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Cosmic Mythology

Cosmic Mythology. Exposing the Big Bang as Philosophy not Science Dr John Hartnett. Edwin Hubble. 1929 - astronomer discovered - ‘nebulae’ are galaxies - redshifts of galaxies - the Hubble Law - interpreted to mean that the Universe is expanding. Albert Einstein.

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Cosmic Mythology

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  1. Cosmic Mythology Exposing the Big Bang as Philosophy not Science Dr John Hartnett

  2. Edwin Hubble 1929 - astronomer discovered - ‘nebulae’ are galaxies - redshifts of galaxies - the Hubble Law - interpreted to mean that the Universe is expanding

  3. Albert Einstein 1917 - developed his own cosmology from his general theory of relativity - a static universe - his ‘biggest blunder’ - ‘cosmological constant’ (L) a fudge factor

  4. Alexander Friedmann and Georges Lemaître 1922 and 1927 - developed Friedmann-Lemaître model from general relativity - expanding universe - ‘the Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation’

  5. Fred Hoyle 1950 – BBC radio coined the term “Big Bang” - believed an eternal universe and Steady State theory

  6. George Gamow Student of Friedmann 1948 – predicted leftover radiation from big bang fireball should be observed today with a temperature 5 K - later 50 K (-223 C)

  7. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson 1965 – working for Bell Labs - discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) - temp. 3 K (-270 C) 1978 - Nobel prize Sounded death knell for Steady State theory

  8. Alan Guth 1979 –Inflation to explain why we live in a (flat) Euclidean universe …is the theorized extremely rapid exponential expansion of the early universe by a factor of at least 1078 in volume, driven by a negative-pressure vacuum energy density. … It lasted from 10−36 seconds after the Big Bang to sometime between 10−33 and 10−32 seconds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_(cosmology)

  9. CMB and expanding universe: Big Bang proven?

  10. 1950s Steady State Big Bang Eternal universe Hoyle, Gold, Bondi Origin in time Gamow, Ryle, Dicke [The Big Bang] is an irrational process that cannot be described in scientific terms … [nor] challenged by an appeal to observation. —Hoyle

  11. Pope Pius XII at the November 22, 1951, opening meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences The Big Bang theory does not conflict with the Catholic concept of creation.

  12. “Theistic Evolution” “Big-Bang Creation”

  13. "Hugh Ross's Testimony" I also recognized that the Bible stood alone in describ-ing God and His dealings with man from a perspective that demanded more than just the dimensions we humans experience (length, width, height, and time). Further, I had proven to myself, on the basis of predicted history and science, that the Bible was more reliable than many of the laws of physics. My only rational option was to trust the Bible's authority to the same degree as I trusted the laws of physics. -Hugh Ross, "Hugh Ross's Testimony," Jan 1, 1990, retrieved Feb 23, 2013, [http://www.reasons.org/articles/hugh-ross-testimony]

  14. Galatians 1:9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

  15. Psalm 119:160 Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.

  16. Today: Big Bang philosophy - believed by faith No Creator God - naturalistic cause needed

  17. George Smoot 2006 – Nobel prize for observations of the ripples in the CMB radiation – ‘the handwriting of God.’

  18. Can these claims be tested?

  19. How to test the models? • Assemble mock universes with large super computers • Make statistical arguments • Many possible models

  20. How to test the models? But are they testing their models on the actual universe? No!!! Weak science at best

  21. Fundamental flaw The Achilles’ heel of cosmology

  22. 2007: Researchers have measured the temperature variations in the CMB so precisely that the biggest uncertainty now stems from the fact that we see the microwave sky for only one Hubble volume, an uncertainty called cosmic variance. ‘We’ve done the measurement,’ [Charles] Bennett says. ‘It’s not going to get any better.’ Cho, A., A singular conundrum: How odd is our universe?, Science317:1848–1850, 2007

  23. 2007: That barrier to knowledge, some argue, is cosmology’s Achilles’ heel. ‘Cosmology may look like a science, but it isn’t a science,’ says James Gunn of Princeton University, co-founder of the Sloan survey. ‘A basic tenet of science is that you can do repeatable experiments, and you can’t do that in cosmology.’ Cho, A., A singular conundrum: How odd is our universe?, Science317:1848–1850, 2007

  24. 2007: ‘The goal of physics is to understand the basic dynamics of the universe,’ [Michael] Turner says. ‘Cosmology is a little different. The goal is to reconstruct the history of the universe.’ Cosmology is more akin to evolutionary biology or geology, he says, in which researchers must simply accept some facts as given. Cho, A., A singular conundrum: How odd is our universe?, Science317:1848–1850, 2007

  25. Cosmology – a philosophy • Not really testable – like in a lab experiment • It is actually historical science • Tries to reconstruct the past • No stronger than the unknown-yet-assumed geological history of our planet or the putative sequences of biological organisms that allegedly produced a microbiologist from a microbe

  26. Cosmology – a philosophy • Presupposition of denial of biblical authority (the Creation and the Flood) led to long-age beliefs about the earth • Geological evolution led to biological evolution – Lyell to Darwin • Similarly ‘cosmic evolution’ from naturalistic thinking • The Universe created itself

  27. Cosmology – a philosophy • Presupposition of denial of biblical authority (the Creation and the Flood) led to long-age beliefs about the earth • Geological evolution led to biological evolution – Lyell to Darwin • Similarly ‘cosmic evolution’ from naturalistic thinking • The Universe created itself

  28. George Ellis People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations. Gibbs, W.W., Profile: George F. R. Ellis, Scientific American273(4):55, October 1995

  29. George Ellis For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations. Gibbs, W.W., Profile: George F. R. Ellis, Scientific American273(4):55, October 1995

  30. George Ellis … you can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. Gibbs, W.W., Profile: George F. R. Ellis, Scientific American273(4):55, October 1995

  31. George Ellis What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that. Gibbs, W.W., Profile: George F. R. Ellis, Scientific American273(4):55, October 1995

  32. The Cosmological Principle • States that distribution of matter is • homogeneous (or uniform) and • isotropic (the same in all directions) • Without this assumption there is no BB model • Believed more by blind faith than by observation • The starting assumptionused in interpreting all observational evidence

  33. The Axis of Evil CMB ripples • A preferred direction in the sky • Some features of the CMB temperature variations aligned around a direction in space • Aligned with the plane of the solar system and the path of the Sun in the sky (the ecliptic) • Inconsistent with a Big Bang origin for the CMB

  34. Richard Feynman … I suspect that the assumption of uniformity of the universe reflects a prejudice born of a sequence of overthrows of geocentric ideas. … 1965 Nobel Prize Feynman, R.P., Morinigo, F.B. and Wagner, W.G., Feynman Lectures on Gravitation (Penguin Books, London), p. 166, 1999.

  35. Richard Feynman It would be embarrassing to find, after stating that we live in an ordinary planet about an ordinary star in an ordinary galaxy, that our place in the universe is extraordinary … 1965 Nobel Prize Feynman, R.P., Morinigo, F.B. and Wagner, W.G., Feynman Lectures on Gravitation (Penguin Books, London), p. 166, 1999.

  36. Richard Feynman To avoid embarrassment we cling to the hypothesis of uniformity. 1965 Nobel Prize Feynman, R.P., Morinigo, F.B. and Wagner, W.G., Feynman Lectures on Gravitation (Penguin Books, London), p. 166, 1999.

  37. The Challenge

  38. Richard Lieu Cosmology is not even astrophysics: all the principal assumptions in this field are unverified (or unverifiable) in the laboratory U. Alabama, Huntsville

  39. Richard Lieu … because the Universe offers no control experiment, i.e. with no independent checks, it is bound to be highly ambiguous and degenerate U. Alabama, Huntsville

  40. Richard Lieu …astronomical observations can never by themselves be used to prove ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ a physical theory. U. Alabama, Huntsville

  41. Richard Lieu This is because we live in only one Universe—the indispensible ‘control experiment’ is not available. U. Alabama, Huntsville

  42. Richard Lieu There is no way to interact and get a response from the Universe to test the theory under question, like an experimentalist might do in a laboratory experiment. U. Alabama, Huntsville

  43. Richard Lieu At most the cosmologist collects as much data as he can and uses statistical arguments to try to show that his conclusion is likely. U. Alabama, Huntsville

  44. Richard Lieu Hence the promise of using the Universe as a laboratory from which new incorruptible physical laws may be established without the support of laboratory experiments is preposterous … Lieu, R., LCDM cosmology: how much suppression of credible evidence, and does the model really lead its competitors, using all evidence? 17 May 2007; preprint available at arxiv.org/pdf/0705.2462v1

  45. Five ‘unknowns’ (in bold) • Galaxyredshifts, explained by expansion of space; • CMB radiation, explained as the afterglow of the big bang; • Perceived motion of stars in the disks of spiral galaxies, explained by dark matter; • Distant supernovae dimmer than expected, hence an accelerating universe, explained by dark energy; • Flatness and isotropy, explained by inflation.

  46. ‘Unknowns’ to explain ‘unknowns’ ‘Unknown’ = expansion of space the possibility that red-shift may be due to some other cause, connected with the long time or distance involved in the passage of the light from the nebula to observer, should not be prematurely neglected. E. Hubble and R.C. TolmanTwo methods of investigating the nature of nebular red-shift, ApJ, 1935, 82, 302H.

  47. ‘Unknown’ = dark energy Known = normal matter ‘Unknown’ = dark matter

  48. Max Tegmark 30 years ago, cosmology was largely viewed as somewhere out there between philosophy and metaphysics. Tegmark, M., Precision Cosmology, MIT World, 7 June 2008; mitworld.mit.edu/video/600

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