Social Question
As a scientific theory, how good is the God Model?
I am not asking what does it agree with that was known when it was put forward, rather what has since been found through application of it?
We can’t delve into this without some common definition of what a Scientific Theory (or Model) ought to be. For purposes of this question, I am using Theory to mean a model we develop in our minds to explain things we observe. That model must be useful in describing observations of the physical universe or some subset of it. It’s a good model to the degree that it accurately predicts additional observed data about the thing/s it is intended to explain; and to the degree that it does not rely on a large number or arbitrary assumptions.
For instance, a Greek philosopher and scientist, named Aristotle developed a model of the elements. He theorized that all matter is composed of just four basic elements, Earth, Wind, Water and Fire. A competing Atomic Theory was developed from work done toward the end of the 18th century by Frenchmen Antoine Lavoisier and Joseph Louis Proust and later expanded by English chemist, John Dalton. With this work, Russian Dmitri Mendeleev was able to construct the now famous Periodic Table of the Elements.
If you accept Aristotle’s model, you can easily look at things like the Sun (fire) and rocks (mostly earth) and say, “Yes, the model is sound.” But what can you predict that hasn’t already been observed, and then go test and find it agrees with Aristotle’s 4-element theory? The 4-Element Theory didn’t predict anything new. The Atomic Theory of the composition of matter has, on the other hand, predicted the existence of a slew of additional elements that were, at the time of its first development, unknown. Likewise, it has predicted how elements can combine to form compounds that were previously unknown. In millions of trials its predictions have proved to match experimental data. So while it is perhaps imperfect, Atomic Theory is a far better model of reality than 4-Element Theory.
Another example—Egyptian mathematician, astronomer, geographer and astrologer Ptolemy developed a Theory of the Universe that said the earth sits stationary at the center of the universe, and is surrounded by a series of 8 nested spheres. The Sun and the 5 known planets (those visible without a telescope). He believed that Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn all orbited the earth rotating in “epicycles: around these concentric spheres, and that the outer sphere carried all the stars and rotated slowly around the earth. The early Catholic Church liked this theory because it made man (God’s crowning creation) the center of the universe, it agreed with certain passages in the Bible, and it left room for Heaven and Hell beyond the outer sphere.
Ptolemy’s Model did predict the position of the planets he knew of rather accurately. The only major flaw it suffered visible to the naked eye was the motion of the moon around the Earth. Ptolemy chose to lay that aside. It was not until the invention of the telescope and the discovery of additional planets with moons orbiting some that Ptolemy’s model proved out to be deeply out of agreement with observed data.
Copernicus, Galileo and finally Newton improved on our Model of the Solar System. The Galilean Heliocentric Model coupled with Newton’s Theory of Gravity and his description of bodies in motion provided a tool with very accurate predictive power. All the planets followed it closely, except that Newtonian physics is just a tiny bit off for the actual observed orbit of Mercury, It was not till Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity that we found a model that even got the orbit of Mercury exactly right.
So with that understanding of predictive power and the falsifiability of predictions, how does the God Model stand up to the Big Bang Model of cosmology today?
Composing members:
0
21 Answers
