You've yet to show that Krauss holds that view. Abolishment through education (as higher education correlates with less belief in sky-fairies) seems to be what he advocates.

So, you couldn't find anyone giving those odds? Winning in lottery is a true/false question, how can anyone set those odds as anything different than 50/50? This is something that you seemingly fail to grasp.

As a PhD, I'll have to inform that you are wrong. Every scientific theory begins with experimental data. This is why, say, the ancient Greeks theorizing about atoms didn't produce anything usable.

You are showing a great amount of ignorance of history here. Read up on Sumeria and Ancient Greek beliefs. It's not difficult to come up with any modern religion based on previous beliefs.

That's part of my point. The religious dogma seems like fairy-tales built on older fairy-tales. I did say "in vacuum", i. e. working without knowledge of the current and past religions.

Much of the Old Testament is factually wrong or pretty hideous stuff morally. I don't know about truth, but science has been the only tool to give us something usable.

So show me wrong with actual quotes.

What conflicting information? We have talked about inaccuracy in measurements of parameters, like the age of the universe.

I haven't claimed that BB theory is right, as no theory is ever right. They can only shown to be wrong; until that happens, the prevailing theories are our best models to match the universe we observe. Did you read the Scienceblogs page I linked to? Where were the numerous BB theories presented there?

You still don't get it: Parameters are part of a theory. Using different parameter sets within a theory doesn't make different theories.

What "expanding vacuum theory"? It's just your misinterpretation, as far as I can tell.

Yes, that's the starting point of BB theory.

How does it do that, when it's part of the BB theory?

Show the differences, then. All you have shown so far are different parameters used in the BB theory.

To what accuracy do we know those masses? Does using different values within the known inaccuracy produce different Newtonian gravity theories?

Again you show your ignorance. Dark energy and dark matter are placeholders for causes of things that we observe, but don't have a proper theory for. For example, the Bullet Cluster gives pretty much direct observation of the dark matter, but we still don't know what the dark matter is, exactly. We only know some things that it isn't. The difference to your magical things is the dragons aren't needed to explain the moon's orbit.

Again, you are only talking about something that you have invented, not the actual BB theory.

But the BB theory doesn't claim a massive explosion. That's only an analogy. And I don't see how an explosion would lead to contraction; I've never observed the gasses released when firing a gun contract back into the barrel or case. It's all a straw man you are building here. And if you are talking about running time backwards so that expansion turns into contraction, didn't you just above say that your imaginary expanding vacuum theory starts from a small point?

It'd be helpful if you showed those discrepancies instead of your own misunderstandings.

Is this the level of sophistication that 30 years of philosophizing has given you? What if you are only programmed to think that?

The problem is that nothing in Krauss's work resembles your expanding vacuum, as opposed to the BB theory.

It is clear that you can't answer this question.

So is physics, at least when talking about modern level (say, the level of 1900s like quantum mechanics). So?

While I don't doubt that you can find people with extreme views such as abolishment of religion, that's not what atheists in general demand. The demand is to keep the beliefs inside the believers and out of the society.

And yet you can't give an example of your 50/50 claim. Not that it matters, philosophy is pretty worthless in evaluating claims of existence.

I've often wondered, how many of those people would have believed in a god, had they not been indoctrinated during their childhood (I don't claim that all of them were). I have hard time believing that anyone would come up with the Christian God and dogma (virgin birth and such) just starting from first principles and working in vacuum. Additionally, Einstein was a pantheist, he didn't believe in a creator god.

You still haven't shown a single disagreement. You just don't get it: That two popular sources cite somewhat different numbers does not mean that there are two different Big Bang theories. The theory is the framework that ties the parameters together in a consistent way. For example, in BB theory, the size of the universe is tied to the age of the universe. The size of the universe is also tied to the Hubble constant. If we measure the Hubble constant with say 20 % accuracy, we get an estimate for the age of the universe that's 20 % or more inaccurate. This inaccuracy in determination of parameters has as just little to do with correctness of the BB theory than inaccuracy in the earth's circumstance measurements has to do with the theory of the spherical earth.

Yes, yes, there are different parameters in the BB theory. Using two different sets of parameters doesn't produce two different theories. If you use two different masses for the earth and the moon to model the earth-moon system with Newtonian gravity, you don't produce two different theories of Newtonian gravity.

The measurements indicate that the rate is increasing. Speeding, slowing down, doesn't matter from the theory point of view, because using different parameters in the BB theory produces those scenarios. By ever-increasingly accurate measurements we can determine those parameters.

What "mass inflation" scenario? Please explain how mass and inflation are connected. It is clear that while you may have read about some of these things, you haven't really understood what you have read.

Wrong again. There are no expanding vacuum and big ball of mass versions for the BB theory. Those are just your fundamental misunderstandings. Again, I can only suggest discussing these matters with an actual expert.

Use facts a little bit. The term was coined up by the BB theory opponent Fred Hoyle to give some sort of catchy name in a radio broadcast. The Higgs particle is often referred to as "the God particle" in mainstream media. By your logic, this means that the Standard Model includes a god.

Again, you misunderstood me. First, a lack of belief is not a belief. Second, I dismiss those based on available evidence, just like I dismiss universal aether, flat earth, unicorns, and so on.

You should study the concept of null hypothesis. If there's no evidence for something, no matter how hard we look, the thing probably doesn't exist. Should there be evidence for a god or gods in the future, I'll reassess my view.

It's not my belief, I just acknowledge the possibility, and I'm sorry, but we can't.

Bullshit, at least in the given context. We can't prove any portion of string theory correct, just like we can't prove Big Bang to be correct. Don't get me wrong, string theory has some interesting math, but it's not factual. If there is no fact, there is no possible way to have a testable prediction.

Of course there is a way to make testable predictions starting from first principles. Einstein did this (say, slowing down of clocks special relativity), BB theory did this (cosmic microwave background, for example, or abundance of light elements).

Yet, BB theory has made predictions that have been confirmed.

Perhaps you could at this point summarize your EV theory, as it's nothing I can recognize.

Well, you were talking about being biased on what is taught. So what should be taught then?

And they are, in the philosophy classes.

You are missing a lot of possibilities here. What if the universe (or multiverse, or whatever you wish to call it) has always existed, and our observable universe began from a phase change in that larger entity about 13.8 billion years ago? Or, we are are a 3+1-dimensional brane in a higher-dimensional multiverse?

Already wrong at this point. Say, an uranium atom decays just now. What made that happen at that precise moment? Nothing.

Why would those universes have to pop up within our universe? If our universe sprang up from something in a higher vacuum state dropping to its ground state, that could have happened many times, with the other universes being outside ours? Or, as scientists like Stephen Hawking have at some point surmised, what if our black holes give birth to other universes, which create their own space-times?

Not any philosophers I'm aware of. Perhaps you could provide some references.

No, I don't dismiss it. I dismiss any personal, interacting god. I dismiss any biblical and such creator gods, who create the universe in an already-evolved state. A creator who just pushes the button, so to speak, and ends the interaction there, is an option that must be considered possible. For example, if our universe is a computer simulation, the entity who started the simulation would qualify as such a creator. However, I find this option rather disinteresting. How would you show that this is what really happened? I don't see a way, and we'll be stuck in a situation of "we don't know what happened". As long as science can hypothesize testable (at least in principle) theories of the beginning of the universe, that's the way to go.

You really are banging on your ignorance of the subject. Who are these "most cosmologists", who claim that the universe is about 15 bn years old, instead of 13.8 or thereabouts. The latest data by the Planck probe gives the age as 13.8 bn years, and that was a minor surprise to most cosmologists, as that's some 80 million years higher than our previous-best data indicated. Read all about it here: http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/03/21/what-the-entire-universe-is-made-of-thanks-to-planck/

Yes, details and parameters of a theory change, as first those are unknown, and only later determined in more and more precise measurements. You probably dismiss the theory of heliocentrism too, as the distance between the earth and the sun has been estimated to have different values over time. Or the theory of a spherical earth, as the ancient greeks got a different circumference value than what we measure now.

That's only an issue with theories that don't make (currently) testable predictions.

OK, so what alternative for BB theory should be taught? That there was a creator? What happened after the creation?

Oh, and I definitely didn't mean that string theory should be taught as dogma. Stupid typo on my part, the part should be "as with anything dealing with science, it *shouldn't* be taught as dogma".

Nope, you just didn't understand it.

It seems that you didn't.

Yes, it really seems that you didn't read the article. For example, steady state theory doesn't explain the CMB, which was observed well before the 80s.

Repeating your rubbish doesn't make it right. How about this: Go to your local university or look up their site for email contact info, find an astronomer or a cosmologist, and ask his/her view on this.

So you think that for example string theorists are/were labelled as creationists for proposing systems that would lead to a Big Bang?

How laughable can you get? Your evidence is two popular accounts of a scientific theory? And the "U of M" site has its latest reference from 1995, do you think that Wiki might have a bit more up-to-date info?

:D This one is a gem. Sure, like winning lottery is a 50/50 shot. You either win, or you don't.

Oops, you did it again. An explosion would require pre-existing space. The explosion description is only an analogy.

You seem to be very confused about what a theory means. I'll give you an analogy: At a time when we didn't have very exact measurements of the speed of light in vacuum, your absurd definition of a theory would mean that there's an infinity of Einsteinian theories of relativity. One has the speed of light value of 299 792 458 m/s, another 299 792 458.1 m/s. That's just plain rubbish. There's one special and one general theory of relativity, with the parameter values we have measured. Other parameter values are ruled out the measurements.

Show me where this was proven. And again, no-one using the abbreviation "EV" should tell you something.

WTF? I even gave you a link to what I think you mean by the U of M site. If it's not the correct, please provide an actual reference.

And while I'm not a cosmologist or an astronomer, I'd say I have a reasonable understanding of the BB theory and its history. Heck, reading about cosmology some 18 years ago was the main reason for me to start studying physics a few years later, and I still closely follow the area of research.

Please provide references. In secular countries the US, teaching religion in this sense in schools is already illegal. But I'd like you to show me where he demands that parents indoctrinating their children with a religion should be made illegal instead of it being morally wrong.

I'm not sure where you got this part, but for once, you are right. Teaching critical thinking is not indoctrination, though.

You are missing the part about teaching them to believe and not question a fairy tale.

Rubbish. Telling children that a fairy tale is true is not comparable to presenting the current scientific knowledge.

Religion is not a theory, it's fantasy.

Well, String Theories have at least some hope of being correct. But, as with anything dealing with science, it should be taught as dogma. You are once again building a straw man, as I've nowhere demanded punishing parents for teaching religious rubbish to their children.

Stalin condemned a big lot of non-religious communists to death, too, while there remained persons in the USSR who were not condemned to death. To blame atheism for the acts done in building up a person cult and a dictatorship is ignorance of historical facts.

While I sort of agree with you (bad people would do bad things with or without religion, and so on), what's your apologist explanation for the wreck that Catholicism has given us in the AIDS situation in Africa?

Yet again, your reading comprehension fails you. The analogy was never about giving children heroin.

I did not miss it, and it's still not rational or logical, at least as long as your creator has any religious context. To believe in someone pressing the button to start our universe is a position that can't be disproved, but the evidence we have is very much against an omniscient and -potent being.

OK, how did you come to your conclusion? What evidence did you use to get there.

Well, that's what religions do. Be gay and want to get married in my country, tough luck, you are a pervert and will go to hell. And that's because the Christians say so.

There were several factual errors, starting from your revisionist claims of BB theory, which I showed wrong. Buy the G. Gamow's book I mentioned, or better yet, find Gamow's BB nucleosynthesis article from 1948 (that's before event there was the rather misleading name "Big Bang theory").

Well, pretty much so. Show me the evidence for your argument, which have absolutely refused to do.

Krauss bases his view on what we can observe (in the scientific sense, in a repeatable way), and speculates on what we can possibly extrapolate from that data. Any religious view can't do that. And yet, the scientific views like Krauss's doesn't say you *must* believe like me, it's rather that you should look at the evidence (or lack of it) we have, and draw your own conclusions, not cram it down your children's throats.

Again, show me where he requires punishment for that. You don't say what your *prime question* is, but I'd guess it has something to do with the beginning of the universe, and Krauss along with others is actually helping a new generation or two to get some handle in perhaps digging into those issues.

Common misunderstanding in these issues, in your part, that is. If I abuse my children by calling them bastards every now and them, while otherwise keeping good care of them, it's not a punishable offence. You just don't want understand underlying issues that may affect the development of a child if he, say, has to always be afraid of going to hell if he does one bad thing.

Did you decide that someone believing that there is a creator is as harmful to society as feeding a child heroin.

And you didn't get it. In the example, I would be just expressing my opinion that heroin is good for you, not feeding or injecting anyone with heroin.

Where did I do that?

Where did Hitler go? Oh, he was shown to have deep religious connections. I'd guess Stalin is the next one to drop off the list with his religious training... Where is the Pope on your list? The body count in Africa is getting pretty good with the prevention of condom usage. Or the Christian God, the worst murderer of all times (at least for the Christians): He invented death.
 

I have no idea of how we got from your atheist bashing and BB theory misconceptions to this point, but very well... Would you endorse an establishment that systematically protects pedophiles? The Catholic Church did, and there's good documentation that the just-retired Pope Ratzi did. These abuse cases have been going on for years and years now. If a system is rotten at the top, why do even bring in the congregations? And sadly, even congregations did want the cases hidden, but I'll let you Google for that. Or.. (I'll loan your next line) Hell no. The congregation, consisting partly of the parents of the abused children, at least created a culture of silence, where the abused couldn't speak out about the abuse. I'll let you Google that.

On the base level of this discussion, I'm asking you to justify that. There is no sign of a creator, so why believing one is rational and logical. And, where did that creator come from?

How did you come to the "answer" of a creator? There is no evidence for it, and, as far as any creators as the religions describe them, our available data rather outrules them. Indoctrinating your child with, say, the Christian creation story is wrong, if it prevents him from understanding scientific theories like the theory of evolution.

To do what? To make speeches? If you think that they are preaching instead of presenting the current scientific theories, perhaps with their own pet hypotheses, you are just plain wrong.

And still no acknowledgements of the factual errors you have presented...

Provide quotation for the requirement of jailing the parents. Saying that religious indoctrination is a form of child abuse doesn't mean claiming that the parents should be jailed for that.

That does not follow at all. The laws in my country say that hard drugs like heroin are illegal, and I wouldn't be a criminal by determining that hard drugs are necessary for people.

OK, please show where this happens in science and atheism. It's pure rubbish, even Krauss, who you so eager to put down, has published a book that clearly establishes the fact that we don't know what happened at the beginning or even if there really was a beginning per se at all, and then goes on to present some of his views on the subject.

You nicely ignore the points showing that you are factually wrong.

Why don't you quote what you actually claimed? Krauss does not say that we are 100 % certain that there isn't a creator and so on, he says that a) we can build hypotheses that don't require a creator, and b) we have no evidence of such an entity. Thus a creator is an unlikely hypothesis.

It's not an ad hominem when the religion's (Christianity I'd guess) holy book exactly describes a bully god. It's not an ad hominem to attack an idea.

People pay public speakers, was that news to you? And drop the "EV" junk.

Science by definition doesn't recognize anything supernatural, including gods.

Well, can you show some scientific work and results done by creationists? The ID folk have tried and tried, and nothing has come out of it. Rubbish like irreducible complexity has been presented, and shown wrong.

There's plenty of private parties like the Templeton Foundation with money to spare on non-scientific studies.

Well, I'm a physicist (in a different field), and I don't think that anyone I know who's working in a related area would agree with you. Why don't you present some of those competing theories that have passed peer review?

That your source doesn't recognize your "EV" should tell you something. Googling for "U of M big bang" produces this: http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/bigbang.htm There's nothing to support your claims there. If you are talking about some other site, please give the reference.

Where? What ball of mass? And what's a "massive publication"? There are always fringe hypotheses that may even get published in decent journals, but data is what sorts the incorrect ones out (see below).

Read up on the research. The Planck probe gives our best estimate for the age of the universe at 13.8 billion years, and Planck is working at a resolution level that won't get better by improving the detection system. Anything claiming the age to be much more than that is excluded by the data, unless a non-BB universe is proposed too.

I have to say I got a laugh out of this. Bundling math with science in terms of theories is ridiculous; unlike science, in math you have proofs.

Sorry, messed up the last quote.

You simply don't know what you are talking about here. For example, George Gamow describes the essentials of current Big Bang theory in his textbook The Creation of the Universe, written in semi-popular style in 1952, only 3 years after the term Big Bang was coined. The book doesn't include inflation, which came later to explain the smoothness of the high-energy state, and it has some specific details wrong, like the estimate for the CMB temperature is an order of magnitude too high, as at the time the estimate for the age of the universe was an order of magnitude low, and the two are inversely proportional.

Google finds zero hits for that quote. I know Lawrence Krauss, and I even own some of his books. The context is important here; so what if a physicist doesn't want to speculate about multiverse and eternal inflation scenarios to answer questions that we don't know answers for, possibly in some popular interview, and instead answer with a flippant remark? What he says is: "I don't know, but we have some hypotheses that don't require the God of the Old Testament to create the universe."

Who are paid to claim those things? The vocal atheists are saying that in light of the evidence (or lack of it), it seems very unlikely that there is a god or gods, and that we have a framework which does a god job in explaining what we see about our universe at the moment.

You already go wrong here. For example virtual particles just "happen", without anything in particular making them appear at this particular moment.

These questions show that you know very little about the Big Bang (BB) theories. First one: There was no ball of mass. The current prevailing inflationary BB theories suggest that after a period of exponential expansion, the observable universe was formed from the energy released from the inflation field in a phase change, giving rise to a high energy state. Second question is basically just a rephrasing of the first one.

Rubbish. Produce the exact quote in context.

Again, rubbish. The scientific position is that as we have no theory extending to the beginning of our universe, the question is unanswerable. If there is some sort of a specific beginning or a cause, it could be eternal inflation, a guy starting up his computer universe simulator, or Odin. We have no way of differentiating between those options.

No. Anyone asking the question *within BB theory* is ignorant of the theory, in the same way that someone asking about the origin of life on Earth with the theory of evolution is ignorant of the theory.

The rest of your post is just you banging on your straw man.

After the announcement, Nokia stock price has gone down 15 % from yesterday's closing value at OMX Helsinki. So, not the kind of announcement the market was expecting, it seems.