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Cosmology's standard model: is science becoming a "belief"?
I recently made a partially tongue-in-cheek remark on this board about cosmology being a bit like religion. I thought, being April Fool's day, that I might get away with a provocative post. However, it appears that others did not share my sense of humour and it was removed.
I am not the first person to ask the question, however. So I will ask it in a slightly less provocative matter and see what happens.
Religion is based, at least in part, on a belief in the truth of a theory that cannot be falsified by evidence.
The standard model of cosmology is based on a belief in the truth of a theory that dark matter and dark energy exist and that this drives the expansion of space and the increasing rate of recession of the galaxies. However, all attempts to detect dark matter and dark energy have been proven unsuccessful. Yet cosmologists maintain that the theory is correct and that, perhaps, dark matter and dark energy are undetectable in this universe.
If, in fact, dark matter and dark energy are inherently undetectable in our universe, any theory based on the existence of such phenomena cannot be falsified. Since the basis of all science is the falsifiability of theory, how, then, would a belief in the standard model of cosmology differ fundamentally from a religious belief?
AM
I recently made a partially tongue-in-cheek remark on this board about cosmology being a bit like religion. I thought, being April Fool's day, that I might get away with a provocative post. However, it appears that others did not share my sense of humour and it was removed.
I am not the first person to ask the question, however. So I will ask it in a slightly less provocative matter and see what happens.
Religion is based, at least in part, on a belief in the truth of a theory that cannot be falsified by evidence.
The standard model of cosmology is based on a belief in the truth of a theory that dark matter and dark energy exist and that this drives the expansion of space and the increasing rate of recession of the galaxies. However, all attempts to detect dark matter and dark energy have been proven unsuccessful. Yet cosmologists maintain that the theory is correct and that, perhaps, dark matter and dark energy are undetectable in this universe.
If, in fact, dark matter and dark energy are inherently undetectable in our universe, any theory based on the existence of such phenomena cannot be falsified. Since the basis of all science is the falsifiability of theory, how, then, would a belief in the standard model of cosmology differ fundamentally from a religious belief?
AM