Re: Big Bang: How widely accepted?

Bruce Scott TOK (bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de)
23 Aug 1995 15:48:39 GMT

Robert Roosen (roosen@crash.cts.com) wrote:
: Geoffrey Burbidge and Fred Hoyle, two of the "old guard"
: astronomical cosmologists do not accept the Big Bang hypothesis.
: Anthropologists
: study cosmology as the creation myths of each of the various cultures
: inhaviting planet earth. The Big Bang is in the curious position of
: being promoted as "the" cosmology by a group of physicists who have
: wandered into astronomy. They claim it is a cosmology that is
: independent of culture. [...]

There is quite a lot of opposition to the big bang, and the papers
promoting alternatives are liberally sprinkled in the Astrophysical
Journal. Look up Crawford, Arp, in addition to the two you mention, for
starters.

Crying foul play when one's model is not the accepted one is the fastest
way to self-destruct credibility in science. In tokamak plasma physics
we have a lot of competing models to explain particle and energy
transport, and you can watch this little bit of sociology in action.
Those who cry conspiracy get ignored, and rather quickly. Thus, the
cries of conspiracy, when they occur, tend to get shriller with time.

--
Mach's gut!
Bruce Scott The deadliest bullshit is
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik odorless and transparent
bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de -- W Gibson