Article Many contrarians dispute that cosmic inflation occurred. The evidence says otherwise. - Printable Version +- Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum (https://www.scivillage.com) +-- Forum: Science (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-61.html) +--- Forum: Astrophysics, Cosmology & Astronomy (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-74.html) +--- Thread: Article Many contrarians dispute that cosmic inflation occurred. The evidence says otherwise. (/thread-16368.html)

Many contrarians dispute that cosmic inflation occurred. The evidence says otherwise. - C C - Aug 18, 2024 https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/big-bang-first-thing-cause/ EXCERPTS: Inflation is well-validated by numerous independent observational tests, and would only be falsified by the data if we did detect these tensor modes, and they didn’t follow the precise spectrum predicted by inflation. And yet, you’d never know any of this by listening to the scientists associated with BICEP and the public-facing communication they’ve put out into the world. They continue to assert that: inflation remains in doubt, B-modes (indicating tensor fluctuations) are necessary to validate inflation, if there aren’t large magnitude ones, inflation is falsified, we are likely on the cusp of a paradigm shift, cyclic models are a viable competitor to inflation, and that inflation simply moved the “singular Big Bang” to before inflation, rather than immediately preceding the hot Big Bang. All of these assertions, to be blunt, are both incorrect and irresponsible. Worst of all, every single one of the scientists I’ve spoken to who has made these claims knows they’re incorrect. However, the claims are still advanced — including to the general public through popular treatments — by the very scientists who are running these experiments. There’s no kind way to couch it: if it isn’t self-deception, it’s utter intellectual dishonesty. In fact, when a scientist makes an overblown and premature claim that turns out, on closer inspection, to be completely wrong, some of us in the astronomical community call that a “BICEP2,” named after the infamous false discovery they announced back in 2014. Most of all, it’s a pity. These experiments that measure the properties of the cosmic microwave background to such extraordinary precisions are giving us the best information we’ve ever had about the nature of the universe, and of the inflationary epoch that preceded and set up — and caused — the hot Big Bang. Cosmic inflation is well validated as the origin of our universe. It has replaced the noninflationary, singularity-containing Big Bang as our cosmological standard model for where we all came from. Although there are contrarian alternatives out there, none of them have ever succeeded where cosmic inflation does not. Meanwhile, they all fail to reproduce the full suite of inflation’s successes. Scientists who value glory and attention over accuracy will no doubt continue to make baseless assertions undercutting what’s actually known about the universe. But don’t be fooled by such claims. At the end of the day, we learn what exists in the universe by asking it questions about itself and listening to its response. As soon as we abandon that approach, we have to admit the uncomfortable truth: we simply aren’t doing science anymore... (MORE - missing details)