Elderly Galactic Clusters and the Timetable for the Demise of Cosmogony

PSI Blog 20100512 Elderly Galactic Clusters and the Timetable for the Demise of Cosmogony

Fig. 12-3. Sigmoidal growth curve for global population assuming perfect symmetry about the 1989 Inflection Point. Sources: Historical estimates and 1950–1989 data from the U.S. Census Bureau (from Borchardt, 2007b, p. 290).

Mike deHilster wrote:

I never get tired of this kind of article. This time, though, those far-away galaxies are looking "surprisingly modern."

How much more will it take to overthrow the BBT?

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-157&rn=news.xml&rst=2596

My answer:

Thanks Mike. This (Hadhazy, 2010) is just another bit of evidence that galaxies, and now galactic clusters, in the distant “early universe” of the BBT are really no different than nearby galaxies and clusters. If the BBT were true, galaxies at this calculated distance of 9.6 billion light years would be only 4.1 billion years old when they emitted the observed light. Our own Milky Way galaxy is about 10 billion years old, but many of the galaxies in the discovered cluster look a lot older than that. As the article states, this is like finding “modern skyscrapers in ancient Rome” or I might say, finding a teenager in your bassinet. If the universe really was expanding, all the galaxies at great distances would be babies. Infinite Universe Theory (IUT)(Borchardt, 2007a) claims, instead, that the universe is not expanding and predicts that galaxies at various distances will have various ages. This report is similar to the one I covered in my blog of 9/4/09 ”Elderly Galaxy Disproves Big Bang Theory” (Borchardt, 2009). According to conventional philosophers of science “falsifications” like this are supposed to lead to the rejection of a theory. Don’t hold your breath.

Sorry to disappoint you Mike, but the overthrow of a major paradigm, especially such a powerful one as the Big Bang Theory, normally takes at least a generation or two. All paradigms live in a special neighborhood. This one, in particular, has many friendly faces in high places. Although modern physicists don’t necessarily believe in miracles, virgin birth, walking on water, ghosts, gods, and matterless motion, their (financial) friends do. Genesis and cosmogony both are founded on the belief that the universe had an origin. As you know, the alternative to the BBT is the IUT, which claims neither creator nor beginning. Thus, in today’s environment, to switch from the indeterministic assumption of finity to the deterministic assumption of INFINITY is to give up both cosmogony and Genesis. How long do you think that will take?

I haven’t studied this subject in much detail, but it seems to me that Fig. 12-3 above provides the best clue. During the next four decades the rate of population growth and associated economic growth will decline so rapidly that it is sure to set off worldwide political upheaval. This will pose the ultimate challenge to the political, loyalty, and economic systems that flourished during the period of exponential growth that ended with the 1989 Inflection Point defining the midpoint of the global demographic transition. The assumptions underlying the BBT will not escape this upheaval. I doubt that cosmogony can survive more than a generation past the year 2033 when the upheaval will be at its greatest intensity.

As you can see, the survival of such a fundamental paradigm is dependent more on how we see ourselves than on a plethora of falsifying evidence. “How we see ourselves,” our basic philosophy, grows from our experiences with the external world. As you know, we change as the macrocosm changes, and vice versa. Most folks may think the BBT to be strange, but they really don’t care one whit about it. They would like to know, instead, how to get another job or how to prevent foreclosure. They expect the same amenities that their parents prayed for and received during the expansion phase. Will they get it? Fig. 12-3 says “perhaps, for a while, but not without a lot of struggle, both material and philosophical.”

So what do we do in the meantime? For a couple decades we have a grand opportunity! Few, if any, employed physicists or cosmologists will be interested in Infinite Universe Theory despite embarrassing elderlies at great distances. Einstein, Hawking, and the pillars of theological wisdom have prevented advancement in theoretical physics and cosmology for over a century. We should consider ourselves especially lucky. This is our chance to use the IUT to solve problems untouched by conventional wisdom. In any case, we can have a lot of fun with the stalwart defenders of the BBT as they stutter their way through “explanations” of miscreant galaxies, universal expansion, heat death, 4-dimensional space-time, twins dancing on the heads of relativistic pins, and all manner of paradox brought forth by the theory.

References

Borchardt, Glenn, 2007a, Infinite universe theory: Proceedings of the Natural Philosophy Alliance, v. 4, no. 1, p. 20-23.

Borchardt, Glenn, 2007b, The Scientific Worldview: Beyond Newton and Einstein: Lincoln, NE, iUniverse, 411 p.

Borchardt, Glenn, 2009, Elderly Galaxy Disproves Big Bang Theory (http://thescientificworldview.blogspot.com/2009/09/elderly-galaxy-disproves-big-bang.html)

Hadhazy, Adam, 2010, Ancient City of Galaxies Looks Surprisingly Modern (http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-157&rn=news.xml&rst=2596).