The Problem with Stenger (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, December 05, 2009, 00:51 (5449 days ago) @ George Jelliss


> This seems to me to be an unworthy ad hominem attack by DT. I'm sure Stenger is better qualified than any of us here to write about cosmology. 
I have to agree.
> 
> In the "About the Author" page at the end of "The Comprehensible Cosmos" it states that: 
"Professor Stenger's research career spanned the period of great progress in elementary particle physics that ultimately led to the current standard model. He participated in experiments that helped establish the properties of strange particles, quarks, gluons, and neutrinos. He also helped pioneer the emerging fields of very high-energy gamma ray and neutrino astronomy. In his last project before retiring, Professor Stenger collaborated on an experiment in Japan, which showed for the first time that the neutrino has mass."-This is the typical author blurb found on the inside or back covers of books, boosting the author's reputation. And it is true in that he has collaborated with other authors on many important research papers in particle physics, concentrating at the end in work on neutrinos and photinos. 
> 
> At the end of "Quantum Gods" in a section headed "Not Mainstream" he writes in answer to criticism:
"I need to comment of the reception of the notion that the laws of physics follow from point-of-view invariance. Critics point out that this is not an accepted principle within mainstream physics. While this is true, it has not been rejected either. Nothing I have said conflicts with existing physics. No one has pointed to a single error in the mathematics presented in The Comprehensible Cosmos. All I have done is give an unconventional philosophical interpretation to otherwise well-established theory." -This is absolutely true. His philosophy is very unconventional. In 2001 Guth, Valenko and Borde published a theorem that contradicted Hawking's " no boundries" theory, which states there can be a "before", before the Big Bang. Guth presented it again at Hawking's 60th birthday symposium, which was published in 2002. (The Future of Theoretical Physics and Cosmology, 2002, Guth on pgs. 740-750, states he prefers a quantum origin, not a beginning from nothing.) His talk was accepted by Andrei Linde as refuting Hawking's theory. These folks I am mentioning are theoretical superstars. In pursuing my goal to leave agnosticism, I've had to read mainline thinking. Someone who is violently anti-religious is not reasonable. I have read creationists, reasonable atheists, and many scientists' books for a lay audience. -In 2006 Stenger presented his "from nothing" proposal again in Philo:
VOL. 9, NO. 2 FALL-WINTER 2006
A SCENARIO FOR A NATURAL
ORIGIN OF OUR UNIVERSE
USING A MATHEMATICAL MODEL
BASED ON ESTABLISHED PHYSICS
AND COSMOLOGY
Victor J. Stenger-Excerpt from the introduction: "What I will show is that a mathematical model of the origin of our universe based on no more than these well-established theories can be precisely specified.
This model is essentially the "no-boundary" model proposed over twenty
years ago by Hartle and Hawking.4 I will present a simplified version....."-Surely, he knows the material at the Hawking Symposium four years before his Philo paper.-My point is that I am not making an ad hominem comment. I've investigated and clearly know who he is. He is simply not a super-star theorist, but a devout atheist, trying to make points with the lay, unsuspecting public. Note that this article is four years after the Guth well-accepted presentation. I think Stenger chose to ignore well-established mainstream thinking to drive his neo-atheist agenda.