Is Popular Theory of Cosmic Creation Pseudoscience?

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: John Horgan <jhorgan () stevens edu>
> Date: May 13, 2017 at 5:55:51 AM EDT
> To: Dave Farber <farber () gmail com>, John Horgan <jhorgan () stevens edu>
> Subject: Is Popular Theory of Cosmic Creation Pseudoscience?
>
> Dave, I thought your list might find my post on a cosmic controversy interesting. Cheers, John Horgan
>
> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-a-popular-theory-of-cosmic-creation-pseudoscience/
>
> Is a Popular Theory of Cosmic Creation Pseudoscience?
>
>
>
> A brouhaha has erupted over the theory of cosmic creation known as inflation. The theory holds that in the first 
> instant of the big bang, the universe underwent a tremendous, exponential growth spurt before settling down to the 
> slower rate of expansion observed today.
>
>  
>
> First conceived in the early 1980s, inflation quickly became popular, because it seemed to account for puzzling 
> features of the observable universe. Inflation explains, supposedly, both why the universe looks quite similar in all 
> directions and yet isn’t entirely uniform, since it contains galaxies and other clumps of matter.
>
>  
>
> By the early 1990s, however, some cosmologists were beginning to doubt inflation. “I like inflation,” David Schramm, 
> a prominent contributor to the modern big bang theory, told me in 1993. But he worried that inflation does not offer 
> any unique, definitive predictions, which cannot be explained in any other way.
>
>  
>
> “You won’t see that for inflation, Schramm said, “whereas for the big bang itself you do see that. The beautiful, 
> cosmic microwave background and the light-element abundances tell you, ‘This is it.’” In other words, inflation 
> cannot be falsified. According to philosopher Karl Popper, a theory that doesn’t offer predictions specific and 
> precise enough to be proven false isn’t really scientific... 
>
> Continue reading at
> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-a-popular-theory-of-cosmic-creation-pseudoscience/



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