[JulianPGough]

I do understand why you are critical of my decision to attack ΛCDM and the work that led to it. I can see your point of view, and indeed I wrestled with that decision. I do realise that a lot of people will be alienated by the "dissing" of ΛCDM, who would otherwise be attracted to Blowtorch Theory.

But I feel that there are genuine problems with ΛCDM that are making it hard for the field of cosmology to understand what it is seeing in the early universe, and I hope that my careful description of what I believe has gone wrong over the past few decades might have value for the field.

It's simply impossible to ignore the enormous dark matter elephant in the room, especially given that ΛCDM so comprehensively failed to predict what we are now seeing in the early universe. As I mention in my post, the extended version of cosmological natural selection that Blowtorch Theory emerges from DID predict exactly what we are seeing now. Here are those predictions, if you want to check them out:

https://theeggandtherock.substack.com/p/predictions-what-the...

In that context, it makes no sense to avoid mentioning ΛCDM's recent failures: and if I'm going to do that, I feel I should offer my full diagnosis of what went wrong.

But I have every respect for your position, and I understand it will be distasteful and offputting to many.

[xorbax]

How does "Blowtorch" handle things like the gravitational lensing difference between baryon-only and the fact that dark matter is able to account for it [1]?

I know the theory doesn't do anything mathematically, but I'm curious how you deal with the unexplained mass issues. Does it explain things like galactic rotation [2]?

1. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11214-024-01087-w

2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_rotation_curve

[layer8]

It’s perfectly fine to point out issues with ΛCDM, how it seems to be inconsistent with certain recent observations, and how the Blowtorch Theory addresses them. That can be done in a neutral, professional, matter-of-fact tone. It’s not okay to belittle the scientists who developed ΛCDM by implying that they should have known better than allegedly deluding themselves into a misguided theory.

[JulianPGough]

Mmmm, I thought I had carefully avoided doing exactly that. I think I say at various points that there were good reasons at the time for the choices they made, and I try to show, as sympathetically as I can, the logic of their thinking.

I certainly tried to attack the current state of the theory, not the scientists whose very understandable and human actions, many of them perfectly sensible at the time, led us to that current state. I am sorry if I failed to bring off that delicate balancing act.

[esperent]

I've read the first third of the article and I don't see anything that I'd call dissing, of anybody. Can you quote some specific examples that you find problematic?

[mnky9800n]

I guess they mean stuff like this:

> That the first basic assumption had turned out to be utterly, eye-wateringly wrong should have led to some introspection in cosmology, astronomy, and astrophysics about the validity of the second, and even more fundamental, unexamined assumption. But it didn’t.

Because it sort of implies that the original scientists coming up with these ideas should have been perfect and went about asking questions in the way the author does. (maybe the author doesn't mean it this way, but that's how it came across to me).

It's strange to me, we don't really have a firm understanding of how to define the edge of our understanding of the universe since by definition that understanding is diffuse. So why should people be perfectly exploring that edge? That is why I think it is better to focus on new ideas and what they add as opposed to criticizing old ideas.

For example, the other day I asked a colleague (who i will name Cooper) about if they had heard about another colleague's work (who I will call Audrey) because it sounded like they were working on something similar to me and might benefit from discussing with each other. Cooper said something to the effect of "everything they are doing is wrong and really just not as good as the work I am doing". And it's like, would you say this to Audrey's face? Does this comment make any kind of constructive arguments as to why your work is better than Audrey's? Isn't this rather anti-intellectual since you simply are dismissing Audrey's work instead of engaging them in a discussion? And my initial reaction to hearing that was to be dismissive of Cooper's work because I thought to myself, "what is Cooper defending right now, his work or his ego?"

To me, a primary goal of a scientist is to convince other people of their ideas through evidenced arguments. To me, if Cooper thinks that Audrey could learn something from Cooper's work, then Cooper should assume there is something to learn from Audrey's work. To me, the process they went about understanding the same/similar problems is as interesting as is whatever their solution ends up being. Perhaps Audrey has some reason to have designed her models differently from Cooper's that isn't apparent to Cooper. By dismissing her work, Cooper dismisses the opportunity to learn anything himself from it. There isn't any universal truth that some how elevates an individual above others because they understand Newton's Laws or whatever. There is simply what we personally understand and our desire to understand new things.

[esperent]

> To me, a primary goal of a scientist is to convince other people of their ideas through evidenced arguments.

That's an idealized version of science that unfortunately rarely holds up in the real world. There's a reason for the old maxim that science advances by the death of old scientists. Science is a human endeavor, massive, complicated, political. Much as we like to imagine scientists as pure and rational beings, that's never a true description of a human being.

For an outsider looking to get attention to their fringe theory, it is never enough to just calmly state it and let people logically accept it. The presentation does matter.

[mnky9800n]

Yes I agree. I have worked as a scientist for many years. I guess my belief is that I try to uphold these ideals not because they are obtainable but because they work towards the world I want to live in. I guess that’s what I was trying to communicate. As you say, presentation matters. You should be arguing for your ideas, not against others. You can give reason why other explanations fail to fully explain the observations. When you tear down others it makes me question your ideas because why would you do that?

[johnsmth]

A philosophy professor required us to make "charitable interpretations" of the arguments we critiqued. His advice has served me well for many years.

[scotty79]

Reading you article made me think that MOND is the cosmological equivalent of The Church of Flying Spaghetti Monster.