Holes in Big Bang

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

What that says is that overdensities make hot spots. Ergo, voids make cold spots. It's called the late time integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, if you want to read more about it.

Thanks, though I must admit that whereas I understand your answer the connection to the words I quoted is still unclear to me. However, it may not be worth your time in this congested thread to make me understand it.

 

[sol invictus]

Technically, unless I'm missing something inflation is not required to explain that feature.

Inflation - or something similar - is required to explain the homogeneity, isotropy, and scale-invariant power spectrum of the CMB.

I've read a number of articles now as to why starlight cannot explain these features, but I can't tell if any of these methods were applied to 'expanding" stars, or whether it's applied to just a static universe model.

The CMB cannot be starlight, no matter what the model is. Starlight doesn't have the right spectrum or the right spatial distribution. Static models are even worse - they have those problems and suffer from Olbers' paradox.

I would think any type of 'bang' with surface of last scattering would suffice and that inflation is optional, but feel free to correct me if I am mistaken on that point.

That will give you some kind of CMB, yes. But without inflation it shouldn't be so homogeneous (remember, even the cold spot is a variation in temperature of one part in 20,000 or so - it's a tiny effect).

Not IMO. IMO you're simply "fudging the numbers" with more ad hoc property assignments.

One of the parameters of inflation is how long it lasted. That's very badly constrained by current data, although there's a rough lower limit. If it lasted close to that lower limit, features like dark flows and the cold spot are to be expected.

You seem to be refusing to even consider the idea that inflation is falsified. If there are no ways to falsify the theory, then how is it any different from religion?

There are ways to falsify it. But one thing to bear in mind is that inflation is more like a collection of theories than it is a single theory. Within that collection, there's room for significant variation, but not for everything.

Inflation is phenomenological - it was built to explain empirical data. There's no good top-down theory that chooses a particular inflation model. So when new data emerges, one checks to see whether it's possible to accommodate within the set of inflation models. If so, good - you've just helped constrain the set of possible models. If not, inflation is falsified.

 

[Wowbagger]

Technically, unless I'm missing something inflation is not required to explain that feature.

sol invictus was nice enough to respond to this. Since he knows a lot more about cosmology than I do, I shall tend to accept his rebuttal, for the time being.

Your job is now to address his rebuttal.

One thing I am curious about is your response to his argument that inflation is "more like a collection of theories than it is a single theory". If you have some really spiffy way of building the "top down" theory necessary to choose one model over the other, or to replace them all entirely, I would like to know what it is.

Secondarily, I'd like to hear your response to Olbers' paradox, which seems like a particularly bad blow to your argumnets, at least to me.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers'_paradox )

However, you can ignore my priorities and go off on your own. Just make sure you can develop something that will make sol invictus cry for mercy, if you can.

Not IMO. IMO you're simply "fudging the numbers" with more ad hoc property assignments.

And, scientists call it "refining the model". At least they are being productive. You have done little to demonstrate that your proposals are.

Since none of these new "properties" can be "tested" or falsified, how is this not a religion?

Who says they can't be tested?! What do you think these scientists do all day? Sit around going "Oooo! Ahhhh!" at all the pretty lights in the sky?

If I did, it would be for your benefit, not hers.

It would be for the benefit of the general discussion in this thread. There are other folks in here, besides you and me and DRD.

Whereas inflation theory was intended to 'explain' a creation event, EU theory was created to explain features and phenomenon inside our own solar system and it works *OUTWARD* from there. These theories are therefore difficult to compare in one to one terms.

Where they do overlap, can you clarify how they differ? What would one predict that the other wouldn't , and vice-versa?

 

[Reality Check]

It's not that i can't in practice. It's just that i don't hold any. I have well over 100 scientific papers. All of them are dedicated to quantum physics, and not one of them wholey on cosmology. But is this any surprise? I am not a cosmologist.

I did not mean that you have the papers youself.
I meant that you cannot find citations for the papers. There are a couple of common resources used for this:

• arXiv.org e-Print archive for preprints of papers.
• The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System.

 

[Reality Check]

What, you don't like the first reference?

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0405/0405341v2.pdf

From the conclusion:

This paper uses the 1-year WMAP data. They have a later paper using the 3-year WMAP data:
The non-Gaussian Cold Spot in the 3-year WMAP data

The non-Gaussian cold spot detected in wavelet space in the WMAP 1-year data, is detected again in the coadded WMAP 3-year data at the same position (b = -57, l = 209) and size in the sky (around 10 degrees). The present analysis is based on several statistical methods: kurtosis, maximum absolute temperature, number of pixels below a given threshold, volume and Higher Criticism. All these methods detect deviations from Gaussianity in the 3--year data set at a slightly higher confidence level than in the WMAP 1-year data. These small differences are mainly due to the new foreground reduction technique and not to the reduction of the noise level, which is negligible at the scale of the spot. In order to avoid "a posteriori" analyses, we recalculate for the WMAP 3-year data the significance of the deviation in the kurtosis. The skewness and kurtosis tests were the first tests performed with wavelets for the WMAP data. We obtain that the probability of finding an at least as high deviation in Gaussian simulations is 1.85%. The frequency dependence of the spot is shown to be extremely flat. Galactic foreground emissions are not likely to be responsible for the detected deviation from Gaussianity

And another paper analysing the 5-year WMAP data: Non-Gaussian Signatures in the five-year WMAP data as identified with isotropic scaling indices

 

[Monketi Ghost]

Starting to snap into focus. These threads go so much more smoothly without some participation...

 

[Michael Mozina]

Inflation - or something similar - is required to explain the homogeneity, isotropy, and scale-invariant power spectrum of the CMB.

It's that "something similar" option I'm curious about.

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0205058

Mind you that's just one example, and maybe not the best one out there.

The CMB cannot be starlight, no matter what the model is. Starlight doesn't have the right spectrum or the right spatial distribution.

I'm going to have to concede that point for the time being because I can't find anything that's been published that would suggest otherwise. I don't fully understand how these starlight models are put together and what types of ISM density they are based upon however, so I remain somewhat 'unconvinced' that starlight can't ever replace that idea. That may change over time as I get better familiar with these models.

Static models are even worse - they have those problems and suffer from Olbers' paradox.

I would tend to agree.

That will give you some kind of CMB, yes. But without inflation it shouldn't be so homogeneous (remember, even the cold spot is a variation in temperature of one part in 20,000 or so - it's a tiny effect).

Sure, but then homogeneous layouts of matter do not seem to be strictly limited to inflation theories, and the universe may not be all that homogeneous in the final analysis.

One of the parameters of inflation is how long it lasted. That's very badly constrained by current data, although there's a rough lower limit. If it lasted close to that lower limit, features like dark flows and the cold spot are to be expected.

That sounds a wee suspicious in the sense that you seem to want to have your cake and eat it too. If homogeneous distribution of matter is "evidence" for inflation, then a non homogeneous distribution cannot also be evidence of inflation. It seems like we're just fudging the numbers now to make things fit, we aren't basing the ideas on known laws of physics and "tested" features of inflation. We're just making it up as we go.

There are ways to falsify it.

How? I'm not being flippant, I'd really like to know how you intend to falsify a theory that has been continuously posdicted to fit observation. It seems like if we throw in enough ad hoc parameters anything and everything is possible.

But one thing to bear in mind is that inflation is more like a collection of theories than it is a single theory. Within that collection, there's room for significant variation, but not for everything.

I'm not so sure there isn't room for everything if we can continually change the parameters till we get a proper fit. What prevents us for coming up with a new "holey dark flow inflation"?

Inflation is phenomenological - it was built to explain empirical data. There's no good top-down theory that chooses a particular inflation model. So when new data emerges, one checks to see whether it's possible to accommodate within the set of inflation models. If so, good - you've just helped constrain the set of possible models. If not, inflation is falsified.

I'm not convinced that it can be falsified if it can be forever modified as we go. Unlike say 'current flow' where we can physically test our concepts in a lab, inflation is purely "tweaked to fit" and there is no way to verify or falsify any of these variables in the standard scientific manner. If we are not required to demonstrate that inflation actually exists or has the properties we assign to it, then there is nothing to prevent us from adding more variables to the mix till we get a 'fit'.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

[...]

First, there is no such thing as "EU theory", in any scientific sense (so it cannot, by definition, make any sort of scientific replacement, for anything).

Second, "PC theory", as defined by Lerner (and thanks to Z for bringing this definition to our attention) is also non-science. Why? Because it declares General Relativity (GR) to be not applicable to the study of the universe. And why does it do that? Perhaps it references voluminous research showing GR to be inconsistent with observations on Mpc (and above) scales? No, it makes a simple declaration. Given that there is a very great deal of observational evidence to suggest that GR's domain of applicability extends to the largest observable scales (and essentially none to the contrary), I don't see how this arbitrary assumption could be considered scientifically valid.

Third, "PC theory", as defined by Alfvén, has been shown to be inconsistent with a wide range of high quality observations, so it is no longer a serious cosmological model (and hasn't been for several decades).

DeiRenDopa, perhaps you could contribute a few examples of these inconsistencies, if it is not too much trouble?

Sure.

First, though, some scene setting. AFAIK, the core concepts in Alfvén's many writings on cosmology were laid out in his 1965 book, "Worlds, Anti-Worlds"; however, they were never really developed into a fully-fledged scientific theory (at least, not by Alfvén, during his working life). A consequence of this is that very few potentially good (i.e. testable) hypotheses were ever developed. Also, Lerner's PC is an intellectual descendant of Alfvén's, though AFAIK Alfvén was far too good a scientist to declare GR irrelevant simply by fiat. In what follows I'll address several aspects of what seem to me to be common parts of all Alfvén's writings on cosmology, with the explicit acknowledgement that I have almost certainly missed some important parts.

To the extent that Alfvén's PC describes a static universe, a generalised Olbers' paradox and the Hubble relationship (redshift-distance, the particular form of the relationship is not important) are perhaps the most fatal. I know of at least one Alfvén paper which attempts to address the former, with a hierarchical density model (i.e. the larger the scale, the lower the average density); however, this fails because the universe looks increasingly homogeneous as the scale is increased (i.e. density variations get smaller and smaller, and fluctuate around a common mean). To Alfvén's credit, he recognised that such a finding would be fatal to his model, and the solid observational conclusions concerning large-scale structure were published only well after the end of his scientific career.

The CMB, as an isotropic, near-perfect blackbody, cannot be accounted for in any form of Alfvén's PC (AFAIK); similarly, the observed cosmic backgrounds in other wavebands (from x-ray to IR) would seem to be quite a challenge.

As far as we can tell, the observable universe is overwhelmingly matter; anti-matter is a trivial component. By itself this is not fatal to Alfvén's PC, but it does make it more a philosophical curiosity than a scientific theory (e.g. an ambiplasma universe in which the entire observable universe is a matter region is likely not testable, even in principle).

 

[Michael Mozina]

sol invictus was nice enough to respond to this. Since he knows a lot more about cosmology than I do, I shall tend to accept his rebuttal, for the time being.

Your job is now to address his rebuttal.

Done.

One thing I am curious about is your response to his argument that inflation is "more like a collection of theories than it is a single theory". If you have some really spiffy way of building the "top down" theory necessary to choose one model over the other, or to replace them all entirely, I would like to know what it is.

I don't profess to have such a model per se, although some of the replacements suggested seem to do the job with fewer parameters. I'm unclear however that they fully satisfy all the data.

Secondarily, I'd like to hear your response to Olbers' paradox, which seems like a particularly bad blow to your argumnets, at least to me.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers'_paradox )

I personally tend to lean toward an expanding cosmology model, although I do not believe that it is "space" that is expanding or that all matter and energy was ever collected to a "single" point in spacetime.

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0601171

However, you can ignore my priorities and go off on your own. Just make sure you can develop something that will make sol invictus cry for mercy, if you can.

With his math skills, I personally doubt that will ever happen. Keep in mind that I'm not even personally all that interested in the "big picture" items that seem to so fascinate the mainstream. Whether our universe was 'created" or not is irrelevant from my perspective. I want to understand why things work *INSIDE OUR SOLAR SYSTEM* before I get carried away with bigger picture issues.

And, scientists call it "refining the model". At least they are being productive. You have done little to demonstrate that your proposals are.

Here's a "Bang" proposal by Alfven that I find more personally interesting.
http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/A...An Intoductory Exposition - Hannes Alfven.pdf

Who says they can't be tested?! What do you think these scientists do all day? Sit around going "Oooo! Ahhhh!" at all the pretty lights in the sky?

They tweak various variables until they get a better fit and yet none of these alleged "properties" of inflation have ever been demonstrated. It's all a postdicted fit with no regard to what can be empirically demonstrated in a lab.

Where they do overlap, can you clarify how they differ? What would one predict that the other wouldn't , and vice-versa?

Well, for one thing Alfven's "bang" theory predicts 'current flows" in space. It predicts solar discharges like those two papers suggest and has a real influence on objects *INSIDE* of our solar system. It predicts things like equal parts of matter and antimatter. There are differences that can be "tested', and even differences that can be tested inside of our own solar system, not 'far far away' were humans can never reach.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Sure.

First, though, some scene setting. AFAIK, the core concepts in Alfvén's many writings on cosmology were laid out in his 1965 book, "Worlds, Anti-Worlds"; however, they were never really developed into a fully-fledged scientific theory (at least, not by Alfvén, during his working life). A consequence of this is that very few potentially good (i.e. testable) hypotheses were ever developed.

That is simply "untrue". Alfven "predicted" the presence of electrical discharges in the solar atmosphere. He "predicted" high speed solar wind. He "predicted" aurora. He "predicted" many things in the 250+ papers he wrote.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/n...params&author=Alfven, Hannes O. G.&db_key=AST

It is plain silly to suggest he made few "testable" predictions. That's not the case.

 

[Michael Mozina]

As far as we can tell, the observable universe is overwhelmingly matter; anti-matter is a trivial component.

Well, maybe yes, maybe no.
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1667

For all we know the core of our own galaxy is composed of antimatter and a 'double layer' (Alfven called it ambiplasma) simply separates the matter from the antimatter.

By itself this is not fatal to Alfvén's PC,

This is correct. The bulk of the antimatter may simply be located outside of the small visible sliver of the universe that we can see.

but it does make it more a philosophical curiosity than a scientific theory (e.g. an ambiplasma universe in which the entire observable universe is a matter region is likely not testable, even in principle).

That actually depends on where the antimatter is located. One might point to that antimatter cloud at the core of the Milky Way and claim it's a "successful prediction" of his theory. Again, it all depends on where the antimatter is located.

 

[sol invictus]

It's that "something similar" option I'm curious about.

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0205058

I'm actually quite sympathetic to the views expressed in the abstract of that paper, although I don't think that particular model is very satisfactory. Here's the first part of their abstract:

Inflationary models are generally credited with explaining the large scale homogeneity, isotropy, and flatness of our universe as well as accounting for the origin of structure (i.e., the deviations from exact homogeneity) in our universe. We argue that the explanations provided by inflation for the homogeneity, isotropy, and flatness of our universe are not satisfactory, and that a proper explanation of these features will require a much deeper understanding of the initial state of our universe. On the other hand, inflationary models are spectacularly successful in providing an explanation of the deviations from homogeneity.

I think, were you actually to talk calmly to some scientists working in the area, you'd find that many (perhaps most) of them agree with that. That's why many people are searching for alternatives, or to improve our understanding of the initial state of the universe.

Sure, but then homogeneous layouts of matter do not seem to be strictly limited to inflation theories, and the universe may not be all that homogeneous in the final analysis.

Again, remember that the cold spot is a deviation of less than 1/10,000 from perfect homogeneity. The universe is extremely homogeneous on large scales - that's an observational fact, and it can't be ignored.

That sounds a wee suspicious in the sense that you seem to want to have your cake and eat it too. In homogeneous distribution of matter is "evidence" for inflation, then a non homogeneous distribution cannot also be evidence of inflation.

Inflation doesn't predict a perfectly homogeneous universe. The strongest evidence for it comes from the spectrum of inhomogeneities. But it's true that the cold spot (and dark flows) observations don't fit very well. If they're real, they indicate either short inflation (not so big a surprise) or something more radical.

It seems like we're just fudging the numbers now to make things fit, we aren't basing the ideas on known laws of physics and "tested" features of inflation. We're just making up as we go.

Fudging the numbers isn't a reasonable characterization. The parameters of the model are adjusted to fit observation. That's nothing more or less than the bog-standard scientific method. It means that some hypotheses have been falsified, while some remain possible. Your criticism can only be justified if you can demonstrate that we have some observations which simply cannot be accommodated no matter what, or if you have a theory that explains things just as well but with fewer adjustable parameters.

As an example: early evolutionary theorists believed (I think) that evolution was a continuous, smooth process that took place at a more or less constant rate. Then things like the Cambrian explosion were discovered in the fossil record. So the theory was adjusted, and now it's a more precise description of the real world. That's exactly how science is supposed to work.

How? I'm not being flippant, I'd really like to know how you intend to falsify a theory that has been continuously posdicted to fit observation. It seems like if we throw in enough ad hoc parameters anything and everything is possible.

Nope. For example, if the spatial curvature was large compared to the density perturbations, inflation would be ruled out. If the power spectrum of perturbations differed significantly from 1, inflation would be ruled out. If these dark flows are really there AND persist down to smaller scales (where we know inflation should have generated the perturbations), it's ruled out. Etc.

I'm not so sure there isn't room for everything if we can continually change the parameters till we get a proper fit. What prevents us for coming up with a new "holey dark flow inflation"?

What would be wrong with that? If you have some evidence the current model can't explain, you come up with a new one. If the new model happens to contain a word in its name the old one also contained, so what?

 

[dudalb]

But, the revised model might make other predictions for things not discovered, yet. These are other things the old model would not predict. If they find those other things are also true, that is evidence that the new model is better.

Science does not merely tweak variables until it "fits". It takes the tweaked variables, and... makes other, new discoveries with them.

That is what science does. That is what it is good at doing. To call it "dogma" is not productive.

Agreed, although I have to point out that individual scientists can become VERY dogmatic about their theories.

 

[ben m]

Fudging the numbers isn't a reasonable characterization. The parameters of the model are adjusted to fit observation. That's nothing more or less than the bog-standard scientific method

As another example: after you've conducted Millikan's oil drop experiment, and you say "This data is only consistent with the theory that the electron mass is 511 keV/c^2". Nobody comes along and says, 'you fudged your electron model to fit the data'.

 

[Ziggurat]

Here's a "Bang" proposal by Alfven that I find more personally interesting.
http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/A...An Intoductory Exposition - Hannes Alfven.pdf

What is striking about this paper is how completely incompatible it is with general relativity, and yet there is no attempt to reconcile or justify this incompatibility. In fact, there is no mention of general relativity at all. Also missing is any mention of the CMB, which this alternative cannot explain. So why is it interesting, Michael, when it fails to account for observations and is incompatible with our best-tested theory of gravity?

 

[Michael Mozina]

As another example: after you've conducted Millikan's oil drop experiment, and you say "This data is only consistent with the theory that the electron mass is 511 keV/c^2". Nobody comes along and says, 'you fudged your electron model to fit the data'.

The difference is that every and every parameter in such an experiment is derived from real experiments with real control mechanism that we can repeat as often as we like. We know electrons exist in nature. Compare and contrast that with an endless number of 'fudged variables', none of which came from empirical experimentation with actual control mechanism. We can't even be sure inflation ever existed in nature, let alone verify any of the presumed "properties" being assigned to it.

 

[Ziggurat]

The difference is that every and every parameter in such an experiment is derived from real experiments with real control mechanism that we can repeat as often as we like. We know electrons exist in nature. Compare and contrast that with an endless number of 'fudged variables', none of which came from empirical experimentation with actual control mechanism. We can't even be sure inflation ever existed in nature, let alone verify any of the presumed "properties" being assigned to it.

And Newton had a parameter in his theory of gravity that he never measured, by experiment or by observation. Obviously a total fraud.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Sure.

First, though, some scene setting. AFAIK, the core concepts in Alfvén's many writings on cosmology were laid out in his 1965 book, "Worlds, Anti-Worlds"; however, they were never really developed into a fully-fledged scientific theory (at least, not by Alfvén, during his working life). A consequence of this is that very few potentially good (i.e. testable) hypotheses were ever developed. Also, Lerner's PC is an intellectual descendant of Alfvén's, though AFAIK Alfvén was far too good a scientist to declare GR irrelevant simply by fiat. In what follows I'll address several aspects of what seem to me to be common parts of all Alfvén's writings on cosmology, with the explicit acknowledgement that I have almost certainly missed some important parts.

To the extent that Alfvén's PC describes a static universe, a generalised Olbers' paradox and the Hubble relationship (redshift-distance, the particular form of the relationship is not important) are perhaps the most fatal. I know of at least one Alfvén paper which attempts to address the former, with a hierarchical density model (i.e. the larger the scale, the lower the average density); however, this fails because the universe looks increasingly homogeneous as the scale is increased (i.e. density variations get smaller and smaller, and fluctuate around a common mean). To Alfvén's credit, he recognised that such a finding would be fatal to his model, and the solid observational conclusions concerning large-scale structure were published only well after the end of his scientific career.

The CMB, as an isotropic, near-perfect blackbody, cannot be accounted for in any form of Alfvén's PC (AFAIK); similarly, the observed cosmic backgrounds in other wavebands (from x-ray to IR) would seem to be quite a challenge.

As far as we can tell, the observable universe is overwhelmingly matter; anti-matter is a trivial component. By itself this is not fatal to Alfvén's PC, but it does make it more a philosophical curiosity than a scientific theory (e.g. an ambiplasma universe in which the entire observable universe is a matter region is likely not testable, even in principle).

There's also something called the Alfvén-Klein cosmological model which may be relevant ...

I have been unable to track down any paper on this (as in, published in a relevant, peer-reviewed journal), so I'm going by memory and a Wikipedia article; specifically, I do not know to what extent Alfvén developed this.

IIRC, this is some kind of cyclic model, with a collapse to a high temperature, high density state, followed by an expansion. To the extent that such a model produces a universe observationally indistinguishable from standard LCDM+inflation universes, even in principle, then it is viable (obviously!). However, IIRC, this is actually very different from standard models, in that it does not include GR (and so, for example, the 'expansion' is an explosion), and as such the Hubble relationship is fatal, especially the consistency of distance estimates based on different distances (luminosity, angular size, ...).

If this is, indeed, a PC cosmological model, and if Alfvén developed it to account for observations such as the primordial abundances of light nuclides, the CMB (such as was known in his scientific lifetime), and the Hubble relationship (not including the "Dark Energy" observations, obviously), it might be interesting to take a closer look at it; does anyone know if there is a paper (or three) on it?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

The difference is that every and every parameter in such an experiment is derived from real experiments with real control mechanism that we can repeat as often as we like. We know electrons exist in nature. Compare and contrast that with an endless number of 'fudged variables', none of which came from empirical experimentation with actual control mechanism. We can't even be sure inflation ever existed in nature, let alone verify any of the presumed "properties" being assigned to it.

And Newton had a parameter in his theory of gravity that he never measured, by experiment or by observation. Obviously a total fraud.

Even worse, it was not tested - by Cavendish - until well after Newton's death!

Further, serious lab-based tests of deviations from inverse square, over distances from microns to metres, were not done until the second half of the 20th century. If MM's view of how physics should be done prevailed - from Newton onward - Newton's universal law of gravitation would not have been studied, much less accepted, as part of physics.

And when it comes to GR, well, observing the deflection of starlight, near the limb of the Sun (during a total eclipse) surely does not count as a "real experiment", does it? I mean, where's the "real control mechanism" (a.k.a. "actual control mechanism")?

I guess we should all go back to the lab and study things like the Casimir effect, and investigate negative pressure ...

 

[Michael Mozina]

I'm actually quite sympathetic to the views expressed in the abstract of that paper, although I don't think that particular model is very satisfactory. Here's the first part of their abstract:

I think, were you actually to talk calmly to some scientists working in the area, you'd find that many (perhaps most) of them agree with that. That's why many people are searching for alternatives, or to improve our understanding of the initial state of the universe.

FYI, that also applies to all proponents of EU/PC theory.

Again, remember that the cold spot is a deviation of less than 1/10,000 from perfect homogeneity. The universe is extremely homogeneous on large scales - that's an observational fact, and it can't be ignored.

Perhaps, but then there are those dark flow flies in the ointment to consider as well.

Inflation doesn't predict a perfectly homogeneous universe. The strongest evidence for it comes from the spectrum of inhomogeneities. But it's true that the cold spot (and dark flows) observations don't fit very well. If they're real, they indicate either short inflation (not so big a surprise) or something more radical.

Call me a "radical".

Fudging the numbers isn't a reasonable characterization.

Unfortunately we are not likely to agree on this point.

The parameters of the model are adjusted to fit observation.

These are "uncontrolled" observations however and there is no direct evidence that inflation is actual "real", or ever existed in nature. We simply "assume" it's existence.

That's nothing more or less than the bog-standard scientific method.

I disagree rather strongly on that point. In most fields of science, "control mechanisms" are used to demonstrate "cause/effect" relationships. For instance, Birkeland had an on/off switch and could demonstrate with that control mechanism that "current flow" caused the effects he was observing. If he had any doubt that it was 'caused' by electricity, he could turn of the current flow and see the results in his controlled experiments. Inflation theory was never based on controlled experimentation. From day one it was an "imagined" force that had "imagined' properties, none of which were actually seen in the lab. Whereas many consumer products function on Birkeland's "current flow", nothing runs on inflation or dark energy or SUSY particles.

It means that some hypotheses have been falsified, while some remain possible.

But we still have not ever demonstrated a cause/effect relationship based on actual controlled experimentation.

Your criticism can only be justified if you can demonstrate that we have some observations which simply cannot be accommodated no matter what, or if you have a theory that explains things just as well but with fewer adjustable parameters.

The implication here is that I can't reject your theory without replacing it with something else. That's simply not so. I can reject your theory based on any number of logical reasons. In my case I reject it because we can't even be sure it even exists in nature or that it *ever* existed in nature and there is no 'cause/effect' relationship established between any of the presumed properties of inflation and inflation. I simply have to have "faith" in these claims.

As an example: early evolutionary theorists believed (I think) that evolution was a continuous, smooth process that took place at a more or less constant rate. Then things like the Cambrian explosion were discovered in the fossil record. So the theory was adjusted, and now it's a more precise description of the real world. That's exactly how science is supposed to work.

Well, the difference here is rather clear. We can observe micro-evolutionary processes in the lab. While I may not know of the evolutionary process is "smooth" or not, I can be sure evolutionary processes occur in my own lifetime. Inflation doesn't even exist in my lifetime according to current theory, so I can't 'test" any of these ideas in the lab, or even be sure inflation isn't a figment of human imagination.

Nope. For example, if the spatial curvature was large compared to the density perturbations, inflation would be ruled out.

Nah. That "property" of large spacial curvature would have simply been included in inflation theory from the start. If not, just fudge the numbers some more and toss in a few more variables and viola, a new and improved version can take it's place. (Of course this is a gross oversimplification, but it illustrates my point).

If the power spectrum of perturbations differed significantly from 1, inflation would be ruled out. If these dark flows are really there AND persist down to smaller scales (where we know inflation should have generated the perturbations), it's ruled out. Etc.

But if those dark flows were not predicted in the first place, why wouldn't that rule out inflation by itself? How come we get to keep tweaking everything without ever demonstrating any actually cause/effect 'property' of inflation?

What would be wrong with that? If you have some evidence the current model can't explain, you come up with a new one. If the new model happens to contain a word in its name the old one also contained, so what?

So we're shifting the goalpost all the time and there is no way to falsify the model anymore. As long as we can change all the variables all the time, nothing is verifiable or falsifiable.

What's in name? Consider for a moment if I simply pilfered your various math formulas and called it "Godflation", "God energy" and "God matter". Suppose I kept changing all the parameters to suit myself and make these formulas fit. Would the fact I got it to fit the observations be evidence that God did it? Obviously not. How then do we decide where "science" ends and 'religion' begins if I get to change all the rules and formulas as I go?