PSI Blog 20211025
Impossibility of falsifying myths
Abhishek
Chakravartty asks:
“You wrote that
creation is not subject to falsification because it is a myth that belongs to a
religious belief system. Can you explain why creation cannot be falsified
although it is a myth?”
[GB: Abhi: Please
reread the Galston link. In summary, myths are present in the heads of people.
We have no way of testing them. Falsification is possible only for evaluating
things and motions that exist or occur outside people’s heads. Anyone can claim
the universe was created by gods, dogs, turtles, dark energy, or what have you.
On the other hand, specific claims about actually existing things (i.e., xyz
portions of the universe) can be tested. For instance, there are claims that
the universe was created 6,000 years ago. If we found anything older than that,
the claim would be falsified (i.e., shown to be false). I have done that myself
hundreds of times through isotope dating and pedochronology. While that claim
has been put to bed, there could be an endless number of creation claims. We
could never test all of them in the same way we could never prove “there are
causes for all effects.” In essence, infinity prevents us from
falsifying fundamental assumptions, whether they be scientific or religious.
The Big Bang Theory is
just another creation theory, which like more overtly religious versions of the creation
myth, cannot be falsified. Only specific claims for it can be falsified. For
instance, the discovery of elderly galaxies at the limits of observation falsifies the
hypothesized 13.8-billion-year age of the universe. Unbelievers have discovered
much more evidence for falsification. George Coyne alone lists 66 flaws in the
theory.[1]
Will any one of these bring down the Big Bang Theory? That is doubtful as long
as the religious assumption of creation (Matter and motion can be
created out of nothing) holds sway over its opposite, the scientific assumption
of conservation
(Matter and the motion of matter can be neither created
nor destroyed).[2]]
[1] Coyne,
George, 2021, Notfinity Process: Matter in Motion (2nd ed.), JCNPS, 408 p.