Faith In Science

[Split Rock]

There are images of such things, even images of electrons.

That isn't what I asked you. try again.

Unless you're claiming it's made of some unknown substance, what difference does it make?

You tell me, this is the type of question you asked.

Probably anyone that's taken apart their old computer. I've certainly seem them.

Once again, that isn't what I asked you. Try Again.

 

[Michael]

That isn't what I asked you. try again.


You tell me, this is the type of question you asked.


Once again, that isn't what I asked you. Try Again.

Evidently I'm missing your point. Perhaps you could elaborate and clarify what you're asking?

Jesus is my "savior" too. Nothing seems odd there from my perspective. Jesus AS God is a tougher thing to demonstrate, but it requires no more "faith" IMO as believing in a big bang theory for instance.
Revised theory of gravity doesn't predict a Big Bang

 

[lucaspa]

I don't accept your analogy. We don't have 13 billion year old DNA and we don't solve 13 billion year old crimes. Only pseudoscientists think they can do that.

Nice duck! But the time scale doesn't matter. You say we don't need a time machine to go back months or years to solve a crime but can do so with forensis evidence that exists in the present! So you concede that we can use evidence in the present to determine what happened in the past without a witness or without a time machine.

But then you claim that we cannot use evidence in the present from a 13 billion year old event to determine what happened then. That's inconsistent. As long as the evidence exists today, then the time frame is irrelevant.

"As is well known in all sciences there have been many important events which have not left any trace." -- Hannes O.G. Alfvén, physicist, 1954

But Big Bang is not one of those. It left lots of traces.

 

[lucaspa]

Sure.

"In physics [sic] as ordinarily set forth [i.e. math+religion], there is much that is unverifiable: there are hypotheses as to (a) how things would appear to a spectator in a place where, as it happens, there is no spectator; (b) how things would appear to a spectator in a place when, in fact, they are not appearing to anyone; (c) things which never appear at all." -- Bertrand Russell, physicist/philosopher, Our Knowledge of the External World, 1914

Page 116.

Thank you. Now I have to look it up. I notice you have added things, such as the "[i.e. math+religion]". Where in the book does Russell refer to physics as "math + religion". If not, then you have invalidly added that "[ ]"

If Noah said 2+2=4 would you disagree with him?

If other evidence or reasoning disagreed, yes. Wouldn't you?

We can talk about the Big Bang. It allegedly occured (a) in a place where there was no spectator, (b) the Big Bang never appeared to anyone, and (c) it never appeared at all. The same is true with any popular pseudoscience concept: neutron stars, black holes, gravitons, gravitational waves, etc.

You tried to go for a threefor. Tried to get one theory that met all Russell's criteria. As it happens you fail on all three. Remember, Russell stated:
"(a) how things would appear to a spectator in a place where, as it happens, there is no spectator;"
Big Bang doesn't state how things would appear to a spectator. It states how the universe originated.
"(b) how things would appear to a spectator in a place when, in fact, they are not appearing to anyone;"
Again, not applies to Big Bang. This isn't about how things appear to a spectator. It's a description of how the universe started.
"(c) things which never appear at all"
Big Bang talks about things that do appear: CMBR, hydrogen:helium ratios, distribution of matter in space on the large scale, etc.

You didn't read Russell. Go back and re-read him instead of the quote you got somewhere. I'll give you a hint: Russell is talking about a certain person's thought experiments.

Now, you should know that neutron stars and black holes have "appeared". There are spectators and we do have pictures. Gravitons and gravitational waves are hypothesized entities that are being tested. Interferometric gravitational wave detection at MIT

The Bible is a historical document not a theological document. On the Origin of Species is an example of a theological document. Darwin was a theologian by training.

The Bible is a theological document. With 2 exceptions, the history that is in there is there to reinforce the theology. The 2 exceptions are the Exodus and Resurrection. At the end of the gospel of John you can see how the history has been subordinated to the theology:
"And there are also many other things which Jesus did,"

You see, this is not a book of history, but a book of theology. Enough is told so that people will believe.

Now, Darwin was mostly trained as a scientist. The theological training was secondary -- so he could have a job. And Origin of Species is absolutely not a theological document.' That's hilarious that you would try to make it so. There is a bit of theology toward the end and Darwin states the theological implications of evolution, but otherwise none.

And you ducked the question. Does it make the theological arguments true?

Yes.

Athena = Venus.

Zeus = Jupiter.

Apollo = the Sun.

Actually, no to all of these. In the Greek pantheon, Athena is not associated with any planet! (You may be thinking of Aphrodite, but even there she is not associated with the planet Venus in Greek mythology). Zeus is not associated with Jupiter. Apollo is the sun god, but the sun itself is something Apollo pulls by a chariot; Apollo is not the sun.

But again you ducked the issue. Do the gods exist because the Iliad gets some of the history correct? Are there really gods living on Mt. Olympus?

"For if the Olympian who handles the lightning [Jupiter] should be minded
to hurl us [planets] out of our places, he is far too strong for any."
-- Homer, poet, Iliad, I:580-581

Lots of interpolations -- [] -- that aren't there in the original. You are adding things. That's false witness, in case you didn't know.

BTW, the Romanized names of the Greek gods were given to planets, but that doesn't make the gods = the planets. Elementary failure of logic on your part.

Correct. Planets are real.

No, no no. I asked if the gods were real. The gods were not the planets, but separate from them. Zeus was not the planet Jupiter. As you noted, Zeus threw thunderbolts. The planet does not do that.

"On the mythological front, it was not long before I had to accept that the deities of the ancient nations originated as personifications of cosmic bodies, prime among which were the very planets of the solar system. It did not take Velikovsky, or any of his precursors, to convince me of this. The ancients, who were in the best position to know what they themselves believed in, so stated in many of their texts. It therefore struck me as strange that most modern mythologists would go to such great pains in attempting to explain mythological characters and themes in anything but cosmic terms." -- Dwardu Cardona, author, December 1988

Look what I bolded. Personifications. Not the body itself.

"To come now to our subject: atheism, which is a sorry judgement that there is nothing blessed or incorruptible, seems, by disbelief in the Divinity, to lead finally to a kind of utter indifference, and the end which it achieves in not believing in the existence of gods is not to fear them." -- Plutarch, historian, On Superstition, 1st century

But atheists believe in planets. Even in Plutarch's day, atheists didn't deny the existence of planets, did they? So Plutarch is not supporting what you want: he is saying that the gods are distinct from the planets.

"There was in their city [Carthage] a bronze image of Cronus [Saturn], extending his hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit with fire. ... Also the story passed down among the Greeks from ancient myth that Cronus [Saturn] did away with his own children appears to have been kept in mind among the Carthaginians through this observance." -- Diodorus Siculus, historian, Library of History, Book XX, 1st century B.C.

And yet the planet Saturn did not "do away with his own children". BTW, the rings cannot be seen without a telescope.

Science claims history is a myth.

Not at all. Science claims that some things people mistakenly consider as history are myths and not real history.

"... I believe it is only fair to acknowledge an underlying and totally sincere scientific disbelief in the historical record." -- Ralph E. Juergens, engineer, 1972

Full citation? I'm sorry, but Juergens cannot possibly be accurate. Science doesn't comment on most history. Some of it science is able to support -- such as the archeological digs of the Hittites. A lot of it science can't comment on because the historical event didn't leave any scientific evidence. For instance, science has nothing to say about the history of Hannibal bringing elephants over the Alps. Several Roman accounts say he did. There is no scientific evidence involved.

 

[lucaspa]

Sure.

"In physics [sic] as ordinarily set forth [i.e. math+religion], there is much that is unverifiable: there are hypotheses as to (a) how things would appear to a spectator in a place where, as it happens, there is no spectator; (b) how things would appear to a spectator in a place when, in fact, they are not appearing to anyone; (c) things which never appear at all." -- Bertrand Russell, physicist/philosopher, Our Knowledge of the External World, 1914 Page 116.

You took it out of context and are using it not as Russell meant! What's more, your "[i.e math + religion]" is completely contrary to what Russells is saying! And you changed the quote! Wow, a threefor.

"a) We have been considering, in the above account, the question of the verifiability of physics. Now, verifiability is by no means the same thing as truth; it is, in fact, something far more subjective and psychological. For a proposition to be verifiable, it is not enough that it should be true, but it also must be such as we can discover to be true. Thus verifiability depends on our capacity for acquiring knowledge, and not only upon the objective truth. In physics as ordinarily set forth, there is much that is unverifiable: there are hypotheses as to (a) how things would appear to a spectator in a place where, as it happens, there is no spectator; (b) how things would appear at times when, in fact, they are not appearing to anyone; (c) things which never appear at all. All these are introduced to simplify the statement of the causal laws, but none of them are an integral part of what is known to be true in physics. This brings us to our second answer."

So, this isn't about individual theories at all! It's about what Russell calls "unverifiable". This goes back to the earlier parts of the chapter where he discusses the connection between sense impresssions and physics. For instance, (b) refers to things when we are not looking at them. Russell states that we assume continuity in time, so that the chair in your living room exists even when you are not observing it. Or the ball continues to fall when you release it and still continues to fall according to the equation even if no one is looking at it.

Russell goes on to state: "the three kinds of hypothetical entities we have just enumerated [those a, b, and c] must all be capable of being exhibited as logical extensions of sense data."

So there goes Big Bang on your list. You think it is "unverifiable" but then Russell points out that it is true if it is an extension of sense data. Which is exactly what it is. Big Bang is a logical extension of the sense data of red shift, CMBR, hydrogen-helium ratios, etc.

Thanks, Agonaces, for making me look that up. It tells me how you misuse quotes and, from now on, I know not to put much faith in what you quote. You are quite capable of taking out of context and changing quotes to make them say what you want them to say. I need to look at your icon again to see if you are Jewish or Christian. If you are, what do you think of the 9th Commandment?

 

[lucaspa]

The only thing that can be seen in the physical universe is redshifted photons which we *interpret* to be related to 'expansion". At no time however did anyone ever demonstrate that inflation causes expansion. Even that claim of a connection between expansion and inflation is purely "made up". There's no experiment that has ever shown inflation:

A) exists at all
B) has any of the properties that Guth assigned to it in a purely ad hoc manner.

Inflation is not a "cause" of expansion. Inflation is a special type of expansion: one that is exponential. But yes, there are observations that support that inflation happened. One of these is the homogeneity of the universe at large scales. Without inflation, the universe would be heterogenous.

You skipped the whole thing that science is not confined to experiment. You still say "there's no experiment that has ever shown inflation". It's not something that happens in a lab. However, as I noted, there are observations that would not be there if inflation had not happened.
4. J Glanz, Microwave hump reveals flat universe. Science 283: 21, Jan 1, 1999. Data on microwave background radiation indicates that universe is flat. Means there must be the cosmological constant. And inflation theory survives.

There isn't even a single brand of inflation anymore so the whole thing has become completely unfalsifiable.

Please give sources for the different "brands" of inflation.

Compare and contrast that with a purely ad hoc creation that is supposedly now dead and gone and can therefore *NEVER* show up in a real test with real control mechanisms.

What I said was "what comes next is the testing of the hypothesis by looking for consequences in the physical universe if the hypothesis is true." We don't need "real test with real control mechanisms". All we need is observational consequences. And the key here is observation. If the theory is true, then it will have consequences we observe. If the consequences we observe are different, then the theory is false.

Since you can't actually demonstrate any physical connection between the CMBR and inflation, that statement is simply a statement of faith. Where can I go to get some inflation to make sure it can cause a "surface of last scattering"?

CMBR is related to inflation. Inflation has an effect on the CMBR, the CMBR is an observational consequence of inflation. If inflation happened, then the CMBR looks one way. If it did not, then the CMBR looks a different way. As it happens, the CMBR looks like it should under inflation.

I've never seen the phrase "surface of last scattering". What do you mean by that?

The only ideas I don't care for are the ones that defy empirical support which are passed off as "science". I'm afraid Guth simply "made up" the whole concept of inflation.

As I said, every scientific idea is initially "made up". Guth's idea did not "defy empirical support". Instead, it made predictions of what the fine data in the CMBR should look like if it were true. We hadn't seen that data yet. When the data came in, it looked like inflation predicted. Predicting new data is empirical support. I don't know what you think "empirical support" is, but it is predicting the existence of data we haven't found yet.

In fact it's a "supernatural" form of energy since no other vector or scalar field in nature will experience multiple exponential increases in volume without a significant decrease in density. Only Guth's make believe inflation is magical like that.

I would say "supernatural", but just "unknown". But that's OK. In 1962 Marshall Urist published papers on a protein he called "bone morphogenetic protein". At the time BMP had properties and effects no known protein had. But there was no arguing with the effects. The effects were observed. Same with inflation. The effects of inflation are observed. We can wait, like we did with BMP, to discover what actually caused it and how it works.

 

[lucaspa]

We *could* just hypothesize that the Universe started from a very uniform early state -- since we don't know the relevant physics yet, this is certainly possible. The issue isn't that the big bang model is inconsistent without inflation, just that it requires an assumption that many people considered "unnatural." There were a bunch of attempts to explain this uniformity -- for instance, a chaotic early stage that more thoroughly "mixed" the Universe -- but they mostly didn't work in detail.

Inflation gives a different explanation: basically, that the whole visible Universe grew from some very tiny initial region, in which an assumption of uniformity might be more natural. It's not yet completely clear whether this is a sensible explanation -- you still need a tiny uniform patch of space for inflation to start,

As I understand inflation, that early patch need not be uniform. Inflation eliminates the heterogeneities and the end product is uniform. Thus it gets rid of a very unlikely assumption: that the universe started out in a uniform state.

In particular, inflation will take place if a quantum field has a constant, or nearly constant, nonzero potential energy. You should think of this as the energy of the field's interaction with itself, roughly analogous to the binding energy of molecules of water. If a field jumps from one value of potential energy to another in some small region -- either by quantum tunneling of through ordinary thermal fluctuations -- this can nucleate an inflating "bubble" of space. Inflation will continue until the potential energy drops down to zero.

And apparently inflation can generate many bubbles instead of just one. What is called "dark flow" may be another support of inflation because it might be flow toward one of those other bubbles.

 

[lucaspa]

I'd say pretty much every "Christian" considers Jesus their personal savior in some way shape of form, myself included. The notion of Jesus *AS* God tends to beg the question of who or what Jesus was praying to for comfort the night before he knew he would be put to death for his heresy. There seemed to be a "father" he prayed to and talked about.

I suggest you read the Nicene and Apostle's Creeds. For better or worse, Trinity is a defining and necessary component to Christianity. Without Trinity, you can believe Jesus is your personal savior -- like Mormons and JWs do -- but you aren't Christian.

BTW, for identification on this board as Christian, the Rules say you must ascribe to the Nicene Creed.

Unless you're claiming it's made of some unknown substance, what difference does it make?

It means you don't have to directly observe an entity to know it is there.

The point is that nobody seems to appreciate well intentioned vocal heretics, regardless of whether its a religious group or a scientific one.

Not necessarily. Science often welcomes them. At the time of publication, Origin of Species was heretical to the then reigning Special Creation theory. Einstein, and then Hawking, got warm welcomes when they were "heretics".

What is not appreciated is scientific heretics who do not have the supporting data or "heretics" who espouse a view that has already been falsified. "Heretics" who do not understand how science works and insist science be something else -- so their "heresy" can make up for the data it lacks -- are also not appreciated. But the common theme here is that people who have evidence against their ideeas and insist on promoting their ideas in the face of refuting evidence have problems. They are just a waste of time.

Now, a heretic who voiced his idea but was willing to give it up when shown contrary evidence is also appreciated. Shoot, every working scientist is a heretic like that at least twice a day!

 

[lucaspa]

I don't have to take anyone's word for "gravity", I can experience it's effects right here, right now anytime I want.

Notice you never actually have gravity "show up"? Instead, you say you experience the effects of gravity. So next you change the rules:

Dark stuff tends to never show up in the lab, unlike gravity that shows up in *EVERY* lab on Earth.

Gravity does not "show up", the effects of gravity show up. That's what you said, and you are correct. The effects of dark energy show up in every telescope that looks at the motion of galaxies and the expansion of the universe. The effects of inflation show up in every telescope that looks at the CMBR.

What exactly differentiates "faith" in God from "faith" in "inflation"?

Faith in God comes from personal experience of God, either in his/her current life or the experiences written down in scripture. Not everyone has that personal experience. Acceptance of inflation comes from personal experience that is available to everyone that uses a radio telescope to map the CMBR or analyzes the data from such telescopes.

 

[lucaspa]

Yes:

Then you are a creationist.

This is not the usual Bible verse I see justifying creationism. You seem to have used the NIV translation:

From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. - Acts 17:26-27.

The KJV translation is different:
"And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;"

So is the RSV:
"And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation,"

Both of these translations are talking more about a brotherhood of all people rather than a call to direct creation of humans. This idea is more in keeping with the context of the chapter. Paul is preaching at Athens. He has been disputing with the Athenians about religion. The Athenians are asking which god Paul is preaching about:
"Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?"

Paul replies: "For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: To an Unknown God. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you."

Paul continues: “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else."

Now we get to the verses you quoted. It isn't, as you seem to think, an absolute that God had to create one man. Instead, it is a an affirmation that God made the world (thus is supreme) and created the people of all the nations. God is a universal god, not just the god of Israel, or Greece, or Rome. God is God and there is only one. In this case, it looks like NIV failed to adequately say what Paul was really saying and that the men who did the KJV did a better job.

 

[Doveaman]

Then you are a creationist.

Thanks. That's good to know.

This is not the usual Bible verse I see justifying creationism. You seem to have used the NIV translation:

It doesn't mater to me which version is used, they all mean the same thing.

Now we get to the verses you quoted. It isn't, as you seem to think, an absolute that God had to create one man. Instead, it is a an affirmation that God made the world (thus is supreme) and created the people of all the nations. God is a universal god, not just the god of Israel, or Greece, or Rome. God is God and there is only one. In this case, it looks like NIV failed to adequately say what Paul was really saying and that the men who did the KJV did a better job.

Sure, blame the Bible version. It's much easier to do that, isn't it?

This is obviously lucaspas' commentary on the Bible, a commentary that expresses lucaspas' ideas. I think licaspas' commentary is just the subjective opinions of lucaspa, so I don't subscribe to lucaspas' commentary on the Bible.

I prefer commentaries like Adam Clarke, Barnes or Matthew Henry:

(From Adam Clarke's Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright © 1996, 2003 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)
[Hath made of one blood] In AB, some others, with the Coptic, AEthiopic, Vulgate, Itala, Clement, and Bede, the word haimatos, blood, is omitted. He hath made of one (meaning Adam) all nations of men; but haima, blood, is often used by the best writers for race, stock, kindred: so Homer, Iliad, 6 ver. 211:

(From Barnes' Notes, Electronic Database Copyright © 1997, 2003 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)
[And hath made of one blood] All the families of mankind are descended from one origin or stock. However different their complexion, features, or language, yet they are derived from a common parent. The word blood is often used to denote "race, stock, kindred." This passage affirms that all the human family are descended from the same ancestor.

(From Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright © 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)
He made of one blood all nations of men. He made the first man, he makes every man, is the former of every man's body and the Father of every man's spirit. He has made the nations of men, not only all men in the nations, but as nations in their political capacity; he is their founder, and disposed them into communities for their mutual preservation and benefit. He made them all of one blood, of one and the same nature; he fashions their heart alike. Descended from one and the same common ancestor, in Adam they are all akin, so they are in Noah, that hereby they might be engaged in mutual affection and assistance, as fellow-creatures and brethren.

Here are a few more verses to wrap your head around:

1 Cor 15:47-49:
The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.

1 Cor 15:21-22:
For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.

Rom 5:12-14:
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned...Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam.

 

[Michael]

Inflation is not a "cause" of expansion. Inflation is a special type of expansion: one that is exponential.

It's neither a cause, nor a "type" of 'expansion". It's a made up word that Alan Guth slapped some math to and it caught on.

But yes, there are observations that support that inflation happened. One of these is the homogeneity of the universe at large scales. Without inflation, the universe would be heterogenous.

That's simply an "assumption" on your part and a "claim" that has never actually be supported by any direct evidence.

Hannes Alfven had a "bang" theory that did not require inflation and the layout of matter was *always* homogeneously distributed. That whole claim is really "made up" since there is not real physical test showing that inflation: A) exists at all, or B) has any of the attributes that have been assigned to it (mathematically). The whole thing is a "make believe" entity with "make believe" properties.

You skipped the whole thing that science is not confined to experiment.

That only seems to be the case in astronomy actually. Other branches of science *strongly* correlate to what can be seen in an "experiment" with actual control mechanisms.

You still say "there's no experiment that has ever shown inflation". It's not something that happens in a lab.

It's not something that "happens" at all. It's only a popular mythology related to a "creation theory". In real life, inflation is a complete no show. It has no effect on anything, ever.

However, as I noted, there are observations that would not be there if inflation had not happened.
4. J Glanz, Microwave hump reveals flat universe. Science 283: 21, Jan 1, 1999. Data on microwave background radiation indicates that universe is flat. Means there must be the cosmological constant. And inflation theory survives.

The concepts you site have not ever been linked to inflation in any viable experiment. We simply have to take your word for it that inflation even has these so called "properties" in the first place! The whole thing is "assumed" from the very start and there is no empirical link between the background radiation or the flatness and "inflation". These were "assigned" properties that were "assigned" in a purely "Ad hoc" (as dreamed up) basis. How many brands of "inflation" are there anyway?

Please give sources for the different "brands" of inflation.

[0902.2833] Inflationary Universe with Anisotropic Hair
[1005.4056] Testing Two-Field Inflation

Which is the "real" inflation? Hairy inflation? Two field inflation? Guth's original brand of inflation?

What I said was "what comes next is the testing of the hypothesis by looking for consequences in the physical universe if the hypothesis is true." We don't need "real test with real control mechanisms". All we need is observational consequences. And the key here is observation. If the theory is true, then it will have consequences we observe. If the consequences we observe are different, then the theory is false.

What you're essentially saying is that there's no need to verify the existence of something before pointing at the sky and claiming your magic new thing did it. That's hardly much of an argument. How do you know that there is any actual empirical link between inflation and expansion?

CMBR is related to inflation.

This is a "claim" that you cannot demonstrate because inflation never had any effect on anything.

Inflation has an effect on the CMBR,

Prove it. Show me any experiment where "inflation" had *ANY* effect whatsoever on a photon.

the CMBR is an observational consequence of inflation.

This amounts to a "statement of faith" since you didn't show any empirical connection between photons and inflation. You simply *ASSUME* this is true.

If inflation happened, then the CMBR looks one way. If it did not, then the CMBR looks a different way.

Again, how do you *KNOW* that? How would it be "different" without inflation in your opinion, and what leads you to that conclusion in the first place? How can it be "different with inflation" when inflation has none of the actual physically verified properties that you (Guth) assigned to it?

As I said, every scientific idea is initially "made up". Guth's idea did not "defy empirical support". Instead, it made predictions of what the fine data in the CMBR should look like if it were true. We hadn't seen that data yet. When the data came in, it looked like inflation predicted. Predicting new data is empirical support. I don't know what you think "empirical support" is, but it is predicting the existence of data we haven't found yet.

Guth already *KNEW* that the universe was "homogeneous". He didn't "predict" it, he *INCORPORATED* that concept into his "mythical" entity.

The background radiation from space was *KNOWN*, it was not actually "predicted" in advance. In fact the earliest 'predictions" of a
CMB related to a bang were of by a whole OOM in terms of the background radiation related because they grossly underestimated the age of the universe.

I would say "supernatural", but just "unknown". But that's OK. In 1962 Marshall Urist published papers on a protein he called "bone morphogenetic protein". At the time BMP had properties and effects no known protein had. But there was no arguing with the effects. The effects were observed. Same with inflation. The effects of inflation are observed. We can wait, like we did with BMP, to discover what actually caused it and how it works.

The empirical difference is that proteins do show up in the lab, I'm sure that one's been seen by now, and he wasn't trying to claim it was an entirely new type of matter/energy, just a variation on a common theme. IMO you're comparing metaphysical apples to empirical oranges. Guth's inflation is dead. It will *NEVER* show up in a real lab.

 

[Michael]

Notice you never actually have gravity "show up"? Instead, you say you experience the effects of gravity. So next you change the rules:.....
Gravity does not "show up", the effects of gravity show up.

No. *GRAVITY* (as in a real thing having a real influence) shows up in the lab. It has a direct effect on atoms. Inflation does *NOT* have any effect on any experiment. How can you not see the difference between these two things? Gravity have a direct effect on real things in real controlled experiments. It's *EFFECTS* are measurable and quantifiable in the lab in controlled experimentation. You can argue that we don't "understand" gravity completely, but it's influence on real material objects is undeniable and quite easily measured in a standard experiment.

That's what you said, and you are correct. The effects of dark energy show up in every telescope that looks at the motion of galaxies and the expansion of the universe.

No. You failed to demonstrate any cause/effect relationship between the items you point at in the sky and the mythical entities you claim "did it". There's a completely disconnect at the point of demonstrating "Cause/effect" relationships. They are all "Assumed". You see "acceleration", which you chalk up to something you call "dark energy", but "dark energy" has never been shown to "accelerate" anything.

The effects of inflation show up in every telescope that looks at the CMBR.

Without any cause/effect demonstrations, what you have is "faith" that these things are somehow linked. Without any empirical cause/effect demonstrations, it's simply a "religion" that requires "faith" in the "unseen", and "properties" that must be taken purely on faith alone.

Faith in God comes from personal experience of God, either in his/her current life or the experiences written down in scripture. Not everyone has that personal experience.

But many do, and they experience God "here and now", not only in some distant creation myth. Inflation is like a dead deistic religion. It has no effect on anything in the here and now.

Acceptance of inflation comes from personal experience that is available to everyone that uses a radio telescope to map the CMBR or analyzes the data from such telescopes.

Sorry, I disagree. You're not "experiencing" inflation, just "expansion" at best case, and even that claim is an *INTERPRETATION* of the redshift phenomenon, it's not something you actually directly experience.