Comment by afroboy

Science is a process, not a source of truth. It has a very practical lens, which is very utilitarian, does the knowledge and models allow for invention or prediction that works in our reality for some current need.

The assumption is, you never really know, but if the model in which the theory says X, is able to predict something in the future or some experiment for Y, than that model appears to better approximate reality. Or is that knowledge and model allowing us to now do something we could not before, etc.

Over time, it course corrects to improve its knowledge and models in ways that show better results for prediction or invention.

"Proving anything" is kind of fuzzy. We've got very solid evidence that some sort of big bang happened. We can see the galaxies flying away from a common point, and since we can count backwards, we can know roughly when they probably would've been in the same spot. The how and why, and the what happened before, those are very unknown, although we've got a surprising amount of knowledge of what the first few seconds were probably like.

It's not about belief, it's about observing, collecting data & evidence, and proposing possible explanations. As new observations and evidence are found the possible explanations are refined. No one credible is claiming hard proof of anything at this point.

Before we can prove, we must first wonder. We proceed by small steps, and if we don't start discussing it now, 2600 will still be too early.

Belief is acting as if something, for which no evidence has been given, is true. Imagination, taken too far. No one is telling you to believe anything here, they're suggesting we search for clues to support or disprove a theory. Or don't, it's up to you.

I think the phrase 'believe in science' is weird; it's nearly as problematic as "I have faith in science".

It can be, but generally the concept of 'belief' isn't attributed to ground truths; it's just 'the truth', you rarely hear the phrase "I believe 2 and 2 is 4." , it's just '2 and 2 is 4.' -- I think that's important.

In fact, a lot of people insert the word 'believe' to insert a concept of self-doubt. "What was our last test results passing rate?" "I believe it was around 95 percent.."

But semantics aside here's the real question : Why do you have some kind of notion that you should 'believe' anything without being able to understand it? Just trust in the world and those around you?

We haven't figured origin yet, so let's get off that, but when a scientist of some sort makes a discovery, they release evidence and methods , and you decide to believe the conclusions without an understanding of the work -- well that's just a display of faith. Faith in the scientist themselves, the system they work within, and the society you're in.

Which leads me to say this : If you make an effort to begin to understand the frameworks and systems which lead to scientific conclusions you can largely remove the faith and belief elements up until you hit the very highest spectrums of each field where speculation comes back into play.

tl;dr : if you 'cant understand a shit', you don't put any leg-work in and make an effort to speak the language, you'll probably end back up in beliefs rather than an ever increasing codex of knowledge -- regardless of the field. That's okay -- but it doesn't offer the same benefits as knowledge -- it just lets one say things like "I don't believe in any theory..."

I have immense respect for astrophysicists, but the data we're dealing with is extremely far away and relies on a lot of interlocking assumptions.

I stumbled upon this paper [1, 2] last night that challenges the CMB, and thus the underpinning of much of our understanding about the age and evolution of the universe. As a layperson, I don't know the impact factor of the "Nuclear Physics B" journal - if this is just junk or if this is a claim that will pan out.

My point is that it feels like we're building on a lot of observations that are all super indirect. I know I'm just a layperson, but that feels weird when reading assertions about these things.

Our understanding of the universe is relatively new. We don't have a lot of energy or resolution in our observations. The fact that we can sniff the molecular spectra of exoplanets is so amazing and that part feels totally concrete and rock-solid. But I get skeptical when I see claims that we know how the universe began or how it will end. Is our evidence that good? Are our models? Are we basing everything on assumptions?

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.04687

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb69yPNgX-Q

You don't believe in science, you believe in a metaphysical claim about science that you haven't articulated.

But that's why science is so cool, it doesn't matter what we believe, it only matters if your theory fits the facts and makes good predictions. If it doesn't, you can chuck it in the bin without guilt. Unlike beliefs, which often can cause psychic trauma if reality doesn't match the belief of the individual.

If we can't even predict inflation rates maybe we should hold off on explaining the birth of the entire universe, yeah?