Poemranker [Replying] Sat May 18 17:29:16 PDT 2024

Replying to a comment on:

The Battle of Fort Bragg (Free verse) by Dovina

I used to stand on grassy bluff of Fort Braggâs ragged coast, observing the battlefield belowâ angry water versus steadfast land. Being young and full of motion, I sided with the sea. Attack was always quenched back then by strength of solid rock. Still I cheered the young and angry sea, and still it pounded. After many battles passed, some broken rocks, a lot of motion, I came again to grassy bluff, and looked from different view. Now memory moved, met solid desire, armies under different flags. Where before the rock was winning, the sea was breaking through. Gentle rolls still swelled in shallows near the shore, then toppled hard against the cliff. Resistance waned in longer view, Some rocks had slid away. Memory kept rolling in, breaking stone, dissolving need, taking it off in painful bits to spread beneath the sea.

ecargo

10-Apr-06/7:55 AM

Pardon me for butting in (oh, fuck it--it's a public board), but the two aren't remotely the same. The Big Bang isn't a concept that relies entirely on faith, you know. If you can apply our agreed-upon scientific method to the phenomenon of an apple appearing from nowhere with verifiable results, I wouldn't laugh (well, maybe with delight) and neither would the scientific community. That would take (following description borrowed from http://teacher.pas.rochester.edu/phy_labs/AppendixE/AppendixE.html):

>>1. Observation and description of the phenomenon.

2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.

3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.

4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.

If the experiments bear out the hypothesis it may come to be regarded as a theory or law of nature. If the experiments do not bear out the hypothesis, it must be rejected or modified. What is key in the description of the scientific method just given is the predictive power (the ability to get more out of the theory than you put in; see Barrow, 1991) of the hypothesis or theory, as tested by experiment. *It is often said in science that theories can never be proved, only disproved.* (my emphasis) There is always the possibility that a new observation or a new experiment will conflict with a long-standing theory.<<

The Big Bang is a theory supported by the application of the scientific method. As time goes on, we continue to learn things that support that theory. To compare the Big Bang to some unverifiable magical happening (such as that out-of-nowhere apple) ignores the definition of a "theory."

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