[Arekkusu]

The scientific method is set up to err on the side of caution: because no amount of white swans can prove all swans are white, scientific theories can never be "true" - none of them, not just the Big Bang. But that's OK because we as humans have a more sensible idea about what truth looks like. We know it's true that all swans are white though it remains logically unprovable. Same with science. The Big Bang has overwhelming empirical support.

[tnedutS waL]

(Original post by Arekkusu)
The scientific method is set up to err on the side of caution: because no amount of white swans can prove all swans are white, scientific theories can never be "true" - none of them, not just the Big Bang. But that's OK because we as humans have a more sensible idea about what truth looks like. We know it's true that all swans are white though it remains logically unprovable. Same with science. The Big Bang has overwhelming empirical support.

Apart from all the black swans!

But yes, 'theory' in scientific terms is different to theory in layman's terms.

[Pheylan]

(Original post by 3.14159)
I'd like to see someone prove that 1 + 1 isn't true

"1 + 1" is neither true nor false. It's not a statement.

[purplefrog]

http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemis.../lawtheory.htm

[Donald Duck]

Because it is impossible to prove any scientific theory 100% (as they are based on empirical evidence). Therefore no theory can advance from being a theory (however well established it may be).

[Donald Duck]

(Original post by Chronist)
1 + 1 isn't truth, 1 + 1 is 2.

All our mathematics are based on a set of axioms, from which this follows. However mathematics assumes those axioms are true, you cannot actually prove them.

[Dirac Delta Function]

Reading this thread brings home the reality of how poor the British education system is.

[rival_]

Everything is a theory, life is a theory one can never be certain and belief comes into it just as much as knowledge it's not really about what we know or what you may believe in but rather it's what you choose to accept as "the truth".

[SillyEddy]

(Original post by Theoneoranro)
How do we know the number 1 isn't just an illusion?

There are names for the different sorts of mindsets that people have on numbers.

Some are that numbers are real, physical things. Others are that the numbers don't exist, or have different properties.

1 may be an illusion, I have never seen a 'one'. I just know that if a have a single quantity of something, it is said that I have one of them. Numbers are just words to associate patterns in quantities. Imaginary numbers, square roots and other mathematical processes aren't really allowed in some schools of thought of what numbers actually are.


The scientific theory requires evidence. It's not just 'well I shall create an idea', it is a fact based estimate of the real world. The Hot Big Bang is a theory, but it seems to be a damn good explanation.

[AmateurThinker]

When the theory first was spoken of, it was called The Big Bang Theory, but I think it remains a theory due to society.

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my HTC Hero

[GreenLantern1]

(Original post by shaun12345)
1 pile of sand + 1 pile of sand = 1 pile of sand
Logic'd!

Lol good example!


But we didn't say that 1 pile of sand + 1 pile of sand = 2 pile of sand.

We said that 1+1=2 which is clearly correct. Look at the Peano Axioms if you want a proof.

[GreenLantern1]

(Original post by Donald Duck)
All our mathematics are based on a set of axioms, from which this follows. However mathematics assumes those axioms are true, you cannot actually prove them.

Indeed...Gödel?

Na but OP look up Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems. This was in response to Hilbert's second problem of the notable 23 problems of 20th century Mathematics.

All of matehmatics is based on axioms and to prove such axioms we rely on other axioms which would hence also require proving. These are unquestionable truths - they can not be proved; yet everything follows on from these.

Like scientific theories, axioms are self-evident truths. Though in mathematics these axioms are more believable.

[SnoochToTheBooch]

(Original post by squirrels)
I consider the Big band bang to be the truth because I thought there was factual evidence supporting it. I just don't understand why it's a theory If it's based on evidence.
Can some explain, please?

everything is "just a theory". When the theories make so much sense and are backed up by so much evidence, people drop the "theory" talk. The simplest example of this is atomic theory. It makes so much sense and other things that make so much sense depend on it being true, but nobody has ever seen an atom. There is no question that they exist though.

[Dinnes]

Generally a theory is accepted as something that's been proved. a theorem is like a hypothesis. Hence why people treat it as fact.

[sarahthegemini]

It's actually believable, unlike the concept of a God

[rcummins1]

(Original post by sarahthegemini)
It's actually believable, unlike the concept of a God

Unless of course it was God that created the Big Bang, in which case it begs the question "Who created God", which leads to the answer "God doesn't have a creator", which is why it's often hard to reason (logically) with a religious person.

[MrHayden]

I'm not sure why this thread is still going...

[LondonStrange]

(Original post by 3.14159)
Evidence is just observations that we make conclusions on. It might be very possible to find some different evidence that may suggest that the universe was created in an entirely different way. Nothing in science is ever fact; it's only what we consider to be most likely or sensible based on observations, unlike maths which is always true - I'd like to see someone prove that 1 + 1 = 2 isn't true

just putting it out there, 1 + 1 also equals 0. Just saying. lol.

[DynamicSyngery]

The Big Bang should probably be treated with a bit more skepticism than it is, but it has quite a lot of evidence behind it. It seems to follow naturally from the Friedmann equations derived from special relativity, and measurements of the cosmic microwave background support the initial homogeneity of the universe.

[snozzle]

It's just a popular view, the masses aren't capable of great epistemological insights or understandings.

There is just a naive empiricism.

It's hard to orientate yourself in a world where all knowledge is provisional and sometimes all that separates rival theories is the luck of conventionalism.

It starts with school I suppose, these scientific theories are taught as facts or at least as systems to be learned where 'facts' are matched with the theory...their 'reality' comes from that especially.