The problems of big bang theory. What are they?

Arp's plasma universe? Are you perhaps thinking of Hannes Alfvén?--Percy

Hi Lysimachus,Normal procedure here at EvC forum has you making your rebuttal in your own words and using links only as supporting references. Links are not supposed to be your sole contribution.But I took a quick look at your video anyway. While it's very general, the first 2 minutes does a great job countering the common creationist misconception that planets and stars formed as a direct result of the Big Bang. It explains that first atoms and molecules formed, and then only much later did stars and galaxies form.The video quickly makes some of very common and very fundamental creationist mistakes. At one point the narrator says, "We begin where evolutionists say it all began, with the Big Bang." As hopefully everyone who has been here at EvC for a while is well aware, the Big Bang is a theory of cosmological origins, not of biological origins, and the theory of evolution is a theory of the origins of species of life, not of life itself. The theory of the origin of life is different theory usually known as abiogenesis. Referring to the Big Bang as an evolutionist theory is just misleading, and I'm sure the talent behind this video is well aware of distinctions like these.All of those who comment about the Big Bang don't show any indication of any familiarity with scientific views of the Big Bang. It's as if they saw the term "Big Bang" and took a guess at what something called the "Big Bang" must be. Given that the term was coined by an opponent of Big Bang theory (Fred Hoyle), it's no wonder the term brings the wrong image to mind among laypeople. I think the video would have been much better served by including contributions from people who actually know what the theory says.I'm only 10 minutes into the video so far, it already has a number of errors, it's an hour in length, and I don't have any idea which portions of the video contain the points you want to make. If there is some specific issue or issues from the video that you would like to raise, please describe them in your own words and provide the point in time in the video where the issue is described.--Percy

Hi Portillo,Just adding a bit to what Panda said, this partial quote from Whittaker that you plucked from some creationist website was part of an address at King's College in 1942, seven years before Hoyle even coined the term Big Bang. Way to be current.Anyway, it appears that you believe that one of the problems with the Big Bang theory is that it doesn't tell us what came before. I doubt that Whittaker, had he not died over a half century ago, would agree with you that this is a problem for the Big Bang, if by that you mean that it calls into question whether the Big Bang really happened. But the question about what came before the Big Bang is a serious question that is receiving increasing attention from cosmologists these days.--Percy

Then why are you raising the issue? Science agrees with you that its a very interesting question, but the thread's topic is about problems with the Big Bang. If you're raising the issue because you think it's a problem for the Big Bang theory then you're going to have to connect the dots for us and explain why you see it that way. The guy you quoted, Whittaker, wasn't raising the issue as a problem for the Big Bang.--Percy

What causes virtual particles?--Percy

It's difficult to see how anyone aware of the evidence could deny the obvious implication of an early universe with all matter and energy concentrated in a very tiny region. Denying this would just be silly.But the existence of an obvious implication does not mean it's the correct interpretation. Perhaps there are other interpretations that better explain the data, or perhaps new data will become available that calls the current consensus into question.--Percy

Hi BFT,You keep trying to engage with IAJ, so I want to finally say a few words about this.The creation/evolution controversy has a long record of attracting loons. IamJoseph is just one of many here. Dawn Bertot, Robert Byers, Bolder-dash and John 10:10 are others who have posted recently.Before Dover the presence of the certifiables was balanced by others who could articulate a position and argue it rationally, but after Dover their numbers gradually dwindled until today there are almost none here. ID disgraced itself at Dover and is no longer effectively promoting itself, and creationism has decided to keep a very low profile, refraining from any overt actions that might bring it into court but working hard to influence school boards and individual teachers. The result of the cessation of overt efforts to convince the public of their views is that the creationists who come here are either woefully unprepared, or they're seriously disconnected from reality, or they speak English so poorly they understand little that is said (by themselves or anyone else), or all of these and more.There seems something about holding beliefs contrary to reality that forces disassociation. Just look at TrueCreation, an early and highly active YEC participant in EvC Forum's early days who performed his own intense and highly detailed research. He now says he is no longer YEC, but he can't answer a direct question and has become highly circumspect in all his replies, almost like he's waging an internal battle to keep himself from thinking about certain things.What originally drew me in to the creationism/evolution controversy was creationism's inability to articulate a rational position while insisting it deserved inclusion in public school science programs. It was the legal battles that first garnered my attention. In the old days many creationists who came to sites like this could muster very strong arguments for their position that required careful attention, but today we get a lot of creationists who seem crazy right from their first post.I've taken the long way around to say something simple: some of the creationists here who seem crazy really *are* crazy, at least in this discussion board context. Probably in real life they're not really crazy, but religious devotion and sincerity combined with a complete ignorance of science seems to produce the appearance of complete irrationality. Long experience has taught me, and many others here, that's there no point in arguing with a crazy person, and besides, onlookers often can't tell the difference. There's one key sign, not always exhibited but still helpful, that tells you when it's time to disengage. When you find yourself explaining the interpretation of simple English, head for the hills.I fully understand the impulses pressing you to engage with IAJ and straighten out his confusion, which seems simple and straightforward and easy to resolve. It appears to you that the presentation of a few simple facts and the walking through of a few logical inductions should straighten everything out. But it doesn't work that way with creationists. When they exhibit a few simple and fundamental errors it isn't because they've just accidentally picked up a few incorrect facts that can be easily corrected, but because they have a whole pathology that prevents them from ever connecting evidence to any ideas contrary to their central beliefs.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Minor word change.

These are as close as I could find: These are from the book The Expanded Quotable Einsein. If Einstein had said something so quotably pithy I think it would be in there, but it's not, so my guess is that Michio Kaku misremembered something he had heard or read that Einstein had said. Every occurrence of the quote I found on the web credited Michio Kaku or didn't provide a source. A surprising number of people cut-n-pasted the quote word-for-word not only without attribution but as if the words were their own.--Percy

There seems an inordinate amount of recent attention on Darwin and evolution rather than the Big Bang. Portillo mentioned Darwin in Message 366, and only to make the point that one could be knowledgeable outside one's specialty, but off we went anyway.I'm going to introduce Percy's Law: Any discussion between creationists and evolutionists, whether about cosmology, geology, physics, chemistry or biology, will eventually come down to Darwin.Then there's Percy's Corollary: Any discussion about creation with creationists will eventually end up discussing evolution.--Percy

I'm not familiar with the reference, but let me guess that I've either reinvented the wheel or exhibited delusions of adequacy. Looking this up now...Oh, that's the Hitler thing. Yeah, I knew I was ripping that off. --Percy