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This kind of research is non-falsifiable and I think it's just a waste of these scientists' talents. You will hear never-ending theories of the Big Bang, black

This kind of research is non-falsifiable and I think it's just a waste of these scientists' talents. You will hear never-ending theories of the Big Bang, black holes, and the end of the universe because all this research is non-falsifiable and just people playing with math and coming up with different ideas that humans find interesting, but will not affect your quality of life at all. Science has to be falsifiable or else it's just a new type of faith.

vletal 2y ago
This kind of reserach, which comes with new ideas which better explain our observations, helps balance exactly the blind faith in religion. People will always ask "where everything came from" questions. And if there is no science with plausible big-bang => background radiation... theories, you can just as easily return back to creationism.
Aardwolf 2y ago
Not sure about whether it's falsifiable or not, but maybe it can affect quality of life? I mean, imagine we do find the answer to a cause of the big bang or the fate of the end of the universe, there might as well be some knowledge in there that allows new kinds of engineering that can be useful for daily life E.g. (silly example): understanding how to create a big bang might allow creating an entire universe from scratch with minimal compute resources, in which we can then game
2four2 2y ago
No one is claiming that their speculative models and hypotheses are "truth". Before sufficient evidence is available, you start with a model and a hypothesis, which drives the search for evidence. Then it becomes falsifiable once you gather the evidence. I think you may have missed the explanation of science where the first step is to create a guess and that drives your experiments. As far as "not affecting your quality of life at all", people have been saying this about cutting edge science since forever. "Time can't be relative, it's just scientists playing with math. Besides, we'll never travel fast enough for it to matter and it doesn't affect our lives anyway." Yet time dilation is an important factor in your daily life if you ever used GPS.
tempaway355751 2y ago
The whole point of the article is that recent observations are making them rethink their model
hgyjnbdet 2y ago
I don't know, there's many "useless" things done that at a later date have been found to be beneficial in areas not intended be the original experimenter.
yowzadave 2y ago
> just people playing with math and coming up with different ideas that humans find interesting, but will not affect your quality of life at all A lot of people like to pursue knowledge purely out of curiosity. Some people even think that having a good quality of life means that there is room for these sorts of conversations!
tiborsaas 2y ago
I kinda agree about researching the end of the Universe, but the birth of the Universe and black holes a pretty relevant to modern day science. We don't have a theory of quantum gravity, we have a singularity at the big-bang, etc. Finding a theory of everything could unlock many new practical improvements. Falsifiability not only happens when you can disprove something with a physical experiment. You can't trigger another big-bang, but with a better model, you can falsify the currently accepted theory because it makes a prediction. Thinking about the end of the universe is not that pointless though. It's tending towards philosophy, which could make people think what's our role in the world, can we at some point exist again, I think the list is long.
- mr_mitm 2y ago
  > I kinda agree about researching the end of the Universe, It's a fallacy to believe that people are specifically researching the end of the Universe. We research models. The standard model for example is parameterized by six numbers. You measure those six numbers, put them in the model, and the model will tell you how old the universe is and what will happen in the far future. If it turns out that different probes yield incompatible sets of values for those six numbers, for example probes from the early universe vs more current probes (e.g. the cosmic microwave background vs super novae data), then the model must be wrong. Then we might look for another model, perhaps one with seven parameters, where the additional parameter characterizes the evolution of dark energy, which assumed to be constant until now, and see if that fits better. And what do you know, that model might yield a different result for the age of the universe and its fate. It's a consequence of fundamental research, not a primary goal in itself.
NegativeLatency 2y ago
You might enjoy the tv show Connections. Sometimes “useless” facts, theories and discoveries become useful. Like say Boolean algebra.
andrepd 2y ago
Why would the big bang and black holes be non-falsifiable? You can observe them. Even "the end of the universe", just because something is in the future doesn't mean you can't make scientific predictions about it based in your understanding of physics.
doctoboggan 2y ago
This kind of research is definitely falsifiable. If you read the article you'd see tons of graphs that are the result of actual direct measurement of phenomena. These measurements are used to rule out some of the theories, and conform to other theories. Astrophysicists make predictions and run experiments all the time. The same is true for black hole theories.
ahf8Aithaex7Nai 2y ago
With such general assertions, you really have to be careful not to end up looking like the one who is being taken in by faith. Science is not about quality of life, but about gaining knowledge. Not all scientific knowledge is based on falsifiability. Science does not float in an empty space but has a foundation that is not itself science.
FrustratedMonky 2y ago
Technically, by this logic, isn't estimating when a bridge or building will collapse also non-falsifiable? Because it is in the future? But we do use math plus current understandings to make predictions.
ordu 2y ago
> This kind of research is non-falsifiable Do you mean that we will not be able to witness the fate of the Universe? But this very article shows the case when the theory about a Universe fate was falsified or at least came close to it. If a theory is making predictions, and one can check them, then it is a falsifiable theory. Simple models of Universe make predictions, like "you will get the same rate of an expansion however you measure it", and oops... different methods give different results. I believe you are confusing a falsifiable theory and pragmatic knowledge. We are really cannot predict any practical applications for these kind of theories. So they are not pragmatic. But they are falsifiable.

vletal 2y ago

This kind of reserach, which comes with new ideas which better explain our observations, helps balance exactly the blind faith in religion. People will always ask "where everything came from" questions. And if there is no science with plausible big-bang => background radiation... theories, you can just as easily return back to creationism.

Aardwolf 2y ago

Not sure about whether it's falsifiable or not, but maybe it can affect quality of life? I mean, imagine we do find the answer to a cause of the big bang or the fate of the end of the universe, there might as well be some knowledge in there that allows new kinds of engineering that can be useful for daily life E.g. (silly example): understanding how to create a big bang might allow creating an entire universe from scratch with minimal compute resources, in which we can then game

2four2 2y ago

No one is claiming that their speculative models and hypotheses are "truth". Before sufficient evidence is available, you start with a model and a hypothesis, which drives the search for evidence. Then it becomes falsifiable once you gather the evidence. I think you may have missed the explanation of science where the first step is to create a guess and that drives your experiments. As far as "not affecting your quality of life at all", people have been saying this about cutting edge science since forever. "Time can't be relative, it's just scientists playing with math. Besides, we'll never travel fast enough for it to matter and it doesn't affect our lives anyway." Yet time dilation is an important factor in your daily life if you ever used GPS.

tempaway355751 2y ago

The whole point of the article is that recent observations are making them rethink their model

hgyjnbdet 2y ago

I don't know, there's many "useless" things done that at a later date have been found to be beneficial in areas not intended be the original experimenter.

yowzadave 2y ago

> just people playing with math and coming up with different ideas that humans find interesting, but will not affect your quality of life at all A lot of people like to pursue knowledge purely out of curiosity. Some people even think that having a good quality of life means that there is room for these sorts of conversations!

tiborsaas 2y ago

I kinda agree about researching the end of the Universe, but the birth of the Universe and black holes a pretty relevant to modern day science. We don't have a theory of quantum gravity, we have a singularity at the big-bang, etc. Finding a theory of everything could unlock many new practical improvements. Falsifiability not only happens when you can disprove something with a physical experiment. You can't trigger another big-bang, but with a better model, you can falsify the currently accepted theory because it makes a prediction. Thinking about the end of the universe is not that pointless though. It's tending towards philosophy, which could make people think what's our role in the world, can we at some point exist again, I think the list is long.

mr_mitm 2y ago
> I kinda agree about researching the end of the Universe, It's a fallacy to believe that people are specifically researching the end of the Universe. We research models. The standard model for example is parameterized by six numbers. You measure those six numbers, put them in the model, and the model will tell you how old the universe is and what will happen in the far future. If it turns out that different probes yield incompatible sets of values for those six numbers, for example probes from the early universe vs more current probes (e.g. the cosmic microwave background vs super novae data), then the model must be wrong. Then we might look for another model, perhaps one with seven parameters, where the additional parameter characterizes the evolution of dark energy, which assumed to be constant until now, and see if that fits better. And what do you know, that model might yield a different result for the age of the universe and its fate. It's a consequence of fundamental research, not a primary goal in itself.

NegativeLatency 2y ago

You might enjoy the tv show Connections. Sometimes “useless” facts, theories and discoveries become useful. Like say Boolean algebra.

andrepd 2y ago

Why would the big bang and black holes be non-falsifiable? You can observe them. Even "the end of the universe", just because something is in the future doesn't mean you can't make scientific predictions about it based in your understanding of physics.

doctoboggan 2y ago

This kind of research is definitely falsifiable. If you read the article you'd see tons of graphs that are the result of actual direct measurement of phenomena. These measurements are used to rule out some of the theories, and conform to other theories. Astrophysicists make predictions and run experiments all the time. The same is true for black hole theories.

ahf8Aithaex7Nai 2y ago

With such general assertions, you really have to be careful not to end up looking like the one who is being taken in by faith. Science is not about quality of life, but about gaining knowledge. Not all scientific knowledge is based on falsifiability. Science does not float in an empty space but has a foundation that is not itself science.

FrustratedMonky 2y ago

Technically, by this logic, isn't estimating when a bridge or building will collapse also non-falsifiable? Because it is in the future? But we do use math plus current understandings to make predictions.

ordu 2y ago

> This kind of research is non-falsifiable Do you mean that we will not be able to witness the fate of the Universe? But this very article shows the case when the theory about a Universe fate was falsified or at least came close to it. If a theory is making predictions, and one can check them, then it is a falsifiable theory. Simple models of Universe make predictions, like "you will get the same rate of an expansion however you measure it", and oops... different methods give different results. I believe you are confusing a falsifiable theory and pragmatic knowledge. We are really cannot predict any practical applications for these kind of theories. So they are not pragmatic. But they are falsifiable.