Posted on 05/30/2017 10:44:18 AM PDT by fishtank
Big Bang Blowup at Scientific American
by Jake Hebert, Ph.D. *
The February 2017 issue of Scientific American contains an article by three prominent theoretical physicists from Princeton and Harvard who strongly question the validity of cosmic inflation, an important part of the modern Big Bang theory.1 They argued that inflation can never be shown to be wrong—it cannot be falsified—and therefore inflation isn’t even a scientific hypothesis.
Inflation theory was proposed by physicist Alan Guth to solve a number of serious problems in early versions of the Big Bang model. Supposedly, the universe underwent an extremely short period of accelerated expansion right after the Big Bang.
However, physicists later realized this version of inflation theory was too simplistic.
(Excerpt) Read more at icr.org ...
It's fair to say that neither the BBT, nor Genesis can be falsified; and, therefore, neither are scientific theories. However, that says nothing about the truth of either story. Both are, essentially, part of different faith-based belief systems.
Put another way; from a "scientific" perspective, the BBT and Genesis carry equal claim to validity. If you're a believer in Genesis; next time you're facing sneering condensation from someone claiming to wear the mantle of "science" -- just point out that their position is amusingly naive, and unsophisticated.
even ICR themselves refutes or casts doubts on big bang using secular sources:
dust can emit microwaves that mimic this polarization pattern, and it is possible that this dust is responsible for most (if not all) of this signal. The BICEP2 scientists had considered this possibility in their analysis, but concluded, based upon a map of this “galactic foreground” microwave radiation, that the effect would be negligible. But it appears that they failed to consider the fact that this radiation map may have also included an un-polarized “haze” from other galaxies. This haze caused them to underestimate the true amount of polarization in microwaves from within our own galaxy, which in turn apparently caused them to overestimate the strength of the polarization signal that supposedly resulted from inflation.
Once a robust and discerning Journal
Requiring graduate level understanding to read
Has descended into a High School level Magazine
I have grieved at it's fall for years
You must have missed the part about not “self-referential”...
The fact that models designed to predict a cooling and expanding universe do so, is not the same thing as evidence.
All of the items you’ve listed, bar none, have to be programmed into the mathematical models in order to arrive at the prediction... or could indicate other phenomena not predicted by the theory, or could be used to prove something entirely different.
What were the conditions in a “hot, dense early universe” except those hypothesized by working backward from current conditions?
What universe was used to create those models?
Has the universe always been expanding? could it be cyclic?
That’s why the authors of the letter published by Scientific American are questioning the validity of the model. Not ALL of the parameters were programmed to arrive at the foregone conclusion, and therefore they didn’t.
I don’t have a competing theory... But I have studied the “Big-Bang” theory enough to have noticed its dogmatic nature... I do not think it is beyond questioning by reasonable scientists.
Bumped for later when I clear my brain;)
God said it is very good and then He giggled.
Smith taught that matter is eternal and the Mormon God had no power to create out of nothing but merely reorganized already present elements (much like the evolver god of evolutionary theism), which have no beginning or end and cannot be destroyed:
"Since Mormons believe that the elements are eternal, it follows that they deny the ex nihilo creation." (Encyclopedia of Mormonism 1:400).
From this it follows that a mere man can become God, as the great Mormon prophet Joseph Smith explains:
"It is necessary we should understand the character and being of God and how he came to be so; for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and suppose that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see. and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did... Here then, is eternal life – to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priest to God, the same as all Gods have done before you, namely by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one. . . . (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 345-47)
I poked some fun at astronomers in a vanity: Trump, the Unexplained Galactic Phenomenon that has Astronomers Baffled
Things like a cyclic universe are not really contradictions of the Big Bang, but more like modifications of it. And yes, that is how they arrive at conditions in the early universe—by going backward in time and extrapolating based on current conditions. But so far the results and predictions tend to agree that the universe was once small, hot, and dense. Nothing in science is a fact, however. It’s a theory.
OK, first of all the "where would it leave us if..." argument is open to the same kind of sentimental charge the article made against the number of papers argument for those defending inflation.
Secondly, Rejecting inflation is not the same thing as rejecting the Big Bang model, much less fitting the creation of the universe into the ~6000 year time frame that is inferred by many from the Genesis narratives.
Thirdly, the Big Bang model was in its origins a Christian idea, not a secular one--in so far as it was first proposed by a Christian Theist who was initially accused by many of tainting science with religious ideas. For philosophically speaking, if it were true, it would be a death blow to the fundamental prediction of Atheism and Materialism--that the universe was eternal into the past. The attempt to reframe it by people like Kraus and Hawking and like minds in a Materialist system did not start until decades of Atheists and Materliasts trying to find alternative theories that tried to keep this fundamental prediction alive--in short the ideas of multi-verses and something coming from nothing are only entertained as last resorts to salvage what is left of the credibility of Atheism after every attempt to avoid having to embrace possibilities so absurd had failed.
Fourthly, the inference of a ~6000 year old universe was not universal in Christianity before modern times. And even Christians who argue for such a young universe are rather selective by their own rules of taking the early Genesis narratives literally. I know of nobody who maintains that Satan is literally a snake. And I know of nobody who maintains that somewhere on Earth there is the western gate to the Garden of Eden which we would be able to get to except for a flaming sword darting back and forth wielded by a Cherubim.
The IC”R” is an amusing organization.
The Big Bang Theory is a theory. It implies that should anyone wish to question it’s basic premise and replace it with something more plausible and defensible, they are free to do it.
“God made it” is an entirely defensible theological argument - but it is not science, nor should it be.
The IC”R”s modus operandi is to take doubts in a theory (and any honest scientist discloses these - and there have been many disclosed on this topic) and because there is not cocksure certainty claim it “falls apart”.
Nobody claims to have all the answers on this. It is posited at a theory with much information and actual research backing it up - but the IC”R”s attempts to cast it as some sort of heresy is always laughable.
The problem I have with IC”R” is that they have neither faith, nor scientific proficiency.
If they had faith, they’d not be searching for science to give them the answer. If they were actual scientists, they’d posit actual data that is compelling enough to overturn the presently accepted theoretical understanding.
Godless and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
I have grieved at it's fall for years
Like nearly every 'dead tree' publication in the last decade.
I blame 'global warming': I used to read dozens of magazines a month, bought at newsstands, and subscribed to several that I didn't want to miss. But so many of them got on the 'global warming' train, and they lost me. And the few that didn't go on a crusade against AGW went into other P.C. stances that turned me off.
A yes, the ICR? First place I turn to be told what to think as a scientist. This drivel is not worth the bandwidth.
Exactly.
But interestingly, the Bible seems to imply relativistic effects in a couple of places. In Psalm 104:2 and in Isaiah 40:22 scripture speaks of the heavens being stretched forth like a curtain. That sounds like they were moving far faster than the speed of light as they were being stretched forth. It certainly implies something far faster than the usual slow progression of heavenly bodies across the sky.
Exactly.
But interestingly, the Bible seems to imply relativistic effects in a couple of places. In Psalm 104:2 and in Isaiah 40:22 scripture speaks of the heavens being stretched forth like a curtain. That sounds like they were moving far faster than the speed of light as they were being stretched forth. It certainly implies something far faster than the usual slow progression of heavenly bodies across the sky.
Observationally speaking, they don’t really have evidence of “inflation”, only of “movement”. We literally have not been “observing” anything for a statistically significant amount of time to be able to come up with a positive determination of what is actually happening.
There was no “Big Bang”, there will be no “Big Crunch”. Just an ever moving ever recycling Universe... Without end.
“The whole thing really cracks me up. For me, big bang = “let there be light.””
Exactly. As if our minds could comprehend God’s methods and mechanics; it’s the height of arrogance and self righteousness.
Maybe it does not HAVE TO have a beginning, just because it is expanding.
Imagine it was cut in half, then half again, then half over and over...
You can repeat that for infinity. If the original point of origin contained (literally) everything, then you can cut it in half to make half of everything forever.
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