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Scientists Protest Censorship in Cosmology

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Re: Scientists Protest Censorship in Cosmology

#31

Post by UIUC_06 »

misja111 wrote: post #17
UIUC_06 wrote: post #9

At first blush, this reminds me of the phenomena where, every time some problem with evolution comes up (a missing piece in the fossil record, say), the creationists pop up with "See! Darwin was wrong!" arxiv would be completely right to refuse those "take that, Darwin!" articles. On the other hand, maybe there are serious problems with standard cosmology, and other models besides the Big Bang are worth considering.…

This isn't comparable to evolution theory where we have mountains of evidence of other species that were predecessors of the current ones. Or where we even have evidence of evolution happening during our lifetimes (e.g. Covid). The Big Bang theory is extremely speculative. Empirical Science is about building theories based on observations. We have no observations that provide any kind of evidence that there was a big…

I don't have the scientific background to really argue with you on this; I'm just an enthusiastic amateur.

That said: Big Bang does explain an awful lot of stuff. I'm not sure what JWST observations you say call it into question, but wouldn't we need a lot more data before advancing Big Bounce or something else as an alternative?

Re: Scientists Protest Censorship in Cosmology

#32

Post by willis936 »

guerrilla wrote: post #18
pdonis wrote: post #14

Considering how many speculative or opinion-based papers are available on arxiv with no problem whatsoever, the fact that arxiv rejected these particular three papers seems very...odd.

Considering how they host papers "refuting" Cantor and Gödel... seems like a weird time to get standards. https://arxiv.org/abs/1002.4433

Perhaps they're too close to having valid points and might have to be taken seriously.

Re: Scientists Protest Censorship in Cosmology

#33

Post by mensetmanusman »

ncmncm wrote: post #26
mensetmanusman wrote: post #16

Editors refusing to publish your work in their journal is censorship? Nature and Science have censored me a few times then (got one through though!)

It is not "their journal".

If someone can prevent publishing they are de facto editors, even if they might not do grammatical editing. E.g. Bezos is probably an editor at his paper.

Re: Scientists Protest Censorship in Cosmology

#34

Post by ncmncm »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #33
ncmncm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not "their journal".

If someone can prevent publishing they are de facto editors, even if they might not do grammatical editing. E.g. Bezos is probably an editor at his paper.

Just like busybody keepers of Wikipedia pages can keep out current information, just by assiduously reverting every change.

Re: Scientists Protest Censorship in Cosmology

#35

Post by misja111 »

pfdietz wrote: post #29
eshch wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make it less speculative. What would is to incorporate less assumptions or to prove some its assumptions with practice. I like speculativity very much, it's just a note on it.

The CMBR requires the existence of a dense, optically thick, hot state early in the universe. That's pretty much the Big Bang. There's nothing speculative about that, it follows from rather simple physics. But anyway, give an alternative model that explains it. I'll wait.

It's pretty much the Big Bang but not quite. The Big Bang theory claims more than that: it claims that our universe started from nothing or from a single point. It needs some fancy new physics to explain our current universe from that: e.g. hyper inflation.

There are some alternatives to the Big Bang theory, e.g. the Big Bounce. This also claims the existence of a thick hot early state, but a bit more than a single point. This theory also explains cosmic background radiation.

Re: Scientists Protest Censorship in Cosmology

#36

Post by misja111 »

UIUC_06 wrote: post #31
misja111 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't comparable to evolution theory where we have mountains of evidence of other species that were predecessors of the current ones. Or where we even have evidence of evolution happening during our lifetimes (e.g. Covid). The Big Bang theory is extremely speculative. Empirical Science is about building theories based on observations. We have no observations that provide any kind of evidence that there was a big…

I don't have the scientific background to really argue with you on this; I'm just an enthusiastic amateur. That said: Big Bang does explain an awful lot of stuff. I'm not sure what JWST observations you say call it into question, but wouldn't we need a lot more data before advancing Big Bounce or something else as an alternative?

As long as there is no direct evidence supporting the Big Bang theory, any other alternative is equally good IMO.

The JSWT observations putting some doubt on the Big Bang theory are the observations of very old galaxies. E.g. one was observed at a time that the universe was only 250 million years old (according to BB theory), really not much on a cosmological time scale. The thing about this galaxy was, that it seemed like a pretty normal galaxy already. Which makes people wonder how it could have formed so quickly.

Another observation casting doubt on the Big Bang theory is the (indirect) observation of some very early massive black holes. Again the question is how they could have formed so fast.

Re: Scientists Protest Censorship in Cosmology

#37

Post by UIUC_06 »

misja111 wrote: post #36
UIUC_06 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have the scientific background to really argue with you on this; I'm just an enthusiastic amateur. That said: Big Bang does explain an awful lot of stuff. I'm not sure what JWST observations you say call it into question, but wouldn't we need a lot more data before advancing Big Bounce or something else as an alternative?

As long as there is no direct evidence supporting the Big Bang theory, any other alternative is equally good IMO. The JSWT observations putting some doubt on the Big Bang theory are the observations of very old galaxies. E.g. one was observed at a time that the universe was only 250 million years old (according to BB theory), really not much on a cosmological time scale. The thing about this galaxy was, that it seeme…

Well, ok. If direct evidence is what you want, cosmology is generally lacking in that. We're here, now, and nothing is going to change that.

Re: Scientists Protest Censorship in Cosmology

#38

Post by misja111 »

misja111 wrote: post #36
UIUC_06 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have the scientific background to really argue with you on this; I'm just an enthusiastic amateur. That said: Big Bang does explain an awful lot of stuff. I'm not sure what JWST observations you say call it into question, but wouldn't we need a lot more data before advancing Big Bounce or something else as an alternative?

As long as there is no direct evidence supporting the Big Bang theory, any other alternative is equally good IMO. The JSWT observations putting some doubt on the Big Bang theory are the observations of very old galaxies. E.g. one was observed at a time that the universe was only 250 million years old (according to BB theory), really not much on a cosmological time scale. The thing about this galaxy was, that it seeme…

@UIUC_06: sure, I agree. The lack of direct evidence is more often a problem in cosmology. Some even refuse to call cosmology a science because of that. But if all of them are speculative, then why refuse any other theory than the BB theory in arxiv?

Re: Scientists Protest Censorship in Cosmology

#39

Post by pfdietz »

misja111 wrote: post #35
pfdietz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CMBR requires the existence of a dense, optically thick, hot state early in the universe. That's pretty much the Big Bang. There's nothing speculative about that, it follows from rather simple physics. But anyway, give an alternative model that explains it. I'll wait.

It's pretty much the Big Bang but not quite. The Big Bang theory claims more than that: it claims that our universe started from nothing or from a single point. It needs some fancy new physics to explain our current universe from that: e.g. hyper inflation. There are some alternatives to the Big Bang theory, e.g. the Big Bounce. This also claims the existence of a thick hot early state, but a bit more than a single p…

No, the Big Bang doesn't assume the universe started from "a single point". Nor does it assume inflation. The Big Bang theory doesn't even go back to t=0. It leaves unspecified what happens at very early times. The BB is compatible with inflation, but theories of inflation were proposed well after the BB theory itself.

Re: Scientists Protest Censorship in Cosmology

#40

Post by misja111 »

pfdietz wrote: post #39
misja111 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty much the Big Bang but not quite. The Big Bang theory claims more than that: it claims that our universe started from nothing or from a single point. It needs some fancy new physics to explain our current universe from that: e.g. hyper inflation. There are some alternatives to the Big Bang theory, e.g. the Big Bounce. This also claims the existence of a thick hot early state, but a bit more than a single p…

No, the Big Bang doesn't assume the universe started from "a single point". Nor does it assume inflation. The Big Bang theory doesn't even go back to t=0. It leaves unspecified what happens at very early times. The BB is compatible with inflation, but theories of inflation were proposed well after the BB theory itself.

I didn't say the BB assumes inflation, I said it needed fancy physics such as inflation to explain the current state of the universe.

> The BB is compatible with inflation, but theories of inflation were proposed well after the BB theory itself.

Exactly, and the reason these theories were proposed was to 'fix' the BB itself. So of course they are compatible with the BB. There is no observation that asks us to consider something like hyper inflation, except if you assume that there has been a BB.

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