Cosmology; importance of a beginning (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, May 07, 2019, 00:45 (1819 days ago) @ David Turell

Another point of view. Rob Sheldon's take: Reconsider the 'beginning' and answer Ekeberg:

https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/rob-sheldon-the-real-reason-there-is-a-c...

"The edifice of the Big Bang has some serious cracks in it. It isn’t that physics models have to be perfect, but this one is so essential to the entire field, there’s a feeling of the ground shifting under the cosmologists feet. You might even say that cosmology wasn’t a field of physics until this model came along.

"Bit by dribbled bit, the data from Planck has been analyzed so thoroughly and squeezed so hard they’ve gotten blood from this turnip. That’s what the 6-digit accuracy on the Big Bang model is all about, which the Europeans proudly call “precision cosmology.”

***

"Let me say what Bjorn [Ekeberg]can’t–the discrepancies are a consequence of bad metaphysics (like the reason Einstein added the cosmological constant to the model) and are irreparable.

"Either the universe has a beginning, or it doesn’t, and if it has a beginning we are not going to escape it with bouncing or multiverses or inflation or wormholes. We must accept the metaphysical consequences of a beginning and move on. Nearly everything that has failed about the Big Bang model has been added because of bad metaphysics, a refusal to accept the consequences of a beginning.

"The remaining pieces of the Big Bang model that are failing and which can’t be attributed to bad metaphysics were added from sheer laziness (or to say it more generously) from the limitations of paper-and-pencil calculations and primitive computers. We now have both better mathematical tools and better computers, so neither of these excuses work any longer. Therefore there is no reason to assume isotropic, homogeneous, non-magnetic solutions are the only valid ones.

***

"And this is where I part ways with Ekeberg. He has only suggested that the model is wrong, he has not suggested how it can be repaired. He hints at some of the options: Do we add “new physics”, “new particles”, or abandon “old physics”

***

"My solution is none of those things. Rather, I argue we need to abandon all the bad metaphysics that motivated the add-ons to the model. That would be inflation, isotropy, homogeneity, dark energy, “dark matter” in its “new particle” expression, and of course, non-magnetic “gas”. Once all these barnacles are off the model, we can then embrace the difficulties of a fully kinetic plasma (ie. not MHD), a fully 3-D model, and cast about for formulations that can effectively explain the data.

"What gets me excited, is that my preliminary research shows that we have some excellent candidate models with nothing more exotic than extremely large magnetic fields. Some would hold that any magnetic field at all is exotic, but I reply that at least we have lots of evidence of astrophysical objects with large magnetic fields, making this assumption far more empirical than “new particles” or “MOND”. In other words, all we need is courage and bravery, willing to face the criticism and the difficulties of non-homogeneous, anisotropic, 3-D models.

"What we don’t need, however, is some sort of metaphysical justification for abandoning empirical physics or believing in 5 dimensions and invisible particles. It isn’t our faith in the philosophy of science that needs repair, but our former gullibility that let scientists slip in bad metaphysics.

"The hard work of the Planck team is not wasted, because the repairs to the model will make it even more physical, and therefore not just “precise” but also “accurate”. The ground may be shifting in cosmology, but it is finding its true foundation."

Comment: I should note that Rob Sheldon accepts that God exists. He is a research cosmologist and has worked on the Planck findings. My view is take a neutral view of science, neither pro-God or anti-God and study the results. Underlying bias has no place in scientific thinking about cosmology or evolution as we have discussed.