On Unscientific Science

Many philosophers have prided themselves on spinning verbal webs that will snare any debating opponent. By bewitching their readers with fancy language, many philosophers have become famous and acclaimed. Very few were philosophers in the true sense of the word (i.e. lovers of knowledge). But throughout history a few true philosophers have made themselves known, and one of the greatest of these is Karl Popper.
Popper's philosophy revolves mostly around science, although he had other valuable thoughts as well. He did not conduct experiments, nor did he theorize or formulate laws. Rather, he thought about how science should be conducted and, furthermore, what makes something scientific.
His greatest achievement was the notion of falsificationism. The claim is that if something cannot be falsified, then it is not science. This does not mean that the statement is false. It means that there is at least one hypothetical result of an experiment that could prove the statement false, or a way to show mathematical inconsistencies in scientific equations (if there are any for the theory in question).
For example, the speed of light in a vacuum is 2.99792458 x 10^8 m/s. We have equipment that could test this and show it to be so. If this speed were incorrect, our equipment would show some other value. And even today it is possible to envision a way in which this could be incorrect. Our technology may not be advanced enough to detect if the speed were actually 2.9979245800000001 x 10^8 m/s. But enough of that. This is, after all, the weekly rant.

There are certain theories and concepts today that are complete and utter hogwash, yet they have been accepted in the scientific community. This should not be. The first of these I must attack is the Big Bang "theory." The Big Bang claims that all matter and all of spacetime was once condensed into a tight bundle of infinite density no larger than the head of a pin. "Something" happened to trigger an explosion that spewed forth matter into the universe. This matter had a temperature of billions of degrees and eventually cooled down. From the start there are already holes in the theory. There is no explanation for the explosion, and now things are cooling down without any other matter having existed to transfer the heat to. Isn't that a major violation of the laws of thermodynamics? Or do they want us to believe that black body radiation was super efficient back then? But anyway, the matter cools and forms all of the stuff we see today, and things are still moving apart.
Now I cannot say that this theory is not falsifiable. It is. Some cosmologists have actually figured out how long the celestial bodies we see today would take to form, and the rate of expansion that must have occurred, and what the density of the universe would be today if the Big Bang did actually occur (side note: the density of the universe is represented by the symbol omega and should be equal to 1 according to the Big Bang model).
When all of this was solved, the "scientists" worked diligently to obtain a number for omega. They were clearly hoping for it to be somewhere near 1 and therefore lend support to the Big Bang. But this is not what was found. Omega was only .2 and in some cases .02. Well this was way off, and you would think that the Big Bang could be written off as having been falsified. But NOOO! These cosmologists would never hear of such a thing. To them there was only one explanation. There must be some other matter out there that they cannot see, and not only that but it must be there in quantities much larger than the matter we do see. And so the many brilliant minds gathered around to come up with the idea of "dark matter."
Dark matter is matter that cannot be seen, cannot be shown to exist, has not one shred of experimental evidence to support its existence, and cannot be described by anyone. I don't think Popper would consider this notion scientific. When the existence of Sasquatch and the Lochness Monster have more evidence to support them in the form of sketchy photographs, something is amiss. In essence, dark matter is nothing more than a fictional story told by cosmologists in a desperate need to cling to the Big Bang. It was created so that omega equals one.
As if this post were not long enough already, I have a bone to pick with another "theory." String theory is very fashionable right now. String theory claims that all of matter is composed of tiny little vibrating strings, and that the vibration patterns of the strings determine the form of the matter. The strings are too small to be seen, and there is no experiment to show any support for their existence. The vibration patterns that can determine the transmutation of matter should be able to have a mathematical description, but that is being "worked on." So these string theorists have no experiments, no equations, no evidence whatsoever. But these strings exist, and we are just going to have to take their word for it. This is not science. It is the antithesis of science. But it gets even better.
Sub-atomic physicists have shown that if matter really were composed of these strings, then there would have to be 11 dimensions! Right now we only know of four (the three spatial dimensions and time). So the string theorists had to think hard. How do we get eleven dimensions? Then one of them came up with a "brilliant" idea. Perhaps the other dimensions are curled up in space and so tiny that we cannot see them. In a curl could be a Calabi-Yau shape (a six dimensional shape). That would give them the dimensions needed (even though I thought that 6+4=10 and not 11, but what do I know?).
Now Calabi-Yau geometry has existed for a long time. It is a true branch of mathematics and although the shapes cannot be drawn, they do exist in the mathematical realm. When it was discovered that these shapes are needed for string theory, the string theorists started working on Calabi-Yau geometry. Despite the fact that string theory is pure fantasy, I must admit that the string theorists have discovered many things about six dimensional shapes.
The problem was that every time something was discovered in six dimensional geometry, the string theorists would claim it as a victory for themselves! They believed, and still do to this day, that working on Calabi-Yau geometry and finding new aspects of it supports string theory. Ha! It obviously does not, but these people have no logic.
In closing, I just want to reiterate: If something cannot be falsified, it is not science. There are many "theories" out there to be wary of. Just because some idea is popular it doesn't mean that it is true. It is time for people to stop making things up, and start performing experiments again. Empirical data is still a very useful tool. Long live true science!