BB Theory vs. Theory of Evolution - which is more thrustworthy?

[russ_watters]

I don't think so. wildman's assertion matches my understanding and experience in speaking with people.

I sometimes hate being the forum pedant, but again I feel compelled to go to the dictionary:

1. the doctrine that matter and all things were created, substantially as they now exist, by an omnipotent Creator, and not gradually evolved or developed.
2. (sometimes initial capital letter) the doctrine that the true story of the creation of the universe is as it is recounted in the Bible, esp. in the first chapter of Genesis.
3. the doctrine that God immediately creates out of nothing a new human soul for each individual born.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/creationism

Like I said, recently it seems to me that there has been a lot of attempted weaseling about this definition. But the way the definition reads, there is no wiggle room.

So let me be more general: if someone uses a word - any word - without caveat, you should assume they are using the word as it is defined in the dictionary.

 

[matt.o]

I don't understsand: now it sounds like you are saying that even if redshift is taken at face value, we still haven't observed motion. But taking redshift at face value means motion. That's what redshift is! It is a direct measurement of a distance change over an interval of time.

No, actually redshift is an observed shift in wavelength from some known value. It does not necessarily mean motion -- ever heard of gravitational redshift?

Forget the redshift-distance relation for the time being (and yes, I know I mentioned Hubble) and consider redshift alone, without distance ever being measured. Even if we don't ever measure a distance, but only know we see redshift everywhere, that's seeing that nearly every galaxy is moving away from us, just as plainly as your eyes tell you that a car is moving away from you, even if you can't actually quantify the distance. Almost every galaxy moving away from us = expansion.

This does not make expansion an observational fact! It is still an interpretation of the observational fact, which is redshift!

I don't see an explanation there, just a claim. I can't comment on it if you don't explain yourself, so I stand by my interpretation.

I was taking the more literal meaning of "fact", i.e, some absolute truth. This what people expect from science if they are to believe it.

Ie, the word "fact" is a direct synonym for the word "data".

I agree with this outside of quantum mechanics and depending on how you define "data", however the expansion is not the data here, the redshift-distance relation is, thus the redshift-distance relationsip is the observational fact, not the expansion.