- "Thought that is silenced is always rebellious.
Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of
minorities is necessarily dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable
antidote to major delusions." ~ Alan Barth
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- It is not unusual for the average layperson to feel intimidated
by scientists. Individuals who have spent their entire lives immersed in
a specialized field of study display a command of a subject that often
appears above reproach. This creates a tendency in the common man to believe
on faith most everything he is told by the scientific mainstream. Since
most people find science as incomprehensible as it is "boring,"
they simply say to themselves, "Who am I to question the real "experts?,"
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- Nevertheless, there is a growing suspicion amongst the
general public that the picture presented by the scientific Establishment
is not quite correct. This feeling of unease is exacerbated by the behavior
of those who call themselves "skeptics." The term "skeptic,"
according to the American Heritage Dictionary, means "One who is yet
undecided as to what is true; one who is looking or inquiring for what
is true; an inquirer after facts or reasons." Self-styled skeptics
often do not meet this definition, yet they present themselves as paragons
of rationality and logic. The naturally curious "commoner" with
no training in the sciences is often frustrated and even angered by the
skeptics, out-of-hand dismissals of virtually every challenge to conventional
thought.
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- In recent years, serious flaws have been revealed in
the underpinnings of the theoretical sciences, yet many "skeptics"
seem unable or unwilling to acknowledge this. I wrote about this problem
in two recent articles, "The Fingers of God Point to No Big Bang,"
and "Science and the Coming Dark Age." I pointed out that the
key tenet of Big Bang theory - the Doppler interpretation of redshift -
has been challenged by space age discovery, and without this underpinning,
there is little or no reason to believe the Big Bang theory is correct.
I will elaborate on this as I continue.
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- I was not surprised to learn that this article has appeared
in a thread on the so-called "Bad Astronomy" message board. Link:
"Big Bang Busted?" Page1: http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=17067&postdays=0&postorder=a
sc&start=0
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- BA is a website run by Phil Plait, a PhD in astronomy
and author of the book, "Bad Astronomy." Plait's site is largely
devoted to "debunking" such "pseudo-science" as Planet
X, the face on Mars, and the "Apollo Moon Hoax." I wrote about
Mr. Plait in a previous article, and I would guess that he was angered
by my characterization of him as a close-minded debunker. Article link:
http://www.rense.com/general54/badst.htm
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- I visited the BA forum yesterday and was pleasantly surprised
to see a reasonably balanced and occasionally informed discussion. Unfortunately,
the most glaringly inaccurate statement came from Mr. Plait himself. Since
Mr. Plait's comments have the least relevance to the Big Bang debate, I
will save my response to him for the end of this article.
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- Several BA posters made incorrect assertions when questioning
the evidence that invalidates the Big Bang theory. I had pointed out a
definitive challenge to the Big Bang reasoning, on the basis of redshift
of quasars. Following the conventional logic of redshift, astronomers placed
these objects at the farthest reaches of the Universe. This reasoning is
the central pillar of the Big Bang hypothesis. So I drew attention to a
recent photograph of galaxy NGC 7319, showing a quasar IN FRONT Of the
dense and opaque core of a NEARBY galaxy. The photograph can be viewed
at http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/tpod-quasar-in-front-of-galaxy.htm
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- Interestingly, no one at BA challenged the direct implication
of this - that the quasar could not be where Big Bang theorists place quasars.
But some respondents suggested that the failure of the Doppler interpretation
of redshift does not refute the Big Bang theory. BA poster "dgruss23"
wrote of galaxy NGC 7319: "This is clearly an example that supports
Arp's model for ejection of quasars. The mainstream claim that all Arp's
associations are accidental just doesn't work here. The galaxy is too opaque
at the quasar's position to allow background light through.
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- "But then we turn to the thunderbolts description.
They claim this example disproves the Big Bang. It doesn't. The universe
may still be expanding and these quasar ejections and all other intrinsic
redshift phenomenon are superimposed upon the expansion."
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- I think this statement misses the point. To say that
a theory is "dead," one need not prove it is false. One only
has to show that the primary reason for believing it has evaporated, and
that was the punch-line of both my articles.
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- The Big Bang was built on the idea that there is a direct
correlation between redshift on the one hand, and velocity and distance
on the other. This supposition has collapsed. So it is no longer reasonable
to treat the mere POSSIBILITY of a "recessional component" to
the redshift as EVIDENCE for the Big Bang. That guess will only become
evidence if someone can show - on OTHER grounds - that a redshifted object
IS receding from the observer.
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- In addition to the galaxy NGC 7319, I referred to a phenomenon
called "The Fingers of God." This refers to what happens when
galaxies are placed as "dots on a map" around the earth. Against
all statistical odds, the galaxies appear to produce streams of dots pointing
directly at the earth. This can only be an illusion, unless you believe
the earth is in fact at the center of the universe. I did note that astronomers
have a partial explanation for this, in terms of galaxy clusters interacting
with each other to produce relative motions toward and away from the earth.
But as is crystal clear in the illustration of this "map," the
"Fingers of God," if you believe the Doppler interpretation,
span BILLIONS of light years, far beyond any distances at which ANYONE
has claimed dynamic gravitational interactions.
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- My explanation was not accepted by "dgruss23",
who wrote: "My comment is that you should waste no further time reading
that website. He doesn't even do a respectable job of explaining the "fingers
of god, effect in an article in which he claims it refutes the Big Bang."
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- He did not elaborate on WHY the explanation of the "fingers
of God" was not "respectable." which led another BA poster,
"BrianStewart," to write: "Just a minor point, perhaps,
but I LIKED the explanation given of the "fingers of god., The logic
immediately made sense. Am I missing something? I,d appreciate a brief
summary of the failure in Goodspeed's description of the "fingers
of god, effect.," As of this writing, this request has yet to be answered.
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- I don,t believe I was overstating when I asserted that
the "fingers of God" effect refutes the Big Bang theory. The
issue here is not quasars, or quasars and just a few galaxies. It's the
picture of the universe as a whole. As I had stated before, to eliminate
the illusion of the "fingers of God," one must only remove the
Doppler effect. So the BEST that can be said of the Big Bang theory is
that it has not been categorically excluded. Certainly, the popular scientific
discussion spanning decades has grossly misrepresented the debate, and
no self-respecting science editor should ever again be permitted to discuss
the Big Bang as a "fact."
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- One fallback position for Big Bang proponents is the
presence of Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) or Cosmic Microwave Background
(CMB) - the "temperature" of deep space. They speak of CBR as
if its presence supports the Big Bang theory. They refer to it as the "afterglow."
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- For almost 20 years, up until 1965, the most respected
early proponent of the Big Bang, George Gamow, predicted temperatures ranging
from 5 to 50 degrees Kelvin. The 50 degree figure was his latest. The actual
MEASURED temp today is 2.73 K. Interestingly, Gamow was not the first to
predict this temperature of space. In 1896, the French Nobel Laureate Charles
Guillaume predicted a temp of 5.6 "absolute" (Kelvin). In 1926,
Arthur Eddington predicted a temp of about 3 K. In the late 1950s and early
60s, tired light models predicted temps of around 2.8 K. Other non-Big
Bang theorists also gave predictions that were closer to the truth than
Gamow's.
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- In an email to me, amateur astronomer Mel Acheson wrote:
"There are enough 'adjustable parameters' in the BB that it can explain
whatever temperature is observed. It doesn't predict any particular temperature.
So any observation will verify the theory. So much for verification. Of
course, a theory has to be verified to stay in the running, but until you
test it against other theories with predictions that clearly distinguish
among them, you haven't left the starting gate."
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- I was surprised to see toward the end of the BA thread
that the individual who responded most strongly against my articles acknowledges
a couple of days later that the Big Bang theory is precarious. The aforementioned
"dgruss23," while holding to his claim that intrinsic redshifts
do not invalidate Big Bang theory, wrote: "But I,m willing to look
at non-expanding universe options too because I think it is likely that
at some point the BBT will have to be dropped."
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- I would have loved to have seen Phil Plait's involvement
in this discussion. Unfortunately, Plait's sole comment in this thread
was a false statement about me. Rather than addressing the critical issues
raised about Big Bang theory, Plait tried to silence the message by attacking
the messenger. He wrote: "Michael Goodspeed is very unlikely to be
right when discussing science.
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- "On this page, also on Rense's site, he rails against
me, using extraordinarily bad logic, and leaps broadly to unsupported conclusions.
He also toes James McCanney's party line about comets, which is laughably
bad and in many cases trivially easy to show to be grossly wrong."
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- Plait's assertion that I "toe McCanney's party line"
is false. I have already refuted this notion in my article, "The True
Origins of Electric Comet Theory." In response to claims that I was
not crediting McCanney as the "originator" of electric comet
theory, I was forced to meticulously outline the full history of the theory
(which dates back to the 19th century), and point out the critical differences
between my writings, and McCanney's thesis. This article may be read at:
http://www.rense.com/general54/trueor.htm
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- One BA poster (BrianStewart) actually pointed out these
facts to Plait, writing, "Goodspeed doesn't "toe James McCanney's
party line., To get a balanced view of the issue, you have to begin with
the fact that the electric comet theory is not James McCanney's. It traces
to a fairly common view in the 19th century, and in the 20th century the
concept received its first formulations by engineer Ralph Juergens in the
early 1970s."
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- A few others in the BA forum followed Plait's lead, trying
to make me the focal point of discussion, rather than the evidence. A person
calling himself "russ_waters" wrote: "Why bother with an
astronomy degree or two or three when you don't have to know anything to
know something? BA wasted a decade or so of his life...
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- "And insinuating conpiracy [sic] is a dead giveaway
for crackpottery."
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- This person seems to say that people lacking official
credentials can never offer anything worthwhile in scientific discussions.
Few open-minded people share this extreme position. Furthermore, his claim
that the articles in question offered "conspiracy theory" (gasp!
shudder!) is a distortion. I didn,t claim there is anything more "conspiratorial"
going on than individuals (scientists) looking out for their own best interests.
They will defend discredited theories to protect their reputations, and
most importantly, their FUNDING. This has been going on for years, and
it is only going worse.
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- More than one BA poster seems to agree on this point.
"ExpErdMann" offered this insight: "The way it must go in
most faculty meetings in physics, geology and astronomy is something like
this. We were all taught theory A is correct and we've all made progress
during our careers adding bits to theory A. Now you come along and tell
us that theory B is really the correct one, but no one else thinks that
way and if we went along with you our department will look bad and we won't
get our usual grants to add bits to theory A. So, while we hate to see
you go, could you kindly pack up and peddle your wares at the community
college 40 miles away from here."
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- And the aforementioned BrianStewart wrote: "No one
who has taught college courses, written books, given public talks, or invested
a lifetime of research based on "group think, ideas wants to see these
ideas crash and burn"
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- I never envisioned myself DIRECTING people to the Bad
Astronomy forum, but I think this thread provides some worthwhile insights
not only on the Big Bang debate, but the larger issue of the mainstream's
response to unorthodox ideas.
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- It would be a tragedy to ignore the lesson of Halton
Arp, now that a growing number of scientists are rushing to embrace his
contribution. It was only a few years ago that Arp was forced to leave
the country in order to pursue his work. Arp was SHUT DOWN by politically
motivated opponents - an example of "peer review" at its worst.
The exclusion of Arp points to a problem larger than the Big Bang, or redshift.
All of the theoretical sciences are long overdue for an introspective review.
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- After the Big Bang falls, what will be next? Dark matter,
dark energy, black holes, the formation and evolution of stars and planets,
the nature of comets, asteroids, and meteorsall of the above? What about
the geologic history of our planet, and the evolution of life? Even the
age-old debate between "science and religion" could be transformed
through an honest consideration of the question the experts are most reluctant
to ask: WHAT DO WE REALLY KNOW?
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