2 ms·

I would imagine cosmologists know where the boundaries are between what we know, what we don't know, what we "might know" (i.e. the status of various hypotheses

by javert 17y ago

I would imagine cosmologists know where the boundaries are between what we know, what we don't know, what we "might know" (i.e. the status of various hypotheses and theories with regards to supporting evidence). I think it's safe to say that there is a lot of stuff in each of these categories. It would be pretty surprising if we're "fundamentally wrong" about cosmology, given that scientists are aware of what goes where, with respect to these categories. Plus, I'd imagine a lot of cosmology is purely observation, anyway, and you can't be "wrong" about observation. There is a lot of room between "omniscient" (which many people mistakenly demand of science) and "wrong". In other words, science can and must deal with partial knowledge.

btilly 17y ago
Cosmologists have pretty wide agreement on, for instance, the order of events in the first second. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_%28cosmology%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_%28cosmology%29 for details. Those events took place under conditions of gravity, temperature and pressure that we can't reproduce. Those theories include belief in a phenomena called inflation which is not predicted by any theory we have in physics today, and which has some internal contradictions. (See http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_4.html#Steinhardt http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_4.html#Steinhardt for an explanation of some of them.) Oh, and the thing we can look at to test these theories? That's the cosmic background radiation which is believed to have been formed several hundred thousand years later. Are you still confident in what scientists currently claim about cosmology?
waterlesscloud 17y ago
That's the thing, it's mostly all stuff we "might know". And most of the observations are based on a lot of assumptions and inferences. It's not like "how much liquid is in this vial". The measurements and observations depend on a chain of things being true that might not be true.

by javert 17y ago

btilly 17y ago

Cosmologists have pretty wide agreement on, for instance, the order of events in the first second. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_%28cosmology%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_%28cosmology%29 for details. Those events took place under conditions of gravity, temperature and pressure that we can't reproduce. Those theories include belief in a phenomena called inflation which is not predicted by any theory we have in physics today, and which has some internal contradictions. (See http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_4.html#Steinhardt http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_4.html#Steinhardt for an explanation of some of them.) Oh, and the thing we can look at to test these theories? That's the cosmic background radiation which is believed to have been formed several hundred thousand years later. Are you still confident in what scientists currently claim about cosmology?

waterlesscloud 17y ago

That's the thing, it's mostly all stuff we "might know". And most of the observations are based on a lot of assumptions and inferences. It's not like "how much liquid is in this vial". The measurements and observations depend on a chain of things being true that might not be true.