The Science Illiterate

“If at first an idea does not sound absurd, there is no hope for it.” – Albert Einstein

I hate to start a blog about science with such a cliché quote. Einstein is the de-facto go to guy when you want to sound like you understand science or the scientific method, it happens regularly.

Just as a side example of this sort of thing, there’s this story that passes around Religious communities and forums used for religious debates, it purportedly tells the story of how a young Einstein proves the existence of God during a science lesson. You can find details of this story, and just why it is wrong, here: http://www.religioustolerance.org/culeins.htm

So it is with great pleasure that I admit to you now, before you read too much further into this blog, that I am not a scientist. I have only ever studied science at the G.C.S.E level, never taking it to PhD or higher. I was fairly good at science at school, but was never good enough to take it as a serious career option.

So why am I writing a blog about science? How could I have the audacity to cover a scientific subject without the correct authority?

My understanding and appreciation of both science and the scientific method didn’t really progress much until I reached University about three years ago. Before this point in time, I just accepted certain things that I heard, and went along with the flow of things.

Before this point, I thought a scientific theory was an educated guess, but it wasn’t a proven fact. I heard about Evolution and The Big Bang and accepted them, but didn’t really think about why. They just seemed obviously true, because people had devoted their lives to these things, even though they’d never been proven to be true.

But then something changed. I started University at around the same time I started talking to people that were more scientifically and philosophically inclined. These people took the time to explain anything I wanted to know, easing away certain misgivings and obliterating misconceptions.

Thanks to these people, I went from the belief that “Science is hard to understand, so it’s best to leave it to the experts and just accept what you want to accept,” to the sudden realisation that science was relatively easy to understand, that the evidence behind scientific claims is there for every person in an advanced nation to look at and observe, and that there was in fact a massive difference between a scientific theory, and a theory in everyday speech.

One extra thing that I learnt was that authority was always to be questioned. You couldn’t just accept someone saying something is true, the people making the claim had to show you why and how it was true (i.e., present the evidence to back up their claim, much like you’d expect in a court).

In reality, nothing gives me overall authority to write this blog. I’m not an expert in any field of science; I’m just an avid fan of near enough all of them. The authority that is presented in this blog comes not from me, but from the evidence that I present to you, the reader.

It is up to you if the evidence is sufficient to make you accept what I’m talking about, but do keep in mind that as I am not a scientist I may not always be able to fully explain a concept. If this becomes the case, I will try and link to better explanations, or quote from more eloquent sources. Evidence exists for what I’ll be talking about, it is readily available for any and all of you to check out for yourself, and if you really struggle with it then it is more than possible to find a person with the correct qualifications and understanding of the subject to talk you through it.

That’s one question answered, but why is it that I’m writing this in the first place?

There are people in existence, some of them in the public eye, that remain ignorant of the scientific method and also feel the need to push their misconceptions upon people that don’t really have the time to check whether they’re true or not.

Sometimes these people remain ignorant on purpose, being corrected many times, and continue to push their misconceptions on the public using their position in society to lend the idea some authority; other times these people are ignorant of the facts because they’ve been duped by one of their authority figures.

Creationists are the first people to come to mind, but religious fundamentalist groups aren’t the only ones to use these tactics. Anthropogenic Global Warming (the idea that humans are affecting the climate on Earth) is just as accepted amongst the scientific community as something like gravity, or atoms, yet various groups try to push misconceptions into the public eye that criticise the methods used to detect climate change, among various other tactics.

This blog in particular is going to cover various misconceptions that surround The Big Bang Theory, and the scientific method (along with the burden of proof). It has come to my attention through numerous sources, some close to home and others within the public eye, that so very few people actually understand the fundamental concept behind The Big Bang Theory.

What is worse is that all of these sources are happy to continue repeating their misconceptions, despite repeatedly being corrected on the issue. This is my attempt at correcting these issues.

Something from nothing?

On the 18th of May, I was shown an article on E! Online titled “Heavens No! Kirk Cameron Attacks Stephen Hawking for Godless Views.”

For those of you that don’t know, Kirk Cameron is mostly known for his role as Mike Seaver in the US Television show “Growing Pains.” Along with being an actor, Cameron is a strong supporter of the Creationist or “Intelligent Design” movement, often appearing in videos promoting the belief system and (as I’ve hinted at) using his position in society to push his beliefs as fact.

Cameron wasn’t too fond of Stephen Hawking sharing his opinion that there was no need to invoke a creator when it came to the origins of the universe, and that heaven didn’t exist. I take issue with most of what Cameron is quoted as saying, but my biggest gripe of all comes with his statement:

"Why should anyone believe Mr. Hawking's writings if he cannot provide evidence for his unscientific belief that out of nothing, everything came?"

The idea that The Big Bang Theory states that everything came from nothing is a popular misconception, held by many. Several days after Cameron made this statement, a friend of mine made a similar remark when posting a link to a video showing off the beauty of our universe. He said:

"Check out this amazing video of the stars then tell me which of these statements make more sense...."In the beginning there was nothing...then it exploded." [atheist big bang theory] Or "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". [ancient text read and believed by millions]"

So how do we address these statements? There’s obviously so much wrong in both of them, but where do we start?

1 - [atheist big bang theory]



We’ll start with the inane belief that The Big Bang Theory is a concept created by Atheists by going a little into the history of its creation.

In 1927, Georges Lemaître published his paper "Un Univers homogène de masse constante et de rayon croissant rendant compte de la vitesse radiale des nébuleuses extragalactiques" ("A homogeneous Universe of constant mass and growing radius accounting for the radial velocity of extragalactic nebulae") in the journal Annales de la Société Scientifique de Bruxelles (Annals of the Scientific Society of Brussels).

A quick search online will show you that Georges Lemaître was a Catholic Priest, and that when he first proposed this concept it was missed by many astronomers of the time, and even Einstein himself refused to accept the idea of an expanding universe.

This just proves the point that The Big Bang Theory is far from an Atheist idea, given that Einstein is the Atheist (or, if not an Atheist, then a Pantheist), and Lemaître is the Theist.

Science is not, and should not be, governed by religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other such bias. This is why peer review is such a key stage in the scientific method. Whilst bias may slip through occasionally, it is eventually filtered out by the rest of the community.

2 - out of nothing, everything came



It would be some years before Lemaître proposed the idea of the Primeval Atom, instead at first accepting Einstein’s concept of a finite universe.

However, at no point before or after the proposal of the primeval atom is there ever any claim on there being “nothing.”

“Nothing” is a concept that is generally not accepted amongst the scientific community, but this need not even be discussed. At no point is any claim made about what existed, if anything, “before” the primeval atom. At this stage, your guess is really as good as anybody else’s...we have no evidence that there was anything other than the primeval atom.

“Before” the big bang is another concept that, at this stage, doesn’t really work. The word before implies a length of time, and so far as we know (and as far as all the evidence suggests), time only began to exist when the primeval atom began to expand. Time and Space are connected; the primeval atom was an infinitely dense construct with all the most basic building blocks of the universe in one spot.

The idea of there being a point “before” the existence of both Time & Space is one made out of the human minds inability to grasp the concept of an infinitely dense object.

What I’m explaining here is a very, very, basic explanation behind it all. For a better explanation, you’re probably better off reading Hawking’s latest book “The Grand Design”, in which he explains that tiny quantum fluctuations in the early universe are what is responsible for the creation of the universe that we know and love today.

Isaac Newton’s First Law of Thermodynamics simply states that energy can neither be created, nor destroyed, only transferred from one state to another; yet further evidence that it is accepted amongst the scientific community that the universe cannot be created from “nothing.”

3 - which of these statements make more sense...."In the beginning there was nothing...then it exploded." Or "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"



I’ve already shown that it is an erroneous belief to say that The Big Bang Theory states that everything came from nothing. So let’s cover the next two parts of this statement in one go.

I briefly explained that The Big Bang Theory states that the primeval atom expanded, due to tiny quantum fluctuations in the early universe, to form what we know today. This is not an explosion. You’d be forgiven for thinking the theory is talking of an explosion, given the name, but this is once again failing to look into the history surrounding it.

On the 28th March, 1949, Fred Hoyle spoke on BBC Radio’s Third Programme of his disagreement with Lemaître’s hypothesis. He spoke of his own hypothesis, the Steady State Universe, and simplified Lemaître’s concept of an expanding universe by calling it The Big Bang.

The name caught on, but sadly gives people an entirely wrong idea of just how the universe was first formed.

So we now know that The Big Bang was not an explosion, just a gradual expansion.

We have evidence of this, from the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, to the distant stars and galaxies slowly moving away from us. For more information on the evidence supporting The Big Bang Theory, head over to here: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE420.html

So let us consider the next piece of the statement:

"in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"

It is often argued that everything that exists has a creator, the universe exists, thus it must have a creator.

The people that use this argument are often ignoring the biggest obstacle facing them. If the creator exists, then the creator must have had a creator, and if that creator exists, then that creator must have a creator. We fall into the trap of infinite regress, with each creator having their own creator in an infinite stream of creators.

The people that argue this will use a case of special pleading, stating that their creator (whichever they have chosen to believe in) has existed forever and did not need to be created, applying a further concept to their god or gods without first proving the existence of their god or gods.

We’ve all heard of the concept behind Occam’s Razor, even if you’re unaware of the name itself. Often the simplest explanation is the best or, the explanation that makes the least amount of assumptions is the best.

I’m getting into a theological argument here, something that I am only doing to point out the major flaw in thinking behind the statement to which I respond.

With Occam’s Razor in mind, and the information I have provided in support of The Big Bang Theory in plain sight, I think it is time to reword the initial statement to fit the evidence.

“Which statement makes more sense:

‘The basic building blocks of the universe were contained in a simple yet infinitely dense particle, which then expanded due to tiny quantum fluctuations to form the universe we have today.’

Or

‘An infinitely complex entity that is beyond our understanding, and beyond measure and observation, created the basic building blocks of the universe that were contained in a simple yet infinitely dense particle which then expanded due to tiny quantum fluctuations to form the universe we have today.’”

The statement is longer, but I feel it accurately portrays both sides. A statement like this is often backed up with arguments of the universe being too complex to have arisen by chance or accident, once again ignoring that a creator or creators are also complex entities that either have no creator, or were created by yet another set of complex creators (ad infinitum).

Occam’s Razor can break this down for you. It takes far more assumptions to accept that a creator is behind everything, than it does to accept that the universe came from a basic system and grew in complexity as it expanded.

If it must be argued that one of these items has to be infinite, then would it not be simpler to apply the concept of an infinite state to the early universe? Though, then again, infinity implies time, and I have shown that we cannot be certain whether or not time existed (if anything at all) without the expanded universe.

4 - [ancient text read and believed by millions]



This is both an Appeal to Age (argumentum ad antiquitatem) and an Appeal to Popularity (Argumentum ad Populum).

There is little that needs to be said about this to be honest.

It is an inane argument that states that because this text is ancient, it is more truthful than others, and that because it is believed to be true by many millions of people, it must be.

It is simply argued against by pointing out that at one point it was widely accepted that the Earth was the centre of the universe, that mental illnesses were caused by demonic possession, that the Earth was flat, that tectonic plates weren’t real, and many hundreds of thousands of ideas and concepts that have since been proven false or true.

The number of people that accept something to be true, or right, does not automatically make it correct. The value is in the evidence, not the support.

5 - Why should anyone believe Mr. Hawking's writings if he cannot provide evidence for his unscientific belief



And so I finally come to what started me off on this blog, and the concept of the scientific method and the burden of proof.

I have shown throughout this blog, and will list several more resources for your perusal, that this is ample evidence in support of The Big Bang Theory. Hawking gives plenty more evidence throughout The Grand Design, evidence that is readily available for anybody to look at and research themselves.

I have shown that the remainder of Cameron’s statement is also flawed and inaccurate in numerous ways.

However, I find myself asking a simple question of Kirk Cameron (and all who agree with him), where his evidence of a god or a heaven is?

Evidence is king, I have shown this. This is a concept that is widely accepted by everybody in their day to day lives, but one that is often abandoned when it comes to something with which they disagree.

If a person makes a claim as to the existence of something, then it is obvious that you will ask for evidence to back it up; the greater the claim, the greater the required evidence.

If I were to state that I had an apple in my bag, then to prove my claim to be true I would need only produce the apple (and perhaps show that it was indeed a real apple by slicing it, sharing it, etc). However, if I were to make the claim that in my bag I held a device that allowed me to manipulate reality and travel through time; I would need to produce more than just a device that happened to look cool enough to do this.

I would have to show that the device could indeed manipulate reality and travel through time, among numerous amounts of other evidence.

Hawking, and other astronomers and physicists, have provided the evidence to support their claim. They continue to search for more evidence, and repeatedly test the evidence they have collected against new data, to make sure it shows the same results each time.

If Kirk is going to lay down the claim that a god or gods exist, where is the evidence? If Kirk is going to lay down the claim that heaven exists, where is the evidence?

Arguments have been made in support of a god or gods, and of a heaven, and supposed evidence has been presented to people that do not believe, but it is often lacking in every way conceivable. When preparing to present evidence for the support of a claim, ask yourself ‘Would this stand up in court?’

Anecdotal Evidence barely stands up in court. Human perception is often skewed by their own bias, or numerous other things. Simply stating that you have felt god, or met god, or witnessed god, is not an argument for the existence of god; it is simply an argument that you had an experience that you could not explain (and thus decided to explain anyway).

Suggesting that because you cannot explain something, or that nobody else can explain something, means that a god or gods exist, is also not evidence. Being unable to explain something is not an explanation.

And the list goes on. It is just simple common sense, though I’m certain that people will refuse to accept this and put it down to me having a different standard of which evidence to accept.

So let’s go back to my reality manipulating device in the bag situation. If I walk up to you and say that I have this device, you will ask for me to prove it. Instead of providing the device, and the evidence of it working, I simply introduce you to other people that I have shown the device to.

These people corroborate my claim, they say that the device is fantastic and that they have personally witnessed my manipulation of reality and time with this device.

Do you believe these people? Why?


Thankyou for taking the time to read this lengthy blog. Please let me know if I’ve explained something poorly, or have gotten something completely wrong, I will try my best to fix any mistakes.

For further reading, or viewing, follow these links:

An Index to Creationist Claims - http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

From The Big Bang to us, made easy - http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54#grid/user/DB23537556D7AADB

The Scientific Method & The Burden of Proof - http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~edmin/Pamphlets/Pamphlet%2003%20-%20Scientific%20Method%20and%20the%20Burden%20of%20Proof.pdf


References:

Kirk Cameron (IMDB) - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0131647/

Heaven’s No! Kirk Cameron attacks Stephen hawking for Godless views - http://uk.eonline.com/uberblog/b242570_heavens_no_kirk_cameron_attacks_stephen.html

George Lamaitre - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre

Fred Hoyle, Rejection of The Big Bang - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle#Rejection_of_the_Big_Bang

Conservation of Energy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy

Appeal to Age - http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/skepticism/blfaq_fall_novelty.htm

Appeal to Popularity - http://atheism.about.com/od/logicalfallacies/a/numbers.htm

Occam’s razor - http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/scientific-experiments/occams-razor.htm

Big Bang Theory evidence - http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE420.html

Big Bang not an explosion - http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE441.html