|
hellohellohi -> RE: Comments from Uncommondescent Posts (6/19/2008 3:14:47 PM)
|
I think both your examples served to illustrate your point well. That doesn't mean one should agree with you entirely, but I appreciate the research.
quote:
At some point an unknown reaction called baryogenesis violated the conservation of baryon number, leading to a very small excess of quarks and leptons over antiquarks and anti-leptons—of the order of 1 part in 30 million.
I agree that this would be troubling if this concept of baryogenesis is a make-or-break premise for the big bang. We should not consider it "case-closed" but rather a running theory -- I say theory with the full-weight of its meaning as a set of hypotheses that have been broadly demonstrated. However, it is vital to science that it continue to raise questions. Baryogenesis is clearly one of those.
The question, now, should be, what kind of language ought to be applied to the Big Bang? Theory, even in the strong sense, is probably appropriate. However, should we then derive conclusions about ontology from it? No. If a scientist is trying to do this, he is simply trying to sell books.
I suppose, after all, I see no evidence for quasi-religious thought. However, I do agree that scientists should be careful with their words when they speak to the press about their discoveries. To say "Eureka" about the Big Bang, indeed, may be premature if baryogenesis is a premise on which its conclusions would rely. At this stage, we must thank the author of the wikipedia article for being honest.
Now, perhaps you know what I am looking for though -- suggestions that are NOT based on their findings, rather than simply disclosure of areas where experiment has not been able to investigate.
quote:
While the detailed particle physics mechanism responsible for inflation is not known, the basic picture makes a number of predictions that have been confirmed by observational tests. Inflation is thus now considered part of the standard hot big bang cosmology.
Perhaps this is an example of the eagerness of scientists to overstep the extent of their knowledge. However, it might also be viewed as an acknowledgment that while their predictions are largely borne out by experiment, the exact nature, mechanism, or "what" beneath these results is not yet clear. Perhaps they are being dangerously vague, perhaps abusing language, to say that "the basic picture makes a number of predictions." It is quite possible that their equations -- the quantitative picture -- is approximately predictive. The numbers come out to nearly what they predict. However, what they mean by "picture" I am not sure. If they mean to say that their metaphors or figures of speech that they adopt to describe their equations are likely true simply because the equations are likely to be, then they have mistaken the inductive method for a criteria for judging good poetry, I would say. For instance, "dark matter" is a valid mathematical-physical concept which can be investigated. However, does that mean that the poetic thoughts suggested simply by its name must also be "true" in the same sense that math is? Not at all.
Do you see what I mean?
|
|
|
|