Alan Guth concocted inflation theory in 1980 to avoid evidence for a 10,000-year-old universe. For his wild, evidence-free speculation, he may win a Nobel Prize.
"When you have a clear contradiction like this, you ought to focus on it," say scientists who found problems with the leading theory of galaxy evolution.
If science were ever restricted to observation, experimental demonstration, and evidence, some cosmologists left that reservation far behind long ago. Being smart does not preclude going nutty.