Big Bang theory: Faith-based science?

[JackRiddler]

Big Bang cosmology arose originally from two bodies of evidence:

a) As observed from our position, all objects beyond the Local Group of galaxies exhibit a spectral red shift that increases in direct proportion to distance. This is interpreted in all cases as a function of the doppler effect, indicating motion away from us at speeds that increase with distance, hence expansion of the universe. The expansion is extrapolated backwards all the way to an initial pinprick.

b) The universe has a consistent background temperature in all directions, which is interpreted as the remnant of an initial expansion, and some of the predictions for the patterns in that radiation based in Big Bang theory appear to be confirmed by surveys such as COBE.

At the same time, because of the size of the observable universe as opposed to its posited age, Big Bang theory currently requires a hyperinflationary period of expansion that is entirely theoretical. I think that's too many extrapolations to justify the certainty of modern cosmologists. In sociological terms, it looks suspiciously like the certainty of all prior scholastics, whose world-views arose and were taken as axiomatic and unchallengeable until they were overthrown (usually after the reactionary last stand of "adding epicycles" - hyperinflation, anyone? - and holding Inquisitions in defense of the reigning paradigm).

I don't think the evidence given for Big Bang is enough for basing a cosmology that incidentally also meets our human craving for a convenient story with a beginning and an end, and even matches the Genesis god's proclamation of "Let there be light." Both the red shift and the background radiation can have other causes. I do think the data base underlying psychology and sociology is sufficient to allow us to consider the hypothesis that present-day cosmologists are involved in wishful group think, like so many groups of scholars dealing with the unknown in the past.

If cosmology is based on too little available data, I submit a dominant theory is not better than an admission of ignorance. But the lack of a dominant theory in cosmology would be a social ill among scientists, who will look down on a discipline that lacks ones, and even more so among the funders of science, who want their money to pay for concrete findings. Historically we have seen how every picture of the universe until now turned out to be based on what we could see within a horizon that always proved to be limited. Each dominant paradigm fell as each horizon was exploded by subsequent observation. Today we look out in all directions and see a similar picture of the universe at similar distances, seeing no further in any direction than in any other, all of which implies that we are once again seeing a horizon, even if its scale seems incomprehensibly huge. We don't know the actual size or structure of the universe because we have no idea what lies beyond that horizon, and have no basis for making assumptions of isotropy (similarity regardless of direction), homogeneity (similar in all parts), or a Copernican principle (no center), all of which are vital to present-day Big Bang theory.

Galaxies don't seem to have enough mass visible to us to explain the maintenance of their structure by way of gravity, so we posit that 90 percent of the mass consists of dark matter. (Translation: We don't know.) The apparent expansion of the universe seems to be accelerating faster than we can explain, so we posit that 90 percent or more of the energy is also dark. (Translation: We don't know.) Why are these speculative entities superior to assuming forces or structures we have yet to discover? We get radically different pictures of our cosmic neighborhood depending on the wavelength of the radiation we observe, again implying that we are simply not observing a significant percentage of the whole (like the parable of the blind men and the elephant). We discover awesomely large galactic agglomerations that may be the product of larger structures or processes we have yet to see or conceive.

The paucity of the empirical evidence for present-day cosmology is well-covered in this excellent and readable article by astronomer M.J. Disney:

http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Disney/Disney_con...
THE CASE AGAINST COSMOLOGY
M. J. Disney
Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF24 3YB, Wales, UK
"Abstract. It is argued that some of the recent claims for cosmology are grossly overblown. Cosmology rests on a very small database: it suffers from many fundamental difficulties as a science (if it is a science at all) whilst observations of distant phenomena are difficult to make and harder to interpret. It is suggested that cosmological inferences should be tentatively made and sceptically received."

I cringe when I hear Big Bang theory described as cosmology's pendant to evolutionary theory in biology. The two are simply not comparable. We are present on the planet on which evolution occurred, whereas all we know about the rest of the universe is what the observable radiation tells us. We can see evolution and the mechanism of selection in present-day action, trace evolutionary history through a rich and relatively complete record, and study its issue (life) on all levels: biotope, species and niche, organism and biochemistry, molecular chemistry. Of the stars all we have is what we can deduce from the light that reaches us. Cosmology as it currently stands is a faith.

[Random_Australian]

1. Quick question: Given a pattern of redshift that shows greater redshift for

greater difference, and knowing that there is no experimental evidence for any property of space bieng causing such a thing, and given that the speed of light is constant enough that we can extrapolate "for further into the past, things were closer to some point and moving outwards from that point",

how exactly do you justify "Both the red shift and the background radiation can have other causes" without referencing as-yet unknown variables?

[JackRiddler]

2. Oh you can't - but let's play.

Of course, extrapolating all the way to a pinprick (or a thousand-mile sphere, or whatever) also multiplies entities. To say nothing of "hyperinflation," for which the only "evidence" is not even the extrapolation from present-day expansion, but the theory's need of some super-accelerated expansion in the past, without which the theory doesn't work. (Again, also true of dark matter and dark energy - entities extrapolated from the need for them within a framework that is itself extrapolated.)

And the point is? We're in a realm where we don't know enough yet to construct any idea without using theoretical entities.

Yes, both the red shift and the background radiation can have other causes. The 2.7 degrees K could be the body temperature of a finite, closed universe at this time.

As for red shift, isn't it strange how it does vary with distance and not by object? This implies space-time expansion, not objects travelling away, which is yet another extrapolation (a medium of space-time on which the objects travel).

Here's a suggestion for a theoretical entity I find more plausible: One could try testing whether the frequency of photons drops from traveling millions of light years. Unfortunately, the only test I can figure out with my brain involves bouncing one between two mirrors for, um, I hope less than millions of years (which may not be it) or else, um, following one for millions of years. I'm sure someone smarter will come up with something better.

And here's your "quick question": When looking at areas millions/billions of light years away, hence millions/billions of years older, does the density of matter per volume appear to be greater than with sections closer to us? Shouldn't it, under Big Bang cosmology?

[Random_Australian]

3. What makes you think the pinprick was an extrapolation? When confronted with an expansion,

it was shown that the explosion of just the type required was the reversed equation for the collapse of a black hole into a singularity.

That, incidentally, is also what gives you hyperinflation; not the 'need for it'.

"Yes, both the red shift and the background radiation can have other causes. The 2.7 degrees K could be the body temperature of a finite, closed universe at this time."

And why would that be? Why would a finite, closed body be 2.7 K ?

That is, space is not a source of temperature by itself, (or at least there is no evidence to support the idea that it is, and yes I know full well about vacuum energy), and given that if any source were to be from any other source in space, it would not be homogenous like we see today, doesn't that point to the Big Bang?

Furthermore, as for "isn't it interesting that redshift doesn't change with object" .... well, to put it bluntly, it DOES. Things that are moving at the same relative velocity have the same redshift, of course, but only for objects of the same relative velocity (to us, in the axis along our line of sight).

Secondly, what on earth makes you think that if the Big Bang were true, then the redshift would be object dependent?

Next:
"Here's a suggestion for a theoretical entity I find more plausible: One could try testing whether the frequency of photons drops from traveling millions of light years. Unfortunately, the only test I can figure out with my brain involves bouncing one between two mirrors for, um, I hope less than millions of years (which may not be it) or else, um, following one for millions of years. I'm sure someone smarter will come up with something better."

Look up the way of trying to find gravity waves with a long set of mirrors. That uses a difference in wavelength, so it would show up just fine in there. It didn't.

"And here's your "quick question": When looking at areas millions/billions of light years away, hence millions/billions of years older, does the density of matter per volume appear to be greater than with sections closer to us? Shouldn't it, under Big Bang cosmology?"

We don't have the energetic resolution to know, but the data thus far seems to say so. It's in the as-yet-uncertain basket for me.

And of course, a question for you:

Given a non-expansionary universe, and given the effect of gravity acts between galaxies (this has been shown), how do you expect any model in which there was no bang to be going outwards, rather than inwards?

[PVnRT]

4. So, is there a point to this?

Or are you just trolling over here again to "prove" that scientists are dumb and that rabbit cage experiments really do approximate large skyscrapers collapsing?

[TZ]

5. not just "dumb"...

but arrogant and closed minded as well. I think somebody should read my post about the arrogance of the self-taught and the responses...got some INTERESTING points there. I'm just saying....

[JackRiddler]

8. What about the arrogance of those who dismiss...

the university astronomer who differs with the prevailing cosmological view?

I didn't know that trying to learn things for one's self is a form of arrogance. I'll stop. In addition, I'll henceforth try to restrict myself to citing only those authorities (and university astronomers, as in the following article) who already agree with your conclusion that the prevailing scientific paradigms in all disciplines are now set for eternity, thanks.

http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/55839/page/1?&print=yes

Modern Cosmology: Science or Folktale?
Current cosmological theory rests on a disturbingly small number of independent observations
Michael J. Disney

It appears that everybody is interested in cosmology. In one anthropological study, every one of the more than 60 separate cultures examined was found to have several common characteristics, including "faith healing, luck superstitions, propitiation of supernatural beings, … and a cosmology." Apparently, to be human is to care how the physical world came to be, whether it has boundaries and what is to become of it. Modern cosmology is a highly sophisticated subject funded by governments with hundreds of millions of dollars a year. It is unquestionably interesting, but is it, even in its modern guise, convincing?

The current Big Bang paradigm has it that the cosmos is expanding out of an initially dense state and that by looking outward into space, one can, thanks to the finite speed of light, look back to much earlier epochs. This understanding owes much to two accidents: astronomers' discovery of redshifts in the spectra of distant nebulae and the fortuitous detection of an omnipresent background of microwave noise, which is believed to be the remnant of radiation from a hot and distant past. Set in the theoretical framework of Einstein's general theory of relativity, such observations lead to a model that makes predictions and can thus be tested.

(...)

It is true that the modern study of cosmology has taken a turn for the better, if only because astronomers can now build relevant instruments rather than waiting for serendipitous evidence to turn up. On the other hand, to explain some surprising observations, theoreticians have had to create heroic and yet insubstantial notions such as "dark matter" and "dark energy," which supposedly overwhelm, by a hundred to one, the stuff of the universe we can directly detect. Outsiders are bound to ask whether they should be more impressed by the new observations or more dismayed by the theoretical jinnis that have been conjured up to account for them.

My limited aim here is to discuss this dilemma by looking at the development of cosmology over the past century and to compare the growing number of independent relevant observations with the number of (also growing) separate hypotheses or "free parameters" that have had to be introduced to explain them. Without having to understand the complex astrophysics, one can still ask, at an epistemological level, whether the number of relevant independent measurements has overtaken and comfortably surpassed the number of free parameters needed to fit them—as one would expect of a maturing science. This approach should be appealing to nonspecialists, who otherwise would have little option but to believe experts who may be far too committed to supply objective advice. What one finds, in my view, is that modern cosmology has at best very flimsy observational support.

more
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/55839/page/1?&print=yes

[TZ]

9. Thank you Jerry Falwell

By your logic, all the creationist "scientists" have equal value, all the global warmimg deniers have equal value, and every quack who claimed to have "the cure for cancer" when all they have are snake oil is equal value. Every scientific field has a few nutjobs and all science is NOT equal. But what the hell. You are a truther I believe so you are quite used to dismissing any science that does not fit your view of the world.
Scientific paradigm shifts happen but rarely. There are usually good reasons for that. It is less common than most people believe for the greater scientific community to be so blatantly wrong.

[JackRiddler]

11. Are you always going to grapple with caricatures and strawmen?

Where did I speak of equal value of every hypothesis? I responded to your contempt for "the self-taught" as such, regardless of what they argue, but it apparently also extends to a contempt or refusal to acknowledge a member in good standing of the scientific community like Disney (the astronomer, not the Mickey creator). This particular fallacy has been called "contempt in advance of examination." Sadly it's not restricted to fundamentalists but can be found everywhere.

I diagnose it in your case because you are engaging in ad hominem and semantics and refusing to even name the subject -- which happens to be cosmology, an interest independent of any other. (And I'm not here to start on cosmology and suddenly shift to any other subject! When I want to speak on another subject, I will post on it. But apparently you brand me as a member of a heretical cult that you get to define, therefore incapable or having no right to engage in any opinion at all, let alone try to justify it and expect a debate on the propositions rather than the messenger.)

So. The orginal OP isn't about the "scientific community" (an abstraction) but about a small segment of it known as cosmologists, who of probably all types work with the least data compared to the size and scope of the object they study (the universe). Disney puts the problems of reigning cosmological paradigms as follows: the number of free extrapolations in the theories have always exceeded the number of relevant observations. (This isn't true of biology so chill out, please. Big Bang cosmology is not evolution! If some religionist wants to claim that, complain to them.) So I hope you will engage in that and cease attacking me -- or else let it be and not be provoked by my sheer existence.

Disney in American Scientist Online, linked above:

The Significance of Cosmology
click for full image and caption (note: yeah, go there and do that - it doesn't copy here)


The currently fashionable concordance model of cosmology (also known to the cognoscenti as "Lambda-Cold Dark Matter," or ΛCDM) has 18 parameters, 17 of which are independent. Thirteen of these parameters are well fitted to the observational data; the other four remain floating. This situation is very far from healthy. Any theory with more free parameters than relevant observations has little to recommend it. Cosmology has always had such a negative significance, in the sense that it has always had fewer observations than free parameters (as is illustrated at left), though cosmologists are strangely reluctant to admit it. While it is true that we presently have no alternative to the Big Bang in sight, that is no reason to accept it. Thus it was that witchcraft took hold.

(...)

Big Bang cosmology is not a single theory; rather, it is five separate theories constructed on top of one another. The ground floor is a theory, historically but not fundamentally rooted in general relativity, to explain the redshifts—this is Expansion, which happily also accounts for the cosmic background radiation. The second floor is Inflation—needed to solve the horizon and "flatness" problems of the Big Bang. The third floor is the Dark Matter hypothesis required to explain the existence of contemporary visible structures, such as galaxies and clusters, which otherwise would never condense within the expanding fireball. The fourth floor is some kind of description for the "seeds" from which such structure is to grow. And the fifth and topmost floor is the mysterious Dark Energy, needed to allow for the recent acceleration of cosmic expansion indicated by the supernova observations. Thus Dark Energy could crumble, leaving the rest of the building intact. But if the Expansion floor collapsed, the entire edifice above it would come crashing down. Expansion is a moderately well-supported hypothesis, consistent with the cosmic background radiation, with the helium abundance and with the ages inferred for the oldest stars and star clusters in our neighborhood. However, finding more direct evidence for Expansion must be of paramount importance.

(...)

In its original form, an expanding Einstein model had an attractive, economic elegance. Alas, it has since run into serious difficulties, which have been cured only by sticking on some ugly bandages: inflation to cover horizon and flatness problems; overwhelming amounts of dark matter to provide internal structure; and dark energy, whatever that might be, to explain the seemingly recent acceleration. A skeptic is entitled to feel that a negative significance, after so much time, effort and trimming, is nothing more than one would expect of a folktale constantly re-edited to fit inconvenient new observations.

The historian of science Daniel Boorstin once remarked: "The great obstacle to discovering the shape of the Earth, the continents and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments and contradictory witnesses." Acceptance of the current myth, if myth it is, could likewise hold up progress in cosmology for generations to come.

[TZ]

13. Anyone who talks about "faith based" science

Obviously doesn't have a clue about science.Period. There is no such animal.
You posted this here to start trouble and for no other reason.
Goodbye.

[JackRiddler]

16. See ya, I guess.

Please make sure you never read either of the cited articles by Disney, after all as a researcher in the medical sciences you have too much of a stake in the prevailing ideas of cosmology to accept that anyone might question them for reasons other than being Jerry Falwell. If you open yourself up to Big Bang skepticism, who knows what hell you'll end up in?

[Orrex]

27. Let me see if I've got this straight

You're saying that your argument is correct because Turtlensue is a scientist?

[JackRiddler]

7. Very sad that you think that, sir.

You won't find any endorsements of the rabbit cage experiment from my end, so maybe you should be less hasty in your judgements.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. Your first line contradicts your subject line.

You call it faith based, but then you call it evidence based.

Can I assume you've got a better explanation that fits the observations?

[trotsky]

10. Ding ding ding! You win a cookie.

Can I assume you've got a better explanation that fits the observations?

Big Bang Theory rules right now because it's the best explanation. If someone comes up with a new theory that explains all the evidence better, well by golly it will replace Big Bang BECAUSE THAT'S HOW SCIENCE WORKS dammit.

[Warpy]

12. I know there's an ongoing debate between big bang

and steady state theorists and that the steady state theorists are assembling a lot of information in their favor. There's a lot more for me to like in a universe that is constantly creating and destroying itself than there is for one that has a beginning and an end, but that's just the kind of a hairpin I am.

Big bangs might be occurring all the time, cosmologically speaking, as supermassive black holes reach some critical state and annihilate themselves into their components elsewhere and elsewhen. The only black holes we're capable of observing now are the ones in the process of absorbing matter and ejecting Xray energy in the process.

In any case, it's fun to play with one's head considering both sides of the debate. The God Squad will always prefer a Big Bang, one that echoes their own lives that begin and end on a predictable schedule.

[DavidDvorkin]

14. According to Hoyle ...

Didn't Fred Hoyle give up on steady state and reluctantly accept the Big Bang, not long before he died?

[Warpy]

15. He didn't end the debate by dying

or by accepting one theory over the other. There are good points to both sides of the debate and it is an ongoing one.

Since that is the case and since it's not my field (although I did enjoy picking brains at MIT on this subject and others when I worked there), I'll just choose the side I like better.

[JackRiddler]

17. Thank you for talking about cosmology, the subject of this thread - here's an interesting article...

http://www.thunderbolts.info/webnews/ghosts_of_dark_matter.htm

Under the pressure of unsolved enigmas, the current position of official astronomy is that only 4% of the universe is “visible” matter. The other 96%, is composed of dark matter and dark energy—all of which, by definition, is invisible. "The universe is made mostly of dark matter and dark energy," says Saul Perlmutter, leader of the Supernova Cosmology Project headquartered at Berkeley Lab, "and we don't know what either of them is."

But these mysterious, ubiquitous, and invisible inventions are only “necessary” because astronomers hold to a belief that is no longer tenable -- that electromagnetism plays no appreciable role in the organization of cosmic structure and powering of stars. Plasma cosmologists and proponents of the “Electric Universe” – who study the behavior of electrically powered plasma in the lab and in nature – insist that the astronomers’ belief is incorrect.

One of the great scientific “secrets” in modern times is that many of astronomy’s most fundamental mysteries find their resolution in plasma discharge behavior. On the pages of Thunderbolts.info, this point has been enumerated in countless Pictures of the Day. For example, computer simulations have demonstrated that the motion of the spiral galaxy can be achieved through nothing other than interactions of electric currents in plasma. From the TPOD Plasma Galaxies:

“Plasma experiments show that rotation is a natural function of interacting electric currents in plasma. Currents can pinch matter together to form rotating stars and galaxies. A good example is the ubiquitous spiral galaxy, a predictable configuration of a cosmic-scale discharge. Computer models of two current filaments interacting in a plasma have, in fact, reproduced fine details of spiral galaxies, where the gravitational schools must rely on invisible matter arbitrarily placed wherever it is needed to make their models ‘work’.

(follow link to see images)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. If the thread's about cosmology...

why are you bringing up pseudoscientific nonsense?

[JackRiddler]

19. Care to specify? Or do you get a free pass as member of the elect? nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. I thought it wasa fairly specific question.

This is the science forum. The topic is cosmology. You admonish somebody for changing the topic, then post some new age crysal healing new age quackery that has nothing to do with cosmology.

http://www.bautforum.com/against-mainstream/7293-electric-cosmos.html

Btw, what does "member of the elect" mean?

[JackRiddler]

21. Names, names.

Interesting page you link to. The first half is mostly about crater formation. I have no problems with the idea that they form when things smash into bigger things, as can be experimentally confirmed on a small scale.

Whereas I linked to a piece I found advancing the hypothesis that electromagnetic forces acting on a galactic scale may explain the problems with galactic structure that currently have gravitationally based cosmology reaching for a dark matter that hasn't actually been found, only postulated. The replication of spiral galactic forms in experiments with high energy plasma is, at least, interesting, no?

And if you're serious, will you first give a read to Disney - the pure skeptic of present-day cosmology, based on the paucity of relevant observations relative to extrapolations - a read? Can you acknowledge that in constructing a model of the universe we're still stuck inside a horizon?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. I'm not going to read anybody who...

1. Can't publish in scientific journals.

and

2. Makes absurd comments that underscore no understanding of physics.

[JackRiddler]

23. Give me a list of scientific journals you approve then.

American Scientists Online:
see full issue: September-October 2007
Other Formats: PDF
Modern Cosmology: Science or Folktale?
Current cosmological theory rests on a disturbingly small number of independent observations
Michael J. Disney

http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/55839/page/1

Also:

Disney M J: The Case Against Cosmology, Gen. Rel. Grav. 32 (2000), 1125-1134. Also: Preprint astro-ph/0009020.

"Gen. Rel. Grav." is probably a front for the Velikovsky Society, I guess?

Why don't you write to him at his department in Cardiff at the e-mail below?

M. J. Disney1 (1) Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, Cardiff, CF24 3YB, Wales, UK


Abstract It is argued that some of the recent claims for cosmology are grossly overblown. Cosmology rests on a very small database: it suffers from many fundamental difficulties as a science (if it is a science at all) whilst observations of distant phenomena are difficult to make and harder to interpret. It is suggested that cosmological inferences should be tentatively made and sceptically received.

Cosmology - observations - science

M. J. Disney
Email: [e-mail]

If you're all about "La,la,la can't hear you" that is something you can do by not clicking on this thread anymore and saving us all time, by the way.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

24. American Scientist is a fine magazine.

But it's popular press, not a peer reviewed journal.

And you'd know that if you spent any time reading American Scientist.

[JackRiddler]

25. What is "General Relavity and Gravitation"?

Which I pointed to above already, and which published the Disney paper also reprinted in many other venues on the Web? (Maybe you're the one who isn't reading - specifically the posts to which you respond instantly with pre-fab venom?)

Disney's article at Gen. Rel. Grav.:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/x88r08tn62m1742r/

"General Relavity and Gravitation"

http://www.springer.com/physics/journal/10714

Description

General Relativity and Gravitation is devoted to all aspects of modern gravitational physics, and published under the auspices of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation.

The journal presents letters, research papers, review articles and comments on all theoretical and experimental aspects of modern general relativity and gravitation and its extensions, plus book reviews, related mathematical topics, results and techniques.

Coverage includes Extensions of general relativity; Numerical relativity; Astrophysical applications of relativistic gravity; Experimental gravitational physics, in particular experimental tests of general relativity: gravitational wave data analysis and phenomenology; Theoretical and observational cosmology ; quantum field theory in curved space-time; supergravity and gravitational aspects of string theory and its extensions; Quantum gravity and cosmology; and Teaching, public understanding, and history of general relativity and gravitation.

Ever hear of Springer? Is that the Velikovsky Society?

[JackRiddler]

26. What's up? Yooohooo...

You could at least admit Gen. Rel. Grav. meets your asserted standard. Or even read Disney's article.