Science has embraced the phrase, “not even wrong” to apply to ideas so incredulous because they do not apply sound scientific reasoning. This of course can apply to any idea that has no basis in a factual description, is the basis of fiction, but never of rational argument.
Whilst I was in town this morning I over heard a soapbox preacher, expressing an idea that was “not even wrong”. He was invoking the God of the gaps to fill in where science can not currently provide an adequate description. This is a practice discredited by most modern forward thinking theologians as they realise that it reduces the belief in a deity to a mere straw man to be stood up against scientific argument. I'm not going to argue, the whys and wherefores that form an argument for a basis in belief. He has his beliefs and he is welcome to them however, but such people should realise when their arguments have no basis in fact I question his scientific diction, and not his conviction (I’m not arguing for or against the existence of God).
As without an adequate knowledge of the principals of science you can not hope to understand any advanced theory.
The biggest gap in modern scientific understanding, and the one which the soapbox preacher had decided to use was the old argument of what set off the big bang?
This is an interesting argument, and I would like to see the problem solved as much as anyone else, but I realise that you must have scientific understanding in order to explore these questions. Science is a language, which gives us our most accurate descriptions of the natural world that cannot easily be discredited (when fully understood). The preacher was asking, what created the matter before the big bang?
Now, for a lay person this may seem like a perfectly valid question to ask, but it is wrong for two reasons which I'll elaborate on in due course.
The first reason this question is wrong is that it assumes that time existed before the big bang, this is quite wrong as time began with the big bang its existence did not proceed it. The problem before our soap box philosopher is time is never defined in modern physics as a quantity on its own (since 1905 to be precise, so he’s had a lot of time to catch up), instead, it is seen as an intrinsic quality of space-time in which time to defines space and space defines time. Let me describe it in the form of other simple analogy if you consider the entire universe as a map then the territory is best described by a map containing all of space-time and mass- energy. All interactions and events that happen are represented on the map, studying the map it can be seen that at a large-scale the territory is best described by the theory of relativity and on a small-scale best described by quantum mechanics. This map has been studied in large detail at both scales (using telescopes and particle accelerators).
On a large scale, relativity, describes actions which have a cause and effect (the so-called arrow of time, past, present and future). In the very small, quantum world there is no such thing as cause and effect. Now if we imagine the map at the time of the big bang it’s folded up to an incredibly small-scale and all territories described on the map start to over lap. Now, although the descriptions of relativity and quantum mechanics work well at their given scales when they reduced to the scale of the singularity of the big bang (the Plank scale), their underlying rules break down and we need a new description of what's going on (which we currently don’t have). Part of the reason why this is so, is because we are used to seeing time as a linear progression (can you imagine a universe with out progression, movement and time?). With the creation of the universe however there is no definite beginning moment. In fact, the use of the word moment is quite incorrect here, instead of the universe starting at the specific moment in time it started at general moment in space-time (due of infinite curvature). That is to say that at the smallest scale of immeasurably dense energy, space and time is curved to such an effect that there is no progression of cause and effect at all. Of course all this is quite difficult to take on board and picture in action and no one really understands the full implications of it.
The second reason why our friend on the soapbox is wrong is much easier too illustrate he talks about matter at the big bang, “where did the matter come from at the big bang?” he asks. Clearly, he expects us to have no answer as well; this is an easy one to answer. There was no matter at the time of the big bang as it was an energetic and none material event. The existence of matter in the form of atomic particles did not emerge for some time after the big bang through the process of reionisation. Dense energy creates mass, and energy is the building block of all matter. During the universe’s inflationary period, the reionisation took place, creating all the heavier elements which formed the constituent parts of galaxies, stars and planets. It is of course a real mystery why any of this should have happened, but why invoke ignorance when seeking an explanation is far more fruitful. I do not know the reason for the existence of the universe but seeking reasons in the criticism of high-energy physics is absurd in the extreme.