Quote:
Originally Posted by Nereid
What I meant was that "Argumentum ad ignorantiam (argument to ignorance)", and/or its applicability in science, is different than in the courtroom/legal example you gave.
|
I agree. If we were trying to deprive a citizen of their freedom based n te BBT, a savvy defence lawyer could probably convince a jury that it was not beyond reasonable doubt.
But we are not tryig to lock anyone up. We are trying to explain the observed phenomena and make predictions, The BBT is the best explanation that the best astrophysical minds have come up with... so far.
Quote:
|
Second, I submit that science magazine, discovery etc., who have no way to write anything if they don't get it from this community, regularly speak with certainty about theories that you just right there claimed that no one was certain about or represented certainty about. I think also, that casual readers who don't work with astronomy in any regular way have no idea that there is not conclusive evidence behind these theories.
|
I think that most of the general public are aware that when something is presented in the media as a
"theory", it is an explanation of phenomena that is accepted by a large body of experts as the best available explanation at this point in time.
However, many are not aware of the difference between a hypothesis and a theory. I could hypothesize that moon is made of swiss cheese based on the observable holes, but unless a large body of experts agree it would never be given the status of "theory". A non-scientific publication might call it the "swiss cheese theory (SCT)", but they would be wrong.
Quote:
|
How does an interested party test to see if the theory is wrong?
|
The best brains on the planet have been working on this for years. (The BBT nt the SCT).
The LHC offers to enlighten us a bit more. As they have had to build the largest and most complicated machne on the planet to further our knowledge, i doubt that there is a simpe test that interested lay persons could conduct, that could prove or disprove the BBT. (I dont want to blow up the microwave again)
Quote:
|
Also, if not for a fundamental certainty, what's with all the hatred of the electric universe theory? I mean, "magnetic fields are fundamentally coupled with electric ones, and absent a bar magnet, their only cause is the matter at hand being an element in an electric circuit carrying electric current" is a prima facie case that there is electric current flowing through the sun and the Earth. It may be wrong, if disproved by evidence, but at least it's a logical argument.
|
You've alluded to eletricity/magnetism several times in this thread. Are you really asking "Why is te BBT theory more credible than the electric field theory?"
I will leave that to better brains than mine.
