Comment by layer8
18 days ago
I think you should rework the style of the article to remove the “dissing” of the work that established ΛCDM. It is doing the article a disservice, making it sound unprofessional and crackpot-y. If the Blowtorch Theory has merit, it will stand on its own.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
4 replies →
Reading you article made me think that MOND is the cosmological equivalent of The Church of Flying Spaghetti Monster.