Just because some of the theories can't be disproved at the moment, it doesn't mean that they can't be tested by observational means in the future. For the question of whether the universe is closed, flat or open - it *might* be possible to measure this more accurately (so that everyone agrees rather than disagrees) and the important thing is to try. Science progresses in surprising directions and it's difficult to decide ahead of time what the most useful direction is.

The important thing, I think, is balance. Observational science is crucial but you also need the big ideas and wild theories to make the giant leaps of understanding. I think cosmology is interesting at the moment because there are so many unanswered questions so it's important that we keep thinking about them, to give us ideas about how we can use observations to support or disprove them.

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Spike
:)