The real story of the universe isn’t the matter, he says, it’s the void: “And when it comes to understanding the universe, “nothing” is very powerful.”
Of course, the voids are not entirely empty. There are some dim, scattered dwarf galaxies floating around inside these mostly empty areas. And dark matter and some hydrogen managed to cling to life inside those empty, parched stretches. But by and large, the voids really are void. And because of this voidiness, ironically, the voids are filled with one thing: dark energy.Paul Sutter, “Why ‘Cosmic Nothingness’ May Hold Secrets of the Universe” at LiveScience
Rob Sheldon, our physics color commentator and author of Genesis: The Long Ascent, responds:
This article illustrates the reason why the scientific method is going extinct, not just in Darwin’s circular logic, but also in physics and cosmology.
Years ago, when models of the Big Bang and subsequent evolution of the Universe were being built, they noticed a problem, or actually, a series of problems. If enough matter was put into the model to get the galaxies to form, it all clumped up in the middle and made a single, monstrous black hole. But if they increased the power of the explosion to avoid this fate, the universe became a tenuous gas of hydrogen expanding everlastingly into the void.
The solution was to add noise, pockets of higher density matter in the Big Bang explosion like fragments of a grenade. These pockets became the galaxies. This sorta kinda worked, creating a universe of superclusters, big collections of galaxies. However, galaxy surveys that used robotic telescopes to look deep into the heavens, did not find these pockets, instead they found a web, as described in the article.
Simultaneously, measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (NASA/COBE) did not find the matter irregularities assumed, but instead found a butter-smooth Big Bang, with clumps no bigger than 1:100,000 more dense. Such a smooth explosion would never create galaxies, much less the web recently discovered.
Their solution was to add two invisible things to the models, two unobserved theoretical ideas, two dials. One was a “clumper” called “dark matter” that would get the galaxies started without contributing to the CMBR, and the other was an “expander” called “dark energy” that acted as anti-gravity yeast, to make the bubbles (or galactic voids). Now mind you, there is no theoretical necessity, no direct evidence for either one of these things (pax Perlmutter & Rubin), rather they are inferred through the application of a model. If the model is changed, so are these two items. They have only as much reality as the model itself, or perhaps even less, because variant models add or subtract these quantities. I have to stress this, because theorists think their models are “real”, and hence the strange article by Paul Sutter.
![The Long Ascent: Genesis 1â 11 in Science & Myth, Volume 1 by [Sheldon, Robert]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51G-veeEcdL.jpg)
Why do I find it strange?
Because after positing the existence of two dials to improve the model fit to reality, they then turn around and say that the existence of these dials proves the model is correct. Here is the quote:
And dark matter and some hydrogen managed to cling to life inside those empty, parched stretches. But by and large, the voids really are void. And because of this voidiness, ironically, the voids are filled with one thing: dark energy.
This is the name we give to the accelerated expansion of the universe, as well as for whatever’s causing it. We don’t really know what dark energy is, but our best current guess is that it has something to do with the vacuum of space-time itself; where there’s vacuum, there’s dark energy.”
Paul Sutter, “Why ‘Cosmic Nothingness’ May Hold Secrets of the Universe” at LiveScience
Notice how the model is treated as data when he says “the name we give to the accelerated expansion of the universe” as if the astronomy of the past 10 years can determine the changes in 100’s of megaparsecs of the universe over timescales of billions of years. (It can’t.) All they have done is to add more dials to the model until it looks like the astronomy picture–which is the well-known practice throughout science called “curve-fitting” or “ad hoc explanations”. Eleven more epicycles may keep Ptolemy’s model working for another 30 years, but in the end, Ptolemy was toast, and Copernicus knew it.
Biologists are waking up to the fact that despite all the epicycles, Darwin is toast. Isn’t it about time cosmologists did likewise?
See also, re dark matter and dark energy: Discover: Even the best dark matter theories are crumbling
Researcher: The search for dark matter has become a “quagmire of confirmation bias” So many research areas in science today are hitting hard barriers that it is reasonable to think that we are missing something.
Physicists devise test to find out if dark matter really exists
Largest particle detector draws a blank on dark matter
What if dark matter just doesn’t stick to the rules?
A proposed dark matter solution makes gravity an illusion
Proposed dark matter solution: “Gravity is not a fundamental governance of our universe, but a reaction to the makeup of a given environment.”
Researchers: Either dark energy or string theory is wrong. Or both are. But dark energy is so glitzy! Isn’t it a line of cosmetics already?
Researchers: The symmetrons needed to explain dark energy were not found
Rob Sheldon: Has dark energy finally been found? In pop science mags?
Are recent dark energy findings a blow for multiverse theory?
and
Science at sunset: Dark energy might make a multiverse hospitable to life… if it exists
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