Cosmologists Today: Tilting at Windmills

I am I, Don Quixote!
The Lord of La Mancha, my destiny calls and I go.
And the wild winds of fortune shall carry me onward oh withersoever
they blow. Withersoever they blow.
Onward to glory I go!

So sings the title character of the hit movie and play Man of La Mancha based on the book Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote is the name adopted by Alonso Quixano a likeable, less-than-affluent, well read fellow, well past his prime who lives with his niece in the Spanish village of La Mancha. He reaches a point where all his days “from dawn to dark ” are spent reading his favored books: those of  the tales of chivalry and the deeds of errant knights from days long ago.  However being past his prime, and “with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits.”[1].  He was so immersed in the tales that with his waning faculties, he lost the ability to distinguish between what was fact and what was fiction.  To the point where he believed that “the whole fabric of invention and fancy he read of was true…”[2]

And thus Quixano decides to adopt the distinguished name of Don Quixote de La Mancha, become an errant knight and go off in search of adventures to right wrongs and fight injustice. Perhaps the most memorable of which is when he comes upon some windmills which he imagines to be giants, and begins jousting with them from his aging and arthritic horse. It’s from this scene we get the phrase “tilting [or jousting] at windmills” which originally meant to fight against imaginary or unimportant enemies or issues. But as a Yahoo aficionado points out, figuratively it has come to mean “a futile activity.”[3]

Which brings us to the current state of affairs in cosmology. Many cosmologists these days are like Don Quixote – jousting at imagined problems that are a result of their imagined theories in order to obtain great glory. And like Quixote, they are so taken with their own theories they never realize they have set for themselves an impossible, futile task since they have rejected a search for the truth and are instead trying to confirm theories which only contain processes allowable by their de facto god: methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism allows only material, natural processes; no miracles; no interventions by God – even if the story makes no sense and doesn’t match observable facts.  The more honest among them admit as much – that the goal is not to find the truth, but to see how much they can explain apart from God.

“Science, fundamentally, is a game. It is a game with one overriding and defining rule. Rule No. 1: Let us see how far and to what extent we can explain the behavior of the physical and material universe in terms of purely physical and material causes, without invoking the supernatural. [4]

But in their rejection of the truth in favor of what they can explain apart from God, we are beginning to see a quiet desperation as their theories continue to be exposed as failures and frauds since they are simply unable to correctly describe reality within their self imposed cage of methodological naturalism.

Judging from current events in cosmology, there’s a quiet desperation growing among the ranks of secular cosmologists  – those who subscribe to the tenets of methodological naturalism as we begin to see defections from secular orthodoxy  among big bang cosmologists. And it’s all due to the fact that their long cuddled, nursed and prized theory – the big bang theory – is just not yielding the evidence needed. The evidence I speak of is not evidence needed to prove it true – as Einstein stated no amount of experimentation can do that[5] – rather the evidence they really needs is that to keep it from being proved false and totally untenable. Yet such evidence has yet to be found.

So let me go on record here and make some predictions – you know the things they claim creationists don’t do.  These are predictions around evidence needed to keep the big bang from being proved to be totally false and untenable. Like a bird without wings cannot fly, the big bang without these add-ons theories cannot fly. But they won’t find evidence of these add-ons which once against draws attention to the fact that the theory simply doesn’t work.

What Scientists are looking for but won’t find

1. Scientists won’t find a particle that fits the description of what an “inflaton” does.

The Big Bang theory, by itself, does not work. So they’ve had to tack on a bunch of helping theories to make the thing even feasible. One of those tacked-on theories is the theory of inflation.  Inflation is needed to solve a number of problems the Big Bang has, most notably, what is known as the Horizon Problem, as well as another problems such as the flatness, smoothness and magnetic monopole problems.[6] Like all forces, scientists believe that inflation is governed by a particle which they have dubbed the “inflaton”.  Based on the fact that inflation never happened, I have previously predicted (and stand by my prediction) that scientists will never find a  particle that behaves as the inflaton is supposed to make inflation behave[7] because inflation – as the big bang theorists describe it – never happened.

Formerly only Big Bang doubters (typically creationists) stood against inflation, but now some well known scientists – some former big bang supporters – are also blowing the whistle on  inflation saying they doubt it happened. Princeton physicist Anna Ijjas, Harvard astronomer Abraham Loeb, and Paul Steinhardt, the Albert Einstein Professor in Science at Princeton University,  state:

“We should not just accept the assumption that inflation happened, especially because it does not offer a simple explanation of the observed features of the universe,” the trio wrote.”[8]

Inflation is part of secular cosmology orthodoxy, so as I noted above, we’re beginning to see defections from standard scientific orthodoxy. That’s to be expected since it’s become painfully obvious that the big bang theory simply doesn’t work to describe how the universe we observe came about.

2. Scientists won’t find the Dark Matter particle they’re looking for.

Dark matter is now another add on requirement of the big bang theory. This is because with without dark matter, the big bang theory cannot explain either how stars form, galaxies form, or why distant galaxy clusters are rotating too fast.[9] Scientists have been looking for dark matter, unsuccessfully, for over 40  years. I list 6 experiments conducting dark matter searches here, and 2 other searches here. In that last group of two is included Rafael Lang, who has been searching for dark matter particles using 100 kilos of inert liquid Xenon as a detector. (If a dark matter particle flies through it, it will leave a detectable trail of light.) Having been unsuccessful with the 100 kilo tank, scientists wanted to move up to a 1 ton tank – which is approximately 100 times larger. Well, after 3 years of construction, the new 1 ton Xenon detector, “the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector” as NBC news reports – is now online and operating – though it has not yet detected any dark matter.[10] Nuclear physicist Marcello Messina is one of the scientists at Gran Sasso Laboratories in Italy where the detector is located.  Messina is  looking for dark matter, but he recognizes the low probability of detecting the particle they’re looking for:

“One detection can be anything.
More than one can be more convincing.
Too many, it starts to be conflicting with the fact that we’ didn’t see it before.”[11]

So not only is the particle difficult to detect, there is a very narrow range of test results that will indicate success.  Remember – they’re looking for a particle with the following properties:

“No only does it not shine, you can’t easily see it in obscuration.[12]
Richard Ellis, Cal Tech

 

“It doesn’t emit light and it doesn’t absorb light. It doesn’t interact with light at all.” [13]
Dan Bauer, Fermilab

 

“We know that dark matter is some ponderous substance, we know that it’s not moving too quickly, and we know that we can’t see it.”[14]
Sean Carroll, Cal Tech

 

“Dark matter particles are not traveling at the speed of light, and they don’t interact with you or me or anything pretty well and that’s why it’s been so difficult to track down these particles.”[15]
Richard Ellis, Cal Tech

 

“If I had some dark matter in my hand, it would have weight, but first it would dissolve right through my fingers.”[16]
Michio Kaku, Theoretical physicist, City College of New York

“Like an invisible man passing through walls, dark matter is passing through earth billions of particles at a time. Never colliding with ordinary matter.”[17]
Narrator, The Universe

 

“… it has to be some type of material that’s capable of clumping together – like a gas.”[18]
Narrator – Space’s Deepest Secrets

Did  you get all that? In summary, here is what scientists are saying are the properties of the dark matter they’re looking for:

• Doesn’t shine or emit light
• Doesn’t absorb or interact with light
• Not fast, i.e. not moving at the speed of light
• Doesn’t interact with baryonic (regular) matter
• Has weight (mass) but since it doesn’t interact, passes through matter like a ghost
• Must be capable of clumping together like a gas
• Is abundant in space, attracted to large masses like the earth so, billions of particles (in theory) are passing through you right now

Most scientists  agree with the summary conclusion that “… all this adds up to one thing: we’re looking for a new particle.”[19]

Is it reasonable to believe that such a particle exists? Perhaps the most impressive evidence that dark matter believers adduce in support of dark matter are Einstein rings. Albert Einstein predicted that gravity can bend light (you can see Einstein’s description of the effect in a letter here). From that basic property he predicted the existence of rings of light, bent by the strong gravity of massive galaxies in front of distant galaxies. The gravity of the nearer massive galaxy between the observer and the distant galaxy acts like a lens that bends the light from the distant galaxy around the near galaxy, creating arcs of light around the near galaxy. This effect is called gravitational lensing.

Einstein rings/Gravitational lensing of the “Cheshire Cat” group of galaxies. (NASA)

Such gravitational lensing – when the foreground galaxy is not in apparent, is taken by some scientists as “conclusive evidence” of dark matter:

“So this is conclusive evidence of dark matter. But it also is conclusive evidence that that dark matter must be more spread out than the galaxies we see here. And in fact it tells us it has to be a cloud of dark matter particles not just individual objects in the cluster.”[20]
Bob Nichol – University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom

Notice Nichols also takes this “cloud of dark matter particles” as evidence of WIMPs as opposed to MACHOs (Massive Compact Halo Objects) such as brown stars or black holes.

Which is more reasonable – to believe that a particle with such properties exists, or doesn’t exist?  Ultimately, it all comes down to your worldview. Christian scientist Dr. Danny Faulkner cautions Christians that we should not be too quick to dismiss the idea of dark matter simply because secular scientists use it as a rescue theory for the Big Bang. He also points out that the fact that scientists have not found the particle they’re looking for, does not mean that dark matter doesn’t exist. Speaking of the Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) a type of dark matter most scientists believe the dark matter (if it exists) will turn out to be, he states:

“So far, there have been no unambiguous detections of WIMPs, though this remains the dominant hypothesis to explain dark matter. Some creationists have misinterpreted these null results as evidence that dark matter does not exist. However, this is not true—the null results merely indicate that WIMPS, a particular type of dark matter, is unlikely to exist.”[21]

With that I can agree. The WIMPs scientists are searching for likely do not exist. But as I mentioned above – ultimately what you believe about dark matter is entirely dependent on  your worldview. Secular scientists need dark matter to rescue the big bang theory from a number of things it can’t explain by itself, such as the formation of stars, galaxies (and thus everything that exists in them – all of life), as well as the rotational speeds of distant galaxy clusters. But Dr. Faulkner suggests that “there is good observational evidence for dark matter.”[22]  Among other things he points to the above referenced evidences of galaxies orbiting too fast and Einstein rings. Thus he throws a life line to the sinking big bang theory. I would offer no such life line because 1. the big bang theory is obviously wrong – and that includes its supporting mechanism – dark matter; and 2. cosmologists and scientists have too often gone tilting at windmills, refusing to believe what the Bible says, supporting instead some theory contrary to revealed truth, and have been time and again proved wrong.

Furthermore, cosmologist and Bible Science Forum proprietor Dr. John Hartnett points out there are  explanations for both Einstein rings[23] and galaxies with too fast orbital velocities[24] that don’t invoke dark matter. What Dr. Faulkner doesn’t mention are the big bang requirements that make dark matter a necessity. One look at these requirements will show you why the big bang beginning of the universe is inconsistent with a biblical one.  One need merely answer the question: in the beginning what was first? Water or plasma?

The Bible says:

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”
Gen 1.1-2

and

“But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water.”
2 Pet 3:5

The Big Bang says:

“Billions of years ago, the universe was just an ocean of hot dense plasma. “[25]

And speaking of the instants immediately after the supposed singularity:

“Inflation suddenly takes hold. An unimaginably rapid expansion of space smooths the spreading out of that energy bringing order to the universe. It’s now a massive soup of evenly expanding plasma.”[26]

Astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi explains that plasma “is  a gas that has been heated so much the electrons get ripped off the atoms. And now you have a mix of these elementary particles which all have a charge flying around. We call it the fourth state of matter: solid, liquid, gas,  plasma”[27]

Speaking to Christians now,  it’s really very simple. Do you believe God when he says he created the heavens and the earth out of water; or do  you believe the scientists who want to lead you down the big bang primrose path of singularities,  inflatons, plasma (before water existed),  dark matter and all the other add-ons the big bang requires to be feasible? Someone will object that it is possible that God created the universe out of water, and added dark matter later. That’s a possibility, but what evidence do we have of that – besides the fact that scientists need it because the big bang won’t work without it? God clearly didn’t need it before the creation, as secular scientists do. What evidence do we have that he needed it later? (Excluding undiscovered theoretical particles, and big bang requirements of course.)  The only suggestion the Bible gives of unseen matter are the “waters above the sky” (Gen 1.6-7, Ps 148.4) that secular scientists refuse to look for.[28]  So there is, in fact, unseen and thus “dark” matter influencing the universe, but scientists wouldn’t believe you  if you told them what it is, nor will they – in their secular wisdom – do anything to search for it or to try to discover any further information on this revealed truth. So there is unseen and thus “dark” matter out there – but it’s not the exotic particle scientists are looking for.

To every one I ask, which is more reasonable to believe?  Unseen, undetectable, hypothetical, poorly understood dark matter championed by secular scientist trying to save the godless big bang theory; or unseen, unsearched for, but well understood and well known matter (namely water) that God, who does not lie (Num 23.19), says he created in the beginning and placed in the outer reaches of space?  It makes more sense to believe the witness who was there and who actually brought it about. That would be God. That of course requires faith that God is truthful (John 17.17)  – which is a concept that is  anathema to scientists.  Yet they have no problem with telling us we must have faith in fallible humans with an agenda who are often wrong when it comes to making predictions based on their assumptions about the universe. For examples of that you need merely learn the Lessons from Pluto.

But scientists have not learned those lessons, nor will they acknowledge that multiple lines of evidence demonstrate that the big bang theory is simply wrong.[29] (The lack of detection of either inflatons or WIMPs being among of them.) Thus secular scientists will not stop tilting at  cosmic windmills trying to find the missing pieces of their intentionally godless theories, whether it be inflatons, dark matter WIMPs, multiverses, extra-terrestrial aliens, missing links, their asteroid explanation to what happened to the dinosaurs or whatever.  They will keep tilting at these windmills just like Don Quixote, because they, like him, are true believers in the fantasy stories they’ve told themselves too many times over too many years.

Duane Caldwell | posted 11 June, 2017 | printer friendly version
Follow @duanecaldwell  

Notes  

1 Miguel De Cervantes [Saavedra], Don Quixote (Complete) (a public domain book), Translated by John Ormsby, Kindle edition, page 25, loc 877
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2. Don Quixote, page 25, loc 877
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3. Yahoo! Answers, BebotinBangkok, accessed 5/30/2017 https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080531055931AAMHRUf
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4. Richard E. Dickerson [evolutionist scientist]: “The Game of Science.” Perspectives on Science and Faith, (Volume 44, June 1992), p. 137, emphasis added
(IDEA – Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center)
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5. The full quote is:
“No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”
The quote and source from Einstein’s works viewable here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
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6. The Big Bang should have re-collapsed onto itself – but inflation fixes that blowing things apart too fast for it to re-collapse.
It is predicted that magnetic monopoles would be produced early in the big bang, but none have ever been found. Inflation is invoked to fix this as well.

For further details on these problems see:
Alex Williams and John Hartnett, Dismantling the Big Bang, Green Forest, AR: MasterBooks, 2005, pp. 121-123

For more on inflation and the problems it is supposed to solve (the flatness, smoothness, horizon and magnetic monopole problems) see:
John G. Hartnett, “Has the ‘smoking gun’ of the ‘big bang’ been found?”, BibleScienceForum.com, 20 March 2014, https://biblescienceforum.com/2014/03/20/has-the-smoking-gun-of-the-big-bang-been-found/
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7. I describe the behavior/problems with inflation in Which Theory has the fatal flaw and described the inflaton, and what properties it needs to give inflation in Should Christians Believe in a Multiverse – 7 Reasons against and stated the inflaton doesn’t exist, and thus predicted it will never be found.
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8. Don Galeon, “Stephen Hawking Responds to Colleagues’ Critical Article on the Origins of the Universe”,Futurism,  May 12, 2017, https://futurism.com/stephen-hawking-responds-to-colleagues-critical-article-on-the-origins-of-the-universe/
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9. I speak of these issue of star formation and galaxy rotational curves and why Dark Matter is now a requirement of the Big Bang theory in “Dark Matter: The Big Bang’s Missing Link”
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10. Ian O’Neil “World’s Most Sensitive Dark Matter Detector Gives Its First Results”, NBCnews.com, May 26, 2017, https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/space/world-s-most-sensitive-dark-matter-detector-gives-its-first-n765076
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11. Marcello Messina, ref from Space’s Deepest Secrets, episode “The Curse of Dark Matter” (S2/E7) Science Documentary, 2017
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12. Richard Ellis, ref from The Universe, episode “Dark Matter / Dark Energy” (S2/E6), documentary, 2008
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13. Dan Bauer, Ref from The Universe, S2/E6
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14. Sean Carroll, Ref from The Universe, S2/E6
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15. Richard Ellis, Ref from The Universe, S2/E6
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16. Michio Kaku, Ref from The Universe, S2/E6
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17. Narrator, The Universe, S2/E6
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18. Narrator, Space’s Deepest Secret, episode “Dark Secret of the Universe” Documentary (S1/E13), 2016
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19. Narrator, Space’s Darkest Secret (S1/Ep13)
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20. Bob Nichols, ref from. Space’s Darkest Secret episode “Dark Secret of the Universe” Documentary (S1/E13), 2016
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21. Danny Faulkner, “The Case For Dark Matter”, Answers In Genesis, March 22, 2017, https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/cosmology/case-for-dark-matter/
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22. Faulkner, “The Case For Dark Matter”
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23. On Einstein rings / Gravitational lensing, see:
John Hartnett, “Is ‘Dark Matter’ the Unknown god?”, Creation 37(2):22-24 April, 2015, and Creation.com, http://creation.com/dark-matter-unknown-god-carmelian
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24. On an alternate explanation for galaxy rotational curves that doesn’t involve dark matter, see:
John Hartnett, “Has the Dark Matter Mystery Been Solved?” Bible Science Forum, April 6, 2017, https://biblescienceforum.com/2017/04/06/has-the-dark-matter-mystery-been-solved/
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25. Narrator, Space’s Deepest Secrets, episode “The Curse of Dark Matter” (S2/E7) Science Documentary, 2017
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26. Narrator, Through the Wormhole, episode “What happened before the beginning?” (S1/E4 ), Science documentary, 2010
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27. Hakeem Oluseyi, Space’s Deepest Secrets, (S2/E7)
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28. Christian scientist Russell Humphreys pictures the waters above the sky in his presentation on Creation in the 21st Century, episode “Starlight Time and Physics”, TBN broadcast 8/26/2016; archived here: http://creationinthe21stcentury.com/starlight-time-and-physics-with-david-rives-and-dr-russell-humphreys-on-tbn/ starting at time mark 9:00 , esp  9:40-9:50

The creation starts with water – called the “deep” (Gen 1.2) . God made an “expanse” (Gen 1.6 – some translations “firmament” from the Latin firmamentum ) to separate the waters above and below what God called “the expanse.” God names the expanse “sky” (literally “heavens” plural – the Hebrew is שמים – shamayim – Gen 1.8) So the waters are above the expanse which God called “sky.” Thus there exists water, from the original creation, which is above the “sky” (which we would understand as outer space) which separates the waters below the sky from the waters above it.
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29.For a list 20 problems with the Big Bang theory, see:
John Hartnett, “20 Big Bang Busting Bloopers”, Bible Science Forum, 8/8/2016, https://biblescienceforum.com/2016/08/08/20-big-bang-busting-bloopers/
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Images:
All images – used by permission from the license holders as noted below

Cosmic Windmill   © Duane Caldwell 2017
Chesire Cat Einstein rings – NASA (public domain)
Wind mill Sint Janshuismolen © artjazz | Fotolia (used by permission)
Starfield: Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) | NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/IRAM (public domain)