Scroll down on the linked page to find a very silly poll: Do you believe in the Big Bang?. It’s a pretty stupid question, but even worse is the fact that “no” is winning 82%:18%.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
You know if enough people believe in something with enough faith, and they eat all their vegetables and are always mean to brown people…
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They’re still wrong.
Well, it is South Carolina.
Oh, dear, there are only 138 votes total. This should rapidly become entertaining.
27% Yes
73% No
Commence skewering!
I’m not sure if I do believe in the big bang. I mean, there is good reason to think that the universe expanded out from a singularity, but maybe it only looks that way from our limited observational point. We see the universe as being flat but expanding, but could that be simply because we can’t look far enough into space?
Though I must admit, the cosmic background radiation, the expanding universe and the distant primitive galaxies are quite compelling evidence. I’d have to say “yes”, though with caution.
Now it’s
153162 votes in total, of which 66 (41 %) are “yes” and 96 (59 %) are “no”.Within two hours “no” will be rounded to 0 %.
Jesus! No was winning by that much!
I thought that the latest hypotheses on multiverses actually were about taking care of that pesky “singularity” once and for all. Also, perhaps a physicist can clarify this, “Big Bang Theory”, isn’t that the actual old-school theory that doesn’t count inflation? If it is, isn’t it already refuted by the actual current inflationary period we’re supposedly experiencing?
52% yes
48% no
201 votes
Nudged it with both Safari and Firefox. Now above 50% yes.
Yes – 58%
No – 42%
I like how it asks if we believe in “the Big Bang Theory.” Like some people are going, “There is no such thing as the Big Bang Theory!”
It may be a stupid poll, but it’s not a stupid question. A number of reputable cosmologists question the Big Bang. From my inexpert perspective, Steinhardt and Turok’s cyclic universe of colliding branes looks pretty plausible, and eliminates the need for inflation, which I always found hard to swallow.
When they say “big bang” I think they’re including all of the refinements and adjustments that cosmology has discovered in the last decade or so.
They don’t care about the fine details, what this question means is “Do you think the Universe came into being because of unknown causes 13.7 billion years ago, or do you think Goddidit?”
344 votes, 248 (72 %) yes, still 96 (28 %) no…
Read the comments, too.
Yes, I’m sure the people of South Carolina who voted “no” are contemplating the cyclic universe of colliding branes vs. the Big Bang Theory.
possibly a question that no human will never know the answer to, for sure, but damned if that question hasn’t lead to some great science and understanding. I’ll take a lot more of that, please.
I’m confused. I thought the Christians LOVED the idea of a Big Bang moment of creation. I guess the current thinking is that anything said by anyone with more education is automatically ungodly.
The comments on the poll are interesting. Good work handling the idiots!
rofl@ #17! Exactly right!!!
@#17
They’re fine with the “BANG” it’s the 13.7 billion years they cant handle.
Yes 78% (337 votes)
No 22% (97 votes)
77% Yes
Geez – Pharyngulated in under 15 minutes. Now that’s power!
Crash my poll PZ! 63% of the voters so far say you should! (Never give up! Never surrender!)
Voted. 79% now say yes. Reason wins.
I dont think the big bang can possibly account for the origins of the universe. The answers are written in the Eddas.
http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly041229.htm
And to think that Steinhardt and I were in the same astronomy class at Caltech. (Paul must have paid more attention.)
#23 It’s Important to take care of this sort of thing early.
Eddas: Chapter 4; The Creation of the World.
It is light and hot, and so bright and dazzling that no stranger who is not a native there can stand it.
The first commenter over at the poll is Britanny, who says:
“I really disagree with the big bang theory.”
Well, that settles that! I mean, if Britanny disagrees with it, then how can anyone else believe it?
nice, it’s completely reversed now: 82% yes, 18% no
It’s a shame that false dichotomies like that are so often presented when discussing science topics in the general media. It’s even a false option for the Goddidit, as the big bang could be how Goddidit. The media plays on the ignorance of the population, and that’s really sad. Though I suppose it’s what sells the most papers.
Spotted on the BBC “Have Your Say” page just now:
That is the level of stupid we’re dealing with in MY country!
@#33
Are you sure that isn’t someone taking the piss? It seems like a poe to me.
Just a sneaking suspicion, but with only a few more votes in the “no” category, I think perhaps some other non-PZ entity may have attempted to draw attention to this poll.
Or not, who knows?
What Kel said (#32). What’s the point of voting “yes” when neither answer is obviously more scientific?
ARRRGGHHH! It’s in South Carolina! (hangs head in shame)
@11: After getting a bunch of answers on a test stating “I don’t believe in the theory of evolution” I told them that they can’t use the word “believe” with respect to “theory” without sounding silly. They have to address whether the evidence fits. At which point the pastor’s son asks, “but what if we don’t know all the evidence?” Yeah, that is the point.
Trying to educate South Carolina one science class at a time.
I have a helluva time explaining to people that “believe in” signifies an emotional, not a rational, commitment to an idea.
Most have no clue how they form ideas!
and don’t forget to vote at the site (question: Were We Created By Design?) although one has to register.
@Andyo
Even if the math is good, the latest hypothesies of multiverses still don’t have evidence, and I don’t know how they could test or observe that. Also, the current speeding up of the expansion rate is hypothesized by the so called dark energy, so inflation is still not discounted. Also, inflation explains the fact that the universe looks the same everywhere, like the temperature of the background radiation, which is almost the same everywhere in the sky. Almost as in a veeerryy little fraction of a degree. That is what I can tell you from what I have read, of course, I am not a professional, so tread carefully.
Pwnd. Hehe.
I reiterate my lamentation of the lack of proper science education. A theory is nothing you either believe or believe not. It is something that agrees with all available evidence. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a theory but a hypothesis. You can choose to either believe or not believe P = NP in computer science.
I’d like to see an option for “physics, it’s like a strong Glaswegian accent, I don’t understand even 2/3 of it but I can listen to it all day”.
Oh dear…
Two powerful earthquakes have just struck in Asia. What with the one earlier today in Afghanistan, what’s the betting that Cern will get all the blame?
Cue the doom-criers in three… two… one…
It was 9 to 1 at 11 past 9 EDT. ‘Zat mean anything?
Lynnai@43:
you wha?
Helped my peoplez, I haz.
Yes 91%
No 9%
Being fair, shouldn’t it be “brethren and sisteren”?
And the poll is
Yes: 91%
No: 9%
Good guys at 93%.
Can I haz cheezburger for my kitty?
You biologists have all the fun fighting the fundamentalist on evolution. Only a few cranks argue for things like building a perpetual motion machine or finding “errors” with relativity.
I was asked this question earlier today. It was followed by “Do you believe in Pangea?”. As you may be able to surmise it was a particularly rambling conversation as I tried to explain my bizarre colleague (who somehow works in science besides having the most insane ideas about the world) that the LHC was not going to make a black hole. Whoah Nellie, that was a tortuous path!
I believe in the Horrendous Space Kablooie
Yes is now winning 91% to 9% in another mindless and meaningless poll.
Perhaps that should be a poll: Are online polls worthwhile or just a meanlingless waste of time and energy?
http://answers.polldaddy.com/viewPoll.aspx?view=results&id=916481
I posted my two cents on this topic. If any Physics majors wants to bust my balls on a factual error on my behalf, feel free.
[email protected]
And by the way, why aren’t there more polls HERE?
I suggest:
Bill O’Reilly is:
1) An evil little bitch.
2) A liar.
3) A great humanitarian.
4) A superhero known at Teh Falafel.
5) Someone who hates America and laughs every night at how rich he’s getting off destroying it.
6) An alien who hates the entire Planet Earth.
7) Psychotic.
8) Some type of invertebrate who floats in the wake of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, getting fat as he sucks up their excrement.
9) One of those kids you hear about who tortured small animals when he was little, and then grew up to a career in talk radio instead of becoming a psychopathic serial killer.
Querty@53:
Can I haz cheezburger pretty pleez?
@55 [Hank Fox],
Why no choice of “10) Jesus Fucking Christ, _all_ of the above, for Fuck’s sake”?
Darn you, Hank Fox #48, for beating me to the ‘sistren’ joke.
And Feynmaniac #50: A lot of the more comprehensive fundies start to argue physics after a point – speed of light has been decreasing, entropy means no evolution, et cetera ad endless nauseam.
The latest numbers: 92% – 8% yes.
Actually, the poll now reads 85-15 in “Believing” the big bang theory. Hmm, I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that the link was posted here???
An Indian teenager killed herself over the fear that the Big Bang experiment would create a doomsday.
I take issue with this poll and other instances which speak of believing in some aspect of science–evolution, Big Bang, the existence of planets orbiting other stars, etc, (LIfe existing elsewhere in the universe for the moment would be a belief since we have no data supporting or denying it.) I don’t believe in any of them. I accept them–until a better explanation comes along. I suppose an argument can be made for believing the Big Bang, given that we have precious little evidence for it, but for the time being it offers the best explanation for the observations we have.
There is a very real difference between believing and accepting something. And every time one uses believe in the context of science, it only reinforces the conviction of America’s anti-intellectual, anti-science wing nuts that science is all about belief and not data.
There must be a lot of sites that must hate you…and not even know it. It’s what they get for having such unreliable polls in the first place though.
I totally believe in the Big Bang. The year was 1992. I was a sophomore in college. I forget her name, and pretty much everything after the second bottle of wine, but I do remember waking up with her bra hanging from my TV antenna and her phone number written in Sharpie on my thigh. Oh, she expanded my universe, all right. I walked with a limp for a week afterwards. I guess I can’t actually prove it happened, but the evidence is overwhelming.
Oh, wait… wrong website. Carry on…
Belief is a fine word to describe it, because in the end it all comes down to personal beliefs. What needs to be differentiated, however, is that belief doesn’t mean faith. Unfortunately the words belief and faith are so interlocked that taking a rational platform with the word belief becomes a taboo.
I don’t believe in the Big Bang.
I accept that it’s the most likely hypothesis we have, and that all current evidence supports it, and that it has excellent predictive power.
I accept it. I trust it. But I don’t “believe in” it.
I think this quibbling over the word “belief” is silly. Yes, I believe that the Big Bang is probably close to the truth of what really happened 13.7 billion years ago. I see no real difference between using this word and “accept” in this context.
Ok, so two hours later, “Yes” is now at 93%, with 1684 vs 121 votes.
I like all the educated posts in the poll coincide with the posting of this thread.
he he more intelligent people are paying attention than stupid people are voting no! PZ you are mighty powerful!
last time I looked yes was well over 90%!
It’s amazing how you have this army of poll soldiers at your bidding.
WE WILL DO THY WILL ETERNALLY.
I don’t. This is not a quibble about the word “belief”; it’s a complaint about the theory itself. I stopped believing it as a “true” description of “what really happened” about the time inflation was introduced. I grant its explanatory and predictive power; I just think it’s too klugey to be right. I think there’s probably a better, simpler, and more beautiful theory out there waiting to be discovered and validated, and that’s why I can’t vote “yes” on this poll.
I don’t know if I believe in the big bang. It’s certainly a possiblity and a theory that I consider, but i’m not sure I trust that we know or will ever know what happened tens of billions of years ago tens of billions of light years away.
I certainly don’t believe in intelligent design, so i’ll vote yes for science’s sake.
From wiktionary :
To believe …
2 (transitive) To accept as true.
* If you believe the numbers, you’ll agree we need change.
3 (transitive) To consider likely.
* I believe it might rain tomorrow.
(emphasis added)
I don’t believe in the big bang. But I’m pretty sure it happened and I’m sticking with that theory until a better one comes along and replaces it. But just before the theory is replaced, I may resist the change for a while for cultural reasons, or possibly as a power/control thing. But just a little while.
A bad example of Pascals wager. If the LHC caused a Big Bang she would be dead. If it didn’t she would still be alive.
She gains nothing by killing herself whatsoever.
I’m sure there was a lot more to it than just LHC fear.
Did I miss it? My link went nowhere. Damn.
95% to 5%
Yay.. the country has been saved from looking silly
HA!
Why do you think truth has to be beautiful? Doesn’t seem very scientific to me.
Whenever I get to the poll it has already completely reversed direction, and I get indignant blue-balls. :(
NoAstronomer @ 74:
Also from wiktionary (same page you linked to, in fact):
Dangit. The blockquote was supposed to extend to the end of the comment. I guess I got a bit paste-happy.
Belief vs Accept…
If I ‘Accept’ Jebus Lvrd as my personal Savior, am I a better evangenital xtian than one that just ‘believes’ in him?
See…?
It always seems to come down to a war of semantics. Would it not be better served to discuss the evidence around the Big Bang theory, what the scientific and philosophical ramifications are, and what alternatives there are than to just argue over whether belief is the appropriate term?
95% Yes, 5% No:
And another poll is defeated at the hands of the Pharynguloids!
Kel: The question over whether the Big Bang took place is about as settled as the question over whether evolution via natural selection takes place. That is to say, neither one is controversial among people who know, well, anything about the respective fields.
Oh, so no reason to discuss it then? Back to semantics it is.
I always get irritated when I see scientists acting like philosophers. In this instance ‘believe” is the correct word to be used in colloquial sense. To split hairs is simply an unneeded annoyance getting in the way of the point of the poll.
The most apropos comment on that poll:
Yes. Yes it is. No God… just turtles…. lots and lots of tiny turtles… some of which periodically expand, creating vast sets of more turtles…
@88
You must get really annoyed by those of us with both a philosophy degree and a science degree (well, soon, anyways).
And why would that be Jason?
It’s great to see that the voices of the non theists are heard, in a loosely coordinate manner, I may add. It’s very saddening to see that the results of this (stupid) poll are not representative of the actual population. Like any other poll.
Should we have a poll on banning polls?
I’m not voting on this Poll because I have a problem with how its worded. Does anyone actually /believe/ in a theory? Can anyone? That sounds faithy. I don’t /believe/ in gravity, I accept what science has found.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
bible belting,
einstein bashing,
christian tinfoil hattery at it’s best.
Stark @ 93,
Can’t agree with you on this. There’s nothing wrong with the word “believe”. I “believe” in evolution, the Horrendous Space Kablooey and many other things because of the evidence we’ve uncovered. That’s much the same as you I would expect. It has nothing to do with faith. I have faith in the scientific process, but that’s also conditional. Show me something that works better and we’ll talk. I’m not holding my breath.
I refuse to give up whole parts of the English language just because some people see it differently. Would you give up the word “theory” just because many lay-people don’t know what it actually means? I won’t. I’m not about to say the “fact of gravity” instead of “theory of gravity” just because some people don’t get it. “Believe” isn’t a dirty word. What you base your belief on is a much more interesting question.
Jason, here’s a chance to give me good reason to not be annoyed with scientists and answer Starks’ question as a useful philosopher in a way that makes sense. Giddyup.
Nevermind. Dahan wins.
#12: Colliding branes would be observed as a Big-Bang-like event from within the Universe in question. The two descriptions are complementary, not mutually exclusive.
Huh? How can you not believe in something when there’s evidence on one side and none on the other? I believe in the theory of gravity. I also believe in Newton’s Laws of physics even though they don’t work on the quantum level.
95% Yes
5% No
Now that’s more like it! Though I am amazed by some of the early comments on that poll.
How could anyone choose, “God did it by magick.” over such a wonderful thing as the universe EXPLODING into existence?
(Okay, that’s a really simple explanation for it. But it excited me when I was 10 and it still excites me now.)
Reluctantly. I was a Hoyle steady stater for as long as it was reasonable to doubt the mounting evidence.
#86:
Depends on what you mean by “Big Bang”. Clearly something happened 13.7 billion years ago that essentially homogenized the visible universe and triggered the cosmological expansion we see today. Whether that something was the creation of the universe, or an event that took place in a pre-existing spacetime is far from settled.
#98:
Except that one description requires inflation to explain the observed flatness of space, and the other doesn’t (since space is already flat before the branes collide). They also, if I’m not mistaken, make different predictions regarding primordial gravity waves.
Gregory:
Our spacetime would be a rather atypical bubble of such in the bulk. Whether the bulk itself is flat or not is not clear from any of the theories. In any event, the claim of the Big bang theory is that our local region of spacetime (and the only one accessible to us) was, at some point in the past, very much smaller (and hotter), probably Planck-size small. It does not make any claims concerning the origin of the explosion, or the energy and any preexisting conditions (if any), and it is in that sense that I “believe” in it (yes, I do have issues with the terminology; “believe” is a vague word and means different things to different people, legitimately).
Inflation is a separate theory, and it is in some trouble right now, but I still like it. The maths are pretty.;)
96% Yes
4% No
*Which* theory? Standard inflationary model or one of the hot new ekpyrotic cyclic models?
“Big Bang Theory” came into existence in contradistinction to its predecessor, “Steady State Theory”. That older idea, that the universe has always looked pretty much like it does today, fell completely apart a few decades ago thanks to the observations of a man with a familiar name: Hubble.
Since then, this newer theory has undergone many refinements, such as the inclusion of a period of very rapid expansion called “Inflation”, in order to remain consistent with subsequent observations and data.
In order to “not believe in” the Big Bang Theory, one must have some alternative in mind. No other explanation that has been offered (least of all GodDidIt) fits the real world data we have measured as well as this theory does (and it fits very well indeed).
As soon as a better theory comes along, you fundies will have to dive for cover to avoid the stampede of scientists rushing to embrace and elaborate upon that better theory. Until then, one would have to be deliberately ignoring the facts that our telescopes and mathematics are revealing to us about the universe to “not believe in Big Bang Theory”.
As of my vote the ratio of yes to no is twenty-four to one.
How awful! The world has clearly lost a promising gas-pump attendant.
Lesson learned: they have morons in India too.
That’s not strictly true. One can falsify a theory without having an alternative theory to replace it.
The universe remains a constant size.It’s the atoms that are shrinking!
Agreed. We can be against String Theory without having any idea of an alternate concept to fill in the gaps.
I find Guth et al’s inflationary theory too “utilitarian” for my liking – introducing a 10^50 increase in the volume of the universe over 10^-32 seconds seems a very strange introduction to solve the problems with prior big bang theories…
Space looks too flat? Well, it used to be hyperspherical but expanded so much during inflation that it looks flat. Space is homogeneous? Well, it couldn’t have been that way with constant expansion, so it was really all in contact and then was whisked away (along with the magnetic monopoles) by exponentially-expanding space via a false vacuum.
There are other occasional serious contenders for the throne, but it all comes down to the fact that it is hard in cosmology to get truly independent measurements, and there is some trepidation when needing to invoke processes that may no longer operate in the known universe. The LHC, for example, isn’t likely to give us the energy to recreate the symmetry breaking of the nuclear force, so how do we prove gravity becomes repulsive at those scales?
Creationists love the Big Bang alternatives for all the wrong reasons – in part just because they naturally congregate to any hole in science (see AiG’s “astronomy” page, for example) and perhaps because they think they’re the only answer to dissent.
Be glad to be in the biology field. Perhaps counterintuitively, fields like evolutionary theory are rock-freaking-solid compared to cosmology. Having freaking solid rocks with bone impressions in them really helps :) Cosmology could do with the kind of smoking gun that palaeontologists provide every day.
:(
Or troubled 16-year-old kids who are not helped by stupid media reporting and a (religious) culture of ignorance.
Since a scientific theory is not something one believes “in”, I am afraid I have to answer “no” as well.
Yes – 96%
No – 4%
Well, that should be a lovely surprise for them. (Unfortunately, it is a surprise…)
Have some problems with this ‘believing’ business.
Like, I think (believe) that the Big Bang theory is the most plausible theory given so far.
I don’t ‘believe’ in the Big Bang, simply because that implies that I am uncritically accepting it as a fact.
Much like I don’t believe in god or gods, because I don’t know, it is implausible, and there is nothing that indicates that there are gods (as defined by humans).
So on this one I think a pass is more appropriate.
But don’t let that stop you.
I answered “Yes” because saying you believe in something can simply mean that you believe that it’s true. Or in my case, I believe that it’s likely to be a much more accurate representation of what may have happened 13.7B years ago, than what dissenting scientists have offered up. As for a belief in the Big Bang Theory over creation, well creationism is too laughable to consider as a viable option as well.
Yes 96% (4017 votes)
No 4% (154 votes)
“do you accept that the current empirical evidence supports the Big Bang Theory?” there fixed.
PZ, sorry to disagree with you on the extent to which the ‘Big Bang’ is evidenced but Gregory Kusnick at #12 echoes my sentiments almost exactly.
No cosmological model can be classed as proven scientific fact at this point. Currently the main contender to various ‘Big Bang’ models is Neil Turok and Paul Steinhardt’s Cyclic Model. The main difference between the models is whether the ‘bang’ was the creation of the universe or a collision between two branes (effectively separate universes) that oscillate along an extra dimension.
Fortunately this is science so rather than relying on ‘belief’ the issue will be decided by evidence and the different models make very different predictions for some phenomena. As mentioned by Gregory ‘Big Bang’ models predict the existence of large gravity waves that are not predicted by the Cycic Model. Big Bang models also predict a characteristic polarisation of the background radiation whereas the Cyclic Model predicts that there will be no polarisation.
Thus far neither gravity waves or polarisation of the background radiation (from the WMAP data) have been observed. Further more sensitive experiments are being planned so that hopefully within the next decade at least one of these models should be ruled out.
If anyone is interested in this then I’d strongly recommend reading ‘Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang’ by Neil Turok and Paul Steinhardt.
Redshift in the spectra of galaxies, increasing with distance from us, suggests an expanding universe, and hence a big bang origin.
Now redshift of very distant galaxies indicates ever increasing expansion, to explain which a bizarre force, dark energy, is postulated.
I wonder if faulty interpretation of redshift is guiding our cosmology down the wrong path.
Yes 96% (4298 votes) No 4% (165 votes)
I think the poll is now successfully skewed.
Yes is still at 96%! That was fun can we play this again please! Thanks.
I don’t believe in the Big Bang. I waver between a Pretty Big Pop and a Decent-Sized Blammo but I’m waiting for more evidence to decide.
I do, however, like turtles.
Do you believe in the big bang theory? Sure, I’m even familiar with it. No dancing on pin heads required :*)
Did my part – Still 96% in favor of reality.
That is a Big Bang model, as Jorg pointed out above.
Were that true, the Ekpyrotic model would be out already, since E-mode polarization of the CMB has been observed. What I think you mean is that inflationary models predict B-mode polarization which the Ekpyrotic model does not. That isn’t a separate test, however, as primordial B-mode polarization is caused by gravity waves.
The way that poll was skewed so heavily against–and the accompanying comments–made me worry a lot about American education.
Surely all those idiots can’t have been home schooled. They’ve been trained in some way to ignore science and listen only to what some idiot preacher tells them.
More news at eleven?
And it’s not just any ol’ town in South Carolina. This CBS affiliate serves the Greenville-Spartanburg area, home of Bob Jones University.
The Upstate is the state’s bastion of ultraconservatism. SC gets a lot more liberal (relatively) toward the coast and Charleston.
But, but–it’s just a THEORY!
96%-4% (4561-171)
Now if only we could get such numbers to reflect the actual population at large…
Not a Bill Hicks fan, eh?
Maybe my gallows humour seems a bit cruel, but in all fairness, killing oneself in a long an excruciating way today because of a very slim chance of an instantaneous and painless death tomorrow rates about 12 on a scale of 1 to 10 of stupid. The kid deserves a Darwin Award with oak leaves and cluster.
Be assured, friends, that the folks at WSPA, in the heart of Bob Jones University-land, are scratching their heads over the results of that poll.
Great job, everyone. Thanks, PZ, for mentioning the poll, and to everyone for pushing back against ignorance and supernaturalism.
Relatively being the key word.
Wonderful.
That would still fail to explain the microwave background.
“Impressions”? In the vast majority of cases we are talking about frigging solid bones! Made even more solid by all manner of minerals crystallizing in their hollow spaces.
Microwave background. All far-away galaxies being very young. And so on.
Not if they know how to look at their server logs. I bet 80% of their hits have a “referrer” field indicating Pharyngula.
Which is why I always copy the links and then paste them into the browser address fields.
I voted no.
Sorry, the same rigorous demand for evidence I apply to creationist nonsense, I apply to this apparently baseless cosmology:
CMB is only 3K: not only is this what you would expect from black body radiation, but it is far lower than the original estimates based on the BB Theory (You know, before they “retro-dicted” the correct numbers and started adding fudge factors to match the data)
Universe Expanding: was all well and good as a piece of evidence for the BB, until measurements revealed that the universe is also accelerating. If there is something about the nature of empty space that causes such repulsion, there’s no need to invoke a time when all matter was contained in a rapidly expanding singularity.
Bad measures: We can’t see our own Oort cloud. We can’t see planets around other stars. We can’t even measure the mass of our own galaxy accurately. We are the Mr. Magoos of the universe, yet when it comes to cosmology we think we know the answer in the back of the book down to the first 10^-34 of a second, based on, what, theoretical physics?
Comforting Answer: The big bang is exactly the kind of idea people would think of, and the kind of idea people would like. Beginning. Middle. End. How tidy. We should be exceptionally suspicious of it on that basis alone.
No Mechanism: No one has ever explained why the Big Bang should have happened, nor what happened before, offering only wishy washy pseudo-answers about why we can’t know what went on before, and can’t know the mechanism. Honestly, at that point in the conversation, I feel like I’m talking to a theology major, not a physicist.
Unfalsifiable: I remember reading SH’s Brief History, and in it, he draws several graphs of potential universes: expanding but collapsing, expanding forever, and 1 or 2 others, claiming that the only solution to each and every case was a Big Bang. Basically, he was claiming every single potential universe that he could conceive of as supporting the big bang. He didn’t, however, consider the possibility of an accelerating universe, but that hasn’t stopped people from also claiming since that it, too, supports the Big Bang. I ask, what would contradict it?
All of this is besides problems with:
-Old galaxies and galaxy clusters in the supposedly young universe.
-The amount of Lithium in the universe.
-Large scale structures that would have needed longer than the estimated age of the universe to form.
…and so on. I cannot honestly think of one prediction that the BB has made that was clearly derived from the theory and turned out to be reasonably correct, without resort to multiple fudge factors to help retro-dict the correct numbers.
96% Yes when I casted my vote. Although I wouldn’t say that “believe in the Big Bang theory” as much as I accept the fact that the Big Bang theory is the best explanation of the method of the beginning of the universe we have.
So, Jason, what scientific theory does fit with the evidence since you so glibly dismiss the big bang?
I don’t believe in the big bang for two reasons.
Firstly, i don’t think the word ‘believe’ should be used here. I don’t believe in evolution either, i understand it and accept it as a reliable and accurate model. “Believe” just doesn’t do science any justice.
And secondly i don’t think I’m qualified to even weigh in on this topic. I haven’t done the necessary research to make an analysis of the evidence for or against it. Even if i did have the evidence, i don’t think that I’m intelligent enough to interpret it reliably, I’ll leave the whole issue to Stephen Hawking.
I wish more fundies understood this philosophy. I don’t argue with meteorologists about the weather, i don’t argue with biologists about evolution, and i don’t argue with cosmologists about the universe. They say it happened so i accept that it did.
Do you know enough theoretical physics to turn this into a rhetorical question…?
End? What end?
Besides, if an idea is intuitively appealing, that doesn’t tell us anything about how well it fits the facts. In other words, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not coming after you.
Not a fan of jokes like that. If it’s representative, then proabably not.
It seems to me that this girl had psychological-emotional problems and needed treatment. Instead, the surrounding culture pushed her over the edge. The remark seemed callous to me, but then I’ll admit I may be extra-sensitive to these things today (see date above). Having a hard time with it this year in particular, for some reason – my own mini-PTSD. :(
The crashing, or should I say crushing, goes on.
MartinM said:
If you define ‘Big Bang’ to be the collision between pre-existing brane universes then it is but that’s just redefining terms. It is clearly different from the standard ‘Big Bang’ inflationary models that postulate that the ‘Big Bang’ was a singular event that created space/time and the universe, and this is the crux of what is commonly thought of as the ‘Big Bang’.
Think of it this way, if the Cyclic model is verified and someone pointed out that scientists had been wrong to insist that the ‘Big Bang’ model had been correct do you think that they would be convinced that an eternal, cyclic model with no singularity or creation event was in fact a ‘Big Bang’ model? I think they’d rightly cry bull*hit and think that was just post-hoc redefinition.
Regarding the polarisation of the background radiation, yes I do mean that ‘Big Bang’/Inflationary models predict B-mode polarisation which the Cyclic/Ekpyrotic model does not and while this is not a separate ‘test’ to gravity waves it is a separate phenomenon that can be used to distinguish the models experimentally. My point was not to describe the detail of the differences but to emphasise that there are clear differences predicted by the models and that future experiments will be able to rule at least one of them out.
The wider and more pertinent point is that currently both the Inflationary and Cyclic models are valid hypotheses and no one yet knows for sure if either is correct.
Ha! 97% for Big bang!
Of course I do not “believe in” the big bang. To “believe in” is to have “faith” that the propositions ascribed as “truth” will in some way benefit the self. About historical phenomenon, a properly reasoning person does not “believe in” the alleged propositions describing the historical phenomena. Instead, reason dictates that the weight of evidence be ascertained via a correctly utilized science methodology. If the evidence strongly indicates the historical phenomenon actually occurred, then we can know the probability of the phenomena is sufficiently high to make it rational to think it actually did happen. This is so because the uniformity of nature is observed to be consistent across our cosmic domain.
Does Induction Presume the Existence of the Christian God? (1997) by Michael Martin
Now now – let’s not assume everyone who doesn’t believe in the big bang is a crazy fundamentalist. I don’t necessarily disbelieve the big bang, but there are other theories that make equal or more sense – an expanding and contracting universe, for instance. There’s plenty of evidence that could be possible, too. Just because it’s currently expanding doesn’t mean that it always has been.
Inside the ivory tower, yes. But read the comments to that poll… every one that disagrees with the theory was written by a crazy fundamentalist.
Emmet Caulfield: How awful! The world has clearly lost a promising gas-pump attendant.
You’re an ass. You know nothing about her situation and what level of education she had or even if she suffered from some sort of mental illness.
But let’s make fun of the teen killing herself. She’s a different color and lives in a place where they dress funny, so it’s fair game, right, Homer?
They do?
Emmet Caulfield: Not a Bill Hicks fan, eh?
Bill Hicks was funny. You are an asshole.
Emmet Caulfield: The kid deserves a Darwin Award with oak leaves and cluster.
No, you deserve the Golden Asshole award for making fun of the suicide of a sick, deluded child.
young european, rather than picking out half a sentence why not try addressing a substantive point?
Do you think that the term ‘Big Bang’ encompasses the Cyclic model?
“But read the comments to that poll… every one that disagrees with the theory was written by a crazy fundamentalist.”
Sure, every non big bang believer in rural NC who doesn’t believe in the big bang doesn’t believe in it because of the bible, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are scientifically sound alternatives.
We can get rid of bad ideas without necessarily replacing them with new ones. Indeed, this may be the best thing for physics, in combination with new experimental results from the LHC.
At a guess, though, I would suggest a thorough inspection of the characteristics of the quantum vacuum. Slight asymmetries, whether absolute or local, in virtual particle-antiparticle production could produce the universe’s baryonic matter over large time-scales.
Whatever, though, I’m not attached to that idea over others. However, I am disturbed that avenues such as this are being under-explored precisely because we think we already more or less know the answer.
And, glibly? Seriously? I’ve been trying to make sense of the BB since I was five, reading anything and everything on it, and the more I read, the less sense it made (contrasted against the many other scientific concepts I was simultaneously learning about, that only made more sense the deeper I went). You may not like my stance, but don’t think that I have come to it “glibly”.
Yes.
Big Crunch (now, in serious doubt because of the acceleration, but an important part of the original BB storyline)
Yes, but when an idea doesn’t fit the facts very well and also sits very well with us intuitively, we have every reason to be wary.
Note that I accept that what we think of as the BB has gained a significant degree of predictive power, but none of this has derived naturally from the basic premises of the theory, but rather new concepts have been piled on top of this bad idea to make it work.
It is like the intricate series of epicycles posited in centuries past to explain retrograde motion. Technically, they got the right answers, but this does not mean that their premise was correct anymore than today’s inflationary, dark matter and energy filled BB Theory (that manages only after all these additions to come somewhat close to observed measures) indicates that the basic BB premise is correct.
Yes 97% (5906 votes)
No 3% (209 votes)
Yesss…masssterrrrr. [/zombie voice]
Big Bang now so far ahead, I didn’t even bother to change IP# and browser to have a second vote.
Jason Failes wrote:
How about the anisotropy of the MBR? That was predicted approximately, and the accurate measurement of it is what drastically reduced the window on the age of the universe. If you recall, just three or four years ago you’d hear between 10 and 18 billion years. Now you hear 13.7 billion.
And george, if the universe is sometimes expanding, sometimes contracting, that might explain why we now see it expanding, but that wouldn’t explain the microwave background radiation. That data seems to be the smoking gun that confirms the big bang, and as far as I’m aware all the candidates for the big theory include the Big Bang.
We’re still on the Yes 97% No 3%.
Just a humble question: how do you people find so many polls akin to our tastes?
Curt, I suppose I should have said “one unique prediction” and stressed in some other way “clearly derived from the theory.”
Anisotrophy of the MBR was naturally a big problem for the BB, until inflation was added to “smooth over” the temperature predictions, both figuratively and literally.
Indeed he was. The joke was almost a direct quote from “Revelations”.
Indeed, there are many people who would agree with those assessments.
It was, indeed, callous.
Yes, I see how one might think that. I accept the rebuke.
Your inference of xenophobia and/or racism is entirely unfounded. If it had been someone in the same town, I would’ve made the same remark (unwise though it might have been). If you got the Bill Hicks reference, that was to white American males. The remark was callous, tasteless, ill-considered, and insensitive, but it was not racist, sexist, sectarian or xenophobic.
I voted ‘No’, not because I’m a religious nut who believes that god created the universe, but that the idea that the universe was created from one singularity is also as ‘nutty’. I realize that currently evidence seems to point to something that might lead to the conclusion of a big bang, but I believe it’s more probably and plausible that there are little bangs or that we’re just not seeing the whole picture.
I tell one of my coworkers when we have this discussion that for me, at this moment in time, science is like examining a mile wide painting, and your nose is only an inch away from the surface of the painting. If things look red, and you look around a little bit, and everything appears to be red, then you can ‘safely say’ things must be red all over. I think once our knowledge of the universe develops our understanding of it is going to become more sophisticated and I feel like we’re going to discover it’s not as simple as a ‘big bang’
No vote here, too many fudge factors added over the years to keep BB as the holy grail. Strings don’t predict anything testable, BB predicted a lot, the numbers just didn’t work without “slight adjustments”.
I wait for the purple nurple.
Thanks for responding, Emmet. I’m sure it’s not necessary, but I want to note that, while I took exception to that particular remark, it didn’t for a moment diminish the respect I have for you or my appreciation of your comments in general. (I wouldn’t point this out at all were it not for the fact that others were calling you an asshole, and I don’t want anyone, least of all you, to think that I was of that opinion.)
SC,
I appreciate that. TBH, I didn’t recognise the other people who took exception to my remarks and, without any offence intended to them, I don’t particularly care whether they think I’m an asshole or not. You, on the other hand, I know (insofar as one can “know” someone via teh Intertubes) and respect, and it did bother me that I had given you cause to fault me. I am glad, though, that the other commentators amplified your rebuke, which was at first too subtle for my thick head.
So it looks like the result of their poll wasn’t what the desired, so up went a new poll…are you haveing trouble finding gas?
Bit of a scale back in scope – from the origins of everything to gas for the truck…
BTW, I noticed in a post above that Jason Failes claimed we cannot see the oort cloud. This is simply not true – at least 9 oort cloud objects have been tentatively identified. I say tenativly because some of those objects may be detached objects, rather than true oort cloud members.
Yes, the poll has changed to: “Have you had problems finding gas?”
That seems more inane than the Big Bang one. No, I haven’t had a bit of trouble finding gas. One big, deep breath and I found oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and a whole host of other gases.
It is clearly different from the standard ‘Big Bang’ inflationary models that postulate that the ‘Big Bang’ was a singular event that created space/time and the universe, and this is the crux of what is commonly thought of as the ‘Big Bang’.
The Cyclical and Big Bang models are solutions to two completely different problems. The Big Bang attempts to answer where our universe came from.
Cyclic models attempts to answer what caused the Big Bang. They still describe a singular event that created the universe we see around us, although they may describe other singular events that may have created other universes as well. They’re an extension of the Big Bang model, not a replacement of it.
The linked page no longer has this poll. Here’s a direct link:
http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/916481/
#159/160: The “standard” inflationary models are not Big Bang theory per se. The Big Bang has a much narrower remit, and strictly speaking, does not address the (non)existence of any other universes or a larger bulk. It only describes the events in our Universe past…ehhh…10-42 second or so.
Now, chaotic inflation could also be described as a “standard” inflationary theory (one of them, anyway), and it has no problems with multiple Universes and bangs.
Jose
I think you may be thinking of other cyclic models that describe a succession of big bangs and big crunches but this is not what is proposed by the Steinhardt/Turok Cyclic Model. There is no singularity and no beginning of time is necessary. When the branes collide the universe already exists and has not conflated to infinitesimal size, this is why the ad hoc addition of inflationary energy is not required in their model. The collision creates radiation which seeds new matter in the already existing universe but does not create the universe, nor is it the beginning of time.
All cosmological models attempt to answer the same question i.e. what is the history of the universe. You are begging the question by saying that the ‘Big Bang attempts to answer where our universe came from’ as there is no scientific or philosophical necessity that the universe ‘came from’ anywhere, the universe may be eternal. In the Turok/Steinhardt model a beginning to the universe is not ruled out but is not required either.
By saying that ‘Cyclic models attempt to answer what caused the Big Bang’ I can kind of agree but only if you heavily redefine what is meant and understood by ‘Big Bang’.
The pertinent point concerning this thread is that there is at least one significantly different model to what is understood by the ‘Big Bang’ that is at least as convincing and explains equally well the current data. I don’t know which will be confirmed or refuted by further experiments but the great thing about science is that we will get nearer to the truth as our knowledge and understanding increase and we can enjoy increasing our own understanding as the process unfolds.
Finally, I am a bit confused as to why Christians would reject the ‘Big Bang’. There are really only three main kinds of cosmological model: Single Creation Event; Cyclic; Eternal. For each of these you can find religions which metaphorically fit. But Christianity clearly best fits (metaphorically) the Single Creation kind of model which includes the ‘Big Bang’. Isn’t this why the Catholic church accepts the ‘Big Bang’ as it has some metaphorical fit with their beliefs?
I would have thought that fundamental Christians would just play up the metaphorical similarity of the ‘Big Bang’ to Genesis and make up a load of shit to explain away the vast differences in detail.
Bryan @ 166: Perhaps I should have clarified.
The point is, currently our resolution is so low that we cannot even see much of our own outer solar system (exceptions noted), and that any and all cosmological theories should be mindful of the role measurement errors may play, especially when one is positing things such as dark matter to explain the measurements we currently have.
I tried, but now they want to know if I’ve had trouble finding gas. I put “no” but then – I’m in Italy.
Jason @172: Our failure to detect much in the outermost Solar System is not the problem of the lack of resolution, really. There may be some quite large objects lurking out there (including even a possible–although not likely–stellar companion), but their low proper motion would preclude them from being investigated further. Most of the Kuiper Belt objects have been found via the analysis of pre-existing plates, meaning that they have been observed a long time ago: we just didn’t know what they were at the time. Oort belt objects are intrinsically darker and further away, so even fainter, but even so, I am reasonably certain that there are several thousand of them hanging out in the sky surveys, waiting to be identified.
Ah, was it? I didn’t know — seeing how it’s apparently possible to have a Big Bang wíthout a Big Crunch now that the acceleration is accepted by at least the mainstream.
Please take another look at the Bullet Cluster and at that other cluster that’s described in today’s Science.
BrightonRocks #171
“I would have thought that fundamental Christians would just play up the metaphorical similarity of the ‘Big Bang’ to Genesis and make up a load of shit to explain away the vast differences in detail.”
One would think so. If they had any imagination, perhaps they would.
Alas, they have an aversion to the idea of “metaphor”. (This aversion is directly related to their inability or reluctance to comprehend anything as sophisticated as a figure of speech, such as “here’s mud in your eye”).
Furthermore, they can’t wrap their heads around a physical creation event that yielded a thermally homogenous puff of matter and energy out of nothing but a “false vacuum”. And all the really interesting stuff which creationists marvel over as “miraculous” happened AFTER the BB, courtesy of such impersonal forces as gravitation (to condense matter into galaxies, stars and planets) and chemistry (to evolve fantastic critters that romp around on the planets).
Way too godless a difficulty for them to figure out how to twist it into something they can affirm. It’s much easier for them just to bark: “Nah, Goddidit”.
You know what they say about frames: frames conveniently serve to specify a given object, system or picture under scrutiny. Yet if EVERYTHING is the picture, what else can the frame possibly be, in all it’s flawless purity, other than NOT-anything? There isn’t anything left but the absence of anything to frame everything with.
No matter how pure the logic, they don’t like the possibility that God=nothingness.