Hi Ikester7579

Let's put this to a test then. In the big bang theory. Is any part of it testable?

Well yes it is in quite a few ways. The theory predicts the existence and character of the cosmic microwave background which is basically the afterglow of the big bang itself. Later observations have confirmed these predictions to a very high degree of precision. Big Bang theory makes predictions about the relative abundances of various elements in our universe and of the large scale structure of our inverse and again later observations have born out these predictions so it is well and truly empirically testable

The fine structure of the very early universe, in the first few microseconds, is not well undrerstood. In this realm we have limited evidence and a number of competing theoires which can’t yet be tested though some tests are upcoming when the LHC goes on line in the near future. This will give us insights into how matter behaves at the sorts of energy levels whih existed far closer to the initiating moment of the big bang that we currently have and may well rule out some of the competing theorys. Time will tell.

Likewise with oil we can’t reproduce the process given how long it takes but we can hypothesis about it. From those hypotheses we create predictions which are testable and that’s where empiricism comes into the picture and allows us to test our understanding of oil even though we can’t reproduce the process in it’s entirety in the lab. We can also reproduce many of the hypothesised steps in the lab to ensure that they do in fact operate as we expect so there are a number of ways that we can empiracly test our ideas of how Oil was formed.

If you want to go into this further I think we should take it out of this thread.

In Reason

Russell