Hey LS,
Too many points to address right now, but I'll try a few and will try to get to more later this weekend.
The assumption that all redshifts correlate to distance appears false. High redshift quasars associated or in front of apparently local low redshift galaxies.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SSDS) makes this objection less plausible these days.
Using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey the positions of 200,000 quasars were correlated with the positions of 13 million galaxies. In Arp's model, galaxies and quasars are physically associated with each other and, hence, one would expect that correlating the two populations would look a great deal like correlating the galaxies with themselves. On the other hand, [Big Bang Theory] tells us that the quasars are much more distant than the galaxies in this sample, so the cross-correlation due to actual gravitational clustering should be nearly zero. Instead, we should see an induced cross-correlation due to the gravitational lensing of the quasars by the foreground galaxies.
This signal is much smaller than the one expected from Arp's model and it changes sign depending on the quasar population. When the SDSS researchers made the measurement, the results matched the expectation from [Big Bang Theory] to a high statistical significance
The very apparent dogma that is apparent, and attacking of alternatives.
The very blatant suppresion and vilification of Halton Arps work.
The CMB was predicted far more accurately by Guillaume, Eddington, Regener, Nernst, Herzberg, Finlay-Freundlich and Max Born, based on a universe without expansion, and prior to the discovery of the CMB.
There is definitely a stubborn resistance to some ideas, you're right about that. Last I checked PSI gets a little resistance now and then. I even once heard some folks think Hemp Oil is a form of chemotherapy!
It's been a while since I looked into Arp, but here is the general picture I came away with. Back in the day when the Big Bang was a new theory, Arp expressed some
very important concerns about BB Theory that were shared by most scientists at the time, because they were damn good points that needed to be addressed. However, over time evidence eventually alleviated these concerns (like the above mentioned SSDS, to name one), but folks like Arp remained steadfast, regardless.
It's not really fair to say NO alternatives are studied either. Some have had intense study, such as Gravitational Scalar Field Theories, theories with extra spatial dimensions, theories that include higher order terms in the regular Einstein-Hilbert action, and theories that include the Christoffel connections as fields in and of themselves, to name a few. Granted some are modifications to General Relativity, to greater or lesser degrees, in that they still include things like a metric, connection coefficients, etc.
Problem is most either run into inconsistencies or lack superior explanatory power when compared to GR.
I suspect the same is the problem with the Electric Universe (EU), although admittedly I find the idea very compelling, at least aesthetically. However, I've found it somewhat difficult to get many technical details on it, though I could be looking in the wrong places.
And, how can EU deny the validity of Special Relativity? Maxwell's Equations naturally have Lorentz Invariance (i.e. compatibility with Special Relativity) built in (before we even knew what the heck Lorentz Invariance is!). General Relativity is a natural extension of SR that reduces to it and Newtonian mechanics in the weak-field limit and as the Riemann Tensor vanishes.
On your last point, the CMB temperature predictions were made off a dynamical model of the Universe that, as I understand it, also suffers inconsistencies and lack of superior explanatory power when compared to GR, just as the other alternatives I mentioned earlier. That's great if it made a good prediction (temperature of the CMB), but all the alternative theories I mentioned make great predictions
somewhere. With the multiple competing hypotheses (or theories), the bulk of scientists currently think GR wins out, for good reason.
In addition, as Roger Penrose explains, the “tilting of light cones” is unique to General Relativity and experimentally confirmed. There is just no way to get this out of an electromagnetic framework (or any of the other three forces) Although not quite as serious, effects like “frame dragging” aren't very natural to EnM, either. The same equations that predict these experimentally confirmed effects are the same ones leading to the Big Bang, Black Holes, etc.
Hubble later revised his opinion favouring tired light scenarios.
I wasn't familiar with this, I'll try and look into it and get back to you.
The large scale structures and highly evolved galaxies far too old for cosmolgical assumptions.
This is an out-dated issue based on COBE observations under a flat matter dominated universe. The observation that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating solves this problem, as well as more accurate observations on stellar luminosity starting with the Hipparchus satellite.
The many, many concepts that seem only to exist in the imagination, such as singularities, event horizon, dark matter, dark energy, dark flow, nuetron stars with invented strange matter or neutronium violating well established rules of nuclear physics. Pulsars that spin faster than dentist drills! Thermo nuclear star concept in general, dirty snowballs, the ort cloud, accretion theory, frozen in magnetic fields, seed magnetic fields, and redshift = distance of course, to name a few.
Too many to address here right now. Keep in mind that nobody in GR actually thinks GR is applicable at the level of singularities, meaning they probably really are imaginary. Some of the others aren't that strange. Pulsar spin can be shown from straight forward calculations. Likewise with thermonuclear reactions.
Dirty snowballs? We're still talking about physics, right? ;-)
Dark Matter, Dark Energy are indeed a bit nebulous territory at this stage. Keep in mind, though, the recent “discovery” solves the Dark Energy mystery if it pans out.
The assumption that gravity is the only real creative force, when the filamentary structures and vast permeating magnetic fields clearly point to electro magnetic effects. Billions and billions of times stronger than gravity. And space is filled with charged particles and magnetic fields! Hell, you can see it.
Seeing two things that are similar doesn't really mean a whole lot. Somebody put images up on the Human Conscious Project on FB not too long ago of neurons and something totally unrelated (the filamentary structure of the Universe, I think ) Yeah, they look real frick'n similar, but that doesn't have to mean anything.
The important thing is that when you run simulations under the physic of General Relativity it predicts the filamentary structure seen in the Universe. Yes, it does look like gravity! Unlike inflation, GR isn't full of adjustable parameters and dials to tweak and make it match things. In fact, it is an extremely concise, elegant theory with ZERO free parameters, which naturally encompassed the already existing classical constants of nature at the time, namely c and G.
In addition, nobody thinks that gravity is the only creative force. It is a very tightly orchestrated interplay of ALL the forces that makes the Big bang theory predict the Universe we see today. They are ALL
extremely vital in the theory. In addition, there is fairly general consensus the forces were united in the early moments of the Universe, part of which comes from examination of the running coupling constants with respect to energy scale.
There a very good reasons to question the gravity only big bang cosmology that was in fact created when the milky way was thought to be all of the universe. Did the universe have a beggining? Who knows. Both alternatives seem like a paradox. Obviously the Big Bang gives more weight to my views of a designed universe. But I honestly think the evidence is weak and in fact has been contradicted time and time again.
Why should we assume we can even answer these questions in any real scientific way? There is an arrogance that disturbs me in assuming so.
Yeah, that's the one perhaps bummer thing if the inflation discovery does pan out. All the problems under the Big Bang disappear under one other assumption – the Universe is finely tuned. The only reason the problems are problems is because scientists don't like things that look finely tuned. But you know what, maybe things are! Anyhow, Inflation would get rid of the need for all that fine tuning (in regards to BB anyhow, other apparent fine tuning would still remain)
I agree there is an arrogance in modern science. But, age-old wisdoms of the world have been telling us that all knowledge is accessible to us and this is consistent theme coming back from NDE'rs (even if they can't seem to retain the knowledge when back in the brain). If we are truly One with the Universe behind the veil how could all knowledge ultimately not be accessible? After all, that IS the deepest meaning of what it means to be at One.