Quote:
Originally Posted by Nereid
Sorry, I was unclear ...
"mass", the very concept itself, is just as much soaked in theory as " an estimation of how things were 13 billion years ago"! 
This often comes as a big surprise to many people; somehow the absolute reality, theory-free, nature of "mass", "centrifugal force", and so on is fixed, along with similar beliefs concerning "atoms", "electrons", etc ... I recommend a re-reading of Ken G's post.
So?
What difference is there with anything else in science, whether it's "vowel" or "electron" or "species" or "mass"?
Why pick on little ol' cosmology? |
Because that little corner of cosmology is non-disprovable conjecture. Whereas a tremendous number of ideas regarding electrons, light, atoms and whatnot are based on experiments and other methods of disproving.
Think about it this way. Evolution is disprovable. Intelligent design is inherently non-disprovable. How do I disprove the big bang theory? When a court considered whether teaching intelligent design in school was constitutional under the freedom of religion clause one of the key turning points was when the government lawyer asked the intelligent design advocate "what experiment do I conduct to try to disprove the theory of intelligent design?" In good part because the witness had no coherent answer the judge ruled teaching intelligent design in school unconstitutional.