Quote:
Originally Posted by T@T
Look at the deep field pic, 13.2 billion years of light, look at the small dots (farthest galaxies or closer stars) and tell me because a small telescope in space built by man can only see this far that must be close to the end. Fact is, it's "silly" to live in a bubble.
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I don't think he's saying it's not silly to live in a bubble, he's saying it's silly to assume because the agreed upon age of the universe has changed since the time of the Bible that must mean it needs to change again. He admitted the consensus for the age of the universe may change again, and it may (it probably will, though my personal opinion is it won't be any sort of major revision), but it sounds to me more as if you just don't like the idea of the universe being 13.7 billion years old -- a gut feeling, maybe -- more than it being based on some type of actual sound evidence.
The fact is, science deals with models. Models being what
works. The Big Bang Theory along with Inflationary Cosmology
works. Scientists know the universe hasn't always existed in some timeless state because they see galaxies around us that only correspond with the age of our own -- they don't see young galaxies forming alongside the Milky Way, but they see them forming the further they look back. They know the universe hasn't always always existed (unless we want to start talking about bouncing branes and what not) because the night sky isn't lit up as bright as day. If the universe were truly timeless, star light from everywhere in the universe would have had an infinite amount of time to reach us. They know the universe isn't timeless because the CMB is too uniform -- there are no massive distortions in its temperature that would be evident with large bodies forming alongside it. Scientists
see the universe changing as they look back (phase transitions leading to the separation of the forces of nature, the Higgs!), and these changes, on the grand scale,
work with existing models that predict the universe to be in the vicinity of 13.75 billion years old. There are innumerable details, both big and small, that work out basically perfectly using the model currently subscribed to, and rely on very, very intricate matters of early universe physics that fit together just so. In my opinion, there are just too many of these details to think the right track isn't being followed.
There are, of course, details that don't work with the model and are still awaiting discovery. Scientists still don't know how spiral galaxies actually form, or the true effect supermassive blackholes have on star formation within galaxies, etc. However, I don't feel, and more importantly, the majority of established astrophycists and cosmologists don't feel, that these things threaten the overall framework (dark matter, of course, is always up for contention).