Science Being Scientific

I really love it when science does its thing. I just read an interesting blurb about a couple of math/science types basically calling into question some of the most widely accepted, and at the same time poorly understood (including by me) assumptions of modern cosmology.  First let me say, as is mentioned in the article, the research has yet to be peer reviewed, and while I may not be much good at higher math, I know that peer reviewing is really freaking important to the scientific process, but what I want to talk about is actually the process, and how good it really is, so hey, don't get mad if you're not ready to admit the big bang, black holes or other articles of your faith are not actually true.  You can hold on until someone else disputes their method or their data.
This is a beautiful thing, when science (and I hate to admit mathematics) actually brings an honest challenge to what "everybody knows."  I have heard none other than Stephen Hawking espouse the doctrine that the big bang theory, as a starting place for time and space, actually disproves the existence of God, because if there is a beginning then there cannot be an eternal being at the heart of creation.  I could have told him that theologians wrestled their way past that particular stumbling block 1700 years ago, but I suspect he would probably be frustrated by the lack of data and mathematical proofs used by the Council of Nicea.
Because even though Theology shares the ology with various scientific disciplines, our methods are rather more inductive and subjective than most scientists would find acceptable.  But what any honest philosophy or theology must do is submit to perpetual and rigorous re-examination and revision.  You cannot ever settle on something and name it absolute truth, as soon as you do that you become an idolater.
Science has its share of idolaters.  Watch science-ish television shows sometime.  They present for your viewing pleasure all sorts of fancy scientific conjecture about origins and possibilities, usually read by Morgan Freeman, or James Earl Jones, to give it that special gravitas.  And very rarely do they mention the fact that what they are selling is essentially a theory, and if if they do use the word theory, they do not define it properly.  When they say Quantum theory or the theory of Evolution, they do not present these sets of assumptions as what they are; one systematic set of beliefs that explain somewhat coherently the data that we currently have.
Theories are presented as facts, and most people do not have the scientific chops (read: didn't pay close enough attention in seventh grade) to understand actually what a theory is: a work in progress.  You start with a hypothesis, you design experiments, you gather data, you interpret data, then, if you'r lucky you can come up with something like a result, but a lot of the time the result is that your hypothesis was completely off, so it's back to the drawing board with a new hypothesis and some new tests, if your experiments actually confirm your hypothesis then you're in for some real trouble, because other scientists are going to have at your work and try to tear it apart, and repeat it, and if they can't repeat it that's going to count as a big fail.  If they agree with you, then more scientists are going to try to rip you and them apart if at all possible.  If most of you're reviewers decide that your methods, data and conclusions are valid: hooray you have consensus, but consensus still doesn't amount to anything like truth.  Eventually if you have enough stuff to cohere together, you might get a theory, or you might get absolute bumpkiss, there are no guarantees.  Science, actual science is very difficult and frustrating.
It's actually freaking amazing that we ever got to the moon, or have iPhones, mostly because inventors tend to bypass the actual science and just make stuff.  Technology moves fast, because people want stuff that does things for them.  Which is why I now have basically a supercomputer that I can carry around in my pocket.  You may have heard the fact that the average smartphone has something like 100 times the computing power of anything used by NASA during the Apollo missions.  That's right, we get a new iPhone every year, but going to the moon? Screw that, it's nothing but cold, dark and dusty.  Most of the scientific exploration of the universe is being done by mathematics, which absolutely sucks to this Star Trek fan, but it's the only way we're ever going to get a warp drive or something like that, by figuring out how the universe is put together.  If we don't actually understand how space and time work, we're never going to figure out how to get around.  So I'm glad someone finally managed to poke a hole in the dogma of singularities and things going bang, not because I am more ready than anyone else to accept a new reality, but because reality really doesn't care whether I accept it or not.
It's tempting sometimes to be frightened, intimidated or frustrated by the way that scientific theories and consensus seems to change.  Having your dogma punctured is never very much fun, but it is an absolutely vital step on the road to the truth.