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comment by thundara
thundara  ·  4348 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Underselling Science

    Scientists aren’t “working on it”, they have pretty much figured out most of it.

Definitely not. This explanation merely begets the questions: Where did the matter for the big bang come from? What was the universe like before its expansion? How long did it exist that way?

None of which we have the answers for, and all of which might potentially hide a scope / timeline of the universe far larger than what we currently have theories to explain.





theadvancedapes  ·  4348 days ago  ·  link  ·  

My point was that the narrative of our origins is well developed. At the beginning of the 20th century we did not know who are closest relatives were, we did not know what continent humans originated from, we did not know how long life had been evolving on Earth. We also had little understanding of how our solar system formed, how old the Universe was, how the Universe began, etc. There is a long history in science of us discovering more and more things about our origins. Consequently, the god of the gaps argument evoked by many religious people that say "well you can't tell me anything before the Big Bang, therefore God" is an intellectually untenable position. It is likely that by the end of the 21st century we will have a complete understanding of many things that are currently mysteries. By saying that scientists are "working on it" is dramatically understating the current state of scientific knowledge.