The Big Bang Hang-Up

I saw an article this morning about a new telescope that is supposed to aid in our understanding of the “Big Bang” theory. You can read it here.

As an official scientific community armchair quarterback, I can honestly wonder to myself out loud “who gives a rat’s ass?” Our focus shouldn’t be on something that you are never going to solve in your lifetime. As a scientist, I think your focus should be on the here and now.

You are never going to understand the origins of something that you are completely removed from. The example I would use is someone who decides that he wants to clear a bunch of land on his farm. Cows are displaced. Will they ever know why? No. No they will not.

Why? You ask. Let’s assume for a moment that the cow has a mind of its own and can think rationally. Some dude in the next state over who happens to own the farm decided one day that he wanted to clear that particular patch of land. Is the reasoning cow ever going to know why he was displaced? Probably not.

The cow isn’t even near the source of information that might tell him why he was moved.

In the case of the “Big Bang” theory, we aren’t anywhere near anything that could help us figure out that level of detail. We would need to collect samples from other regions of the universe and so forth. We can’t do that.