Lesson video

Hello there! My name is Mrs. Cooper and I teach at a school in the West Midlands normally.

But I'm absolutely thrilled to be teaching you today.

Some people describe me as a bit of a thinker.

I like to ask all the big questions in life like: Why are we here? What's the point in everything? Is it all right to steal my husband's biscuit that he's left on the table? My tummy says yes, but my conscious says no.

It's wrong.

But why is it wrong? Hmm.

These are some of the big debates and questions in philosophy.

Oh, by the way, that's what thinkers are really called, philosophers.

Today, we're going to be asking some of those big questions, or one particular question.

We're going to be doing some actual philosophy.

We're also going to be looking at more about science.

When you're ready, go find yourself somewhere comfortable that you can sit and write.

Make sure you got some pens and some paper, and you're ready to learn.

In this lesson, we will describe the Big Bang Theory, explain some of the evidence to support the Big Bang Theory, explain the First Cause argument for the existence of God which is a philosophical argument, and apply the Big Bang Theory to the First Cause Argument.

In order to do this lesson, you are going to need two different coloured pens.

One that you're going to write your answers with, and one that you are going to need to mark your answers or add to your answers or change them.

Whatever colour you like.

Personally I like pink but it's up to you.

And you need a piece of paper.

Again, lined paper would be great but if you haven't, no problem, just use whatever you've got.

So, we are going to answer this big question: How did the universe come into existence? Actually, scrap that.

We're not going to answer this question, we're going to attempt to answer this question.

And we're going to do that using the following key words.

So before we even try to do this, we're going to think about what some really important words that we need to understand? So the first word is "theory".

You've probably come across this word before.

You might've heard someone say something that's quite theoretical.

A theory is a reasonable explanation or a guess which seeks to explain something.

But it's more than a guess because it uses evidence or information which tries to support that theory.

So in science your evidence might be from experiments.

In philosophy, we have special kinds of experiments.

We have thought experiments, which I'll explain more in a different lesson.

Another word that's really important for you to understand is the word philosophy.

And this might be a word, again, that you've probably heard before but you've never really thought what it means.

So literally, it means a love of wisdom.

"Philo-" means love and "-Sophy", if any of you out there is called Sophy actually means wisdom.

But another way we kind of interpret it a search for truth.

It's a way of trying to find truth.

A little story I always find interesting about philosophy and wisdom, Socrates, one of the first of the ancient Greek philosophers, said, well, he was called the "wisest man of Athens", and in fact he was sentenced to death for calling himself the "wisest man in Athens".

But the thing was, he said "Well, the thing that makes me wise is that I accept that I know nothing." He accepted that, in fact, that were never any real complete truths out there.

And actually what made him wise was that he was always trying to find the truth, that he was always trying to learn new things all the time.

And that's what real wisdom is about.

It's about never accepting that you know all the answers.

So hopefully, you're going to start this lesson being really open-minded keen philosophers, ready to try and gain some more wisdom to learn some more things.

Let's have a little practise of these key words, see how well you've managed to remember them.

So we're going to do a quick little tour folks.

Okay.

So let's have a go at practising things, words.

Let's do a very quick round of true or false if you think it's true, put your thumbs up, but if you think it's false, put your thumbs down.

If you think it's somewhere in the middle, you're not sure well it can't be somewhere in the middle of it, if you're not sure.

Okay.

So true or false evidence does not support the theory.

True or false.

That would be false.

Evidence does support a theory.

And therefore the statement is false.

Next one.

A theory is a reasonable explanation or guess which seeks to explain something.

That would be true.

A theory is a reasonable explanation, which is trying to explain something using evidence.

True or false.

True or false.

Philosophy is about a search for truth.

It is true.

It also literally means if you've gone somewhere in the middle, then you would have been kind of right as well, because it literally means love of wisdom.

So in a sense, you could say that this is correct, but not literally correct.

Next bit then.

What I want you to do now, is pause the video to complete your task.

So how do you think the universe came into existence? Based on your own personal ideas or things that you might have learned in school or in life before? What was your theory? What's your idea about how you first came into existence? Write a brief sentence or two explaining what you think.

So many of you might have heard of the Big Bang Theory.

This is the most common scientific explanation for the existence of the universe.

The Big Bang Theory, is a theory, which many scientists believe is about the start of the universe.

They believe this happened 13.

7 billion years ago with a big bang and explosion.

What existed before was the entire universe condensed into a hot infinitely dense point about the swell smaller than the size of an atom.

Suddenly, there was an explosion where all matter energy and space and time were created.

The universe expanded outwards and continues to expand today.

Now, this is the theory.

Let's look at the evidence to support this theory.

When light waves travel to us from an object that is moving away their wavelengths increase.

When we look at the light from stars and you've got really big telescopes to do it, a long way away their wavelength increases.

This suggests that the stars are moving away from us just as they would if the universe was expanding after an explosion.

Hubble was one of the first people to find this.

When you talk about the Hubble telescope.

So he looked away into the stars and he could see a really long straight wavelengths of light and he suggested to them that there had been an explosion.

So evidence number two.

When we listen to the sound of radiation coming off everything in the universe, there is some extra noise.

This extra noise seems to be coming from everywhere as if it were the background noise left after a big explosion.

So again, this is quite technical and you can ask a physics teacher to explain this to you better but they would essentially agree with what I've said.

If you listened to everything, that's in space, there is some kind of noise coming from it.

And if you think about movies you might have watched before and there's been an explosion degrees, there is a huge amount of noise that happens during and after an explosion.

The universe is making this noise, which suggests to us that there has been at some point a very big explosion.

Evidence number three.

When we look at the way all stars in the universe are spread out, there is a pretty even spread from the centre, just like you would expect from an explosion.

So again, if you look at the stars, it might be when we are looking at the stars in the sky, they all look quite close together, don't they? We have like the Plough and the Bear, name them because they all look like they kind of fit nicely together.

But remember stars are just great big suns in the universe.

Okay.

And then actually in fact, nowhere near close to each other.

And nowhere near as tiny as they look.

So the reality is that actually a lot of things in the universe all spread out and quite evenly as if there had been a big explosion.

Okay.

So we've got three pieces of evidence.

I'm just going to move myself.

Let me ask you a question.

Which of the following do you think is not evidence that supports the Big Bang Theory? I'll ask this question again.

Which of the following is not evidence that supports the Big Bang Theory? What I want you to do is just point at the different options.

They point at the option that you think is not evidence.

I'm going to quickly read them out for you.

Option one, the stars are spread out evenly across the universe.

Option two, someone saw the Big Bang happen and wrote all about what they saw.

Option number three, the wavelength of the stars that are far away are increased.

Option number four, there is noise coming from everything in the universe, which could be the after sounds of an explosion.

Now, after three, I am going to get you to point to whichever option you think is not evidence, As opposed to the Big Bang theory, one, two, three.

Point one of the options and absolutely you were right.

You clever thing.

It was, Oh, is this going to work? Option number two, someone saw the Big Bang happen and wrote all about what they saw.

Well, this is exactly the point, isn't it? We wouldn't be going through this whole lesson if we knew that somebody had actually been there to see it.

And this is the whole reason why every explanation for how the universe started.

This theory, because actually no one was there.

No one did see it happen.

So they couldn't write about it.

Nobody that we know or nobody who is in a human.

Nobody existed then.

Okay.

So moving on then, try and get a pen and paper.

You already should have some in front of you.

Think about this question.

How does science explain the origin of the universe? And you can use the sentences I've written here to help you.

The Big Bang is a theory, which explains and there are three pieces of evidence to support this.

And when you weren't ready, just unpause the video.

So, how did you do? I've written down what I'd say would be an acceptable answer.

So you get your different coloured pen.

You can add here or you can give yourself a nice big tick if you think you've got it right.

So acceptable answer would be this: The Big Bang is a theory which explains the origins of the universe.

There are three pieces of evidence to support this.

These are that light wave from a distance unit, distant universe are getting longer and there is noise coming from everything in universe and the stars are spread out evenly.

This also is acceptable.

You are explaining what the Big Bang is and the pieces of evidence that perhaps your sentences don't explain in enough detail.

So I'm going to show you another answer now, which is my answer.

Which is just a little bit more detailed.

Big Bang is a theory which explains how the universe began as a tiny dense piece of matter, smaller than an atom which exploded and continues to expand.

There are three pieces of evidence to support this theory.

They are: firstly, the light waves of stars millions of miles away from us or long suggesting that they are moving away from us.

Secondly, there is a noise coming from everything in the universe that suggests that there was an explosion.

Thirdly, when we observe the stars and other galaxies, they are evenly spaced apart from each other, like you would expect from an explosion.

Now if you like, you can pause the video here.

Using a different coloured pen, you can give yourself a nice big tick, cause I'm sure you've got lots of bits, right? And then possibly adding any bits that you think you missed.

I've highlighted some of the key words in here in blue, just to kind of make sure that you're including some of those words as your evidence.

When you're ready unpause the video.

So, how does philosophy attempt to explain the origin of the universe? Remember philosophy is the search for truth.

This is usually done using evidence and logic to deduce or work out the answer to a question.

First Cause Argument was first formulated by a native monk called St.

Thomas Aquinas.

Essentially, his argument was that; God was the cause of the universe.

Let's have a look at this in a little more detail.

St.

Thomas Aquinas started off his argument by saying that everything that I've seen in the universe has a cause.

And we're going to unpack this a little bit more in a minute.

So what is true of everything in the universe must be true of the universe itself too.

So it seems logical to deduce that if the universe, everything that you experience within the universe has a cause.

They have those laws of nature that the universe itself must follow the same laws.

Therefore, the universe must have had a cause just like everything else.

This cause would be the first cause and it would have to be outside of the universe because the universe couldn't have caused itself.

Therefore said St.

Thomas Aquinas, "God probably exists to have caused the universe." So God is that first cause according to St.

Thomas Aquinas.

We didn't really think back about maybe how your event at sitting here in this chair doing this work today, or why you live, where you live or why you go to the school that you do.

Any questions.

But try and work out the chain of causes that led you today and remember to pause the video while you do that.

When you're ready unpause the video.

Now I imagine you have found an infinite chain of causes.

And what I mean by that is if you really think back about things, everything is caused by something else.

Everything is subject to the laws cause and effect.

And I'm going to give you an example with my daughter's birthday cake.

So my little daughter absolutely loves unicorns.

As I imagine, if any of you, you've got small, younger brothers or sisters, they might really love unicorns too.

She genuinely believes that unicorns exist because they do obviously, particularly as I'm showing you the cake of one right now.

So I made this cake, it took me a lot of time.

I'm going to talk to you about the causes of it.

So I made this cake because my daughter, Lily asked to have it for her third birthday.

She asked to have this particular cake for her third birthday because I always make her a cake for her birthday.

I always make her cake for her birthday because my mum always made a cake for my birthday.

She always made a cake for my birthday because my granny made one for her birthday.

My granny made a cake for my mum's birthday because my granny was my mum's mum.

My granny was my mum's mum because she decided to have a child and she ended up being my mum.

My granny decided to have a child because at the time she was born, that's what usually what women did.

They didn't necessarily go out and have jobs.

They stayed at home, looked after the children and it was just a normal thing to do, was to have children.

It was the normal thing to do, to have children, women, because generally men did all the other jobs and there was a common belief that women couldn't do lots of jobs and so on and so forth and so on and so forth.

You can keep going back, but there is a continual chain of cause and effect.

Right.

Now, the next thing that I'm going to get you to do is pause the video to complete your task.

You are not silly.

So I am going to get you to read the question and use the sentence starters to help you answer.

When you finish, you're going to have a look at the slide in my answer.

Okay.

So hopefully you've obviously written some fabulous answer for me.

Make sure you've got a pen and a different kind of pen so that you can Mark your work.

I'm now going to show you my answer.

Now, once again, I'm not going to insult your intelligence by reading this up to you.

What I'd like you to do is you can read my answer and with a different coloured pen, write in any changes that you might make to your piece of work or not any, you might have done a better job than me.

So just pause the video again, make those changes or give yourself a great big tick.

And when you're ready, we'll move on to the next slide.

Does modern day science support or reject the First Cause theory? Well, let me go back to looking at the ideas about the Big Bang.

We then need to start by talking about the Hadron Collider.

This is a machine that allows scientists to study particles that they don't know much about.

Back in 2010, it allowed them to recreate the conditions of the Big Bang.

I remember at the time, lots of my students thought that the world was going to end.

I think we can safely say that they were wrong.

What it did do was allow scientists to get a greater understanding of the Higgs Boson Particle.

The Higgs Boson scientists discovered, gives master things that travels through it.

Scientists believe that this particles gave master of everything in the universe.

Billions of a second after the Big Bang.

For this reason, it is known as the God Particle as it was essential to the creation of everything in the universe, as we know it today.

So does modern day science support or reject the First Cause Theory? Well, in some ways you could argue that it, in fact, yes, it does the experiments with the Hadron Collider support the idea that a Big Bang occurred and something caused it.

The scientists and sun caused it.

The evidence of the Higgs Boson shows that at the same time, a particle gave master everything in the universe.

There's something that could in fact be God giving life to everything in the universe and making it what it is today.

On the other hand, you could talk to you that actually modern day science doesn't support the First Cause Theory.

What was the Hadron Collider and the Big Bang theory support the idea of a First Cause.

They don't support the idea of God being the first cause, because the first cause was a human.

Our idea of God is not this Omnipotent, of all loving all knowing.

I was going to say omnipresent and omni-benevolent but they're key words we haven't been able to tap yet.

Omni-benevolent means all loving and omnipresent means everywhere.

But actually that's our traditional idea of God.

But if we're to believe what happened in CERN, the creation of the Big Bang, maybe it was just some scientists in a lab that caused our universe.

Higgs Boson is a particle that gave things mass movements after the Big Bang but it didn't cause the big bang itself.

And therefore, the Higgs Boson, could have been in fact, being caused by the Big Bang.

Therefore this God Particle wouldn't have caused the universe.

It would have been part of the cause of the creation of the universe.

Finally, it's all still theoretical.

No one was there to see it.

So ultimately we can try and deduce and we can try and work out what happened through logic and through science but ultimately we do not know at the moment.

So when you're ready, pause the video and complete the task in front of you.

I'm giving you a question.

God created the universe.

Do you agree? Give reasons for and against your answer also to give a conclusion.

Right.

How did you do then? Have a look at my answer and with a different coloured pen, make any changes to your work.

You can give yourself some ticks if you think you've got some good stuff in there.

You might be even done better than me.

If you have, you could ask a parent or guardian on social media for you.

Get some information about this in a couple of slides time.

Pause the video to do these changes.

Now, when you've done everything, don't forget to quickly complete the quiz at the end.

There's only five questions and you'll show yourself quite how much super deeper learning you've been doing.

And as I said before, don't forget to share your work with Oak National.

So if you'd like to please ask for parent or carer to share your work.

Well, it's time for me to say goodbye.

I really hope that you've enjoyed my lesson.

I just wanted to talk to you about one final thing before I go.

Which is the Pulsating Universe Theory and this is going to really bake your noodle.

So we have just learned about how the universe may well have begun through the theory of the Big Bang and how the philosophical theory of causation actually supports the Big Bang theory.

This idea that a series of events caused another series of events.

And what I didn't talk to you about was the Pulsating Universe Theory, which is this idea that yes, there was a big bang.

Some point the universe gets so big that it all goes back in on itself.

It contracts back down and then there's another Big Bang and exactly the same conditions happen.

Exactly the same chain chain of cause events happen.

And the universe expands again and it contracts again and expands again and it contracts again.

This is why it's called the Pulsating Universe Theory because it goes in, it goes out and it goes in and it goes out.

Now, if we believe this theory and this idea that there's a chain of cause and effect that caused exactly the same conditions every time, then in fact, it would have been the same conditions and exactly the same point in time that causes you and I to exist.

Therefore, it might be that millions, billions trillions time, you've actually done this lesson.

So I hope you've enjoyed it the first time and the second time and the millions trillions billions of time.

And I hope you enjoy the rest of my lessons.

Bye.