There is no theory that a giant meteor impact in the Yukatan Peninsula led to the extinction of the dinosaurs because Science has no theories about past unobservable events.
There is no such thing as evidence in science only theories. The scientific definition of a theory is not the same thing as the colloquial definition of a theory. The theory of evolution is the "theory" of evolution because scientists never consider a theory complete and indeed, with the discovery of molecular biology in the 1930's the "theory" of evolution changed because molecular biology showed a mechanism of evolution and again in 2005 the theory of evolution changed once again with the discovery of horizontal gene transfer, which showed how an organism could acquire a gene hundreds to thousands of nucleotides long in a single generation which showed the mechanism of punctuated equilibrium and speciation.
Scientists don't work to prove alternative hypothesis's true and null hypothesis's false. Scientists seek to prove null hypothesis correct and alternate hypothesis incorrect. You can't even say you accept a hypothesis. The only thing you can say is you fail to reject a hypothesis. That's one reason alternative medicine is not science.
Significant upporting evidence is clearly required to form an hypothesis that has any reasonable possibility of success or usefulness.
There are however scientific theories/underpinning the study of geology and physics etc which let scientists analyze currently existing evidence of that event. That data including seismic studies and core samples etc tell scientists that the best possible fit for those results is that a large meteor impact did occur at that location within a specific date range. So no science don't have 'theories' about historical events. What they do have however are a set of scientific principals/laws that let them analyze any physical traces or evidence left behind by those past events. This is turn allows them to develop a theory (or competing theories depending on the evidence set) that best explains that past event.
Math is one thing, observation another; and we only have a century or so worth of observation of radioactive decay rates. This being the case, any calculation of the age of the Earth based on that also depends for its truth value on the correctness of the Cosmological Principle as applied to the entirety of spacetime; and said principle being unverified, nothing inferred from it - or from any set of premises that includes it - can be taken as knowledge. lol
Why does the calculation of the age of the earth based on radioactive decay depend on the Cosmological Principle? The radioactive samples have all been on earth or in the solar system during the past 4.5 billion years. The Cosmological Principle is about the spatial distribution of matter in the universe being homogeneous and isotropic on a large scale. Even if the Cosmological Principle is false, the dating of the samples on earth should still be valid. I noticed that you underscored "spacetime" with a red line and I assume that you think time could be affected in a particular location like earth during the past 4.5 billion years in a way to distort the passage of time. What mechanism or mechanisms could cause a distortion in the passage of time on earth that could significantly affect the dating of samples? I can't think of any.
You left out my qualifier. Ain't like we have any reason to believe the Sun has been stationary all that time. As I understand it, it's also about the laws of physics being spatially invariant - which, taking the Einsteinian view, seems to imply temporal invariance as well. Not unless that Principle applies across all of spacetime - i.e., from time's inception forward. No I did not. You might try disabling your spell checker. Doesn't matter. What matters is that the CP as applied to all of spacetime can only be taken as an assumption.
How would the motion of either the sun or the earth affect radioactive decay on earth? I don't think that there is any affect. The special theory of relativity is about the laws of physics being invariant (the same) in all inertial reference frames and the general theory of relativity is about the laws of physics being invariant in all non-inertial reference frames. The CP includes more than the assumption that the laws of physics are the same everywhere. The age of the earth is 4.5 billion years old according to radiometric dating and the age of the universe is much greater than that. As long as the passage of time has not been significantly distorted during the past 4.5 billion years on earth, then the dating would be accurate. We don't have to be concerned with time's inception. My spell checker accounted for the red line under spacetime. All of spacetime doesn't matter. We are only concerned with spacetime in the vicinity of planet earth.
If there is spatial variance in the laws of physics, the solar system could have passed through a variant region in the last 5 billion years. If any of this militates against anything I said, I'm at a loss to understand how. Not the issue. It's distortion of the laws of physics over time which is at issue, and there is no way of knowing that doesn't happen. You can't be serious. If the CP can't be relied on universally, how in hell can it be relied on locally?
If you want to postulate that physics is nosense, you need to present some evience. Let's be serious.
Sheldrake thinks the laws of nature may be more like habits. And And constants might change. When the speed of light was measured each year the speed would vary fron year to year. To solve this for publication they just chose what it should be and now just publish that . lol
Lol. I would not want to go down that rabbit hole!. The book, The Science Delusion is far enough for me, as it questions the dogmas present in science . The author is a scientist.
Having a phd does not mean one is an expert in all fields of science. He has a phd in biochemistry and that is the field in which he has worked. Beyond that, he's a proponent of parapshcyology and a total quack. The next time you pick a book, do a tiny bit of research on the author so you don't get sucked into total nonsense again.
There is no evidence of spatial variance in the laws of physics that I know of. This has not been observed. There is no evidence of the solar system having passed through anything particularly unusual and there is no obvious mechanism for how this could happen. Science isn't about people making wild speculative claims with no evidence. The CP could very well hold true over a radius encompassing much of the observable universe but not for all of it. Even if it doesn't hold true in some distant realm that doesn't mean that the laws of physics would be different in that realm where the CP does not apply. It may only mean that the large scale structure is not isotropic and homogeneous.
So you figure absence of evidence equals evidence of absence? Consider that a scientific term, do you? The CP could be so characterized, given how little is known about the universe. That aside, science can't be done right without acknowledging the difference between knowledge and assumptions. You get that, right? So if that were the case, how would we know the solar system had never passed through it in the last 5 billion years?
WRONG. Both theories and evidence exist in science. Science, however, does not make use of supporting evidence. It only makes use of conflicting evidence. That is what falsifies theories. Nope, the definition of the word theory is the same whether talking about science or not. No, it "changes" because it is a RELIGION and it follows whatever the latest and greatest religious belief is regarding the topic. Evolution itself happens all the time. This we know. What we DON'T know is whether or not current life evolved from more primitive life. We can't go back in time to see whether that event actually occurred or not.
So far you've admitted that this is YOUR personal view of what science is. And, others are pointing out that the entire world of scince over the last more than 100 years totally disagrees with you. You really need to keep adding a caveate stating you have NOBODY from the world of science and that this is just your opinion.
Of course scientists gather evidence. The basic theory of evolution has not changed in the scientific community. What has changed is the details of how it works because of new scientific evidence.
I'm not sure what you're asking for here. Suggesting that physics should stop until someone proves that light speed is invariant across the universe hits me as wildly silly - and especially so since there is no positive proof in science, making it a fool's errand. And, I'd point out that there are other constants that are pretty darn fundamental as well. So, maybe physics should stop until those are proven to be invarient, too???
While ignorance can be remediated by learning the REFUSAL to learn appears to be an invariant constant among a subset of the population. This should not be confused with the INABILITY to learn which is a different issue.
Yes there is theory that a meteor impact killed the dinosaurs. You can accept it or reject it as you wish. Science has many many theories about past events that can't be observed. Those theories are based on observable objects and phenomena we see today, We all accept the fact that there were human eyewitnesses to the great extinction that killed the dinosaurs. A theory is nothing more than a believable explanation for something we observe. Don't get angry because science can't prove everything. It is working on it.
This is already known and understood in Relativity. Gravity and mass affect time, distorting it. This actually has a name, "Gravitational Time Distortion". The greater the gravity, the more time slows down. The stronger the effect of gravity (such as a black hole), the more time slows down. In fact we would likely never actually see an object fall into a black hole, because of the effect of this dilation being so large it would essentially be falling into it forever. The closer it gets, the more it slows down. Stephen Hawking in the 1980's wrote about this, talking about how an astronaut falling into a black hole would never actually arrive there because of this effect, In the same paper, he also described what is called "Spaghettitication", which was actually proven in 2018. If the universe started as a small incredibly dense mass, then the gravitational dilation would have been insane before it started expanding and as it was expanding before the matter was dispersed enough for this effect to fade.
