Skip to content
Starts With A Bang

Cosmology’s Only Big Problems Are Manufactured Misunderstandings

Sign up for Smart Faster newsletter
The most counterintuitive, surprising, and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday.

Dark matter, dark energy, inflation and the Big Bang are real, and the alternatives all fail spectacularly.


If you keep up with the latest science news, you’re probably familiar with a large number of controversies concerning the nature of the Universe itself. Dark matter, thought to outweigh normal atomic matter by a 5-to-1 ratio, could be unnecessary, and replaced by a modification to our law of gravity. Dark energy, making up two-thirds of the Universe, is responsible for the accelerated expansion of space, but the expansion rate itself isn’t even agreed upon. And cosmic inflation has recently been derided by some as unscientific, as some of its detractors claim it can predict anything, and therefore predicts nothing.

If you add them all together, as philosopher Bjørn Ekeberg did in his recent piece for Scientific American, you might think cosmology was in crisis. But if you’re a scrupulous scientist, exactly the opposite is true. Here’s why.

If you look farther and farther away, you also look farther and farther into the past. The earlier you go, the hotter and denser, as well as less-evolved, the Universe turns out to be. The earliest signals can even, potentially, tell us about what happened prior to the moments of the hot Big Bang. (NASA / STSCI / A. FEILD (STSCI))

Science is more than just a collection of facts, although it certainly relies on the full suite of data and information we’ve collected about the natural world. Science is also a process, where the prevailing theories and frameworks are confronted with as many novel tests as possible, seeking to either validate or refute the consequential predictions of our most successful ideas.

This is where the frontiers of science lie: at the edges of the validity of our leading theories. We make predictions, we go out and test them experimentally and observationally, and then we constrain, revise, or extend our ideas to accommodate whatever new information we obtained. The ultimate dream of many is to revolutionize the way we conceive of our world, and to replace our current theories with something even more successful and profound.

Long before the data from BOOMERanG came back, the measurement of the spectrum of the CMB, from COBE, demonstrated that the leftover glow from the Big Bang was a perfect blackbody. One potential alternative explanation was that of reflected starlight, as the quasi-steady-state model predicted, but the difference in spectral intensity between what was predicted and observed showed that this alternative could not explain what was seen. (E. SIEGEL / BEYOND THE GALAXY)

But it’s not such an easy task to reproduce the successes of our leading scientific theories, much less to go beyond their present limitations. People who are enamored with ideas that conflict with robust observations have had notoriously difficult times letting go of their preferred conclusions. This has been a recurring theme throughout the history of science, and includes:

  • Fred Hoyle refusing to accept the Big Bang for nearly 40 years after the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background,
  • Halton Arp insisting that quasars are not distant objects, despite decades of data demonstrating that their redshifts are not quantized,
  • Hannes Alfven and his later followers insisting that gravitation does not dominate the Universe on large scales, and that plasmas determine the large-scale structure of the Universe, even after countless observations have refuted the idea.

Although science itself may be unbiased, scientists are not. We can fall prey to the same cognitive biases that anyone else can. Once we choose our preferred conclusions, we frequently fool ourselves through the fallacious practice of motivated reasoning.

Schematic diagram of the Universe’s history, highlighting reionization. Before stars or galaxies formed, the Universe was full of light-blocking, neutral atoms. While most of the Universe doesn’t become reionized until 550 million years afterwards, with the first major waves happening at around 250 million years, a few fortunate stars may form just 50-to-100 million years after the Big Bang, and with the right tools, we may reveal the earliest galaxies. (S. G. DJORGOVSKI ET AL., CALTECH DIGITAL MEDIA CENTER)

It’s where the famous aphorism that “physics advances one funeral at a time” first came from. This notion was originally put forth by Max Planck with the following statement:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

The big problem that many non-scientists (and even some scientists) will never realize is this: you can always contort your theoretical ideas to force them to be viable, and consistent with what’s been observed. That’s why the key, for any theory, is to make robust predictions ahead of time: before the critical observation or measurement is performed. This way, you can be certain you’re testing your theory, rather than tinkering with parameters after-the-fact.

According to the tired light hypothesis, the number of photons-per-second we receive from each object drops proportional to the square of its distance, while the number of objects we see increases as the square of the distance. Objects should be redder, but should emit a constant number of photons-per-second as a function of distance. In an expanding universe, however, we receive fewer photons-per-second as time goes on because they have to travel greater distances as the Universe expands, and the energy is also reduced by the redshift. Even factoring in galaxy evolution results in a changing surface brightness that’s fainter at great distances, consistent with what we see.(WIKIMEDIA COMMONS USER STIGMATELLA AURANTIACA)

As it turns out, this is exactly how we wound up with the leading cosmological model we have today, in pretty much every regard.

The notion of the expanding Universe was theoretically predicted by Alexander Friedmann in 1922, when he derived what I have called the most important equation in the Universe. The observations of Vesto Slipher, Edwin Hubble and Milton Humason confirmed this only a few years later, leading to the modern notion of the expanding Universe.

According to the original observations of Penzias and Wilson, the galactic plane emitted some astrophysical sources of radiation (center), while a near-perfect, uniform background of radiation existed above and below that plane. The temperature and spectrum of this radiation has now been measured, and the agreement with the Big Bang’s predictions are extraordinary. (NASA / WMAP SCIENCE TEAM)

Many competing explanations for the Universe’s origin then emerged, with the Big Bang having four explicit cornerstones:

  1. the expanding Universe,
  2. the predicted abundances of the light elements, created during the hot, dense, early stage of the Big Bang,
  3. a leftover glow of photons just a few degrees above absolute zero,
  4. and the formation of large-scale structure, with structures which must evolve with distance.

All four of these have now been observed, with the latter three occurring after the Big Bang was first proposed. In particular, the discovery of the leftover glow of photons in the mid-1960s was the tipping point. As no other framework can account for these four observations, there are now no viable alternatives to the Big Bang.

The fluctuations in the CMB, the formation and correlations between large-scale structure, and modern observations of gravitational lensing, among many others, all point towards the same picture: an accelerating Universe, containing and full of dark matter and dark energy. Alternatives that offer differing observable predictions must be considered as well, but compared with the full suite of observational evidence out there. (CHRIS BLAKE AND SAM MOORFIELD)

With an expanding, cooling Universe that began from a hot, dense, matter-and-radiation-filled state, all governed by the Einstein’s General Relativity, there are a number of possibilities for how the Universe could have unfolded, but it’s not an infinite number. There are relationships between what’s in the Universe and how its expansion rate evolves, and that tremendously constrains what’s possible.

This is the only statement that is unequivocally correct in Ekeberg’s piece.

Once you accept the Big Bang and a Universe governed by General Relativity, there is an enormous suite of evidence that points to the existence of dark matter and dark energy. This is not a new suite, either, but one that’s been mounting since the 1970s. Dark energy’s main competitor fell away some 15 years ago, leaving only a Universe with dark matter and dark energy as a viable cosmology to explain the full suite of evidence.

Constraints on dark energy from three independent sources: supernovae, the CMB and BAO (which are a feature in the Universe’s large-scale structure.) Note that even without supernovae, we’d need dark energy, and that only 1/6th of the matter found can be normal matter; the rest must be dark matter. (SUPERNOVA COSMOLOGY PROJECT, AMANULLAH, ET AL., AP.J. (2010))

That’s the key that’s so often overlooked: you have to examine the full suite of evidence in evaluating the success or failure of your theory or framework. Sure, you can always find individual observations that pose a difficulty for your theory to explain, but that doesn’t mean you can just replace it with something that does successfully explain that one observation.

You have to account for everything, plus the new observation, plus new phenomena that have not yet been observed.

This is the problem with every alternative. Every alternative to the expanding Universe, to the Big Bang, to dark matter, dark energy, or inflation, all fail to even account for whatever’s been already observed, much less the rest of it. That’s why practically every working scientist considers these proposed alternatives to be mere sandboxing, rather than a serious challenge to the mainstream consensus.

The Carina dwarf galaxy, very similar in size, star distribution, and morphology to the Draco dwarf galaxy, exhibits a very different gravitational profile from Draco. This can be cleanly explained with dark matter if it can be heated up by star formation, but not by modified gravity. (ESO/G. BONO & CTIO)

There are indeed galaxies out there without dark matter, but this is predicted by theory. In fact, nearly a decade ago, a prominent contrarian noted the lack of galaxies without dark matter and claimed it falsified the dark matter model. When these galaxies without dark matter were discovered, that same scientist immediately claimed they were consistent with modified gravity. But only dark matter explains the full suite of evidence concerning the Universe.

There is, indeed, a discrepancy between two different sets of groups trying to measure the expansion rate of the Universe. The difference is 9%, and could represent a fundamental error in one group’s technique. More excitingly, it could be a sign that dark energy or some other aspect of the Universe is more complex than our naive assumptions. But dark energy is still necessary either way; the only “crisis” is aritificially manufactured.

A plot of the apparent expansion rate (y-axis) vs. distance (x-axis) is consistent with a Universe that expanded faster in the past, but where distant galaxies are accelerating in their recession today. This is a modern version of, extending thousands of times farther than, Hubble’s original work. Note the fact that the points do not form a straight line, indicating the expansion rate’s change over time. The fact that the Universe follows the curve it does is indicative of the presence, and late-time dominance, of dark energy. (NED WRIGHT, BASED ON THE LATEST DATA FROM BETOULE ET AL. (2014))

Finally, there’s cosmic inflation, the phase of the Universe that occurred prior to the hot Big Bang, setting up the initial conditions our Universe was born with. Although it’s often derided by many, inflation was never intended to be the ultimate, final answer, but rather as a framework to solve puzzles that the Big Bang cannot explain and to make new predictions describing the early Universe.

On these accounts, it is spectacularly successful. Inflation:

  1. successfully reproduces all the predictions of the hot Big Bang,
  2. solves the horizon, flatness, and monopole puzzles that plagued the non-inflationary Big Bang,
  3. and made six novel predictions that were distinct from the old-style Big Bang’s, with at least four of them now confirmed.
The quantum fluctuations that occur during inflation get stretched across the Universe, and when inflation ends, they become density fluctuations. This leads, over time, to the large-scale structure in the Universe today, as well as the fluctuations in temperature observed in the CMB. These new predictions are essential for demonstrating the validity of a fine-tuning mechanism. (E. SIEGEL, WITH IMAGES DERIVED FROM ESA/PLANCK AND THE DOE/NASA/ NSF INTERAGENCY TASK FORCE ON CMB RESEARCH)

To say that cosmology has some interesting puzzles is compelling; to say it has big problems is not something that most cosmologists would agree with. Ekeberg discusses the inflationary Big Bang with dark matter and dark energy as follows:

This well-known story is usually taken as a self-evident scientific fact, despite the relative lack of empirical evidence — and despite a steady crop of discrepancies arising with observations of the distant universe.

To argue that there’s a lack of empirical evidence for this completely misunderstands what science is or how science works, in general and specifically in this particular field, where data is abundant and high in quality. To point to “a steady crop of discrepancies” is a disingenuous — and I daresay deliberate — misreading of the evidence, used by Ekeberg to push forth a solipsistic, philosophically empty, anti-science agenda.

Many nearby galaxies, including all the galaxies of the local group (mostly clustered at the extreme left), display a relationship between their mass and velocity dispersion that indicates the presence of dark matter. NGC 1052-DF2 is the first known galaxy that appears to be made of normal matter alone. (DANIELI ET AL. (2019), ARXIV:1901.03711)

We should always be aware of the limitations of and assumptions inherent to any scientific hypothesis we put forth. Every theory has a range of established validity, and a range where we extend our predictions past the known frontiers. A theory is only as good as the verifiable predictions it can make; pushing to new observational or experimental territory is where we must look if we ever hope to supersede our present understanding.

But we mustn’t forget or throw out the existing successes of General Relativity, the expanding Universe, the Big Bang, dark matter, dark energy, or inflation. Going beyond our current theories includes — as a mandatory requirement — encompassing and reproducing their triumphs. Until a robust alternative can reach that threshold, all pronouncements of “big problems” with the prevailing paradigm should be treated for what they are: ideologically-driven diatribes without the requisite scientific merit to back them up.


Ethan Siegel is the author of Beyond the Galaxy and Treknology. You can pre-order his third book, currently in development: the Encyclopaedia Cosmologica.
Sign up for Smart Faster newsletter
The most counterintuitive, surprising, and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday.

Related

Up Next