And thrives anyway. From Denyse O’Leary (O’Leary for News) at Evolution News & Views:
Two features of our universe puzzle cosmologists: One is the horizon problem: The universe looks the same in all directions and the cosmic microwave background radiation is about the same temperature everywhere. As String Theory for Dummies puts it, “This really shouldn’t be the case, if you think about it more carefully.” Assuming that current measurements are correct, the radiation must have exceeded the speed of light if it really communicated in this way, but that is forbidden by the standard Big Bang model of the universe.
Then there is the “flatness problem”: “The matter density and expansion rate of the universe appear to be nearly perfectly balanced, even 14 billion years later when minor variations should have grown drastically” (Dummies). Inconveniently, the apparent 1:10^66 fine-tuning of the Big Bang, of which horizon and flatness are features, is frequently used as an argument for the existence of God.
Cosmic inflation theory, first proposed by Alan Guth in 1981, modified the Big Bang theory (the Standard Model) by proposing that the universe, instead of unfolding at a steady pace, expanded rapidly shortly after it was created, which could account for apparent fine-tuning.More.
But then the wheels fell off. And what do you think the cosmologists did then?
See also: How naturalism rots science from the head down
The Big Bang: Put simply,the facts are wrong.
What becomes of science when the evidence does not matter?
Cosmology is naturalism’s playground. But does the fun mask a science decline?
Post-modern physics: String theory gets over the need for evidence