Cosmology Could Be Fundamentally Flawed
Citizens should know about
mistaken predictions in science
Not everything in astronomy is figured out, as the following headlines show.
Weird cosmic clumping hints our understanding of the universe is wrong (New Scientist, 12 Dec 2023). For all its evolution dogma and climate hysteria, New Scientist has one trait worthy of notice: its willingness to admit ignorance. Yesterday we saw one of their articles shame-facedly admitting that human evolution is all wrong. Now, this article says that cosmology may be all wrong. Leah Crane writes, “A vast survey of more than 25 million galaxies confirms we still can’t be sure how much matter clusters together, suggesting something is awry with the standard model of cosmology.” Results from three years of data collected by a telescope in Japan led to this worry.
We don’t know how clumpy the universe is. A survey of more than 25 million galaxies has found a discrepancy between the two main ways to measure how matter is clustered, suggesting that there is something wrong with the widely accepted standard model of cosmology – our best understanding of the universe.
The best theory of anything may not be a good theory, just like the best horse in a race may be a cripple but the best of the worst (see Best-in-Field Fallacy). The Standard Model has survived many tests because it has data in its favor. Every theory, however, will be tested by new discoveries. Cosmologists baffled by the results can always rescue “standard models” of things by tweaking imaginary parameters of unseen, unknown and theory-laden concepts like dark energy.
James Webb telescope discovers dark secret of ‘The Brick,’ a gas cloud flipping assumptions about how stars are born (Live Science, 6 Dec 2023). Robert Lea says, “Peering deep into ‘The Brick,’ a dark, chaotic gas cloud at the heart of the Milky Way, the James Webb Space Telescope uncovered secrets that could shake up theories of star formation.”
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have peered deep into “The Brick,” a dark, dense region near the heart of the Milky Way, revealing what appears to be a paradox: It’s simultaneously warm and icy. The discovery could shake up our theories of star formation.
But they’re not “our theories,” some readers may protest. They’re “your theories” (see Tontology).
James Webb telescope finds an ‘extreme’ glow coming from 90% of the universe’s earliest galaxies (Live Science, 9 Nov 2023). “The discovery threatened to upend physicists’ understanding of galaxy formation and even the standard model of cosmology,” says reporter Ben Turner. They think they found a solution due to “intense bursts of star formation” but did not explain how such a theory rescue device was not ad hoc.
The universe’s puzzlingly fast expansion may defy explanation, cosmologists fret (Science, 1 Nov 2023). Conflicts in measurements of the expansion rate of the universe have created a “Hubble tension,” this article says.
Recent observations from NASA’s JWST space telescope have confirmed the disparity, or Hubble tension, and chances that it can be explained as an observational artifact are fading. But so are prospects that the puzzle has a simple physics solution, a recent spate of papers shows. That may dash hopes that solving the Hubble tension could also help cosmologists sharpen their problematic theory of the universe’s makeup and evolution.
“There’s no guarantee that there’s one effect that is causing all of this,” says Adam Riess, a cosmologist at Johns Hopkins University. Some question whether the Hubble tension will ever be explained. “I wouldn’t bet my house on it,” says Sunny Vagnozzi, a cosmologist at the University of Trento.
Closer to Home, Too
‘Head-scratcher’: first look at asteroid dust brought to Earth offers surprises (Nature, 12 Dec 2023). Samples recovered from asteroid Bennu by the Osiris-Rex mission show puzzling features. Whose head was being scratched, and why?
Other, smaller chunks within the Bennu sample have light-coloured reflective coatings, making them appear bright against the other dark pebbles. But under a scanning electron microscope, these showed themselves to be covered in a highly brittle layer that breaks easily to reveal a darker interior. Chemical analysis showed that this light-coloured surface skin contains magnesium, sodium and phosphate — a combination rarely if ever seen in meteorites, [Dante] Lauretta [U of Arizona] said. “It’s a head-scratcher right now.”
Was he scratching his own head, or someone else’s? More of his quote is found at Space.com.
Ignorance of some things in astronomy is not a flaw in science; obviously the universe is big and complex. What’s wrong is telling the public that everything is figured out. The bigger the failed prediction, the more accountability there needs to be for telling the public otherwise.