Everyone wants the gravitational waves finding to be right?

_{Denyse O'Leary

September 8, 2014

Cosmology, News, Physics}

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But then there is a risk that it will seem more right than it would otherwise.

Some fear it was just cosmic dust affecting the readings.

“Everyone wants BICEP2 to be right,” Will Kinney of the University at Buffalo, New York, told a packed auditorium. “Because if it is, we are going to be doing incredibly precise physics on the inflationary model within the foreseeable future. And it’s going to be really cool.”

At the world’s largest meeting of cosmologists,

Astronomers and cosmologists at the International Conference on Particle Physics and Cosmology (COSMO) duked it out over how their models for the universe would be affected in two futures: one in which the results hold, the other in which dust blows them away.

We’ll see what happens.

A meeting of cosmologists? In a single universe? See also:

As if the multiverse wasn’t bizarre enough …meet Many Worlds

and

But who needs reality-based thinking anyway? Not the new cosmologists

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I won't hear a word against the 'Multiworld of the Gaps', Denyse. It's so much more plausible than the notion of a Creator, which so many of the greatest minds in the history of thought up to the present day, have espoused.Axel_{September 9, 2014
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Also of interest, at about the same time, (mid-March 2014), as the now discredited polarisation/gravitation-wave (i.e. inflation) findings were released with great fanfare from the media to the public, another paper was also released to the public. The paper was released much less fanfare from the press. In fact I don't think a single science news source covered the release then nor have any covered it since. The 'pre-print' paper was released at, appropriately enough, a church in New Orleans during the Craig-Carroll debate at the "Greer-Heard Point/Counterpoint Forum on Cosmology and Existence of God". The paper, like the gravitational wave findings, also deals with reading certain properties of light coming from the early universe, But what dramatically separates these two papers/findings is that, one, the Intelligent Design paper featured a prescient prediction prior to the discovery of evidence supporting its hypothesis, and two, the evidence discovered for the hypothesis is far more trustworthy/robust in its integrity than the polarisation evidence for gravitational waves turned out to be. Here is that Intelligent Design paper that was, and still is, ignored by the larger scientific community:
The Fine-Tuning for Discoverability – Robin Collins – March 22, 2014 Excerpt: Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation Prediction: DLO: Within the range of values of a given parameter p that yield near – optimal livability, p will fall into that subrange of values that maximize discoverability (given constraints of elegance are not violated). In every case that I was able to make calculations regarding whether the fundamental parameters of physics are optimized in this way, they appear to pass the test.[iv] This alone is significant since this hypothesis is falsifiable in the sense that one could find data that potentially disconfirms it – namely, cases in which as best as we can determining, such as a case in which changing the value of a fundamental parameter – such as the fine – structure constant – increases discoverability while not negatively affecting livability.[v] Below, I will look at a case from cosmology where this thesis could have been disconfirmed but was not.,,, The most dramatic confirmation of the discoverability/livability optimality thesis (DLO) is the dependence of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB) on the baryon to photon ratio.,,, …the intensity of CMB depends on the photon to baryon ratio, (??b), which is the ratio of the average number of photons per unit volume of space to the average number of baryons (protons plus neutrons) per unit volume. At present this ratio is approximately a billion to one (10^9) , but it could beanywhere from one to infinity; it traces back to the degree of asymmetry in matter and anti – matter right after the beginning of the universe – for approximately every billion particles of antimatter, there was a billion and one particles of matter.,,, The only livability effect this ratio has is on whether or not galaxies can form that have near – optimally livability zones. As long as this condition is met, the value of this ratio has no further effects on livability. Hence, the DLO predicts that within this range, the value of this ratio will be such as to maximize the intensity of the CMB as observed by typical observers. According to my calculations – which have been verified by three other physicists — to within the margin of error of the experimentally determined parameters (~20%), the value of the photon to baryon ratio is such that it maximizes the CMB. This is shown in Figure 1 below. (pg. 13) It is easy to see that this prediction could have been disconfirmed. In fact, when I first made the calculations in the fall of 2011, I made a mistake and thought I had refuted this thesis since those calculations showed the intensity of the CMB maximizes at a value different than the photon – baryon ratio in our universe. So, not only does the DLO lead us to expect this ratio, but it provides an ultimate explanation for why it has this value,,, This is a case of a teleological thesis serving both a predictive and an ultimate explanatory role.,,, http://home.messiah.edu/~rcollins/Fine-tuning/Greer-Heard%20Forum%20paper%20draft%20for%20posting.pdf
Here is the video of Dr. Collins announcing the paper at the forum:
Greer Heard Forum: Robin Collins - "God and the Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Discovery" - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBWmMU7BXGE
That a highly dubious finding in science supporting inflation would trump a highly successful finding in science supporting a hypothesis of Intelligent Design, in terms of the excitement it generated in the press, is a sad testimony to the state of science in America today. supplemental note, here is a trailer of a soon to be released documentary that ought to ruffle a few atheistic/materialistic feathers since it dares to provide hard evidence that humans are 'special' in the universe:
Privileged Species Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAHPTwGZSP4
bornagain77_{September 9, 2014
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I now consider the gravitational wave findings to be thoroughly discredited,,
Big Bang blunder bursts the multiverse bubble - June 3 2014 Excerpt: When a team of cosmologists announced at a press conference in March that they had detected gravitational waves generated in the first instants after the Big Bang, the origins of the Universe were once again major news. The reported discovery created a worldwide sensation in the scientific community, the media and the public at large. According to the team at the BICEP2 South Pole telescope, the detection is at the 5–7 sigma level, so there is less than one chance in two million of it being a random occurrence. The results were hailed as proof of the Big Bang inflationary theory and its progeny, the multiverse. Nobel prizes were predicted and scores of theoretical models spawned. The announcement also influenced decisions about academic appointments and the rejections of papers and grants. It even had a role in governmental planning of large-scale projects. The BICEP2 team identified a twisty (B-mode) pattern in its maps of polarization of the cosmic microwave background, concluding that this was a detection of primordial gravitational waves. Now, serious flaws in the analysis have been revealed that transform the sure detection into no detection. Now a careful reanalysis by scientists at Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study, also in Princeton, has concluded that the BICEP2 B-mode pattern could be the result mostly or entirely of foreground effects without any contribution from gravitational waves. Other dust models considered by the BICEP2 team do not change this negative conclusion, the Princeton team showed,, http://www.nature.com/news/big-bang-blunder-bursts-the-multiverse-bubble-1.15346
It is interesting to note what inflation was originally 'invented' for. Inflation was invented by materialists to 'explain away' fine-tuning of the 'flatness' of the universe as well as the fine-tuning (i.e. roundness) of the Cosmic Background radiation.
Inflation theory was proposed to solve two fine-tuning problems of the initial conditions of the early universe known as the "flatness problem"[1] and the "horizon problem"[2]. References: 1. http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/F/Flatness+Problem 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_problem
It is good to remember that shortly prior to the now discredited gravitational wave findings, one of cosmic inflation theory’s own creators had finally admitted to serious theoretical shortcomings in inflation,,
One of cosmic inflation theory’s creators (Steinhardt) now questions own theory - April 2011 Excerpt: Cosmic inflation is so widely accepted that it is often taken as established fact. The idea is that the geometry and uniformity of the cosmos were established during an intense early growth spurt. But some of the theory’s creators, including the author, are having second thoughts. As the original theory has developed, cracks have appeared in its logical foundations. Highly improbable conditions are required to start inflation. Worse, inflation goes on eternally, producing infinitely many outcomes, so the theory makes no firm observational predictions. Scientists debate among (and within) themselves whether these troubles are teething pains or signs of a deeper rot. Various proposals are circulating for ways to fix inflation or replace it. - Scientific American (April 2011), Paul J. Steinhardt,,, Inflation adds a whole bunch of really unlikely metaphysical assumptions — a new force field that has a never-before-observed particle called the “inflaton”, an expansion faster than the speed of light, an interaction with gravity waves which are themselves only inferred– just so that it can explain the unlikely contingency of a finely-tuned big bang. But instead of these extra assumptions becoming more-and-more supported, the trend went the opposite direction, with more-and-more fine-tuning of the inflation assumptions until they look as fine-tuned as Big Bang theories. At some point, we have “begged the question”. Frankly, the moment we add an additional free variable, I think we have already begged the question. In a Bayesean comparison of theories, extra variables reduce the information content of the theory, (by the so-called Ockham factor), so these inflation theories are less, not more, explanatory than the theory they are supposed to replace.,,, after 20 years of work, if we haven’t made progress, but have instead retreated, it is time to cut bait. https://uncommondescent.com/cosmology/cosmology-one-of-cosmic-inflation-theory%E2%80%99s-creators-now-questions-own-theory/ Inflationary paradigm in trouble after Planck2013 Anna Ijjas, Paul J. Steinhardt, Abraham Loeb Excerpt of abstract: More important, though, is that all the simplest inflaton models are disfavored statistically relative to those with plateau-like potentials. We discuss how a restriction to plateau-like models has three independent serious drawbacks: it exacerbates both the initial conditions problem and the multiverse-unpredictability problem and it creates a new difficulty that we call the inflationary “unlikeliness problem.”,, http://arxiv.org/pdf/1304.2785v2.pdf A new study,, challenges the inflation model - April 12, 2013 Excerpt: CfA astronomers Anna Ijjas, Paul Steinhardt, and Avi Loeb have just published a paper arguing that the new Planck results, far from lending credibility to ideas of inflation, actually undermine them. Indeed, they argue that they pose a challenge to cosmology overall. In an ironic and subtle twist, the scientists point out that the results of Planck are actually too good, because they confirm with high precision only the very simplest version of inflation. Yet, they argue, if one believes in the principles of inflation the simplest version is actually by far the most unlikely version. Hence the whole edifice of inflation becomes untenable. http://scitechdaily.com/new-study-challenges-planck-results/ Inflation Model Severely Questioned In New Paper - October 29. 2013 Excerpt: There has been much talk in scientific circles recently about a 2013 paper by Anna Ijjas, Paul J. Steinhardt and Abraham Loeb, titled, Inflationary paradigm in trouble after Planck2013. The authors of the paper (severely) question the cosmological theory of inflation, which postulates that the universe underwent a period of extremely rapid expansion shortly after the big bang, and that it has been expanding at a slower rate ever since. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/new-cosmology-paper-by-skeptical-scientists-lends-support-to-the-fine-tuning-argument/
A criticism about inflation exasperating, instead of helping, the fine-tuning problem, by Roger Penrose who deduced the 1 in 10^10^123 number for the initial entropic state of the universe, is here:
Inflation Excerpt: In order to work, and as pointed out by Roger Penrose from 1986 on, inflation requires extremely specific initial conditions of its own, so that the problem of initial conditions is not solved: “There is something fundamentally misconceived about trying to explain the uniformity of the early universe as resulting from a thermalization process. […] For, if the thermalization is actually doing anything […] then it represents a definite increasing of the entropy. Thus, the universe would have been even more special before the thermalization than after.”[104] Penrose, Roger (1989). “Difficulties with Inflationary Cosmology”. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 271: 249–264. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_%28cosmology%29#Criticisms
bornagain77_{September 9, 2014
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