CLEARLY you are *not* the go-to guy to ask about how the process and method of science function! LOL!
(Would be like asking Fido to explain how the morning comes, I guess....)
Hint: FIRST you start with *hypothesis* (the losest level of 'theory'), THEN you proceed to experimental testing to see if there is any supporting evidence for your hypothesis, NEXT (if there was supporting evidence) you have *other people* independently perform and reperform the testing to see if if is reliable, if results can be replicated, (and, THROUGHOUT this entire process, one has LOTS and LOTS of criticism, complaints, charges, differing hypothesis put forward, examination of the experimental methods, etc.). Finally, assuming a consensus forms around the perceived validity of the hypothesis... then you have what scientists call a 'theory'.
EVEN THEN, it, (and all other theories), are always subjet to being over-turned by new and better theories, new evidence, new thinking.
At no point is unsubstantiated 'faith' a significant part of the process --- which is probably what's thrown you for a loop....
As far as the EXTREMELY LARGE questions of 'How did the Universe begin'... and 'Are there other Universes?', etc., there are *many* hypothesis out there at the moment, advanced by many different thinkers from many different fields... but, of course, no DIRECT EVIDENCE from the exact MOMENT of the Universe's forming (or from before that moment). :)
And, although I would NOT expect a definitive answer to these enormous questions anytime SOON (LOL!), I do have a personal favorite hypothesis, emerging from the field of string theory... and that is that lower dimension 'Universes' are spawned periodicly from the slapping together of the 'branes' (membranes) at the edges of higher dimensional realities.
Although, I would not expect anything but mathematical 'proofs' suggesting or arguing against, such a hypothesis --- for a long, long time --- certainly no *experimental* evidence until and unless Man achieves the knowledge necessary to cause such a pocket Universe to be spawned in the lower dimensions. :)
(You will ALSO perhaps notice, that NOTHING in the theory above *precludes* the possibility that it was 'God' who slapped the branes together that brought our lower-dimensional Universe into existence.... NOTHING. And nothing says he won't do it again, or hasn't done it 'else where'.) |
