Make no mistake, the Big Bang is unpopular in many quarters and an exterminator has long been sought. Here’s the problem: The explanation for an event may be outside the event. In that case, one can’t derive an explanation from within the event.
Tag: Ethan Siegel
Ethan Siegel enumerates what we might find, re life on Mars
Siegel: It’s the ultimate nightmare of astrobiologists: that there’s a fascinating history of life to uncover on another world, but we’ll contaminate it with our own organisms before we ever learn the true history of life on that world.
Claim: Physics erases the beginning of the universe
We don’t doubt that 2 + 2 = 4 can be dissolved in like manner, as long as the needed incentive is present. And it’s no secret that a great many cosmologists hate the Big Bang for philosophical reasons.
The ultimate confidence trick in science
As played by astrophysicist and Forbes columnist Ethan Siegel here and dissected at The Stream.
Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel offers to explain how the universe made us
The proponents of chance origins tend to make it look less likely all the time.
At Forbes: Claim that Stephen Hawking “lied” about black holes
Can’t help but make one wonder how much else in popular science literature is wrong but sells books.
At Forbes: Alien civilizations get a hearing
Science is about discoveries, not speculative games. Forbes’s Siegel seems to agree. Hey, deal, guys: Find us fossil bacteria on Mars and we’ll think it’s science. Talk about space aliens and …
At Forbes: Is there now evidence for a parallel universe?
Some scientists are claiming so, based on an odd finding from Antarctica. Ethan Siegel isn’t isn’t taking the bait.
At Forbes: The Universe is not purely mathematical
Maybe a universe that was completely explainable and provable couldn’t exist.
At Forbes: Wolfram’s new theory “isn’t even science” yet. But wait…
We can tell what’s wrong with science today when we try to take Siegel’s dead-serious explanation of what he thinks a theory in science is and apply it to: Darwinian evolution theory
A symmetry the universe “must never violate”?
Sounds like a designed system all right. Too bad that’s a problem for many physicists.
String theory as both “dream” and “nightmare”
Ethan Siegel has a genius for encapsulating what is wrong in science today.
Forbes’ physics columnist Ethan Siegel can’t wait to get beyond the Big Bang
But doesn’t seem to have a ticket. So a mechanism that caused the Universe to come into existence with these properties already in place? But then what caused that mechanism? If a mechanism caused that mechanism, what in turn caused the previous mechanism? Siegel obviously wants to get past the idea of an actual beginning but orthodox science does not seem to allow that. Some religious propositions might suffice, of course, but he does not want to go there. Advice from readers?
Ethan Siegel warns us against five myths about the Big Bang
Siegel doesn’t really explain why we can be sure that space, time, and the laws of physics preexisted the Big Bang; the idea that they pre-existed has the effect of untethering them from the tiresome demand for evidence. But might that be part of the charm of the idea?
Ethan Siegel asks at Forbes, Did God create the universe?
Siegel makes an interesting comparison with, say, Sabine Hossenfelder. He does great graphics but to say that he is not a deep thinker is to shower him with imprudent praise. By contrast, we go on listening to Hossenfelder with great interest, whether the graphics are good or not.