with my opinions on this matter while continuing to avoid discussion of them."Sorry to be so blunt, but I find I cannot in good conscience allow anyone a free ride just because they happen to agree with me on most other things. In science, acceptance of any theoretical framework of understanding (i.e., an explanation) is always tentative. Accepting a theory means nothing more than that you accept that it explains the evidence and makes accurate predictions.Another reason why I think discussion with Cavediver would be a good idea is that he is somewhat of a fellow traveler with you. In QED he accepts only what the math tells him, and he steadfastly refuses to accept explanations that attempt to represent what is happening in lay terms. This isn't precisely the same as what you're doing with the Big Bang, but it is somewhat similar. Where Cavediver's stance differs is that he notes ways in which the lay level descriptions can be misleading, for instance by leading people to believe that QED experiments imply that causality can be violated. But I don't believe you have any equivalent objections to the Big Bang.--Percy

Sure you have a disagreement at this level. For example, in Message 32 you said: I'd like to see you defend this position in a discussion with Cavediver. I could try and do it myself, but it would be a very slow discussion as I'm not full of spare time these days.The reason I've been contrasting your approach thus far to creationists is because it sounds just like a creationist talking about evolution, just plug in different words: "The evidence that evolution is responsible for the diversity of life, however, is far from satisfying." I'd challenge the creationist who said this about so well supported a theory, and so when you say the same thing about aspects of the Big Bang, which is at least as well supported, integrity demands challenging this, too, no matter the source.--Percy

This is to be the level of discussion? How is this any different from, "Have you ever seen a fish evolve into an amphibian?"Pick it up a notch.--Percy

This is identical to creationist objections that we can only know what we can directly observe. On the contrary, you demonstrate your ignorance at every turn. Your inability to raise a single scientifically valid objection makes it clear that you're as qualified to have an opinion about the Big Bang as many creationists are to have an opinion about evolution.--Percy

I'm sorry that you won't be responding further, because I think it would have been a productive exercise. If your position's justifications are truly private then you should not have introduced your position in the first place. On this debate board, members are expected to defend their positions, not declare them off-limits to discussion. See rule 4.--Percy

Hi Cavediver,My thoughts kept returning to a couple parts of your reply, so I thought I'd finally respond: Right, that's why I used M33. If we can't directly measure distance and motion of relatively nearby M33, we certainly can't do it for much more distant objects. If things that happen to the light, such as changes in wavelength, polarization, etc., are off-limits as a means of measurement, then what kind of measurement are you thinking of? The only methods left available would involve waiting long enough for the observed positions and motions of distant galaxies to become directly detectable to our instruments, or us or our probes traveling far enough to accomplish the same thing. These are methods that would take any number of human lifetimes, certainly far, far more than 20 years.This perspective on the pace of scientific advance has worked both successfully and unsuccessfully. Computers have become more powerful than people ever could have imagined, and Moore's law continues to hold up far beyond what people thought possible. I think many scientists would concede that collecting and analyzing the details of the CMB have been far more successful than ever dreamed. But fusion remains the power generation technology of the future, and perhaps always will be. Gene therapy has yet to fulfill its early promise and may never do so. Alchemists never did uncover chemical methods of turning lead into gold. String theory may be petering out, too early to tell.I'm as great an admirer of the stupendous progress of science as anyone, but the advances often come from unexpected directions. Direct measurements of distance and motion of far away objects can't be gathered any faster than the speed of light, so given the strong evidential and theoretical support for the speed of light as a limit on the propagation of information, I'll stand by my many human lifetimes figure.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Added clarifying phrase in my 3rd paragraph.

Another couple questions just occurred to me.My first question concerns measurements of distance based upon standard candles and related approaches. Are these also considered too indirect? I was assuming you and Nwr were ruling them out, but perhaps not?My second question concerns parallax style measurements. The diameter of the earth's orbit is used by way of parallax to triangulate distances to relatively close objects, out to about about 1000 light years, and less direct parallax methods out to maybe 3000 light years. The "local distant" galaxies you're thinking of are more like a million light years away? Do I have that right?So what if our baseline were approximately the radius of the solar system, say, the distance from the earth to either the Pioneer 10 or 11 spacecraft. These spacecraft aren't equipped for such measurements, but we could send more and would only to wait about 30 years, well within a single human lifetime. How far out could such a baseline peer to make direct distance/motion measurements?--Percy