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Course: Big History Project > Unit 1
Lesson 4: Claim Testing | 1.3ACTIVITY: Claim Testing - The Big Bang
Purpose
Now that you are familiar with the four claim testers, you’ll think about how you can use those claim testers in relationship to various claims.
Process
Remember, we are presented with “claims” in everyday life. Your job in this activity is to evaluate the following claims:
- Scientists know the ingredients and Goldilocks Conditions that led to the Big Bang.
- The Universe was completely dark until the first stars lit up.
- Scientists can explain the history of the Universe from the instant of the Big Bang to the present.
- New astronomy tools enable scientists to test existing theories about the Universe and develop new theories.
Pick one of these claims and decide if you think it’s true or false. Then, decide which claim tester (intuition, evidence, logic, authority) helps support your assertion that it’s true or false.
For Further Discussion
In the Question Area below, do two things:
- Post your claim, whether you think the claim is true or false, and the claim tester that supports your assertion.
- Look at someone else’s posting and see if you can find additional claim testers to support that person’s assertion. Respond to their post with the claim tester you’ve found and a description of how it supports their assertion.
Want to join the conversation?
I'm taking the first claim: Scientists know the ingredients and Goldilocks Conditions that led to the Big Bang.
-I think the claim is false
-Evidence supports my assertion - in this case, it's because we have NO evidence of what came before the big bang!
(no one else has posted yet so i can't do the second part, but if you comment on mine i'll take a look at what you wrote!)(25 votes)- We don't know what was there before the Big Bang, scientist have no proof, no evidence to show us or tell us what was there before the Big Bang(6 votes)
I question the assertion that the universe was completely dark before the Big Bang. My intuition tells me that if space and time didn't exist before the big bang then neither would there be binary concepts like "light" and "dark" or "up" and "down". Those are properties of the universe that came out of the Big Bang and therefore couldn't be properties of the non-universe.(5 votes)
That assertion is actually not made. This is what is stated above: "The Universe was completely dark until the first stars lit up."(2 votes)
Scientists know the ingredients and Goldilocks Conditions that led to the Big Bang.
This claim is false.(3 votes)
New astronomy tools enable scientists to test existing theories about the Universe and develop new theories. True. Claim tester: Evidence(2 votes)- I choose "the Universe was completely dark until the first stars lit up" I think that this is false because I believe there was something before stars .(2 votes)
You're missing the point...(1 vote)
1. The Universe was completely dark until the first stars lit up.
False there was plasma before stars.(2 votes)
We know the Goldilocks conditions for the Big Bang.
(a) We don't know what existed before the Big Bang.
(b) None of the theories about what was there before have much evidence behind them.
(c) We don't know what is beyond the universe.
(d) The oldest thing we can detect is the cosmic microwave background.
This claim is false. We have no way of knowing at this point.(2 votes)
I'll go with the last one:
-- New astronomy tools enable scientists to test existing theories about the Universe and develop new theories.
Evaluation: Definitely true. We see examples of this all the time: In the 1500’s, Nicolaus Copernicus advanced the understanding of the solar system with his discovery of heliocentrism. This is a model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the sun, which is the center of the solar system.
In the 1600’s, Galileo improved on a new invention, the telescope, and used it to study the sun and planets.
Also, any new tools would help to improve theories since that’s pretty much exactly what they’re built for.
The claim tester that supports this would probably be evidence or logic. It could also be intuition, I suppose.(2 votes)
"Scientists know the ingredients and goldilocks conditions that led to the Big Bang"
False, we have no evidence for that to be true, we know nothing about what went on before the Big Bang.
"Scientists can explain the history of the universe from the instant of the Big Bang to the present."
I don't think so, we're bound to miss something or the other, we still don't know what dark matter is, thus we can't explain it.
"New astronomy tools enable scientists to test to test existing theories about the universe and develop new theories."
True, we're creating better tools every year, better telescopes let us see farther into the universe, allowing us to see new objects. Spacecraft is slowly increasing it's efficiency, allowing us to travel farther, etc.(2 votes)- We cannot declare a statement false if we don't have the evidence that this doesn't have evidence.(1 vote)
"New astronomy tools enable scientists to test existing theories about the Universe and develop new theories."
True, but those tools aren't the only ones that they use to test theories.(2 votes)