Is Cosmology Really a Science?
The Infinite Monkey Cage
BBC
4.7 • 9.4K Ratings
🗓️ 20 June 2011
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Robin Ince and Brian Cox are joined on stage by V for Vendetta author and legendary comic book writer Alan Moore, cosmologist Ed Copeland, and science broadcaster Dallas Campbell to ask whether Cosmology is really a science? Do scientific theories need to be testable to make them, well - scientific? And if so, where does that leave some of the more mind-bending theories that Cosmology has postulated over the last few years? From String Theory to the idea of multiple universes, the maths might work, but if there is no way of observing whether it is correct, is it science or science fiction? Does Cosmology have more in common with the fantastical stories dreamt up by fiction writers such as Alan Moore, and will science ever progress enough to really get to the bottom of some of the more weird and wonderful theories about the way our universe works? This programme was recorded as part of the Cheltenham Science Festival.
Producer: Alexandra Feachem.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a download from the BBC. To find out more, visit bbc.co.uk |
| 0:05.6 | Slash Radio 4. |
| 0:07.6 | Hello, I'm Brian Cox. |
| 0:09.0 | And I'm Robin Inz and we are here at the Cheltenham Science Festival 2011. |
| 0:13.2 | For some people, Cheltenham is best known as being the birthplace of the electric light, |
| 0:17.0 | the creation of the internal combustion engine, the discovery of the double helix, |
| 0:20.5 | the birthplace of quantum electrodynamics and general relativity, |
| 0:23.8 | and the home of both Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. |
| 0:27.8 | When I say for some people, they are two people, |
| 0:30.3 | the authors of how everything was created in Cheltenham, |
| 0:33.1 | but which has been largely discredited over the last few years. |
| 0:38.0 | The good news today is that our discussion may have philosophical overtones |
| 0:41.6 | and as regular nisters will know, Brian Cox loves philosophy. |
| 0:45.3 | Yes, today I'm going to approach ideas about the nature of the universe |
| 0:48.6 | with a logical, positiveist approach, |
| 0:50.4 | though I cannot rule out that I won't occasionally look at this |
| 0:53.0 | from a de-unty logical perspective using a canteen approach. |
| 0:56.2 | I did not write any of this and I have no idea what I'm talking about at all. |
| 1:00.2 | Stay classy, Cheltenham's far. |
| 1:04.2 | Told you they'd get that one. |
| 1:06.2 | Today, today we ask, is cosmology really a science? |
| 1:09.5 | It's a ludicrous title that has nothing to do with me at all. |
... |
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