Big Bang - The greatest fairy tale ever told

http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/hans-jelbring-big-bang-bicep-flexes-its-muscle/
There is freedom of choosing religion in our country so there is no problem what you or I believe. On the other hand there is a problem when scientists mix facts supported by evidence and laws of nature with fantasy, unfounded hypotheses and faith.

There is no qualitative difference being a creationist believing that earth and our galaxy was created 6000 years ago or believing that the universe was created from a small cosmic egg 14 billion years ago. From where did this egg originate and what existed before that?

There must have been something more (or rather, less) than a nuclear bomb within it since at that point not even matter are believed to has existed. None of these beliefs are or can be supported by scientific methods or verified experience. Hence, it cannot be classified as science.

Many years ago a saw a "scientific" 600 page book in a book store. It claimed to tell what happened in the first MINUTE after Big Bang. It was loaded with formulae and unverified hypotheses.  Evidently the author was religious or crazy.

Well, there is a difference between believing that the universe rapidly expanded following the Big Bang and a young Earth theory: one is supported by converging lines of evidence, consistent with our empirical observations of the universe; the other is not and rests largely upon blind faith. Whether or not the Big Bang is a flawed cosmological model remains an open question, in my view, but it is presently the most supported scientific theory of the early universe, although it is subject to change should new scientific discoveries and insights demand a reevaluation of cosmological origins.

While I am also rather displeased with the model building that prevails in much of theoretical physics and cosmology (and the science of capitalist societies in general), you seem to misunderstand the actual process involved. Big Bang theory is not the product of unverified hypotheses and arbitrary speculation; instead, it was conceived when cosmological observations (such as the discovery that the universe is not static but inflating at a blistering pace) were extrapolated backward with the aid of well-established theories like general relativity. This allowed physicists to develop a mathematical description of the processes involved. Obviously, nobody was present at the inception of the universe, nor could anyone have been, but using the mathematical model they developed, informed by existing empirical evidence and vetted theories, scientists arrived at certain conclusions regarding the properties and conditions of the early cosmos, from the initial moments of the explosion to the superheated primordial dust that constituted early matter and beyond. You will agree that this is an altogether different approach to cosmological inquiry than accepting the literal interpretation of ancient spiritual texts on faith alone, no?

There are numerous outstanding problems in physics, but that is not to say that physicists operate on religious devotion to "unfounded hypotheses." For example, I believe quantum theory exists as a conundrum for theoretical physics, serving mostly as a placeholder from a time when various experiments demonstrated the inadequacy of classical physics, particularly Newtonian mechanics, to explain physical phenomena at the subatomic level, and it will almost certainly require a reinterpretation in the future if physics should ever arrive at a consistent, cohesive model of universal processes, but quantum mechanics has proven to possess significant predictive success. Like Einstein, I have a difficult time accepting some of the more counter-intuitive aspects of quantum theory ("God does not play dice with the universe"—metaphorically, of course), and the rift that currently exists between physics on a macroscopic and microscopic scale strikes me as rather artificial, a human improvisation stemming from the limitations of the dominant theories of knowledge. Time will tell; unscientific pronouncements will not.

Rev Scare wrote:Well, there is a difference between believing that the universe rapidly expanded following the Big Bang and a young Earth theory: one is supported by converging lines of evidence, consistent with our empirical observations of the universe; the other is not and rests largely upon blind faith. Whether or not the Big Bang is a flawed cosmological model remains an open question, in my view, but it is presently the most supported scientific theory of the early universe, although it is subject to change should new scientific discoveries and insights demand a reevaluation of cosmological origins.

There are alternative theories to the Big Bang which are equally supported by the data, but they do not recieve the same amount of attention because Big Bang is state religion.  Faith is what you do after (or before) you have the data, and it's what the big bang and it's massive promotion is.
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/apr/25-3-theories-that-might-blow-up-the-big-bang

Rev Scare wrote:
Big Bang theory is not the product of unverified hypotheses and arbitrary speculation

That is exactly what it is.  It is a full cosmology invented by human minds without correspondingly full data.
The data says that background radiation radiates outward.  It does not say that the universe exploded from an egg.  The Sun also radiates outward, but it did not explode from an infinitely small egg, "by extrapolating backward.", which I suppose is what one might one might do if one were a stuck in a cave making assumptions about shadows.

Rev Scare wrote:
it was conceived when cosmological observations (such as the discovery that the universe is not static but inflating at a blistering pace) were extrapolated backward with the aid of well-established theories like general relativity.

The word extrapolated is key here, and it is also the only word in it relevant to science.

Rev Scare wrote:
There are numerous outstanding problems in physics, but that is not to say that physicists operate on religious devotion to "unfounded hypotheses."

No, but many of them operate with religious devotion to favoured theories.  Many of these are essentially "religious atheists," who at one time supported Newtonism against Quantum Mechanics with as much zeal as any other fanatic.
http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallacies/19-appeal-to-accomplishment

I am not interested in debating the merits of Big Bang theory compared to competing scientific explanations of the universe's origin. My intent was to challenge your assertion that there is no qualitative difference between accepting Big Bang theory as a cosmological origins model and a belief in Young Earth creationism, and I succeeded. A failure to incorporate new theories is not necessarily an indication of some grand conspiracy in science to suppress them or a zealous devotion to antiquated ideas, and unlike the social sciences, where class interests play an obvious role, the natural sciences are less controversial (biology being a notable exception).

I do not quite understand what you mean by "correspondingly full data," nor do I see the relevance in your reference to Plato's allegory of the cave. Big Bang theory is strongly supported by the evidence. I am also unsure what the meaning of "the data says that background radiation radiates outward" happens to be. If you are indicating cosmic microwave background radiation, its presence is typically considered a resounding confirmation of the Big Bang, as its spectrum is closer to a black body than anything in the observable universe (save black holes, perhaps), and it does not radiate outward (if anything, it radiates inward). The vast majority of the scientific community considers the CMB incontestable proof that the universe experienced an extremely hot, dense, and uniform phase, accounted for by the Big Bang.

With that out of the way, I find it amusing that the three alternative theories presented in the article are no less difficult to verify experimentally than the standard picture offered by Big Bang theory. The first theory presented relies upon concepts from string theory, and one would be exceedingly hard-pressed to test the real life implications of that particular theoretical framework. The other two seem to draw on idealist reinterpretations of time, but I digress.

Rev Scare wrote:I am not interested in debating the merits of Big Bang theory compared to competing scientific explanations of the universe's origin. My intent was to challenge your assertion that there is no qualitative difference between accepting Big Bang theory as a cosmological origins model and a belief in Young Earth creationism, and I succeeded.

14 billion or so is slightly longer than 6000 years.  You may consider that qualitatively different if it suits you, by  grasping onto a particular phenomena, red shift, and "deducing" across the vastness of space.  Perhaps you will extrapolate backward from your lack of unified field theory.  Actually though, none of the math requires the existence of time.

Rev Scare wrote:
Big Bang theory is strongly supported by the evidence.

No more than a number of other alternative theories, the ones mentioned in the article being only an example.
Even if there weren't any other alternative theories, that would not be a reason to go on about your business like it's reality.  That's not how the scientific method works, and the lack of alternatives would not indicate anything except for a lack of imagination, perhaps.  

Even the scientific method only deduces hypothesis - not reality, as is often promoted by the state.  But the Big Bang theory is not tested by the scientific method, and is not otherwise verified.  Once verified, you would have a very fine model.  

And the Big Bang is a very fine model if you don't look at it's being "deduced" out of scant evidence (red shift) and without any kind of unified physics theory.  They are putting their hands very far up their asses to pull out this one, fourteen billion years in time, when they cannot currently explain time, except to say that in all probability it does not exist. That's right, the universe is fourteen billion years old - and by the way we don't know what years are, except to say that earth goes around sun this many times, or given intervals of atomic vibration.

Rev Scare wrote:The vast majority of the scientific community considers the CMB incontestable proof that the universe experienced an extremely hot, dense, and uniform phase, accounted for by the Big Bang.

I really don't care what the majority says on the definition of fact.  The statements of a majority don't grant an excuse to pass off a theory as fact.  A "hot, dense, uniform phase" is accounted for by the Big Bang in one particular theory.  There are also other theories which make equal use of evidence.  

String Theory is an example of theory which does not make ample use of evidence, not being testable at this time, but thought highly of because of mathematical, internal consistency.  Fortunately they do not try with as much fervor to pass that one off as fact.  It's more of a hobby that they get paid for so that they don't try and do something useful instead.

Rev Scare wrote:With that out of the way, I find it amusing that the three alternative theories presented in the article are no less difficult to verify experimentally than the standard picture offered by Big Bang theory.

But you happen to prefer the Big Bang theory, because it is "standard" or "considered incontestable by the vast majority of the scientific community..."