We still don't have a more precise value for "Big G"

Laying out the math (assuming earth is an homogeneous sphere) just in case it's not clear:

F_gravitational = G m1 m2 /r^2

g = G Mass_earth / r_earth^2

Mass_earth = r_earth^2 * g/G

Density_earth = r_earth^2 * g/G / V_earth

Density_earth = 3*g / (4*Pi*G*r_earth)

Prior to Cavendish we already new g and r_earth, just missing G.

Interesting word soup. Ultimately, no, you cannot build a valid representation of the universe from nothing and you need observation and validation. You can presupposition whatever you want when you are talking about unproveable models, but it says more about you than the universe. Until we have a reason to think that there is a "why", discussing what it is is completely unnecessary and futile because 1) it does not change anything about our understanding or the predictions we can make, and 2) it is not something we can observe, measure or prove.

Even if your observation were 100% correct, it's also 100% irrelevant to the point.

We still refer to Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism as a theory even though we know quantum electrodynamics is a more precise match to the primary simulation loop.

I suppose a few might have decided to rename it Maxwell's hypothesis of electromagnetism, but I would consider them crackpots or dilettantes with little understanding of the meaning underlying those terms.

You could well live your whole life without needing anything more than Newtonian Physics. For most of us, relativity is a fun thought experiment. If you want to grapple with it, special relativity is the answer to "how can the speed of light be constant regardless of the speed of whoever is measuring it?" In his "vulgarisation" books, Einstein explains it with nothing more sophisticated than trains and stopwatches.

General relativity is more complex and quickly goes in complicated mathematical weeds but is just as profound from a philosophical point of view, which is that things do not merely affect other things around them, but instead change space-time itself. You can see with a couple of clicks observations of phenomena predicted by it, like black holes and gravitational lenses. It’s interesting to think about even if you are not directly affected.

> We can literally observe cosmic microwave background and it fits our prediction that the universe was denser and hotter.

I can't observe that, because I don't have the gear. (Nor the time, budget, inclination nor training, for that matter. :-) But I am happy to admit the possibility that some of those observations, as reported in the literature, are correct.

However, unlike a depressingly large percentage of my former scientific colleagues, I also appreciate just how much of what gets reported in the literature, from the conclusions all the way back to the raw data, is anything from sloppily wrong to flat out lies. Witness the decades-long fiasco in genetics that is only this past month being corrected:

Before: https://www.nature.com/articles/437047a

After: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08816

TLDR: The original work by the CSAC reported only a fraction of the actually relevant data and hid the remainder where nobody was going to look. This was not the kind of Reproducibility Crisis mess, where an undergrad isn't paying attention when he grabs the electrophoresis gel off the shelf and then writes down the wrong brand name in his lab book. This was fraud. They intentionally misrepresented the data and hence the conclusions by an order of magnitude, which allowed them to delude the whole world for decades that "humans are 98.8% the same as chimps!"

Many people had their entire worldview swayed by this pronouncement, myself included. I don't like being lied to.

So yeah, you'll have to forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical when it comes to scientific observations and reportage that I'm a few $million shy for confirming myself. And I'll continue to think poorly of those who have been making lucrative careers out of doing "well-established" physics that "everybody" "accepts", only to have to quietly admit under scrutiny that their predictions didn't work out quite as nicely as the popular press has told us.

Furthermore,

> It is a scientific theory.

It is a scientific hypothesis. It has not been subjected to repeated experimental trials or observations and found to be correct.

A hypothesis does not become "well-established" simply because every college professor whose salary depends upon supporting the grant authority's narrative repeats it.

I am fully aware that some people (present company excluded; I'm not placing any blame here) have watered down the definition of these terms. They are wrong. I do not consent to and will not be bullied into accepting changes to my language. Especially nothing as important as the language of science.

> You might be confusing the established big bang with the more speculative cosmic inflation model. They're very closely related.

Perhaps. I was never too terribly interested in things "smaller than an electron"[1] or larger than a whale.

Lerner's arguments[2], particularly on relative elemental abundances, are persuasive to me. That may be because during my formative years I was a bit preoccupied with H vs D, because deuterated compounds for the NMR were too expensive for me to just play around with as I liked, so I had to tinker with spectroscopy/spectrophotometry instead. In any case, he's right. You can't have a cosmological constant be one value to account for the D and another value to account for the He3.

As for the CMB, he addresses that as well, though once again I haven't done the work to confirm either side myself.

Lerner has a whole basket full of other arguments as well, but I'm not a fan of lazy people posting Youtube links to hour long videos and saying "watch this!", so I shan't be a hypocrite. I believe that pdf should give a good flavor of it. It's been a while since I read it and I only skimmed it now, but I believe it a good representative sample of his other work.

[1] PS: Yes, I know, I know. Stop being pedantic. This site is a hobby and I'm not about to cheat and get a chatbot to write me a 12 page essay every time I want to save a few words. I get to abuse quotation marks when I'm feeling lazy.

[2] See sections II and IV in particular: https://web.archive.org/web/20260429053749/https://www.resea...